CHAPTER IX
MORE INTRUDERS
The little glass that had held the fin champagne stood on the table, the door was shut, Voles was gone, and the incident was ended.
Jones, for the first time in his life, felt the faintness that comes after supreme exertion. He could never have imagined that a thing like that would have so upset him. He was unconscious during the whole of the business that he was putting out more energy than ordinary, he knew it now as he contemplated the magnitude of his victory, sitting exhausted in the big saddle-bag chair on the left of the fire place and facing the door.
He had crushed the greatest rogue in London, taken from him eight thousand pounds of ill gotten money, and freed himself of an incubus that would have made his position untenable.
Rochester could have done just the same, had he possessed daring, and energy, and courage enough. He hadn’t, and there was an end of it.
At this moment a knock came to the door, and a flunkey—a new one—appeared.
“Dinner is served, my Lord.”