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diff --git a/old/974-0.txt b/old/974-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..14fe2da --- /dev/null +++ b/old/974-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10137 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Secret Agent, by Joseph Conrad + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you +will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before +using this eBook. + +Title: The Secret Agent + A Simple Tale + +Author: Joseph Conrad + +Release Date: June 28, 1997 [eBook #974] +[Most recently updated: June 9, 2021] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +Produced by: David Price + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SECRET AGENT *** + + + + + THE + SECRET AGENT + A SIMPLE TALE + + + BY + JOSEPH CONRAD + + SECOND EDITION + + METHUEN & CO., + 36 ESSEX STREET W C. + LONDON + + _First Published_ . . . _September_ 1907 + + _Second Edition_ . . . _October_ 1907 + + TO + H. G. WELLS + + THE CHRONICLER OF MR LEWISHAM’S LOVE + THE BIOGRAPHER OF KIPPS AND THE + HISTORIAN OF THE AGES TO COME + + THIS SIMPLE TALE OF THE XIX CENTURY + IS AFFECTIONATELY OFFERED + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +Mr Verloc, going out in the morning, left his shop nominally in charge of +his brother-in-law. It could be done, because there was very little +business at any time, and practically none at all before the evening. Mr +Verloc cared but little about his ostensible business. And, moreover, +his wife was in charge of his brother-in-law. + +The shop was small, and so was the house. It was one of those grimy +brick houses which existed in large quantities before the era of +reconstruction dawned upon London. The shop was a square box of a place, +with the front glazed in small panes. In the daytime the door remained +closed; in the evening it stood discreetly but suspiciously ajar. + +The window contained photographs of more or less undressed dancing girls; +nondescript packages in wrappers like patent medicines; closed yellow +paper envelopes, very flimsy, and marked two-and-six in heavy black +figures; a few numbers of ancient French comic publications hung across a +string as if to dry; a dingy blue china bowl, a casket of black wood, +bottles of marking ink, and rubber stamps; a few books, with titles +hinting at impropriety; a few apparently old copies of obscure +newspapers, badly printed, with titles like _The Torch_, _The +Gong_—rousing titles. And the two gas jets inside the panes were always +turned low, either for economy’s sake or for the sake of the customers. + +These customers were either very young men, who hung about the window for +a time before slipping in suddenly; or men of a more mature age, but +looking generally as if they were not in funds. Some of that last kind +had the collars of their overcoats turned right up to their moustaches, +and traces of mud on the bottom of their nether garments, which had the +appearance of being much worn and not very valuable. And the legs inside +them did not, as a general rule, seem of much account either. With their +hands plunged deep in the side pockets of their coats, they dodged in +sideways, one shoulder first, as if afraid to start the bell going. + +The bell, hung on the door by means of a curved ribbon of steel, was +difficult to circumvent. It was hopelessly cracked; but of an evening, +at the slightest provocation, it clattered behind the customer with +impudent virulence. + +It clattered; and at that signal, through the dusty glass door behind the +painted deal counter, Mr Verloc would issue hastily from the parlour at +the back. His eyes were naturally heavy; he had an air of having +wallowed, fully dressed, all day on an unmade bed. Another man would +have felt such an appearance a distinct disadvantage. In a commercial +transaction of the retail order much depends on the seller’s engaging and +amiable aspect. But Mr Verloc knew his business, and remained +undisturbed by any sort of æsthetic doubt about his appearance. With a +firm, steady-eyed impudence, which seemed to hold back the threat of some +abominable menace, he would proceed to sell over the counter some object +looking obviously and scandalously not worth the money which passed in +the transaction: a small cardboard box with apparently nothing inside, +for instance, or one of those carefully closed yellow flimsy envelopes, +or a soiled volume in paper covers with a promising title. Now and then +it happened that one of the faded, yellow dancing girls would get sold to +an amateur, as though she had been alive and young. + +Sometimes it was Mrs Verloc who would appear at the call of the cracked +bell. Winnie Verloc was a young woman with a full bust, in a tight +bodice, and with broad hips. Her hair was very tidy. Steady-eyed like +her husband, she preserved an air of unfathomable indifference behind the +rampart of the counter. Then the customer of comparatively tender years +would get suddenly disconcerted at having to deal with a woman, and with +rage in his heart would proffer a request for a bottle of marking ink, +retail value sixpence (price in Verloc’s shop one-and-sixpence), which, +once outside, he would drop stealthily into the gutter. + +The evening visitors—the men with collars turned up and soft hats rammed +down—nodded familiarly to Mrs Verloc, and with a muttered greeting, +lifted up the flap at the end of the counter in order to pass into the +back parlour, which gave access to a passage and to a steep flight of +stairs. The door of the shop was the only means of entrance to the house +in which Mr Verloc carried on his business of a seller of shady wares, +exercised his vocation of a protector of society, and cultivated his +domestic virtues. These last were pronounced. He was thoroughly +domesticated. Neither his spiritual, nor his mental, nor his physical +needs were of the kind to take him much abroad. He found at home the +ease of his body and the peace of his conscience, together with Mrs +Verloc’s wifely attentions and Mrs Verloc’s mother’s deferential regard. + +Winnie’s mother was a stout, wheezy woman, with a large brown face. She +wore a black wig under a white cap. Her swollen legs rendered her +inactive. She considered herself to be of French descent, which might +have been true; and after a good many years of married life with a +licensed victualler of the more common sort, she provided for the years +of widowhood by letting furnished apartments for gentlemen near Vauxhall +Bridge Road in a square once of some splendour and still included in the +district of Belgravia. This topographical fact was of some advantage in +advertising her rooms; but the patrons of the worthy widow were not +exactly of the fashionable kind. Such as they were, her daughter Winnie +helped to look after them. Traces of the French descent which the widow +boasted of were apparent in Winnie too. They were apparent in the +extremely neat and artistic arrangement of her glossy dark hair. Winnie +had also other charms: her youth; her full, rounded form; her clear +complexion; the provocation of her unfathomable reserve, which never went +so far as to prevent conversation, carried on on the lodgers’ part with +animation, and on hers with an equable amiability. It must be that Mr +Verloc was susceptible to these fascinations. Mr Verloc was an +intermittent patron. He came and went without any very apparent reason. +He generally arrived in London (like the influenza) from the Continent, +only he arrived unheralded by the Press; and his visitations set in with +great severity. He breakfasted in bed, and remained wallowing there with +an air of quiet enjoyment till noon every day—and sometimes even to a +later hour. But when he went out he seemed to experience a great +difficulty in finding his way back to his temporary home in the +Belgravian square. He left it late, and returned to it early—as early as +three or four in the morning; and on waking up at ten addressed Winnie, +bringing in the breakfast tray, with jocular, exhausted civility, in the +hoarse, failing tones of a man who had been talking vehemently for many +hours together. His prominent, heavy-lidded eyes rolled sideways +amorously and languidly, the bedclothes were pulled up to his chin, and +his dark smooth moustache covered his thick lips capable of much honeyed +banter. + +In Winnie’s mother’s opinion Mr Verloc was a very nice gentleman. From +her life’s experience gathered in various “business houses” the good +woman had taken into her retirement an ideal of gentlemanliness as +exhibited by the patrons of private-saloon bars. Mr Verloc approached +that ideal; he attained it, in fact. + +“Of course, we’ll take over your furniture, mother,” Winnie had remarked. + +The lodging-house was to be given up. It seems it would not answer to +carry it on. It would have been too much trouble for Mr Verloc. It +would not have been convenient for his other business. What his business +was he did not say; but after his engagement to Winnie he took the +trouble to get up before noon, and descending the basement stairs, make +himself pleasant to Winnie’s mother in the breakfast-room downstairs +where she had her motionless being. He stroked the cat, poked the fire, +had his lunch served to him there. He left its slightly stuffy cosiness +with evident reluctance, but, all the same, remained out till the night +was far advanced. He never offered to take Winnie to theatres, as such a +nice gentleman ought to have done. His evenings were occupied. His work +was in a way political, he told Winnie once. She would have, he warned +her, to be very nice to his political friends. + +And with her straight, unfathomable glance she answered that she would be +so, of course. + +How much more he told her as to his occupation it was impossible for +Winnie’s mother to discover. The married couple took her over with the +furniture. The mean aspect of the shop surprised her. The change from +the Belgravian square to the narrow street in Soho affected her legs +adversely. They became of an enormous size. On the other hand, she +experienced a complete relief from material cares. Her son-in-law’s +heavy good nature inspired her with a sense of absolute safety. Her +daughter’s future was obviously assured, and even as to her son Stevie +she need have no anxiety. She had not been able to conceal from herself +that he was a terrible encumbrance, that poor Stevie. But in view of +Winnie’s fondness for her delicate brother, and of Mr Verloc’s kind and +generous disposition, she felt that the poor boy was pretty safe in this +rough world. And in her heart of hearts she was not perhaps displeased +that the Verlocs had no children. As that circumstance seemed perfectly +indifferent to Mr Verloc, and as Winnie found an object of quasi-maternal +affection in her brother, perhaps this was just as well for poor Stevie. + +For he was difficult to dispose of, that boy. He was delicate and, in a +frail way, good-looking too, except for the vacant droop of his lower +lip. Under our excellent system of compulsory education he had learned +to read and write, notwithstanding the unfavourable aspect of the lower +lip. But as errand-boy he did not turn out a great success. He forgot +his messages; he was easily diverted from the straight path of duty by +the attractions of stray cats and dogs, which he followed down narrow +alleys into unsavoury courts; by the comedies of the streets, which he +contemplated open-mouthed, to the detriment of his employer’s interests; +or by the dramas of fallen horses, whose pathos and violence induced him +sometimes to shriek pierceingly in a crowd, which disliked to be +disturbed by sounds of distress in its quiet enjoyment of the national +spectacle. When led away by a grave and protecting policeman, it would +often become apparent that poor Stevie had forgotten his address—at least +for a time. A brusque question caused him to stutter to the point of +suffocation. When startled by anything perplexing he used to squint +horribly. However, he never had any fits (which was encouraging); and +before the natural outbursts of impatience on the part of his father he +could always, in his childhood’s days, run for protection behind the +short skirts of his sister Winnie. On the other hand, he might have been +suspected of hiding a fund of reckless naughtiness. When he had reached +the age of fourteen a friend of his late father, an agent for a foreign +preserved milk firm, having given him an opening as office-boy, he was +discovered one foggy afternoon, in his chief’s absence, busy letting off +fireworks on the staircase. He touched off in quick succession a set of +fierce rockets, angry catherine wheels, loudly exploding squibs—and the +matter might have turned out very serious. An awful panic spread through +the whole building. Wild-eyed, choking clerks stampeded through the +passages full of smoke, silk hats and elderly business men could be seen +rolling independently down the stairs. Stevie did not seem to derive any +personal gratification from what he had done. His motives for this +stroke of originality were difficult to discover. It was only later on +that Winnie obtained from him a misty and confused confession. It seems +that two other office-boys in the building had worked upon his feelings +by tales of injustice and oppression till they had wrought his compassion +to the pitch of that frenzy. But his father’s friend, of course, +dismissed him summarily as likely to ruin his business. After that +altruistic exploit Stevie was put to help wash the dishes in the basement +kitchen, and to black the boots of the gentlemen patronising the +Belgravian mansion. There was obviously no future in such work. The +gentlemen tipped him a shilling now and then. Mr Verloc showed himself +the most generous of lodgers. But altogether all that did not amount to +much either in the way of gain or prospects; so that when Winnie +announced her engagement to Mr Verloc her mother could not help +wondering, with a sigh and a glance towards the scullery, what would +become of poor Stephen now. + +It appeared that Mr Verloc was ready to take him over together with his +wife’s mother and with the furniture, which was the whole visible fortune +of the family. Mr Verloc gathered everything as it came to his broad, +good-natured breast. The furniture was disposed to the best advantage +all over the house, but Mrs Verloc’s mother was confined to two back +rooms on the first floor. The luckless Stevie slept in one of them. By +this time a growth of thin fluffy hair had come to blur, like a golden +mist, the sharp line of his small lower jaw. He helped his sister with +blind love and docility in her household duties. Mr Verloc thought that +some occupation would be good for him. His spare time he occupied by +drawing circles with compass and pencil on a piece of paper. He applied +himself to that pastime with great industry, with his elbows spread out +and bowed low over the kitchen table. Through the open door of the +parlour at the back of the shop Winnie, his sister, glanced at him from +time to time with maternal vigilance. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +Such was the house, the household, and the business Mr Verloc left behind +him on his way westward at the hour of half-past ten in the morning. It +was unusually early for him; his whole person exhaled the charm of almost +dewy freshness; he wore his blue cloth overcoat unbuttoned; his boots +were shiny; his cheeks, freshly shaven, had a sort of gloss; and even his +heavy-lidded eyes, refreshed by a night of peaceful slumber, sent out +glances of comparative alertness. Through the park railings these +glances beheld men and women riding in the Row, couples cantering past +harmoniously, others advancing sedately at a walk, loitering groups of +three or four, solitary horsemen looking unsociable, and solitary women +followed at a long distance by a groom with a cockade to his hat and a +leather belt over his tight-fitting coat. Carriages went bowling by, +mostly two-horse broughams, with here and there a victoria with the skin +of some wild beast inside and a woman’s face and hat emerging above the +folded hood. And a peculiarly London sun—against which nothing could be +said except that it looked bloodshot—glorified all this by its stare. It +hung at a moderate elevation above Hyde Park Corner with an air of +punctual and benign vigilance. The very pavement under Mr Verloc’s feet +had an old-gold tinge in that diffused light, in which neither wall, nor +tree, nor beast, nor man cast a shadow. Mr Verloc was going westward +through a town without shadows in an atmosphere of powdered old gold. +There were red, coppery gleams on the roofs of houses, on the corners of +walls, on the panels of carriages, on the very coats of the horses, and +on the broad back of Mr Verloc’s overcoat, where they produced a dull +effect of rustiness. But Mr Verloc was not in the least conscious of +having got rusty. He surveyed through the park railings the evidences of +the town’s opulence and luxury with an approving eye. All these people +had to be protected. Protection is the first necessity of opulence and +luxury. They had to be protected; and their horses, carriages, houses, +servants had to be protected; and the source of their wealth had to be +protected in the heart of the city and the heart of the country; the +whole social order favourable to their hygienic idleness had to be +protected against the shallow enviousness of unhygienic labour. It had +to—and Mr Verloc would have rubbed his hands with satisfaction had he not +been constitutionally averse from every superfluous exertion. His +idleness was not hygienic, but it suited him very well. He was in a +manner devoted to it with a sort of inert fanaticism, or perhaps rather +with a fanatical inertness. Born of industrious parents for a life of +toil, he had embraced indolence from an impulse as profound as +inexplicable and as imperious as the impulse which directs a man’s +preference for one particular woman in a given thousand. He was too lazy +even for a mere demagogue, for a workman orator, for a leader of labour. +It was too much trouble. He required a more perfect form of ease; or it +might have been that he was the victim of a philosophical unbelief in the +effectiveness of every human effort. Such a form of indolence requires, +implies, a certain amount of intelligence. Mr Verloc was not devoid of +intelligence—and at the notion of a menaced social order he would perhaps +have winked to himself if there had not been an effort to make in that +sign of scepticism. His big, prominent eyes were not well adapted to +winking. They were rather of the sort that closes solemnly in slumber +with majestic effect. + +Undemonstrative and burly in a fat-pig style, Mr Verloc, without either +rubbing his hands with satisfaction or winking sceptically at his +thoughts, proceeded on his way. He trod the pavement heavily with his +shiny boots, and his general get-up was that of a well-to-do mechanic in +business for himself. He might have been anything from a picture-frame +maker to a lock-smith; an employer of labour in a small way. But there +was also about him an indescribable air which no mechanic could have +acquired in the practice of his handicraft however dishonestly exercised: +the air common to men who live on the vices, the follies, or the baser +fears of mankind; the air of moral nihilism common to keepers of gambling +hells and disorderly houses; to private detectives and inquiry agents; to +drink sellers and, I should say, to the sellers of invigorating electric +belts and to the inventors of patent medicines. But of that last I am +not sure, not having carried my investigations so far into the depths. +For all I know, the expression of these last may be perfectly diabolic. +I shouldn’t be surprised. What I want to affirm is that Mr Verloc’s +expression was by no means diabolic. + +Before reaching Knightsbridge, Mr Verloc took a turn to the left out of +the busy main thoroughfare, uproarious with the traffic of swaying +omnibuses and trotting vans, in the almost silent, swift flow of hansoms. +Under his hat, worn with a slight backward tilt, his hair had been +carefully brushed into respectful sleekness; for his business was with an +Embassy. And Mr Verloc, steady like a rock—a soft kind of rock—marched +now along a street which could with every propriety be described as +private. In its breadth, emptiness, and extent it had the majesty of +inorganic nature, of matter that never dies. The only reminder of +mortality was a doctor’s brougham arrested in august solitude close to +the curbstone. The polished knockers of the doors gleamed as far as the +eye could reach, the clean windows shone with a dark opaque lustre. And +all was still. But a milk cart rattled noisily across the distant +perspective; a butcher boy, driving with the noble recklessness of a +charioteer at Olympic Games, dashed round the corner sitting high above a +pair of red wheels. A guilty-looking cat issuing from under the stones +ran for a while in front of Mr Verloc, then dived into another basement; +and a thick police constable, looking a stranger to every emotion, as if +he too were part of inorganic nature, surging apparently out of a +lamp-post, took not the slightest notice of Mr Verloc. With a turn to +the left Mr Verloc pursued his way along a narrow street by the side of a +yellow wall which, for some inscrutable reason, had No. 1 Chesham Square +written on it in black letters. Chesham Square was at least sixty yards +away, and Mr Verloc, cosmopolitan enough not to be deceived by London’s +topographical mysteries, held on steadily, without a sign of surprise or +indignation. At last, with business-like persistency, he reached the +Square, and made diagonally for the number 10. This belonged to an +imposing carriage gate in a high, clean wall between two houses, of which +one rationally enough bore the number 9 and the other was numbered 37; +but the fact that this last belonged to Porthill Street, a street well +known in the neighbourhood, was proclaimed by an inscription placed above +the ground-floor windows by whatever highly efficient authority is +charged with the duty of keeping track of London’s strayed houses. Why +powers are not asked of Parliament (a short act would do) for compelling +those edifices to return where they belong is one of the mysteries of +municipal administration. Mr Verloc did not trouble his head about it, +his mission in life being the protection of the social mechanism, not its +perfectionment or even its criticism. + +It was so early that the porter of the Embassy issued hurriedly out of +his lodge still struggling with the left sleeve of his livery coat. His +waistcoat was red, and he wore knee-breeches, but his aspect was +flustered. Mr Verloc, aware of the rush on his flank, drove it off by +simply holding out an envelope stamped with the arms of the Embassy, and +passed on. He produced the same talisman also to the footman who opened +the door, and stood back to let him enter the hall. + +A clear fire burned in a tall fireplace, and an elderly man standing with +his back to it, in evening dress and with a chain round his neck, glanced +up from the newspaper he was holding spread out in both hands before his +calm and severe face. He didn’t move; but another lackey, in brown +trousers and claw-hammer coat edged with thin yellow cord, approaching Mr +Verloc listened to the murmur of his name, and turning round on his heel +in silence, began to walk, without looking back once. Mr Verloc, thus +led along a ground-floor passage to the left of the great carpeted +staircase, was suddenly motioned to enter a quite small room furnished +with a heavy writing-table and a few chairs. The servant shut the door, +and Mr Verloc remained alone. He did not take a seat. With his hat and +stick held in one hand he glanced about, passing his other podgy hand +over his uncovered sleek head. + +Another door opened noiselessly, and Mr Verloc immobilising his glance in +that direction saw at first only black clothes, the bald top of a head, +and a drooping dark grey whisker on each side of a pair of wrinkled +hands. The person who had entered was holding a batch of papers before +his eyes and walked up to the table with a rather mincing step, turning +the papers over the while. Privy Councillor Wurmt, Chancelier +d’Ambassade, was rather short-sighted. This meritorious official laying +the papers on the table, disclosed a face of pasty complexion and of +melancholy ugliness surrounded by a lot of fine, long dark grey hairs, +barred heavily by thick and bushy eyebrows. He put on a black-framed +pince-nez upon a blunt and shapeless nose, and seemed struck by Mr +Verloc’s appearance. Under the enormous eyebrows his weak eyes blinked +pathetically through the glasses. + +He made no sign of greeting; neither did Mr Verloc, who certainly knew +his place; but a subtle change about the general outlines of his +shoulders and back suggested a slight bending of Mr Verloc’s spine under +the vast surface of his overcoat. The effect was of unobtrusive +deference. + +“I have here some of your reports,” said the bureaucrat in an +unexpectedly soft and weary voice, and pressing the tip of his forefinger +on the papers with force. He paused; and Mr Verloc, who had recognised +his own handwriting very well, waited in an almost breathless silence. +“We are not very satisfied with the attitude of the police here,” the +other continued, with every appearance of mental fatigue. + +The shoulders of Mr Verloc, without actually moving, suggested a shrug. +And for the first time since he left his home that morning his lips +opened. + +“Every country has its police,” he said philosophically. But as the +official of the Embassy went on blinking at him steadily he felt +constrained to add: “Allow me to observe that I have no means of action +upon the police here.” + +“What is desired,” said the man of papers, “is the occurrence of +something definite which should stimulate their vigilance. That is +within your province—is it not so?” + +Mr Verloc made no answer except by a sigh, which escaped him +involuntarily, for instantly he tried to give his face a cheerful +expression. The official blinked doubtfully, as if affected by the dim +light of the room. He repeated vaguely. + +“The vigilance of the police—and the severity of the magistrates. The +general leniency of the judicial procedure here, and the utter absence of +all repressive measures, are a scandal to Europe. What is wished for +just now is the accentuation of the unrest—of the fermentation which +undoubtedly exists—” + +“Undoubtedly, undoubtedly,” broke in Mr Verloc in a deep deferential bass +of an oratorical quality, so utterly different from the tone in which he +had spoken before that his interlocutor remained profoundly surprised. +“It exists to a dangerous degree. My reports for the last twelve months +make it sufficiently clear.” + +“Your reports for the last twelve months,” State Councillor Wurmt began +in his gentle and dispassionate tone, “have been read by me. I failed to +discover why you wrote them at all.” + +A sad silence reigned for a time. Mr Verloc seemed to have swallowed his +tongue, and the other gazed at the papers on the table fixedly. At last +he gave them a slight push. + +“The state of affairs you expose there is assumed to exist as the first +condition of your employment. What is required at present is not +writing, but the bringing to light of a distinct, significant fact—I +would almost say of an alarming fact.” + +“I need not say that all my endeavours shall be directed to that end,” Mr +Verloc said, with convinced modulations in his conversational husky tone. +But the sense of being blinked at watchfully behind the blind glitter of +these eye-glasses on the other side of the table disconcerted him. He +stopped short with a gesture of absolute devotion. The useful, +hard-working, if obscure member of the Embassy had an air of being +impressed by some newly-born thought. + +“You are very corpulent,” he said. + +This observation, really of a psychological nature, and advanced with the +modest hesitation of an officeman more familiar with ink and paper than +with the requirements of active life, stung Mr Verloc in the manner of a +rude personal remark. He stepped back a pace. + +“Eh? What were you pleased to say?” he exclaimed, with husky resentment. + +The Chancelier d’Ambassade entrusted with the conduct of this interview +seemed to find it too much for him. + +“I think,” he said, “that you had better see Mr Vladimir. Yes, decidedly +I think you ought to see Mr Vladimir. Be good enough to wait here,” he +added, and went out with mincing steps. + +At once Mr Verloc passed his hand over his hair. A slight perspiration +had broken out on his forehead. He let the air escape from his pursed-up +lips like a man blowing at a spoonful of hot soup. But when the servant +in brown appeared at the door silently, Mr Verloc had not moved an inch +from the place he had occupied throughout the interview. He had remained +motionless, as if feeling himself surrounded by pitfalls. + +He walked along a passage lighted by a lonely gas-jet, then up a flight +of winding stairs, and through a glazed and cheerful corridor on the +first floor. The footman threw open a door, and stood aside. The feet +of Mr Verloc felt a thick carpet. The room was large, with three +windows; and a young man with a shaven, big face, sitting in a roomy +arm-chair before a vast mahogany writing-table, said in French to the +Chancelier d’Ambassade, who was going out with the papers in his hand: + +“You are quite right, mon cher. He’s fat—the animal.” + +Mr Vladimir, First Secretary, had a drawing-room reputation as an +agreeable and entertaining man. He was something of a favourite in +society. His wit consisted in discovering droll connections between +incongruous ideas; and when talking in that strain he sat well forward of +his seat, with his left hand raised, as if exhibiting his funny +demonstrations between the thumb and forefinger, while his round and +clean-shaven face wore an expression of merry perplexity. + +But there was no trace of merriment or perplexity in the way he looked at +Mr Verloc. Lying far back in the deep arm-chair, with squarely spread +elbows, and throwing one leg over a thick knee, he had with his smooth +and rosy countenance the air of a preternaturally thriving baby that will +not stand nonsense from anybody. + +“You understand French, I suppose?” he said. + +Mr Verloc stated huskily that he did. His whole vast bulk had a forward +inclination. He stood on the carpet in the middle of the room, clutching +his hat and stick in one hand; the other hung lifelessly by his side. He +muttered unobtrusively somewhere deep down in his throat something about +having done his military service in the French artillery. At once, with +contemptuous perversity, Mr Vladimir changed the language, and began to +speak idiomatic English without the slightest trace of a foreign accent. + +“Ah! Yes. Of course. Let’s see. How much did you get for obtaining +the design of the improved breech-block of their new field-gun?” + +“Five years’ rigorous confinement in a fortress,” Mr Verloc answered +unexpectedly, but without any sign of feeling. + +“You got off easily,” was Mr Vladimir’s comment. “And, anyhow, it served +you right for letting yourself get caught. What made you go in for that +sort of thing—eh?” + +Mr Verloc’s husky conversational voice was heard speaking of youth, of a +fatal infatuation for an unworthy— + +“Aha! Cherchez la femme,” Mr Vladimir deigned to interrupt, unbending, +but without affability; there was, on the contrary, a touch of grimness +in his condescension. “How long have you been employed by the Embassy +here?” he asked. + +“Ever since the time of the late Baron Stott-Wartenheim,” Mr Verloc +answered in subdued tones, and protruding his lips sadly, in sign of +sorrow for the deceased diplomat. The First Secretary observed this play +of physiognomy steadily. + +“Ah! ever since. Well! What have you got to say for yourself?” he asked +sharply. + +Mr Verloc answered with some surprise that he was not aware of having +anything special to say. He had been summoned by a letter—And he plunged +his hand busily into the side pocket of his overcoat, but before the +mocking, cynical watchfulness of Mr Vladimir, concluded to leave it +there. + +“Bah!” said that latter. “What do you mean by getting out of condition +like this? You haven’t got even the physique of your profession. You—a +member of a starving proletariat—never! You—a desperate socialist or +anarchist—which is it?” + +“Anarchist,” stated Mr Verloc in a deadened tone. + +“Bosh!” went on Mr Vladimir, without raising his voice. “You startled +old Wurmt himself. You wouldn’t deceive an idiot. They all are that +by-the-by, but you seem to me simply impossible. So you began your +connection with us by stealing the French gun designs. And you got +yourself caught. That must have been very disagreeable to our +Government. You don’t seem to be very smart.” + +Mr Verloc tried to exculpate himself huskily. + +“As I’ve had occasion to observe before, a fatal infatuation for an +unworthy—” + +Mr Vladimir raised a large white, plump hand. “Ah, yes. The unlucky +attachment—of your youth. She got hold of the money, and then sold you +to the police—eh?” + +The doleful change in Mr Verloc’s physiognomy, the momentary drooping of +his whole person, confessed that such was the regrettable case. Mr +Vladimir’s hand clasped the ankle reposing on his knee. The sock was of +dark blue silk. + +“You see, that was not very clever of you. Perhaps you are too +susceptible.” + +Mr Verloc intimated in a throaty, veiled murmur that he was no longer +young. + +“Oh! That’s a failing which age does not cure,” Mr Vladimir remarked, +with sinister familiarity. “But no! You are too fat for that. You +could not have come to look like this if you had been at all susceptible. +I’ll tell you what I think is the matter: you are a lazy fellow. How +long have you been drawing pay from this Embassy?” + +“Eleven years,” was the answer, after a moment of sulky hesitation. +“I’ve been charged with several missions to London while His Excellency +Baron Stott-Wartenheim was still Ambassador in Paris. Then by his +Excellency’s instructions I settled down in London. I am English.” + +“You are! Are you? Eh?” + +“A natural-born British subject,” Mr Verloc said stolidly. “But my +father was French, and so—” + +“Never mind explaining,” interrupted the other. “I daresay you could +have been legally a Marshal of France and a Member of Parliament in +England—and then, indeed, you would have been of some use to our +Embassy.” + +This flight of fancy provoked something like a faint smile on Mr Verloc’s +face. Mr Vladimir retained an imperturbable gravity. + +“But, as I’ve said, you are a lazy fellow; you don’t use your +opportunities. In the time of Baron Stott-Wartenheim we had a lot of +soft-headed people running this Embassy. They caused fellows of your +sort to form a false conception of the nature of a secret service fund. +It is my business to correct this misapprehension by telling you what the +secret service is not. It is not a philanthropic institution. I’ve had +you called here on purpose to tell you this.” + +Mr Vladimir observed the forced expression of bewilderment on Verloc’s +face, and smiled sarcastically. + +“I see that you understand me perfectly. I daresay you are intelligent +enough for your work. What we want now is activity—activity.” + +On repeating this last word Mr Vladimir laid a long white forefinger on +the edge of the desk. Every trace of huskiness disappeared from Verloc’s +voice. The nape of his gross neck became crimson above the velvet collar +of his overcoat. His lips quivered before they came widely open. + +“If you’ll only be good enough to look up my record,” he boomed out in +his great, clear oratorical bass, “you’ll see I gave a warning only three +months ago, on the occasion of the Grand Duke Romuald’s visit to Paris, +which was telegraphed from here to the French police, and—” + +“Tut, tut!” broke out Mr Vladimir, with a frowning grimace. “The French +police had no use for your warning. Don’t roar like this. What the +devil do you mean?” + +With a note of proud humility Mr Verloc apologised for forgetting +himself. His voice,—famous for years at open-air meetings and at +workmen’s assemblies in large halls, had contributed, he said, to his +reputation of a good and trustworthy comrade. It was, therefore, a part +of his usefulness. It had inspired confidence in his principles. “I was +always put up to speak by the leaders at a critical moment,” Mr Verloc +declared, with obvious satisfaction. There was no uproar above which he +could not make himself heard, he added; and suddenly he made a +demonstration. + +“Allow me,” he said. With lowered forehead, without looking up, swiftly +and ponderously he crossed the room to one of the French windows. As if +giving way to an uncontrollable impulse, he opened it a little. Mr +Vladimir, jumping up amazed from the depths of the arm-chair, looked over +his shoulder; and below, across the courtyard of the Embassy, well beyond +the open gate, could be seen the broad back of a policeman watching idly +the gorgeous perambulator of a wealthy baby being wheeled in state across +the Square. + +“Constable!” said Mr Verloc, with no more effort than if he were +whispering; and Mr Vladimir burst into a laugh on seeing the policeman +spin round as if prodded by a sharp instrument. Mr Verloc shut the +window quietly, and returned to the middle of the room. + +“With a voice like that,” he said, putting on the husky conversational +pedal, “I was naturally trusted. And I knew what to say, too.” + +Mr Vladimir, arranging his cravat, observed him in the glass over the +mantelpiece. + +“I daresay you have the social revolutionary jargon by heart well +enough,” he said contemptuously. “Vox et. . . You haven’t ever studied +Latin—have you?” + +“No,” growled Mr Verloc. “You did not expect me to know it. I belong to +the million. Who knows Latin? Only a few hundred imbeciles who aren’t +fit to take care of themselves.” + +For some thirty seconds longer Mr Vladimir studied in the mirror the +fleshy profile, the gross bulk, of the man behind him. And at the same +time he had the advantage of seeing his own face, clean-shaved and round, +rosy about the gills, and with the thin sensitive lips formed exactly for +the utterance of those delicate witticisms which had made him such a +favourite in the very highest society. Then he turned, and advanced into +the room with such determination that the very ends of his quaintly +old-fashioned bow necktie seemed to bristle with unspeakable menaces. +The movement was so swift and fierce that Mr Verloc, casting an oblique +glance, quailed inwardly. + +“Aha! You dare be impudent,” Mr Vladimir began, with an amazingly +guttural intonation not only utterly un-English, but absolutely +un-European, and startling even to Mr Verloc’s experience of cosmopolitan +slums. “You dare! Well, I am going to speak plain English to you. +Voice won’t do. We have no use for your voice. We don’t want a voice. +We want facts—startling facts—damn you,” he added, with a sort of +ferocious discretion, right into Mr Verloc’s face. + +“Don’t you try to come over me with your Hyperborean manners,” Mr Verloc +defended himself huskily, looking at the carpet. At this his +interlocutor, smiling mockingly above the bristling bow of his necktie, +switched the conversation into French. + +“You give yourself for an ‘agent provocateur.’ The proper business of an +‘agent provocateur’ is to provoke. As far as I can judge from your +record kept here, you have done nothing to earn your money for the last +three years.” + +“Nothing!” exclaimed Verloc, stirring not a limb, and not raising his +eyes, but with the note of sincere feeling in his tone. “I have several +times prevented what might have been—” + +“There is a proverb in this country which says prevention is better than +cure,” interrupted Mr Vladimir, throwing himself into the arm-chair. “It +is stupid in a general way. There is no end to prevention. But it is +characteristic. They dislike finality in this country. Don’t you be too +English. And in this particular instance, don’t be absurd. The evil is +already here. We don’t want prevention—we want cure.” + +He paused, turned to the desk, and turning over some papers lying there, +spoke in a changed business-like tone, without looking at Mr Verloc. + +“You know, of course, of the International Conference assembled in +Milan?” + +Mr Verloc intimated hoarsely that he was in the habit of reading the +daily papers. To a further question his answer was that, of course, he +understood what he read. At this Mr Vladimir, smiling faintly at the +documents he was still scanning one after another, murmured “As long as +it is not written in Latin, I suppose.” + +“Or Chinese,” added Mr Verloc stolidly. + +“H’m. Some of your revolutionary friends’ effusions are written in a +_charabia_ every bit as incomprehensible as Chinese—” Mr Vladimir let +fall disdainfully a grey sheet of printed matter. “What are all these +leaflets headed F. P., with a hammer, pen, and torch crossed? What does +it mean, this F. P.?” Mr Verloc approached the imposing writing-table. + +“The Future of the Proletariat. It’s a society,” he explained, standing +ponderously by the side of the arm-chair, “not anarchist in principle, +but open to all shades of revolutionary opinion.” + +“Are you in it?” + +“One of the Vice-Presidents,” Mr Verloc breathed out heavily; and the +First Secretary of the Embassy raised his head to look at him. + +“Then you ought to be ashamed of yourself,” he said incisively. “Isn’t +your society capable of anything else but printing this prophetic bosh in +blunt type on this filthy paper eh? Why don’t you do something? Look +here. I’ve this matter in hand now, and I tell you plainly that you will +have to earn your money. The good old Stott-Wartenheim times are over. +No work, no pay.” + +Mr Verloc felt a queer sensation of faintness in his stout legs. He +stepped back one pace, and blew his nose loudly. + +He was, in truth, startled and alarmed. The rusty London sunshine +struggling clear of the London mist shed a lukewarm brightness into the +First Secretary’s private room; and in the silence Mr Verloc heard +against a window-pane the faint buzzing of a fly—his first fly of the +year—heralding better than any number of swallows the approach of spring. +The useless fussing of that tiny energetic organism affected unpleasantly +this big man threatened in his indolence. + +In the pause Mr Vladimir formulated in his mind a series of disparaging +remarks concerning Mr Verloc’s face and figure. The fellow was +unexpectedly vulgar, heavy, and impudently unintelligent. He looked +uncommonly like a master plumber come to present his bill. The First +Secretary of the Embassy, from his occasional excursions into the field +of American humour, had formed a special notion of that class of mechanic +as the embodiment of fraudulent laziness and incompetency. + +This was then the famous and trusty secret agent, so secret that he was +never designated otherwise but by the symbol [delta] in the late Baron +Stott-Wartenheim’s official, semi-official, and confidential +correspondence; the celebrated agent [delta], whose warnings had the +power to change the schemes and the dates of royal, imperial, grand ducal +journeys, and sometimes caused them to be put off altogether! This +fellow! And Mr Vladimir indulged mentally in an enormous and derisive +fit of merriment, partly at his own astonishment, which he judged naive, +but mostly at the expense of the universally regretted Baron +Stott-Wartenheim. His late Excellency, whom the august favour of his +Imperial master had imposed as Ambassador upon several reluctant +Ministers of Foreign Affairs, had enjoyed in his lifetime a fame for an +owlish, pessimistic gullibility. His Excellency had the social +revolution on the brain. He imagined himself to be a diplomatist set +apart by a special dispensation to watch the end of diplomacy, and pretty +nearly the end of the world, in a horrid democratic upheaval. His +prophetic and doleful despatches had been for years the joke of Foreign +Offices. He was said to have exclaimed on his deathbed (visited by his +Imperial friend and master): “Unhappy Europe! Thou shalt perish by the +moral insanity of thy children!” He was fated to be the victim of the +first humbugging rascal that came along, thought Mr Vladimir, smiling +vaguely at Mr Verloc. + +“You ought to venerate the memory of Baron Stott-Wartenheim,” he +exclaimed suddenly. + +The lowered physiognomy of Mr Verloc expressed a sombre and weary +annoyance. + +“Permit me to observe to you,” he said, “that I came here because I was +summoned by a peremptory letter. I have been here only twice before in +the last eleven years, and certainly never at eleven in the morning. It +isn’t very wise to call me up like this. There is just a chance of being +seen. And that would be no joke for me.” + +Mr Vladimir shrugged his shoulders. + +“It would destroy my usefulness,” continued the other hotly. + +“That’s your affair,” murmured Mr Vladimir, with soft brutality. “When +you cease to be useful you shall cease to be employed. Yes. Right off. +Cut short. You shall—” Mr Vladimir, frowning, paused, at a loss for a +sufficiently idiomatic expression, and instantly brightened up, with a +grin of beautifully white teeth. “You shall be chucked,” he brought out +ferociously. + +Once more Mr Verloc had to react with all the force of his will against +that sensation of faintness running down one’s legs which once upon a +time had inspired some poor devil with the felicitous expression: “My +heart went down into my boots.” Mr Verloc, aware of the sensation, +raised his head bravely. + +Mr Vladimir bore the look of heavy inquiry with perfect serenity. + +“What we want is to administer a tonic to the Conference in Milan,” he +said airily. “Its deliberations upon international action for the +suppression of political crime don’t seem to get anywhere. England lags. +This country is absurd with its sentimental regard for individual +liberty. It’s intolerable to think that all your friends have got only +to come over to—” + +“In that way I have them all under my eye,” Mr Verloc interrupted +huskily. + +“It would be much more to the point to have them all under lock and key. +England must be brought into line. The imbecile bourgeoisie of this +country make themselves the accomplices of the very people whose aim is +to drive them out of their houses to starve in ditches. And they have +the political power still, if they only had the sense to use it for their +preservation. I suppose you agree that the middle classes are stupid?” + +Mr Verloc agreed hoarsely. + +“They are.” + +“They have no imagination. They are blinded by an idiotic vanity. What +they want just now is a jolly good scare. This is the psychological +moment to set your friends to work. I have had you called here to +develop to you my idea.” + +And Mr Vladimir developed his idea from on high, with scorn and +condescension, displaying at the same time an amount of ignorance as to +the real aims, thoughts, and methods of the revolutionary world which +filled the silent Mr Verloc with inward consternation. He confounded +causes with effects more than was excusable; the most distinguished +propagandists with impulsive bomb throwers; assumed organisation where in +the nature of things it could not exist; spoke of the social +revolutionary party one moment as of a perfectly disciplined army, where +the word of chiefs was supreme, and at another as if it had been the +loosest association of desperate brigands that ever camped in a mountain +gorge. Once Mr Verloc had opened his mouth for a protest, but the +raising of a shapely, large white hand arrested him. Very soon he became +too appalled to even try to protest. He listened in a stillness of dread +which resembled the immobility of profound attention. + +“A series of outrages,” Mr Vladimir continued calmly, “executed here in +this country; not only _planned_ here—that would not do—they would not +mind. Your friends could set half the Continent on fire without +influencing the public opinion here in favour of a universal repressive +legislation. They will not look outside their backyard here.” + +Mr Verloc cleared his throat, but his heart failed him, and he said +nothing. + +“These outrages need not be especially sanguinary,” Mr Vladimir went on, +as if delivering a scientific lecture, “but they must be sufficiently +startling—effective. Let them be directed against buildings, for +instance. What is the fetish of the hour that all the bourgeoisie +recognise—eh, Mr Verloc?” + +Mr Verloc opened his hands and shrugged his shoulders slightly. + +“You are too lazy to think,” was Mr Vladimir’s comment upon that gesture. +“Pay attention to what I say. The fetish of to-day is neither royalty +nor religion. Therefore the palace and the church should be left alone. +You understand what I mean, Mr Verloc?” + +The dismay and the scorn of Mr Verloc found vent in an attempt at levity. + +“Perfectly. But what of the Embassies? A series of attacks on the +various Embassies,” he began; but he could not withstand the cold, +watchful stare of the First Secretary. + +“You can be facetious, I see,” the latter observed carelessly. “That’s +all right. It may enliven your oratory at socialistic congresses. But +this room is no place for it. It would be infinitely safer for you to +follow carefully what I am saying. As you are being called upon to +furnish facts instead of cock-and-bull stories, you had better try to +make your profit off what I am taking the trouble to explain to you. The +sacrosanct fetish of to-day is science. Why don’t you get some of your +friends to go for that wooden-faced panjandrum—eh? Is it not part of +these institutions which must be swept away before the F. P. comes +along?” + +Mr Verloc said nothing. He was afraid to open his lips lest a groan +should escape him. + +“This is what you should try for. An attempt upon a crowned head or on a +president is sensational enough in a way, but not so much as it used to +be. It has entered into the general conception of the existence of all +chiefs of state. It’s almost conventional—especially since so many +presidents have been assassinated. Now let us take an outrage upon—say a +church. Horrible enough at first sight, no doubt, and yet not so +effective as a person of an ordinary mind might think. No matter how +revolutionary and anarchist in inception, there would be fools enough to +give such an outrage the character of a religious manifestation. And +that would detract from the especial alarming significance we wish to +give to the act. A murderous attempt on a restaurant or a theatre would +suffer in the same way from the suggestion of non-political passion: the +exasperation of a hungry man, an act of social revenge. All this is used +up; it is no longer instructive as an object lesson in revolutionary +anarchism. Every newspaper has ready-made phrases to explain such +manifestations away. I am about to give you the philosophy of bomb +throwing from my point of view; from the point of view you pretend to +have been serving for the last eleven years. I will try not to talk +above your head. The sensibilities of the class you are attacking are +soon blunted. Property seems to them an indestructible thing. You can’t +count upon their emotions either of pity or fear for very long. A bomb +outrage to have any influence on public opinion now must go beyond the +intention of vengeance or terrorism. It must be purely destructive. It +must be that, and only that, beyond the faintest suspicion of any other +object. You anarchists should make it clear that you are perfectly +determined to make a clean sweep of the whole social creation. But how +to get that appallingly absurd notion into the heads of the middle +classes so that there should be no mistake? That’s the question. By +directing your blows at something outside the ordinary passions of +humanity is the answer. Of course, there is art. A bomb in the National +Gallery would make some noise. But it would not be serious enough. Art +has never been their fetish. It’s like breaking a few back windows in a +man’s house; whereas, if you want to make him really sit up, you must try +at least to raise the roof. There would be some screaming of course, but +from whom? Artists—art critics and such like—people of no account. +Nobody minds what they say. But there is learning—science. Any imbecile +that has got an income believes in that. He does not know why, but he +believes it matters somehow. It is the sacrosanct fetish. All the +damned professors are radicals at heart. Let them know that their great +panjandrum has got to go too, to make room for the Future of the +Proletariat. A howl from all these intellectual idiots is bound to help +forward the labours of the Milan Conference. They will be writing to the +papers. Their indignation would be above suspicion, no material +interests being openly at stake, and it will alarm every selfishness of +the class which should be impressed. They believe that in some +mysterious way science is at the source of their material prosperity. +They do. And the absurd ferocity of such a demonstration will affect +them more profoundly than the mangling of a whole street—or theatre—full +of their own kind. To that last they can always say: ‘Oh! it’s mere +class hate.’ But what is one to say to an act of destructive ferocity so +absurd as to be incomprehensible, inexplicable, almost unthinkable; in +fact, mad? Madness alone is truly terrifying, inasmuch as you cannot +placate it either by threats, persuasion, or bribes. Moreover, I am a +civilised man. I would never dream of directing you to organise a mere +butchery, even if I expected the best results from it. But I wouldn’t +expect from a butchery the result I want. Murder is always with us. It +is almost an institution. The demonstration must be against +learning—science. But not every science will do. The attack must have +all the shocking senselessness of gratuitous blasphemy. Since bombs are +your means of expression, it would be really telling if one could throw a +bomb into pure mathematics. But that is impossible. I have been trying +to educate you; I have expounded to you the higher philosophy of your +usefulness, and suggested to you some serviceable arguments. The +practical application of my teaching interests _you_ mostly. But from +the moment I have undertaken to interview you I have also given some +attention to the practical aspect of the question. What do you think of +having a go at astronomy?” + +For sometime already Mr Verloc’s immobility by the side of the arm-chair +resembled a state of collapsed coma—a sort of passive insensibility +interrupted by slight convulsive starts, such as may be observed in the +domestic dog having a nightmare on the hearthrug. And it was in an +uneasy doglike growl that he repeated the word: + +“Astronomy.” + +He had not recovered thoroughly as yet from that state of bewilderment +brought about by the effort to follow Mr Vladimir’s rapid incisive +utterance. It had overcome his power of assimilation. It had made him +angry. This anger was complicated by incredulity. And suddenly it +dawned upon him that all this was an elaborate joke. Mr Vladimir +exhibited his white teeth in a smile, with dimples on his round, full +face posed with a complacent inclination above the bristling bow of his +neck-tie. The favourite of intelligent society women had assumed his +drawing-room attitude accompanying the delivery of delicate witticisms. +Sitting well forward, his white hand upraised, he seemed to hold +delicately between his thumb and forefinger the subtlety of his +suggestion. + +“There could be nothing better. Such an outrage combines the greatest +possible regard for humanity with the most alarming display of ferocious +imbecility. I defy the ingenuity of journalists to persuade their public +that any given member of the proletariat can have a personal grievance +against astronomy. Starvation itself could hardly be dragged in +there—eh? And there are other advantages. The whole civilised world has +heard of Greenwich. The very boot-blacks in the basement of Charing +Cross Station know something of it. See?” + +The features of Mr Vladimir, so well known in the best society by their +humorous urbanity, beamed with cynical self-satisfaction, which would +have astonished the intelligent women his wit entertained so exquisitely. +“Yes,” he continued, with a contemptuous smile, “the blowing up of the +first meridian is bound to raise a howl of execration.” + +“A difficult business,” Mr Verloc mumbled, feeling that this was the only +safe thing to say. + +“What is the matter? Haven’t you the whole gang under your hand? The +very pick of the basket? That old terrorist Yundt is here. I see him +walking about Piccadilly in his green havelock almost every day. And +Michaelis, the ticket-of-leave apostle—you don’t mean to say you don’t +know where he is? Because if you don’t, I can tell you,” Mr Vladimir +went on menacingly. “If you imagine that you are the only one on the +secret fund list, you are mistaken.” + +This perfectly gratuitous suggestion caused Mr Verloc to shuffle his feet +slightly. + +“And the whole Lausanne lot—eh? Haven’t they been flocking over here at +the first hint of the Milan Conference? This is an absurd country.” + +“It will cost money,” Mr Verloc said, by a sort of instinct. + +“That cock won’t fight,” Mr Vladimir retorted, with an amazingly genuine +English accent. “You’ll get your screw every month, and no more till +something happens. And if nothing happens very soon you won’t get even +that. What’s your ostensible occupation? What are you supposed to live +by?” + +“I keep a shop,” answered Mr Verloc. + +“A shop! What sort of shop?” + +“Stationery, newspapers. My wife—” + +“Your what?” interrupted Mr Vladimir in his guttural Central Asian tones. + +“My wife.” Mr Verloc raised his husky voice slightly. “I am married.” + +“That be damned for a yarn,” exclaimed the other in unfeigned +astonishment. “Married! And you a professed anarchist, too! What is +this confounded nonsense? But I suppose it’s merely a manner of +speaking. Anarchists don’t marry. It’s well known. They can’t. It +would be apostasy.” + +“My wife isn’t one,” Mr Verloc mumbled sulkily. “Moreover, it’s no +concern of yours.” + +“Oh yes, it is,” snapped Mr Vladimir. “I am beginning to be convinced +that you are not at all the man for the work you’ve been employed on. +Why, you must have discredited yourself completely in your own world by +your marriage. Couldn’t you have managed without? This is your virtuous +attachment—eh? What with one sort of attachment and another you are +doing away with your usefulness.” + +Mr Verloc, puffing out his cheeks, let the air escape violently, and that +was all. He had armed himself with patience. It was not to be tried +much longer. The First Secretary became suddenly very curt, detached, +final. + +“You may go now,” he said. “A dynamite outrage must be provoked. I give +you a month. The sittings of the Conference are suspended. Before it +reassembles again something must have happened here, or your connection +with us ceases.” + +He changed the note once more with an unprincipled versatility. + +“Think over my philosophy, Mr—Mr—Verloc,” he said, with a sort of +chaffing condescension, waving his hand towards the door. “Go for the +first meridian. You don’t know the middle classes as well as I do. +Their sensibilities are jaded. The first meridian. Nothing better, and +nothing easier, I should think.” + +He had got up, and with his thin sensitive lips twitching humorously, +watched in the glass over the mantelpiece Mr Verloc backing out of the +room heavily, hat and stick in hand. The door closed. + +The footman in trousers, appearing suddenly in the corridor, let Mr +Verloc another way out and through a small door in the corner of the +courtyard. The porter standing at the gate ignored his exit completely; +and Mr Verloc retraced the path of his morning’s pilgrimage as if in a +dream—an angry dream. This detachment from the material world was so +complete that, though the mortal envelope of Mr Verloc had not hastened +unduly along the streets, that part of him to which it would be +unwarrantably rude to refuse immortality, found itself at the shop door +all at once, as if borne from west to east on the wings of a great wind. +He walked straight behind the counter, and sat down on a wooden chair +that stood there. No one appeared to disturb his solitude. Stevie, put +into a green baize apron, was now sweeping and dusting upstairs, intent +and conscientious, as though he were playing at it; and Mrs Verloc, +warned in the kitchen by the clatter of the cracked bell, had merely come +to the glazed door of the parlour, and putting the curtain aside a +little, had peered into the dim shop. Seeing her husband sitting there +shadowy and bulky, with his hat tilted far back on his head, she had at +once returned to her stove. An hour or more later she took the green +baize apron off her brother Stevie, and instructed him to wash his hands +and face in the peremptory tone she had used in that connection for +fifteen years or so—ever since she had, in fact, ceased to attend to the +boy’s hands and face herself. She spared presently a glance away from +her dishing-up for the inspection of that face and those hands which +Stevie, approaching the kitchen table, offered for her approval with an +air of self-assurance hiding a perpetual residue of anxiety. Formerly +the anger of the father was the supremely effective sanction of these +rites, but Mr Verloc’s placidity in domestic life would have made all +mention of anger incredible even to poor Stevie’s nervousness. The +theory was that Mr Verloc would have been inexpressibly pained and +shocked by any deficiency of cleanliness at meal times. Winnie after the +death of her father found considerable consolation in the feeling that +she need no longer tremble for poor Stevie. She could not bear to see +the boy hurt. It maddened her. As a little girl she had often faced +with blazing eyes the irascible licensed victualler in defence of her +brother. Nothing now in Mrs Verloc’s appearance could lead one to +suppose that she was capable of a passionate demonstration. + +She finished her dishing-up. The table was laid in the parlour. Going +to the foot of the stairs, she screamed out “Mother!” Then opening the +glazed door leading to the shop, she said quietly “Adolf!” Mr Verloc had +not changed his position; he had not apparently stirred a limb for an +hour and a half. He got up heavily, and came to his dinner in his +overcoat and with his hat on, without uttering a word. His silence in +itself had nothing startlingly unusual in this household, hidden in the +shades of the sordid street seldom touched by the sun, behind the dim +shop with its wares of disreputable rubbish. Only that day Mr Verloc’s +taciturnity was so obviously thoughtful that the two women were impressed +by it. They sat silent themselves, keeping a watchful eye on poor +Stevie, lest he should break out into one of his fits of loquacity. He +faced Mr Verloc across the table, and remained very good and quiet, +staring vacantly. The endeavour to keep him from making himself +objectionable in any way to the master of the house put no inconsiderable +anxiety into these two women’s lives. “That boy,” as they alluded to him +softly between themselves, had been a source of that sort of anxiety +almost from the very day of his birth. The late licensed victualler’s +humiliation at having such a very peculiar boy for a son manifested +itself by a propensity to brutal treatment; for he was a person of fine +sensibilities, and his sufferings as a man and a father were perfectly +genuine. Afterwards Stevie had to be kept from making himself a nuisance +to the single gentlemen lodgers, who are themselves a queer lot, and are +easily aggrieved. And there was always the anxiety of his mere existence +to face. Visions of a workhouse infirmary for her child had haunted the +old woman in the basement breakfast-room of the decayed Belgravian house. +“If you had not found such a good husband, my dear,” she used to say to +her daughter, “I don’t know what would have become of that poor boy.” + +Mr Verloc extended as much recognition to Stevie as a man not +particularly fond of animals may give to his wife’s beloved cat; and this +recognition, benevolent and perfunctory, was essentially of the same +quality. Both women admitted to themselves that not much more could be +reasonably expected. It was enough to earn for Mr Verloc the old woman’s +reverential gratitude. In the early days, made sceptical by the trials +of friendless life, she used sometimes to ask anxiously: “You don’t +think, my dear, that Mr Verloc is getting tired of seeing Stevie about?” +To this Winnie replied habitually by a slight toss of her head. Once, +however, she retorted, with a rather grim pertness: “He’ll have to get +tired of me first.” A long silence ensued. The mother, with her feet +propped up on a stool, seemed to be trying to get to the bottom of that +answer, whose feminine profundity had struck her all of a heap. She had +never really understood why Winnie had married Mr Verloc. It was very +sensible of her, and evidently had turned out for the best, but her girl +might have naturally hoped to find somebody of a more suitable age. +There had been a steady young fellow, only son of a butcher in the next +street, helping his father in business, with whom Winnie had been walking +out with obvious gusto. He was dependent on his father, it is true; but +the business was good, and his prospects excellent. He took her girl to +the theatre on several evenings. Then just as she began to dread to hear +of their engagement (for what could she have done with that big house +alone, with Stevie on her hands), that romance came to an abrupt end, and +Winnie went about looking very dull. But Mr Verloc, turning up +providentially to occupy the first-floor front bedroom, there had been no +more question of the young butcher. It was clearly providential. