The clock on the mantelpiece pointed to a quarter to eleven; the faint sound of the car had ceased. The lady of the feather boa had evidently taken her departure, and the house had resumed its cloistral silence.

He waited a moment to make sure, then he went into the hall where a huge flunkey--a new one, more curious than the others, was lounging near the door.

"My hat," said Jones.

The thing flew, and returned with a glossy silk hat, a tortoisesh.e.l.l handled cane, and a pair of new suede gloves of a delicate dove colour.

Then it opened the door, and Jones, clapping the hat on his head, walked out.

The hat fitted, by a mercy.

CHAPTER V

THE POINT OF THE JOKE

Out in the open air and sunshine he took a deep satisfying breath. He felt as though he had escaped from a cage full of monkeys. Monkeys in the form of men, creatures who would servilely obey him as Rochester, but who, scenting the truth, would rend him in pieces.

Well, he was clear of them. Once back in the Savoy he would get into his own things, and once in his own things he would strike. If he could not get a lawyer to take his case up against Rochester, he would go to the police. Yes, he would. Rochester had doped him, taken his letters, taken his watch.

Jones was not the man to bring false charges. He knew that in taking his belongings, this infernal jester had done so, not for plunder, but for the purpose of making the servants believe that he, Rochester, had been stripped of everything by sharks, and sent home in an old suit of clothes; all the same he would charge Rochester with the taking of his things, he would teach this practical joker how to behave.

To cool himself and collect his thoughts before going to the Savoy, he took a walk in the Green Park.

That one word "Tosh!" uttered by the woman, in answer to what he had said, told him more about Rochester than many statements. This man wanted a cold bath, he wanted to be held under the tap till he cried for mercy.

Walking, now with the stick under his right arm and his left hand in his trousers pocket, he felt something in the pocket. It was a coin. He took it out. It was a penny, undiscovered evidently, and unremoved by the valet.

It was also a reminder of his own poverty stricken condition. His thoughts turned from Rochester and his jokes, to his own immediate and tragic position. The whole thing was his own fault. It was quite easy to say that Rochester had led him along and tempted him; he was a full grown man and should have resisted temptation. He had let strong drink get hold of him; well, he had paid by the loss of his money, to say nothing of the way his self-respect had been bruised by this jester.

Near Buckingham Palace he turned back, walking by the way he had come, and leaving the park at the new gate.

He crossed the plexus of ways where Northumberland Avenue debouches on Trafalgar Square. It was near twelve o'clock, and the first evening papers were out. A hawker with a bundle of papers under his arm and a yellow poster in front of him like an ap.r.o.n, drew his attention; at least the poster did.

"Suicide of an American in London!" were the words on the poster.

Jones, remembering his penny, produced it and bought a paper.

The American's suicide did not interest him, but he fancied vaguely that something of Rochester's doings of the night before might have been caught by the Press through the Police news. He thought it highly probable that Rochester, continuing his mad course, had been gaoled.

He was rewarded. Right on the first page he saw his own name. He had never seen it before in print, and the sight and the circ.u.mstances made his tongue cluck back, as though checked by a string tied to its root.

This was the paragraph:

"Last night, as the 11.35 Inner Circle train was entering the Temple Station, a man was seen to jump from the platform on to the metals.

Before the station officials could interfere to save him, the unfortunate man had thrown himself before the incoming engine. Death was instantaneous.

"From papers in possession of deceased, his ident.i.ty has been verified as that of Mr. V. A. Jones, an American gentleman of Philadelphia, lately resident at the Savoy Hotel, Strand."

Jones stood with the paper in his hand, appalled. Rochester had committed suicide!

This was the Jest--the black core of it. All last evening, all through that hilarity he had been plotting this. Plotting it perhaps from the first moment of their meeting. Unable to resist the prompting of the extraordinary likeness, this joker, this waster, done to the world, had left life at the end of a last jamboree, and with a burst of laughter--leaving another man in his clothes, nay, almost one might say in his body.

Jones saw the point of the thing at once.

PART II

CHAPTER VI

THE NET

He saw something else. He was automatically barred from the Savoy, and barred from the American Consul. And on top of that something else. He had committed a very grave mistake in accepting for a moment his position. He should have spoken at once that morning, spoken to "Mr.

Church," told his tale and made explanations, failing that he should have made explanations before leaving the house. He had left in Rochester's clothes, he had acted the part of Rochester.

He rolled the paper into a ball, tossed it into the gutter, and entered Charing Cross to continue his soliloquy.

He had eaten Rochester's food, smoked one of his cigars, accepted his cane and gloves. All that might have been explainable with Rochester's aid, but Rochester was dead.

No one knew that Rochester was dead. To go back to the Savoy and establish his own ident.i.ty, he would have to establish the fact of Rochester's death, tell the story of his own intoxication, and make people believe that he was an innocent victim.

An innocent victim who had gone to another man's house and palpably masqueraded for some hours as that other man, walking out of the house in his clothes and carrying his stick, an innocent victim, who owed a bill at the Savoy.

Why, every man, the family included you may be sure, would be finding the innocent victim in Rochester.

What were Jones' letters doing on Rochester? That was a nice question for a puzzle-headed jury to answer.

By what art did Jones, the needy American Adventurer--that was what they would call him--impose himself upon Rochester, and induce Rochester to order him to be taken to Carlton House Terrace?

Oh, there were a lot more questions to be asked at that phantom court of Justice, where Jones beheld himself in the dock trying to explain the inexplicable.

The likeness would not be any use for white-washing; it would only deepen the mystery, make the affair more extravagant. Besides, the likeness most likely by this time would be pretty well spoiled; by the time of the a.s.sizes it would be only verifiable by photographs.

Sitting on a seat in Charing Cross station, he cogitated thus, chasing the most fantastic ideas, yet gripped all the time by the cold fact.

The fact that the only door in London open to him was the door of 10A, Carlton House Terrace.

Unable to return to the Savoy, he possessed nothing in the world but the clothes he stood up in and the walking stick he held in his hand.

Dressed like a lord, he was poorer than any tramp, for the simple reason that his extravagantly fine clothes barred him from begging and from the menial work that is the only recourse of the suddenly dest.i.tute.

Given time, and with his quick business capacity, he might have made a fight to obtain a clerk-ship or some post in a store--but he had no time. It was near the luncheon hour and he was hungry. That fact alone was an indication of how he was placed as regards Time.

He was a logical man. He saw clearly that only two courses lay before him. To go to the Savoy and tell his story and get food and lodging in the Police Station, or to go to 10A, Carlton House Terrace and get food and lodging as Rochester.