clothes, he had acted the part of Rochester.

He rolled the paper into a ball, tossed it into the gutter, and entered
Charing Cross to continue his soliloquy.

He had eaten Rochester's food, smoked one of his cigars, accepted his
cane and gloves. All that might have been explainable with Rochester's
aid, but Rochester was dead.

No one knew that Rochester was dead. To go back to the Savoy and
establish his own identity, he would have to establish the fact of
Rochester's death, tell the story of his own intoxication, and make
people believe that he was an innocent victim.

An innocent victim who had gone to another man's house and palpably
masqueraded for some hours as that other man, walking out of the house
in his clothes and carrying his stick, an innocent victim, who owed a
bill at the Savoy.

Why, every man, the family included you may be sure, would be finding
the innocent victim in Rochester.

What were Jones' letters doing on Rochester? That was a nice question
for a puzzle-headed jury to answer.

By what art did Jones, the needy American Adventurer--that was what they
would call him--impose himself upon Rochester, and induce Rochester to
order him to be taken to Carlton House Terrace?

Oh, there were a lot more questions to be asked at that phantom court of
Justice, where Jones beheld himself in the dock trying to explain the
inexplicable.

The likeness would not be any use for white-washing; it would only
deepen the mystery, make the affair more extravagant. Besides, the
likeness most likely by this time would be pretty well spoiled; by the
time of the Assizes it would be only verifiable by photographs.

Sitting on a seat in Charing Cross station, he cogitated thus, chasing
the most fantastic ideas, yet gripped all the time by the cold fact.

The fact that the only door in London open to him was the door of 10A,
Carlton House Terrace.

Unable to return to the Savoy, he possessed nothing in the world but the
clothes he stood up in and the walking stick he held in his hand.
Dressed like a lord, he was poorer than any tramp, for the simple reason
that his extravagantly fine clothes barred him from begging and from
the menial work that is the only recourse of the suddenly destitute.

Given time, and with his quick business capacity, he might have made a
fight to obtain a clerk-ship or some post in a store--but he had no
time. It was near the luncheon hour and he was hungry. That fact alone
was an i