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +“ . . . All idealisation makes life poorer. To beautify it is to take +away its character of complexity—it is to destroy it. Leave that to the +moralists, my boy. History is made by men, but they do not make it in +their heads. The ideas that are born in their consciousness play an +insignificant part in the march of events. History is dominated and +determined by the tool and the production—by the force of economic +conditions. Capitalism has made socialism, and the laws made by the +capitalism for the protection of property are responsible for anarchism. +No one can tell what form the social organisation may take in the future. +Then why indulge in prophetic phantasies? At best they can only +interpret the mind of the prophet, and can have no objective value. +Leave that pastime to the moralists, my boy.” + +Michaelis, the ticket-of-leave apostle, was speaking in an even voice, a +voice that wheezed as if deadened and oppressed by the layer of fat on +his chest. He had come out of a highly hygienic prison round like a tub, +with an enormous stomach and distended cheeks of a pale, semi-transparent +complexion, as though for fifteen years the servants of an outraged +society had made a point of stuffing him with fattening foods in a damp +and lightless cellar. And ever since he had never managed to get his +weight down as much as an ounce. + +It was said that for three seasons running a very wealthy old lady had +sent him for a cure to Marienbad—where he was about to share the public +curiosity once with a crowned head—but the police on that occasion +ordered him to leave within twelve hours. His martyrdom was continued by +forbidding him all access to the healing waters. But he was resigned +now. + +With his elbow presenting no appearance of a joint, but more like a bend +in a dummy’s limb, thrown over the back of a chair, he leaned forward +slightly over his short and enormous thighs to spit into the grate. + +“Yes! I had the time to think things out a little,” he added without +emphasis. “Society has given me plenty of time for meditation.” + +On the other side of the fireplace, in the horse-hair arm-chair where Mrs +Verloc’s mother was generally privileged to sit, Karl Yundt giggled +grimly, with a faint black grimace of a toothless mouth. The terrorist, +as he called himself, was old and bald, with a narrow, snow-white wisp of +a goatee hanging limply from his chin. An extraordinary expression of +underhand malevolence survived in his extinguished eyes. When he rose +painfully the thrusting forward of a skinny groping hand deformed by +gouty swellings suggested the effort of a moribund murderer summoning all +his remaining strength for a last stab. He leaned on a thick stick, +which trembled under his other hand. + +“I have always dreamed,” he mouthed fiercely, “of a band of men absolute +in their resolve to discard all scruples in the choice of means, strong +enough to give themselves frankly the name of destroyers, and free from +the taint of that resigned pessimism which rots the world. No pity for +anything on earth, including themselves, and death enlisted for good and +all in the service of humanity—that’s what I would have liked to see.” + +His little bald head quivered, imparting a comical vibration to the wisp +of white goatee. His enunciation would have been almost totally +unintelligible to a stranger. His worn-out passion, resembling in its +impotent fierceness the excitement of a senile sensualist, was badly +served by a dried throat and toothless gums which seemed to catch the tip +of his tongue. Mr Verloc, established in the corner of the sofa at the +other end of the room, emitted two hearty grunts of assent. + +The old terrorist turned slowly his head on his skinny neck from side to +side. + +“And I could never get as many as three such men together. So much for +your rotten pessimism,” he snarled at Michaelis, who uncrossed his thick +legs, similar to bolsters, and slid his feet abruptly under his chair in +sign of exasperation. + +He a pessimist! Preposterous! He cried out that the charge was +outrageous. He was so far from pessimism that he saw already the end of +all private property coming along logically, unavoidably, by the mere +development of its inherent viciousness. The possessors of property had +not only to face the awakened proletariat, but they had also to fight +amongst themselves. Yes. Struggle, warfare, was the condition of +private ownership. It was fatal. Ah! he did not depend upon emotional +excitement to keep up his belief, no declamations, no anger, no visions +of blood-red flags waving, or metaphorical lurid suns of vengeance rising +above the horizon of a doomed society. Not he! Cold reason, he boasted, +was the basis of his optimism. Yes, optimism— + +His laborious wheezing stopped, then, after a gasp or two, he added: + +“Don’t you think that, if I had not been the optimist I am, I could not +have found in fifteen years some means to cut my throat? And, in the +last instance, there were always the walls of my cell to dash my head +against.” + +The shortness of breath took all fire, all animation out of his voice; +his great, pale cheeks hung like filled pouches, motionless, without a +quiver; but in his blue eyes, narrowed as if peering, there was the same +look of confident shrewdness, a little crazy in its fixity, they must +have had while the indomitable optimist sat thinking at night in his +cell. Before him, Karl Yundt remained standing, one wing of his faded +greenish havelock thrown back cavalierly over his shoulder. Seated in +front of the fireplace, Comrade Ossipon, ex-medical student, the +principal writer of the F. P. leaflets, stretched out his robust legs, +keeping the soles of his boots turned up to the glow in the grate. A +bush of crinkly yellow hair topped his red, freckled face, with a +flattened nose and prominent mouth cast in the rough mould of the negro +type. His almond-shaped eyes leered languidly over the high cheek-bones. +He wore a grey flannel shirt, the loose ends of a black silk tie hung +down the buttoned breast of his serge coat; and his head resting on the +back of his chair, his throat largely exposed, he raised to his lips a +cigarette in a long wooden tube, puffing jets of smoke straight up at the +ceiling. + +Michaelis pursued his idea—_the_ idea of his solitary reclusion—the +thought vouchsafed to his captivity and growing like a faith revealed in +visions. He talked to himself, indifferent to the sympathy or hostility +of his hearers, indifferent indeed to their presence, from the habit he +had acquired of thinking aloud hopefully in the solitude of the four +whitewashed walls of his cell, in the sepulchral silence of the great +blind pile of bricks near a river, sinister and ugly like a colossal +mortuary for the socially drowned. + +He was no good in discussion, not because any amount of argument could +shake his faith, but because the mere fact of hearing another voice +disconcerted him painfully, confusing his thoughts at once—these thoughts +that for so many years, in a mental solitude more barren than a waterless +desert, no living voice had ever combatted, commented, or approved. + +No one interrupted him now, and he made again the confession of his +faith, mastering him irresistible and complete like an act of grace: the +secret of fate discovered in the material side of life; the economic +condition of the world responsible for the past and shaping the future; +the source of all history, of all ideas, guiding the mental development +of mankind and the very impulses of their passion— + +A harsh laugh from Comrade Ossipon cut the tirade dead short in a sudden +faltering of the tongue and a bewildered unsteadiness of the apostle’s +mildly exalted eyes. He closed them slowly for a moment, as if to +collect his routed thoughts. A silence fell; but what with the two +gas-jets over the table and the glowing grate the little parlour behind +Mr Verloc’s shop had become frightfully hot. Mr Verloc, getting off the +sofa with ponderous reluctance, opened the door leading into the kitchen +to get more air, and thus disclosed the innocent Stevie, seated very good +and quiet at a deal table, drawing circles, circles, circles; innumerable +circles, concentric, eccentric; a coruscating whirl of circles that by +their tangled multitude of repeated curves, uniformity of form, and +confusion of intersecting lines suggested a rendering of cosmic chaos, +the symbolism of a mad art attempting the inconceivable. The artist +never turned his head; and in all his soul’s application to the task his +back quivered, his thin neck, sunk into a deep hollow at the base of the +skull, seemed ready to snap. + +Mr Verloc, after a grunt of disapproving surprise, returned to the sofa. +Alexander Ossipon got up, tall in his threadbare blue serge suit under +the low ceiling, shook off the stiffness of long immobility, and strolled +away into the kitchen (down two steps) to look over Stevie’s shoulder. +He came back, pronouncing oracularly: “Very good. Very characteristic, +perfectly typical.” + +“What’s very good?” grunted inquiringly Mr Verloc, settled again in the +corner of the sofa. The other explained his meaning negligently, with a +shade of condescension and a toss of his head towards the kitchen: + +“Typical of this form of degeneracy—these drawings, I mean.” + +“You would call that lad a degenerate, would you?” mumbled Mr Verloc. + +Comrade Alexander Ossipon—nicknamed the Doctor, ex-medical student +without a degree; afterwards wandering lecturer to working-men’s +associations upon the socialistic aspects of hygiene; author of a popular +quasi-medical study (in the form of a cheap pamphlet seized promptly by +the police) entitled “The Corroding Vices of the Middle Classes”; special +delegate of the more or less mysterious Red Committee, together with Karl +Yundt and Michaelis for the work of literary propaganda—turned upon the +obscure familiar of at least two Embassies that glance of insufferable, +hopelessly dense sufficiency which nothing but the frequentation of +science can give to the dulness of common mortals. + +“That’s what he may be called scientifically. Very good type too, +altogether, of that sort of degenerate. It’s enough to glance at the +lobes of his ears. If you read Lombroso—” + +Mr Verloc, moody and spread largely on the sofa, continued to look down +the row of his waistcoat buttons; but his cheeks became tinged by a faint +blush. Of late even the merest derivative of the word science (a term in +itself inoffensive and of indefinite meaning) had the curious power of +evoking a definitely offensive mental vision of Mr Vladimir, in his body +as he lived, with an almost supernatural clearness. And this phenomenon, +deserving justly to be classed amongst the marvels of science, induced in +Mr Verloc an emotional state of dread and exasperation tending to express +itself in violent swearing. But he said nothing. It was Karl Yundt who +was heard, implacable to his last breath. + +“Lombroso is an ass.” + +Comrade Ossipon met the shock of this blasphemy by an awful, vacant +stare. And the other, his extinguished eyes without gleams blackening +the deep shadows under the great, bony forehead, mumbled, catching the +tip of his tongue between his lips at every second word as though he were +chewing it angrily: + +“Did you ever see such an idiot? For him the criminal is the prisoner. +Simple, is it not? What about those who shut him up there—forced him in +there? Exactly. Forced him in there. And what is crime? Does he know +that, this imbecile who has made his way in this world of gorged fools by +looking at the ears and teeth of a lot of poor, luckless devils? Teeth +and ears mark the criminal? Do they? And what about the law that marks +him still better—the pretty branding instrument invented by the overfed +to protect themselves against the hungry? Red-hot applications on their +vile skins—hey? Can’t you smell and hear from here the thick hide of the +people burn and sizzle? That’s how criminals are made for your Lombrosos +to write their silly stuff about.” + +The knob of his stick and his legs shook together with passion, whilst +the trunk, draped in the wings of the havelock, preserved his historic +attitude of defiance. He seemed to sniff the tainted air of social +cruelty, to strain his ear for its atrocious sounds. There was an +extraordinary force of suggestion in this posturing. The all but +moribund veteran of dynamite wars had been a great actor in his +time—actor on platforms, in secret assemblies, in private interviews. +The famous terrorist had never in his life raised personally as much as +his little finger against the social edifice. He was no man of action; +he was not even an orator of torrential eloquence, sweeping the masses +along in the rushing noise and foam of a great enthusiasm. With a more +subtle intention, he took the part of an insolent and venomous evoker of +sinister impulses which lurk in the blind envy and exasperated vanity of +ignorance, in the suffering and misery of poverty, in all the hopeful and +noble illusions of righteous anger, pity, and revolt. The shadow of his +evil gift clung to him yet like the smell of a deadly drug in an old vial +of poison, emptied now, useless, ready to be thrown away upon the +rubbish-heap of things that had served their time. + +Michaelis, the ticket-of-leave apostle, smiled vaguely with his glued +lips; his pasty moon face drooped under the weight of melancholy assent. +He had been a prisoner himself. His own skin had sizzled under the +red-hot brand, he murmured softly. But Comrade Ossipon, nicknamed the +Doctor, had got over the shock by that time. + +“You don’t understand,” he began disdainfully, but stopped short, +intimidated by the dead blackness of the cavernous eyes in the face +turned slowly towards him with a blind stare, as if guided only by the +sound. He gave the discussion up, with a slight shrug of the shoulders. + +Stevie, accustomed to move about disregarded, had got up from the kitchen +table, carrying off his drawing to bed with him. He had reached the +parlour door in time to receive in full the shock of Karl Yundt’s +eloquent imagery. The sheet of paper covered with circles dropped out of +his fingers, and he remained staring at the old terrorist, as if rooted +suddenly to the spot by his morbid horror and dread of physical pain. +Stevie knew very well that hot iron applied to one’s skin hurt very much. +His scared eyes blazed with indignation: it would hurt terribly. His +mouth dropped open. + +Michaelis by staring unwinkingly at the fire had regained that sentiment +of isolation necessary for the continuity of his thought. His optimism +had begun to flow from his lips. He saw Capitalism doomed in its cradle, +born with the poison of the principle of competition in its system. The +great capitalists devouring the little capitalists, concentrating the +power and the tools of production in great masses, perfecting industrial +processes, and in the madness of self-aggrandisement only preparing, +organising, enriching, making ready the lawful inheritance of the +suffering proletariat. Michaelis pronounced the great word +“Patience”—and his clear blue glance, raised to the low ceiling of Mr +Verloc’s parlour, had a character of seraphic trustfulness. In the +doorway Stevie, calmed, seemed sunk in hebetude. + +Comrade Ossipon’s face twitched with exasperation. + +“Then it’s no use doing anything—no use whatever.” + +“I don’t say that,” protested Michaelis gently. His vision of truth had +grown so intense that the sound of a strange voice failed to rout it this +time. He continued to look down at the red coals. Preparation for the +future was necessary, and he was willing to admit that the great change +would perhaps come in the upheaval of a revolution. But he argued that +revolutionary propaganda was a delicate work of high conscience. It was +the education of the masters of the world. It should be as careful as +the education given to kings. He would have it advance its tenets +cautiously, even timidly, in our ignorance of the effect that may be +produced by any given economic change upon the happiness, the morals, the +intellect, the history of mankind. For history is made with tools, not +with ideas; and everything is changed by economic conditions—art, +philosophy, love, virtue—truth itself! + +The coals in the grate settled down with a slight crash; and Michaelis, +the hermit of visions in the desert of a penitentiary, got up +impetuously. Round like a distended balloon, he opened his short, thick +arms, as if in a pathetically hopeless attempt to embrace and hug to his +breast a self-regenerated universe. He gasped with ardour. + +“The future is as certain as the past—slavery, feudalism, individualism, +collectivism. This is the statement of a law, not an empty prophecy.” + +The disdainful pout of Comrade Ossipon’s thick lips accentuated the negro +type of his face. + +“Nonsense,” he said calmly enough. “There is no law and no certainty. +The teaching propaganda be hanged. What the people knows does not +matter, were its knowledge ever so accurate. The only thing that matters +to us is the emotional state of the masses. Without emotion there is no +action.” + +He paused, then added with modest firmness: + +“I am speaking now to you scientifically—scientifically—Eh? What did you +say, Verloc?” + +“Nothing,” growled from the sofa Mr Verloc, who, provoked by the +abhorrent sound, had merely muttered a “Damn.” + +The venomous spluttering of the old terrorist without teeth was heard. + +“Do you know how I would call the nature of the present economic +conditions? I would call it cannibalistic. That’s what it is! They are +nourishing their greed on the quivering flesh and the warm blood of the +people—nothing else.” + +Stevie swallowed the terrifying statement with an audible gulp, and at +once, as though it had been swift poison, sank limply in a sitting +posture on the steps of the kitchen door. + +Michaelis gave no sign of having heard anything. His lips seemed glued +together for good; not a quiver passed over his heavy cheeks. With +troubled eyes he looked for his round, hard hat, and put it on his round +head. His round and obese body seemed to float low between the chairs +under the sharp elbow of Karl Yundt. The old terrorist, raising an +uncertain and clawlike hand, gave a swaggering tilt to a black felt +sombrero shading the hollows and ridges of his wasted face. He got in +motion slowly, striking the floor with his stick at every step. It was +rather an affair to get him out of the house because, now and then, he +would stop, as if to think, and did not offer to move again till impelled +forward by Michaelis. The gentle apostle grasped his arm with brotherly +care; and behind them, his hands in his pockets, the robust Ossipon +yawned vaguely. A blue cap with a patent leather peak set well at the +back of his yellow bush of hair gave him the aspect of a Norwegian sailor +bored with the world after a thundering spree. Mr Verloc saw his guests +off the premises, attending them bareheaded, his heavy overcoat hanging +open, his eyes on the ground. + +He closed the door behind their backs with restrained violence, turned +the key, shot the bolt. He was not satisfied with his friends. In the +light of Mr Vladimir’s philosophy of bomb throwing they appeared +hopelessly futile. The part of Mr Verloc in revolutionary politics +having been to observe, he could not all at once, either in his own home +or in larger assemblies, take the initiative of action. He had to be +cautious. Moved by the just indignation of a man well over forty, +menaced in what is dearest to him—his repose and his security—he asked +himself scornfully what else could have been expected from such a lot, +this Karl Yundt, this Michaelis—this Ossipon. + +Pausing in his intention to turn off the gas burning in the middle of the +shop, Mr Verloc descended into the abyss of moral reflections. With the +insight of a kindred temperament he pronounced his verdict. A lazy +lot—this Karl Yundt, nursed by a blear-eyed old woman, a woman he had +years ago enticed away from a friend, and afterwards had tried more than +once to shake off into the gutter. Jolly lucky for Yundt that she had +persisted in coming up time after time, or else there would have been no +one now to help him out of the ’bus by the Green Park railings, where +that spectre took its constitutional crawl every fine morning. When that +indomitable snarling old witch died the swaggering spectre would have to +vanish too—there would be an end to fiery Karl Yundt. And Mr Verloc’s +morality was offended also by the optimism of Michaelis, annexed by his +wealthy old lady, who had taken lately to sending him to a cottage she +had in the country. The ex-prisoner could moon about the shady lanes for +days together in a delicious and humanitarian idleness. As to Ossipon, +that beggar was sure to want for nothing as long as there were silly +girls with savings-bank books in the world. And Mr Verloc, +temperamentally identical with his associates, drew fine distinctions in +his mind on the strength of insignificant differences. He drew them with +a certain complacency, because the instinct of conventional +respectability was strong within him, being only overcome by his dislike +of all kinds of recognised labour—a temperamental defect which he shared +with a large proportion of revolutionary reformers of a given social +state. For obviously one does not revolt against the advantages and +opportunities of that state, but against the price which must be paid for +the same in the coin of accepted morality, self-restraint, and toil. The +majority of revolutionists are the enemies of discipline and fatigue +mostly. There are natures too, to whose sense of justice the price +exacted looms up monstrously enormous, odious, oppressive, worrying, +humiliating, extortionate, intolerable. Those are the fanatics. The +remaining portion of social rebels is accounted for by vanity, the mother +of all noble and vile illusions, the companion of poets, reformers, +charlatans, prophets, and incendiaries. + +Lost for a whole minute in the abyss of meditation, Mr Verloc did not +reach the depth of these abstract considerations. Perhaps he was not +able. In any case he had not the time. He was pulled up painfully by +the sudden recollection of Mr Vladimir, another of his associates, whom +in virtue of subtle moral affinities he was capable of judging correctly. +He considered him as dangerous. A shade of envy crept into his thoughts. +Loafing was all very well for these fellows, who knew not Mr Vladimir, +and had women to fall back upon; whereas he had a woman to provide for— + +At this point, by a simple association of ideas, Mr Verloc was brought +face to face with the necessity of going to bed some time or other that +evening. Then why not go now—at once? He sighed. The necessity was not +so normally pleasurable as it ought to have been for a man of his age and +temperament. He dreaded the demon of sleeplessness, which he felt had +marked him for its own. He raised his arm, and turned off the flaring +gas-jet above his head. + +A bright band of light fell through the parlour door into the part of the +shop behind the counter. It enabled Mr Verloc to ascertain at a glance +the number of silver coins in the till. These were but few; and for the +first time since he opened his shop he took a commercial survey of its +value. This survey was unfavourable. He had gone into trade for no +commercial reasons. He had been guided in the selection of this peculiar +line of business by an instinctive leaning towards shady transactions, +where money is picked up easily. Moreover, it did not take him out of +his own sphere—the sphere which is watched by the police. On the +contrary, it gave him a publicly confessed standing in that sphere, and +as Mr Verloc had unconfessed relations which made him familiar with yet +careless of the police, there was a distinct advantage in such a +situation. But as a means of livelihood it was by itself insufficient. + +He took the cash-box out of the drawer, and turning to leave the shop, +became aware that Stevie was still downstairs. + +What on earth is he doing there? Mr Verloc asked himself. What’s the +meaning of these antics? He looked dubiously at his brother-in-law, but +he did not ask him for information. Mr Verloc’s intercourse with Stevie +was limited to the casual mutter of a morning, after breakfast, “My +boots,” and even that was more a communication at large of a need than a +direct order or request. Mr Verloc perceived with some surprise that he +did not know really what to say to Stevie. He stood still in the middle +of the parlour, and looked into the kitchen in silence. Nor yet did he +know what would happen if he did say anything. And this appeared very +queer to Mr Verloc in view of the fact, borne upon him suddenly, that he +had to provide for this fellow too. He had never given a moment’s +thought till then to that aspect of Stevie’s existence. + +Positively he did not know how to speak to the lad. He watched him +gesticulating and murmuring in the kitchen. Stevie prowled round the +table like an excited animal in a cage. A tentative “Hadn’t you better +go to bed now?” produced no effect whatever; and Mr Verloc, abandoning +the stony contemplation of his brother-in-law’s behaviour, crossed the +parlour wearily, cash-box in hand. The cause of the general lassitude he +felt while climbing the stairs being purely mental, he became alarmed by +its inexplicable character. He hoped he was not sickening for anything. +He stopped on the dark landing to examine his sensations. But a slight +and continuous sound of snoring pervading the obscurity interfered with +their clearness. The sound came from his mother-in-law’s room. Another +one to provide for, he thought—and on this thought walked into the +bedroom. + +Mrs Verloc had fallen asleep with the lamp (no gas was laid upstairs) +turned up full on the table by the side of the bed. The light thrown +down by the shade fell dazzlingly on the white pillow sunk by the weight +of her head reposing with closed eyes and dark hair done up in several +plaits for the night. She woke up with the sound of her name in her +ears, and saw her husband standing over her. + +“Winnie! Winnie!” + +At first she did not stir, lying very quiet and looking at the cash-box +in Mr Verloc’s hand. But when she understood that her brother was +“capering all over the place downstairs” she swung out in one sudden +movement on to the edge of the bed. Her bare feet, as if poked through +the bottom of an unadorned, sleeved calico sack buttoned tightly at neck +and wrists, felt over the rug for the slippers while she looked upward +into her husband’s face. + +“I don’t know how to manage him,” Mr Verloc explained peevishly. “Won’t +do to leave him downstairs alone with the lights.” + +She said nothing, glided across the room swiftly, and the door closed +upon her white form. + +Mr Verloc deposited the cash-box on the night table, and began the +operation of undressing by flinging his overcoat on to a distant chair. +His coat and waistcoat followed. He walked about the room in his +stockinged feet, and his burly figure, with the hands worrying nervously +at his throat, passed and repassed across the long strip of looking-glass +in the door of his wife’s wardrobe. Then after slipping his braces off +his shoulders he pulled up violently the venetian blind, and leaned his +forehead against the cold window-pane—a fragile film of glass stretched +between him and the enormity of cold, black, wet, muddy, inhospitable +accumulation of bricks, slates, and stones, things in themselves unlovely +and unfriendly to man. + +Mr Verloc felt the latent unfriendliness of all out of doors with a force +approaching to positive bodily anguish. There is no occupation that +fails a man more completely than that of a secret agent of police. It’s +like your horse suddenly falling dead under you in the midst of an +uninhabited and thirsty plain. The comparison occurred to Mr Verloc +because he had sat astride various army horses in his time, and had now +the sensation of an incipient fall. The prospect was as black as the +window-pane against which he was leaning his forehead. And suddenly the +face of Mr Vladimir, clean-shaved and witty, appeared enhaloed in the +glow of its rosy complexion like a sort of pink seal, impressed on the +fatal darkness. + +This luminous and mutilated vision was so ghastly physically that Mr +Verloc started away from the window, letting down the venetian blind with +a great rattle. Discomposed and speechless with the apprehension of more +such visions, he beheld his wife re-enter the room and get into bed in a +calm business-like manner which made him feel hopelessly lonely in the +world. Mrs Verloc expressed her surprise at seeing him up yet. + +“I don’t feel very well,” he muttered, passing his hands over his moist +brow. + +“Giddiness?” + +“Yes. Not at all well.” + +Mrs Verloc, with all the placidity of an experienced wife, expressed a +confident opinion as to the cause, and suggested the usual remedies; but +her husband, rooted in the middle of the room, shook his lowered head +sadly. + +“You’ll catch cold standing there,” she observed. + +Mr Verloc made an effort, finished undressing, and got into bed. Down +below in the quiet, narrow street measured footsteps approached the +house, then died away unhurried and firm, as if the passer-by had started +to pace out all eternity, from gas-lamp to gas-lamp in a night without +end; and the drowsy ticking of the old clock on the landing became +distinctly audible in the bedroom. + +Mrs Verloc, on her back, and staring at the ceiling, made a remark. + +“Takings very small to-day.” + +Mr Verloc, in the same position, cleared his throat as if for an +important statement, but merely inquired: + +“Did you turn off the gas downstairs?” + +“Yes; I did,” answered Mrs Verloc conscientiously. “That poor boy is in +a very excited state to-night,” she murmured, after a pause which lasted +for three ticks of the clock. + +Mr Verloc cared nothing for Stevie’s excitement, but he felt horribly +wakeful, and dreaded facing the darkness and silence that would follow +the extinguishing of the lamp. This dread led him to make the remark +that Stevie had disregarded his suggestion to go to bed. Mrs Verloc, +falling into the trap, started to demonstrate at length to her husband +that this was not “impudence” of any sort, but simply “excitement.” +There was no young man of his age in London more willing and docile than +Stephen, she affirmed; none more affectionate and ready to please, and +even useful, as long as people did not upset his poor head. Mrs Verloc, +turning towards her recumbent husband, raised herself on her elbow, and +hung over him in her anxiety that he should believe Stevie to be a useful +member of the family. That ardour of protecting compassion exalted +morbidly in her childhood by the misery of another child tinged her +sallow cheeks with a faint dusky blush, made her big eyes gleam under the +dark lids. Mrs Verloc then looked younger; she looked as young as Winnie +used to look, and much more animated than the Winnie of the Belgravian +mansion days had ever allowed herself to appear to gentlemen lodgers. Mr +Verloc’s anxieties had prevented him from attaching any sense to what his +wife was saying. It was as if her voice were talking on the other side +of a very thick wall. It was her aspect that recalled him to himself. + +He appreciated this woman, and the sentiment of this appreciation, +stirred by a display of something resembling emotion, only added another +pang to his mental anguish. When her voice ceased he moved uneasily, and +said: + +“I haven’t been feeling well for the last few days.” + +He might have meant this as an opening to a complete confidence; but Mrs +Verloc laid her head on the pillow again, and staring upward, went on: + +“That boy hears too much of what is talked about here. If I had known +they were coming to-night I would have seen to it that he went to bed at +the same time I did. He was out of his mind with something he overheard +about eating people’s flesh and drinking blood. What’s the good of +talking like that?” + +There was a note of indignant scorn in her voice. Mr Verloc was fully +responsive now. + +“Ask Karl Yundt,” he growled savagely. + +Mrs Verloc, with great decision, pronounced Karl Yundt “a disgusting old +man.” She declared openly her affection for Michaelis. Of the robust +Ossipon, in whose presence she always felt uneasy behind an attitude of +stony reserve, she said nothing whatever. And continuing to talk of that +brother, who had been for so many years an object of care and fears: + +“He isn’t fit to hear what’s said here. He believes it’s all true. He +knows no better. He gets into his passions over it.” + +Mr Verloc made no comment. + +“He glared at me, as if he didn’t know who I was, when I went downstairs. +His heart was going like a hammer. He can’t help being excitable. I +woke mother up, and asked her to sit with him till he went to sleep. It +isn’t his fault. He’s no trouble when he’s left alone.” + +Mr Verloc made no comment. + +“I wish he had never been to school,” Mrs Verloc began again brusquely. +“He’s always taking away those newspapers from the window to read. He +gets a red face poring over them. We don’t get rid of a dozen numbers in +a month. They only take up room in the front window. And Mr Ossipon +brings every week a pile of these F. P. tracts to sell at a halfpenny +each. I wouldn’t give a halfpenny for the whole lot. It’s silly +reading—that’s what it is. There’s no sale for it. The other day Stevie +got hold of one, and there was a story in it of a German soldier officer +tearing half-off the ear of a recruit, and nothing was done to him for +it. The brute! I couldn’t do anything with Stevie that afternoon. The +story was enough, too, to make one’s blood boil. But what’s the use of +printing things like that? We aren’t German slaves here, thank God. +It’s not our business—is it?” + +Mr Verloc made no reply. + +“I had to take the carving knife from the boy,” Mrs Verloc continued, a +little sleepily now. “He was shouting and stamping and sobbing. He +can’t stand the notion of any cruelty. He would have stuck that officer +like a pig if he had seen him then. It’s true, too! Some people don’t +deserve much mercy.” Mrs Verloc’s voice ceased, and the expression of +her motionless eyes became more and more contemplative and veiled during +the long pause. “Comfortable, dear?” she asked in a faint, far-away +voice. “Shall I put out the light now?” + +The dreary conviction that there was no sleep for him held Mr Verloc mute +and hopelessly inert in his fear of darkness. He made a great effort. + +“Yes. Put it out,” he said at last in a hollow tone. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +Most of the thirty or so little tables covered by red cloths with a white +design stood ranged at right angles to the deep brown wainscoting of the +underground hall. Bronze chandeliers with many globes depended from the +low, slightly vaulted ceiling, and the fresco paintings ran flat and dull +all round the walls without windows, representing scenes of the chase and +of outdoor revelry in mediæval costumes. Varlets in green jerkins +brandished hunting knives and raised on high tankards of foaming beer. + +“Unless I am very much mistaken, you are the man who would know the +inside of this confounded affair,” said the robust Ossipon, leaning over, +his elbows far out on the table and his feet tucked back completely under +his chair. His eyes stared with wild eagerness. + +An upright semi-grand piano near the door, flanked by two palms in pots, +executed suddenly all by itself a valse tune with aggressive virtuosity. +The din it raised was deafening. When it ceased, as abruptly as it had +started, the be-spectacled, dingy little man who faced Ossipon behind a +heavy glass mug full of beer emitted calmly what had the sound of a +general proposition. + +“In principle what one of us may or may not know as to any given fact +can’t be a matter for inquiry to the others.” + +“Certainly not,” Comrade Ossipon agreed in a quiet undertone. “In +principle.” + +With his big florid face held between his hands he continued to stare +hard, while the dingy little man in spectacles coolly took a drink of +beer and stood the glass mug back on the table. His flat, large ears +departed widely from the sides of his skull, which looked frail enough +for Ossipon to crush between thumb and forefinger; the dome of the +forehead seemed to rest on the rim of the spectacles; the flat cheeks, of +a greasy, unhealthy complexion, were merely smudged by the miserable +poverty of a thin dark whisker. The lamentable inferiority of the whole +physique was made ludicrous by the supremely self-confident bearing of +the individual. His speech was curt, and he had a particularly +impressive manner of keeping silent. + +Ossipon spoke again from between his hands in a mutter. + +“Have you been out much to-day?” + +“No. I stayed in bed all the morning,” answered the other. “Why?” + +“Oh! Nothing,” said Ossipon, gazing earnestly and quivering inwardly +with the desire to find out something, but obviously intimidated by the +little man’s overwhelming air of unconcern. When talking with this +comrade—which happened but rarely—the big Ossipon suffered from a sense +of moral and even physical insignificance. However, he ventured another +question. “Did you walk down here?” + +“No; omnibus,” the little man answered readily enough. He lived far away +in Islington, in a small house down a shabby street, littered with straw +and dirty paper, where out of school hours a troop of assorted children +ran and squabbled with a shrill, joyless, rowdy clamour. His single back +room, remarkable for having an extremely large cupboard, he rented +furnished from two elderly spinsters, dressmakers in a humble way with a +clientele of servant girls mostly. He had a heavy padlock put on the +cupboard, but otherwise he was a model lodger, giving no trouble, and +requiring practically no attendance. His oddities were that he insisted +on being present when his room was being swept, and that when he went out +he locked his door, and took the key away with him. + +Ossipon had a vision of these round black-rimmed spectacles progressing +along the streets on the top of an omnibus, their self-confident glitter +falling here and there on the walls of houses or lowered upon the heads +of the unconscious stream of people on the pavements. The ghost of a +sickly smile altered the set of Ossipon’s thick lips at the thought of +the walls nodding, of people running for life at the sight of those +spectacles. If they had only known! What a panic! He murmured +interrogatively: “Been sitting long here?” + +“An hour or more,” answered the other negligently, and took a pull at the +dark beer. All his movements—the way he grasped the mug, the act of +drinking, the way he set the heavy glass down and folded his arms—had a +firmness, an assured precision which made the big and muscular Ossipon, +leaning forward with staring eyes and protruding lips, look the picture +of eager indecision. + +“An hour,” he said. “Then it may be you haven’t heard yet the news I’ve +heard just now—in the street. Have you?” + +The little man shook his head negatively the least bit. But as he gave +no indication of curiosity Ossipon ventured to add that he had heard it +just outside the place. A newspaper boy had yelled the thing under his +very nose, and not being prepared for anything of that sort, he was very +much startled and upset. He had to come in there with a dry mouth. “I +never thought of finding you here,” he added, murmuring steadily, with +his elbows planted on the table. + +“I come here sometimes,” said the other, preserving his provoking +coolness of demeanour. + +“It’s wonderful that you of all people should have heard nothing of it,” +the big Ossipon continued. His eyelids snapped nervously upon the +shining eyes. “You of all people,” he repeated tentatively. This +obvious restraint argued an incredible and inexplicable timidity of the +big fellow before the calm little man, who again lifted the glass mug, +drank, and put it down with brusque and assured movements. And that was +all. + +Ossipon after waiting for something, word or sign, that did not come, +made an effort to assume a sort of indifference. + +“Do you,” he said, deadening his voice still more, “give your stuff to +anybody who’s up to asking you for it?” + +“My absolute rule is never to refuse anybody—as long as I have a pinch by +me,” answered the little man with decision. + +“That’s a principle?” commented Ossipon. + +“It’s a principle.” + +“And you think it’s sound?” + +The large round spectacles, which gave a look of staring self-confidence +to the sallow face, confronted Ossipon like sleepless, unwinking orbs +flashing a cold fire. + +“Perfectly. Always. Under every circumstance. What could stop me? Why +should I not? Why should I think twice about it?” + +Ossipon gasped, as it were, discreetly. + +“Do you mean to say you would hand it over to a ‘teck’ if one came to ask +you for your wares?” + +The other smiled faintly. + +“Let them come and try it on, and you will see,” he said. “They know me, +but I know also every one of them. They won’t come near me—not they.” + +His thin livid lips snapped together firmly. Ossipon began to argue. + +“But they could send someone—rig a plant on you. Don’t you see? Get the +stuff from you in that way, and then arrest you with the proof in their +hands.” + +“Proof of what? Dealing in explosives without a licence perhaps.” This +was meant for a contemptuous jeer, though the expression of the thin, +sickly face remained unchanged, and the utterance was negligent. “I +don’t think there’s one of them anxious to make that arrest. I don’t +think they could get one of them to apply for a warrant. I mean one of +the best. Not one.” + +“Why?” Ossipon asked. + +“Because they know very well I take care never to part with the last +handful of my wares. I’ve it always by me.” He touched the breast of +his coat lightly. “In a thick glass flask,” he added. + +“So I have been told,” said Ossipon, with a shade of wonder in his voice. +“But I didn’t know if—” + +“They know,” interrupted the little man crisply, leaning against the +straight chair back, which rose higher than his fragile head. “I shall +never be arrested. The game isn’t good enough for any policeman of them +all. To deal with a man like me you require sheer, naked, inglorious +heroism.” Again his lips closed with a self-confident snap. Ossipon +repressed a movement of impatience. + +“Or recklessness—or simply ignorance,” he retorted. “They’ve only to get +somebody for the job who does not know you carry enough stuff in your +pocket to blow yourself and everything within sixty yards of you to +pieces.” + +“I never affirmed I could not be eliminated,” rejoined the other. “But +that wouldn’t be an arrest. Moreover, it’s not so easy as it looks.” + +“Bah!” Ossipon contradicted. “Don’t be too sure of that. What’s to +prevent half-a-dozen of them jumping upon you from behind in the street? +With your arms pinned to your sides you could do nothing—could you?” + +“Yes; I could. I am seldom out in the streets after dark,” said the +little man impassively, “and never very late. I walk always with my +right hand closed round the india-rubber ball which I have in my trouser +pocket. The pressing of this ball actuates a detonator inside the flask +I carry in my pocket. It’s the principle of the pneumatic instantaneous +shutter for a camera lens. The tube leads up—” + +With a swift disclosing gesture he gave Ossipon a glimpse of an +india-rubber tube, resembling a slender brown worm, issuing from the +armhole of his waistcoat and plunging into the inner breast pocket of his +jacket. His clothes, of a nondescript brown mixture, were threadbare and +marked with stains, dusty in the folds, with ragged button-holes. “The +detonator is partly mechanical, partly chemical,” he explained, with +casual condescension. + +“It is instantaneous, of course?” murmured Ossipon, with a slight +shudder. + +“Far from it,” confessed the other, with a reluctance which seemed to +twist his mouth dolorously. “A full twenty seconds must elapse from the +moment I press the ball till the explosion takes place.” + +“Phew!” whistled Ossipon, completely appalled. “Twenty seconds! +Horrors! You mean to say that you could face that? I should go crazy—” + +“Wouldn’t matter if you did. Of course, it’s the weak point of this +special system, which is only for my own use. The worst is that the +manner of exploding is always the weak point with us. I am trying to +invent a detonator that would adjust itself to all conditions of action, +and even to unexpected changes of conditions. A variable and yet +perfectly precise mechanism. A really intelligent detonator.” + +“Twenty seconds,” muttered Ossipon again. “Ough! And then—” + +With a slight turn of the head the glitter of the spectacles seemed to +gauge the size of the beer saloon in the basement of the renowned Silenus +Restaurant. + +“Nobody in this room could hope to escape,” was the verdict of that +survey. “Nor yet this couple going up the stairs now.” + +The piano at the foot of the staircase clanged through a mazurka with +brazen impetuosity, as though a vulgar and impudent ghost were showing +off. The keys sank and rose mysteriously. Then all became still. For a +moment Ossipon imagined the overlighted place changed into a dreadful +black hole belching horrible fumes choked with ghastly rubbish of smashed +brickwork and mutilated corpses. He had such a distinct perception of +ruin and death that he shuddered again. The other observed, with an air +of calm sufficiency: + +“In the last instance it is character alone that makes for one’s safety. +There are very few people in the world whose character is as well +established as mine.” + +“I wonder how you managed it,” growled Ossipon. + +“Force of personality,” said the other, without raising his voice; and +coming from the mouth of that obviously miserable organism the assertion +caused the robust Ossipon to bite his lower lip. “Force of personality,” +he repeated, with ostentatious calm. “I have the means to make myself +deadly, but that by itself, you understand, is absolutely nothing in the +way of protection. What is effective is the belief those people have in +my will to use the means. That’s their impression. It is absolute. +Therefore I am deadly.” + +“There are individuals of character amongst that lot too,” muttered +Ossipon ominously. + +“Possibly. But it is a matter of degree obviously, since, for instance, +I am not impressed by them. Therefore they are inferior. They cannot be +otherwise. Their character is built upon conventional morality. It +leans on the social order. Mine stands free from everything artificial. +They are bound in all sorts of conventions. They depend on life, which, +in this connection, is a historical fact surrounded by all sorts of +restraints and considerations, a complex organised fact open to attack at +every point; whereas I depend on death, which knows no restraint and +cannot be attacked. My superiority is evident.” + +“This is a transcendental way of putting it,” said Ossipon, watching the +cold glitter of the round spectacles. “I’ve heard Karl Yundt say much +the same thing not very long ago.” + +“Karl Yundt,” mumbled the other contemptuously, “the delegate of the +International Red Committee, has been a posturing shadow all his life. +There are three of you delegates, aren’t there? I won’t define the other +two, as you are one of them. But what you say means nothing. You are +the worthy delegates for revolutionary propaganda, but the trouble is not +only that you are as unable to think independently as any respectable +grocer or journalist of them all, but that you have no character +whatever.” + +Ossipon could not restrain a start of indignation. + +“But what do you want from us?” he exclaimed in a deadened voice. “What +is it you are after yourself?” + +“A perfect detonator,” was the peremptory answer. “What are you making +that face for? You see, you can’t even bear the mention of something +conclusive.” + +“I am not making a face,” growled the annoyed Ossipon bearishly. + +“You revolutionists,” the other continued, with leisurely +self-confidence, “are the slaves of the social convention, which is +afraid of you; slaves of it as much as the very police that stands up in +the defence of that convention. Clearly you are, since you want to +revolutionise it. It governs your thought, of course, and your action +too, and thus neither your thought nor your action can ever be +conclusive.” He paused, tranquil, with that air of close, endless +silence, then almost immediately went on. “You are not a bit better than +the forces arrayed against you—than the police, for instance. The other +day I came suddenly upon Chief Inspector Heat at the corner of Tottenham +Court Road. He looked at me very steadily. But I did not look at him. +Why should I give him more than a glance? He was thinking of many +things—of his superiors, of his reputation, of the law courts, of his +salary, of newspapers—of a hundred things. But I was thinking of my +perfect detonator only. He meant nothing to me. He was as insignificant +as—I can’t call to mind anything insignificant enough to compare him +with—except Karl Yundt perhaps. Like to like. The terrorist and the +policeman both come from the same basket. Revolution, legality—counter +moves in the same game; forms of idleness at bottom identical. He plays +his little game—so do you propagandists. But I don’t play; I work +fourteen hours a day, and go hungry sometimes. My experiments cost money +now and again, and then I must do without food for a day or two. You’re +looking at my beer. Yes. I have had two glasses already, and shall have +another presently. This is a little holiday, and I celebrate it alone. +Why not? I’ve the grit to work alone, quite alone, absolutely alone. +I’ve worked alone for years.” + +Ossipon’s face had turned dusky red. + +“At the perfect detonator—eh?” he sneered, very low. + +“Yes,” retorted the other. “It is a good definition. You couldn’t find +anything half so precise to define the nature of your activity with all +your committees and delegations. It is I who am the true propagandist.” + +“We won’t discuss that point,” said Ossipon, with an air of rising above +personal considerations. “I am afraid I’ll have to spoil your holiday +for you, though. There’s a man blown up in Greenwich Park this morning.” + +“How do you know?” + +“They have been yelling the news in the streets since two o’clock. I +bought the paper, and just ran in here. Then I saw you sitting at this +table. I’ve got it in my pocket now.” + +He pulled the newspaper out. It was a good-sized rosy sheet, as if +flushed by the warmth of its own convictions, which were optimistic. He +scanned the pages rapidly. + +“Ah! Here it is. Bomb in Greenwich Park. There isn’t much so far. +Half-past eleven. Foggy morning. Effects of explosion felt as far as +Romney Road and Park Place. Enormous hole in the ground under a tree +filled with smashed roots and broken branches. All round fragments of a +man’s body blown to pieces. That’s all. The rest’s mere newspaper gup. +No doubt a wicked attempt to blow up the Observatory, they say. H’m. +That’s hardly credible.” + +He looked at the paper for a while longer in silence, then passed it to +the other, who after gazing abstractedly at the print laid it down +without comment. + +It was Ossipon who spoke first—still resentful. + +“The fragments of only _one_ man, you note. Ergo: blew _himself_ up. +That spoils your day off for you—don’t it? Were you expecting that sort +of move? I hadn’t the slightest idea—not the ghost of a notion of +anything of the sort being planned to come off here—in this country. +Under the present circumstances it’s nothing short of criminal.” + +The little man lifted his thin black eyebrows with dispassionate scorn. + +“Criminal! What is that? What _is_ crime? What can be the meaning of +such an assertion?” + +“How am I to express myself? One must use the current words,” said +Ossipon impatiently. “The meaning of this assertion is that this +business may affect our position very adversely in this country. Isn’t +that crime enough for you? I am convinced you have been giving away some +of your stuff lately.” + +Ossipon stared hard. The other, without flinching, lowered and raised +his head slowly. + +“You have!” burst out the editor of the F. P. leaflets in an intense +whisper. “No! And are you really handing it over at large like this, +for the asking, to the first fool that comes along?” + +“Just so! The condemned social order has not been built up on paper and +ink, and I don’t fancy that a combination of paper and ink will ever put +an end to it, whatever you may think. Yes, I would give the stuff with +both hands to every man, woman, or fool that likes to come along. I know +what you are thinking about. But I am not taking my cue from the Red +Committee. I would see you all hounded out of here, or arrested—or +beheaded for that matter—without turning a hair. What happens to us as +individuals is not of the least consequence.” + +He spoke carelessly, without heat, almost without feeling, and Ossipon, +secretly much affected, tried to copy this detachment. + +“If the police here knew their business they would shoot you full of +holes with revolvers, or else try to sand-bag you from behind in broad +daylight.” + +The little man seemed already to have considered that point of view in +his dispassionate self-confident manner. + +“Yes,” he assented with the utmost readiness. “But for that they would +have to face their own institutions. Do you see? That requires uncommon +grit. Grit of a special kind.” + +Ossipon blinked. + +“I fancy that’s exactly what would happen to you if you were to set up +your laboratory in the States. They don’t stand on ceremony with their +institutions there.” + +“I am not likely to go and see. Otherwise your remark is just,” admitted +the other. “They have more character over there, and their character is +essentially anarchistic. Fertile ground for us, the States—very good +ground. The great Republic has the root of the destructive matter in +her. The collective temperament is lawless. Excellent. They may shoot +us down, but—” + +“You are too transcendental for me,” growled Ossipon, with moody concern. + +“Logical,” protested the other. “There are several kinds of logic. This +is the enlightened kind. America is all right. It is this country that +is dangerous, with her idealistic conception of legality. The social +spirit of this people is wrapped up in scrupulous prejudices, and that is +fatal to our work. You talk of England being our only refuge! So much +the worse. Capua! What do we want with refuges? Here you talk, print, +plot, and do nothing. I daresay it’s very convenient for such Karl +Yundts.” + +He shrugged his shoulders slightly, then added with the same leisurely +assurance: “To break up the superstition and worship of legality should +be our aim. Nothing would please me more than to see Inspector Heat and +his likes take to shooting us down in broad daylight with the approval of +the public. Half our battle would be won then; the disintegration of the +old morality would have set in in its very temple. That is what you +ought to aim at. But you revolutionists will never understand that. You +plan the future, you lose yourselves in reveries of economical systems +derived from what is; whereas what’s wanted is a clean sweep and a clear +start for a new conception of life. That sort of future will take care +of itself if you will only make room for it. Therefore I would shovel my +stuff in heaps at the corners of the streets if I had enough for that; +and as I haven’t, I do my best by perfecting a really dependable +detonator.” + +Ossipon, who had been mentally swimming in deep waters, seized upon the +last word as if it were a saving plank. + +“Yes. Your detonators. I shouldn’t wonder if it weren’t one of your +detonators that made a clean sweep of the man in the park.” + +A shade of vexation darkened the determined sallow face confronting +Ossipon. + +“My difficulty consists precisely in experimenting practically with the +various kinds. They must be tried after all. Besides—” + +Ossipon interrupted. + +“Who could that fellow be? I assure you that we in London had no +knowledge—Couldn’t you describe the person you gave the stuff to?” + +The other turned his spectacles upon Ossipon like a pair of searchlights. + +“Describe him,” he repeated slowly. “I don’t think there can be the +slightest objection now. I will describe him to you in one word—Verloc.” + +Ossipon, whom curiosity had lifted a few inches off his seat, dropped +back, as if hit in the face. + +“Verloc! Impossible.” + +The self-possessed little man nodded slightly once. + +“Yes. He’s the person. You can’t say that in this case I was giving my +stuff to the first fool that came along. He was a prominent member of +the group as far as I understand.” + +“Yes,” said Ossipon. “Prominent. No, not exactly. He was the centre +for general intelligence, and usually received comrades coming over here. +More useful than important. Man of no ideas. Years ago he used to speak +at meetings—in France, I believe. Not very well, though. He was trusted +by such men as Latorre, Moser and all that old lot. The only talent he +showed really was his ability to elude the attentions of the police +somehow. Here, for instance, he did not seem to be looked after very +closely. He was regularly married, you know. I suppose it’s with her +money that he started that shop. Seemed to make it pay, too.” + +Ossipon paused abruptly, muttered to himself “I wonder what that woman +will do now?” and fell into thought. + +The other waited with ostentatious indifference. His parentage was +obscure, and he was generally known only by his nickname of Professor. +His title to that designation consisted in his having been once assistant +demonstrator in chemistry at some technical institute. He quarrelled +with the authorities upon a question of unfair treatment. Afterwards he +obtained a post in the laboratory of a manufactory of dyes. There too he +had been treated with revolting injustice. His struggles, his +privations, his hard work to raise himself in the social scale, had +filled him with such an exalted conviction of his merits that it was +extremely difficult for the world to treat him with justice—the standard +of that notion depending so much upon the patience of the individual. +The Professor had genius, but lacked the great social virtue of +resignation. + +“Intellectually a nonentity,” Ossipon pronounced aloud, abandoning +suddenly the inward contemplation of Mrs Verloc’s bereaved person and +business. “Quite an ordinary personality. You are wrong in not keeping +more in touch with the comrades, Professor,” he added in a reproving +tone. “Did he say anything to you—give you some idea of his intentions? +I hadn’t seen him for a month. It seems impossible that he should be +gone.” + +“He told me it was going to be a demonstration against a building,” said +the Professor. “I had to know that much to prepare the missile. I +pointed out to him that I had hardly a sufficient quantity for a +completely destructive result, but he pressed me very earnestly to do my +best. As he wanted something that could be carried openly in the hand, I +proposed to make use of an old one-gallon copal varnish can I happened to +have by me. He was pleased at the idea. It gave me some trouble, +because I had to cut out the bottom first and solder it on again +afterwards. When prepared for use, the can enclosed a wide-mouthed, +well-corked jar of thick glass packed around with some wet clay and +containing sixteen ounces of X2 green powder. The detonator was +connected with the screw top of the can. It was ingenious—a combination +of time and shock. I explained the system to him. It was a thin tube of +tin enclosing a—” + +Ossipon’s attention had wandered. + +“What do you think has happened?” he interrupted. + +“Can’t tell. Screwed the top on tight, which would make the connection, +and then forgot the time. It was set for twenty minutes. On the other +hand, the time contact being made, a sharp shock would bring about the +explosion at once. He either ran the time too close, or simply let the +thing fall. The contact was made all right—that’s clear to me at any +rate. The system’s worked perfectly. And yet you would think that a +common fool in a hurry would be much more likely to forget to make the +contact altogether. I was worrying myself about that sort of failure +mostly. But there are more kinds of fools than one can guard against. +You can’t expect a detonator to be absolutely fool-proof.” + +He beckoned to a waiter. Ossipon sat rigid, with the abstracted gaze of +mental travail. After the man had gone away with the money he roused +himself, with an air of profound dissatisfaction. + +“It’s extremely unpleasant for me,” he mused. “Karl has been in bed with +bronchitis for a week. There’s an even chance that he will never get up +again. Michaelis’s luxuriating in the country somewhere. A fashionable +publisher has offered him five hundred pounds for a book. It will be a +ghastly failure. He has lost the habit of consecutive thinking in +prison, you know.” + +The Professor on his feet, now buttoning his coat, looked about him with +perfect indifference. + +“What are you going to do?” asked Ossipon wearily. He dreaded the blame +of the Central Red Committee, a body which had no permanent place of +abode, and of whose membership he was not exactly informed. If this +affair eventuated in the stoppage of the modest subsidy allotted to the +publication of the F. P. pamphlets, then indeed he would have to regret +Verloc’s inexplicable folly. + +“Solidarity with the extremest form of action is one thing, and silly +recklessness is another,” he said, with a sort of moody brutality. “I +don’t know what came to Verloc. There’s some mystery there. However, +he’s gone. You may take it as you like, but under the circumstances the +only policy for the militant revolutionary group is to disclaim all +connection with this damned freak of yours. How to make the disclaimer +convincing enough is what bothers me.” + +The little man on his feet, buttoned up and ready to go, was no taller +than the seated Ossipon. He levelled his spectacles at the latter’s face +point-blank. + +“You might ask the police for a testimonial of good conduct. They know +where every one of you slept last night. Perhaps if you asked them they +would consent to publish some sort of official statement.” + +“No doubt they are aware well enough that we had nothing to do with +this,” mumbled Ossipon bitterly. “What they will say is another thing.” +He remained thoughtful, disregarding the short, owlish, shabby figure +standing by his side. “I must lay hands on Michaelis at once, and get +him to speak from his heart at one of our gatherings. The public has a +sort of sentimental regard for that fellow. His name is known. And I am +in touch with a few reporters on the big dailies. What he would say +would be utter bosh, but he has a turn of talk that makes it go down all +the same.” + +“Like treacle,” interjected the Professor, rather low, keeping an +impassive expression. + +The perplexed Ossipon went on communing with himself half audibly, after +the manner of a man reflecting in perfect solitude. + +“Confounded ass! To leave such an imbecile business on my hands. And I +don’t even know if—” + +He sat with compressed lips. The idea of going for news straight to the +shop lacked charm. His notion was that Verloc’s shop might have been +turned already into a police trap. They will be bound to make some +arrests, he thought, with something resembling virtuous indignation, for +the even tenor of his revolutionary life was menaced by no fault of his. +And yet unless he went there he ran the risk of remaining in ignorance of +what perhaps it would be very material for him to know. Then he +reflected that, if the man in the park had been so very much blown to +pieces as the evening papers said, he could not have been identified. +And if so, the police could have no special reason for watching Verloc’s +shop more closely than any other place known to be frequented by marked +anarchists—no more reason, in fact, than for watching the doors of the +Silenus. There would be a lot of watching all round, no matter where he +went. Still— + +“I wonder what I had better do now?” he muttered, taking counsel with +himself. + +A rasping voice at his elbow said, with sedate scorn: + +“Fasten yourself upon the woman for all she’s worth.” + +After uttering these words the Professor walked away from the table. +Ossipon, whom that piece of insight had taken unawares, gave one +ineffectual start, and remained still, with a helpless gaze, as though +nailed fast to the seat of his chair. The lonely piano, without as much +as a music stool to help it, struck a few chords courageously, and +beginning a selection of national airs, played him out at last to the +tune of “Blue Bells of Scotland.” The painfully detached notes grew +faint behind his back while he went slowly upstairs, across the hall, and +into the street. + +In front of the great doorway a dismal row of newspaper sellers standing +clear of the pavement dealt out their wares from the gutter. It was a +raw, gloomy day of the early spring; and the grimy sky, the mud of the +streets, the rags of the dirty men, harmonised excellently with the +eruption of the damp, rubbishy sheets of paper soiled with printers’ ink. +The posters, maculated with filth, garnished like tapestry the sweep of +the curbstone. The trade in afternoon papers was brisk, yet, in +comparison with the swift, constant march of foot traffic, the effect was +of indifference, of a disregarded distribution. Ossipon looked hurriedly +both ways before stepping out into the cross-currents, but the Professor +was already out of sight. