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.