“I see,” said Mulhausen, without turning a hair, “you will put us all in prison, will you not? That would be very unpleasant. Very unpleasant indeed.”
He rose, went to some tin boxes situated on a ledge behind him, took out his keys and opened one.
Jones, fancying that he was going to produce the title deeds, felt a little jump at his thyroid cartilage. This was victory without a battle. But Mr. Marcus Mulhausen took no title deeds from the box. He produced a letter case, came back with it to the table, and sat down.
Then holding the letter case before him he looked at Jones over his glasses.
“You rogue,” said Mulhausen.
That was the most terrific moment in Jones’ life. Mulhausen from a criminal had suddenly become a judge. He spoke with such absolute conviction, ease, sense of power and scorn, that there could be no manner of doubt he held the winning cards. He opened the letter case and produced a paper.
“Here is the bill of exchange for two hundred and fifty pounds, to which you forged Sir Pleydell Tuffnell’s name,” said Marcus Mulhausen, spreading the paper before him. “That was two years ago. We all know Sir Pleydell and his easy going ways. He is so careless you thought he would never find out; so good, he would never prosecute. But it came into my hands, it is my property, and I have no hesitation in dealing with rogues. Now do you suppose for a moment that if I were moving against you in any unlawful way—which I deny—I would have done so without a protector? Could you find a better protection than this? The punishment for forgery let me remind you, is five years penal servitude at the least.” He looked down at the document with a cold smile, and then he glanced up again at his victim. Jones saw that he was done; done not by Marcus Mulhausen, but by Rochester. He had tripped over a kink in Rochester’s character, just as a man trips over a kink in a carpet. Then rage came to him. The sight of the horrible scoundrel with whiskers, triumphant and gloating, roused the dog in his nature, and all the craft that lay hidden in him.
He heaved a sigh, rose brokenly, and approached the desk, and the creature behind it.
“You are a cleverer man than I am,” said he, “shake hands and call it quits.”
Next moment he had snatched the paper from the fingers that held it, crumpled it, crammed it into his mouth. He rushed to the door and locked it, whilst Mulhausen, screaming like a woman, reached him and clutched him by the shoulders.