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +The Professor had turned into a street to the left, and walked along, +with his head carried rigidly erect, in a crowd whose every individual +almost overtopped his stunted stature. It was vain to pretend to himself +that he was not disappointed. But that was mere feeling; the stoicism of +his thought could not be disturbed by this or any other failure. Next +time, or the time after next, a telling stroke would be +delivered—something really startling—a blow fit to open the first crack +in the imposing front of the great edifice of legal conceptions +sheltering the atrocious injustice of society. Of humble origin, and +with an appearance really so mean as to stand in the way of his +considerable natural abilities, his imagination had been fired early by +the tales of men rising from the depths of poverty to positions of +authority and affluence. The extreme, almost ascetic purity of his +thought, combined with an astounding ignorance of worldly conditions, had +set before him a goal of power and prestige to be attained without the +medium of arts, graces, tact, wealth—by sheer weight of merit alone. On +that view he considered himself entitled to undisputed success. His +father, a delicate dark enthusiast with a sloping forehead, had been an +itinerant and rousing preacher of some obscure but rigid Christian sect—a +man supremely confident in the privileges of his righteousness. In the +son, individualist by temperament, once the science of colleges had +replaced thoroughly the faith of conventicles, this moral attitude +translated itself into a frenzied puritanism of ambition. He nursed it +as something secularly holy. To see it thwarted opened his eyes to the +true nature of the world, whose morality was artificial, corrupt, and +blasphemous. The way of even the most justifiable revolutions is +prepared by personal impulses disguised into creeds. The Professor’s +indignation found in itself a final cause that absolved him from the sin +of turning to destruction as the agent of his ambition. To destroy +public faith in legality was the imperfect formula of his pedantic +fanaticism; but the subconscious conviction that the framework of an +established social order cannot be effectually shattered except by some +form of collective or individual violence was precise and correct. He +was a moral agent—that was settled in his mind. By exercising his agency +with ruthless defiance he procured for himself the appearances of power +and personal prestige. That was undeniable to his vengeful bitterness. +It pacified its unrest; and in their own way the most ardent of +revolutionaries are perhaps doing no more but seeking for peace in common +with the rest of mankind—the peace of soothed vanity, of satisfied +appetites, or perhaps of appeased conscience. + +Lost in the crowd, miserable and undersized, he meditated confidently on +his power, keeping his hand in the left pocket of his trousers, grasping +lightly the india-rubber ball, the supreme guarantee of his sinister +freedom; but after a while he became disagreeably affected by the sight +of the roadway thronged with vehicles and of the pavement crowded with +men and women. He was in a long, straight street, peopled by a mere +fraction of an immense multitude; but all round him, on and on, even to +the limits of the horizon hidden by the enormous piles of bricks, he felt +the mass of mankind mighty in its numbers. They swarmed numerous like +locusts, industrious like ants, thoughtless like a natural force, pushing +on blind and orderly and absorbed, impervious to sentiment, to logic, to +terror too perhaps. + +That was the form of doubt he feared most. Impervious to fear! Often +while walking abroad, when he happened also to come out of himself, he +had such moments of dreadful and sane mistrust of mankind. What if +nothing could move them? Such moments come to all men whose ambition +aims at a direct grasp upon humanity—to artists, politicians, thinkers, +reformers, or saints. A despicable emotional state this, against which +solitude fortifies a superior character; and with severe exultation the +Professor thought of the refuge of his room, with its padlocked cupboard, +lost in a wilderness of poor houses, the hermitage of the perfect +anarchist. In order to reach sooner the point where he could take his +omnibus, he turned brusquely out of the populous street into a narrow and +dusky alley paved with flagstones. On one side the low brick houses had +in their dusty windows the sightless, moribund look of incurable +decay—empty shells awaiting demolition. From the other side life had not +departed wholly as yet. Facing the only gas-lamp yawned the cavern of a +second-hand furniture dealer, where, deep in the gloom of a sort of +narrow avenue winding through a bizarre forest of wardrobes, with an +undergrowth tangle of table legs, a tall pier-glass glimmered like a pool +of water in a wood. An unhappy, homeless couch, accompanied by two +unrelated chairs, stood in the open. The only human being making use of +the alley besides the Professor, coming stalwart and erect from the +opposite direction, checked his swinging pace suddenly. + +“Hallo!” he said, and stood a little on one side watchfully. + +The Professor had already stopped, with a ready half turn which brought +his shoulders very near the other wall. His right hand fell lightly on +the back of the outcast couch, the left remained purposefully plunged +deep in the trousers pocket, and the roundness of the heavy rimmed +spectacles imparted an owlish character to his moody, unperturbed face. + +It was like a meeting in a side corridor of a mansion full of life. The +stalwart man was buttoned up in a dark overcoat, and carried an umbrella. +His hat, tilted back, uncovered a good deal of forehead, which appeared +very white in the dusk. In the dark patches of the orbits the eyeballs +glimmered piercingly. Long, drooping moustaches, the colour of ripe +corn, framed with their points the square block of his shaved chin. + +“I am not looking for you,” he said curtly. + +The Professor did not stir an inch. The blended noises of the enormous +town sank down to an inarticulate low murmur. Chief Inspector Heat of +the Special Crimes Department changed his tone. + +“Not in a hurry to get home?” he asked, with mocking simplicity. + +The unwholesome-looking little moral agent of destruction exulted +silently in the possession of personal prestige, keeping in check this +man armed with the defensive mandate of a menaced society. More +fortunate than Caligula, who wished that the Roman Senate had only one +head for the better satisfaction of his cruel lust, he beheld in that one +man all the forces he had set at defiance: the force of law, property, +oppression, and injustice. He beheld all his enemies, and fearlessly +confronted them all in a supreme satisfaction of his vanity. They stood +perplexed before him as if before a dreadful portent. He gloated +inwardly over the chance of this meeting affirming his superiority over +all the multitude of mankind. + +It was in reality a chance meeting. Chief Inspector Heat had had a +disagreeably busy day since his department received the first telegram +from Greenwich a little before eleven in the morning. First of all, the +fact of the outrage being attempted less than a week after he had assured +a high official that no outbreak of anarchist activity was to be +apprehended was sufficiently annoying. If he ever thought himself safe +in making a statement, it was then. He had made that statement with +infinite satisfaction to himself, because it was clear that the high +official desired greatly to hear that very thing. He had affirmed that +nothing of the sort could even be thought of without the department being +aware of it within twenty-four hours; and he had spoken thus in his +consciousness of being the great expert of his department. He had gone +even so far as to utter words which true wisdom would have kept back. +But Chief Inspector Heat was not very wise—at least not truly so. True +wisdom, which is not certain of anything in this world of contradictions, +would have prevented him from attaining his present position. It would +have alarmed his superiors, and done away with his chances of promotion. +His promotion had been very rapid. + +“There isn’t one of them, sir, that we couldn’t lay our hands on at any +time of night and day. We know what each of them is doing hour by hour,” +he had declared. And the high official had deigned to smile. This was +so obviously the right thing to say for an officer of Chief Inspector +Heat’s reputation that it was perfectly delightful. The high official +believed the declaration, which chimed in with his idea of the fitness of +things. His wisdom was of an official kind, or else he might have +reflected upon a matter not of theory but of experience that in the +close-woven stuff of relations between conspirator and police there occur +unexpected solutions of continuity, sudden holes in space and time. A +given anarchist may be watched inch by inch and minute by minute, but a +moment always comes when somehow all sight and touch of him are lost for +a few hours, during which something (generally an explosion) more or less +deplorable does happen. But the high official, carried away by his sense +of the fitness of things, had smiled, and now the recollection of that +smile was very annoying to Chief Inspector Heat, principal expert in +anarchist procedure. + +This was not the only circumstance whose recollection depressed the usual +serenity of the eminent specialist. There was another dating back only +to that very morning. The thought that when called urgently to his +Assistant Commissioner’s private room he had been unable to conceal his +astonishment was distinctly vexing. His instinct of a successful man had +taught him long ago that, as a general rule, a reputation is built on +manner as much as on achievement. And he felt that his manner when +confronted with the telegram had not been impressive. He had opened his +eyes widely, and had exclaimed “Impossible!” exposing himself thereby to +the unanswerable retort of a finger-tip laid forcibly on the telegram +which the Assistant Commissioner, after reading it aloud, had flung on +the desk. To be crushed, as it were, under the tip of a forefinger was +an unpleasant experience. Very damaging, too! Furthermore, Chief +Inspector Heat was conscious of not having mended matters by allowing +himself to express a conviction. + +“One thing I can tell you at once: none of our lot had anything to do +with this.” + +He was strong in his integrity of a good detective, but he saw now that +an impenetrably attentive reserve towards this incident would have served +his reputation better. On the other hand, he admitted to himself that it +was difficult to preserve one’s reputation if rank outsiders were going +to take a hand in the business. Outsiders are the bane of the police as +of other professions. The tone of the Assistant Commissioner’s remarks +had been sour enough to set one’s teeth on edge. + +And since breakfast Chief Inspector Heat had not managed to get anything +to eat. + +Starting immediately to begin his investigation on the spot, he had +swallowed a good deal of raw, unwholesome fog in the park. Then he had +walked over to the hospital; and when the investigation in Greenwich was +concluded at last he had lost his inclination for food. Not accustomed, +as the doctors are, to examine closely the mangled remains of human +beings, he had been shocked by the sight disclosed to his view when a +waterproof sheet had been lifted off a table in a certain apartment of +the hospital. + +Another waterproof sheet was spread over that table in the manner of a +table-cloth, with the corners turned up over a sort of mound—a heap of +rags, scorched and bloodstained, half concealing what might have been an +accumulation of raw material for a cannibal feast. It required +considerable firmness of mind not to recoil before that sight. Chief +Inspector Heat, an efficient officer of his department, stood his ground, +but for a whole minute he did not advance. A local constable in uniform +cast a sidelong glance, and said, with stolid simplicity: + +“He’s all there. Every bit of him. It was a job.” + +He had been the first man on the spot after the explosion. He mentioned +the fact again. He had seen something like a heavy flash of lightning in +the fog. At that time he was standing at the door of the King William +Street Lodge talking to the keeper. The concussion made him tingle all +over. He ran between the trees towards the Observatory. “As fast as my +legs would carry me,” he repeated twice. + +Chief Inspector Heat, bending forward over the table in a gingerly and +horrified manner, let him run on. The hospital porter and another man +turned down the corners of the cloth, and stepped aside. The Chief +Inspector’s eyes searched the gruesome detail of that heap of mixed +things, which seemed to have been collected in shambles and rag shops. + +“You used a shovel,” he remarked, observing a sprinkling of small gravel, +tiny brown bits of bark, and particles of splintered wood as fine as +needles. + +“Had to in one place,” said the stolid constable. “I sent a keeper to +fetch a spade. When he heard me scraping the ground with it he leaned +his forehead against a tree, and was as sick as a dog.” + +The Chief Inspector, stooping guardedly over the table, fought down the +unpleasant sensation in his throat. The shattering violence of +destruction which had made of that body a heap of nameless fragments +affected his feelings with a sense of ruthless cruelty, though his reason +told him the effect must have been as swift as a flash of lightning. The +man, whoever he was, had died instantaneously; and yet it seemed +impossible to believe that a human body could have reached that state of +disintegration without passing through the pangs of inconceivable agony. +No physiologist, and still less of a metaphysician, Chief Inspector Heat +rose by the force of sympathy, which is a form of fear, above the vulgar +conception of time. Instantaneous! He remembered all he had ever read +in popular publications of long and terrifying dreams dreamed in the +instant of waking; of the whole past life lived with frightful intensity +by a drowning man as his doomed head bobs up, streaming, for the last +time. The inexplicable mysteries of conscious existence beset Chief +Inspector Heat till he evolved a horrible notion that ages of atrocious +pain and mental torture could be contained between two successive winks +of an eye. And meantime the Chief Inspector went on, peering at the +table with a calm face and the slightly anxious attention of an indigent +customer bending over what may be called the by-products of a butcher’s +shop with a view to an inexpensive Sunday dinner. All the time his +trained faculties of an excellent investigator, who scorns no chance of +information, followed the self-satisfied, disjointed loquacity of the +constable. + +“A fair-haired fellow,” the last observed in a placid tone, and paused. +“The old woman who spoke to the sergeant noticed a fair-haired fellow +coming out of Maze Hill Station.” He paused. “And he was a fair-haired +fellow. She noticed two men coming out of the station after the uptrain +had gone on,” he continued slowly. “She couldn’t tell if they were +together. She took no particular notice of the big one, but the other +was a fair, slight chap, carrying a tin varnish can in one hand.” The +constable ceased. + +“Know the woman?” muttered the Chief Inspector, with his eyes fixed on +the table, and a vague notion in his mind of an inquest to be held +presently upon a person likely to remain for ever unknown. + +“Yes. She’s housekeeper to a retired publican, and attends the chapel in +Park Place sometimes,” the constable uttered weightily, and paused, with +another oblique glance at the table. + +Then suddenly: “Well, here he is—all of him I could see. Fair. +Slight—slight enough. Look at that foot there. I picked up the legs +first, one after another. He was that scattered you didn’t know where to +begin.” + +The constable paused; the least flicker of an innocent self-laudatory +smile invested his round face with an infantile expression. + +“Stumbled,” he announced positively. “I stumbled once myself, and +pitched on my head too, while running up. Them roots do stick out all +about the place. Stumbled against the root of a tree and fell, and that +thing he was carrying must have gone off right under his chest, I +expect.” + +The echo of the words “Person unknown” repeating itself in his inner +consciousness bothered the Chief Inspector considerably. He would have +liked to trace this affair back to its mysterious origin for his own +information. He was professionally curious. Before the public he would +have liked to vindicate the efficiency of his department by establishing +the identity of that man. He was a loyal servant. That, however, +appeared impossible. The first term of the problem was unreadable—lacked +all suggestion but that of atrocious cruelty. + +Overcoming his physical repugnance, Chief Inspector Heat stretched out +his hand without conviction for the salving of his conscience, and took +up the least soiled of the rags. It was a narrow strip of velvet with a +larger triangular piece of dark blue cloth hanging from it. He held it +up to his eyes; and the police constable spoke. + +“Velvet collar. Funny the old woman should have noticed the velvet +collar. Dark blue overcoat with a velvet collar, she has told us. He +was the chap she saw, and no mistake. And here he is all complete, +velvet collar and all. I don’t think I missed a single piece as big as a +postage stamp.” + +At this point the trained faculties of the Chief Inspector ceased to hear +the voice of the constable. He moved to one of the windows for better +light. His face, averted from the room, expressed a startled intense +interest while he examined closely the triangular piece of broad-cloth. +By a sudden jerk he detached it, and _only_ after stuffing it into his +pocket turned round to the room, and flung the velvet collar back on the +table— + +“Cover up,” he directed the attendants curtly, without another look, and, +saluted by the constable, carried off his spoil hastily. + +A convenient train whirled him up to town, alone and pondering deeply, in +a third-class compartment. That singed piece of cloth was incredibly +valuable, and he could not defend himself from astonishment at the casual +manner it had come into his possession. It was as if Fate had thrust +that clue into his hands. And after the manner of the average man, whose +ambition is to command events, he began to mistrust such a gratuitous and +accidental success—just because it seemed forced upon him. The practical +value of success depends not a little on the way you look at it. But +Fate looks at nothing. It has no discretion. He no longer considered it +eminently desirable all round to establish publicly the identity of the +man who had blown himself up that morning with such horrible +completeness. But he was not certain of the view his department would +take. A department is to those it employs a complex personality with +ideas and even fads of its own. It depends on the loyal devotion of its +servants, and the devoted loyalty of trusted servants is associated with +a certain amount of affectionate contempt, which keeps it sweet, as it +were. By a benevolent provision of Nature no man is a hero to his valet, +or else the heroes would have to brush their own clothes. Likewise no +department appears perfectly wise to the intimacy of its workers. A +department does not know so much as some of its servants. Being a +dispassionate organism, it can never be perfectly informed. It would not +be good for its efficiency to know too much. Chief Inspector Heat got +out of the train in a state of thoughtfulness entirely untainted with +disloyalty, but not quite free of that jealous mistrust which so often +springs on the ground of perfect devotion, whether to women or to +institutions. + +It was in this mental disposition, physically very empty, but still +nauseated by what he had seen, that he had come upon the Professor. +Under these conditions which make for irascibility in a sound, normal +man, this meeting was specially unwelcome to Chief Inspector Heat. He +had not been thinking of the Professor; he had not been thinking of any +individual anarchist at all. The complexion of that case had somehow +forced upon him the general idea of the absurdity of things human, which +in the abstract is sufficiently annoying to an unphilosophical +temperament, and in concrete instances becomes exasperating beyond +endurance. At the beginning of his career Chief Inspector Heat had been +concerned with the more energetic forms of thieving. He had gained his +spurs in that sphere, and naturally enough had kept for it, after his +promotion to another department, a feeling not very far removed from +affection. Thieving was not a sheer absurdity. It was a form of human +industry, perverse indeed, but still an industry exercised in an +industrious world; it was work undertaken for the same reason as the work +in potteries, in coal mines, in fields, in tool-grinding shops. It was +labour, whose practical difference from the other forms of labour +consisted in the nature of its risk, which did not lie in ankylosis, or +lead poisoning, or fire-damp, or gritty dust, but in what may be briefly +defined in its own special phraseology as “Seven years hard.” Chief +Inspector Heat was, of course, not insensible to the gravity of moral +differences. But neither were the thieves he had been looking after. +They submitted to the severe sanctions of a morality familiar to Chief +Inspector Heat with a certain resignation. + +They were his fellow-citizens gone wrong because of imperfect education, +Chief Inspector Heat believed; but allowing for that difference, he could +understand the mind of a burglar, because, as a matter of fact, the mind +and the instincts of a burglar are of the same kind as the mind and the +instincts of a police officer. Both recognise the same conventions, and +have a working knowledge of each other’s methods and of the routine of +their respective trades. They understand each other, which is +advantageous to both, and establishes a sort of amenity in their +relations. Products of the same machine, one classed as useful and the +other as noxious, they take the machine for granted in different ways, +but with a seriousness essentially the same. The mind of Chief Inspector +Heat was inaccessible to ideas of revolt. But his thieves were not +rebels. His bodily vigour, his cool inflexible manner, his courage and +his fairness, had secured for him much respect and some adulation in the +sphere of his early successes. He had felt himself revered and admired. +And Chief Inspector Heat, arrested within six paces of the anarchist +nick-named the Professor, gave a thought of regret to the world of +thieves—sane, without morbid ideals, working by routine, respectful of +constituted authorities, free from all taint of hate and despair. + +After paying this tribute to what is normal in the constitution of +society (for the idea of thieving appeared to his instinct as normal as +the idea of property), Chief Inspector Heat felt very angry with himself +for having stopped, for having spoken, for having taken that way at all +on the ground of it being a short cut from the station to the +headquarters. And he spoke again in his big authoritative voice, which, +being moderated, had a threatening character. + +“You are not wanted, I tell you,” he repeated. + +The anarchist did not stir. An inward laugh of derision uncovered not +only his teeth but his gums as well, shook him all over, without the +slightest sound. Chief Inspector Heat was led to add, against his better +judgment: + +“Not yet. When I want you I will know where to find you.” + +Those were perfectly proper words, within the tradition and suitable to +his character of a police officer addressing one of his special flock. +But the reception they got departed from tradition and propriety. It was +outrageous. The stunted, weakly figure before him spoke at last. + +“I’ve no doubt the papers would give you an obituary notice then. You +know best what that would be worth to you. I should think you can +imagine easily the sort of stuff that would be printed. But you may be +exposed to the unpleasantness of being buried together with me, though I +suppose your friends would make an effort to sort us out as much as +possible.” + +With all his healthy contempt for the spirit dictating such speeches, the +atrocious allusiveness of the words had its effect on Chief Inspector +Heat. He had too much insight, and too much exact information as well, +to dismiss them as rot. The dusk of this narrow lane took on a sinister +tint from the dark, frail little figure, its back to the wall, and +speaking with a weak, self-confident voice. To the vigorous, tenacious +vitality of the Chief Inspector, the physical wretchedness of that being, +so obviously not fit to live, was ominous; for it seemed to him that if +he had the misfortune to be such a miserable object he would not have +cared how soon he died. Life had such a strong hold upon him that a +fresh wave of nausea broke out in slight perspiration upon his brow. The +murmur of town life, the subdued rumble of wheels in the two invisible +streets to the right and left, came through the curve of the sordid lane +to his ears with a precious familiarity and an appealing sweetness. He +was human. But Chief Inspector Heat was also a man, and he could not let +such words pass. + +“All this is good to frighten children with,” he said. “I’ll have you +yet.” + +It was very well said, without scorn, with an almost austere quietness. + +“Doubtless,” was the answer; “but there’s no time like the present, +believe me. For a man of real convictions this is a fine opportunity of +self-sacrifice. You may not find another so favourable, so humane. +There isn’t even a cat near us, and these condemned old houses would make +a good heap of bricks where you stand. You’ll never get me at so little +cost to life and property, which you are paid to protect.” + +“You don’t know who you’re speaking to,” said Chief Inspector Heat +firmly. “If I were to lay my hands on you now I would be no better than +yourself.” + +“Ah! The game!’ + +“You may be sure our side will win in the end. It may yet be necessary +to make people believe that some of you ought to be shot at sight like +mad dogs. Then that will be the game. But I’ll be damned if I know what +yours is. I don’t believe you know yourselves. You’ll never get +anything by it.” + +“Meantime it’s you who get something from it—so far. And you get it +easily, too. I won’t speak of your salary, but haven’t you made your +name simply by not understanding what we are after?” + +“What are you after, then?” asked Chief Inspector Heat, with scornful +haste, like a man in a hurry who perceives he is wasting his time. + +The perfect anarchist answered by a smile which did not part his thin +colourless lips; and the celebrated Chief Inspector felt a sense of +superiority which induced him to raise a warning finger. + +“Give it up—whatever it is,” he said in an admonishing tone, but not so +kindly as if he were condescending to give good advice to a cracksman of +repute. “Give it up. You’ll find we are too many for you.” + +The fixed smile on the Professor’s lips wavered, as if the mocking spirit +within had lost its assurance. Chief Inspector Heat went on: + +“Don’t you believe me eh? Well, you’ve only got to look about you. We +are. And anyway, you’re not doing it well. You’re always making a mess +of it. Why, if the thieves didn’t know their work better they would +starve.” + +The hint of an invincible multitude behind that man’s back roused a +sombre indignation in the breast of the Professor. He smiled no longer +his enigmatic and mocking smile. The resisting power of numbers, the +unattackable stolidity of a great multitude, was the haunting fear of his +sinister loneliness. His lips trembled for some time before he managed +to say in a strangled voice: + +“I am doing my work better than you’re doing yours.” + +“That’ll do now,” interrupted Chief Inspector Heat hurriedly; and the +Professor laughed right out this time. While still laughing he moved on; +but he did not laugh long. It was a sad-faced, miserable little man who +emerged from the narrow passage into the bustle of the broad +thoroughfare. He walked with the nerveless gait of a tramp going on, +still going on, indifferent to rain or sun in a sinister detachment from +the aspects of sky and earth. Chief Inspector Heat, on the other hand, +after watching him for a while, stepped out with the purposeful briskness +of a man disregarding indeed the inclemencies of the weather, but +conscious of having an authorised mission on this earth and the moral +support of his kind. All the inhabitants of the immense town, the +population of the whole country, and even the teeming millions struggling +upon the planet, were with him—down to the very thieves and mendicants. +Yes, the thieves themselves were sure to be with him in his present work. +The consciousness of universal support in his general activity heartened +him to grapple with the particular problem. + +The problem immediately before the Chief Inspector was that of managing +the Assistant Commissioner of his department, his immediate superior. +This is the perennial problem of trusty and loyal servants; anarchism +gave it its particular complexion, but nothing more. Truth to say, Chief +Inspector Heat thought but little of anarchism. He did not attach undue +importance to it, and could never bring himself to consider it seriously. +It had more the character of disorderly conduct; disorderly without the +human excuse of drunkenness, which at any rate implies good feeling and +an amiable leaning towards festivity. As criminals, anarchists were +distinctly no class—no class at all. And recalling the Professor, Chief +Inspector Heat, without checking his swinging pace, muttered through his +teeth: + +“Lunatic.” + +Catching thieves was another matter altogether. It had that quality of +seriousness belonging to every form of open sport where the best man wins +under perfectly comprehensible rules. There were no rules for dealing +with anarchists. And that was distasteful to the Chief Inspector. It +was all foolishness, but that foolishness excited the public mind, +affected persons in high places, and touched upon international +relations. A hard, merciless contempt settled rigidly on the Chief +Inspector’s face as he walked on. His mind ran over all the anarchists +of his flock. Not one of them had half the spunk of this or that burglar +he had known. Not half—not one-tenth. + +At headquarters the Chief Inspector was admitted at once to the Assistant +Commissioner’s private room. He found him, pen in hand, bent over a +great table bestrewn with papers, as if worshipping an enormous double +inkstand of bronze and crystal. Speaking tubes resembling snakes were +tied by the heads to the back of the Assistant Commissioner’s wooden +arm-chair, and their gaping mouths seemed ready to bite his elbows. And +in this attitude he raised only his eyes, whose lids were darker than his +face and very much creased. The reports had come in: every anarchist had +been exactly accounted for. + +After saying this he lowered his eyes, signed rapidly two single sheets +of paper, and only then laid down his pen, and sat well back, directing +an inquiring gaze at his renowned subordinate. The Chief Inspector stood +it well, deferential but inscrutable. + +“I daresay you were right,” said the Assistant Commissioner, “in telling +me at first that the London anarchists had nothing to do with this. I +quite appreciate the excellent watch kept on them by your men. On the +other hand, this, for the public, does not amount to more than a +confession of ignorance.” + +The Assistant Commissioner’s delivery was leisurely, as it were cautious. +His thought seemed to rest poised on a word before passing to another, as +though words had been the stepping-stones for his intellect picking its +way across the waters of error. “Unless you have brought something +useful from Greenwich,” he added. + +The Chief Inspector began at once the account of his investigation in a +clear matter-of-fact manner. His superior turning his chair a little, +and crossing his thin legs, leaned sideways on his elbow, with one hand +shading his eyes. His listening attitude had a sort of angular and +sorrowful grace. Gleams as of highly burnished silver played on the +sides of his ebony black head when he inclined it slowly at the end. + +Chief Inspector Heat waited with the appearance of turning over in his +mind all he had just said, but, as a matter of fact, considering the +advisability of saying something more. The Assistant Commissioner cut +his hesitation short. + +“You believe there were two men?” he asked, without uncovering his eyes. + +The Chief Inspector thought it more than probable. In his opinion, the +two men had parted from each other within a hundred yards from the +Observatory walls. He explained also how the other man could have got +out of the park speedily without being observed. The fog, though not +very dense, was in his favour. He seemed to have escorted the other to +the spot, and then to have left him there to do the job single-handed. +Taking the time those two were seen coming out of Maze Hill Station by +the old woman, and the time when the explosion was heard, the Chief +Inspector thought that the other man might have been actually at the +Greenwich Park Station, ready to catch the next train up, at the moment +his comrade was destroying himself so thoroughly. + +“Very thoroughly—eh?” murmured the Assistant Commissioner from under the +shadow of his hand. + +The Chief Inspector in a few vigorous words described the aspect of the +remains. “The coroner’s jury will have a treat,” he added grimly. + +The Assistant Commissioner uncovered his eyes. + +“We shall have nothing to tell them,” he remarked languidly. + +He looked up, and for a time watched the markedly non-committal attitude +of his Chief Inspector. His nature was one that is not easily accessible +to illusions. He knew that a department is at the mercy of its +subordinate officers, who have their own conceptions of loyalty. His +career had begun in a tropical colony. He had liked his work there. It +was police work. He had been very successful in tracking and breaking up +certain nefarious secret societies amongst the natives. Then he took his +long leave, and got married rather impulsively. It was a good match from +a worldly point of view, but his wife formed an unfavourable opinion of +the colonial climate on hearsay evidence. On the other hand, she had +influential connections. It was an excellent match. But he did not like +the work he had to do now. He felt himself dependent on too many +subordinates and too many masters. The near presence of that strange +emotional phenomenon called public opinion weighed upon his spirits, and +alarmed him by its irrational nature. No doubt that from ignorance he +exaggerated to himself its power for good and evil—especially for evil; +and the rough east winds of the English spring (which agreed with his +wife) augmented his general mistrust of men’s motives and of the +efficiency of their organisation. The futility of office work especially +appalled him on those days so trying to his sensitive liver. + +He got up, unfolding himself to his full height, and with a heaviness of +step remarkable in so slender a man, moved across the room to the window. +The panes streamed with rain, and the short street he looked down into +lay wet and empty, as if swept clear suddenly by a great flood. It was a +very trying day, choked in raw fog to begin with, and now drowned in cold +rain. The flickering, blurred flames of gas-lamps seemed to be +dissolving in a watery atmosphere. And the lofty pretensions of a +mankind oppressed by the miserable indignities of the weather appeared as +a colossal and hopeless vanity deserving of scorn, wonder, and +compassion. + +“Horrible, horrible!” thought the Assistant Commissioner to himself, with +his face near the window-pane. “We have been having this sort of thing +now for ten days; no, a fortnight—a fortnight.” He ceased to think +completely for a time. That utter stillness of his brain lasted about +three seconds. Then he said perfunctorily: “You have set inquiries on +foot for tracing that other man up and down the line?” + +He had no doubt that everything needful had been done. Chief Inspector +Heat knew, of course, thoroughly the business of man-hunting. And these +were the routine steps, too, that would be taken as a matter of course by +the merest beginner. A few inquiries amongst the ticket collectors and +the porters of the two small railway stations would give additional +details as to the appearance of the two men; the inspection of the +collected tickets would show at once where they came from that morning. +It was elementary, and could not have been neglected. Accordingly the +Chief Inspector answered that all this had been done directly the old +woman had come forward with her deposition. And he mentioned the name of +a station. “That’s where they came from, sir,” he went on. “The porter +who took the tickets at Maze Hill remembers two chaps answering to the +description passing the barrier. They seemed to him two respectable +working men of a superior sort—sign painters or house decorators. The +big man got out of a third-class compartment backward, with a bright tin +can in his hand. On the platform he gave it to carry to the fair young +fellow who followed him. All this agrees exactly with what the old woman +told the police sergeant in Greenwich.” + +The Assistant Commissioner, still with his face turned to the window, +expressed his doubt as to these two men having had anything to do with +the outrage. All this theory rested upon the utterances of an old +charwoman who had been nearly knocked down by a man in a hurry. Not a +very substantial authority indeed, unless on the ground of sudden +inspiration, which was hardly tenable. + +“Frankly now, could she have been really inspired?” he queried, with +grave irony, keeping his back to the room, as if entranced by the +contemplation of the town’s colossal forms half lost in the night. He +did not even look round when he heard the mutter of the word +“Providential” from the principal subordinate of his department, whose +name, printed sometimes in the papers, was familiar to the great public +as that of one of its zealous and hard-working protectors. Chief +Inspector Heat raised his voice a little. + +“Strips and bits of bright tin were quite visible to me,” he said. +“That’s a pretty good corroboration.” + +“And these men came from that little country station,” the Assistant +Commissioner mused aloud, wondering. He was told that such was the name +on two tickets out of three given up out of that train at Maze Hill. The +third person who got out was a hawker from Gravesend well known to the +porters. The Chief Inspector imparted that information in a tone of +finality with some ill humour, as loyal servants will do in the +consciousness of their fidelity and with the sense of the value of their +loyal exertions. And still the Assistant Commissioner did not turn away +from the darkness outside, as vast as a sea. + +“Two foreign anarchists coming from that place,” he said, apparently to +the window-pane. “It’s rather unaccountable.”’ + +“Yes, sir. But it would be still more unaccountable if that Michaelis +weren’t staying in a cottage in the neighbourhood.” + +At the sound of that name, falling unexpectedly into this annoying +affair, the Assistant Commissioner dismissed brusquely the vague +remembrance of his daily whist party at his club. It was the most +comforting habit of his life, in a mainly successful display of his skill +without the assistance of any subordinate. He entered his club to play +from five to seven, before going home to dinner, forgetting for those two +hours whatever was distasteful in his life, as though the game were a +beneficent drug for allaying the pangs of moral discontent. His partners +were the gloomily humorous editor of a celebrated magazine; a silent, +elderly barrister with malicious little eyes; and a highly martial, +simple-minded old Colonel with nervous brown hands. They were his club +acquaintances merely. He never met them elsewhere except at the +card-table. But they all seemed to approach the game in the spirit of +co-sufferers, as if it were indeed a drug against the secret ills of +existence; and every day as the sun declined over the countless roofs of +the town, a mellow, pleasurable impatience, resembling the impulse of a +sure and profound friendship, lightened his professional labours. And +now this pleasurable sensation went out of him with something resembling +a physical shock, and was replaced by a special kind of interest in his +work of social protection—an improper sort of interest, which may be +defined best as a sudden and alert mistrust of the weapon in his hand. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +The lady patroness of Michaelis, the ticket-of-leave apostle of +humanitarian hopes, was one of the most influential and distinguished +connections of the Assistant Commissioner’s wife, whom she called Annie, +and treated still rather as a not very wise and utterly inexperienced +young girl. But she had consented to accept him on a friendly footing, +which was by no means the case with all of his wife’s influential +connections. Married young and splendidly at some remote epoch of the +past, she had had for a time a close view of great affairs and even of +some great men. She herself was a great lady. Old now in the number of +her years, she had that sort of exceptional temperament which defies time +with scornful disregard, as if it were a rather vulgar convention +submitted to by the mass of inferior mankind. Many other conventions +easier to set aside, alas! failed to obtain her recognition, also on +temperamental grounds—either because they bored her, or else because they +stood in the way of her scorns and sympathies. Admiration was a +sentiment unknown to her (it was one of the secret griefs of her most +noble husband against her)—first, as always more or less tainted with +mediocrity, and next as being in a way an admission of inferiority. And +both were frankly inconceivable to her nature. To be fearlessly +outspoken in her opinions came easily to her, since she judged solely +from the standpoint of her social position. She was equally untrammelled +in her actions; and as her tactfulness proceeded from genuine humanity, +her bodily vigour remained remarkable and her superiority was serene and +cordial, three generations had admired her infinitely, and the last she +was likely to see had pronounced her a wonderful woman. Meantime +intelligent, with a sort of lofty simplicity, and curious at heart, but +not like many women merely of social gossip, she amused her age by +attracting within her ken through the power of her great, almost +historical, social prestige everything that rose above the dead level of +mankind, lawfully or unlawfully, by position, wit, audacity, fortune or +misfortune. Royal Highnesses, artists, men of science, young statesmen, +and charlatans of all ages and conditions, who, unsubstantial and light, +bobbing up like corks, show best the direction of the surface currents, +had been welcomed in that house, listened to, penetrated, understood, +appraised, for her own edification. In her own words, she liked to watch +what the world was coming to. And as she had a practical mind her +judgment of men and things, though based on special prejudices, was +seldom totally wrong, and almost never wrong-headed. Her drawing-room +was probably the only place in the wide world where an Assistant +Commissioner of Police could meet a convict liberated on a +ticket-of-leave on other than professional and official ground. Who had +brought Michaelis there one afternoon the Assistant Commissioner did not +remember very well. He had a notion it must have been a certain Member +of Parliament of illustrious parentage and unconventional sympathies, +which were the standing joke of the comic papers. The notabilities and +even the simple notorieties of the day brought each other freely to that +temple of an old woman’s not ignoble curiosity. You never could guess +whom you were likely to come upon being received in semi-privacy within +the faded blue silk and gilt frame screen, making a cosy nook for a couch +and a few arm-chairs in the great drawing-room, with its hum of voices +and the groups of people seated or standing in the light of six tall +windows. + +Michaelis had been the object of a revulsion of popular sentiment, the +same sentiment which years ago had applauded the ferocity of the life +sentence passed upon him for complicity in a rather mad attempt to rescue +some prisoners from a police van. The plan of the conspirators had been +to shoot down the horses and overpower the escort. Unfortunately, one of +the police constables got shot too. He left a wife and three small +children, and the death of that man aroused through the length and +breadth of a realm for whose defence, welfare, and glory men die every +day as matter of duty, an outburst of furious indignation, of a raging +implacable pity for the victim. Three ring-leaders got hanged. +Michaelis, young and slim, locksmith by trade, and great frequenter of +evening schools, did not even know that anybody had been killed, his part +with a few others being to force open the door at the back of the special +conveyance. When arrested he had a bunch of skeleton keys in one pocket, +a heavy chisel in another, and a short crowbar in his hand: neither more +nor less than a burglar. But no burglar would have received such a heavy +sentence. The death of the constable had made him miserable at heart, +but the failure of the plot also. He did not conceal either of these +sentiments from his empanelled countrymen, and that sort of compunction +appeared shockingly imperfect to the crammed court. The judge on passing +sentence commented feelingly upon the depravity and callousness of the +young prisoner. + +That made the groundless fame of his condemnation; the fame of his +release was made for him on no better grounds by people who wished to +exploit the sentimental aspect of his imprisonment either for purposes of +their own or for no intelligible purpose. He let them do so in the +innocence of his heart and the simplicity of his mind. Nothing that +happened to him individually had any importance. He was like those +saintly men whose personality is lost in the contemplation of their +faith. His ideas were not in the nature of convictions. They were +inaccessible to reasoning. They formed in all their contradictions and +obscurities an invincible and humanitarian creed, which he confessed +rather than preached, with an obstinate gentleness, a smile of pacific +assurance on his lips, and his candid blue eyes cast down because the +sight of faces troubled his inspiration developed in solitude. In that +characteristic attitude, pathetic in his grotesque and incurable obesity +which he had to drag like a galley slave’s bullet to the end of his days, +the Assistant Commissioner of Police beheld the ticket-of-leave apostle +filling a privileged arm-chair within the screen. He sat there by the +head of the old lady’s couch, mild-voiced and quiet, with no more +self-consciousness than a very small child, and with something of a +child’s charm—the appealing charm of trustfulness. Confident of the +future, whose secret ways had been revealed to him within the four walls +of a well-known penitentiary, he had no reason to look with suspicion +upon anybody. If he could not give the great and curious lady a very +definite idea as to what the world was coming to, he had managed without +effort to impress her by his unembittered faith, by the sterling quality +of his optimism. + +A certain simplicity of thought is common to serene souls at both ends of +the social scale. The great lady was simple in her own way. His views +and beliefs had nothing in them to shock or startle her, since she judged +them from the standpoint of her lofty position. Indeed, her sympathies +were easily accessible to a man of that sort. She was not an exploiting +capitalist herself; she was, as it were, above the play of economic +conditions. And she had a great capacity of pity for the more obvious +forms of common human miseries, precisely because she was such a complete +stranger to them that she had to translate her conception into terms of +mental suffering before she could grasp the notion of their cruelty. The +Assistant Commissioner remembered very well the conversation between +these two. He had listened in silence. It was something as exciting in +a way, and even touching in its foredoomed futility, as the efforts at +moral intercourse between the inhabitants of remote planets. But this +grotesque incarnation of humanitarian passion appealed somehow, to one’s +imagination. At last Michaelis rose, and taking the great lady’s +extended hand, shook it, retained it for a moment in his great cushioned +palm with unembarrassed friendliness, and turned upon the semi-private +nook of the drawing-room his back, vast and square, and as if distended +under the short tweed jacket. Glancing about in serene benevolence, he +waddled along to the distant door between the knots of other visitors. +The murmur of conversations paused on his passage. He smiled innocently +at a tall, brilliant girl, whose eyes met his accidentally, and went out +unconscious of the glances following him across the room. Michaelis’ +first appearance in the world was a success—a success of esteem unmarred +by a single murmur of derision. The interrupted conversations were +resumed in their proper tone, grave or light. Only a well-set-up, +long-limbed, active-looking man of forty talking with two ladies near a +window remarked aloud, with an unexpected depth of feeling: “Eighteen +stone, I should say, and not five foot six. Poor fellow! It’s +terrible—terrible.” + +The lady of the house, gazing absently at the Assistant Commissioner, +left alone with her on the private side of the screen, seemed to be +rearranging her mental impressions behind her thoughtful immobility of a +handsome old face. Men with grey moustaches and full, healthy, vaguely +smiling countenances approached, circling round the screen; two mature +women with a matronly air of gracious resolution; a clean-shaved +individual with sunken cheeks, and dangling a gold-mounted eyeglass on a +broad black ribbon with an old-world, dandified effect. A silence +deferential, but full of reserves, reigned for a moment, and then the +great lady exclaimed, not with resentment, but with a sort of protesting +indignation: + +“And that officially is supposed to be a revolutionist! What nonsense.” +She looked hard at the Assistant Commissioner, who murmured +apologetically: + +“Not a dangerous one perhaps.” + +“Not dangerous—I should think not indeed. He is a mere believer. It’s +the temperament of a saint,” declared the great lady in a firm tone. +“And they kept him shut up for twenty years. One shudders at the +stupidity of it. And now they have let him out everybody belonging to +him is gone away somewhere or dead. His parents are dead; the girl he +was to marry has died while he was in prison; he has lost the skill +necessary for his manual occupation. He told me all this himself with +the sweetest patience; but then, he said, he had had plenty of time to +think out things for himself. A pretty compensation! If that’s the +stuff revolutionists are made of some of us may well go on their knees to +them,” she continued in a slightly bantering voice, while the banal +society smiles hardened on the worldly faces turned towards her with +conventional deference. “The poor creature is obviously no longer in a +position to take care of himself. Somebody will have to look after him a +little.” + +“He should be recommended to follow a treatment of some sort,” the +soldierly voice of the active-looking man was heard advising earnestly +from a distance. He was in the pink of condition for his age, and even +the texture of his long frock coat had a character of elastic soundness, +as if it were a living tissue. “The man is virtually a cripple,” he +added with unmistakable feeling. + +Other voices, as if glad of the opening, murmured hasty compassion. +“Quite startling,” “Monstrous,” “Most painful to see.” The lank man, +with the eyeglass on a broad ribbon, pronounced mincingly the word +“Grotesque,” whose justness was appreciated by those standing near him. +They smiled at each other. + +The Assistant Commissioner had expressed no opinion either then or later, +his position making it impossible for him to ventilate any independent +view of a ticket-of-leave convict. But, in truth, he shared the view of +his wife’s friend and patron that Michaelis was a humanitarian +sentimentalist, a little mad, but upon the whole incapable of hurting a +fly intentionally. So when that name cropped up suddenly in this vexing +bomb affair he realised all the danger of it for the ticket-of-leave +apostle, and his mind reverted at once to the old lady’s well-established +infatuation. Her arbitrary kindness would not brook patiently any +interference with Michaelis’ freedom. It was a deep, calm, convinced +infatuation. She had not only felt him to be inoffensive, but she had +said so, which last by a confusion of her absolutist mind became a sort +of incontrovertible demonstration. It was as if the monstrosity of the +man, with his candid infant’s eyes and a fat angelic smile, had +fascinated her. She had come to believe almost his theory of the future, +since it was not repugnant to her prejudices. She disliked the new +element of plutocracy in the social compound, and industrialism as a +method of human development appeared to her singularly repulsive in its +mechanical and unfeeling character. The humanitarian hopes of the mild +Michaelis tended not towards utter destruction, but merely towards the +complete economic ruin of the system. And she did not really see where +was the moral harm of it. It would do away with all the multitude of the +“parvenus,” whom she disliked and mistrusted, not because they had +arrived anywhere (she denied that), but because of their profound +unintelligence of the world, which was the primary cause of the crudity +of their perceptions and the aridity of their hearts. With the +annihilation of all capital they would vanish too; but universal ruin +(providing it was universal, as it was revealed to Michaelis) would leave +the social values untouched. The disappearance of the last piece of +money could not affect people of position. She could not conceive how it +could affect her position, for instance. She had developed these +discoveries to the Assistant Commissioner with all the serene +fearlessness of an old woman who had escaped the blight of indifference. +He had made for himself the rule to receive everything of that sort in a +silence which he took care from policy and inclination not to make +offensive. He had an affection for the aged disciple of Michaelis, a +complex sentiment depending a little on her prestige, on her personality, +but most of all on the instinct of flattered gratitude. He felt himself +really liked in her house. She was kindness personified. And she was +practically wise too, after the manner of experienced women. She made +his married life much easier than it would have been without her +generously full recognition of his rights as Annie’s husband. Her +influence upon his wife, a woman devoured by all sorts of small +selfishnesses, small envies, small jealousies, was excellent. +Unfortunately, both her kindness and her wisdom were of unreasonable +complexion, distinctly feminine, and difficult to deal with. She +remained a perfect woman all along her full tale of years, and not as +some of them do become—a sort of slippery, pestilential old man in +petticoats. And it was as of a woman that he thought of her—the +specially choice incarnation of the feminine, wherein is recruited the +tender, ingenuous, and fierce bodyguard for all sorts of men who talk +under the influence of an emotion, true or fraudulent; for preachers, +seers, prophets, or reformers. + +Appreciating the distinguished and good friend of his wife, and himself, +in that way, the Assistant Commissioner became alarmed at the convict +Michaelis’ possible fate. Once arrested on suspicion of being in some +way, however remote, a party to this outrage, the man could hardly escape +being sent back to finish his sentence at least. And that would kill +him; he would never come out alive. The Assistant Commissioner made a +reflection extremely unbecoming his official position without being +really creditable to his humanity. + +“If the fellow is laid hold of again,” he thought, “she will never +forgive me.” + +The frankness of such a secretly outspoken thought could not go without +some derisive self-criticism. No man engaged in a work he does not like +can preserve many saving illusions about himself. The distaste, the +absence of glamour, extend from the occupation to the personality. It is +only when our appointed activities seem by a lucky accident to obey the +particular earnestness of our temperament that we can taste the comfort +of complete self-deception. The Assistant Commissioner did not like his +work at home. The police work he had been engaged on in a distant part +of the globe had the saving character of an irregular sort of warfare or +at least the risk and excitement of open-air sport. His real abilities, +which were mainly of an administrative order, were combined with an +adventurous disposition. Chained to a desk in the thick of four millions +of men, he considered himself the victim of an ironic fate—the same, no +doubt, which had brought about his marriage with a woman exceptionally +sensitive in the matter of colonial climate, besides other limitations +testifying to the delicacy of her nature—and her tastes. Though he +judged his alarm sardonically he did not dismiss the improper thought +from his mind. The instinct of self-preservation was strong within him. +On the contrary, he repeated it mentally with profane emphasis and a +fuller precision: “Damn it! If that infernal Heat has his way the +fellow’ll die in prison smothered in his fat, and she’ll never forgive +me.” + +His black, narrow figure, with the white band of the collar under the +silvery gleams on the close-cropped hair at the back of the head, +remained motionless. The silence had lasted such a long time that Chief +Inspector Heat ventured to clear his throat. This noise produced its +effect. The zealous and intelligent officer was asked by his superior, +whose back remained turned to him immovably: + +“You connect Michaelis with this affair?” + +Chief Inspector Heat was very positive, but cautious. + +“Well, sir,” he said, “we have enough to go upon. A man like that has no +business to be at large, anyhow.” + +“You will want some conclusive evidence,” came the observation in a +murmur. + +Chief Inspector Heat raised his eyebrows at the black, narrow back, which +remained obstinately presented to his intelligence and his zeal. + +“There will be no difficulty in getting up sufficient evidence against +_him_,” he said, with virtuous complacency. “You may trust me for that, +sir,” he added, quite unnecessarily, out of the fulness of his heart; for +it seemed to him an excellent thing to have that man in hand to be thrown +down to the public should it think fit to roar with any special +indignation in this case. It was impossible to say yet whether it would +roar or not. That in the last instance depended, of course, on the +newspaper press. But in any case, Chief Inspector Heat, purveyor of +prisons by trade, and a man of legal instincts, did logically believe +that incarceration was the proper fate for every declared enemy of the +law. In the strength of that conviction he committed a fault of tact. +He allowed himself a little conceited laugh, and repeated: + +“Trust me for that, sir.” + +This was too much for the forced calmness under which the Assistant +Commissioner had for upwards of eighteen months concealed his irritation +with the system and the subordinates of his office. A square peg forced +into a round hole, he had felt like a daily outrage that long established +smooth roundness into which a man of less sharply angular shape would +have fitted himself, with voluptuous acquiescence, after a shrug or two. +What he resented most was just the necessity of taking so much on trust. +At the little laugh of Chief Inspector Heat’s he spun swiftly on his +heels, as if whirled away from the window-pane by an electric shock. He +caught on the latter’s face not only the complacency proper to the +occasion lurking under the moustache, but the vestiges of experimental +watchfulness in the round eyes, which had been, no doubt, fastened on his +back, and now met his glance for a second before the intent character of +their stare had the time to change to a merely startled appearance. + +The Assistant Commissioner of Police had really some qualifications for +his post. Suddenly his suspicion was awakened. It is but fair to say +that his suspicions of the police methods (unless the police happened to +be a semi-military body organised by himself) was not difficult to +arouse. If it ever slumbered from sheer weariness, it was but lightly; +and his appreciation of Chief Inspector Heat’s zeal and ability, moderate +in itself, excluded all notion of moral confidence. “He’s up to +something,” he exclaimed mentally, and at once became angry. Crossing +over to his desk with headlong strides, he sat down violently. “Here I +am stuck in a litter of paper,” he reflected, with unreasonable +resentment, “supposed to hold all the threads in my hands, and yet I can +but hold what is put in my hand, and nothing else. And they can fasten +the other ends of the threads where they please.” + +He raised his head, and turned towards his subordinate a long, meagre +face with the accentuated features of an energetic Don Quixote. + +“Now what is it you’ve got up your sleeve?” + +The other stared. He stared without winking in a perfect immobility of +his round eyes, as he was used to stare at the various members of the +criminal class when, after being duly cautioned, they made their +statements in the tones of injured innocence, or false simplicity, or +sullen resignation. But behind that professional and stony fixity there +was some surprise too, for in such a tone, combining nicely the note of +contempt and impatience, Chief Inspector Heat, the right-hand man of the +department, was not used to be addressed. He began in a procrastinating +manner, like a man taken unawares by a new and unexpected experience. + +“What I’ve got against that man Michaelis you mean, sir?” + +The Assistant Commissioner watched the bullet head; the points of that +Norse rover’s moustache, falling below the line of the heavy jaw; the +whole full and pale physiognomy, whose determined character was marred by +too much flesh; at the cunning wrinkles radiating from the outer corners +of the eyes—and in that purposeful contemplation of the valuable and +trusted officer he drew a conviction so sudden that it moved him like an +inspiration. + +“I have reason to think that when you came into this room,” he said in +measured tones, “it was not Michaelis who was in your mind; not +principally—perhaps not at all.” + +“You have reason to think, sir?” muttered Chief Inspector Heat, with +every appearance of astonishment, which up to a certain point was genuine +enough. He had discovered in this affair a delicate and perplexing side, +forcing upon the discoverer a certain amount of insincerity—that sort of +insincerity which, under the names of skill, prudence, discretion, turns +up at one point or another in most human affairs. He felt at the moment +like a tight-rope artist might feel if suddenly, in the middle of the +performance, the manager of the Music Hall were to rush out of the proper +managerial seclusion and begin to shake the rope. Indignation, the sense +of moral insecurity engendered by such a treacherous proceeding joined to +the immediate apprehension of a broken neck, would, in the colloquial +phrase, put him in a state. And there would be also some scandalised +concern for his art too, since a man must identify himself with something +more tangible than his own personality, and establish his pride +somewhere, either in his social position, or in the quality of the work +he is obliged to do, or simply in the superiority of the idleness he may +be fortunate enough to enjoy. + +“Yes,” said the Assistant Commissioner; “I have. I do not mean to say +that you have not thought of Michaelis at all. But you are giving the +fact you’ve mentioned a prominence which strikes me as not quite candid, +Inspector Heat. If that is really the track of discovery, why haven’t +you followed it up at once, either personally or by sending one of your +men to that village?” + +“Do you think, sir, I have failed in my duty there?” the Chief Inspector +asked, in a tone which he sought to make simply reflective. Forced +unexpectedly to concentrate his faculties upon the task of preserving his +balance, he had seized upon that point, and exposed himself to a rebuke; +for, the Assistant Commissioner frowning slightly, observed that this was +a very improper remark to make. + +“But since you’ve made it,” he continued coldly, “I’ll tell you that this +is not my meaning.” + +He paused, with a straight glance of his sunken eyes which was a full +equivalent of the unspoken termination “and you know it.” The head of +the so-called Special Crimes Department debarred by his position from +going out of doors personally in quest of secrets locked up in guilty +breasts, had a propensity to exercise his considerable gifts for the +detection of incriminating truth upon his own subordinates. That +peculiar instinct could hardly be called a weakness. It was natural. He +was a born detective. It had unconsciously governed his choice of a +career, and if it ever failed him in life it was perhaps in the one +exceptional circumstance of his marriage—which was also natural. It fed, +since it could not roam abroad, upon the human material which was brought +to it in its official seclusion. We can never cease to be ourselves. + +His elbow on the desk, his thin legs crossed, and nursing his cheek in +the palm of his meagre hand, the Assistant Commissioner in charge of the +Special Crimes branch was getting hold of the case with growing interest. +His Chief Inspector, if not an absolutely worthy foeman of his +penetration, was at any rate the most worthy of all within his reach. A +mistrust of established reputations was strictly in character with the +Assistant Commissioner’s ability as detector. His memory evoked a +certain old fat and wealthy native chief in the distant colony whom it +was a tradition for the successive Colonial Governors to trust and make +much of as a firm friend and supporter of the order and legality +established by white men; whereas, when examined sceptically, he was +found out to be principally his own good friend, and nobody else’s. Not +precisely a traitor, but still a man of many dangerous reservations in +his fidelity, caused by a due regard for his own advantage, comfort, and +safety. A fellow of some innocence in his naive duplicity, but none the +less dangerous. He took some finding out. He was physically a big man, +too, and (allowing for the difference of colour, of course) Chief +Inspector Heat’s appearance recalled him to the memory of his superior. +It was not the eyes nor yet the lips exactly. It was bizarre. But does +not Alfred Wallace relate in his famous book on the Malay Archipelago +how, amongst the Aru Islanders, he discovered in an old and naked savage +with a sooty skin a peculiar resemblance to a dear friend at home? + +For the first time since he took up his appointment the Assistant +Commissioner felt as if he were going to do some real work for his +salary. And that was a pleasurable sensation. “I’ll turn him inside out +like an old glove,” thought the Assistant Commissioner, with his eyes +resting pensively upon Chief Inspector Heat. + +“No, that was not my thought,” he began again. “There is no doubt about +you knowing your business—no doubt at all; and that’s precisely why I—” +He stopped short, and changing his tone: “What could you bring up against +Michaelis of a definite nature? I mean apart from the fact that the two +men under suspicion—you’re certain there were two of them—came last from +a railway station within three miles of the village where Michaelis is +living now.” + +“This by itself is enough for us to go upon, sir, with that sort of man,” +said the Chief Inspector, with returning composure. The slight approving +movement of the Assistant Commissioner’s head went far to pacify the +resentful astonishment of the renowned officer. For Chief Inspector Heat +was a kind man, an excellent husband, a devoted father; and the public +and departmental confidence he enjoyed acting favourably upon an amiable +nature, disposed him to feel friendly towards the successive Assistant +Commissioners he had seen pass through that very room. There had been +three in his time. The first one, a soldierly, abrupt, red-faced person, +with white eyebrows and an explosive temper, could be managed with a +silken thread. He left on reaching the age limit. The second, a perfect +gentleman, knowing his own and everybody else’s place to a nicety, on +resigning to take up a higher appointment out of England got decorated +for (really) Inspector Heat’s services. To work with him had been a +pride and a pleasure. The third, a bit of a dark horse from the first, +was at the end of eighteen months something of a dark horse still to the +department. Upon the whole Chief Inspector Heat believed him to be in +the main harmless—odd-looking, but harmless. He was speaking now, and +the Chief Inspector listened with outward deference (which means nothing, +being a matter of duty) and inwardly with benevolent toleration. + +“Michaelis reported himself before leaving London for the country?” + +“Yes, sir. He did.” + +“And what may he be doing there?” continued the Assistant Commissioner, +who was perfectly informed on that point. Fitted with painful tightness +into an old wooden arm-chair, before a worm-eaten oak table in an +upstairs room of a four-roomed cottage with a roof of moss-grown tiles, +Michaelis was writing night and day in a shaky, slanting hand that +“Autobiography of a Prisoner” which was to be like a book of Revelation +in the history of mankind. The conditions of confined space, seclusion, +and solitude in a small four-roomed cottage were favourable to his +inspiration. It was like being in prison, except that one was never +disturbed for the odious purpose of taking exercise according to the +tyrannical regulations of his old home in the penitentiary. He could not +tell whether the sun still shone on the earth or not. The perspiration +of the literary labour dropped from his brow. A delightful enthusiasm +urged him on. It was the liberation of his inner life, the letting out +of his soul into the wide world. And the zeal of his guileless vanity +(first awakened by the offer of five hundred pounds from a publisher) +seemed something predestined and holy. + +“It would be, of course, most desirable to be informed exactly,” insisted +the Assistant Commissioner uncandidly. + +Chief Inspector Heat, conscious of renewed irritation at this display of +scrupulousness, said that the county police had been notified from the +first of Michaelis’ arrival, and that a full report could be obtained in +a few hours. A wire to the superintendent— + +Thus he spoke, rather slowly, while his mind seemed already to be +weighing the consequences. A slight knitting of the brow was the outward +sign of this. But he was interrupted by a question. + +“You’ve sent that wire already?” + +“No, sir,” he answered, as if surprised. + +The Assistant Commissioner uncrossed his legs suddenly. The briskness of +that movement contrasted with the casual way in which he threw out a +suggestion. + +“Would you think that Michaelis had anything to do with the preparation +of that bomb, for instance?” + +The Chief Inspector assumed a reflective manner. + +“I wouldn’t say so. There’s no necessity to say anything at present. He +associates with men who are classed as dangerous. He was made a delegate +of the Red Committee less than a year after his release on licence. A +sort of compliment, I suppose.” + +And the Chief Inspector laughed a little angrily, a little scornfully. +With a man of that sort scrupulousness was a misplaced and even an +illegal sentiment. The celebrity bestowed upon Michaelis on his release +two years ago by some emotional journalists in want of special copy had +rankled ever since in his breast. It was perfectly legal to arrest that +man on the barest suspicion. It was legal and expedient on the face of +it. His two former chiefs would have seen the point at once; whereas +this one, without saying either yes or no, sat there, as if lost in a +dream. Moreover, besides being legal and expedient, the arrest of +Michaelis solved a little personal difficulty which worried Chief +Inspector Heat somewhat. This difficulty had its bearing upon his +reputation, upon his comfort, and even upon the efficient performance of +his duties. For, if Michaelis no doubt knew something about this +outrage, the Chief Inspector was fairly certain that he did not know too +much. This was just as well. He knew much less—the Chief Inspector was +positive—than certain other individuals he had in his mind, but whose +arrest seemed to him inexpedient, besides being a more complicated +matter, on account of the rules of the game. The rules of the game did +not protect so much Michaelis, who was an ex-convict. It would be stupid +not to take advantage of legal facilities, and the journalists who had +written him up with emotional gush would be ready to write him down with +emotional indignation. + +This prospect, viewed with confidence, had the attraction of a personal +triumph for Chief Inspector Heat. And deep down in his blameless bosom +of an average married citizen, almost unconscious but potent +nevertheless, the dislike of being compelled by events to meddle with the +desperate ferocity of the Professor had its say. This dislike had been +strengthened by the chance meeting in the lane. The encounter did not +leave behind with Chief Inspector Heat that satisfactory sense of +superiority the members of the police force get from the unofficial but +intimate side of their intercourse with the criminal classes, by which +the vanity of power is soothed, and the vulgar love of domination over +our fellow-creatures is flattered as worthily as it deserves. + +The perfect anarchist was not recognised as a fellow-creature by Chief +Inspector Heat. He was impossible—a mad dog to be left alone. Not that +the Chief Inspector was afraid of him; on the contrary, he meant to have +him some day. But not yet; he meant to get hold of him in his own time, +properly and effectively according to the rules of the game. The present +was not the right time for attempting that feat, not the right time for +many reasons, personal and of public service. This being the strong +feeling of Inspector Heat, it appeared to him just and proper that this +affair should be shunted off its obscure and inconvenient track, leading +goodness knows where, into a quiet (and lawful) siding called Michaelis. +And he repeated, as if reconsidering the suggestion conscientiously: + +“The bomb. No, I would not say that exactly. We may never find that +out. But it’s clear that he is connected with this in some way, which we +can find out without much trouble.” + +His countenance had that look of grave, overbearing indifference once +well known and much dreaded by the better sort of thieves. Chief +Inspector Heat, though what is called a man, was not a smiling animal. +But his inward state was that of satisfaction at the passively receptive +attitude of the Assistant Commissioner, who murmured gently: + +“And you really think that the investigation should be made in that +direction?” + +“I do, sir.” + +“Quite convinced? + +“I am, sir. That’s the true line for us to take.” + +The Assistant Commissioner withdrew the support of his hand from his +reclining head with a suddenness that, considering his languid attitude, +seemed to menace his whole person with collapse. But, on the contrary, +he sat up, extremely alert, behind the great writing-table on which his +hand had fallen with the sound of a sharp blow. + +“What I want to know is what put it out of your head till now.” + +“Put it out of my head,” repeated the Chief Inspector very slowly. + +“Yes. Till you were called into this room—you know.” + +The Chief Inspector felt as if the air between his clothing and his skin +had become unpleasantly hot. It was the sensation of an unprecedented +and incredible experience. + +“Of course,” he said, exaggerating the deliberation of his utterance to +the utmost limits of possibility, “if there is a reason, of which I know +nothing, for not interfering with the convict Michaelis, perhaps it’s +just as well I didn’t start the county police after him.” + +This took such a long time to say that the unflagging attention of the +Assistant Commissioner seemed a wonderful feat of endurance. His retort +came without delay. + +“No reason whatever that I know of. Come, Chief Inspector, this +finessing with me is highly improper on your part—highly improper. And +it’s also unfair, you know. You shouldn’t leave me to puzzle things out +for myself like this. Really, I am surprised.” + +He paused, then added smoothly: “I need scarcely tell you that this +conversation is altogether unofficial.” + +These words were far from pacifying the Chief Inspector. The indignation +of a betrayed tight-rope performer was strong within him. In his pride +of a trusted servant he was affected by the assurance that the rope was +not shaken for the purpose of breaking his neck, as by an exhibition of +impudence. As if anybody were afraid! Assistant Commissioners come and +go, but a valuable Chief Inspector is not an ephemeral office phenomenon. +He was not afraid of getting a broken neck. To have his performance +spoiled was more than enough to account for the glow of honest +indignation. And as thought is no respecter of persons, the thought of +Chief Inspector Heat took a threatening and prophetic shape. “You, my +boy,” he said to himself, keeping his round and habitually roving eyes +fastened upon the Assistant Commissioner’s face—“you, my boy, you don’t +know your place, and your place won’t know you very long either, I bet.” + +As if in provoking answer to that thought, something like the ghost of an +amiable smile passed on the lips of the Assistant Commissioner. His +manner was easy and business-like while he persisted in administering +another shake to the tight rope. + +“Let us come now to what you have discovered on the spot, Chief +Inspector,” he said. + +“A fool and his job are soon parted,” went on the train of prophetic +thought in Chief Inspector Heat’s head. But it was immediately followed +by the reflection that a higher official, even when “fired out” (this was +the precise image), has still the time as he flies through the door to +launch a nasty kick at the shin-bones of a subordinate. Without +softening very much the basilisk nature of his stare, he said +impassively: + +“We are coming to that part of my investigation, sir.” + +“That’s right. Well, what have you brought away from it?” + +The Chief Inspector, who had made up his mind to jump off the rope, came +to the ground with gloomy frankness. + +“I’ve brought away an address,” he said, pulling out of his pocket +without haste a singed rag of dark blue cloth. “This belongs to the +overcoat the fellow who got himself blown to pieces was wearing. Of +course, the overcoat may not have been his, and may even have been +stolen. But that’s not at all probable if you look at this.” + +The Chief Inspector, stepping up to the table, smoothed out carefully the +rag of blue cloth. He had picked it up from the repulsive heap in the +mortuary, because a tailor’s name is found sometimes under the collar. +It is not often of much use, but still—He only half expected to find +anything useful, but certainly he did not expect to find—not under the +collar at all, but stitched carefully on the under side of the lapel—a +square piece of calico with an address written on it in marking ink. + +The Chief Inspector removed his smoothing hand. + +“I carried it off with me without anybody taking notice,” he said. “I +thought it best. It can always be produced if required.” + +The Assistant Commissioner, rising a little in his chair, pulled the +cloth over to his side of the table. He sat looking at it in silence. +Only the number 32 and the name of Brett Street were written in marking +ink on a piece of calico slightly larger than an ordinary cigarette +paper. He was genuinely surprised. + +“Can’t understand why he should have gone about labelled like this,” he +said, looking up at Chief Inspector Heat. “It’s a most extraordinary +thing.” + +“I met once in the smoking-room of a hotel an old gentleman who went +about with his name and address sewn on in all his coats in case of an +accident or sudden illness,” said the Chief Inspector. “He professed to +be eighty-four years old, but he didn’t look his age. He told me he was +also afraid of losing his memory suddenly, like those people he has been +reading of in the papers.” + +A question from the Assistant Commissioner, who wanted to know what was +No. 32 Brett Street, interrupted that reminiscence abruptly. The Chief +Inspector, driven down to the ground by unfair artifices, had elected to +walk the path of unreserved openness. If he believed firmly that to know +too much was not good for the department, the judicious holding back of +knowledge was as far as his loyalty dared to go for the good of the +service. If the Assistant Commissioner wanted to mismanage this affair +nothing, of course, could prevent him. But, on his own part, he now saw +no reason for a display of alacrity. So he answered concisely: + +“It’s a shop, sir.” + +The Assistant Commissioner, with his eyes lowered on the rag of blue +cloth, waited for more information. As that did not come he proceeded to +obtain it by a series of questions propounded with gentle patience. Thus +he acquired an idea of the nature of Mr Verloc’s commerce, of his +personal appearance, and heard at last his name. In a pause the +Assistant Commissioner raised his eyes, and discovered some animation on +the Chief Inspector’s face. They looked at each other in silence. + +“Of course,” said the latter, “the department has no record of that man.” + +“Did any of my predecessors have any knowledge of what you have told me +now?” asked the Assistant Commissioner, putting his elbows on the table +and raising his joined hands before his face, as if about to offer +prayer, only that his eyes had not a pious expression. + +“No, sir; certainly not. What would have been the object? That sort of +man could never be produced publicly to any good purpose. It was +sufficient for me to know who he was, and to make use of him in a way +that could be used publicly.” + +“And do you think that sort of private knowledge consistent with the +official position you occupy?” + +“Perfectly, sir. I think it’s quite proper. I will take the liberty to +tell you, sir, that it makes me what I am—and I am looked upon as a man +who knows his work. It’s a private affair of my own. A personal friend +of mine in the French police gave me the hint that the fellow was an +Embassy spy. Private friendship, private information, private use of +it—that’s how I look upon it.” + +The Assistant Commissioner after remarking to himself that the mental +state of the renowned Chief Inspector seemed to affect the outline of his +lower jaw, as if the lively sense of his high professional distinction +had been located in that part of his anatomy, dismissed the point for the +moment with a calm “I see.” Then leaning his cheek on his joined hands: + +“Well then—speaking privately if you like—how long have you been in +private touch with this Embassy spy?” + +To this inquiry the private answer of the Chief Inspector, so private +that it was never shaped into audible words, was: + +“Long before you were even thought of for your place here.” + +The so-to-speak public utterance was much more precise. + +“I saw him for the first time in my life a little more than seven years +ago, when two Imperial Highnesses and the Imperial Chancellor were on a +visit here. I was put in charge of all the arrangements for looking +after them. Baron Stott-Wartenheim was Ambassador then. He was a very +nervous old gentleman. One evening, three days before the Guildhall +Banquet, he sent word that he wanted to see me for a moment. I was +downstairs, and the carriages were at the door to take the Imperial +Highnesses and the Chancellor to the opera. I went up at once. I found +the Baron walking up and down his bedroom in a pitiable state of +distress, squeezing his hands together. He assured me he had the fullest +confidence in our police and in my abilities, but he had there a man just +come over from Paris whose information could be trusted implicity. He +wanted me to hear what that man had to say. He took me at once into a +dressing-room next door, where I saw a big fellow in a heavy overcoat +sitting all alone on a chair, and holding his hat and stick in one hand. +The Baron said to him in French ‘Speak, my friend.’ The light in that +room was not very good. I talked with him for some five minutes perhaps. +He certainly gave me a piece of very startling news. Then the Baron took +me aside nervously to praise him up to me, and when I turned round again +I discovered that the fellow had vanished like a ghost. Got up and +sneaked out down some back stairs, I suppose. There was no time to run +after him, as I had to hurry off after the Ambassador down the great +staircase, and see the party started safe for the opera. However, I +acted upon the information that very night. Whether it was perfectly +correct or not, it did look serious enough. Very likely it saved us from +an ugly trouble on the day of the Imperial visit to the City. + +“Some time later, a month or so after my promotion to Chief Inspector, my +attention was attracted to a big burly man, I thought I had seen +somewhere before, coming out in a hurry from a jeweller’s shop in the +Strand. I went after him, as it was on my way towards Charing Cross, and +there seeing one of our detectives across the road, I beckoned him over, +and pointed out the fellow to him, with instructions to watch his +movements for a couple of days, and then report to me. No later than +next afternoon my man turned up to tell me that the fellow had married +his landlady’s daughter at a registrar’s office that very day at 11.30 +a.m., and had gone off with her to Margate for a week. Our man had seen +the luggage being put on the cab. There were some old Paris labels on +one of the bags. Somehow I couldn’t get the fellow out of my head, and +the very next time I had to go to Paris on service I spoke about him to +that friend of mine in the Paris police. My friend said: ‘From what you +tell me I think you must mean a rather well-known hanger-on and emissary +of the Revolutionary Red Committee. He says he is an Englishman by +birth. We have an idea that he has been for a good few years now a +secret agent of one of the foreign Embassies in London.’ This woke up my +memory completely. He was the vanishing fellow I saw sitting on a chair +in Baron Stott-Wartenheim’s bathroom. I told my friend that he was quite +right. The fellow was a secret agent to my certain knowledge. +Afterwards my friend took the trouble to ferret out the complete record +of that man for me. I thought I had better know all there was to know; +but I don’t suppose you want to hear his history now, sir?” + +The Assistant Commissioner shook his supported head. “The history of +your relations with that useful personage is the only thing that matters +just now,” he said, closing slowly his weary, deep-set eyes, and then +opening them swiftly with a greatly refreshed glance. + +“There’s nothing official about them,” said the Chief Inspector bitterly. +“I went into his shop one evening, told him who I was, and reminded him +of our first meeting. He didn’t as much as twitch an eyebrow. He said +that he was married and settled now, and that all he wanted was not to be +interfered in his little business. I took it upon myself to promise him +that, as long as he didn’t go in for anything obviously outrageous, he +would be left alone by the police. That was worth something to him, +because a word from us to the Custom-House people would have been enough +to get some of these packages he gets from Paris and Brussels opened in +Dover, with confiscation to follow for certain, and perhaps a prosecution +as well at the end of it.” + +“That’s a very precarious trade,” murmured the Assistant Commissioner. +“Why did he go in for that?” + +The Chief Inspector raised scornful eyebrows dispassionately. + +“Most likely got a connection—friends on the Continent—amongst people who +deal in such wares. They would be just the sort he would consort with. +He’s a lazy dog, too—like the rest of them.” + +“What do you get from him in exchange for your protection?” + +The Chief Inspector was not inclined to enlarge on the value of Mr +Verloc’s services. + +“He would not be much good to anybody but myself. One has got to know a +good deal beforehand to make use of a man like that. I can understand +the sort of hint he can give. And when I want a hint he can generally +furnish it to me.” + +The Chief Inspector lost himself suddenly in a discreet reflective mood; +and the Assistant Commissioner repressed a smile at the fleeting thought +that the reputation of Chief Inspector Heat might possibly have been made +in a great part by the Secret Agent Verloc. + +“In a more general way of being of use, all our men of the Special Crimes +section on duty at Charing Cross and Victoria have orders to take careful +notice of anybody they may see with him. He meets the new arrivals +frequently, and afterwards keeps track of them. He seems to have been +told off for that sort of duty. When I want an address in a hurry, I can +always get it from him. Of course, I know how to manage our relations. +I haven’t seen him to speak to three times in the last two years. I drop +him a line, unsigned, and he answers me in the same way at my private +address.” + +From time to time the Assistant Commissioner gave an almost imperceptible +nod. The Chief Inspector added that he did not suppose Mr Verloc to be +deep in the confidence of the prominent members of the Revolutionary +International Council, but that he was generally trusted of that there +could be no doubt. “Whenever I’ve had reason to think there was +something in the wind,” he concluded, “I’ve always found he could tell me +something worth knowing.” + +The Assistant Commissioner made a significant remark. + +“He failed you this time.” + +“Neither had I wind of anything in any other way,” retorted Chief +Inspector Heat. “I asked him nothing, so he could tell me nothing. He +isn’t one of our men. It isn’t as if he were in our pay.” + +“No,” muttered the Assistant Commissioner. “He’s a spy in the pay of a +foreign government. We could never confess to him.” + +“I must do my work in my own way,” declared the Chief Inspector. “When +it comes to that I would deal with the devil himself, and take the +consequences. There are things not fit for everybody to know.” + +“Your idea of secrecy seems to consist in keeping the chief of your +department in the dark. That’s stretching it perhaps a little too far, +isn’t it? He lives over his shop?” + +“Who—Verloc? Oh yes. He lives over his shop. The wife’s mother, I +fancy, lives with them.” + +“Is the house watched?” + +“Oh dear, no. It wouldn’t do. Certain people who come there are +watched. My opinion is that he knows nothing of this affair.” + +“How do you account for this?” The Assistant Commissioner nodded at the +cloth rag lying before him on the table. + +“I don’t account for it at all, sir. It’s simply unaccountable. It +can’t be explained by what I know.” The Chief Inspector made those +admissions with the frankness of a man whose reputation is established as +if on a rock. “At any rate not at this present moment. I think that the +man who had most to do with it will turn out to be Michaelis.” + +“You do?” + +“Yes, sir; because I can answer for all the others.” + +“What about that other man supposed to have escaped from the park?” + +“I should think he’s far away by this time,” opined the Chief Inspector. + +The Assistant Commissioner looked hard at him, and rose suddenly, as +though having made up his mind to some course of action. As a matter of +fact, he had that very moment succumbed to a fascinating temptation. The +Chief Inspector heard himself dismissed with instructions to meet his +superior early next morning for further consultation upon the case. He +listened with an impenetrable face, and walked out of the room with +measured steps. + +Whatever might have been the plans of the Assistant Commissioner they had +nothing to do with that desk work, which was the bane of his existence +because of its confined nature and apparent lack of reality. It could +not have had, or else the general air of alacrity that came upon the +Assistant Commissioner would have been inexplicable. As soon as he was +left alone he looked for his hat impulsively, and put it on his head. +Having done that, he sat down again to reconsider the whole matter. But +as his mind was already made up, this did not take long. And before +Chief Inspector Heat had gone very far on the way home, he also left the +building. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +The Assistant Commissioner walked along a short and narrow street like a +wet, muddy trench, then crossing a very broad thoroughfare entered a +public edifice, and sought speech with a young private secretary (unpaid) +of a great personage. + +This fair, smooth-faced young man, whose symmetrically arranged hair gave +him the air of a large and neat schoolboy, met the Assistant +Commissioner’s request with a doubtful look, and spoke with bated breath. + +“Would he see you? I don’t know about that. He has walked over from the +House an hour ago to talk with the permanent Under-Secretary, and now +he’s ready to walk back again. He might have sent for him; but he does +it for the sake of a little exercise, I suppose. It’s all the exercise +he can find time for while this session lasts. I don’t complain; I +rather enjoy these little strolls. He leans on my arm, and doesn’t open +his lips. But, I say, he’s very tired, and—well—not in the sweetest of +tempers just now.” + +“It’s in connection with that Greenwich affair.” + +“Oh! I say! He’s very bitter against you people. But I will go and +see, if you insist.” + +“Do. That’s a good fellow,” said the Assistant Commissioner. + +The unpaid secretary admired this pluck. Composing for himself an +innocent face, he opened a door, and went in with the assurance of a nice +and privileged child. And presently he reappeared, with a nod to the +Assistant Commissioner, who passing through the same door left open for +him, found himself with the great personage in a large room. + +Vast in bulk and stature, with a long white face, which, broadened at the +base by a big double chin, appeared egg-shaped in the fringe of thin +greyish whisker, the great personage seemed an expanding man. +Unfortunate from a tailoring point of view, the cross-folds in the middle +of a buttoned black coat added to the impression, as if the fastenings of +the garment were tried to the utmost. From the head, set upward on a +thick neck, the eyes, with puffy lower lids, stared with a haughty droop +on each side of a hooked aggressive nose, nobly salient in the vast pale +circumference of the face. A shiny silk hat and a pair of worn gloves +lying ready on the end of a long table looked expanded too, enormous. + +He stood on the hearthrug in big, roomy boots, and uttered no word of +greeting. + +“I would like to know if this is the beginning of another dynamite +campaign,” he asked at once in a deep, very smooth voice. “Don’t go into +details. I have no time for that.” + +The Assistant Commissioner’s figure before this big and rustic Presence +had the frail slenderness of a reed addressing an oak. And indeed the +unbroken record of that man’s descent surpassed in the number of +centuries the age of the oldest oak in the country. + +“No. As far as one can be positive about anything I can assure you that +it is not.” + +“Yes. But your idea of assurances over there,” said the great man, with +a contemptuous wave of his hand towards a window giving on the broad +thoroughfare, “seems to consist mainly in making the Secretary of State +look a fool. I have been told positively in this very room less than a +month ago that nothing of the sort was even possible.” + +The Assistant Commissioner glanced in the direction of the window calmly. + +“You will allow me to remark, Sir Ethelred, that so far I have had no +opportunity to give you assurances of any kind.” + +The haughty droop of the eyes was focussed now upon the Assistant +Commissioner. + +“True,” confessed the deep, smooth voice. “I sent for Heat. You are +still rather a novice in your new berth. And how are you getting on over +there?” + +“I believe I am learning something every day.” + +“Of course, of course. I hope you will get on.” + +“Thank you, Sir Ethelred. I’ve learned something to-day, and even within +the last hour or so. There is much in this affair of a kind that does +not meet the eye in a usual anarchist outrage, even if one looked into it +as deep as can be. That’s why I am here.” + +The great man put his arms akimbo, the backs of his big hands resting on +his hips. + +“Very well. Go on. Only no details, pray. Spare me the details.” + +“You shall not be troubled with them, Sir Ethelred,” the Assistant +Commissioner began, with a calm and untroubled assurance. While he was +speaking the hands on the face of the clock behind the great man’s back—a +heavy, glistening affair of massive scrolls in the same dark marble as +the mantelpiece, and with a ghostly, evanescent tick—had moved through +the space of seven minutes. He spoke with a studious fidelity to a +parenthetical manner, into which every little fact—that is, every +detail—fitted with delightful ease. Not a murmur nor even a movement +hinted at interruption. The great Personage might have been the statue +of one of his own princely ancestors stripped of a crusader’s war +harness, and put into an ill-fitting frock coat. The Assistant +Commissioner felt as though he were at liberty to talk for an hour. But +he kept his head, and at the end of the time mentioned above he broke off +with a sudden conclusion, which, reproducing the opening statement, +pleasantly surprised Sir Ethelred by its apparent swiftness and force. + +“The kind of thing which meets us under the surface of this affair, +otherwise without gravity, is unusual—in this precise form at least—and +requires special treatment.” + +The tone of Sir Ethelred was deepened, full of conviction. + +“I should think so—involving the Ambassador of a foreign power!” + +“Oh! The Ambassador!” protested the other, erect and slender, allowing +himself a mere half smile. “It would be stupid of me to advance anything +of the kind. And it is absolutely unnecessary, because if I am right in +my surmises, whether ambassador or hall porter it’s a mere detail.” + +Sir Ethelred opened a wide mouth, like a cavern, into which the hooked +nose seemed anxious to peer; there came from it a subdued rolling sound, +as from a distant organ with the scornful indignation stop. + +“No! These people are too impossible. What do they mean by importing +their methods of Crim-Tartary here? A Turk would have more decency.” + +“You forget, Sir Ethelred, that strictly speaking we know nothing +positively—as yet.” + +“No! But how would you define it? Shortly?” + +“Barefaced audacity amounting to childishness of a peculiar sort.” + +“We can’t put up with the innocence of nasty little children,” said the +great and expanded personage, expanding a little more, as it were. The +haughty drooping glance struck crushingly the carpet at the Assistant +Commissioner’s feet. “They’ll have to get a hard rap on the knuckles +over this affair. We must be in a position to—What is your general idea, +stated shortly? No need to go into details.” + +“No, Sir Ethelred. In principle, I should lay it down that the existence +of secret agents should not be tolerated, as tending to augment the +positive dangers of the evil against which they are used. That the spy +will fabricate his information is a mere commonplace. But in the sphere +of political and revolutionary action, relying partly on violence, the +professional spy has every facility to fabricate the very facts +themselves, and will spread the double evil of emulation in one +direction, and of panic, hasty legislation, unreflecting hate, on the +other. However, this is an imperfect world—” + +The deep-voiced Presence on the hearthrug, motionless, with big elbows +stuck out, said hastily: + +“Be lucid, please.” + +“Yes, Sir Ethelred—An imperfect world. Therefore directly the character +of this affair suggested itself to me, I thought it should be dealt with +with special secrecy, and ventured to come over here.” + +“That’s right,” approved the great Personage, glancing down complacently +over his double chin. “I am glad there’s somebody over at your shop who +thinks that the Secretary of State may be trusted now and then.” + +The Assistant Commissioner had an amused smile. + +“I was really thinking that it might be better at this stage for Heat to +be replaced by—” + +“What! Heat? An ass—eh?” exclaimed the great man, with distinct +animosity. + +“Not at all. Pray, Sir Ethelred, don’t put that unjust interpretation on +my remarks.” + +“Then what? Too clever by half?” + +“Neither—at least not as a rule. All the grounds of my surmises I have +from him. The only thing I’ve discovered by myself is that he has been +making use of that man privately. Who could blame him? He’s an old +police hand. He told me virtually that he must have tools to work with. +It occurred to me that this tool should be surrendered to the Special +Crimes division as a whole, instead of remaining the private property of +Chief Inspector Heat. I extend my conception of our departmental duties +to the suppression of the secret agent. But Chief Inspector Heat is an +old departmental hand. He would accuse me of perverting its morality and +attacking its efficiency. He would define it bitterly as protection +extended to the criminal class of revolutionists. It would mean just +that to him.” + +“Yes. But what do you mean?” + +“I mean to say, first, that there’s but poor comfort in being able to +declare that any given act of violence—damaging property or destroying +life—is not the work of anarchism at all, but of something else +altogether—some species of authorised scoundrelism. This, I fancy, is +much more frequent than we suppose. Next, it’s obvious that the +existence of these people in the pay of foreign governments destroys in a +measure the efficiency of our supervision. A spy of that sort can afford +to be more reckless than the most reckless of conspirators. His +occupation is free from all restraint. He’s without as much faith as is +necessary for complete negation, and without that much law as is implied +in lawlessness. Thirdly, the existence of these spies amongst the +revolutionary groups, which we are reproached for harbouring here, does +away with all certitude. You have received a reassuring statement from +Chief Inspector Heat some time ago. It was by no means groundless—and +yet this episode happens. I call it an episode, because this affair, I +make bold to say, is episodic; it is no part of any general scheme, +however wild. The very peculiarities which surprise and perplex Chief +Inspector Heat establish its character in my eyes. I am keeping clear of +details, Sir Ethelred.” + +The Personage on the hearthrug had been listening with profound +attention. + +“Just so. Be as concise as you can.” + +The Assistant Commissioner intimated by an earnest deferential gesture +that he was anxious to be concise. + +“There is a peculiar stupidity and feebleness in the conduct of this +affair which gives me excellent hopes of getting behind it and finding +there something else than an individual freak of fanaticism. For it is a +planned thing, undoubtedly. The actual perpetrator seems to have been +led by the hand to the spot, and then abandoned hurriedly to his own +devices. The inference is that he was imported from abroad for the +purpose of committing this outrage. At the same time one is forced to +the conclusion that he did not know enough English to ask his way, unless +one were to accept the fantastic theory that he was a deaf mute. I +wonder now—But this is idle. He has destroyed himself by an accident, +obviously. Not an extraordinary accident. But an extraordinary little +fact remains: the address on his clothing discovered by the merest +accident, too. It is an incredible little fact, so incredible that the +explanation which will account for it is bound to touch the bottom of +this affair. Instead of instructing Heat to go on with this case, my +intention is to seek this explanation personally—by myself, I mean—where +it may be picked up. That is in a certain shop in Brett Street, and on +the lips of a certain secret agent once upon a time the confidential and +trusted spy of the late Baron Stott-Wartenheim, Ambassador of a Great +Power to the Court of St James.” + +The Assistant Commissioner paused, then added: “Those fellows are a +perfect pest.” In order to raise his drooping glance to the speaker’s +face, the Personage on the hearthrug had gradually tilted his head +farther back, which gave him an aspect of extraordinary haughtiness. + +“Why not leave it to Heat?” + +“Because he is an old departmental hand. They have their own morality. +My line of inquiry would appear to him an awful perversion of duty. For +him the plain duty is to fasten the guilt upon as many prominent +anarchists as he can on some slight indications he had picked up in the +course of his investigation on the spot; whereas I, he would say, am bent +upon vindicating their innocence. I am trying to be as lucid as I can in +presenting this obscure matter to you without details.” + +“He would, would he?” muttered the proud head of Sir Ethelred from its +lofty elevation. + +“I am afraid so—with an indignation and disgust of which you or I can +have no idea. He’s an excellent servant. We must not put an undue +strain on his loyalty. That’s always a mistake. Besides, I want a free +hand—a freer hand than it would be perhaps advisable to give Chief +Inspector Heat. I haven’t the slightest wish to spare this man Verloc. +He will, I imagine, be extremely startled to find his connection with +this affair, whatever it may be, brought home to him so quickly. +Frightening him will not be very difficult. But our true objective lies +behind him somewhere. I want your authority to give him such assurances +of personal safety as I may think proper.” + +“Certainly,” said the Personage on the hearthrug. “Find out as much as +you can; find it out in your own way.” + +“I must set about it without loss of time, this very evening,” said the +Assistant Commissioner. + +Sir Ethelred shifted one hand under his coat tails, and tilting back his +head, looked at him steadily. + +“We’ll have a late sitting to-night,” he said. “Come to the House with +your discoveries if we are not gone home. I’ll warn Toodles to look out +for you. He’ll take you into my room.” + +The numerous family and the wide connections of the youthful-looking +Private Secretary cherished for him the hope of an austere and exalted +destiny. Meantime the social sphere he adorned in his hours of idleness +chose to pet him under the above nickname. And Sir Ethelred, hearing it +on the lips of his wife and girls every day (mostly at breakfast-time), +had conferred upon it the dignity of unsmiling adoption. + +The Assistant Commissioner was surprised and gratified extremely. + +“I shall certainly bring my discoveries to the House on the chance of you +having the time to—” + +“I won’t have the time,” interrupted the great Personage. “But I will +see you. I haven’t the time now—And you are going yourself?” + +“Yes, Sir Ethelred. I think it the best way.” + +The Personage had tilted his head so far back that, in order to keep the +Assistant Commissioner under his observation, he had to nearly close his +eyes. + +“H’m. Ha! And how do you propose—Will you assume a disguise?” + +“Hardly a disguise! I’ll change my clothes, of course.” + +“Of course,” repeated the great man, with a sort of absent-minded +loftiness. He turned his big head slowly, and over his shoulder gave a +haughty oblique stare to the ponderous marble timepiece with the sly, +feeble tick. The gilt hands had taken the opportunity to steal through +no less than five and twenty minutes behind his back. + +The Assistant Commissioner, who could not see them, grew a little nervous +in the interval. But the great man presented to him a calm and +undismayed face. + +“Very well,” he said, and paused, as if in deliberate contempt of the +official clock. “But what first put you in motion in this direction?” + +“I have been always of opinion,” began the Assistant Commissioner. + +“Ah. Yes! Opinion. That’s of course. But the immediate motive?” + +“What shall I say, Sir Ethelred? A new man’s antagonism to old methods. +A desire to know something at first hand. Some impatience. It’s my old +work, but the harness is different. It has been chafing me a little in +one or two tender places.” + +“I hope you’ll get on over there,” said the great man kindly, extending +his hand, soft to the touch, but broad and powerful like the hand of a +glorified farmer. The Assistant Commissioner shook it, and withdrew. + +In the outer room Toodles, who had been waiting perched on the edge of a +table, advanced to meet him, subduing his natural buoyancy. + +“Well? Satisfactory?” he asked, with airy importance. + +“Perfectly. You’ve earned my undying gratitude,” answered the Assistant +Commissioner, whose long face looked wooden in contrast with the peculiar +character of the other’s gravity, which seemed perpetually ready to break +into ripples and chuckles. + +“That’s all right. But seriously, you can’t imagine how irritated he is +by the attacks on his Bill for the Nationalisation of Fisheries. They +call it the beginning of social revolution. Of course, it is a +revolutionary measure. But these fellows have no decency. The personal +attacks—” + +“I read the papers,” remarked the Assistant Commissioner. + +“Odious? Eh? And you have no notion what a mass of work he has got to +get through every day. He does it all himself. Seems unable to trust +anyone with these Fisheries.” + +“And yet he’s given a whole half hour to the consideration of my very +small sprat,” interjected the Assistant Commissioner. + +“Small! Is it? I’m glad to hear that. But it’s a pity you didn’t keep +away, then. This fight takes it out of him frightfully. The man’s +getting exhausted. I feel it by the way he leans on my arm as we walk +over. And, I say, is he safe in the streets? Mullins has been marching +his men up here this afternoon. There’s a constable stuck by every +lamp-post, and every second person we meet between this and Palace Yard +is an obvious ‘tec.’ It will get on his nerves presently. I say, these +foreign scoundrels aren’t likely to throw something at him—are they? It +would be a national calamity. The country can’t spare him.” + +“Not to mention yourself. He leans on your arm,” suggested the Assistant +Commissioner soberly. “You would both go.” + +“It would be an easy way for a young man to go down into history? Not so +many British Ministers have been assassinated as to make it a minor +incident. But seriously now—” + +“I am afraid that if you want to go down into history you’ll have to do +something for it. Seriously, there’s no danger whatever for both of you +but from overwork.” + +The sympathetic Toodles welcomed this opening for a chuckle. + +“The Fisheries won’t kill me. I am used to late hours,” he declared, +with ingenuous levity. But, feeling an instant compunction, he began to +assume an air of statesman-like moodiness, as one draws on a glove. “His +massive intellect will stand any amount of work. It’s his nerves that I +am afraid of. The reactionary gang, with that abusive brute Cheeseman at +their head, insult him every night.” + +“If he will insist on beginning a revolution!” murmured the Assistant +Commissioner. + +“The time has come, and he is the only man great enough for the work,” +protested the revolutionary Toodles, flaring up under the calm, +speculative gaze of the Assistant Commissioner. Somewhere in a corridor +a distant bell tinkled urgently, and with devoted vigilance the young man +pricked up his ears at the sound. “He’s ready to go now,” he exclaimed +in a whisper, snatched up his hat, and vanished from the room. + +The Assistant Commissioner went out by another door in a less elastic +manner. Again he crossed the wide thoroughfare, walked along a narrow +street, and re-entered hastily his own departmental buildings. He kept +up this accelerated pace to the door of his private room. Before he had +closed it fairly his eyes sought his desk. He stood still for a moment, +then walked up, looked all round on the floor, sat down in his chair, +rang a bell, and waited. + +“Chief Inspector Heat gone yet?” + +“Yes, sir. Went away half-an-hour ago.” + +He nodded. “That will do.” And sitting still, with his hat pushed off +his forehead, he thought that it was just like Heat’s confounded cheek to +carry off quietly the only piece of material evidence. But he thought +this without animosity. Old and valued servants will take liberties. +The piece of overcoat with the address sewn on was certainly not a thing +to leave about. Dismissing from his mind this manifestation of Chief +Inspector Heat’s mistrust, he wrote and despatched a note to his wife, +charging her to make his apologies to Michaelis’ great lady, with whom +they were engaged to dine that evening. + +The short jacket and the low, round hat he assumed in a sort of curtained +alcove containing a washstand, a row of wooden pegs and a shelf, brought +out wonderfully the length of his grave, brown face. He stepped back +into the full light of the room, looking like the vision of a cool, +reflective Don Quixote, with the sunken eyes of a dark enthusiast and a +very deliberate manner. He left the scene of his daily labours quickly +like an unobtrusive shadow. His descent into the street was like the +descent into a slimy aquarium from which the water had been run off. A +murky, gloomy dampness enveloped him. The walls of the houses were wet, +the mud of the roadway glistened with an effect of phosphorescence, and +when he emerged into the Strand out of a narrow street by the side of +Charing Cross Station the genius of the locality assimilated him. He +might have been but one more of the queer foreign fish that can be seen +of an evening about there flitting round the dark corners. + +He came to a stand on the very edge of the pavement, and waited. His +exercised eyes had made out in the confused movements of lights and +shadows thronging the roadway the crawling approach of a hansom. He gave +no sign; but when the low step gliding along the curbstone came to his +feet he dodged in skilfully in front of the big turning wheel, and spoke +up through the little trap door almost before the man gazing supinely +ahead from his perch was aware of having been boarded by a fare. + +It was not a long drive. It ended by signal abruptly, nowhere in +particular, between two lamp-posts before a large drapery establishment—a +long range of shops already lapped up in sheets of corrugated iron for +the night. Tendering a coin through the trap door the fare slipped out +and away, leaving an effect of uncanny, eccentric ghastliness upon the +driver’s mind. But the size of the coin was satisfactory to his touch, +and his education not being literary, he remained untroubled by the fear +of finding it presently turned to a dead leaf in his pocket. Raised +above the world of fares by the nature of his calling, he contemplated +their actions with a limited interest. The sharp pulling of his horse +right round expressed his philosophy. + +Meantime the Assistant Commissioner was already giving his order to a +waiter in a little Italian restaurant round the corner—one of those traps +for the hungry, long and narrow, baited with a perspective of mirrors and +white napery; without air, but with an atmosphere of their own—an +atmosphere of fraudulent cookery mocking an abject mankind in the most +pressing of its miserable necessities. In this immoral atmosphere the +Assistant Commissioner, reflecting upon his enterprise, seemed to lose +some more of his identity. He had a sense of loneliness, of evil +freedom. It was rather pleasant. When, after paying for his short meal, +he stood up and waited for his change, he saw himself in the sheet of +glass, and was struck by his foreign appearance. He contemplated his own +image with a melancholy and inquisitive gaze, then by sudden inspiration +raised the collar of his jacket. This arrangement appeared to him +commendable, and he completed it by giving an upward twist to the ends of +his black moustache. He was satisfied by the subtle modification of his +personal aspect caused by these small changes. “That’ll do very well,” +he thought. “I’ll get a little wet, a little splashed—” + +He became aware of the waiter at his elbow and of a small pile of silver +coins on the edge of the table before him. The waiter kept one eye on +it, while his other eye followed the long back of a tall, not very young +girl, who passed up to a distant table looking perfectly sightless and +altogether unapproachable. She seemed to be a habitual customer. + +On going out the Assistant Commissioner made to himself the observation +that the patrons of the place had lost in the frequentation of fraudulent +cookery all their national and private characteristics. And this was +strange, since the Italian restaurant is such a peculiarly British +institution. But these people were as denationalised as the dishes set +before them with every circumstance of unstamped respectability. Neither +was their personality stamped in any way, professionally, socially or +racially. They seemed created for the Italian restaurant, unless the +Italian restaurant had been perchance created for them. But that last +hypothesis was unthinkable, since one could not place them anywhere +outside those special establishments. One never met these enigmatical +persons elsewhere. It was impossible to form a precise idea what +occupations they followed by day and where they went to bed at night. +And he himself had become unplaced. It would have been impossible for +anybody to guess his occupation. As to going to bed, there was a doubt +even in his own mind. Not indeed in regard to his domicile itself, but +very much so in respect of the time when he would be able to return +there. A pleasurable feeling of independence possessed him when he heard +the glass doors swing to behind his back with a sort of imperfect baffled +thud. He advanced at once into an immensity of greasy slime and damp +plaster interspersed with lamps, and enveloped, oppressed, penetrated, +choked, and suffocated by the blackness of a wet London night, which is +composed of soot and drops of water. + +Brett Street was not very far away. It branched off, narrow, from the +side of an open triangular space surrounded by dark and mysterious +houses, temples of petty commerce emptied of traders for the night. Only +a fruiterer’s stall at the corner made a violent blaze of light and +colour. Beyond all was black, and the few people passing in that +direction vanished at one stride beyond the glowing heaps of oranges and +lemons. No footsteps echoed. They would never be heard of again. The +adventurous head of the Special Crimes Department watched these +disappearances from a distance with an interested eye. He felt +light-hearted, as though he had been ambushed all alone in a jungle many +thousands of miles away from departmental desks and official inkstands. +This joyousness and dispersion of thought before a task of some +importance seems to prove that this world of ours is not such a very +serious affair after all. For the Assistant Commissioner was not +constitutionally inclined to levity. + +The policeman on the beat projected his sombre and moving form against +the luminous glory of oranges and lemons, and entered Brett Street +without haste. The Assistant Commissioner, as though he were a member of +the criminal classes, lingered out of sight, awaiting his return. But +this constable seemed to be lost for ever to the force. He never +returned: must have gone out at the other end of Brett Street. + +The Assistant Commissioner, reaching this conclusion, entered the street +in his turn, and came upon a large van arrested in front of the dimly lit +window-panes of a carter’s eating-house. The man was refreshing himself +inside, and the horses, their big heads lowered to the ground, fed out of +nose-bags steadily. Farther on, on the opposite side of the street, +another suspect patch of dim light issued from Mr Verloc’s shop front, +hung with papers, heaving with vague piles of cardboard boxes and the +shapes of books. The Assistant Commissioner stood observing it across +the roadway. There could be no mistake. By the side of the front +window, encumbered by the shadows of nondescript things, the door, +standing ajar, let escape on the pavement a narrow, clear streak of +gas-light within. + +Behind the Assistant Commissioner the van and horses, merged into one +mass, seemed something alive—a square-backed black monster blocking half +the street, with sudden iron-shod stampings, fierce jingles, and heavy, +blowing sighs. The harshly festive, ill-omened glare of a large and +prosperous public-house faced the other end of Brett Street across a wide +road. This barrier of blazing lights, opposing the shadows gathered +about the humble abode of Mr Verloc’s domestic happiness, seemed to drive +the obscurity of the street back upon itself, make it more sullen, +brooding, and sinister. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +Having infused by persistent importunities some sort of heat into the +chilly interest of several licensed victuallers (the acquaintances once +upon a time of her late unlucky husband), Mrs Verloc’s mother had at last +secured her admission to certain almshouses founded by a wealthy +innkeeper for the destitute widows of the trade. + +This end, conceived in the astuteness of her uneasy heart, the old woman +had pursued with secrecy and determination. That was the time when her +daughter Winnie could not help passing a remark to Mr Verloc that “mother +has been spending half-crowns and five shillings almost every day this +last week in cab fares.” But the remark was not made grudgingly. Winnie +respected her mother’s infirmities. She was only a little surprised at +this sudden mania for locomotion. Mr Verloc, who was sufficiently +magnificent in his way, had grunted the remark impatiently aside as +interfering with his meditations. These were frequent, deep, and +prolonged; they bore upon a matter more important than five shillings. +Distinctly more important, and beyond all comparison more difficult to +consider in all its aspects with philosophical serenity. + +Her object attained in astute secrecy, the heroic old woman had made a +clean breast of it to Mrs Verloc. Her soul was triumphant and her heart +tremulous. Inwardly she quaked, because she dreaded and admired the +calm, self-contained character of her daughter Winnie, whose displeasure +was made redoubtable by a diversity of dreadful silences. But she did +not allow her inward apprehensions to rob her of the advantage of +venerable placidity conferred upon her outward person by her triple chin, +the floating ampleness of her ancient form, and the impotent condition of +her legs. + +The shock of the information was so unexpected that Mrs Verloc, against +her usual practice when addressed, interrupted the domestic occupation +she was engaged upon. It was the dusting of the furniture in the parlour +behind the shop. She turned her head towards her mother. + +“Whatever did you want to do that for?” she exclaimed, in scandalised +astonishment. + +The shock must have been severe to make her depart from that distant and +uninquiring acceptance of facts which was her force and her safeguard in +life. + +“Weren’t you made comfortable enough here?” + +She had lapsed into these inquiries, but next moment she saved the +consistency of her conduct by resuming her dusting, while the old woman +sat scared and dumb under her dingy white cap and lustreless dark wig. + +Winnie finished the chair, and ran the duster along the mahogany at the +back of the horse-hair sofa on which Mr Verloc loved to take his ease in +hat and overcoat. She was intent on her work, but presently she +permitted herself another question. + +“How in the world did you manage it, mother?” + +As not affecting the inwardness of things, which it was Mrs Verloc’s +principle to ignore, this curiosity was excusable. It bore merely on the +methods. The old woman welcomed it eagerly as bringing forward something +that could be talked about with much sincerity. + +She favoured her daughter by an exhaustive answer, full of names and +enriched by side comments upon the ravages of time as observed in the +alteration of human countenances. The names were principally the names +of licensed victuallers—“poor daddy’s friends, my dear.” She enlarged +with special appreciation on the kindness and condescension of a large +brewer, a Baronet and an M. P., the Chairman of the Governors of the +Charity. She expressed herself thus warmly because she had been allowed +to interview by appointment his Private Secretary—“a very polite +gentleman, all in black, with a gentle, sad voice, but so very, very thin +and quiet. He was like a shadow, my dear.” + +Winnie, prolonging her dusting operations till the tale was told to the +end, walked out of the parlour into the kitchen (down two steps) in her +usual manner, without the slightest comment. + +Shedding a few tears in sign of rejoicing at her daughter’s mansuetude in +this terrible affair, Mrs Verloc’s mother gave play to her astuteness in +the direction of her furniture, because it was her own; and sometimes she +wished it hadn’t been. Heroism is all very well, but there are +circumstances when the disposal of a few tables and chairs, brass +bedsteads, and so on, may be big with remote and disastrous consequences. +She required a few pieces herself, the Foundation which, after many +importunities, had gathered her to its charitable breast, giving nothing +but bare planks and cheaply papered bricks to the objects of its +solicitude. The delicacy guiding her choice to the least valuable and +most dilapidated articles passed unacknowledged, because Winnie’s +philosophy consisted in not taking notice of the inside of facts; she +assumed that mother took what suited her best. As to Mr Verloc, his +intense meditation, like a sort of Chinese wall, isolated him completely +from the phenomena of this world of vain effort and illusory appearances. + +Her selection made, the disposal of the rest became a perplexing question +in a particular way. She was leaving it in Brett Street, of course. But +she had two children. Winnie was provided for by her sensible union with +that excellent husband, Mr Verloc. Stevie was destitute—and a little +peculiar. His position had to be considered before the claims of legal +justice and even the promptings of partiality. The possession of the +furniture would not be in any sense a provision. He ought to have it—the +poor boy. But to give it to him would be like tampering with his +position of complete dependence. It was a sort of claim which she feared +to weaken. Moreover, the susceptibilities of Mr Verloc would perhaps not +brook being beholden to his brother-in-law for the chairs he sat on. In +a long experience of gentlemen lodgers, Mrs Verloc’s mother had acquired +a dismal but resigned notion of the fantastic side of human nature. What +if Mr Verloc suddenly took it into his head to tell Stevie to take his +blessed sticks somewhere out of that? A division, on the other hand, +however carefully made, might give some cause of offence to Winnie. No, +Stevie must remain destitute and dependent. And at the moment of leaving +Brett Street she had said to her daughter: “No use waiting till I am +dead, is there? Everything I leave here is altogether your own now, my +dear.” + +Winnie, with her hat on, silent behind her mother’s back, went on +arranging the collar of the old woman’s cloak. She got her hand-bag, an +umbrella, with an impassive face. The time had come for the expenditure +of the sum of three-and-sixpence on what might well be supposed the last +cab drive of Mrs Verloc’s mother’s life. They went out at the shop door. + +The conveyance awaiting them would have illustrated the proverb that +“truth can be more cruel than caricature,” if such a proverb existed. +Crawling behind an infirm horse, a metropolitan hackney carriage drew up +on wobbly wheels and with a maimed driver on the box. This last +peculiarity caused some embarrassment. Catching sight of a hooked iron +contrivance protruding from the left sleeve of the man’s coat, Mrs +Verloc’s mother lost suddenly the heroic courage of these days. She +really couldn’t trust herself. “What do you think, Winnie?” She hung +back. The passionate expostulations of the big-faced cabman seemed to be +squeezed out of a blocked throat. Leaning over from his box, he +whispered with mysterious indignation. What was the matter now? Was it +possible to treat a man so? His enormous and unwashed countenance flamed +red in the muddy stretch of the street. Was it likely they would have +given him a licence, he inquired desperately, if— + +The police constable of the locality quieted him by a friendly glance; +then addressing himself to the two women without marked consideration, +said: + +“He’s been driving a cab for twenty years. I never knew him to have an +accident.” + +“Accident!” shouted the driver in a scornful whisper. + +The policeman’s testimony settled it. The modest assemblage of seven +people, mostly under age, dispersed. Winnie followed her mother into the +cab. Stevie climbed on the box. His vacant mouth and distressed eyes +depicted the state of his mind in regard to the transactions which were +taking place. In the narrow streets the progress of the journey was made +sensible to those within by the near fronts of the houses gliding past +slowly and shakily, with a great rattle and jingling of glass, as if +about to collapse behind the cab; and the infirm horse, with the harness +hung over his sharp backbone flapping very loose about his thighs, +appeared to be dancing mincingly on his toes with infinite patience. +Later on, in the wider space of Whitehall, all visual evidences of motion +became imperceptible. The rattle and jingle of glass went on +indefinitely in front of the long Treasury building—and time itself +seemed to stand still. + +At last Winnie observed: “This isn’t a very good horse.” + +Her eyes gleamed in the shadow of the cab straight ahead, immovable. On +the box, Stevie shut his vacant mouth first, in order to ejaculate +earnestly: “Don’t.” + +The driver, holding high the reins twisted around the hook, took no +notice. Perhaps he had not heard. Stevie’s breast heaved. + +“Don’t whip.” + +The man turned slowly his bloated and sodden face of many colours +bristling with white hairs. His little red eyes glistened with moisture. +His big lips had a violet tint. They remained closed. With the dirty +back of his whip-hand he rubbed the stubble sprouting on his enormous +chin. + +“You mustn’t,” stammered out Stevie violently. “It hurts.” + +“Mustn’t whip,” queried the other in a thoughtful whisper, and +immediately whipped. He did this, not because his soul was cruel and his +heart evil, but because he had to earn his fare. And for a time the +walls of St Stephen’s, with its towers and pinnacles, contemplated in +immobility and silence a cab that jingled. It rolled too, however. But +on the bridge there was a commotion. Stevie suddenly proceeded to get +down from the box. There were shouts on the pavement, people ran +forward, the driver pulled up, whispering curses of indignation and +astonishment. Winnie lowered the window, and put her head out, white as +a ghost. In the depths of the cab, her mother was exclaiming, in tones +of anguish: “Is that boy hurt? Is that boy hurt?” + +Stevie was not hurt, he had not even fallen, but excitement as usual had +robbed him of the power of connected speech. He could do no more than +stammer at the window. “Too heavy. Too heavy.” Winnie put out her hand +on to his shoulder. + +“Stevie! Get up on the box directly, and don’t try to get down again.” + +“No. No. Walk. Must walk.” + +In trying to state the nature of that necessity he stammered himself into +utter incoherence. No physical impossibility stood in the way of his +whim. Stevie could have managed easily to keep pace with the infirm, +dancing horse without getting out of breath. But his sister withheld her +consent decisively. “The idea! Whoever heard of such a thing! Run +after a cab!” Her mother, frightened and helpless in the depths of the +conveyance, entreated: “Oh, don’t let him, Winnie. He’ll get lost. +Don’t let him.” + +“Certainly not. What next! Mr Verloc will be sorry to hear of this +nonsense, Stevie,—I can tell you. He won’t be happy at all.” + +The idea of Mr Verloc’s grief and unhappiness acting as usual powerfully +upon Stevie’s fundamentally docile disposition, he abandoned all +resistance, and climbed up again on the box, with a face of despair. + +The cabby turned at him his enormous and inflamed countenance +truculently. “Don’t you go for trying this silly game again, young +fellow.” + +After delivering himself thus in a stern whisper, strained almost to +extinction, he drove on, ruminating solemnly. To his mind the incident +remained somewhat obscure. But his intellect, though it had lost its +pristine vivacity in the benumbing years of sedentary exposure to the +weather, lacked not independence or sanity. Gravely he dismissed the +hypothesis of Stevie being a drunken young nipper. + +Inside the cab the spell of silence, in which the two women had endured +shoulder to shoulder the jolting, rattling, and jingling of the journey, +had been broken by Stevie’s outbreak. Winnie raised her voice. + +“You’ve done what you wanted, mother. You’ll have only yourself to thank +for it if you aren’t happy afterwards. And I don’t think you’ll be. +That I don’t. Weren’t you comfortable enough in the house? Whatever +people’ll think of us—you throwing yourself like this on a Charity?” + +“My dear,” screamed the old woman earnestly above the noise, “you’ve been +the best of daughters to me. As to Mr Verloc—there—” + +Words failing her on the subject of Mr Verloc’s excellence, she turned +her old tearful eyes to the roof of the cab. Then she averted her head +on the pretence of looking out of the window, as if to judge of their +progress. It was insignificant, and went on close to the curbstone. +Night, the early dirty night, the sinister, noisy, hopeless and rowdy +night of South London, had overtaken her on her last cab drive. In the +gas-light of the low-fronted shops her big cheeks glowed with an orange +hue under a black and mauve bonnet. + +Mrs Verloc’s mother’s complexion had become yellow by the effect of age +and from a natural predisposition to biliousness, favoured by the trials +of a difficult and worried existence, first as wife, then as widow. It +was a complexion, that under the influence of a blush would take on an +orange tint. And this woman, modest indeed but hardened in the fires of +adversity, of an age, moreover, when blushes are not expected, had +positively blushed before her daughter. In the privacy of a +four-wheeler, on her way to a charity cottage (one of a row) which by the +exiguity of its dimensions and the simplicity of its accommodation, might +well have been devised in kindness as a place of training for the still +more straitened circumstances of the grave, she was forced to hide from +her own child a blush of remorse and shame. + +Whatever people will think? She knew very well what they did think, the +people Winnie had in her mind—the old friends of her husband, and others +too, whose interest she had solicited with such flattering success. She +had not known before what a good beggar she could be. But she guessed +very well what inference was drawn from her application. On account of +that shrinking delicacy, which exists side by side with aggressive +brutality in masculine nature, the inquiries into her circumstances had +not been pushed very far. She had checked them by a visible compression +of the lips and some display of an emotion determined to be eloquently +silent. And the men would become suddenly incurious, after the manner of +their kind. She congratulated herself more than once on having nothing +to do with women, who being naturally more callous and avid of details, +would have been anxious to be exactly informed by what sort of unkind +conduct her daughter and son-in-law had driven her to that sad extremity. +It was only before the Secretary of the great brewer M. P. and Chairman +of the Charity, who, acting for his principal, felt bound to be +conscientiously inquisitive as to the real circumstances of the +applicant, that she had burst into tears outright and aloud, as a +cornered woman will weep. The thin and polite gentleman, after +contemplating her with an air of being “struck all of a heap,” abandoned +his position under the cover of soothing remarks. She must not distress +herself. The deed of the Charity did not absolutely specify “childless +widows.” In fact, it did not by any means disqualify her. But the +discretion of the Committee must be an informed discretion. One could +understand very well her unwillingness to be a burden, etc. etc. +Thereupon, to his profound disappointment, Mrs Verloc’s mother wept some +more with an augmented vehemence. + +The tears of that large female in a dark, dusty wig, and ancient silk +dress festooned with dingy white cotton lace, were the tears of genuine +distress. She had wept because she was heroic and unscrupulous and full +of love for both her children. Girls frequently get sacrificed to the +welfare of the boys. In this case she was sacrificing Winnie. By the +suppression of truth she was slandering her. Of course, Winnie was +independent, and need not care for the opinion of people that she would +never see and who would never see her; whereas poor Stevie had nothing in +the world he could call his own except his mother’s heroism and +unscrupulousness. + +The first sense of security following on Winnie’s marriage wore off in +time (for nothing lasts), and Mrs Verloc’s mother, in the seclusion of +the back bedroom, had recalled the teaching of that experience which the +world impresses upon a widowed woman. But she had recalled it without +vain bitterness; her store of resignation amounted almost to dignity. +She reflected stoically that everything decays, wears out, in this world; +that the way of kindness should be made easy to the well disposed; that +her daughter Winnie was a most devoted sister, and a very self-confident +wife indeed. As regards Winnie’s sisterly devotion, her stoicism +flinched. She excepted that sentiment from the rule of decay affecting +all things human and some things divine. She could not help it; not to +do so would have frightened her too much. But in considering the +conditions of her daughter’s married state, she rejected firmly all +flattering illusions. She took the cold and reasonable view that the +less strain put on Mr Verloc’s kindness the longer its effects were +likely to last. That excellent man loved his wife, of course, but he +would, no doubt, prefer to keep as few of her relations as was consistent +with the proper display of that sentiment. It would be better if its +whole effect were concentrated on poor Stevie. And the heroic old woman +resolved on going away from her children as an act of devotion and as a +move of deep policy. + +The “virtue” of this policy consisted in this (Mrs Verloc’s mother was +subtle in her way), that Stevie’s moral claim would be strengthened. The +poor boy—a good, useful boy, if a little peculiar—had not a sufficient +standing. He had been taken over with his mother, somewhat in the same +way as the furniture of the Belgravian mansion had been taken over, as if +on the ground of belonging to her exclusively. What will happen, she +asked herself (for Mrs Verloc’s mother was in a measure imaginative), +when I die? And when she asked herself that question it was with dread. +It was also terrible to think that she would not then have the means of +knowing what happened to the poor boy. But by making him over to his +sister, by going thus away, she gave him the advantage of a directly +dependent position. This was the more subtle sanction of Mrs Verloc’s +mother’s heroism and unscrupulousness. Her act of abandonment was really +an arrangement for settling her son permanently in life. Other people +made material sacrifices for such an object, she in that way. It was the +only way. Moreover, she would be able to see how it worked. Ill or well +she would avoid the horrible incertitude on the death-bed. But it was +hard, hard, cruelly hard. + +The cab rattled, jingled, jolted; in fact, the last was quite +extraordinary. By its disproportionate violence and magnitude it +obliterated every sensation of onward movement; and the effect was of +being shaken in a stationary apparatus like a mediæval device for the +punishment of crime, or some very newfangled invention for the cure of a +sluggish liver. It was extremely distressing; and the raising of Mrs +Verloc’s mother’s voice sounded like a wail of pain. + +“I know, my dear, you’ll come to see me as often as you can spare the +time. Won’t you?” + +“Of course,” answered Winnie shortly, staring straight before her. + +And the cab jolted in front of a steamy, greasy shop in a blaze of gas +and in the smell of fried fish. + +The old woman raised a wail again. + +“And, my dear, I must see that poor boy every Sunday. He won’t mind +spending the day with his old mother—” + +Winnie screamed out stolidly: + +“Mind! I should think not. That poor boy will miss you something cruel. +I wish you had thought a little of that, mother.” + +Not think of it! The heroic woman swallowed a playful and inconvenient +object like a billiard ball, which had tried to jump out of her throat. +Winnie sat mute for a while, pouting at the front of the cab, then +snapped out, which was an unusual tone with her: + +“I expect I’ll have a job with him at first, he’ll be that restless—” + +“Whatever you do, don’t let him worry your husband, my dear.” + +Thus they discussed on familiar lines the bearings of a new situation. +And the cab jolted. Mrs Verloc’s mother expressed some misgivings. +Could Stevie be trusted to come all that way alone? Winnie maintained +that he was much less “absent-minded” now. They agreed as to that. It +could not be denied. Much less—hardly at all. They shouted at each +other in the jingle with comparative cheerfulness. But suddenly the +maternal anxiety broke out afresh. There were two omnibuses to take, and +a short walk between. It was too difficult! The old woman gave way to +grief and consternation. + +Winnie stared forward. + +“Don’t you upset yourself like this, mother. You must see him, of +course.” + +“No, my dear. I’ll try not to.” + +She mopped her streaming eyes. + +“But you can’t spare the time to come with him, and if he should forget +himself and lose his way and somebody spoke to him sharply, his name and +address may slip his memory, and he’ll remain lost for days and days—” + +The vision of a workhouse infirmary for poor Stevie—if only during +inquiries—wrung her heart. For she was a proud woman. Winnie’s stare +had grown hard, intent, inventive. + +“I can’t bring him to you myself every week,” she cried. “But don’t you +worry, mother. I’ll see to it that he don’t get lost for long.” + +They felt a peculiar bump; a vision of brick pillars lingered before the +rattling windows of the cab; a sudden cessation of atrocious jolting and +uproarious jingling dazed the two women. What had happened? They sat +motionless and scared in the profound stillness, till the door came open, +and a rough, strained whispering was heard: + +“Here you are!” + +A range of gabled little houses, each with one dim yellow window, on the +ground floor, surrounded the dark open space of a grass plot planted with +shrubs and railed off from the patchwork of lights and shadows in the +wide road, resounding with the dull rumble of traffic. Before the door +of one of these tiny houses—one without a light in the little downstairs +window—the cab had come to a standstill. Mrs Verloc’s mother got out +first, backwards, with a key in her hand. Winnie lingered on the +flagstone path to pay the cabman. Stevie, after helping to carry inside +a lot of small parcels, came out and stood under the light of a gas-lamp +belonging to the Charity. The cabman looked at the pieces of silver, +which, appearing very minute in his big, grimy palm, symbolised the +insignificant results which reward the ambitious courage and toil of a +mankind whose day is short on this earth of evil. + +He had been paid decently—four one-shilling pieces—and he contemplated +them in perfect stillness, as if they had been the surprising terms of a +melancholy problem. The slow transfer of that treasure to an inner +pocket demanded much laborious groping in the depths of decayed clothing. +His form was squat and without flexibility. Stevie, slender, his +shoulders a little up, and his hands thrust deep in the side pockets of +his warm overcoat, stood at the edge of the path, pouting. + +The cabman, pausing in his deliberate movements, seemed struck by some +misty recollection. + +“Oh! ’Ere you are, young fellow,” he whispered. “You’ll know him +again—won’t you?” + +Stevie was staring at the horse, whose hind quarters appeared unduly +elevated by the effect of emaciation. The little stiff tail seemed to +have been fitted in for a heartless joke; and at the other end the thin, +flat neck, like a plank covered with old horse-hide, drooped to the +ground under the weight of an enormous bony head. The ears hung at +different angles, negligently; and the macabre figure of that mute +dweller on the earth steamed straight up from ribs and backbone in the +muggy stillness of the air. + +The cabman struck lightly Stevie’s breast with the iron hook protruding +from a ragged, greasy sleeve. + +“Look ’ere, young feller. ’Ow’d _you_ like to sit behind this ’oss up to +two o’clock in the morning p’raps?” + +Stevie looked vacantly into the fierce little eyes with red-edged lids. + +“He ain’t lame,” pursued the other, whispering with energy. “He ain’t +got no sore places on ’im. ’Ere he is. ’Ow would _you_ like—” + +His strained, extinct voice invested his utterance with a character of +vehement secrecy. Stevie’s vacant gaze was changing slowly into dread. + +“You may well look! Till three and four o’clock in the morning. Cold +and ’ungry. Looking for fares. Drunks.” + +His jovial purple cheeks bristled with white hairs; and like Virgil’s +Silenus, who, his face smeared with the juice of berries, discoursed of +Olympian Gods to the innocent shepherds of Sicily, he talked to Stevie of +domestic matters and the affairs of men whose sufferings are great and +immortality by no means assured. + +“I am a night cabby, I am,” he whispered, with a sort of boastful +exasperation. “I’ve got to take out what they will blooming well give me +at the yard. I’ve got my missus and four kids at ’ome.” + +The monstrous nature of that declaration of paternity seemed to strike +the world dumb. A silence reigned during which the flanks of the old +horse, the steed of apocalyptic misery, smoked upwards in the light of +the charitable gas-lamp. + +The cabman grunted, then added in his mysterious whisper: + +“This ain’t an easy world.” Stevie’s face had been twitching for some +time, and at last his feelings burst out in their usual concise form. + +“Bad! Bad!” + +His gaze remained fixed on the ribs of the horse, self-conscious and +sombre, as though he were afraid to look about him at the badness of the +world. And his slenderness, his rosy lips and pale, clear complexion, +gave him the aspect of a delicate boy, notwithstanding the fluffy growth +of golden hair on his cheeks. He pouted in a scared way like a child. +The cabman, short and broad, eyed him with his fierce little eyes that +seemed to smart in a clear and corroding liquid. + +“’Ard on ’osses, but dam’ sight ’arder on poor chaps like me,” he wheezed +just audibly. + +“Poor! Poor!” stammered out Stevie, pushing his hands deeper into his +pockets with convulsive sympathy. He could say nothing; for the +tenderness to all pain and all misery, the desire to make the horse happy +and the cabman happy, had reached the point of a bizarre longing to take +them to bed with him. And that, he knew, was impossible. For Stevie was +not mad. It was, as it were, a symbolic longing; and at the same time it +was very distinct, because springing from experience, the mother of +wisdom. Thus when as a child he cowered in a dark corner scared, +wretched, sore, and miserable with the black, black misery of the soul, +his sister Winnie used to come along, and carry him off to bed with her, +as into a heaven of consoling peace. Stevie, though apt to forget mere +facts, such as his name and address for instance, had a faithful memory +of sensations. To be taken into a bed of compassion was the supreme +remedy, with the only one disadvantage of being difficult of application +on a large scale. And looking at the cabman, Stevie perceived this +clearly, because he was reasonable. + +The cabman went on with his leisurely preparations as if Stevie had not +existed. He made as if to hoist himself on the box, but at the last +moment from some obscure motive, perhaps merely from disgust with +carriage exercise, desisted. He approached instead the motionless +partner of his labours, and stooping to seize the bridle, lifted up the +big, weary head to the height of his shoulder with one effort of his +right arm, like a feat of strength. + +“Come on,” he whispered secretly. + +Limping, he led the cab away. There was an air of austerity in this +departure, the scrunched gravel of the drive crying out under the slowly +turning wheels, the horse’s lean thighs moving with ascetic deliberation +away from the light into the obscurity of the open space bordered dimly +by the pointed roofs and the feebly shining windows of the little +alms-houses. The plaint of the gravel travelled slowly all round the +drive. Between the lamps of the charitable gateway the slow cortege +reappeared, lighted up for a moment, the short, thick man limping busily, +with the horse’s head held aloft in his fist, the lank animal walking in +stiff and forlorn dignity, the dark, low box on wheels rolling behind +comically with an air of waddling. They turned to the left. There was a +pub down the street, within fifty yards of the gate. + +Stevie left alone beside the private lamp-post of the Charity, his hands +thrust deep into his pockets, glared with vacant sulkiness. At the +bottom of his pockets his incapable weak hands were clinched hard into a +pair of angry fists. In the face of anything which affected directly or +indirectly his morbid dread of pain, Stevie ended by turning vicious. A +magnanimous indignation swelled his frail chest to bursting, and caused +his candid eyes to squint. Supremely wise in knowing his own +powerlessness, Stevie was not wise enough to restrain his passions. The +tenderness of his universal charity had two phases as indissolubly joined +and connected as the reverse and obverse sides of a medal. The anguish +of immoderate compassion was succeeded by the pain of an innocent but +pitiless rage. Those two states expressing themselves outwardly by the +same signs of futile bodily agitation, his sister Winnie soothed his +excitement without ever fathoming its twofold character. Mrs Verloc +wasted no portion of this transient life in seeking for fundamental +information. This is a sort of economy having all the appearances and +some of the advantages of prudence. Obviously it may be good for one not +to know too much. And such a view accords very well with constitutional +indolence. + +On that evening on which it may be said that Mrs Verloc’s mother having +parted for good from her children had also departed this life, Winnie +Verloc did not investigate her brother’s psychology. The poor boy was +excited, of course. After once more assuring the old woman on the +threshold that she would know how to guard against the risk of Stevie +losing himself for very long on his pilgrimages of filial piety, she took +her brother’s arm to walk away. Stevie did not even mutter to himself, +but with the special sense of sisterly devotion developed in her earliest +infancy, she felt that the boy was very much excited indeed. Holding +tight to his arm, under the appearance of leaning on it, she thought of +some words suitable to the occasion. + +“Now, Stevie, you must look well after me at the crossings, and get first +into the ’bus, like a good brother.” + +This appeal to manly protection was received by Stevie with his usual +docility. It flattered him. He raised his head and threw out his chest. + +“Don’t be nervous, Winnie. Mustn’t be nervous! ’Bus all right,” he +answered in a brusque, slurring stammer partaking of the timorousness of +a child and the resolution of a man. He advanced fearlessly with the +woman on his arm, but his lower lip dropped. Nevertheless, on the +pavement of the squalid and wide thoroughfare, whose poverty in all the +amenities of life stood foolishly exposed by a mad profusion of +gas-lights, their resemblance to each other was so pronounced as to +strike the casual passers-by. + +Before the doors of the public-house at the corner, where the profusion +of gas-light reached the height of positive wickedness, a four-wheeled +cab standing by the curbstone with no one on the box, seemed cast out +into the gutter on account of irremediable decay. Mrs Verloc recognised +the conveyance. Its aspect was so profoundly lamentable, with such a +perfection of grotesque misery and weirdness of macabre detail, as if it +were the Cab of Death itself, that Mrs Verloc, with that ready compassion +of a woman for a horse (when she is not sitting behind him), exclaimed +vaguely: + +“Poor brute!” + +Hanging back suddenly, Stevie inflicted an arresting jerk upon his +sister. + +“Poor! Poor!” he ejaculated appreciatively. “Cabman poor too. He told +me himself.” + +The contemplation of the infirm and lonely steed overcame him. Jostled, +but obstinate, he would remain there, trying to express the view newly +opened to his sympathies of the human and equine misery in close +association. But it was very difficult. “Poor brute, poor people!” was +all he could repeat. It did not seem forcible enough, and he came to a +stop with an angry splutter: “Shame!” Stevie was no master of phrases, +and perhaps for that very reason his thoughts lacked clearness and +precision. But he felt with greater completeness and some profundity. +That little word contained all his sense of indignation and horror at one +sort of wretchedness having to feed upon the anguish of the other—at the +poor cabman beating the poor horse in the name, as it were, of his poor +kids at home. And Stevie knew what it was to be beaten. He knew it from +experience. It was a bad world. Bad! Bad! + +Mrs Verloc, his only sister, guardian, and protector, could not pretend +to such depths of insight. Moreover, she had not experienced the magic +of the cabman’s eloquence. She was in the dark as to the inwardness of +the word “Shame.” And she said placidly: + +“Come along, Stevie. You can’t help that.” + +The docile Stevie went along; but now he went along without pride, +shamblingly, and muttering half words, and even words that would have +been whole if they had not been made up of halves that did not belong to +each other. It was as though he had been trying to fit all the words he +could remember to his sentiments in order to get some sort of +corresponding idea. And, as a matter of fact, he got it at last. He +hung back to utter it at once. + +“Bad world for poor people.” + +Directly he had expressed that thought he became aware that it was +familiar to him already in all its consequences. This circumstance +strengthened his conviction immensely, but also augmented his +indignation. Somebody, he felt, ought to be punished for it—punished +with great severity. Being no sceptic, but a moral creature, he was in a +manner at the mercy of his righteous passions. + +“Beastly!” he added concisely. + +It was clear to Mrs Verloc that he was greatly excited. + +“Nobody can help that,” she said. “Do come along. Is that the way +you’re taking care of me?” + +Stevie mended his pace obediently. He prided himself on being a good +brother. His morality, which was very complete, demanded that from him. +Yet he was pained at the information imparted by his sister Winnie who +was good. Nobody could help that! He came along gloomily, but presently +he brightened up. Like the rest of mankind, perplexed by the mystery of +the universe, he had his moments of consoling trust in the organised +powers of the earth. + +“Police,” he suggested confidently. + +“The police aren’t for that,” observed Mrs Verloc cursorily, hurrying on +her way. + +Stevie’s face lengthened considerably. He was thinking. The more +intense his thinking, the slacker was the droop of his lower jaw. + +And it was with an aspect of hopeless vacancy that he gave up his +intellectual enterprise. + +“Not for that?” he mumbled, resigned but surprised. “Not for that?” He +had formed for himself an ideal conception of the metropolitan police as +a sort of benevolent institution for the suppression of evil. The notion +of benevolence especially was very closely associated with his sense of +the power of the men in blue. He had liked all police constables +tenderly, with a guileless trustfulness. And he was pained. He was +irritated, too, by a suspicion of duplicity in the members of the force. +For Stevie was frank and as open as the day himself. What did they mean +by pretending then? Unlike his sister, who put her trust in face values, +he wished to go to the bottom of the matter. He carried on his inquiry +by means of an angry challenge. + +“What for are they then, Winn? What are they for? Tell me.” + +Winnie disliked controversy. But fearing most a fit of black depression +consequent on Stevie missing his mother very much at first, she did not +altogether decline the discussion. Guiltless of all irony, she answered +yet in a form which was not perhaps unnatural in the wife of Mr Verloc, +Delegate of the Central Red Committee, personal friend of certain +anarchists, and a votary of social revolution. + +“Don’t you know what the police are for, Stevie? They are there so that +them as have nothing shouldn’t take anything away from them who have.” + +She avoided using the verb “to steal,” because it always made her brother +uncomfortable. For Stevie was delicately honest. Certain simple +principles had been instilled into him so anxiously (on account of his +“queerness”) that the mere names of certain transgressions filled him +with horror. He had been always easily impressed by speeches. He was +impressed and startled now, and his intelligence was very alert. + +“What?” he asked at once anxiously. “Not even if they were hungry? +Mustn’t they?” + +The two had paused in their walk. + +“Not if they were ever so,” said Mrs Verloc, with the equanimity of a +person untroubled by the problem of the distribution of wealth, and +exploring the perspective of the roadway for an omnibus of the right +colour. “Certainly not. But what’s the use of talking about all that? +You aren’t ever hungry.” + +She cast a swift glance at the boy, like a young man, by her side. She +saw him amiable, attractive, affectionate, and only a little, a very +little, peculiar. And she could not see him otherwise, for he was +connected with what there was of the salt of passion in her tasteless +life—the passion of indignation, of courage, of pity, and even of +self-sacrifice. She did not add: “And you aren’t likely ever to be as +long as I live.” But she might very well have done so, since she had +taken effectual steps to that end. Mr Verloc was a very good husband. +It was her honest impression that nobody could help liking the boy. She +cried out suddenly: + +“Quick, Stevie. Stop that green ’bus.” + +And Stevie, tremulous and important with his sister Winnie on his arm, +flung up the other high above his head at the approaching ’bus, with +complete success. + +An hour afterwards Mr Verloc raised his eyes from a newspaper he was +reading, or at any rate looking at, behind the counter, and in the +expiring clatter of the door-bell beheld Winnie, his wife, enter and +cross the shop on her way upstairs, followed by Stevie, his +brother-in-law. The sight of his wife was agreeable to Mr Verloc. It +was his idiosyncrasy. The figure of his brother-in-law remained +imperceptible to him because of the morose thoughtfulness that lately had +fallen like a veil between Mr Verloc and the appearances of the world of +senses. He looked after his wife fixedly, without a word, as though she +had been a phantom. His voice for home use was husky and placid, but now +it was heard not at all. It was not heard at supper, to which he was +called by his wife in the usual brief manner: “Adolf.” He sat down to +consume it without conviction, wearing his hat pushed far back on his +head. It was not devotion to an outdoor life, but the frequentation of +foreign cafés which was responsible for that habit, investing with a +character of unceremonious impermanency Mr Verloc’s steady fidelity to +his own fireside. Twice at the clatter of the cracked bell he arose +without a word, disappeared into the shop, and came back silently. +During these absences Mrs Verloc, becoming acutely aware of the vacant +place at her right hand, missed her mother very much, and stared stonily; +while Stevie, from the same reason, kept on shuffling his feet, as though +the floor under the table were uncomfortably hot. When Mr Verloc +returned to sit in his place, like the very embodiment of silence, the +character of Mrs Verloc’s stare underwent a subtle change, and Stevie +ceased to fidget with his feet, because of his great and awed regard for +his sister’s husband. He directed at him glances of respectful +compassion. Mr Verloc was sorry. His sister Winnie had impressed upon +him (in the omnibus) that Mr Verloc would be found at home in a state of +sorrow, and must not be worried. His father’s anger, the irritability of +gentlemen lodgers, and Mr Verloc’s predisposition to immoderate grief, +had been the main sanctions of Stevie’s self-restraint. Of these +sentiments, all easily provoked, but not always easy to understand, the +last had the greatest moral efficiency—because Mr Verloc was _good_. His +mother and his sister had established that ethical fact on an unshakable +foundation. They had established, erected, consecrated it behind Mr +Verloc’s back, for reasons that had nothing to do with abstract morality. +And Mr Verloc was not aware of it. It is but bare justice to him to say +that he had no notion of appearing good to Stevie. Yet so it was. He +was even the only man so qualified in Stevie’s knowledge, because the +gentlemen lodgers had been too transient and too remote to have anything +very distinct about them but perhaps their boots; and as regards the +disciplinary measures of his father, the desolation of his mother and +sister shrank from setting up a theory of goodness before the victim. It +would have been too cruel. And it was even possible that Stevie would +not have believed them. As far as Mr Verloc was concerned, nothing could +stand in the way of Stevie’s belief. Mr Verloc was obviously yet +mysteriously _good_. And the grief of a good man is august. + +Stevie gave glances of reverential compassion to his brother-in-law. Mr +Verloc was sorry. The brother of Winnie had never before felt himself in +such close communion with the mystery of that man’s goodness. It was an +understandable sorrow. And Stevie himself was sorry. He was very sorry. +The same sort of sorrow. And his attention being drawn to this +unpleasant state, Stevie shuffled his feet. His feelings were habitually +manifested by the agitation of his limbs. + +“Keep your feet quiet, dear,” said Mrs Verloc, with authority and +tenderness; then turning towards her husband in an indifferent voice, the +masterly achievement of instinctive tact: “Are you going out to-night?” +she asked. + +The mere suggestion seemed repugnant to Mr Verloc. He shook his head +moodily, and then sat still with downcast eyes, looking at the piece of +cheese on his plate for a whole minute. At the end of that time he got +up, and went out—went right out in the clatter of the shop-door bell. He +acted thus inconsistently, not from any desire to make himself +unpleasant, but because of an unconquerable restlessness. It was no +earthly good going out. He could not find anywhere in London what he +wanted. But he went out. He led a cortege of dismal thoughts along dark +streets, through lighted streets, in and out of two flash bars, as if in +a half-hearted attempt to make a night of it, and finally back again to +his menaced home, where he sat down fatigued behind the counter, and they +crowded urgently round him, like a pack of hungry black hounds. After +locking up the house and putting out the gas he took them upstairs with +him—a dreadful escort for a man going to bed. His wife had preceded him +some time before, and with her ample form defined vaguely under the +counterpane, her head on the pillow, and a hand under the cheek offered +to his distraction the view of early drowsiness arguing the possession of +an equable soul. Her big eyes stared wide open, inert and dark against +the snowy whiteness of the linen. She did not move. + +She had an equable soul. She felt profoundly that things do not stand +much looking into. She made her force and her wisdom of that instinct. +But the taciturnity of Mr Verloc had been lying heavily upon her for a +good many days. It was, as a matter of fact, affecting her nerves. +Recumbent and motionless, she said placidly: + +“You’ll catch cold walking about in your socks like this.” + +This speech, becoming the solicitude of the wife and the prudence of the +woman, took Mr Verloc unawares. He had left his boots downstairs, but he +had forgotten to put on his slippers, and he had been turning about the +bedroom on noiseless pads like a bear in a cage. At the sound of his +wife’s voice he stopped and stared at her with a somnambulistic, +expressionless gaze so long that Mrs Verloc moved her limbs slightly +under the bed-clothes. But she did not move her black head sunk in the +white pillow one hand under her cheek and the big, dark, unwinking eyes. + +Under her husband’s expressionless stare, and remembering her mother’s +empty room across the landing, she felt an acute pang of loneliness. She +had never been parted from her mother before. They had stood by each +other. She felt that they had, and she said to herself that now mother +was gone—gone for good. Mrs Verloc had no illusions. Stevie remained, +however. And she said: + +“Mother’s done what she wanted to do. There’s no sense in it that I can +see. I’m sure she couldn’t have thought you had enough of her. It’s +perfectly wicked, leaving us like that.” + +Mr Verloc was not a well-read person; his range of allusive phrases was +limited, but there was a peculiar aptness in circumstances which made him +think of rats leaving a doomed ship. He very nearly said so. He had +grown suspicious and embittered. Could it be that the old woman had such +an excellent nose? But the unreasonableness of such a suspicion was +patent, and Mr Verloc held his tongue. Not altogether, however. He +muttered heavily: + +“Perhaps it’s just as well.” + +He began to undress. Mrs Verloc kept very still, perfectly still, with +her eyes fixed in a dreamy, quiet stare. And her heart for the fraction +of a second seemed to stand still too. That night she was “not quite +herself,” as the saying is, and it was borne upon her with some force +that a simple sentence may hold several diverse meanings—mostly +disagreeable. How was it just as well? And why? But she did not allow +herself to fall into the idleness of barren speculation. She was rather +confirmed in her belief that things did not stand being looked into. +Practical and subtle in her way, she brought Stevie to the front without +loss of time, because in her the singleness of purpose had the unerring +nature and the force of an instinct. + +“What I am going to do to cheer up that boy for the first few days I’m +sure I don’t know. He’ll be worrying himself from morning till night +before he gets used to mother being away. And he’s such a good boy. I +couldn’t do without him.” + +Mr Verloc went on divesting himself of his clothing with the unnoticing +inward concentration of a man undressing in the solitude of a vast and +hopeless desert. For thus inhospitably did this fair earth, our common +inheritance, present itself to the mental vision of Mr Verloc. All was +so still without and within that the lonely ticking of the clock on the +landing stole into the room as if for the sake of company. + +Mr Verloc, getting into bed on his own side, remained prone and mute +behind Mrs Verloc’s back. His thick arms rested abandoned on the outside +of the counterpane like dropped weapons, like discarded tools. At that +moment he was within a hair’s breadth of making a clean breast of it all +to his wife. The moment seemed propitious. Looking out of the corners +of his eyes, he saw her ample shoulders draped in white, the back of her +head, with the hair done for the night in three plaits tied up with black +tapes at the ends. And he forbore. Mr Verloc loved his wife as a wife +should be loved—that is, maritally, with the regard one has for one’s +chief possession. This head arranged for the night, those ample +shoulders, had an aspect of familiar sacredness—the sacredness of +domestic peace. She moved not, massive and shapeless like a recumbent +statue in the rough; he remembered her wide-open eyes looking into the +empty room. She was mysterious, with the mysteriousness of living +beings. The far-famed secret agent [delta] of the late Baron +Stott-Wartenheim’s alarmist despatches was not the man to break into such +mysteries. He was easily intimidated. And he was also indolent, with +the indolence which is so often the secret of good nature. He forbore +touching that mystery out of love, timidity, and indolence. There would +be always time enough. For several minutes he bore his sufferings +silently in the drowsy silence of the room. And then he disturbed it by +a resolute declaration. + +“I am going on the Continent to-morrow.” + +His wife might have fallen asleep already. He could not tell. As a +matter of fact, Mrs Verloc had heard him. Her eyes remained very wide +open, and she lay very still, confirmed in her instinctive conviction +that things don’t bear looking into very much. And yet it was nothing +very unusual for Mr Verloc to take such a trip. He renewed his stock +from Paris and Brussels. Often he went over to make his purchases +personally. A little select connection of amateurs was forming around +the shop in Brett Street, a secret connection eminently proper for any +business undertaken by Mr Verloc, who, by a mystic accord of temperament +and necessity, had been set apart to be a secret agent all his life. + +He waited for a while, then added: “I’ll be away a week or perhaps a +fortnight. Get Mrs Neale to come for the day.” + +Mrs Neale was the charwoman of Brett Street. Victim of her marriage with +a debauched joiner, she was oppressed by the needs of many infant +children. Red-armed, and aproned in coarse sacking up to the arm-pits, +she exhaled the anguish of the poor in a breath of soap-suds and rum, in +the uproar of scrubbing, in the clatter of tin pails. + +Mrs Verloc, full of deep purpose, spoke in the tone of the shallowest +indifference. + +“There is no need to have the woman here all day. I shall do very well +with Stevie.” + +She let the lonely clock on the landing count off fifteen ticks into the +abyss of eternity, and asked: + +“Shall I put the light out?” + +Mr Verloc snapped at his wife huskily. + +“Put it out.” + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +Mr Verloc returning from the Continent at the end of ten days, brought +back a mind evidently unrefreshed by the wonders of foreign travel and a +countenance unlighted by the joys of home-coming. He entered in the +clatter of the shop bell with an air of sombre and vexed exhaustion. His +bag in hand, his head lowered, he strode straight behind the counter, and +let himself fall into the chair, as though he had tramped all the way +from Dover. It was early morning. Stevie, dusting various objects +displayed in the front windows, turned to gape at him with reverence and +awe. + +“Here!” said Mr Verloc, giving a slight kick to the gladstone bag on the +floor; and Stevie flung himself upon it, seized it, bore it off with +triumphant devotion. He was so prompt that Mr Verloc was distinctly +surprised. + +Already at the clatter of the shop bell Mrs Neale, blackleading the +parlour grate, had looked through the door, and rising from her knees had +gone, aproned, and grimy with everlasting toil, to tell Mrs Verloc in the +kitchen that “there was the master come back.” + +Winnie came no farther than the inner shop door. + +“You’ll want some breakfast,” she said from a distance. + +Mr Verloc moved his hands slightly, as if overcome by an impossible +suggestion. But once enticed into the parlour he did not reject the food +set before him. He ate as if in a public place, his hat pushed off his +forehead, the skirts of his heavy overcoat hanging in a triangle on each +side of the chair. And across the length of the table covered with brown +oil-cloth Winnie, his wife, talked evenly at him the wifely talk, as +artfully adapted, no doubt, to the circumstances of this return as the +talk of Penelope to the return of the wandering Odysseus. Mrs Verloc, +however, had done no weaving during her husband’s absence. But she had +had all the upstairs room cleaned thoroughly, had sold some wares, had +seen Mr Michaelis several times. He had told her the last time that he +was going away to live in a cottage in the country, somewhere on the +London, Chatham, and Dover line. Karl Yundt had come too, once, led +under the arm by that “wicked old housekeeper of his.” He was “a +disgusting old man.” Of Comrade Ossipon, whom she had received curtly, +entrenched behind the counter with a stony face and a faraway gaze, she +said nothing, her mental reference to the robust anarchist being marked +by a short pause, with the faintest possible blush. And bringing in her +brother Stevie as soon as she could into the current of domestic events, +she mentioned that the boy had moped a good deal. + +“It’s all along of mother leaving us like this.” + +Mr Verloc neither said, “Damn!” nor yet “Stevie be hanged!” And Mrs +Verloc, not let into the secret of his thoughts, failed to appreciate the +generosity of this restraint. + +“It isn’t that he doesn’t work as well as ever,” she continued. “He’s +been making himself very useful. You’d think he couldn’t do enough for +us.” + +Mr Verloc directed a casual and somnolent glance at Stevie, who sat on +his right, delicate, pale-faced, his rosy mouth open vacantly. It was +not a critical glance. It had no intention. And if Mr Verloc thought +for a moment that his wife’s brother looked uncommonly useless, it was +only a dull and fleeting thought, devoid of that force and durability +which enables sometimes a thought to move the world. Leaning back, Mr +Verloc uncovered his head. Before his extended arm could put down the +hat Stevie pounced upon it, and bore it off reverently into the kitchen. +And again Mr Verloc was surprised. + +“You could do anything with that boy, Adolf,” Mrs Verloc said, with her +best air of inflexible calmness. “He would go through fire for you. +He—” + +She paused attentive, her ear turned towards the door of the kitchen. + +There Mrs Neale was scrubbing the floor. At Stevie’s appearance she +groaned lamentably, having observed that he could be induced easily to +bestow for the benefit of her infant children the shilling his sister +Winnie presented him with from time to time. On all fours amongst the +puddles, wet and begrimed, like a sort of amphibious and domestic animal +living in ash-bins and dirty water, she uttered the usual exordium: “It’s +all very well for you, kept doing nothing like a gentleman.” And she +followed it with the everlasting plaint of the poor, pathetically +mendacious, miserably authenticated by the