He took it all very much as if the world owed him an explanation and not vice versa.  As he was stalking from the room, Brock bethought himself to ask,—­

“When did you arrive, old man?”

“Last night on the 12.10.  I registered as Smith.  It was so late that I decided not to disturb Edith.  They said in the office that you’d gone to bed, Brock.  Now that I recall it, they said it in a very odd way too.  In fact, one of the clerks asked if I had it in for you too.”

“You were here all night?” murmured Constance in plaintive misery.

“Well, not precisely all night, Connie.  Half of it,” replied Roxbury.  “Brock, you ass, I telegraphed you I was coming and asked you to meet me at the station.  I telegraphed twice from London and—­”

“Don’t call me an ass,” grated Brock.  “Why didn’t you send ’em to me as Medcroft?  I haven’t been Brock until this very morning.”

“’Pon my soul, Brock, it was rather stupid of me,” he confessed sheepishly.  “But, you see,” with an inspired smile, “one of ’em was to congratulate you on winning Connie.  By Jove, you know, I couldn’t very well address that one to myself.”

“But—­but he hadn’t won me,” stammered Constance Fowler.

“Edith,” said Roxbury, deep reproach in his voice, “you wrote me that a week ago!” Edith merely squeezed his arm.

Odell-Carney came forward and extended his hand.  “Permit me to introduce myself, sir.  I am George Odell-Carney.  It has given me great pleasure to serve you without knowing you.  In my catalogue of personalities you have posed intermittently as a demmed bounder, a deceived husband, a betrayed lover, a successful lover, and a lot of other things I can’t just now recall.  Acting on the presumption that you might have been a friend in distress, I worked hard in your interest.  Now I discover, to my gratification, you are a perfect stranger whom I am proud to meet.  Permit me to offer my warmest felicitations and to assure you that Mr. Brock will make a splendid brother-in-law.”  He hesitated a moment and then went on:  “So you are the chap that really put in those c’nfended memorial windows.  ’Pon me word, sir, they are the rottenest—­”

“Carney!” came the sharp reminder from his wife.

“I should have said,” revised Mr. Odell-Carney, “you are the chap who played the deuce with the building grafters in the County Council.  Remarkable!”

“Yes,” said Roxbury, striving to grasp something of the situation as it appeared to the other.  “We beat them.  The bill is lost.  It will never go to the Council.  The sub-committee will not recommend it.  Thanks, Brock, old man; you have saved London a good many millions, I daresay.  It was you who did it, after all.”

Before noon the hotel was agog with the full details of the remarkable story.  Cabled despatches in the newspapers gave the gist of the clever trick played by the Medcrofts, and the whole of England was to ring with the stories of Mrs. Medcroft’s pluck and devotion.  Everybody was buying the papers and staring with admiration at Mrs. Medcroft.