Part 19 (2/2)

”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 ladys.h.i.+p, my Lord, she arrived half an hour ago. Her luggage has gone upstairs.”

Her ladys.h.i.+p!

Jones thrown off his balance hesitated for a moment, _what_ ladys.h.i.+p 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?”

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