horrible breath of cheap rum +and soap-suds. She scrubbed hard, snuffling all the time, and talking +volubly. And she was sincere. And on each side of her thin red nose her +bleared, misty eyes swam in tears, because she felt really the want of +some sort of stimulant in the morning. + +In the parlour Mrs Verloc observed, with knowledge: + +“There’s Mrs Neale at it again with her harrowing tales about her little +children. They can’t be all so little as she makes them out. Some of +them must be big enough by now to try to do something for themselves. It +only makes Stevie angry.” + +These words were confirmed by a thud as of a fist striking the kitchen +table. In the normal evolution of his sympathy Stevie had become angry +on discovering that he had no shilling in his pocket. In his inability +to relieve at once Mrs Neale’s “little ’uns’” privations, he felt that +somebody should be made to suffer for it. Mrs Verloc rose, and went into +the kitchen to “stop that nonsense.” And she did it firmly but gently. +She was well aware that directly Mrs Neale received her money she went +round the corner to drink ardent spirits in a mean and musty +public-house—the unavoidable station on the _via dolorosa_ of her life. +Mrs Verloc’s comment upon this practice had an unexpected profundity, as +coming from a person disinclined to look under the surface of things. +“Of course, what is she to do to keep up? If I were like Mrs Neale I +expect I wouldn’t act any different.” + +In the afternoon of the same day, as Mr Verloc, coming with a start out +of the last of a long series of dozes before the parlour fire, declared +his intention of going out for a walk, Winnie said from the shop: + +“I wish you would take that boy out with you, Adolf.” + +For the third time that day Mr Verloc was surprised. He stared stupidly +at his wife. She continued in her steady manner. The boy, whenever he +was not doing anything, moped in the house. It made her uneasy; it made +her nervous, she confessed. And that from the calm Winnie sounded like +exaggeration. But, in truth, Stevie moped in the striking fashion of an +unhappy domestic animal. He would go up on the dark landing, to sit on +the floor at the foot of the tall clock, with his knees drawn up and his +head in his hands. To come upon his pallid face, with its big eyes +gleaming in the dusk, was discomposing; to think of him up there was +uncomfortable. + +Mr Verloc got used to the startling novelty of the idea. He was fond of +his wife as a man should be—that is, generously. But a weighty objection +presented itself to his mind, and he formulated it. + +“He’ll lose sight of me perhaps, and get lost in the street,” he said. + +Mrs Verloc shook her head competently. + +“He won’t. You don’t know him. That boy just worships you. But if you +should miss him—” + +Mrs Verloc paused for a moment, but only for a moment. + +“You just go on, and have your walk out. Don’t worry. He’ll be all +right. He’s sure to turn up safe here before very long.” + +This optimism procured for Mr Verloc his fourth surprise of the day. + +“Is he?” he grunted doubtfully. But perhaps his brother-in-law was not +such an idiot as he looked. His wife would know best. He turned away +his heavy eyes, saying huskily: “Well, let him come along, then,” and +relapsed into the clutches of black care, that perhaps prefers to sit +behind a horseman, but knows also how to tread close on the heels of +people not sufficiently well off to keep horses—like Mr Verloc, for +instance. + +Winnie, at the shop door, did not see this fatal attendant upon Mr +Verloc’s walks. She watched the two figures down the squalid street, one +tall and burly, the other slight and short, with a thin neck, and the +peaked shoulders raised slightly under the large semi-transparent ears. +The material of their overcoats was the same, their hats were black and +round in shape. Inspired by the similarity of wearing apparel, Mrs +Verloc gave rein to her fancy. + +“Might be father and son,” she said to herself. She thought also that Mr +Verloc was as much of a father as poor Stevie ever had in his life. She +was aware also that it was her work. And with peaceful pride she +congratulated herself on a certain resolution she had taken a few years +before. It had cost her some effort, and even a few tears. + +She congratulated herself still more on observing in the course of days +that Mr Verloc seemed to be taking kindly to Stevie’s companionship. +Now, when ready to go out for his walk, Mr Verloc called aloud to the +boy, in the spirit, no doubt, in which a man invites the attendance of +the household dog, though, of course, in a different manner. In the +house Mr Verloc could be detected staring curiously at Stevie a good +deal. His own demeanour had changed. Taciturn still, he was not so +listless. Mrs Verloc thought that he was rather jumpy at times. It +might have been regarded as an improvement. As to Stevie, he moped no +longer at the foot of the clock, but muttered to himself in corners +instead in a threatening tone. When asked “What is it you’re saying, +Stevie?” he merely opened his mouth, and squinted at his sister. At odd +times he clenched his fists without apparent cause, and when discovered +in solitude would be scowling at the wall, with the sheet of paper and +the pencil given him for drawing circles lying blank and idle on the +kitchen table. This was a change, but it was no improvement. Mrs Verloc +including all these vagaries under the general definition of excitement, +began to fear that Stevie was hearing more than was good for him of her +husband’s conversations with his friends. During his “walks” Mr Verloc, +of course, met and conversed with various persons. It could hardly be +otherwise. His walks were an integral part of his outdoor activities, +which his wife had never looked deeply into. Mrs Verloc felt that the +position was delicate, but she faced it with the same impenetrable +calmness which impressed and even astonished the customers of the shop +and made the other visitors keep their distance a little wonderingly. +No! She feared that there were things not good for Stevie to hear of, +she told her husband. It only excited the poor boy, because he could not +help them being so. Nobody could. + +It was in the shop. Mr Verloc made no comment. He made no retort, and +yet the retort was obvious. But he refrained from pointing out to his +wife that the idea of making Stevie the companion of his walks was her +own, and nobody else’s. At that moment, to an impartial observer, Mr +Verloc would have appeared more than human in his magnanimity. He took +down a small cardboard box from a shelf, peeped in to see that the +contents were all right, and put it down gently on the counter. Not till +that was done did he break the silence, to the effect that most likely +Stevie would profit greatly by being sent out of town for a while; only +he supposed his wife could not get on without him. + +“Could not get on without him!” repeated Mrs Verloc slowly. “I couldn’t +get on without him if it were for his good! The idea! Of course, I can +get on without him. But there’s nowhere for him to go.” + +Mr Verloc got out some brown paper and a ball of string; and meanwhile he +muttered that Michaelis was living in a little cottage in the country. +Michaelis wouldn’t mind giving Stevie a room to sleep in. There were no +visitors and no talk there. Michaelis was writing a book. + +Mrs Verloc declared her affection for Michaelis; mentioned her abhorrence +of Karl Yundt, “nasty old man”; and of Ossipon she said nothing. As to +Stevie, he could be no other than very pleased. Mr Michaelis was always +so nice and kind to him. He seemed to like the boy. Well, the boy was a +good boy. + +“You too seem to have grown quite fond of him of late,” she added, after +a pause, with her inflexible assurance. + +Mr Verloc tying up the cardboard box into a parcel for the post, broke +the string by an injudicious jerk, and muttered several swear words +confidentially to himself. Then raising his tone to the usual husky +mutter, he announced his willingness to take Stevie into the country +himself, and leave him all safe with Michaelis. + +He carried out this scheme on the very next day. Stevie offered no +objection. He seemed rather eager, in a bewildered sort of way. He +turned his candid gaze inquisitively to Mr Verloc’s heavy countenance at +frequent intervals, especially when his sister was not looking at him. +His expression was proud, apprehensive, and concentrated, like that of a +small child entrusted for the first time with a box of matches and the +permission to strike a light. But Mrs Verloc, gratified by her brother’s +docility, recommended him not to dirty his clothes unduly in the country. +At this Stevie gave his sister, guardian and protector a look, which for +the first time in his life seemed to lack the quality of perfect +childlike trustfulness. It was haughtily gloomy. Mrs Verloc smiled. + +“Goodness me! You needn’t be offended. You know you do get yourself +very untidy when you get a chance, Stevie.” + +Mr Verloc was already gone some way down the street. + +Thus in consequence of her mother’s heroic proceedings, and of her +brother’s absence on this villegiature, Mrs Verloc found herself oftener +than usual all alone not only in the shop, but in the house. For Mr +Verloc had to take his walks. She was alone longer than usual on the day +of the attempted bomb outrage in Greenwich Park, because Mr Verloc went +out very early that morning and did not come back till nearly dusk. She +did not mind being alone. She had no desire to go out. The weather was +too bad, and the shop was cosier than the streets. Sitting behind the +counter with some sewing, she did not raise her eyes from her work when +Mr Verloc entered in the aggressive clatter of the bell. She had +recognised his step on the pavement outside. + +She did not raise her eyes, but as Mr Verloc, silent, and with his hat +rammed down upon his forehead, made straight for the parlour door, she +said serenely: + +“What a wretched day. You’ve been perhaps to see Stevie?” + +“No! I haven’t,” said Mr Verloc softly, and slammed the glazed parlour +door behind him with unexpected energy. + +For some time Mrs Verloc remained quiescent, with her work dropped in her +lap, before she put it away under the counter and got up to light the +gas. This done, she went into the parlour on her way to the kitchen. Mr +Verloc would want his tea presently. Confident of the power of her +charms, Winnie did not expect from her husband in the daily intercourse +of their married life a ceremonious amenity of address and courtliness of +manner; vain and antiquated forms at best, probably never very exactly +observed, discarded nowadays even in the highest spheres, and always +foreign to the standards of her class. She did not look for courtesies +from him. But he was a good husband, and she had a loyal respect for his +rights. + +Mrs Verloc would have gone through the parlour and on to her domestic +duties in the kitchen with the perfect serenity of a woman sure of the +power of her charms. But a slight, very slight, and rapid rattling sound +grew upon her hearing. Bizarre and incomprehensible, it arrested Mrs +Verloc’s attention. Then as its character became plain to the ear she +stopped short, amazed and concerned. Striking a match on the box she +held in her hand, she turned on and lighted, above the parlour table, one +of the two gas-burners, which, being defective, first whistled as if +astonished, and then went on purring comfortably like a cat. + +Mr Verloc, against his usual practice, had thrown off his overcoat. It +was lying on the sofa. His hat, which he must also have thrown off, +rested overturned under the edge of the sofa. He had dragged a chair in +front of the fireplace, and his feet planted inside the fender, his head +held between his hands, he was hanging low over the glowing grate. His +teeth rattled with an ungovernable violence, causing his whole enormous +back to tremble at the same rate. Mrs Verloc was startled. + +“You’ve been getting wet,” she said. + +“Not very,” Mr Verloc managed to falter out, in a profound shudder. By a +great effort he suppressed the rattling of his teeth. + +“I’ll have you laid up on my hands,” she said, with genuine uneasiness. + +“I don’t think so,” remarked Mr Verloc, snuffling huskily. + +He had certainly contrived somehow to catch an abominable cold between +seven in the morning and five in the afternoon. Mrs Verloc looked at his +bowed back. + +“Where have you been to-day?” she asked. + +“Nowhere,” answered Mr Verloc in a low, choked nasal tone. His attitude +suggested aggrieved sulks or a severe headache. The unsufficiency and +uncandidness of his answer became painfully apparent in the dead silence +of the room. He snuffled apologetically, and added: “I’ve been to the +bank.” + +Mrs Verloc became attentive. + +“You have!” she said dispassionately. “What for?” + +Mr Verloc mumbled, with his nose over the grate, and with marked +unwillingness. + +“Draw the money out!” + +“What do you mean? All of it?” + +“Yes. All of it.” + +Mrs Verloc spread out with care the scanty table-cloth, got two knives +and two forks out of the table drawer, and suddenly stopped in her +methodical proceedings. + +“What did you do that for?” + +“May want it soon,” snuffled vaguely Mr Verloc, who was coming to the end +of his calculated indiscretions. + +“I don’t know what you mean,” remarked his wife in a tone perfectly +casual, but standing stock still between the table and the cupboard. + +“You know you can trust me,” Mr Verloc remarked to the grate, with hoarse +feeling. + +Mrs Verloc turned slowly towards the cupboard, saying with deliberation: + +“Oh yes. I can trust you.” + +And she went on with her methodical proceedings. She laid two plates, +got the bread, the butter, going to and fro quietly between the table and +the cupboard in the peace and silence of her home. On the point of +taking out the jam, she reflected practically: “He will be feeling +hungry, having been away all day,” and she returned to the cupboard once +more to get the cold beef. She set it under the purring gas-jet, and +with a passing glance at her motionless husband hugging the fire, she +went (down two steps) into the kitchen. It was only when coming back, +carving knife and fork in hand, that she spoke again. + +“If I hadn’t trusted you I wouldn’t have married you.” + +Bowed under the overmantel, Mr Verloc, holding his head in both hands, +seemed to have gone to sleep. Winnie made the tea, and called out in an +undertone: + +“Adolf.” + +Mr Verloc got up at once, and staggered a little before he sat down at +the table. His wife examining the sharp edge of the carving knife, +placed it on the dish, and called his attention to the cold beef. He +remained insensible to the suggestion, with his chin on his breast. + +“You should feed your cold,” Mrs Verloc said dogmatically. + +He looked up, and shook his head. His eyes were bloodshot and his face +red. His fingers had ruffled his hair into a dissipated untidiness. +Altogether he had a disreputable aspect, expressive of the discomfort, +the irritation and the gloom following a heavy debauch. But Mr Verloc +was not a debauched man. In his conduct he was respectable. His +appearance might have been the effect of a feverish cold. He drank three +cups of tea, but abstained from food entirely. He recoiled from it with +sombre aversion when urged by Mrs Verloc, who said at last: + +“Aren’t your feet wet? You had better put on your slippers. You aren’t +going out any more this evening.” + +Mr Verloc intimated by morose grunts and signs that his feet were not +wet, and that anyhow he did not care. The proposal as to slippers was +disregarded as beneath his notice. But the question of going out in the +evening received an unexpected development. It was not of going out in +the evening that Mr Verloc was thinking. His thoughts embraced a vaster +scheme. From moody and incomplete phrases it became apparent that Mr +Verloc had been considering the expediency of emigrating. It was not +very clear whether he had in his mind France or California. + +The utter unexpectedness, improbability, and inconceivableness of such an +event robbed this vague declaration of all its effect. Mrs Verloc, as +placidly as if her husband had been threatening her with the end of the +world, said: + +“The idea!” + +Mr Verloc declared himself sick and tired of everything, and besides—She +interrupted him. + +“You’ve a bad cold.” + +It was indeed obvious that Mr Verloc was not in his usual state, +physically and even mentally. A sombre irresolution held him silent for +a while. Then he murmured a few ominous generalities on the theme of +necessity. + +“Will have to,” repeated Winnie, sitting calmly back, with folded arms, +opposite her husband. “I should like to know who’s to make you. You +ain’t a slave. No one need be a slave in this country—and don’t you make +yourself one.” She paused, and with invincible and steady candour. “The +business isn’t so bad,” she went on. “You’ve a comfortable home.” + +She glanced all round the parlour, from the corner cupboard to the good +fire in the grate. Ensconced cosily behind the shop of doubtful wares, +with the mysteriously dim window, and its door suspiciously ajar in the +obscure and narrow street, it was in all essentials of domestic propriety +and domestic comfort a respectable home. Her devoted affection missed +out of it her brother Stevie, now enjoying a damp villegiature in the +Kentish lanes under the care of Mr Michaelis. She missed him poignantly, +with all the force of her protecting passion. This was the boy’s home +too—the roof, the cupboard, the stoked grate. On this thought Mrs Verloc +rose, and walking to the other end of the table, said in the fulness of +her heart: + +“And you are not tired of me.” + +Mr Verloc made no sound. Winnie leaned on his shoulder from behind, and +pressed her lips to his forehead. Thus she lingered. Not a whisper +reached them from the outside world. + +The sound of footsteps on the pavement died out in the discreet dimness +of the shop. Only the gas-jet above the table went on purring equably in +the brooding silence of the parlour. + +During the contact of that unexpected and lingering kiss Mr Verloc, +gripping with both hands the edges of his chair, preserved a hieratic +immobility. When the pressure was removed he let go the chair, rose, and +went to stand before the fireplace. He turned no longer his back to the +room. With his features swollen and an air of being drugged, he followed +his wife’s movements with his eyes. + +Mrs Verloc went about serenely, clearing up the table. Her tranquil +voice commented the idea thrown out in a reasonable and domestic tone. +It wouldn’t stand examination. She condemned it from every point of +view. But her only real concern was Stevie’s welfare. He appeared to +her thought in that connection as sufficiently “peculiar” not to be taken +rashly abroad. And that was all. But talking round that vital point, +she approached absolute vehemence in her delivery. Meanwhile, with +brusque movements, she arrayed herself in an apron for the washing up of +cups. And as if excited by the sound of her uncontradicted voice, she +went so far as to say in a tone almost tart: + +“If you go abroad you’ll have to go without me.” + +“You know I wouldn’t,” said Mr Verloc huskily, and the unresonant voice +of his private life trembled with an enigmatical emotion. + +Already Mrs Verloc was regretting her words. They had sounded more +unkind than she meant them to be. They had also the unwisdom of +unnecessary things. In fact, she had not meant them at all. It was a +sort of phrase that is suggested by the demon of perverse inspiration. +But she knew a way to make it as if it had not been. + +She turned her head over her shoulder and gave that man planted heavily +in front of the fireplace a glance, half arch, half cruel, out of her +large eyes—a glance of which the Winnie of the Belgravian mansion days +would have been incapable, because of her respectability and her +ignorance. But the man was her husband now, and she was no longer +ignorant. She kept it on him for a whole second, with her grave face +motionless like a mask, while she said playfully: + +“You couldn’t. You would miss me too much.” + +Mr Verloc started forward. + +“Exactly,” he said in a louder tone, throwing his arms out and making a +step towards her. Something wild and doubtful in his expression made it +appear uncertain whether he meant to strangle or to embrace his wife. +But Mrs Verloc’s attention was called away from that manifestation by the +clatter of the shop bell. + +“Shop, Adolf. You go.” + +He stopped, his arms came down slowly. + +“You go,” repeated Mrs Verloc. “I’ve got my apron on.” + +Mr Verloc obeyed woodenly, stony-eyed, and like an automaton whose face +had been painted red. And this resemblance to a mechanical figure went +so far that he had an automaton’s absurd air of being aware of the +machinery inside of him. + +He closed the parlour door, and Mrs Verloc moving briskly, carried the +tray into the kitchen. She washed the cups and some other things before +she stopped in her work to listen. No sound reached her. The customer +was a long time in the shop. It was a customer, because if he had not +been Mr Verloc would have taken him inside. Undoing the strings of her +apron with a jerk, she threw it on a chair, and walked back to the +parlour slowly. + +At that precise moment Mr Verloc entered from the shop. + +He had gone in red. He came out a strange papery white. His face, +losing its drugged, feverish stupor, had in that short time acquired a +bewildered and harassed expression. He walked straight to the sofa, and +stood looking down at his overcoat lying there, as though he were afraid +to touch it. + +“What’s the matter?” asked Mrs Verloc in a subdued voice. Through the +door left ajar she could see that the customer was not gone yet. + +“I find I’ll have to go out this evening,” said Mr Verloc. He did not +attempt to pick up his outer garment. + +Without a word Winnie made for the shop, and shutting the door after her, +walked in behind the counter. She did not look overtly at the customer +till she had established herself comfortably on the chair. But by that +time she had noted that he was tall and thin, and wore his moustaches +twisted up. In fact, he gave the sharp points a twist just then. His +long, bony face rose out of a turned-up collar. He was a little +splashed, a little wet. A dark man, with the ridge of the cheek-bone +well defined under the slightly hollow temple. A complete stranger. Not +a customer either. + +Mrs Verloc looked at him placidly. + +“You came over from the Continent?” she said after a time. + +The long, thin stranger, without exactly looking at Mrs Verloc, answered +only by a faint and peculiar smile. + +Mrs Verloc’s steady, incurious gaze rested on him. + +“You understand English, don’t you?” + +“Oh yes. I understand English.” + +There was nothing foreign in his accent, except that he seemed in his +slow enunciation to be taking pains with it. And Mrs Verloc, in her +varied experience, had come to the conclusion that some foreigners could +speak better English than the natives. She said, looking at the door of +the parlour fixedly: + +“You don’t think perhaps of staying in England for good?” + +The stranger gave her again a silent smile. He had a kindly mouth and +probing eyes. And he shook his head a little sadly, it seemed. + +“My husband will see you through all right. Meantime for a few days you +couldn’t do better than take lodgings with Mr Giugliani. Continental +Hotel it’s called. Private. It’s quiet. My husband will take you +there.” + +“A good idea,” said the thin, dark man, whose glance had hardened +suddenly. + +“You knew Mr Verloc before—didn’t you? Perhaps in France?” + +“I have heard of him,” admitted the visitor in his slow, painstaking +tone, which yet had a certain curtness of intention. + +There was a pause. Then he spoke again, in a far less elaborate manner. + +“Your husband has not gone out to wait for me in the street by chance?” + +“In the street!” repeated Mrs Verloc, surprised. “He couldn’t. There’s +no other door to the house.” + +For a moment she sat impassive, then left her seat to go and peep through +the glazed door. Suddenly she opened it, and disappeared into the +parlour. + +Mr Verloc had done no more than put on his overcoat. But why he should +remain afterwards leaning over the table propped up on his two arms as +though he were feeling giddy or sick, she could not understand. “Adolf,” +she called out half aloud; and when he had raised himself: + +“Do you know that man?” she asked rapidly. + +“I’ve heard of him,” whispered uneasily Mr Verloc, darting a wild glance +at the door. + +Mrs Verloc’s fine, incurious eyes lighted up with a flash of abhorrence. + +“One of Karl Yundt’s friends—beastly old man.” + +“No! No!” protested Mr Verloc, busy fishing for his hat. But when he +got it from under the sofa he held it as if he did not know the use of a +hat. + +“Well—he’s waiting for you,” said Mrs Verloc at last. “I say, Adolf, he +ain’t one of them Embassy people you have been bothered with of late?” + +“Bothered with Embassy people,” repeated Mr Verloc, with a heavy start of +surprise and fear. “Who’s been talking to you of the Embassy people?” + +“Yourself.” + +“I! I! Talked of the Embassy to you!” + +Mr Verloc seemed scared and bewildered beyond measure. His wife +explained: + +“You’ve been talking a little in your sleep of late, Adolf.” + +“What—what did I say? What do you know?” + +“Nothing much. It seemed mostly nonsense. Enough to let me guess that +something worried you.” + +Mr Verloc rammed his hat on his head. A crimson flood of anger ran over +his face. + +“Nonsense—eh? The Embassy people! I would cut their hearts out one +after another. But let them look out. I’ve got a tongue in my head.” + +He fumed, pacing up and down between the table and the sofa, his open +overcoat catching against the angles. The red flood of anger ebbed out, +and left his face all white, with quivering nostrils. Mrs Verloc, for +the purposes of practical existence, put down these appearances to the +cold. + +“Well,” she said, “get rid of the man, whoever he is, as soon as you can, +and come back home to me. You want looking after for a day or two.” + +Mr Verloc calmed down, and, with resolution imprinted on his pale face, +had already opened the door, when his wife called him back in a whisper: + +“Adolf! Adolf!” He came back startled. “What about that money you drew +out?” she asked. “You’ve got it in your pocket? Hadn’t you better—” + +Mr Verloc gazed stupidly into the palm of his wife’s extended hand for +some time before he slapped his brow. + +“Money! Yes! Yes! I didn’t know what you meant.” + +He drew out of his breast pocket a new pigskin pocket-book. Mrs Verloc +received it without another word, and stood still till the bell, +clattering after Mr Verloc and Mr Verloc’s visitor, had quieted down. +Only then she peeped in at the amount, drawing the notes out for the +purpose. After this inspection she looked round thoughtfully, with an +air of mistrust in the silence and solitude of the house. This abode of +her married life appeared to her as lonely and unsafe as though it had +been situated in the midst of a forest. No receptacle she could think of +amongst the solid, heavy furniture seemed other but flimsy and +particularly tempting to her conception of a house-breaker. It was an +ideal conception, endowed with sublime faculties and a miraculous +insight. The till was not to be thought of. It was the first spot a +thief would make for. Mrs Verloc unfastening hastily a couple of hooks, +slipped the pocket-book under the bodice of her dress. Having thus +disposed of her husband’s capital, she was rather glad to hear the +clatter of the door bell, announcing an arrival. Assuming the fixed, +unabashed stare and the stony expression reserved for the casual +customer, she walked in behind the counter. + +A man standing in the middle of the shop was inspecting it with a swift, +cool, all-round glance. His eyes ran over the walls, took in the +ceiling, noted the floor—all in a moment. The points of a long fair +moustache fell below the line of the jaw. He smiled the smile of an old +if distant acquaintance, and Mrs Verloc remembered having seen him +before. Not a customer. She softened her “customer stare” to mere +indifference, and faced him across the counter. + +He approached, on his side, confidentially, but not too markedly so. + +“Husband at home, Mrs Verloc?” he asked in an easy, full tone. + +“No. He’s gone out.” + +“I am sorry for that. I’ve called to get from him a little private +information.” + +This was the exact truth. Chief Inspector Heat had been all the way +home, and had even gone so far as to think of getting into his slippers, +since practically he was, he told himself, chucked out of that case. He +indulged in some scornful and in a few angry thoughts, and found the +occupation so unsatisfactory that he resolved to seek relief out of +doors. Nothing prevented him paying a friendly call to Mr Verloc, +casually as it were. It was in the character of a private citizen that +walking out privately he made use of his customary conveyances. Their +general direction was towards Mr Verloc’s home. Chief Inspector Heat +respected his own private character so consistently that he took especial +pains to avoid all the police constables on point and patrol duty in the +vicinity of Brett Street. This precaution was much more necessary for a +man of his standing than for an obscure Assistant Commissioner. Private +Citizen Heat entered the street, manoeuvring in a way which in a member +of the criminal classes would have been stigmatised as slinking. The +piece of cloth picked up in Greenwich was in his pocket. Not that he had +the slightest intention of producing it in his private capacity. On the +contrary, he wanted to know just what Mr Verloc would be disposed to say +voluntarily. He hoped Mr Verloc’s talk would be of a nature to +incriminate Michaelis. It was a conscientiously professional hope in the +main, but not without its moral value. For Chief Inspector Heat was a +servant of justice. Finding Mr Verloc from home, he felt disappointed. + +“I would wait for him a little if I were sure he wouldn’t be long,” he +said. + +Mrs Verloc volunteered no assurance of any kind. + +“The information I need is quite private,” he repeated. “You understand +what I mean? I wonder if you could give me a notion where he’s gone to?” + +Mrs Verloc shook her head. + +“Can’t say.” + +She turned away to range some boxes on the shelves behind the counter. +Chief Inspector Heat looked at her thoughtfully for a time. + +“I suppose you know who I am?” he said. + +Mrs Verloc glanced over her shoulder. Chief Inspector Heat was amazed at +her coolness. + +“Come! You know I am in the police,” he said sharply. + +“I don’t trouble my head much about it,” Mrs Verloc remarked, returning +to the ranging of her boxes. + +“My name is Heat. Chief Inspector Heat of the Special Crimes section.” + +Mrs Verloc adjusted nicely in its place a small cardboard box, and +turning round, faced him again, heavy-eyed, with idle hands hanging down. +A silence reigned for a time. + +“So your husband went out a quarter of an hour ago! And he didn’t say +when he would be back?” + +“He didn’t go out alone,” Mrs Verloc let fall negligently. + +“A friend?” + +Mrs Verloc touched the back of her hair. It was in perfect order. + +“A stranger who called.” + +“I see. What sort of man was that stranger? Would you mind telling me?” + +Mrs Verloc did not mind. And when Chief Inspector Heat heard of a man +dark, thin, with a long face and turned up moustaches, he gave signs of +perturbation, and exclaimed: + +“Dash me if I didn’t think so! He hasn’t lost any time.” + +He was intensely disgusted in the secrecy of his heart at the unofficial +conduct of his immediate chief. But he was not quixotic. He lost all +desire to await Mr Verloc’s return. What they had gone out for he did +not know, but he imagined it possible that they would return together. +The case is not followed properly, it’s being tampered with, he thought +bitterly. + +“I am afraid I haven’t time to wait for your husband,” he said. + +Mrs Verloc received this declaration listlessly. Her detachment had +impressed Chief Inspector Heat all along. At this precise moment it +whetted his curiosity. Chief Inspector Heat hung in the wind, swayed by +his passions like the most private of citizens. + +“I think,” he said, looking at her steadily, “that you could give me a +pretty good notion of what’s going on if you liked.” + +Forcing her fine, inert eyes to return his gaze, Mrs Verloc murmured: + +“Going on! What _is_ going on?” + +“Why, the affair I came to talk about a little with your husband.” + +That day Mrs Verloc had glanced at a morning paper as usual. But she had +not stirred out of doors. The newsboys never invaded Brett Street. It +was not a street for their business. And the echo of their cries +drifting along the populous thoroughfares, expired between the dirty +brick walls without reaching the threshold of the shop. Her husband had +not brought an evening paper home. At any rate she had not seen it. Mrs +Verloc knew nothing whatever of any affair. And she said so, with a +genuine note of wonder in her quiet voice. + +Chief Inspector Heat did not believe for a moment in so much ignorance. +Curtly, without amiability, he stated the bare fact. + +Mrs Verloc turned away her eyes. + +“I call it silly,” she pronounced slowly. She paused. “We ain’t +downtrodden slaves here.” + +The Chief Inspector waited watchfully. Nothing more came. + +“And your husband didn’t mention anything to you when he came home?” + +Mrs Verloc simply turned her face from right to left in sign of negation. +A languid, baffling silence reigned in the shop. Chief Inspector Heat +felt provoked beyond endurance. + +“There was another small matter,” he began in a detached tone, “which I +wanted to speak to your husband about. There came into our hands +a—a—what we believe is—a stolen overcoat.” + +Mrs Verloc, with her mind specially aware of thieves that evening, +touched lightly the bosom of her dress. + +“We have lost no overcoat,” she said calmly. + +“That’s funny,” continued Private Citizen Heat. “I see you keep a lot of +marking ink here—” + +He took up a small bottle, and looked at it against the gas-jet in the +middle of the shop. + +“Purple—isn’t it?” he remarked, setting it down again. “As I said, it’s +strange. Because the overcoat has got a label sewn on the inside with +your address written in marking ink.” + +Mrs Verloc leaned over the counter with a low exclamation. + +“That’s my brother’s, then.” + +“Where’s your brother? Can I see him?” asked the Chief Inspector +briskly. Mrs Verloc leaned a little more over the counter. + +“No. He isn’t here. I wrote that label myself.” + +“Where’s your brother now?” + +“He’s been away living with—a friend—in the country.” + +“The overcoat comes from the country. And what’s the name of the +friend?” + +“Michaelis,” confessed Mrs Verloc in an awed whisper. + +The Chief Inspector let out a whistle. His eyes snapped. + +“Just so. Capital. And your brother now, what’s he like—a sturdy, +darkish chap—eh?” + +“Oh no,” exclaimed Mrs Verloc fervently. “That must be the thief. +Stevie’s slight and fair.” + +“Good,” said the Chief Inspector in an approving tone. And while Mrs +Verloc, wavering between alarm and wonder, stared at him, he sought for +information. Why have the address sewn like this inside the coat? And +he heard that the mangled remains he had inspected that morning with +extreme repugnance were those of a youth, nervous, absent-minded, +peculiar, and also that the woman who was speaking to him had had the +charge of that boy since he was a baby. + +“Easily excitable?” he suggested. + +“Oh yes. He is. But how did he come to lose his coat—” + +Chief Inspector Heat suddenly pulled out a pink newspaper he had bought +less than half-an-hour ago. He was interested in horses. Forced by his +calling into an attitude of doubt and suspicion towards his +fellow-citizens, Chief Inspector Heat relieved the instinct of credulity +implanted in the human breast by putting unbounded faith in the sporting +prophets of that particular evening publication. Dropping the extra +special on to the counter, he plunged his hand again into his pocket, and +pulling out the piece of cloth fate had presented him with out of a heap +of things that seemed to have been collected in shambles and rag shops, +he offered it to Mrs Verloc for inspection. + +“I suppose you recognise this?” + +She took it mechanically in both her hands. Her eyes seemed to grow +bigger as she looked. + +“Yes,” she whispered, then raised her head, and staggered backward a +little. + +“Whatever for is it torn out like this?” + +The Chief Inspector snatched across the counter the cloth out of her +hands, and she sat heavily on the chair. He thought: identification’s +perfect. And in that moment he had a glimpse into the whole amazing +truth. Verloc was the “other man.” + +“Mrs Verloc,” he said, “it strikes me that you know more of this bomb +affair than even you yourself are aware of.” + +Mrs Verloc sat still, amazed, lost in boundless astonishment. What was +the connection? And she became so rigid all over that she was not able +to turn her head at the clatter of the bell, which caused the private +investigator Heat to spin round on his heel. Mr Verloc had shut the +door, and for a moment the two men looked at each other. + +Mr Verloc, without looking at his wife, walked up to the Chief Inspector, +who was relieved to see him return alone. + +“You here!” muttered Mr Verloc heavily. “Who are you after?” + +“No one,” said Chief Inspector Heat in a low tone. “Look here, I would +like a word or two with you.” + +Mr Verloc, still pale, had brought an air of resolution with him. Still +he didn’t look at his wife. He said: + +“Come in here, then.” And he led the way into the parlour. + +The door was hardly shut when Mrs Verloc, jumping up from the chair, ran +to it as if to fling it open, but instead of doing so fell on her knees, +with her ear to the keyhole. The two men must have stopped directly they +were through, because she heard plainly the Chief Inspector’s voice, +though she could not see his finger pressed against her husband’s breast +emphatically. + +“You are the other man, Verloc. Two men were seen entering the park.” + +And the voice of Mr Verloc said: + +“Well, take me now. What’s to prevent you? You have the right.” + +“Oh no! I know too well who you have been giving yourself away to. +He’ll have to manage this little affair all by himself. But don’t you +make a mistake, it’s I who found you out.” + +Then she heard only muttering. Inspector Heat must have been showing to +Mr Verloc the piece of Stevie’s overcoat, because Stevie’s sister, +guardian, and protector heard her husband a little louder. + +“I never noticed that she had hit upon that dodge.” + +Again for a time Mrs Verloc heard nothing but murmurs, whose +mysteriousness was less nightmarish to her brain than the horrible +suggestions of shaped words. Then Chief Inspector Heat, on the other +side of the door, raised his voice. + +“You must have been mad.” + +And Mr Verloc’s voice answered, with a sort of gloomy fury: + +“I have been mad for a month or more, but I am not mad now. It’s all +over. It shall all come out of my head, and hang the consequences.” + +There was a silence, and then Private Citizen Heat murmured: + +“What’s coming out?” + +“Everything,” exclaimed the voice of Mr Verloc, and then sank very low. + +After a while it rose again. + +“You have known me for several years now, and you’ve found me useful, +too. You know I was a straight man. Yes, straight.” + +This appeal to old acquaintance must have been extremely distasteful to +the Chief Inspector. + +His voice took on a warning note. + +“Don’t you trust so much to what you have been promised. If I were you I +would clear out. I don’t think we will run after you.” + +Mr Verloc was heard to laugh a little. + +“Oh yes; you hope the others will get rid of me for you—don’t you? No, +no; you don’t shake me off now. I have been a straight man to those +people too long, and now everything must come out.” + +“Let it come out, then,” the indifferent voice of Chief Inspector Heat +assented. “But tell me now how did you get away.” + +“I was making for Chesterfield Walk,” Mrs Verloc heard her husband’s +voice, “when I heard the bang. I started running then. Fog. I saw no +one till I was past the end of George Street. Don’t think I met anyone +till then.” + +“So easy as that!” marvelled the voice of Chief Inspector Heat. “The +bang startled you, eh?” + +“Yes; it came too soon,” confessed the gloomy, husky voice of Mr Verloc. + +Mrs Verloc pressed her ear to the keyhole; her lips were blue, her hands +cold as ice, and her pale face, in which the two eyes seemed like two +black holes, felt to her as if it were enveloped in flames. + +On the other side of the door the voices sank very low. She caught words +now and then, sometimes in her husband’s voice, sometimes in the smooth +tones of the Chief Inspector. She heard this last say: + +“We believe he stumbled against the root of a tree?” + +There was a husky, voluble murmur, which lasted for some time, and then +the Chief Inspector, as if answering some inquiry, spoke emphatically. + +“Of course. Blown to small bits: limbs, gravel, clothing, bones, +splinters—all mixed up together. I tell you they had to fetch a shovel +to gather him up with.” + +Mrs Verloc sprang up suddenly from her crouching position, and stopping +her ears, reeled to and fro between the counter and the shelves on the +wall towards the chair. Her crazed eyes noted the sporting sheet left by +the Chief Inspector, and as she knocked herself against the counter she +snatched it up, fell into the chair, tore the optimistic, rosy sheet +right across in trying to open it, then flung it on the floor. On the +other side of the door, Chief Inspector Heat was saying to Mr Verloc, the +secret agent: + +“So your defence will be practically a full confession?” + +“It will. I am going to tell the whole story.” + +“You won’t be believed as much as you fancy you will.” + +And the Chief Inspector remained thoughtful. The turn this affair was +taking meant the disclosure of many things—the laying waste of fields of +knowledge, which, cultivated by a capable man, had a distinct value for +the individual and for the society. It was sorry, sorry meddling. It +would leave Michaelis unscathed; it would drag to light the Professor’s +home industry; disorganise the whole system of supervision; make no end +of a row in the papers, which, from that point of view, appeared to him +by a sudden illumination as invariably written by fools for the reading +of imbeciles. Mentally he agreed with the words Mr Verloc let fall at +last in answer to his last remark. + +“Perhaps not. But it will upset many things. I have been a straight +man, and I shall keep straight in this—” + +“If they let you,” said the Chief Inspector cynically. “You will be +preached to, no doubt, before they put you into the dock. And in the end +you may yet get let in for a sentence that will surprise you. I wouldn’t +trust too much the gentleman who’s been talking to you.” + +Mr Verloc listened, frowning. + +“My advice to you is to clear out while you may. I have no instructions. +There are some of them,” continued Chief Inspector Heat, laying a +peculiar stress on the word “them,” “who think you are already out of the +world.” + +“Indeed!” Mr Verloc was moved to say. Though since his return from +Greenwich he had spent most of his time sitting in the tap-room of an +obscure little public-house, he could hardly have hoped for such +favourable news. + +“That’s the impression about you.” The Chief Inspector nodded at him. +“Vanish. Clear out.” + +“Where to?” snarled Mr Verloc. He raised his head, and gazing at the +closed door of the parlour, muttered feelingly: “I only wish you would +take me away to-night. I would go quietly.” + +“I daresay,” assented sardonically the Chief Inspector, following the +direction of his glance. + +The brow of Mr Verloc broke into slight moisture. He lowered his husky +voice confidentially before the unmoved Chief Inspector. + +“The lad was half-witted, irresponsible. Any court would have seen that +at once. Only fit for the asylum. And that was the worst that would’ve +happened to him if—” + +The Chief Inspector, his hand on the door handle, whispered into Mr +Verloc’s face. + +“He may’ve been half-witted, but you must have been crazy. What drove +you off your head like this?” + +Mr Verloc, thinking of Mr Vladimir, did not hesitate in the choice of +words. + +“A Hyperborean swine,” he hissed forcibly. “A what you might call a—a +gentleman.” + +The Chief Inspector, steady-eyed, nodded briefly his comprehension, and +opened the door. Mrs Verloc, behind the counter, might have heard but +did not see his departure, pursued by the aggressive clatter of the bell. +She sat at her post of duty behind the counter. She sat rigidly erect in +the chair with two dirty pink pieces of paper lying spread out at her +feet. The palms of her hands were pressed convulsively to her face, with +the tips of the fingers contracted against the forehead, as though the +skin had been a mask which she was ready to tear off violently. The +perfect immobility of her pose expressed the agitation of rage and +despair, all the potential violence of tragic passions, better than any +shallow display of shrieks, with the beating of a distracted head against +the walls, could have done. Chief Inspector Heat, crossing the shop at +his busy, swinging pace, gave her only a cursory glance. And when the +cracked bell ceased to tremble on its curved ribbon of steel nothing +stirred near Mrs Verloc, as if her attitude had the locking power of a +spell. Even the butterfly-shaped gas flames posed on the ends of the +suspended T-bracket burned without a quiver. In that shop of shady wares +fitted with deal shelves painted a dull brown, which seemed to devour the +sheen of the light, the gold circlet of the wedding ring on Mrs Verloc’s +left hand glittered exceedingly with the untarnished glory of a piece +from some splendid treasure of jewels, dropped in a dust-bin. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +The Assistant Commissioner, driven rapidly in a hansom from the +neighbourhood of Soho in the direction of Westminster, got out at the +very centre of the Empire on which the sun never sets. Some stalwart +constables, who did not seem particularly impressed by the duty of +watching the august spot, saluted him. Penetrating through a portal by +no means lofty into the precincts of the House which is _the_ House, _par +excellence_ in the minds of many millions of men, he was met at last by +the volatile and revolutionary Toodles. + +That neat and nice young man concealed his astonishment at the early +appearance of the Assistant Commissioner, whom he had been told to look +out for some time about midnight. His turning up so early he concluded +to be the sign that things, whatever they were, had gone wrong. With an +extremely ready sympathy, which in nice youngsters goes often with a +joyous temperament, he felt sorry for the great Presence he called “The +Chief,” and also for the Assistant Commissioner, whose face appeared to +him more ominously wooden than ever before, and quite wonderfully long. +“What a queer, foreign-looking chap he is,” he thought to himself, +smiling from a distance with friendly buoyancy. And directly they came +together he began to talk with the kind intention of burying the +awkwardness of failure under a heap of words. It looked as if the great +assault threatened for that night were going to fizzle out. An inferior +henchman of “that brute Cheeseman” was up boring mercilessly a very thin +House with some shamelessly cooked statistics. He, Toodles, hoped he +would bore them into a count out every minute. But then he might be only +marking time to let that guzzling Cheeseman dine at his leisure. Anyway, +the Chief could not be persuaded to go home. + +“He will see you at once, I think. He’s sitting all alone in his room +thinking of all the fishes of the sea,” concluded Toodles airily. “Come +along.” + +Notwithstanding the kindness of his disposition, the young private +secretary (unpaid) was accessible to the common failings of humanity. He +did not wish to harrow the feelings of the Assistant Commissioner, who +looked to him uncommonly like a man who has made a mess of his job. But +his curiosity was too strong to be restrained by mere compassion. He +could not help, as they went along, to throw over his shoulder lightly: + +“And your sprat?” + +“Got him,” answered the Assistant Commissioner with a concision which did +not mean to be repellent in the least. + +“Good. You’ve no idea how these great men dislike to be disappointed in +small things.” + +After this profound observation the experienced Toodles seemed to +reflect. At any rate he said nothing for quite two seconds. Then: + +“I’m glad. But—I say—is it really such a very small thing as you make it +out?” + +“Do you know what may be done with a sprat?” the Assistant Commissioner +asked in his turn. + +“He’s sometimes put into a sardine box,” chuckled Toodles, whose +erudition on the subject of the fishing industry was fresh and, in +comparison with his ignorance of all other industrial matters, immense. +“There are sardine canneries on the Spanish coast which—” + +The Assistant Commissioner interrupted the apprentice statesman. + +“Yes. Yes. But a sprat is also thrown away sometimes in order to catch +a whale.” + +“A whale. Phew!” exclaimed Toodles, with bated breath. “You’re after a +whale, then?” + +“Not exactly. What I am after is more like a dog-fish. You don’t know +perhaps what a dog-fish is like.” + +“Yes; I do. We’re buried in special books up to our necks—whole shelves +full of them—with plates. . . . It’s a noxious, rascally-looking, +altogether detestable beast, with a sort of smooth face and moustaches.” + +“Described to a T,” commended the Assistant Commissioner. “Only mine is +clean-shaven altogether. You’ve seen him. It’s a witty fish.” + +“I have seen him!” said Toodles incredulously. “I can’t conceive where I +could have seen him.” + +“At the Explorers, I should say,” dropped the Assistant Commissioner +calmly. At the name of that extremely exclusive club Toodles looked +scared, and stopped short. + +“Nonsense,” he protested, but in an awe-struck tone. “What do you mean? +A member?” + +“Honorary,” muttered the Assistant Commissioner through his teeth. + +“Heavens!” + +Toodles looked so thunderstruck that the Assistant Commissioner smiled +faintly. + +“That’s between ourselves strictly,” he said. + +“That’s the beastliest thing I’ve ever heard in my life,” declared +Toodles feebly, as if astonishment had robbed him of all his buoyant +strength in a second. + +The Assistant Commissioner gave him an unsmiling glance. Till they came +to the door of the great man’s room, Toodles preserved a scandalised and +solemn silence, as though he were offended with the Assistant +Commissioner for exposing such an unsavoury and disturbing fact. It +revolutionised his idea of the Explorers’ Club’s extreme selectness, of +its social purity. Toodles was revolutionary only in politics; his +social beliefs and personal feelings he wished to preserve unchanged +through all the years allotted to him on this earth which, upon the +whole, he believed to be a nice place to live on. + +He stood aside. + +“Go in without knocking,” he said. + +Shades of green silk fitted low over all the lights imparted to the room +something of a forest’s deep gloom. The haughty eyes were physically the +great man’s weak point. This point was wrapped up in secrecy. When an +opportunity offered, he rested them conscientiously. + +The Assistant Commissioner entering saw at first only a big pale hand +supporting a big head, and concealing the upper part of a big pale face. +An open despatch-box stood on the writing-table near a few oblong sheets +of paper and a scattered handful of quill pens. There was absolutely +nothing else on the large flat surface except a little bronze statuette +draped in a toga, mysteriously watchful in its shadowy immobility. The +Assistant Commissioner, invited to take a chair, sat down. In the dim +light, the salient points of his personality, the long face, the black +hair, his lankness, made him look more foreign than ever. + +The great man manifested no surprise, no eagerness, no sentiment +whatever. The attitude in which he rested his menaced eyes was +profoundly meditative. He did not alter it the least bit. But his tone +was not dreamy. + +“Well! What is it that you’ve found out already? You came upon +something unexpected on the first step.” + +“Not exactly unexpected, Sir Ethelred. What I mainly came upon was a +psychological state.” + +The Great Presence made a slight movement. “You must be lucid, please.” + +“Yes, Sir Ethelred. You know no doubt that most criminals at some time +or other feel an irresistible need of confessing—of making a clean breast +of it to somebody—to anybody. And they do it often to the police. In +that Verloc whom Heat wished so much to screen I’ve found a man in that +particular psychological state. The man, figuratively speaking, flung +himself on my breast. It was enough on my part to whisper to him who I +was and to add ‘I know that you are at the bottom of this affair.’ It +must have seemed miraculous to him that we should know already, but he +took it all in the stride. The wonderfulness of it never checked him for +a moment. There remained for me only to put to him the two questions: +Who put you up to it? and Who was the man who did it? He answered the +first with remarkable emphasis. As to the second question, I gather that +the fellow with the bomb was his brother-in-law—quite a lad—a weak-minded +creature. . . . It is rather a curious affair—too long perhaps to state +fully just now.” + +“What then have you learned?” asked the great man. + +“First, I’ve learned that the ex-convict Michaelis had nothing to do with +it, though indeed the lad had been living with him temporarily in the +country up to eight o’clock this morning. It is more than likely that +Michaelis knows nothing of it to this moment.” + +“You are positive as to that?” asked the great man. + +“Quite certain, Sir Ethelred. This fellow Verloc went there this +morning, and took away the lad on the pretence of going out for a walk in +the lanes. As it was not the first time that he did this, Michaelis +could not have the slightest suspicion of anything unusual. For the +rest, Sir Ethelred, the indignation of this man Verloc had left nothing +in doubt—nothing whatever. He had been driven out of his mind almost by +an extraordinary performance, which for you or me it would be difficult +to take as seriously meant, but which produced a great impression +obviously on him.” + +The Assistant Commissioner then imparted briefly to the great man, who +sat still, resting his eyes under the screen of his hand, Mr Verloc’s +appreciation of Mr Vladimir’s proceedings and character. The Assistant +Commissioner did not seem to refuse it a certain amount of competency. +But the great personage remarked: + +“All this seems very fantastic.” + +“Doesn’t it? One would think a ferocious joke. But our man took it +seriously, it appears. He felt himself threatened. In the time, you +know, he was in direct communication with old Stott-Wartenheim himself, +and had come to regard his services as indispensable. It was an +extremely rude awakening. I imagine that he lost his head. He became +angry and frightened. Upon my word, my impression is that he thought +these Embassy people quite capable not only to throw him out but, to give +him away too in some manner or other—” + +“How long were you with him,” interrupted the Presence from behind his +big hand. + +“Some forty minutes, Sir Ethelred, in a house of bad repute called +Continental Hotel, closeted in a room which by-the-by I took for the +night. I found him under the influence of that reaction which follows +the effort of crime. The man cannot be defined as a hardened criminal. +It is obvious that he did not plan the death of that wretched lad—his +brother-in-law. That was a shock to him—I could see that. Perhaps he is +a man of strong sensibilities. Perhaps he was even fond of the lad—who +knows? He might have hoped that the fellow would get clear away; in +which case it would have been almost impossible to bring this thing home +to anyone. At any rate he risked consciously nothing more but arrest for +him.” + +The Assistant Commissioner paused in his speculations to reflect for a +moment. + +“Though how, in that last case, he could hope to have his own share in +the business concealed is more than I can tell,” he continued, in his +ignorance of poor Stevie’s devotion to Mr Verloc (who was _good_), and of +his truly peculiar dumbness, which in the old affair of fireworks on the +stairs had for many years resisted entreaties, coaxing, anger, and other +means of investigation used by his beloved sister. For Stevie was loyal. +. . . “No, I can’t imagine. It’s possible that he never thought of that +at all. It sounds an extravagant way of putting it, Sir Ethelred, but +his state of dismay suggested to me an impulsive man who, after +committing suicide with the notion that it would end all his troubles, +had discovered that it did nothing of the kind.” + +The Assistant Commissioner gave this definition in an apologetic voice. +But in truth there is a sort of lucidity proper to extravagant language, +and the great man was not offended. A slight jerky movement of the big +body half lost in the gloom of the green silk shades, of the big head +leaning on the big hand, accompanied an intermittent stifled but powerful +sound. The great man had laughed. + +“What have you done with him?” + +The Assistant Commissioner answered very readily: + +“As he seemed very anxious to get back to his wife in the shop I let him +go, Sir Ethelred.” + +“You did? But the fellow will disappear.” + +“Pardon me. I don’t think so. Where could he go to? Moreover, you must +remember that he has got to think of the danger from his comrades too. +He’s there at his post. How could he explain leaving it? But even if +there were no obstacles to his freedom of action he would do nothing. At +present he hasn’t enough moral energy to take a resolution of any sort. +Permit me also to point out that if I had detained him we would have been +committed to a course of action on which I wished to know your precise +intentions first.” + +The great personage rose heavily, an imposing shadowy form in the +greenish gloom of the room. + +“I’ll see the Attorney-General to-night, and will send for you to-morrow +morning. Is there anything more you’d wish to tell me now?” + +The Assistant Commissioner had stood up also, slender and flexible. + +“I think not, Sir Ethelred, unless I were to enter into details which—” + +“No. No details, please.” + +The great shadowy form seemed to shrink away as if in physical dread of +details; then came forward, expanded, enormous, and weighty, offering a +large hand. “And you say that this man has got a wife?” + +“Yes, Sir Ethelred,” said the Assistant Commissioner, pressing +deferentially the extended hand. “A genuine wife and a genuinely, +respectably, marital relation. He told me that after his interview at +the Embassy he would have thrown everything up, would have tried to sell +his shop, and leave the country, only he felt certain that his wife would +not even hear of going abroad. Nothing could be more characteristic of +the respectable bond than that,” went on, with a touch of grimness, the +Assistant Commissioner, whose own wife too had refused to hear of going +abroad. “Yes, a genuine wife. And the victim was a genuine +brother-in-law. From a certain point of view we are here in the presence +of a domestic drama.” + +The Assistant Commissioner laughed a little; but the great man’s thoughts +seemed to have wandered far away, perhaps to the questions of his +country’s domestic policy, the battle-ground of his crusading valour +against the paynim Cheeseman. The Assistant Commissioner withdrew +quietly, unnoticed, as if already forgotten. + +He had his own crusading instincts. This affair, which, in one way or +another, disgusted Chief Inspector Heat, seemed to him a providentially +given starting-point for a crusade. He had it much at heart to begin. +He walked slowly home, meditating that enterprise on the way, and +thinking over Mr Verloc’s psychology in a composite mood of repugnance +and satisfaction. He walked all the way home. Finding the drawing-room +dark, he went upstairs, and spent some time between the bedroom and the +dressing-room, changing his clothes, going to and fro with the air of a +thoughtful somnambulist. But he shook it off before going out again to +join his wife at the house of the great lady patroness of Michaelis. + +He knew he would be welcomed there. On entering the smaller of the two +drawing-rooms he saw his wife in a small group near the piano. A +youngish composer in pass of becoming famous was discoursing from a music +stool to two thick men whose backs looked old, and three slender women +whose backs looked young. Behind the screen the great lady had only two +persons with her: a man and a woman, who sat side by side on arm-chairs +at the foot of her couch. She extended her hand to the Assistant +Commissioner. + +“I never hoped to see you here to-night. Annie told me—” + +“Yes. I had no idea myself that my work would be over so soon.” + +The Assistant Commissioner added in a low tone: “I am glad to tell you +that Michaelis is altogether clear of this—” + +The patroness of the ex-convict received this assurance indignantly. + +“Why? Were your people stupid enough to connect him with—” + +“Not stupid,” interrupted the Assistant Commissioner, contradicting +deferentially. “Clever enough—quite clever enough for that.” + +A silence fell. The man at the foot of the couch had stopped speaking to +the lady, and looked on with a faint smile. + +“I don’t know whether you ever met before,” said the great lady. + +Mr Vladimir and the Assistant Commissioner, introduced, acknowledged each +other’s existence with punctilious and guarded courtesy. + +“He’s been frightening me,” declared suddenly the lady who sat by the +side of Mr Vladimir, with an inclination of the head towards that +gentleman. The Assistant Commissioner knew the lady. + +“You do not look frightened,” he pronounced, after surveying her +conscientiously with his tired and equable gaze. He was thinking +meantime to himself that in this house one met everybody sooner or later. +Mr Vladimir’s rosy countenance was wreathed in smiles, because he was +witty, but his eyes remained serious, like the eyes of convinced man. + +“Well, he tried to at least,” amended the lady. + +“Force of habit perhaps,” said the Assistant Commissioner, moved by an +irresistible inspiration. + +“He has been threatening society with all sorts of horrors,” continued +the lady, whose enunciation was caressing and slow, “apropos of this +explosion in Greenwich Park. It appears we all ought to quake in our +shoes at what’s coming if those people are not suppressed all over the +world. I had no idea this was such a grave affair.” + +Mr Vladimir, affecting not to listen, leaned towards the couch, talking +amiably in subdued tones, but he heard the Assistant Commissioner say: + +“I’ve no doubt that Mr Vladimir has a very precise notion of the true +importance of this affair.” + +Mr Vladimir asked himself what that confounded and intrusive policeman +was driving at. Descended from generations victimised by the instruments +of an arbitrary power, he was racially, nationally, and individually +afraid of the police. It was an inherited weakness, altogether +independent of his judgment, of his reason, of his experience. He was +born to it. But that sentiment, which resembled the irrational horror +some people have of cats, did not stand in the way of his immense +contempt for the English police. He finished the sentence addressed to +the great lady, and turned slightly in his chair. + +“You mean that we have a great experience of these people. Yes; indeed, +we suffer greatly from their activity, while you”—Mr Vladimir hesitated +for a moment, in smiling perplexity—“while you suffer their presence +gladly in your midst,” he finished, displaying a dimple on each +clean-shaven cheek. Then he added more gravely: “I may even say—because +you do.” + +When Mr Vladimir ceased speaking the Assistant Commissioner lowered his +glance, and the conversation dropped. Almost immediately afterwards Mr +Vladimir took leave. + +Directly his back was turned on the couch the Assistant Commissioner rose +too. + +“I thought you were going to stay and take Annie home,” said the lady +patroness of Michaelis. + +“I find that I’ve yet a little work to do to-night.” + +“In connection—?” + +“Well, yes—in a way.” + +“Tell me, what is it really—this horror?” + +“It’s difficult to say what it is, but it may yet be a _cause célèbre_,” +said the Assistant Commissioner. + +He left the drawing-room hurriedly, and found Mr Vladimir still in the +hall, wrapping up his throat carefully in a large silk handkerchief. +Behind him a footman waited, holding his overcoat. Another stood ready +to open the door. The Assistant Commissioner was duly helped into his +coat, and let out at once. After descending the front steps he stopped, +as if to consider the way he should take. On seeing this through the +door held open, Mr Vladimir lingered in the hall to get out a cigar and +asked for a light. It was furnished to him by an elderly man out of +livery with an air of calm solicitude. But the match went out; the +footman then closed the door, and Mr Vladimir lighted his large Havana +with leisurely care. + +When at last he got out of the house, he saw with disgust the “confounded +policeman” still standing on the pavement. + +“Can he be waiting for me,” thought Mr Vladimir, looking up and down for +some signs of a hansom. He saw none. A couple of carriages waited by +the curbstone, their lamps blazing steadily, the horses standing +perfectly still, as if carved in stone, the coachmen sitting motionless +under the big fur capes, without as much as a quiver stirring the white +thongs of their big whips. Mr Vladimir walked on, and the “confounded +policeman” fell into step at his elbow. He said nothing. At the end of +the fourth stride Mr Vladimir felt infuriated and uneasy. This could not +last. + +“Rotten weather,” he growled savagely. + +“Mild,” said the Assistant Commissioner without passion. He remained +silent for a little while. “We’ve got hold of a man called Verloc,” he +announced casually. + +Mr Vladimir did not stumble, did not stagger back, did not change his +stride. But he could not prevent himself from exclaiming: “What?” The +Assistant Commissioner did not repeat his statement. “You know him,” he +went on in the same tone. + +Mr Vladimir stopped, and became guttural. “What makes you say that?” + +“I don’t. It’s Verloc who says that.” + +“A lying dog of some sort,” said Mr Vladimir in somewhat Oriental +phraseology. But in his heart he was almost awed by the miraculous +cleverness of the English police. The change of his opinion on the +subject was so violent that it made him for a moment feel slightly sick. +He threw away his cigar, and moved on. + +“What pleased me most in this affair,” the Assistant went on, talking +slowly, “is that it makes such an excellent starting-point for a piece of +work which I’ve felt must be taken in hand—that is, the clearing out of +this country of all the foreign political spies, police, and that sort +of—of—dogs. In my opinion they are a ghastly nuisance; also an element +of danger. But we can’t very well seek them out individually. The only +way is to make their employment unpleasant to their employers. The +thing’s becoming indecent. And dangerous too, for us, here.” + +Mr Vladimir stopped again for a moment. + +“What do you mean?” + +“The prosecution of this Verloc will demonstrate to the public both the +danger and the indecency.” + +“Nobody will believe what a man of that sort says,” said Mr Vladimir +contemptuously. + +“The wealth and precision of detail will carry conviction to the great +mass of the public,” advanced the Assistant Commissioner gently. + +“So that is seriously what you mean to do.” + +“We’ve got the man; we have no choice.” + +“You will be only feeding up the lying spirit of these revolutionary +scoundrels,” Mr Vladimir protested. “What do you want to make a scandal +for?