Then, swiftly turning, Jones gripped the financier by both arms and held him so, chewing, chewing, chewing, mute and facing the shouting other one.

They were hammering at the door outside. Mr. Aaronson and the clerks, useless people for breaking-down-door purposes, were a.s.sisting their employer with their voices--mainly, the whole block of offices was raised, and boys and telephones were summoning the police.

Meanwhile, Jones was chewing, and the bill was slowly being converted into what the physiologist terms a bolus. It took three minutes before the bolus, properly salivated and raised by the tongue, pa.s.sed the anterior pillars of the fauces, then the epiglottis shut down, and the bolus slipping over it and seized by the muscles of the esophagus pa.s.sed to its destined abode.

Jones had swallowed Rochester's past, or at least a most important part of it. The act accomplished, he sat down as a boa constrictor recoils itself, still gulping. Marcus Mulhausen rushed to the door and opened it. A vast policeman stood before him, behind the policeman crowded Mr.

Aaronson and the clerks, and behind these a dozen or two of the block dwellers, eager for gory sights at a distance.

Marcus looked round.

"What's all this?" said he. "There is nothing wrong, just a little dispute with a gentleman. It is all over--Mr. Aaronson, clear the office. Constable, here is two shillings for your trouble. Good day."

He shut the door on the disappointed crowd and turned to Jones.

The battle was over.

CHAPTER XVI

A WILD SURPRISE

At five o'clock that day the transference of the property was made out and signed by Marcus Mulhausen in Mortimer Collins' office, and the Glanafwyn lands became again the property of the Earl of Rochester--"for the sum of five thousand pounds received and herewith acknowledged,"

said the doc.u.ment.

Needless to say no five thousand pounds pa.s.sed hands. Collins, mystified, asked no questions in the presence of Mulhausen. When the latter had taken his departure, however, he turned to Jones.

"Did you pay him five thousand?" asked the lawyer.

"Not a cent," replied the other.

"Well, how have you worked the miracle, then?"

Jones told.

"You see how I had them coopered," finished he. "Well, just as I was going to grab the kitty he played the ace of spades, produced an old doc.u.ment he held against me."

"Yes?"

"I pondered for a moment--then I came to a swift conclusion--took the doc from him and ate it."

"You ate the doc.u.ment?"

"Sure."

Jones rubbed his stomach and laughed.

"Well, well," said the solicitor with curious acquiescence and want of astonishment after the first momentary start caused by this surprising statement, "we have the property back, that's the main thing."

"You remember," said Jones, "I talked to you about letting that place."

"Carlton House Terrace?"

"Yes--well, that's off. I've made good. Do you see?"

"M--yes," replied Collins.

"I'll have enough money now to pay off the mortgages and things."

"Undoubtedly," said Collins, "but, now, don't you think it would be a good thing if you were to tie this property up, so that mischance can't touch it. You have no children, it is true, but one never knows.

Honestly, I think you would be well advised if you were to take precautions."

"Don't worry," said Jones brightly. "I'll give the whole lot to--my wife--when I can come to terms with her."

"That's good hearing," replied the other. Then Jones took his departure, leaving the precious doc.u.ments in the hands of the lawyer.

He was elated. He had proved the facts which he had only guessed by instinct up to this, that a rogue is the weakest person in the world before a plain dealer, if the plain dealer has a weapon in his hand. The almost instantaneous collapse of Voles and Mulhausen was due to the fact that they stood on rotten foundations. He told himself now as he walked along homeward that he need not have eaten that doc.u.ment.

Mulhausen would never have used it. If he had just gone out and called in a policeman, Mulhausen, seeing him in earnest, would have collapsed.

However the thing was eaten and done with and there was no use in troubling any more on the matter. He had other things to think of. He had made good. He had saved the Rochester name and estates, he had recaptured one million, eight thousand pounds, reckoning that the coal bearing lands were worth a million, and, more than that; he was a sane man, able to look after what he had recaptured.

The Rochester family, if they knew, would have no cause to grumble at the interloper and the subst.i.tution of new brains and push in the place of decadence, craziness and sloth. The day when he had changed places with Rochester was the best day that had ever dawned for them.

He was thinking this when all of a sudden that horrible, unreal feeling he had suffered from once before, came upon him again. This time it was not a question of losing his ident.i.ty, it was a shuffle of his own taxed brain between two ident.i.ties. Rochester--Jones--Jones--Rochester. It seemed to him for the s.p.a.ce of a couple of seconds that he could not tell which of those two individuals he was, then the feeling pa.s.sed and he resumed his way, reaching Carlton House Terrace shortly after six.

He gave his hat and cane and gloves to the flunkey who opened the door for him--He had obtained a latch-key from Church that morning but forgot to use it--and was crossing the hall when a strain of music brought him to a halt. The tones of a piano came from a door on the right. Someone was playing Chaminade's _Valse Tendre_ and playing it to perfection.

Jones turned to the man-servant.

"Who is that?" he asked.

"It is her ladyship, my Lord, she arrived half an hour ago. Her luggage has gone upstairs."

Her ladyship!

Jones thrown off his balance hesitated for a moment, _what_ ladyship could it be. Not, surely, that awful mother!

He crossed to the door, opened it, found a music-room, and there, seated at a piano, the girl of the Victoria.

She was in out-door dress and had not removed her hat.

She looked over her shoulder at him as he came in, her face wore a half smile, but she did not stop playing. Anything more fascinating, more lovely, more distracting than that picture it would be hard to imagine.

As he crossed the room she suddenly ceased playing and twirled round on the music-stool.

"I've come back," said she. "Ju-ju, I couldn't stand it. You are bad but you are a lot, lot better than your mother--and Venetia. I'm going to try and put up with you a bit longer--_Ju-Ju_, what makes you look so stiff and funny?"