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 apron, 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 circumstances 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 identity 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