The Man Who Lost Himself Part 45

As he walked he made plans. When he had drawn his money he would breakfast at a restaurant, he fixed upon Romanos', eggs and bacon and sausages, coffee and hot rolls would be the _menu_. Then he fell to wondering whether Romanos' would be open for breakfast, or whether it was of the type of restaurant that only serves luncheons and dinners. If it were, then he could breakfast at the Charing Cross Hotel.

These considerations led him a good distance on his way. Then the Mile End Road beguiled him, lying straight and foreign looking, and empty in the sunlight. The Barometer man's weather apparatus must have been at fault, for in all the sky there was not a cloud, nor the symptom of the coming of a cloud.

Away down near the docks, a clock over a public house pointed to half past seven, and he judged it time to return.

He came back. The Mile End Road was still deserted, the city round the bank was dest.i.tute of life, Fleet Street empty.

Pompeii lay not more utterly dead than this weird city of vast business palaces, and the Strand shewed nothing of life or almost nothing, every shop was shuttered though now it was close upon nine o'clock.

Something had happened to London, some blight had fallen on the inhabitants, death seemed everywhere, not seen but hinted at. Stray recollections of weird stories by H. G. Wells pa.s.sed through the mind of Jones. He recalled the city of London when the Martians had done with it, that city of death, and horror, and sunlight and silence.

Then of a sudden, as he neared the Law Courts, the appalling truth suddenly suggested itself to him.

He walked up to a policeman on point of duty at a corner, a policeman who seemed under the mesmerism of the general gloom and blight, a policeman who might have been the blue concrete core of negation.

"Say, officer," said Jones, "what day's to-day?"

"Sunday," said the policeman.

CHAPTER x.x.x

A JUST MAN ANGERED

When things are piled one on top of another beyond a certain height, they generally come down with a crash.

That one word "Sunday" was the last straw for Jones, sweeping away breakfast, bank and everything; coming on top of the events of the last twenty-four hours, it brought his mental complacency to ruin, ruin from which shot blazing jets of wrath.

Red rage filled him. He had been made game of, every man and everything was against him. Well, he would bite. He would strike. He would attack, careless of everything, heedless of everything.

A mesmerised looking taxi-cab, crawling along on the opposite side of the way, fortunately caught his eye.

"I'll make hay!" cried Jones, as he rushed across the street. He stopped the cab.

"10A, Carlton House Terrace," he cried to the driver. He got in and shut the door with a bang.

He got out at Carlton House Terrace, ran up the steps of 10A, and rang the bell.

The door was opened by the man who had helped to eject Spicer. He did not seem in the least surprised to see Jones.

"Pay that taxi," said Jones.

"Yes, my Lord," replied the flunkey.

Jones turned to the breakfast-room. The faint smell of coffee met him at the door as he opened it. There were no servants in the room. Only a woman quietly breakfasting with the Life of St. Thomas a Kempis by her plate.

It was Venetia Birdbrook.

She half rose from her chair when she saw Jones. He shut the door. The sight of Venetia acted upon him almost as badly as the word "Sunday" had done.

"What are you doing here?" said he. "I know--you and that lot had me tucked away in a lunatic asylum; now you have taken possession of the house."

Venetia was quite calm.

"Since the house is not yours," said she, "I fail to see how my presence here affects you. We know the truth. Dr. Simms has arrived at the conclusion that your confession was at least based on truth. That you are what you proclaimed yourself to be, a man named Jones. We thought you were mad, we see now that you are an impostor. Kindly leave this house or I will call for a policeman."

Jones' mind lost all its fire. Hatred can cool as well as inflame and he hated Venetia and all her belongings, including her dowager mother and her uncle the duke, with a hatred well based on reason and fact. All his fear of mind disturbance should he go on playing the part of Rochester had vanished, the fires of tribulation had purged them away.

"I don't know what you are talking about," said he. "Do you mean that joke I played on you all? I am the Earl of Rochester, this is my house, and I request you to leave it. Don't speak. I know what you are going to say. You and your family will do this and you will do that. You will do nothing. Even if I were an impostor you would dare to do nothing. Your family washing is far, far too much soiled to expose it in public.

"If I were an impostor, who can say I have not played an honourable game? I have recovered valuable property--did I touch it and take it away? Did I expose to the public an affair that would have caused a scandal? You will do nothing and you know it. You did not even dare to tell the servants here what has happened, for the servant who let me in was not a bit surprised. Now, if you have finished your breakfast, will you kindly leave my house?"

Venetia rose and took up her book.

"_Your_ house," said she.

"Yes, my house. From this day forth, my house. But that is not all.

To-morrow I will get lawyers to work and I'll get apologies as big as houses from the whole lot of you--else I'll prosecute." He was getting angry, "prosecute you for doping me." Recollections of the Barometer man's advice came to him, "doping me in order to lay your hands on that million of money."

He went to the bell and rang it.

"We want no scene before the servants," said Venetia hurriedly.

"Then kindly go," said Jones, "or you will have a perfect panorama before the servants."

A servant entered.

"Send Church here," said Jones. He was trembling like a furious dog.

He had got the whole situation in hand. He had told his tale and acted like an honourable man, the fools had disbelieved him and doped him.

They had scented the truth but they dared do nothing. Mulhausen and the recovered mine, the Plinlimon letters, Rochester's past, all these were his bastions, to say nothing of Rochester's suicide.

The fear of publicity held them in a vice. Even were they to go to America and prove that a man called Jones exactly like the Earl of Rochester had lived in Philadelphia, go to the Savoy and prove that a man exactly like the Earl of Rochester had lived there, produce the clothes he had come home in that night--all of that would lead them, where--to an action at law.

They could not arrest him as an impostor till they had proved him an impostor. To prove that, they would have to turn the family history inside out before a gaping public.

Mr. Church came in.

"Church," said Jones, "I played a practical joke on--on my people. I met a man called Jones at the Savoy--well, we needn't go into details, he was very like me, and I told my people for a joke that I was Jones. The fools thought I was mad. They called in two doctors and drugged me and hauled me off to a place. I got out, and here I am back. What do you think of that?"

"Well, my Lord," said Church, "if I may say it to you, those practical jokes are dangerous things to play--Lord Langwathby--"

"Was he here?"

"He came last night, my Lord, to have a personal explanation about a telegram he said you sent him as a practical joke, some time ago, taking him up to c.u.mberland."