d 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