ster must have gone through his pockets, not for loot, but for the
purpose of removing any article that might cast suspicion, or raise the
suspicion that he, Jones, was not Rochester. That seemed plain enough,
and there was an earnestness of purpose in the fact that was disturbing.

There was no use in thinking, however. He would go downstairs and make
his escape. He was savagely hungry, but he reckoned the Savoy was good
enough for one more meal--if he could get there.

Leaving the watch and chain--unambitious to add a charge of larceny to
his other troubles, should Fate arrest him before the return of
Rochester, he came down the corridor to a landing giving upon a flight
of stairs, up which, save for the gradient, a coach and horses might
have been driven.

The place was a palace. Vast pictures by gloomy old artists, pictures of
men in armour, men in ruffs, women without armour or ruffs, or even a
rag of chiffon, pictures worth millions of dollars no doubt, hung from
the walls of the landing, and the wall flanking that triumphant
staircase.

Jones looked over into the well of the hall, then he began to descend
the stairs.

He had intended, on finding a hat in the hall, to clap it on and make a
clean bolt for freedom and the light of heaven, get back to the Savoy,
dress himself in another suit, and once more himself, go for Rochester,
but this was no hall with a hat-rack and umbrella-stand. Knights in
armour were guarding it, and a flunkey, six feet high, in red plush
breeches, and with calves that would have made Victor Jones scream with
laughter under normal conditions.

The flunkey, seeing our friend, stepped to a door, opened it, and held
it open for him. Not to enter the room thus indicated would have been
possible enough, but the compelling influence of that vast flunkey made
it impossible to Jones.

His volition had fled, he was subdued to his surroundings, for the
moment conquered.

He entered a breakfast room, light and pleasantly furnished, where at a
breakfast table and before a silver tea urn sat a lady of forty or so,
thin faced, high nosed, aristocratic and rather faded.

She was reading a letter, and when she saw the incomer she rose from
the table and gathered some other letters up. Then she, literally, swept
from the room. She looked at him as she passed, and it seemed to Jones
that he had never known before the full meaning of the word "scorn."

For a wild second he thought that all had be