—from morality—or what?” + +Mr Vladimir’s anxiety was obvious. The Assistant Commissioner having +ascertained in this way that there must be some truth in the summary +statements of Mr Verloc, said indifferently: + +“There’s a practical side too. We have really enough to do to look after +the genuine article. You can’t say we are not effective. But we don’t +intend to let ourselves be bothered by shams under any pretext whatever.” + +Mr Vladimir’s tone became lofty. + +“For my part, I can’t share your view. It is selfish. My sentiments for +my own country cannot be doubted; but I’ve always felt that we ought to +be good Europeans besides—I mean governments and men.” + +“Yes,” said the Assistant Commissioner simply. “Only you look at Europe +from its other end. But,” he went on in a good-natured tone, “the +foreign governments cannot complain of the inefficiency of our police. +Look at this outrage; a case specially difficult to trace inasmuch as it +was a sham. In less than twelve hours we have established the identity +of a man literally blown to shreds, have found the organiser of the +attempt, and have had a glimpse of the inciter behind him. And we could +have gone further; only we stopped at the limits of our territory.” + +“So this instructive crime was planned abroad,” Mr Vladimir said quickly. +“You admit it was planned abroad?” + +“Theoretically. Theoretically only, on foreign territory; abroad only by +a fiction,” said the Assistant Commissioner, alluding to the character of +Embassies, which are supposed to be part and parcel of the country to +which they belong. “But that’s a detail. I talked to you of this +business because it’s your government that grumbles most at our police. +You see that we are not so bad. I wanted particularly to tell you of our +success.” + +“I’m sure I’m very grateful,” muttered Mr Vladimir through his teeth. + +“We can put our finger on every anarchist here,” went on the Assistant +Commissioner, as though he were quoting Chief Inspector Heat. “All +that’s wanted now is to do away with the agent provocateur to make +everything safe.” + +Mr Vladimir held up his hand to a passing hansom. + +“You’re not going in here,” remarked the Assistant Commissioner, looking +at a building of noble proportions and hospitable aspect, with the light +of a great hall falling through its glass doors on a broad flight of +steps. + +But Mr Vladimir, sitting, stony-eyed, inside the hansom, drove off +without a word. + +The Assistant Commissioner himself did not turn into the noble building. +It was the Explorers’ Club. The thought passed through his mind that Mr +Vladimir, honorary member, would not be seen very often there in the +future. He looked at his watch. It was only half-past ten. He had had +a very full evening. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +After Chief Inspector Heat had left him Mr Verloc moved about the +parlour. + +From time to time he eyed his wife through the open door. “She knows all +about it now,” he thought to himself with commiseration for her sorrow +and with some satisfaction as regarded himself. Mr Verloc’s soul, if +lacking greatness perhaps, was capable of tender sentiments. The +prospect of having to break the news to her had put him into a fever. +Chief Inspector Heat had relieved him of the task. That was good as far +as it went. It remained for him now to face her grief. + +Mr Verloc had never expected to have to face it on account of death, +whose catastrophic character cannot be argued away by sophisticated +reasoning or persuasive eloquence. Mr Verloc never meant Stevie to +perish with such abrupt violence. He did not mean him to perish at all. +Stevie dead was a much greater nuisance than ever he had been when alive. +Mr Verloc had augured a favourable issue to his enterprise, basing +himself not on Stevie’s intelligence, which sometimes plays queer tricks +with a man, but on the blind docility and on the blind devotion of the +boy. Though not much of a psychologist, Mr Verloc had gauged the depth +of Stevie’s fanaticism. He dared cherish the hope of Stevie walking away +from the walls of the Observatory as he had been instructed to do, taking +the way shown to him several times previously, and rejoining his +brother-in-law, the wise and good Mr Verloc, outside the precincts of the +park. Fifteen minutes ought to have been enough for the veriest fool to +deposit the engine and walk away. And the Professor had guaranteed more +than fifteen minutes. But Stevie had stumbled within five minutes of +being left to himself. And Mr Verloc was shaken morally to pieces. He +had foreseen everything but that. He had foreseen Stevie distracted and +lost—sought for—found in some police station or provincial workhouse in +the end. He had foreseen Stevie arrested, and was not afraid, because Mr +Verloc had a great opinion of Stevie’s loyalty, which had been carefully +indoctrinated with the necessity of silence in the course of many walks. +Like a peripatetic philosopher, Mr Verloc, strolling along the streets of +London, had modified Stevie’s view of the police by conversations full of +subtle reasonings. Never had a sage a more attentive and admiring +disciple. The submission and worship were so apparent that Mr Verloc had +come to feel something like a liking for the boy. In any case, he had +not foreseen the swift bringing home of his connection. That his wife +should hit upon the precaution of sewing the boy’s address inside his +overcoat was the last thing Mr Verloc would have thought of. One can’t +think of everything. That was what she meant when she said that he need +not worry if he lost Stevie during their walks. She had assured him that +the boy would turn up all right. Well, he had turned up with a +vengeance! + +“Well, well,” muttered Mr Verloc in his wonder. What did she mean by it? +Spare him the trouble of keeping an anxious eye on Stevie? Most likely +she had meant well. Only she ought to have told him of the precaution +she had taken. + +Mr Verloc walked behind the counter of the shop. His intention was not +to overwhelm his wife with bitter reproaches. Mr Verloc felt no +bitterness. The unexpected march of events had converted him to the +doctrine of fatalism. Nothing could be helped now. He said: + +“I didn’t mean any harm to come to the boy.” + +Mrs Verloc shuddered at the sound of her husband’s voice. She did not +uncover her face. The trusted secret agent of the late Baron +Stott-Wartenheim looked at her for a time with a heavy, persistent, +undiscerning glance. The torn evening paper was lying at her feet. It +could not have told her much. Mr Verloc felt the need of talking to his +wife. + +“It’s that damned Heat—eh?” he said. “He upset you. He’s a brute, +blurting it out like this to a woman. I made myself ill thinking how to +break it to you. I sat for hours in the little parlour of Cheshire +Cheese thinking over the best way. You understand I never meant any harm +to come to that boy.” + +Mr Verloc, the Secret Agent, was speaking the truth. It was his marital +affection that had received the greatest shock from the premature +explosion. He added: + +“I didn’t feel particularly gay sitting there and thinking of you.” + +He observed another slight shudder of his wife, which affected his +sensibility. As she persisted in hiding her face in her hands, he +thought he had better leave her alone for a while. On this delicate +impulse Mr Verloc withdrew into the parlour again, where the gas jet +purred like a contented cat. Mrs Verloc’s wifely forethought had left +the cold beef on the table with carving knife and fork and half a loaf of +bread for Mr Verloc’s supper. He noticed all these things now for the +first time, and cutting himself a piece of bread and meat, began to eat. + +His appetite did not proceed from callousness. Mr Verloc had not eaten +any breakfast that day. He had left his home fasting. Not being an +energetic man, he found his resolution in nervous excitement, which +seemed to hold him mainly by the throat. He could not have swallowed +anything solid. Michaelis’ cottage was as destitute of provisions as the +cell of a prisoner. The ticket-of-leave apostle lived on a little milk +and crusts of stale bread. Moreover, when Mr Verloc arrived he had +already gone upstairs after his frugal meal. Absorbed in the toil and +delight of literary composition, he had not even answered Mr Verloc’s +shout up the little staircase. + +“I am taking this young fellow home for a day or two.” + +And, in truth, Mr Verloc did not wait for an answer, but had marched out +of the cottage at once, followed by the obedient Stevie. + +Now that all action was over and his fate taken out of his hands with +unexpected swiftness, Mr Verloc felt terribly empty physically. He +carved the meat, cut the bread, and devoured his supper standing by the +table, and now and then casting a glance towards his wife. Her prolonged +immobility disturbed the comfort of his refection. He walked again into +the shop, and came up very close to her. This sorrow with a veiled face +made Mr Verloc uneasy. He expected, of course, his wife to be very much +upset, but he wanted her to pull herself together. He needed all her +assistance and all her loyalty in these new conjunctures his fatalism had +already accepted. + +“Can’t be helped,” he said in a tone of gloomy sympathy. “Come, Winnie, +we’ve got to think of to-morrow. You’ll want all your wits about you +after I am taken away.” + +He paused. Mrs Verloc’s breast heaved convulsively. This was not +reassuring to Mr Verloc, in whose view the newly created situation +required from the two people most concerned in it calmness, decision, and +other qualities incompatible with the mental disorder of passionate +sorrow. Mr Verloc was a humane man; he had come home prepared to allow +every latitude to his wife’s affection for her brother. + +Only he did not understand either the nature or the whole extent of that +sentiment. And in this he was excusable, since it was impossible for him +to understand it without ceasing to be himself. He was startled and +disappointed, and his speech conveyed it by a certain roughness of tone. + +“You might look at a fellow,” he observed after waiting a while. + +As if forced through the hands covering Mrs Verloc’s face the answer +came, deadened, almost pitiful. + +“I don’t want to look at you as long as I live.” + +“Eh? What!” Mr Verloc was merely startled by the superficial and +literal meaning of this declaration. It was obviously unreasonable, the +mere cry of exaggerated grief. He threw over it the mantle of his +marital indulgence. The mind of Mr Verloc lacked profundity. Under the +mistaken impression that the value of individuals consists in what they +are in themselves, he could not possibly comprehend the value of Stevie +in the eyes of Mrs Verloc. She was taking it confoundedly hard, he +thought to himself. It was all the fault of that damned Heat. What did +he want to upset the woman for? But she mustn’t be allowed, for her own +good, to carry on so till she got quite beside herself. + +“Look here! You can’t sit like this in the shop,” he said with affected +severity, in which there was some real annoyance; for urgent practical +matters must be talked over if they had to sit up all night. “Somebody +might come in at any minute,” he added, and waited again. No effect was +produced, and the idea of the finality of death occurred to Mr Verloc +during the pause. He changed his tone. “Come. This won’t bring him +back,” he said gently, feeling ready to take her in his arms and press +her to his breast, where impatience and compassion dwelt side by side. +But except for a short shudder Mrs Verloc remained apparently unaffected +by the force of that terrible truism. It was Mr Verloc himself who was +moved. He was moved in his simplicity to urge moderation by asserting +the claims of his own personality. + +“Do be reasonable, Winnie. What would it have been if you had lost me!” + +He had vaguely expected to hear her cry out. But she did not budge. She +leaned back a little, quieted down to a complete unreadable stillness. +Mr Verloc’s heart began to beat faster with exasperation and something +resembling alarm. He laid his hand on her shoulder, saying: + +“Don’t be a fool, Winnie.” + +She gave no sign. It was impossible to talk to any purpose with a woman +whose face one cannot see. Mr Verloc caught hold of his wife’s wrists. +But her hands seemed glued fast. She swayed forward bodily to his tug, +and nearly went off the chair. Startled to feel her so helplessly limp, +he was trying to put her back on the chair when she stiffened suddenly +all over, tore herself out of his hands, ran out of the shop, across the +parlour, and into the kitchen. This was very swift. He had just a +glimpse of her face and that much of her eyes that he knew she had not +looked at him. + +It all had the appearance of a struggle for the possession of a chair, +because Mr Verloc instantly took his wife’s place in it. Mr Verloc did +not cover his face with his hands, but a sombre thoughtfulness veiled his +features. A term of imprisonment could not be avoided. He did not wish +now to avoid it. A prison was a place as safe from certain unlawful +vengeances as the grave, with this advantage, that in a prison there is +room for hope. What he saw before him was a term of imprisonment, an +early release and then life abroad somewhere, such as he had contemplated +already, in case of failure. Well, it was a failure, if not exactly the +sort of failure he had feared. It had been so near success that he could +have positively terrified Mr Vladimir out of his ferocious scoffing with +this proof of occult efficiency. So at least it seemed now to Mr Verloc. +His prestige with the Embassy would have been immense if—if his wife had +not had the unlucky notion of sewing on the address inside Stevie’s +overcoat. Mr Verloc, who was no fool, had soon perceived the +extraordinary character of the influence he had over Stevie, though he +did not understand exactly its origin—the doctrine of his supreme wisdom +and goodness inculcated by two anxious women. In all the eventualities +he had foreseen Mr Verloc had calculated with correct insight on Stevie’s +instinctive loyalty and blind discretion. The eventuality he had not +foreseen had appalled him as a humane man and a fond husband. From every +other point of view it was rather advantageous. Nothing can equal the +everlasting discretion of death. Mr Verloc, sitting perplexed and +frightened in the small parlour of the Cheshire Cheese, could not help +acknowledging that to himself, because his sensibility did not stand in +the way of his judgment. Stevie’s violent disintegration, however +disturbing to think about, only assured the success; for, of course, the +knocking down of a wall was not the aim of Mr Vladimir’s menaces, but the +production of a moral effect. With much trouble and distress on Mr +Verloc’s part the effect might be said to have been produced. When, +however, most unexpectedly, it came home to roost in Brett Street, Mr +Verloc, who had been struggling like a man in a nightmare for the +preservation of his position, accepted the blow in the spirit of a +convinced fatalist. The position was gone through no one’s fault really. +A small, tiny fact had done it. It was like slipping on a bit of orange +peel in the dark and breaking your leg. + +Mr Verloc drew a weary breath. He nourished no resentment against his +wife. He thought: She will have to look after the shop while they keep +me locked up. And thinking also how cruelly she would miss Stevie at +first, he felt greatly concerned about her health and spirits. How would +she stand her solitude—absolutely alone in that house? It would not do +for her to break down while he was locked up? What would become of the +shop then? The shop was an asset. Though Mr Verloc’s fatalism accepted +his undoing as a secret agent, he had no mind to be utterly ruined, +mostly, it must be owned, from regard for his wife. + +Silent, and out of his line of sight in the kitchen, she frightened him. +If only she had had her mother with her. But that silly old woman—An +angry dismay possessed Mr Verloc. He must talk with his wife. He could +tell her certainly that a man does get desperate under certain +circumstances. But he did not go incontinently to impart to her that +information. First of all, it was clear to him that this evening was no +time for business. He got up to close the street door and put the gas +out in the shop. + +Having thus assured a solitude around his hearthstone Mr Verloc walked +into the parlour, and glanced down into the kitchen. Mrs Verloc was +sitting in the place where poor Stevie usually established himself of an +evening with paper and pencil for the pastime of drawing these +coruscations of innumerable circles suggesting chaos and eternity. Her +arms were folded on the table, and her head was lying on her arms. Mr +Verloc contemplated her back and the arrangement of her hair for a time, +then walked away from the kitchen door. Mrs Verloc’s philosophical, +almost disdainful incuriosity, the foundation of their accord in domestic +life made it extremely difficult to get into contact with her, now this +tragic necessity had arisen. Mr Verloc felt this difficulty acutely. He +turned around the table in the parlour with his usual air of a large +animal in a cage. + +Curiosity being one of the forms of self-revelation, a systematically +incurious person remains always partly mysterious. Every time he passed +near the door Mr Verloc glanced at his wife uneasily. It was not that he +was afraid of her. Mr Verloc imagined himself loved by that woman. But +she had not accustomed him to make confidences. And the confidence he +had to make was of a profound psychological order. How with his want of +practice could he tell her what he himself felt but vaguely: that there +are conspiracies of fatal destiny, that a notion grows in a mind +sometimes till it acquires an outward existence, an independent power of +its own, and even a suggestive voice? He could not inform her that a man +may be haunted by a fat, witty, clean-shaved face till the wildest +expedient to get rid of it appears a child of wisdom. + +On this mental reference to a First Secretary of a great Embassy, Mr +Verloc stopped in the doorway, and looking down into the kitchen with an +angry face and clenched fists, addressed his wife. + +“You don’t know what a brute I had to deal with.” + +He started off to make another perambulation of the table; then when he +had come to the door again he stopped, glaring in from the height of two +steps. + +“A silly, jeering, dangerous brute, with no more sense than—After all +these years! A man like me! And I have been playing my head at that +game. You didn’t know. Quite right, too. What was the good of telling +you that I stood the risk of having a knife stuck into me any time these +seven years we’ve been married? I am not a chap to worry a woman that’s +fond of me. You had no business to know.” Mr Verloc took another turn +round the parlour, fuming. + +“A venomous beast,” he began again from the doorway. “Drive me out into +a ditch to starve for a joke. I could see he thought it was a damned +good joke. A man like me! Look here! Some of the highest in the world +got to thank me for walking on their two legs to this day. That’s the +man you’ve got married to, my girl!” + +He perceived that his wife had sat up. Mrs Verloc’s arms remained lying +stretched on the table. Mr Verloc watched at her back as if he could +read there the effect of his words. + +“There isn’t a murdering plot for the last eleven years that I hadn’t my +finger in at the risk of my life. There’s scores of these revolutionists +I’ve sent off, with their bombs in their blamed pockets, to get +themselves caught on the frontier. The old Baron knew what I was worth +to his country. And here suddenly a swine comes along—an ignorant, +overbearing swine.” + +Mr Verloc, stepping slowly down two steps, entered the kitchen, took a +tumbler off the dresser, and holding it in his hand, approached the sink, +without looking at his wife. “It wasn’t the old Baron who would have had +the wicked folly of getting me to call on him at eleven in the morning. +There are two or three in this town that, if they had seen me going in, +would have made no bones about knocking me on the head sooner or later. +It was a silly, murderous trick to expose for nothing a man—like me.” + +Mr Verloc, turning on the tap above the sink, poured three glasses of +water, one after another, down his throat to quench the fires of his +indignation. Mr Vladimir’s conduct was like a hot brand which set his +internal economy in a blaze. He could not get over the disloyalty of it. +This man, who would not work at the usual hard tasks which society sets +to its humbler members, had exercised his secret industry with an +indefatigable devotion. There was in Mr Verloc a fund of loyalty. He +had been loyal to his employers, to the cause of social stability,—and to +his affections too—as became apparent when, after standing the tumbler in +the sink, he turned about, saying: + +“If I hadn’t thought of you I would have taken the bullying brute by the +throat and rammed his head into the fireplace. I’d have been more than a +match for that pink-faced, smooth-shaved—” + +Mr Verloc, neglected to finish the sentence, as if there could be no +doubt of the terminal word. For the first time in his life he was taking +that incurious woman into his confidence. The singularity of the event, +the force and importance of the personal feelings aroused in the course +of this confession, drove Stevie’s fate clean out of Mr Verloc’s mind. +The boy’s stuttering existence of fears and indignations, together with +the violence of his end, had passed out of Mr Verloc’s mental sight for a +time. For that reason, when he looked up he was startled by the +inappropriate character of his wife’s stare. It was not a wild stare, +and it was not inattentive, but its attention was peculiar and not +satisfactory, inasmuch that it seemed concentrated upon some point beyond +Mr Verloc’s person. The impression was so strong that Mr Verloc glanced +over his shoulder. There was nothing behind him: there was just the +whitewashed wall. The excellent husband of Winnie Verloc saw no writing +on the wall. He turned to his wife again, repeating, with some emphasis: + +“I would have taken him by the throat. As true as I stand here, if I +hadn’t thought of you then I would have half choked the life out of the +brute before I let him get up. And don’t you think he would have been +anxious to call the police either. He wouldn’t have dared. You +understand why—don’t you?” + +He blinked at his wife knowingly. + +“No,” said Mrs Verloc in an unresonant voice, and without looking at him +at all. “What are you talking about?” + +A great discouragement, the result of fatigue, came upon Mr Verloc. He +had had a very full day, and his nerves had been tried to the utmost. +After a month of maddening worry, ending in an unexpected catastrophe, +the storm-tossed spirit of Mr Verloc longed for repose. His career as a +secret agent had come to an end in a way no one could have foreseen; +only, now, perhaps he could manage to get a night’s sleep at last. But +looking at his wife, he doubted it. She was taking it very hard—not at +all like herself, he thought. He made an effort to speak. + +“You’ll have to pull yourself together, my girl,” he said +sympathetically. “What’s done can’t be undone.” + +Mrs Verloc gave a slight start, though not a muscle of her white face +moved in the least. Mr Verloc, who was not looking at her, continued +ponderously. + +“You go to bed now. What you want is a good cry.” + +This opinion had nothing to recommend it but the general consent of +mankind. It is universally understood that, as if it were nothing more +substantial than vapour floating in the sky, every emotion of a woman is +bound to end in a shower. And it is very probable that had Stevie died +in his bed under her despairing gaze, in her protecting arms, Mrs +Verloc’s grief would have found relief in a flood of bitter and pure +tears. Mrs Verloc, in common with other human beings, was provided with +a fund of unconscious resignation sufficient to meet the normal +manifestation of human destiny. Without “troubling her head about it,” +she was aware that it “did not stand looking into very much.” But the +lamentable circumstances of Stevie’s end, which to Mr Verloc’s mind had +only an episodic character, as part of a greater disaster, dried her +tears at their very source. It was the effect of a white-hot iron drawn +across her eyes; at the same time her heart, hardened and chilled into a +lump of ice, kept her body in an inward shudder, set her features into a +frozen contemplative immobility addressed to a whitewashed wall with no +writing on it. The exigencies of Mrs Verloc’s temperament, which, when +stripped of its philosophical reserve, was maternal and violent, forced +her to roll a series of thoughts in her motionless head. These thoughts +were rather imagined than expressed. Mrs Verloc was a woman of +singularly few words, either for public or private use. With the rage +and dismay of a betrayed woman, she reviewed the tenor of her life in +visions concerned mostly with Stevie’s difficult existence from its +earliest days. It was a life of single purpose and of a noble unity of +inspiration, like those rare lives that have left their mark on the +thoughts and feelings of mankind. But the visions of Mrs Verloc lacked +nobility and magnificence. She saw herself putting the boy to bed by the +light of a single candle on the deserted top floor of a “business house,” +dark under the roof and scintillating exceedingly with lights and cut +glass at the level of the street like a fairy palace. That meretricious +splendour was the only one to be met in Mrs Verloc’s visions. She +remembered brushing the boy’s hair and tying his pinafores—herself in a +pinafore still; the consolations administered to a small and badly scared +creature by another creature nearly as small but not quite so badly +scared; she had the vision of the blows intercepted (often with her own +head), of a door held desperately shut against a man’s rage (not for very +long); of a poker flung once (not very far), which stilled that +particular storm into the dumb and awful silence which follows a +thunder-clap. And all these scenes of violence came and went accompanied +by the unrefined noise of deep vociferations proceeding from a man +wounded in his paternal pride, declaring himself obviously accursed since +one of his kids was a “slobbering idjut and the other a wicked +she-devil.” It was of her that this had been said many years ago. + +Mrs Verloc heard the words again in a ghostly fashion, and then the +dreary shadow of the Belgravian mansion descended upon her shoulders. It +was a crushing memory, an exhausting vision of countless breakfast trays +carried up and down innumerable stairs, of endless haggling over pence, +of the endless drudgery of sweeping, dusting, cleaning, from basement to +attics; while the impotent mother, staggering on swollen legs, cooked in +a grimy kitchen, and poor Stevie, the unconscious presiding genius of all +their toil, blacked the gentlemen’s boots in the scullery. But this +vision had a breath of a hot London summer in it, and for a central +figure a young man wearing his Sunday best, with a straw hat on his dark +head and a wooden pipe in his mouth. Affectionate and jolly, he was a +fascinating companion for a voyage down the sparkling stream of life; +only his boat was very small. There was room in it for a girl-partner at +the oar, but no accommodation for passengers. He was allowed to drift +away from the threshold of the Belgravian mansion while Winnie averted +her tearful eyes. He was not a lodger. The lodger was Mr Verloc, +indolent, and keeping late hours, sleepily jocular of a morning from +under his bed-clothes, but with gleams of infatuation in his heavy lidded +eyes, and always with some money in his pockets. There was no sparkle of +any kind on the lazy stream of his life. It flowed through secret +places. But his barque seemed a roomy craft, and his taciturn +magnanimity accepted as a matter of course the presence of passengers. + +Mrs Verloc pursued the visions of seven years’ security for Stevie, +loyally paid for on her part; of security growing into confidence, into a +domestic feeling, stagnant and deep like a placid pool, whose guarded +surface hardly shuddered on the occasional passage of Comrade Ossipon, +the robust anarchist with shamelessly inviting eyes, whose glance had a +corrupt clearness sufficient to enlighten any woman not absolutely +imbecile. + +A few seconds only had elapsed since the last word had been uttered aloud +in the kitchen, and Mrs Verloc was staring already at the vision of an +episode not more than a fortnight old. With eyes whose pupils were +extremely dilated she stared at the vision of her husband and poor Stevie +walking up Brett Street side by side away from the shop. It was the last +scene of an existence created by Mrs Verloc’s genius; an existence +foreign to all grace and charm, without beauty and almost without +decency, but admirable in the continuity of feeling and tenacity of +purpose. And this last vision had such plastic relief, such nearness of +form, such a fidelity of suggestive detail, that it wrung from Mrs Verloc +an anguished and faint murmur, reproducing the supreme illusion of her +life, an appalled murmur that died out on her blanched lips. + +“Might have been father and son.” + +Mr Verloc stopped, and raised a care-worn face. “Eh? What did you say?” +he asked. Receiving no reply, he resumed his sinister tramping. Then +with a menacing flourish of a thick, fleshy fist, he burst out: + +“Yes. The Embassy people. A pretty lot, ain’t they! Before a week’s +out I’ll make some of them wish themselves twenty feet underground. Eh? +What?” + +He glanced sideways, with his head down. Mrs Verloc gazed at the +whitewashed wall. A blank wall—perfectly blank. A blankness to run at +and dash your head against. Mrs Verloc remained immovably seated. She +kept still as the population of half the globe would keep still in +astonishment and despair, were the sun suddenly put out in the summer sky +by the perfidy of a trusted providence. + +“The Embassy,” Mr Verloc began again, after a preliminary grimace which +bared his teeth wolfishly. “I wish I could get loose in there with a +cudgel for half-an-hour. I would keep on hitting till there wasn’t a +single unbroken bone left amongst the whole lot. But never mind, I’ll +teach them yet what it means trying to throw out a man like me to rot in +the streets. I’ve a tongue in my head. All the world shall know what +I’ve done for them. I am not afraid. I don’t care. Everything’ll come +out. Every damned thing. Let them look out!” + +In these terms did Mr Verloc declare his thirst for revenge. It was a +very appropriate revenge. It was in harmony with the promptings of Mr +Verloc’s genius. It had also the advantage of being within the range of +his powers and of adjusting itself easily to the practice of his life, +which had consisted precisely in betraying the secret and unlawful +proceedings of his fellow-men. Anarchists or diplomats were all one to +him. Mr Verloc was temperamentally no respecter of persons. His scorn +was equally distributed over the whole field of his operations. But as a +member of a revolutionary proletariat—which he undoubtedly was—he +nourished a rather inimical sentiment against social distinction. + +“Nothing on earth can stop me now,” he added, and paused, looking fixedly +at his wife, who was looking fixedly at a blank wall. + +The silence in the kitchen was prolonged, and Mr Verloc felt +disappointed. He had expected his wife to say something. But Mrs +Verloc’s lips, composed in their usual form, preserved a statuesque +immobility like the rest of her face. And Mr Verloc was disappointed. +Yet the occasion did not, he recognised, demand speech from her. She was +a woman of very few words. For reasons involved in the very foundation +of his psychology, Mr Verloc was inclined to put his trust in any woman +who had given herself to him. Therefore he trusted his wife. Their +accord was perfect, but it was not precise. It was a tacit accord, +congenial to Mrs Verloc’s incuriosity and to Mr Verloc’s habits of mind, +which were indolent and secret. They refrained from going to the bottom +of facts and motives. + +This reserve, expressing, in a way, their profound confidence in each +other, introduced at the same time a certain element of vagueness into +their intimacy. No system of conjugal relations is perfect. Mr Verloc +presumed that his wife had understood him, but he would have been glad to +hear her say what she thought at the moment. It would have been a +comfort. + +There were several reasons why this comfort was denied him. There was a +physical obstacle: Mrs Verloc had no sufficient command over her voice. +She did not see any alternative between screaming and silence, and +instinctively she chose the silence. Winnie Verloc was temperamentally a +silent person. And there was the paralysing atrocity of the thought +which occupied her. Her cheeks were blanched, her lips ashy, her +immobility amazing. And she thought without looking at Mr Verloc: “This +man took the boy away to murder him. He took the boy away from his home +to murder him. He took the boy away from me to murder him!” + +Mrs Verloc’s whole being was racked by that inconclusive and maddening +thought. It was in her veins, in her bones, in the roots of her hair. +Mentally she assumed the biblical attitude of mourning—the covered face, +the rent garments; the sound of wailing and lamentation filled her head. +But her teeth were violently clenched, and her tearless eyes were hot +with rage, because she was not a submissive creature. The protection she +had extended over her brother had been in its origin of a fierce and +indignant complexion. She had to love him with a militant love. She had +battled for him—even against herself. His loss had the bitterness of +defeat, with the anguish of a baffled passion. It was not an ordinary +stroke of death. Moreover, it was not death that took Stevie from her. +It was Mr Verloc who took him away. She had seen him. She had watched +him, without raising a hand, take the boy away. And she had let him go, +like—like a fool—a blind fool. Then after he had murdered the boy he +came home to her. Just came home like any other man would come home to +his wife. . . . + +Through her set teeth Mrs Verloc muttered at the wall: + +“And I thought he had caught a cold.” + +Mr Verloc heard these words and appropriated them. + +“It was nothing,” he said moodily. “I was upset. I was upset on your +account.” + +Mrs Verloc, turning her head slowly, transferred her stare from the wall +to her husband’s person. Mr Verloc, with the tips of his fingers between +his lips, was looking on the ground. + +“Can’t be helped,” he mumbled, letting his hand fall. “You must pull +yourself together. You’ll want all your wits about you. It is you who +brought the police about our ears. Never mind, I won’t say anything more +about it,” continued Mr Verloc magnanimously. “You couldn’t know.” + +“I couldn’t,” breathed out Mrs Verloc. It was as if a corpse had spoken. +Mr Verloc took up the thread of his discourse. + +“I don’t blame you. I’ll make them sit up. Once under lock and key it +will be safe enough for me to talk—you understand. You must reckon on me +being two years away from you,” he continued, in a tone of sincere +concern. “It will be easier for you than for me. You’ll have something +to do, while I—Look here, Winnie, what you must do is to keep this +business going for two years. You know enough for that. You’ve a good +head on you. I’ll send you word when it’s time to go about trying to +sell. You’ll have to be extra careful. The comrades will be keeping an +eye on you all the time. You’ll have to be as artful as you know how, +and as close as the grave. No one must know what you are going to do. I +have no mind to get a knock on the head or a stab in the back directly I +am let out.” + +Thus spoke Mr Verloc, applying his mind with ingenuity and forethought to +the problems of the future. His voice was sombre, because he had a +correct sentiment of the situation. Everything which he did not wish to +pass had come to pass. The future had become precarious. His judgment, +perhaps, had been momentarily obscured by his dread of Mr Vladimir’s +truculent folly. A man somewhat over forty may be excusably thrown into +considerable disorder by the prospect of losing his employment, +especially if the man is a secret agent of political police, dwelling +secure in the consciousness of his high value and in the esteem of high +personages. He was excusable. + +Now the thing had ended in a crash. Mr Verloc was cool; but he was not +cheerful. A secret agent who throws his secrecy to the winds from desire +of vengeance, and flaunts his achievements before the public eye, becomes +the mark for desperate and bloodthirsty indignations. Without unduly +exaggerating the danger, Mr Verloc tried to bring it clearly before his +wife’s mind. He repeated that he had no intention to let the +revolutionists do away with him. + +He looked straight into his wife’s eyes. The enlarged pupils of the +woman received his stare into their unfathomable depths. + +“I am too fond of you for that,” he said, with a little nervous laugh. + +A faint flush coloured Mrs Verloc’s ghastly and motionless face. Having +done with the visions of the past, she had not only heard, but had also +understood the words uttered by her husband. By their extreme disaccord +with her mental condition these words produced on her a slightly +suffocating effect. Mrs Verloc’s mental condition had the merit of +simplicity; but it was not sound. It was governed too much by a fixed +idea. Every nook and cranny of her brain was filled with the thought +that this man, with whom she had lived without distaste for seven years, +had taken the “poor boy” away from her in order to kill him—the man to +whom she had grown accustomed in body and mind; the man whom she had +trusted, took the boy away to kill him! In its form, in its substance, +in its effect, which was universal, altering even the aspect of inanimate +things, it was a thought to sit still and marvel at for ever and ever. +Mrs Verloc sat still. And across that thought (not across the kitchen) +the form of Mr Verloc went to and fro, familiarly in hat and overcoat, +stamping with his boots upon her brain. He was probably talking too; but +Mrs Verloc’s thought for the most part covered the voice. + +Now and then, however, the voice would make itself heard. Several +connected words emerged at times. Their purport was generally hopeful. +On each of these occasions Mrs Verloc’s dilated pupils, losing their +far-off fixity, followed her husband’s movements with the effect of black +care and impenetrable attention. Well informed upon all matters relating +to his secret calling, Mr Verloc augured well for the success of his +plans and combinations. He really believed that it would be upon the +whole easy for him to escape the knife of infuriated revolutionists. He +had exaggerated the strength of their fury and the length of their arm +(for professional purposes) too often to have many illusions one way or +the other. For to exaggerate with judgment one must begin by measuring +with nicety. He knew also how much virtue and how much infamy is +forgotten in two years—two long years. His first really confidential +discourse to his wife was optimistic from conviction. He also thought it +good policy to display all the assurance he could muster. It would put +heart into the poor woman. On his liberation, which, harmonising with +the whole tenor of his life, would be secret, of course, they would +vanish together without loss of time. As to covering up the tracks, he +begged his wife to trust him for that. He knew how it was to be done so +that the devil himself— + +He waved his hand. He seemed to boast. He wished only to put heart into +her. It was a benevolent intention, but Mr Verloc had the misfortune not +to be in accord with his audience. + +The self-confident tone grew upon Mrs Verloc’s ear which let most of the +words go by; for what were words to her now? What could words do to her, +for good or evil in the face of her fixed idea? Her black glance +followed that man who was asserting his impunity—the man who had taken +poor Stevie from home to kill him somewhere. Mrs Verloc could not +remember exactly where, but her heart began to beat very perceptibly. + +Mr Verloc, in a soft and conjugal tone, was now expressing his firm +belief that there were yet a good few years of quiet life before them +both. He did not go into the question of means. A quiet life it must be +and, as it were, nestling in the shade, concealed among men whose flesh +is grass; modest, like the life of violets. The words used by Mr Verloc +were: “Lie low for a bit.” And far from England, of course. It was not +clear whether Mr Verloc had in his mind Spain or South America; but at +any rate somewhere abroad. + +This last word, falling into Mrs Verloc’s ear, produced a definite +impression. This man was talking of going abroad. The impression was +completely disconnected; and such is the force of mental habit that Mrs +Verloc at once and automatically asked herself: “And what of Stevie?” + +It was a sort of forgetfulness; but instantly she became aware that there +was no longer any occasion for anxiety on that score. There would never +be any occasion any more. The poor boy had been taken out and killed. +The poor boy was dead. + +This shaking piece of forgetfulness stimulated Mrs Verloc’s intelligence. +She began to perceive certain consequences which would have surprised Mr +Verloc. There was no need for her now to stay there, in that kitchen, in +that house, with that man—since the boy was gone for ever. No need +whatever. And on that Mrs Verloc rose as if raised by a spring. But +neither could she see what there was to keep her in the world at all. +And this inability arrested her. Mr Verloc watched her with marital +solicitude. + +“You’re looking more like yourself,” he said uneasily. Something +peculiar in the blackness of his wife’s eyes disturbed his optimism. At +that precise moment Mrs Verloc began to look upon herself as released +from all earthly ties. + +She had her freedom. Her contract with existence, as represented by that +man standing over there, was at an end. She was a free woman. Had this +view become in some way perceptible to Mr Verloc he would have been +extremely shocked. In his affairs of the heart Mr Verloc had been always +carelessly generous, yet always with no other idea than that of being +loved for himself. Upon this matter, his ethical notions being in +agreement with his vanity, he was completely incorrigible. That this +should be so in the case of his virtuous and legal connection he was +perfectly certain. He had grown older, fatter, heavier, in the belief +that he lacked no fascination for being loved for his own sake. When he +saw Mrs Verloc starting to walk out of the kitchen without a word he was +disappointed. + +“Where are you going to?” he called out rather sharply. “Upstairs?” + +Mrs Verloc in the doorway turned at the voice. An instinct of prudence +born of fear, the excessive fear of being approached and touched by that +man, induced her to nod at him slightly (from the height of two steps), +with a stir of the lips which the conjugal optimism of Mr Verloc took for +a wan and uncertain smile. + +“That’s right,” he encouraged her gruffly. “Rest and quiet’s what you +want. Go on. It won’t be long before I am with you.” + +Mrs Verloc, the free woman who had had really no idea where she was going +to, obeyed the suggestion with rigid steadiness. + +Mr Verloc watched her. She disappeared up the stairs. He was +disappointed. There was that within him which would have been more +satisfied if she had been moved to throw herself upon his breast. But he +was generous and indulgent. Winnie was always undemonstrative and +silent. Neither was Mr Verloc himself prodigal of endearments and words +as a rule. But this was not an ordinary evening. It was an occasion +when a man wants to be fortified and strengthened by open proofs of +sympathy and affection. Mr Verloc sighed, and put out the gas in the +kitchen. Mr Verloc’s sympathy with his wife was genuine and intense. It +almost brought tears into his eyes as he stood in the parlour reflecting +on the loneliness hanging over her head. In this mood Mr Verloc missed +Stevie very much out of a difficult world. He thought mournfully of his +end. If only that lad had not stupidly destroyed himself! + +The sensation of unappeasable hunger, not unknown after the strain of a +hazardous enterprise to adventurers of tougher fibre than Mr Verloc, +overcame him again. The piece of roast beef, laid out in the likeness of +funereal baked meats for Stevie’s obsequies, offered itself largely to +his notice. And Mr Verloc again partook. He partook ravenously, without +restraint and decency, cutting thick slices with the sharp carving knife, +and swallowing them without bread. In the course of that refection it +occurred to Mr Verloc that he was not hearing his wife move about the +bedroom as he should have done. The thought of finding her perhaps +sitting on the bed in the dark not only cut Mr Verloc’s appetite, but +also took from him the inclination to follow her upstairs just yet. +Laying down the carving knife, Mr Verloc listened with careworn +attention. + +He was comforted by hearing her move at last. She walked suddenly across +the room, and threw the window up. After a period of stillness up there, +during which he figured her to himself with her head out, he heard the +sash being lowered slowly. Then she made a few steps, and sat down. +Every resonance of his house was familiar to Mr Verloc, who was +thoroughly domesticated. When next he heard his wife’s footsteps +overhead he knew, as well as if he had seen her doing it, that she had +been putting on her walking shoes. Mr Verloc wriggled his shoulders +slightly at this ominous symptom, and moving away from the table, stood +with his back to the fireplace, his head on one side, and gnawing +perplexedly at the tips of his fingers. He kept track of her movements +by the sound. She walked here and there violently, with abrupt +stoppages, now before the chest of drawers, then in front of the +wardrobe. An immense load of weariness, the harvest of a day of shocks +and surprises, weighed Mr Verloc’s energies to the ground. + +He did not raise his eyes till he heard his wife descending the stairs. +It was as he had guessed. She was dressed for going out. + +Mrs Verloc was a free woman. She had thrown open the window of the +bedroom either with the intention of screaming Murder! Help! or of +throwing herself out. For she did not exactly know what use to make of +her freedom. Her personality seemed to have been torn into two pieces, +whose mental operations did not adjust themselves very well to each +other. The street, silent and deserted from end to end, repelled her by +taking sides with that man who was so certain of his impunity. She was +afraid to shout lest no one should come. Obviously no one would come. +Her instinct of self-preservation recoiled from the depth of the fall +into that sort of slimy, deep trench. Mrs Verloc closed the window, and +dressed herself to go out into the street by another way. She was a free +woman. She had dressed herself thoroughly, down to the tying of a black +veil over her face. As she appeared before him in the light of the +parlour, Mr Verloc observed that she had even her little handbag hanging +from her left wrist. . . . Flying off to her mother, of course. + +The thought that women were wearisome creatures after all presented +itself to his fatigued brain. But he was too generous to harbour it for +more than an instant. This man, hurt cruelly in his vanity, remained +magnanimous in his conduct, allowing himself no satisfaction of a bitter +smile or of a contemptuous gesture. With true greatness of soul, he only +glanced at the wooden clock on the wall, and said in a perfectly calm but +forcible manner: + +“Five and twenty minutes past eight, Winnie. There’s no sense in going +over there so late. You will never manage to get back to-night.” + +Before his extended hand Mrs Verloc had stopped short. He added heavily: +“Your mother will be gone to bed before you get there. This is the sort +of news that can wait.” + +Nothing was further from Mrs Verloc’s thoughts than going to her mother. +She recoiled at the mere idea, and feeling a chair behind her, she obeyed +the suggestion of the touch, and sat down. Her intention had been simply +to get outside the door for ever. And if this feeling was correct, its +mental form took an unrefined shape corresponding to her origin and +station. “I would rather walk the streets all the days of my life,” she +thought. But this creature, whose moral nature had been subjected to a +shock of which, in the physical order, the most violent earthquake of +history could only be a faint and languid rendering, was at the mercy of +mere trifles, of casual contacts. She sat down. With her hat and veil +she had the air of a visitor, of having looked in on Mr Verloc for a +moment. Her instant docility encouraged him, whilst her aspect of only +temporary and silent acquiescence provoked him a little. + +“Let me tell you, Winnie,” he said with authority, “that your place is +here this evening. Hang it all! you brought the damned police high and +low about my ears. I don’t blame you—but it’s your doing all the same. +You’d better take this confounded hat off. I can’t let you go out, old +girl,” he added in a softened voice. + +Mrs Verloc’s mind got hold of that declaration with morbid tenacity. The +man who had taken Stevie out from under her very eyes to murder him in a +locality whose name was at the moment not present to her memory would not +allow her go out. Of course he wouldn’t. + +Now he had murdered Stevie he would never let her go. He would want to +keep her for nothing. And on this characteristic reasoning, having all +the force of insane logic, Mrs Verloc’s disconnected wits went to work +practically. She could slip by him, open the door, run out. But he +would dash out after her, seize her round the body, drag her back into +the shop. She could scratch, kick, and bite—and stab too; but for +stabbing she wanted a knife. Mrs Verloc sat still under her black veil, +in her own house, like a masked and mysterious visitor of impenetrable +intentions. + +Mr Verloc’s magnanimity was not more than human. She had exasperated him +at last. + +“Can’t you say something? You have your own dodges for vexing a man. Oh +yes! I know your deaf-and-dumb trick. I’ve seen you at it before +to-day. But just now it won’t do. And to begin with, take this damned +thing off. One can’t tell whether one is talking to a dummy or to a live +woman.” + +He advanced, and stretching out his hand, dragged the veil off, unmasking +a still, unreadable face, against which his nervous exasperation was +shattered like a glass bubble flung against a rock. “That’s better,” he +said, to cover his momentary uneasiness, and retreated back to his old +station by the mantelpiece. It never entered his head that his wife +could give him up. He felt a little ashamed of himself, for he was fond +and generous. What could he do? Everything had been said already. He +protested vehemently. + +“By heavens! You know that I hunted high and low. I ran the risk of +giving myself away to find somebody for that accursed job. And I tell +you again I couldn’t find anyone crazy enough or hungry enough. What do +you take me for—a murderer, or what? The boy is gone. Do you think I +wanted him to blow himself up? He’s gone. His troubles are over. Ours +are just going to begin, I tell you, precisely because he did blow +himself. I don’t blame you. But just try to understand that it was a +pure accident; as much an accident as if he had been run over by a ’bus +while crossing the street.” + +His generosity was not infinite, because he was a human being—and not a +monster, as Mrs Verloc believed him to be. He paused, and a snarl +lifting his moustaches above a gleam of white teeth gave him the +expression of a reflective beast, not very dangerous—a slow beast with a +sleek head, gloomier than a seal, and with a husky voice. + +“And when it comes to that, it’s as much your doing as mine. That’s so. +You may glare as much as you like. I know what you can do in that way. +Strike me dead if I ever would have thought of the lad for that purpose. +It was you who kept on shoving him in my way when I was half distracted +with the worry of keeping the lot of us out of trouble. What the devil +made you? One would think you were doing it on purpose. And I am damned +if I know that you didn’t. There’s no saying how much of what’s going on +you have got hold of on the sly with your infernal don’t-care-a-damn way +of looking nowhere in particular, and saying nothing at all. . . . ” + +His husky domestic voice ceased for a while. Mrs Verloc made no reply. +Before that silence he felt ashamed of what he had said. But as often +happens to peaceful men in domestic tiffs, being ashamed he pushed +another point. + +“You have a devilish way of holding your tongue sometimes,” he began +again, without raising his voice. “Enough to make some men go mad. It’s +lucky for you that I am not so easily put out as some of them would be by +your deaf-and-dumb sulks. I am fond of you. But don’t you go too far. +This isn’t the time for it. We ought to be thinking of what we’ve got to +do. And I can’t let you go out to-night, galloping off to your mother +with some crazy tale or other about me. I won’t have it. Don’t you make +any mistake about it: if you will have it that I killed the boy, then +you’ve killed him as much as I.” + +In sincerity of feeling and openness of statement, these words went far +beyond anything that had ever been said in this home, kept up on the +wages of a secret industry eked out by the sale of more or less secret +wares: the poor expedients devised by a mediocre mankind for preserving +an imperfect society from the dangers of moral and physical corruption, +both secret too of their kind. They were spoken because Mr Verloc had +felt himself really outraged; but the reticent decencies of this home +life, nestling in a shady street behind a shop where the sun never shone, +remained apparently undisturbed. Mrs Verloc heard him out with perfect +propriety, and then rose from her chair in her hat and jacket like a +visitor at the end of a call. She advanced towards her husband, one arm +extended as if for a silent leave-taking. Her net veil dangling down by +one end on the left side of her face gave an air of disorderly formality +to her restrained movements. But when she arrived as far as the +hearthrug, Mr Verloc was no longer standing there. He had moved off in +the direction of the sofa, without raising his eyes to watch the effect +of his tirade. He was tired, resigned in a truly marital spirit. But he +felt hurt in the tender spot of his secret weakness. If she would go on +sulking in that dreadful overcharged silence—why then she must. She was +a master in that domestic art. Mr Verloc flung himself heavily upon the +sofa, disregarding as usual the fate of his hat, which, as if accustomed +to take care of itself, made