Jones ran his eye over the list without enthusiasm. He had taken a dislike to alcohol even in its mildest guise.
"Er--what minerals have you got?" asked he.
"Minerals!"
The man with the wine card was nonplussed. Jones saw his mistake.
"Soda water," said he. "Get me some soda water."
The fillet of sole with sauce Tartare was excellent. Nothing, not even the minerals could dim that fact. As he ate he looked about him, and with all the more ease, because he found now that n.o.body was looking at him; his self consciousness died down, and he began speculating on the men around, their probable rank, fortune, and intellect. It seemed to Jones that the latter factor was easier of determination than the other two.
What struck him more forcibly was a weird resemblance between them all, a phantom thing, a link undiscoverable yet somehow there. This tribal expression is one of the strangest phenomena eternally comforting and battering our senses.
Just as men grow like their wives, so do they grow like their fellow tradesmen, waiters like waiters, grooms like grooms, lawyers like lawyers, politicians like politicians. More, it has been undeniably proved that landowners grow like landowners, just as shepherds grow like sheep, and aristocrats like aristocrats.
A common idea moulds faces to its shape, and a common want of ideas allows external circ.u.mstances to do the moulding.
So, English Conservative Politicians of the higher order, being worked upon by external circ.u.mstances of a similar nature, have perhaps a certain similar expression. Radical Politicians on the other hand, shape to a common idea--evil--but still an idea. Jones was not thinking this, he was just recognising that all these men belonged to the same cla.s.s, and he felt in himself that, not only did he not belong to that cla.s.s, but that Rochester also, probably, had found himself in the same position.
That might have accounted for the wildness and eccentricity of Rochester, as demonstrated in that mad carouse and hinted at by the woman in the feather boa. The wildness of a monkey condemned to live amongst goats, hanging on to their horns, and clutching at their scuts, and playing all the tricks that contrariness might suggest to a contrary nature.
Something of this sort was pa.s.sing through Jones" mind, and as he attacked his strawberry ice, for the first time since reading that momentous piece of news in the evening newspaper his mental powers became focussed on the question that lay at the very heart of all this business. It struck him now so very forcibly that he laid down his spoon and stared before him, forgetful of the place where he was and the people around him.
"Why did that guy commit suicide?"
That was the question.
He could find no answer to it.
A man does not as a rule commit suicide simply because he is eccentric or because he has made a mess of his estates, or because being a practical joker he suddenly finds his twin image to defraud. Rochester had evidently done nothing to bar him from society. Though perhaps coldly received by his club, he was still received by it. Had he done something that society did not know of, something that might suddenly obtrude itself?
Jones was brought back from his reverie with a snap. One of the confounded waiters was making off with his half eaten ice.
"Hi," cried he. "What you doing? Bring that back."
His voice rang through the room, people turned to look. He mentally cursed the ice and the creature who had snapped it from him, finished it, devoured a wafer, and then, rising to his feet, left the room. It was easier to leave than to come in, other men were leaving, and in the general break up he felt less observed.
Downstairs he looked through gla.s.s doors into a room where men were smoking, correct men in huge arm chairs, men with legs stretched out, men smoking big cigars and talking politics no doubt. He wanted to smoke, but he did not want to smoke in that place.
He went to the cloak room, fetched his hat and cane and gloves and left the club.
Outside in Pall Mall he remembered that he had not told the waiter to credit him with the luncheon, but a trifle like that did not bother him now. They would be sure to put it down.
What did trouble him was the still unanswered question, "Why did that guy commit suicide?"
Suppose Rochester had murdered some man and had committed suicide to escape the consequences? This thought gave him a cold grue such as he had never experienced before. For a moment he saw himself hauled before a British Court of Justice; for a moment, and for the first time in his life, he found himself wondering what a hangman might be like.
But Victor Jones, though a visionary sometimes in business, was at base a business man. More used to his position now, and looking it fairly in the face, he found that he had little to fear even if Rochester had committed a murder. He could, if absolutely driven to it, prove his ident.i.ty. Driven to it, he could prove his life in Philadelphia, bring witnesses and relate circ.u.mstances. His tale would all hang together, simply because it was the truth. This inborn a.s.surance heartened him a lot, and, more cheerful now, he began to recognise more of the truth.
His position was very solid. Every one had accepted him. Unless he came an awful b.u.mp over some crime committed by the late defunct, he could go on forever as the Earl of Rochester. He did not want to go on forever as the Earl of Rochester; he wanted to get back to the States and just be himself, and he intended so to do having sc.r.a.ped a little money together. But the idea tickled him just as it had done in Charing Cross Station, and it had lost its monstrous appearance and had become humorous, a highly dangerous appearance for a dangerous idea to take.
Jones was a great walker, exercise always cleared his mind and strengthened his judgment. He set off on a long walk now, pa.s.sing the National Gallery to Regent Circus, then up Regent Street and Oxford Street, and along Oxford Street towards the West. He found himself in High Street Kensington, in Hammersmith, and then in those dismal regions where the country struggles with the town.
Oh, those suburbs of London! Within easy reach of the city! Those battalions of brick houses, bits of corpses, of what once were fields; those villas, laundries----
The contrast between this place and Pall Mall came as a sudden revelation to Jones, the contrast between the power, ease, affluence and splendour of the surroundings of the Earl of Rochester, and the surroundings of the bank clerks and small people who dwelt here.
The view point is everything. From here Carlton House Terrace seemed almost pleasing.
Jones, like a good Democrat, had all his life professed a contempt for rank. t.i.tles had seemed as absurd to him as feathers in a monkey"s cap.
It was here in ultra Hammersmith that he began to review this question from a more British standpoint.
Tell it not in Gath, he was beginning to feel the vaguest antipathetic stirring against little houses and ultra people.
He turned and began to retrace his steps. It was seven o"clock when he reached the door of 10A, Carlton House Terrace.
CHAPTER VIII
MR. VOLES
The flunkey who admitted him, having taken his hat, stick and gloves, presented him with a letter that had arrived by the midday post, also with a piece of information.
"Mr. Voles called to see you, my Lord, shortly after twelve. He stated that he had an appointment with you. He is to call again at quarter past seven."
Jones took the letter and went with it to the room where he had sat that morning. Upon the table lay all the letters that he had not opened that morning. He had forgotten these. Here was a mistake. If he wished to hold to his position for even a few days, it would be necessary to guard against mistakes like this.
He hurriedly opened them, merely glancing at the contents, which for the most part were unintelligible to him.
There was a dinner invitation from Lady Snorries--whoever she might be--and a letter beginning "Dear old Boy" from a female who signed herself "Julie," an appeal from a begging letter writer, and a letter beginning "Dear Rochester" from a gentleman who signed himself simply "Childersley."
The last letter he opened was the one he had just received from the servant.
It was written on poor paper, and it ran:
"Stick to it--if you can. You"ll see why I couldn"t. There"s a fiver under the papers of the top right hand drawer of bureau in smoke room.
"ROCHESTER."
Jones knew that this letter, though addressed to the Earl of Rochester, was meant for him, and was written by Rochester, written probably on some bar counter, and posted at the nearest pillar box just before he had committed the act.
He went to the drawer in the bureau indicated, raised the papers in it and found a five pound note.
Having glanced at it he closed the drawer, placed the note in his waistcoat pocket and sat down again at the table.
"Stick to it--if you can." The words rang in his ears just as though he had heard them spoken.