for a safe shelter under the table. + +He was tired. The last particle of his nervous force had been expended +in the wonders and agonies of this day full of surprising failures coming +at the end of a harassing month of scheming and insomnia. He was tired. +A man isn’t made of stone. Hang everything! Mr Verloc reposed +characteristically, clad in his outdoor garments. One side of his open +overcoat was lying partly on the ground. Mr Verloc wallowed on his back. +But he longed for a more perfect rest—for sleep—for a few hours of +delicious forgetfulness. That would come later. Provisionally he +rested. And he thought: “I wish she would give over this damned +nonsense. It’s exasperating.” + +There must have been something imperfect in Mrs Verloc’s sentiment of +regained freedom. Instead of taking the way of the door she leaned back, +with her shoulders against the tablet of the mantelpiece, as a wayfarer +rests against a fence. A tinge of wildness in her aspect was derived +from the black veil hanging like a rag against her cheek, and from the +fixity of her black gaze where the light of the room was absorbed and +lost without the trace of a single gleam. This woman, capable of a +bargain the mere suspicion of which would have been infinitely shocking +to Mr Verloc’s idea of love, remained irresolute, as if scrupulously +aware of something wanting on her part for the formal closing of the +transaction. + +On the sofa Mr Verloc wriggled his shoulders into perfect comfort, and +from the fulness of his heart emitted a wish which was certainly as pious +as anything likely to come from such a source. + +“I wish to goodness,” he growled huskily, “I had never seen Greenwich +Park or anything belonging to it.” + +The veiled sound filled the small room with its moderate volume, well +adapted to the modest nature of the wish. The waves of air of the proper +length, propagated in accordance with correct mathematical formulas, +flowed around all the inanimate things in the room, lapped against Mrs +Verloc’s head as if it had been a head of stone. And incredible as it +may appear, the eyes of Mrs Verloc seemed to grow still larger. The +audible wish of Mr Verloc’s overflowing heart flowed into an empty place +in his wife’s memory. Greenwich Park. A park! That’s where the boy was +killed. A park—smashed branches, torn leaves, gravel, bits of brotherly +flesh and bone, all spouting up together in the manner of a firework. +She remembered now what she had heard, and she remembered it pictorially. +They had to gather him up with the shovel. Trembling all over with +irrepressible shudders, she saw before her the very implement with its +ghastly load scraped up from the ground. Mrs Verloc closed her eyes +desperately, throwing upon that vision the night of her eyelids, where +after a rainlike fall of mangled limbs the decapitated head of Stevie +lingered suspended alone, and fading out slowly like the last star of a +pyrotechnic display. Mrs Verloc opened her eyes. + +Her face was no longer stony. Anybody could have noted the subtle change +on her features, in the stare of her eyes, giving her a new and startling +expression; an expression seldom observed by competent persons under the +conditions of leisure and security demanded for thorough analysis, but +whose meaning could not be mistaken at a glance. Mrs Verloc’s doubts as +to the end of the bargain no longer existed; her wits, no longer +disconnected, were working under the control of her will. But Mr Verloc +observed nothing. He was reposing in that pathetic condition of optimism +induced by excess of fatigue. He did not want any more trouble—with his +wife too—of all people in the world. He had been unanswerable in his +vindication. He was loved for himself. The present phase of her silence +he interpreted favourably. This was the time to make it up with her. +The silence had lasted long enough. He broke it by calling to her in an +undertone. + +“Winnie.” + +“Yes,” answered obediently Mrs Verloc the free woman. She commanded her +wits now, her vocal organs; she felt herself to be in an almost +preternaturally perfect control of every fibre of her body. It was all +her own, because the bargain was at an end. She was clear sighted. She +had become cunning. She chose to answer him so readily for a purpose. +She did not wish that man to change his position on the sofa which was +very suitable to the circumstances. She succeeded. The man did not +stir. But after answering him she remained leaning negligently against +the mantelpiece in the attitude of a resting wayfarer. She was +unhurried. Her brow was smooth. The head and shoulders of Mr Verloc +were hidden from her by the high side of the sofa. She kept her eyes +fixed on his feet. + +She remained thus mysteriously still and suddenly collected till Mr +Verloc was heard with an accent of marital authority, and moving slightly +to make room for her to sit on the edge of the sofa. + +“Come here,” he said in a peculiar tone, which might have been the tone +of brutality, but was intimately known to Mrs Verloc as the note of +wooing. + +She started forward at once, as if she were still a loyal woman bound to +that man by an unbroken contract. Her right hand skimmed slightly the +end of the table, and when she had passed on towards the sofa the carving +knife had vanished without the slightest sound from the side of the dish. +Mr Verloc heard the creaky plank in the floor, and was content. He +waited. Mrs Verloc was coming. As if the homeless soul of Stevie had +flown for shelter straight to the breast of his sister, guardian and +protector, the resemblance of her face with that of her brother grew at +every step, even to the droop of the lower lip, even to the slight +divergence of the eyes. But Mr Verloc did not see that. He was lying on +his back and staring upwards. He saw partly on the ceiling and partly on +the wall the moving shadow of an arm with a clenched hand holding a +carving knife. It flickered up and down. Its movements were leisurely. +They were leisurely enough for Mr Verloc to recognise the limb and the +weapon. + +They were leisurely enough for him to take in the full meaning of the +portent, and to taste the flavour of death rising in his gorge. His wife +had gone raving mad—murdering mad. They were leisurely enough for the +first paralysing effect of this discovery to pass away before a resolute +determination to come out victorious from the ghastly struggle with that +armed lunatic. They were leisurely enough for Mr Verloc to elaborate a +plan of defence involving a dash behind the table, and the felling of the +woman to the ground with a heavy wooden chair. But they were not +leisurely enough to allow Mr Verloc the time to move either hand or foot. +The knife was already planted in his breast. It met no resistance on its +way. Hazard has such accuracies. Into that plunging blow, delivered +over the side of the couch, Mrs Verloc had put all the inheritance of her +immemorial and obscure descent, the simple ferocity of the age of +caverns, and the unbalanced nervous fury of the age of bar-rooms. Mr +Verloc, the Secret Agent, turning slightly on his side with the force of +the blow, expired without stirring a limb, in the muttered sound of the +word “Don’t” by way of protest. + +Mrs Verloc had let go the knife, and her extraordinary resemblance to her +late brother had faded, had become very ordinary now. She drew a deep +breath, the first easy breath since Chief Inspector Heat had exhibited to +her the labelled piece of Stevie’s overcoat. She leaned forward on her +folded arms over the side of the sofa. She adopted that easy attitude +not in order to watch or gloat over the body of Mr Verloc, but because of +the undulatory and swinging movements of the parlour, which for some time +behaved as though it were at sea in a tempest. She was giddy but calm. +She had become a free woman with a perfection of freedom which left her +nothing to desire and absolutely nothing to do, since Stevie’s urgent +claim on her devotion no longer existed. Mrs Verloc, who thought in +images, was not troubled now by visions, because she did not think at +all. And she did not move. She was a woman enjoying her complete +irresponsibility and endless leisure, almost in the manner of a corpse. +She did not move, she did not think. Neither did the mortal envelope of +the late Mr Verloc reposing on the sofa. Except for the fact that Mrs +Verloc breathed these two would have been perfect in accord: that accord +of prudent reserve without superfluous words, and sparing of signs, which +had been the foundation of their respectable home life. For it had been +respectable, covering by a decent reticence the problems that may arise +in the practice of a secret profession and the commerce of shady wares. +To the last its decorum had remained undisturbed by unseemly shrieks and +other misplaced sincerities of conduct. And after the striking of the +blow, this respectability was continued in immobility and silence. + +Nothing moved in the parlour till Mrs Verloc raised her head slowly and +looked at the clock with inquiring mistrust. She had become aware of a +ticking sound in the room. It grew upon her ear, while she remembered +clearly that the clock on the wall was silent, had no audible tick. What +did it mean by beginning to tick so loudly all of a sudden? Its face +indicated ten minutes to nine. Mrs Verloc cared nothing for time, and +the ticking went on. She concluded it could not be the clock, and her +sullen gaze moved along the walls, wavered, and became vague, while she +strained her hearing to locate the sound. Tic, tic, tic. + +After listening for some time Mrs Verloc lowered her gaze deliberately on +her husband’s body. Its attitude of repose was so home-like and familiar +that she could do so without feeling embarrassed by any pronounced +novelty in the phenomena of her home life. Mr Verloc was taking his +habitual ease. He looked comfortable. + +By the position of the body the face of Mr Verloc was not visible to Mrs +Verloc, his widow. Her fine, sleepy eyes, travelling downward on the +track of the sound, became contemplative on meeting a flat object of bone +which protruded a little beyond the edge of the sofa. It was the handle +of the domestic carving knife with nothing strange about it but its +position at right angles to Mr Verloc’s waistcoat and the fact that +something dripped from it. Dark drops fell on the floorcloth one after +another, with a sound of ticking growing fast and furious like the pulse +of an insane clock. At its highest speed this ticking changed into a +continuous sound of trickling. Mrs Verloc watched that transformation +with shadows of anxiety coming and going on her face. It was a trickle, +dark, swift, thin. . . . Blood! + +At this unforeseen circumstance Mrs Verloc abandoned her pose of idleness +and irresponsibility. + +With a sudden snatch at her skirts and a faint shriek she ran to the +door, as if the trickle had been the first sign of a destroying flood. +Finding the table in her way she gave it a push with both hands as though +it had been alive, with such force that it went for some distance on its +four legs, making a loud, scraping racket, whilst the big dish with the +joint crashed heavily on the floor. + +Then all became still. Mrs Verloc on reaching the door had stopped. A +round hat disclosed in the middle of the floor by the moving of the table +rocked slightly on its crown in the wind of her flight. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +Winnie Verloc, the widow of Mr Verloc, the sister of the late faithful +Stevie (blown to fragments in a state of innocence and in the conviction +of being engaged in a humanitarian enterprise), did not run beyond the +door of the parlour. She had indeed run away so far from a mere trickle +of blood, but that was a movement of instinctive repulsion. And there +she had paused, with staring eyes and lowered head. As though she had +run through long years in her flight across the small parlour, Mrs Verloc +by the door was quite a different person from the woman who had been +leaning over the sofa, a little swimmy in her head, but otherwise free to +enjoy the profound calm of idleness and irresponsibility. Mrs Verloc was +no longer giddy. Her head was steady. On the other hand, she was no +longer calm. She was afraid. + +If she avoided looking in the direction of her reposing husband it was +not because she was afraid of him. Mr Verloc was not frightful to +behold. He looked comfortable. Moreover, he was dead. Mrs Verloc +entertained no vain delusions on the subject of the dead. Nothing brings +them back, neither love nor hate. They can do nothing to you. They are +as nothing. Her mental state was tinged by a sort of austere contempt +for that man who had let himself be killed so easily. He had been the +master of a house, the husband of a woman, and the murderer of her +Stevie. And now he was of no account in every respect. He was of less +practical account than the clothing on his body, than his overcoat, than +his boots—than that hat lying on the floor. He was nothing. He was not +worth looking at. He was even no longer the murderer of poor Stevie. +The only murderer that would be found in the room when people came to +look for Mr Verloc would be—herself! + +Her hands shook so that she failed twice in the task of refastening her +veil. Mrs Verloc was no longer a person of leisure and responsibility. +She was afraid. The stabbing of Mr Verloc had been only a blow. It had +relieved the pent-up agony of shrieks strangled in her throat, of tears +dried up in her hot eyes, of the maddening and indignant rage at the +atrocious part played by that man, who was less than nothing now, in +robbing her of the boy. + +It had been an obscurely prompted blow. The blood trickling on the floor +off the handle of the knife had turned it into an extremely plain case of +murder. Mrs Verloc, who always refrained from looking deep into things, +was compelled to look into the very bottom of this thing. She saw there +no haunting face, no reproachful shade, no vision of remorse, no sort of +ideal conception. She saw there an object. That object was the gallows. +Mrs Verloc was afraid of the gallows. + +She was terrified of them ideally. Having never set eyes on that last +argument of men’s justice except in illustrative woodcuts to a certain +type of tales, she first saw them erect against a black and stormy +background, festooned with chains and human bones, circled about by birds +that peck at dead men’s eyes. This was frightful enough, but Mrs Verloc, +though not a well-informed woman, had a sufficient knowledge of the +institutions of her country to know that gallows are no longer erected +romantically on the banks of dismal rivers or on wind-swept headlands, +but in the yards of jails. There within four high walls, as if into a +pit, at dawn of day, the murderer was brought out to be executed, with a +horrible quietness and, as the reports in the newspapers always said, “in +the presence of the authorities.” With her eyes staring on the floor, +her nostrils quivering with anguish and shame, she imagined herself all +alone amongst a lot of strange gentlemen in silk hats who were calmly +proceeding about the business of hanging her by the neck. That—never! +Never! And how was it done? The impossibility of imagining the details +of such quiet execution added something maddening to her abstract terror. +The newspapers never gave any details except one, but that one with some +affectation was always there at the end of a meagre report. Mrs Verloc +remembered its nature. It came with a cruel burning pain into her head, +as if the words “The drop given was fourteen feet” had been scratched on +her brain with a hot needle. “The drop given was fourteen feet.” + +These words affected her physically too. Her throat became convulsed in +waves to resist strangulation; and the apprehension of the jerk was so +vivid that she seized her head in both hands as if to save it from being +torn off her shoulders. “The drop given was fourteen feet.” No! that +must never be. She could not stand _that_. The thought of it even was +not bearable. She could not stand thinking of it. Therefore Mrs Verloc +formed the resolution to go at once and throw herself into the river off +one of the bridges. + +This time she managed to refasten her veil. With her face as if masked, +all black from head to foot except for some flowers in her hat, she +looked up mechanically at the clock. She thought it must have stopped. +She could not believe that only two minutes had passed since she had +looked at it last. Of course not. It had been stopped all the time. As +a matter of fact, only three minutes had elapsed from the moment she had +drawn the first deep, easy breath after the blow, to this moment when Mrs +Verloc formed the resolution to drown herself in the Thames. But Mrs +Verloc could not believe that. She seemed to have heard or read that +clocks and watches always stopped at the moment of murder for the undoing +of the murderer. She did not care. “To the bridge—and over I go.” . . . +But her movements were slow. + +She dragged herself painfully across the shop, and had to hold on to the +handle of the door before she found the necessary fortitude to open it. +The street frightened her, since it led either to the gallows or to the +river. She floundered over the doorstep head forward, arms thrown out, +like a person falling over the parapet of a bridge. This entrance into +the open air had a foretaste of drowning; a slimy dampness enveloped her, +entered her nostrils, clung to her hair. It was not actually raining, +but each gas lamp had a rusty little halo of mist. The van and horses +were gone, and in the black street the curtained window of the carters’ +eating-house made a square patch of soiled blood-red light glowing +faintly very near the level of the pavement. Mrs Verloc, dragging +herself slowly towards it, thought that she was a very friendless woman. +It was true. It was so true that, in a sudden longing to see some +friendly face, she could think of no one else but of Mrs Neale, the +charwoman. She had no acquaintances of her own. Nobody would miss her +in a social way. It must not be imagined that the Widow Verloc had +forgotten her mother. This was not so. Winnie had been a good daughter +because she had been a devoted sister. Her mother had always leaned on +her for support. No consolation or advice could be expected there. Now +that Stevie was dead the bond seemed to be broken. She could not face +the old woman with the horrible tale. Moreover, it was too far. The +river was her present destination. Mrs Verloc tried to forget her +mother. + +Each step cost her an effort of will which seemed the last possible. Mrs +Verloc had dragged herself past the red glow of the eating-house window. +“To the bridge—and over I go,” she repeated to herself with fierce +obstinacy. She put out her hand just in time to steady herself against a +lamp-post. “I’ll never get there before morning,” she thought. The fear +of death paralysed her efforts to escape the gallows. It seemed to her +she had been staggering in that street for hours. “I’ll never get +there,” she thought. “They’ll find me knocking about the streets. It’s +too far.” She held on, panting under her black veil. + +“The drop given was fourteen feet.” + +She pushed the lamp-post away from her violently, and found herself +walking. But another wave of faintness overtook her like a great sea, +washing away her heart clean out of her breast. “I will never get +there,” she muttered, suddenly arrested, swaying lightly where she stood. +“Never.” + +And perceiving the utter impossibility of walking as far as the nearest +bridge, Mrs Verloc thought of a flight abroad. + +It came to her suddenly. Murderers escaped. They escaped abroad. Spain +or California. Mere names. The vast world created for the glory of man +was only a vast blank to Mrs Verloc. She did not know which way to turn. +Murderers had friends, relations, helpers—they had knowledge. She had +nothing. She was the most lonely of murderers that ever struck a mortal +blow. She was alone in London: and the whole town of marvels and mud, +with its maze of streets and its mass of lights, was sunk in a hopeless +night, rested at the bottom of a black abyss from which no unaided woman +could hope to scramble out. + +She swayed forward, and made a fresh start blindly, with an awful dread +of falling down; but at the end of a few steps, unexpectedly, she found a +sensation of support, of security. Raising her head, she saw a man’s +face peering closely at her veil. Comrade Ossipon was not afraid of +strange women, and no feeling of false delicacy could prevent him from +striking an acquaintance with a woman apparently very much intoxicated. +Comrade Ossipon was interested in women. He held up this one between his +two large palms, peering at her in a business-like way till he heard her +say faintly “Mr Ossipon!” and then he very nearly let her drop to the +ground. + +“Mrs Verloc!” he exclaimed. “You here!” + +It seemed impossible to him that she should have been drinking. But one +never knows. He did not go into that question, but attentive not to +discourage kind fate surrendering to him the widow of Comrade Verloc, he +tried to draw her to his breast. To his astonishment she came quite +easily, and even rested on his arm for a moment before she attempted to +disengage herself. Comrade Ossipon would not be brusque with kind fate. +He withdrew his arm in a natural way. + +“You recognised me,” she faltered out, standing before him, fairly steady +on her legs. + +“Of course I did,” said Ossipon with perfect readiness. “I was afraid +you were going to fall. I’ve thought of you too often lately not to +recognise you anywhere, at any time. I’ve always thought of you—ever +since I first set eyes on you.” + +Mrs Verloc seemed not to hear. “You were coming to the shop?” she said +nervously. + +“Yes; at once,” answered Ossipon. “Directly I read the paper.” + +In fact, Comrade Ossipon had been skulking for a good two hours in the +neighbourhood of Brett Street, unable to make up his mind for a bold +move. The robust anarchist was not exactly a bold conqueror. He +remembered that Mrs Verloc had never responded to his glances by the +slightest sign of encouragement. Besides, he thought the shop might be +watched by the police, and Comrade Ossipon did not wish the police to +form an exaggerated notion of his revolutionary sympathies. Even now he +did not know precisely what to do. In comparison with his usual amatory +speculations this was a big and serious undertaking. He ignored how much +there was in it and how far he would have to go in order to get hold of +what there was to get—supposing there was a chance at all. These +perplexities checking his elation imparted to his tone a soberness well +in keeping with the circumstances. + +“May I ask you where you were going?” he inquired in a subdued voice. + +“Don’t ask me!” cried Mrs Verloc with a shuddering, repressed violence. +All her strong vitality recoiled from the idea of death. “Never mind +where I was going. . . .” + +Ossipon concluded that she was very much excited but perfectly sober. +She remained silent by his side for moment, then all at once she did +something which he did not expect. She slipped her hand under his arm. +He was startled by the act itself certainly, and quite as much too by the +palpably resolute character of this movement. But this being a delicate +affair, Comrade Ossipon behaved with delicacy. He contented himself by +pressing the hand slightly against his robust ribs. At the same time he +felt himself being impelled forward, and yielded to the impulse. At the +end of Brett Street he became aware of being directed to the left. He +submitted. + +The fruiterer at the corner had put out the blazing glory of his oranges +and lemons, and Brett Place was all darkness, interspersed with the misty +halos of the few lamps defining its triangular shape, with a cluster of +three lights on one stand in the middle. The dark forms of the man and +woman glided slowly arm in arm along the walls with a loverlike and +homeless aspect in the miserable night. + +“What would you say if I were to tell you that I was going to find you?” +Mrs Verloc asked, gripping his arm with force. + +“I would say that you couldn’t find anyone more ready to help you in your +trouble,” answered Ossipon, with a notion of making tremendous headway. +In fact, the progress of this delicate affair was almost taking his +breath away. + +“In my trouble!” Mrs Verloc repeated slowly. + +“Yes.” + +“And do you know what my trouble is?” she whispered with strange +intensity. + +“Ten minutes after seeing the evening paper,” explained Ossipon with +ardour, “I met a fellow whom you may have seen once or twice at the shop +perhaps, and I had a talk with him which left no doubt whatever in my +mind. Then I started for here, wondering whether you—I’ve been fond of +you beyond words ever since I set eyes on your face,” he cried, as if +unable to command his feelings. + +Comrade Ossipon assumed correctly that no woman was capable of wholly +disbelieving such a statement. But he did not know that Mrs Verloc +accepted it with all the fierceness the instinct of self-preservation +puts into the grip of a drowning person. To the widow of Mr Verloc the +robust anarchist was like a radiant messenger of life. + +They walked slowly, in step. “I thought so,” Mrs Verloc murmured +faintly. + +“You’ve read it in my eyes,” suggested Ossipon with great assurance. + +“Yes,” she breathed out into his inclined ear. + +“A love like mine could not be concealed from a woman like you,” he went +on, trying to detach his mind from material considerations such as the +business value of the shop, and the amount of money Mr Verloc might have +left in the bank. He applied himself to the sentimental side of the +affair. In his heart of hearts he was a little shocked at his success. +Verloc had been a good fellow, and certainly a very decent husband as far +as one could see. However, Comrade Ossipon was not going to quarrel with +his luck for the sake of a dead man. Resolutely he suppressed his +sympathy for the ghost of Comrade Verloc, and went on. + +“I could not conceal it. I was too full of you. I daresay you could not +help seeing it in my eyes. But I could not guess it. You were always so +distant. . . .” + +“What else did you expect?” burst out Mrs Verloc. “I was a respectable +woman—” + +She paused, then added, as if speaking to herself, in sinister +resentment: “Till he made me what I am.” + +Ossipon let that pass, and took up his running. “He never did seem to me +to be quite worthy of you,” he began, throwing loyalty to the winds. +“You were worthy of a better fate.” + +Mrs Verloc interrupted bitterly: + +“Better fate! He cheated me out of seven years of life.” + +“You seemed to live so happily with him.” Ossipon tried to exculpate the +lukewarmness of his past conduct. “It’s that what’s made me timid. You +seemed to love him. I was surprised—and jealous,” he added. + +“Love him!” Mrs Verloc cried out in a whisper, full of scorn and rage. +“Love him! I was a good wife to him. I am a respectable woman. You +thought I loved him! You did! Look here, Tom—” + +The sound of this name thrilled Comrade Ossipon with pride. For his name +was Alexander, and he was called Tom by arrangement with the most +familiar of his intimates. It was a name of friendship—of moments of +expansion. He had no idea that she had ever heard it used by anybody. +It was apparent that she had not only caught it, but had treasured it in +her memory—perhaps in her heart. + +“Look here, Tom! I was a young girl. I was done up. I was tired. I +had two people depending on what I could do, and it did seem as if I +couldn’t do any more. Two people—mother and the boy. He was much more +mine than mother’s. I sat up nights and nights with him on my lap, all +alone upstairs, when I wasn’t more than eight years old myself. And +then—He was mine, I tell you. . . . You can’t understand that. No man +can understand it. What was I to do? There was a young fellow—” + +The memory of the early romance with the young butcher survived, +tenacious, like the image of a glimpsed ideal in that heart quailing +before the fear of the gallows and full of revolt against death. + +“That was the man I loved then,” went on the widow of Mr Verloc. “I +suppose he could see it in my eyes too. Five and twenty shillings a +week, and his father threatened to kick him out of the business if he +made such a fool of himself as to marry a girl with a crippled mother and +a crazy idiot of a boy on her hands. But he would hang about me, till +one evening I found the courage to slam the door in his face. I had to +do it. I loved him dearly. Five and twenty shillings a week! There was +that other man—a good lodger. What is a girl to do? Could I’ve gone on +the streets? He seemed kind. He wanted me, anyhow. What was I to do +with mother and that poor boy? Eh? I said yes. He seemed good-natured, +he was freehanded, he had money, he never said anything. Seven +years—seven years a good wife to him, the kind, the good, the generous, +the—And he loved me. Oh yes. He loved me till I sometimes wished +myself—Seven years. Seven years a wife to him. And do you know what he +was, that dear friend of yours? Do you know what he was? He was a +devil!” + +The superhuman vehemence of that whispered statement completely stunned +Comrade Ossipon. Winnie Verloc turning about held him by both arms, +facing him under the falling mist in the darkness and solitude of Brett +Place, in which all sounds of life seemed lost as if in a triangular well +of asphalt and bricks, of blind houses and unfeeling stones. + +“No; I didn’t know,” he declared, with a sort of flabby stupidity, whose +comical aspect was lost upon a woman haunted by the fear of the gallows, +“but I do now. I—I understand,” he floundered on, his mind speculating +as to what sort of atrocities Verloc could have practised under the +sleepy, placid appearances of his married estate. It was positively +awful. “I understand,” he repeated, and then by a sudden inspiration +uttered an—“Unhappy woman!” of lofty commiseration instead of the more +familiar “Poor darling!” of his usual practice. This was no usual case. +He felt conscious of something abnormal going on, while he never lost +sight of the greatness of the stake. “Unhappy, brave woman!” + +He was glad to have discovered that variation; but he could discover +nothing else. + +“Ah, but he is dead now,” was the best he could do. And he put a +remarkable amount of animosity into his guarded exclamation. Mrs Verloc +caught at his arm with a sort of frenzy. + +“You guessed then he was dead,” she murmured, as if beside herself. +“You! You guessed what I had to do. Had to!” + +There were suggestions of triumph, relief, gratitude in the indefinable +tone of these words. It engrossed the whole attention of Ossipon to the +detriment of mere literal sense. He wondered what was up with her, why +she had worked herself into this state of wild excitement. He even began +to wonder whether the hidden causes of that Greenwich Park affair did not +lie deep in the unhappy circumstances of the Verlocs’ married life. He +went so far as to suspect Mr Verloc of having selected that extraordinary +manner of committing suicide. By Jove! that would account for the utter +inanity and wrong-headedness of the thing. No anarchist manifestation +was required by the circumstances. Quite the contrary; and Verloc was as +well aware of that as any other revolutionist of his standing. What an +immense joke if Verloc had simply made fools of the whole of Europe, of +the revolutionary world, of the police, of the press, and of the cocksure +Professor as well. Indeed, thought Ossipon, in astonishment, it seemed +almost certain that he did! Poor beggar! It struck him as very possible +that of that household of two it wasn’t precisely the man who was the +devil. + +Alexander Ossipon, nicknamed the Doctor, was naturally inclined to think +indulgently of his men friends. He eyed Mrs Verloc hanging on his arm. +Of his women friends he thought in a specially practical way. Why Mrs +Verloc should exclaim at his knowledge of Mr Verloc’s death, which was no +guess at all, did not disturb him beyond measure. They often talked like +lunatics. But he was curious to know how she had been informed. The +papers could tell her nothing beyond the mere fact: the man blown to +pieces in Greenwich Park not having been identified. It was +inconceivable on any theory that Verloc should have given her an inkling +of his intention—whatever it was. This problem interested Comrade +Ossipon immensely. He stopped short. They had gone then along the three +sides of Brett Place, and were near the end of Brett Street again. + +“How did you first come to hear of it?” he asked in a tone he tried to +render appropriate to the character of the revelations which had been +made to him by the woman at his side. + +She shook violently for a while before she answered in a listless voice. + +“From the police. A chief inspector came, Chief Inspector Heat he said +he was. He showed me—” + +Mrs Verloc choked. “Oh, Tom, they had to gather him up with a shovel.” + +Her breast heaved with dry sobs. In a moment Ossipon found his tongue. + +“The police! Do you mean to say the police came already? That Chief +Inspector Heat himself actually came to tell you.” + +“Yes,” she confirmed in the same listless tone. “He came just like this. +He came. I didn’t know. He showed me a piece of overcoat, and—just like +that. Do you know this? he says.” + +“Heat! Heat! And what did he do?” + +Mrs Verloc’s head dropped. “Nothing. He did nothing. He went away. +The police were on that man’s side,” she murmured tragically. “Another +one came too.” + +“Another—another inspector, do you mean?” asked Ossipon, in great +excitement, and very much in the tone of a scared child. + +“I don’t know. He came. He looked like a foreigner. He may have been +one of them Embassy people.” + +Comrade Ossipon nearly collapsed under this new shock. + +“Embassy! Are you aware what you are saying? What Embassy? What on +earth do you mean by Embassy?” + +“It’s that place in Chesham Square. The people he cursed so. I don’t +know. What does it matter!” + +“And that fellow, what did he do or say to you?” + +“I don’t remember. . . . Nothing . . . . I don’t care. Don’t ask me,” +she pleaded in a weary voice. + +“All right. I won’t,” assented Ossipon tenderly. And he meant it too, +not because he was touched by the pathos of the pleading voice, but +because he felt himself losing his footing in the depths of this +tenebrous affair. Police! Embassy! Phew! For fear of adventuring his +intelligence into ways where its natural lights might fail to guide it +safely he dismissed resolutely all suppositions, surmises, and theories +out of his mind. He had the woman there, absolutely flinging herself at +him, and that was the principal consideration. But after what he had +heard nothing could astonish him any more. And when Mrs Verloc, as if +startled suddenly out of a dream of safety, began to urge upon him wildly +the necessity of an immediate flight on the Continent, he did not exclaim +in the least. He simply said with unaffected regret that there was no +train till the morning, and stood looking thoughtfully at her face, +veiled in black net, in the light of a gas lamp veiled in a gauze of +mist. + +Near him, her black form merged in the night, like a figure half +chiselled out of a block of black stone. It was impossible to say what +she knew, how deep she was involved with policemen and Embassies. But if +she wanted to get away, it was not for him to object. He was anxious to +be off himself. He felt that the business, the shop so strangely +familiar to chief inspectors and members of foreign Embassies, was not +the place for him. That must be dropped. But there was the rest. These +savings. The money! + +“You must hide me till the morning somewhere,” she said in a dismayed +voice. + +“Fact is, my dear, I can’t take you where I live. I share the room with +a friend.” + +He was somewhat dismayed himself. In the morning the blessed ’tecs will +be out in all the stations, no doubt. And if they once got hold of her, +for one reason or another she would be lost to him indeed. + +“But you must. Don’t you care for me at all—at all? What are you +thinking of?” + +She said this violently, but she let her clasped hands fall in +discouragement. There was a silence, while the mist fell, and darkness +reigned undisturbed over Brett Place. Not a soul, not even the vagabond, +lawless, and amorous soul of a cat, came near the man and the woman +facing each other. + +“It would be possible perhaps to find a safe lodging somewhere,” Ossipon +spoke at last. “But the truth is, my dear, I have not enough money to go +and try with—only a few pence. We revolutionists are not rich.” + +He had fifteen shillings in his pocket. He added: + +“And there’s the journey before us, too—first thing in the morning at +that.” + +She did not move, made no sound, and Comrade Ossipon’s heart sank a +little. Apparently she had no suggestion to offer. Suddenly she +clutched at her breast, as if she had felt a sharp pain there. + +“But I have,” she gasped. “I have the money. I have enough money. Tom! +Let us go from here.” + +“How much have you got?” he inquired, without stirring to her tug; for he +was a cautious man. + +“I have the money, I tell you. All the money.” + +“What do you mean by it? All the money there was in the bank, or what?” +he asked incredulously, but ready not to be surprised at anything in the +way of luck. + +“Yes, yes!” she said nervously. “All there was. I’ve it all.” + +“How on earth did you manage to get hold of it already?” he marvelled. + +“He gave it to me,” she murmured, suddenly subdued and trembling. +Comrade Ossipon put down his rising surprise with a firm hand. + +“Why, then—we are saved,” he uttered slowly. + +She leaned forward, and sank against his breast. He welcomed her there. +She had all the money. Her hat was in the way of very marked effusion; +her veil too. He was adequate in his manifestations, but no more. She +received them without resistance and without abandonment, passively, as +if only half-sensible. She freed herself from his lax embraces without +difficulty. + +“You will save me, Tom,” she broke out, recoiling, but still keeping her +hold on him by the two lapels of his damp coat. “Save me. Hide me. +Don’t let them have me. You must kill me first. I couldn’t do it +myself—I couldn’t, I couldn’t—not even for what I am afraid of.” + +She was confoundedly bizarre, he thought. She was beginning to inspire +him with an indefinite uneasiness. He said surlily, for he was busy with +important thoughts: + +“What the devil _are_ you afraid of?” + +“Haven’t you guessed what I was driven to do!” cried the woman. +Distracted by the vividness of her dreadful apprehensions, her head +ringing with forceful words, that kept the horror of her position before +her mind, she had imagined her incoherence to be clearness itself. She +had no conscience of how little she had audibly said in the disjointed +phrases completed only in her thought. She had felt the relief of a full +confession, and she gave a special meaning to every sentence spoken by +Comrade Ossipon, whose knowledge did not in the least resemble her own. +“Haven’t you guessed what I was driven to do!” Her voice fell. “You +needn’t be long in guessing then what I am afraid of,” she continued, in +a bitter and sombre murmur. “I won’t have it. I won’t. I won’t. I +won’t. You must promise to kill me first!” She shook the lapels of his +coat. “It must never be!” + +He assured her curtly that no promises on his part were necessary, but he +took good care not to contradict her in set terms, because he had had +much to do with excited women, and he was inclined in general to let his +experience guide his conduct in preference to applying his sagacity to +each special case. His sagacity in this case was busy in other +directions. Women’s words fell into water, but the shortcomings of +time-tables remained. The insular nature of Great Britain obtruded +itself upon his notice in an odious form. “Might just as well be put +under lock and key every night,” he thought irritably, as nonplussed as +though he had a wall to scale with the woman on his back. Suddenly he +slapped his forehead. He had by dint of cudgelling his brains just +thought of the Southampton—St Malo service. The boat left about +midnight. There was a train at 10.30. He became cheery and ready to +act. + +“From Waterloo. Plenty of time. We are all right after all. . . . +What’s the matter now? This isn’t the way,” he protested. + +Mrs Verloc, having hooked her arm into his, was trying to drag him into +Brett Street again. + +“I’ve forgotten to shut the shop door as I went out,” she whispered, +terribly agitated. + +The shop and all that was in it had ceased to interest Comrade Ossipon. +He knew how to limit his desires. He was on the point of saying “What of +that? Let it be,” but he refrained. He disliked argument about trifles. +He even mended his pace considerably on the thought that she might have +left the money in the drawer. But his willingness lagged behind her +feverish impatience. + +The shop seemed to be quite dark at first. The door stood ajar. Mrs +Verloc, leaning against the front, gasped out: + +“Nobody has been in. Look! The light—the light in the parlour.” + +Ossipon, stretching his head forward, saw a faint gleam in the darkness +of the shop. + +“There is,” he said. + +“I forgot it.” Mrs Verloc’s voice came from behind her veil faintly. And +as he stood waiting for her to enter first, she said louder: “Go in and +put it out—or I’ll go mad.” + +He made no immediate objection to this proposal, so strangely motived. +“Where’s all that money?” he asked. + +“On me! Go, Tom. Quick! Put it out. . . . Go in!” she cried, seizing +him by both shoulders from behind. + +Not prepared for a display of physical force, Comrade Ossipon stumbled +far into the shop before her push. He was astonished at the strength of +the woman and scandalised by her proceedings. But he did not retrace his +steps in order to remonstrate with her severely in the street. He was +beginning to be disagreeably impressed by her fantastic behaviour. +Moreover, this or never was the time to humour the woman. Comrade +Ossipon avoided easily the end of the counter, and approached calmly the +glazed door of the parlour. The curtain over the panes being drawn back +a little he, by a very natural impulse, looked in, just as he made ready +to turn the handle. He looked in without a thought, without intention, +without curiosity of any sort. He looked in because he could not help +looking in. He looked in, and discovered Mr Verloc reposing quietly on +the sofa. + +A yell coming from the innermost depths of his chest died out unheard and +transformed into a sort of greasy, sickly taste on his lips. At the same +time the mental personality of Comrade Ossipon executed a frantic leap +backward. But his body, left thus without intellectual guidance, held on +to the door handle with the unthinking force of an instinct. The robust +anarchist did not even totter. And he stared, his face close to the +glass, his eyes protruding out of his head. He would have given anything +to get away, but his returning reason informed him that it would not do +to let go the door handle. What was it—madness, a nightmare, or a trap +into which he had been decoyed with fiendish artfulness? Why—what for? +He did not know. Without any sense of guilt in his breast, in the full +peace of his conscience as far as these people were concerned, the idea +that he would be murdered for mysterious reasons by the couple Verloc +passed not so much across his mind as across the pit of his stomach, and +went out, leaving behind a trail of sickly faintness—an indisposition. +Comrade Ossipon did not feel very well in a very special way for a +moment—a long moment. And he stared. Mr Verloc lay very still +meanwhile, simulating sleep for reasons of his own, while that savage +woman of his was guarding the door—invisible and silent in the dark and +deserted street. Was all this a some sort of terrifying arrangement +invented by the police for his especial benefit? His modesty shrank from +that explanation. + +But the true sense of the scene he was beholding came to Ossipon through +the contemplation of the hat. It seemed an extraordinary thing, an +ominous object, a sign. Black, and rim upward, it lay on the floor +before the couch as if prepared to receive the contributions of pence +from people who would come presently to behold Mr Verloc in the fullness +of his domestic ease reposing on a sofa. From the hat the eyes of the +robust anarchist wandered to the displaced table, gazed at the broken +dish for a time, received a kind of optical shock from observing a white +gleam under the imperfectly closed eyelids of the man on the couch. Mr +Verloc did not seem so much asleep now as lying down with a bent head and +looking insistently at his left breast. And when Comrade Ossipon had +made out the handle of the knife he turned away from the glazed door, and +retched violently. + +The crash of the street door flung to made his very soul leap in a panic. +This house with its harmless tenant could still be made a trap of—a trap +of a terrible kind. Comrade Ossipon had no settled conception now of +what was happening to him. Catching his thigh against the end of the +counter, he spun round, staggered with a cry of pain, felt in the +distracting clatter of the bell his arms pinned to his side by a +convulsive hug, while the cold lips of a woman moved creepily on his very +ear to form the words: + +“Policeman! He has seen me!” + +He ceased to struggle; she never let him go. Her hands had locked +themselves with an inseparable twist of fingers on his robust back. +While the footsteps approached, they breathed quickly, breast to breast, +with hard, laboured breaths, as if theirs had been the attitude of a +deadly struggle, while, in fact, it was the attitude of deadly fear. And +the time was long. + +The constable on the beat had in truth seen something of Mrs Verloc; only +coming from the lighted thoroughfare at the other end of Brett Street, +she had been no more to him than a flutter in the darkness. And he was +not even quite sure that there had been a flutter. He had no reason to +hurry up. On coming abreast of the shop he observed that it had been +closed early. There was nothing very unusual in that. The men on duty +had special instructions about that shop: what went on about there was +not to be meddled with unless absolutely disorderly, but any observations +made were to be reported. There were no observations to make; but from a +sense of duty and for the peace of his conscience, owing also to that +doubtful flutter of the darkness, the constable crossed the road, and +tried the door. The spring latch, whose key was reposing for ever off +duty in the late Mr Verloc’s waistcoat pocket, held as well as usual. +While the conscientious officer was shaking the handle, Ossipon felt the +cold lips of the woman stirring again creepily against his very ear: + +“If he comes in kill me—kill me, Tom.” + +The constable moved away, flashing as he passed the light of his dark +lantern, merely for form’s sake, at the shop window. For a moment longer +the man and the woman inside stood motionless, panting, breast to breast; +then her fingers came unlocked, her arms fell by her side slowly. +Ossipon leaned against the counter. The robust anarchist wanted support +badly. This was awful. He was almost too disgusted for speech. Yet he +managed to utter a plaintive thought, showing at least that he realised +his position. + +“Only a couple of minutes later and you’d have made me blunder against +the fellow poking about here with his damned dark lantern.” + +The widow of Mr Verloc, motionless in the middle of the shop, said +insistently: + +“Go in and put that light out, Tom. It will drive me crazy.” + +She saw vaguely his vehement gesture of refusal. Nothing in the world +would have induced Ossipon to go into the parlour. He was not +superstitious, but there was too much blood on the floor; a beastly pool +of it all round the hat. He judged he had been already far too near that +corpse for his peace of mind—for the safety of his neck, perhaps! + +“At the meter then! There. Look. In that corner.” + +The robust form of Comrade Ossipon, striding brusque and shadowy across +the shop, squatted in a corner obediently; but this obedience was without +grace. He fumbled nervously—and suddenly in the sound of a muttered +curse the light behind the glazed door flicked out to a gasping, +hysterical sigh of a woman. Night, the inevitable reward of men’s +faithful labours on this earth, night had fallen on Mr Verloc, the tried +revolutionist—“one of the old lot”—the humble guardian of society; the +invaluable Secret Agent [delta] of Baron Stott-Wartenheim’s despatches; a +servant of law and order, faithful, trusted, accurate, admirable, with +perhaps one single amiable weakness: the idealistic belief in being loved +for himself. + +Ossipon groped his way back through the stuffy atmosphere, as black as +ink now, to the counter. The voice of Mrs Verloc, standing in the middle +of the shop, vibrated after him in that blackness with a desperate +protest. + +“I will not be hanged, Tom. I will not—” + +She broke off. Ossipon from the counter issued a warning: “Don’t shout +like this,” then seemed to reflect profoundly. “You did this thing quite +by yourself?” he inquired in a hollow voice, but with an appearance of +masterful calmness which filled Mrs Verloc’s heart with grateful +confidence in his protecting strength. + +“Yes,” she whispered, invisible. + +“I wouldn’t have believed it possible,” he muttered. “Nobody would.” +She heard him move about and the snapping of a lock in the parlour door. +Comrade Ossipon had turned the key on Mr Verloc’s repose; and this he did +not from reverence for its eternal nature or any other obscurely +sentimental consideration, but for the precise reason that he was not at +all sure that there was not someone else hiding somewhere in the house. +He did not believe the woman, or rather he was incapable by now of +judging what could be true, possible, or even probable in this astounding +universe. He was terrified out of all capacity for belief or disbelief +in regard of this extraordinary affair, which began with police +inspectors and Embassies and would end goodness knows where—on the +scaffold for someone. He was terrified at the thought that he could not +prove the use he made of his time ever since seven o’clock, for he had +been skulking about Brett Street. He was terrified at this savage woman +who had brought him in there, and would probably saddle him with +complicity, at least if he were not careful. He was terrified at the +rapidity with which he had been involved in such dangers—decoyed into it. +It was some twenty minutes since he had met her—not more. + +The voice of Mrs Verloc rose subdued, pleading piteously: “Don’t let them +hang me, Tom! Take me out of the country. I’ll work for you. I’ll +slave for you. I’ll love you. I’ve no one in the world. . . . Who +would look at me if you don’t!” She ceased for a moment; then in the +depths of the loneliness made round her by an insignificant thread of +blood trickling off the handle of a knife, she found a dreadful +inspiration to her—who had been the respectable girl of the Belgravian +mansion, the loyal, respectable wife of Mr Verloc. “I won’t ask you to +marry me,” she breathed out in shame-faced accents. + +She moved a step forward in the darkness. He was terrified at her. He +would not have been surprised if she had suddenly produced another knife +destined for his breast. He certainly would have made no resistance. He +had really not enough fortitude in him just then to tell her to keep +back. But he inquired in a cavernous, strange tone: “Was he asleep?” + +“No,” she cried, and went on rapidly. “He wasn’t. Not he. He had been +telling me that nothing could touch him. After taking the boy away from +under my very eyes to kill him—the loving, innocent, harmless lad. My +own, I tell you. He was lying on the couch quite easy—after killing the +boy—my boy. I would have gone on the streets to get out of his sight. +And he says to me like this: ‘Come here,’ after telling me I had helped +to kill the boy. You hear, Tom? He says like this: ‘Come here,’ after +taking my very heart out of me along with the boy to smash in the dirt.” + +She ceased, then dreamily repeated twice: “Blood and dirt. Blood and +dirt.” A great light broke upon Comrade Ossipon. It was that +half-witted lad then who had perished in the park. And the fooling of +everybody all round appeared more complete than ever—colossal. He +exclaimed scientifically, in the extremity of his astonishment: “The +degenerate—by heavens!” + +“Come here.” The voice of Mrs Verloc rose again. “What did he think I +was made of? Tell me, Tom. Come here! Me! Like this! I had been +looking at the knife, and I thought I would come then if he wanted me so +much. Oh yes! I came—for the last time. . . . With the knife.” + +He was excessively terrified at her—the sister of the degenerate—a +degenerate herself of a murdering type . . . or else of the lying type. +Comrade Ossipon might have been said to be terrified scientifically in +addition to all other kinds of fear. It was an immeasurable and +composite funk, which from its very excess gave him in the dark a false +appearance of calm and thoughtful deliberation. For he moved and spoke +with difficulty, being as if half frozen in his will and mind—and no one +could see his ghastly face. He felt half dead. + +He leaped a foot high. Unexpectedly Mrs Verloc had desecrated the +unbroken reserved decency of her home by a shrill and terrible shriek. + +“Help, Tom! Save me. I won’t be hanged!” + +He rushed forward, groping for her mouth with a silencing hand, and the +shriek died out. But in his rush he had knocked her over. He felt her +now clinging round his legs, and his terror reached its culminating +point, became a sort of intoxication, entertained delusions, acquired the +characteristics of delirium tremens. He positively saw snakes now. He +saw the woman twined round him like a snake, not to be shaken off. She +was not deadly. She was death itself—the companion of life. + +Mrs Verloc, as if relieved by the outburst, was very far from behaving +noisily now. She was pitiful. + +“Tom, you can’t throw me off now,” she murmured from the floor. “Not +unless you crush my head under your heel. I won’t leave you.” + +“Get up,” said Ossipon. + +His face was so pale as to be quite visible in the profound black +darkness of the shop; while Mrs Verloc, veiled, had no face, almost no +discernible form. The trembling of something small and white, a flower +in her hat, marked her place, her movements. + +It rose in the blackness. She had got up from the floor, and Ossipon +regretted not having run out at once into the street. But he perceived +easily that it would not do. It would not do. She would run after him. +She would pursue him shrieking till she sent every policeman within +hearing in chase. And then goodness only knew what she would say of him. +He was so frightened that for a moment the insane notion of strangling +her in the dark passed through his mind. And he became more frightened +than ever! She had him! He saw himself living in abject terror in some +obscure hamlet in Spain or Italy; till some fine morning they found him +dead too, with a knife in his breast—like Mr Verloc. He sighed deeply. +He dared not move. And Mrs Verloc waited in silence the good pleasure of +her saviour, deriving comfort from his reflective silence. + +Suddenly he spoke up in an almost natural voice. His reflections had +come to an end. + +“Let’s get out, or we will lose the train.” + +“Where are we going to, Tom?” she asked timidly. Mrs Verloc was no +longer a free woman. + +“Let’s get to Paris first, the best way we can. . . . Go out first, and +see if the way’s clear.” + +She obeyed. Her voice came subdued through the cautiously opened door. + +“It’s all right.” + +Ossipon came out. Notwithstanding his endeavours to be gentle, the +cracked bell clattered behind the closed door in the empty shop, as if +trying in vain to warn the reposing Mr Verloc of the final departure of +his wife—accompanied by his friend. + +In the hansom they presently picked up, the robust anarchist became +explanatory. He was still awfully pale, with eyes that seemed to have +sunk a whole half-inch into his tense face. But he seemed to have +thought of everything with extraordinary method. + +“When we arrive,” he discoursed in a queer, monotonous tone, “you must go +into the station ahead of me, as if we did not know each other. I will +take the tickets, and slip in yours into your hand as I pass you. Then +you will go into the first-class ladies’ waiting-room, and sit there till +ten minutes before the train starts. Then you come out. I will be +outside. You go in first on the platform, as if you did not know me. +There may be eyes watching there that know what’s what. Alone you are +only a woman going off by train. I am known. With me, you may be +guessed at as Mrs Verloc running away. Do you understand, my dear?” he +added, with an effort. + +“Yes,” said Mrs Verloc, sitting there against him in the hansom all rigid +with the dread of the gallows and the fear of death. “Yes, Tom.” And +she added to herself, like an awful refrain: “The drop given was fourteen +feet.” + +Ossipon, not looking at her, and with a face like a fresh plaster cast of +himself after a wasting illness, said: “By-the-by, I ought to have the +money for the tickets now.” + +Mrs Verloc, undoing some hooks of her bodice, while she went on staring +ahead beyond the splashboard, handed over to him the new pigskin +pocket-book. He received it without a word, and seemed to plunge it deep +somewhere into his very breast. Then he slapped his coat on the outside. + +All this was done without the exchange of a single glance; they were like +two people looking out for the first sight of a desired goal. It was not +till the hansom swung round a corner and towards the bridge that Ossipon +opened his lips again. + +“Do you know how much money there is in that thing?” he asked, as if +addressing slowly some hobgoblin sitting between the ears of the horse. + +“No,” said Mrs Verloc. “He gave it to me. I didn’t count. I thought +nothing of it at the time. Afterwards—” + +She moved her right hand a little. It was so expressive that little +movement of that right hand which had struck the deadly blow into a man’s +heart less than an hour before that Ossipon could not repress a shudder. +He exaggerated it then purposely, and muttered: + +“I am cold. I got chilled through.” + +Mrs Verloc looked straight ahead at the perspective of her escape. Now +and then, like a sable streamer blown across a road, the words “The drop +given was fourteen feet” got in the way of her tense stare. Through her +black veil the whites of her big eyes gleamed lustrously like the eyes of +a masked woman. + +Ossipon’s rigidity had something business-like, a queer official +expression. He was heard again all of a sudden, as though he had +released a catch in order to speak. + +“Look here! Do you know whether your—whether he kept his account at the +bank in his own name or in some other name.” + +Mrs Verloc turned upon him her masked face and the big white gleam of her +eyes. + +“Other name?” she said thoughtfully. + +“Be exact in what you say,” Ossipon lectured in the swift motion of the +hansom. “It’s extremely important. I will explain to you. The bank has +the numbers of these notes. If they were paid to him in his own name, +then when his—his death becomes known, the notes may serve to track us +since we have no other money. You have no other money on you?” + +She shook her head negatively. + +“None whatever?” he insisted. + +“A few coppers.” + +“It would be dangerous in that case. The money would have then to be +dealt specially with. Very specially. We’d have perhaps to lose more +than half the amount in order to get these notes changed in a certain +safe place I know of in Paris. In the other case I mean if he had his +account and got paid out under some other name—say Smith, for +instance—the money is perfectly safe to use. You understand? The bank +has no means of knowing that Mr Verloc and, say, Smith are one and the +same person. Do you see how important it is that you should make no +mistake in answering me? Can you answer that query at all? Perhaps not. +Eh?” + +She said composedly: + +“I remember now! He didn’t bank in his own name. He told me once that +it was on deposit in the name of Prozor.” + +“You are sure?” + +“Certain.” + +“You don’t think the bank had any knowledge of his real name? Or anybody +in the bank or—” + +She shrugged her shoulders. + +“How can I know? Is it likely, Tom? + +“No. I suppose it’s not likely. It would have been more comfortable to +know. . . . Here we are. Get out first, and walk straight in. Move +smartly.” + +He remained behind, and paid the cabman out of his own loose silver. The +programme traced by his minute foresight was carried out. When Mrs +Verloc, with her ticket for St Malo in her hand, entered the ladies’ +waiting-room, Comrade Ossipon walked into the bar, and in seven minutes +absorbed three goes of hot brandy and water. + +“Trying to drive out a cold,” he explained to the barmaid, with a +friendly nod and a grimacing smile. Then he came out, bringing out from +that festive interlude the face of a man who had drunk at the very +Fountain of Sorrow. He raised his eyes to the clock. It was time. He +waited. + +Punctual, Mrs Verloc came out, with her veil down, and all black—black as +commonplace death itself, crowned with a few cheap and pale flowers. She +passed close to a little group of men who were laughing, but whose +laughter could have been struck dead by a single word. Her walk was +indolent, but her back was straight, and Comrade Ossipon looked after it +in terror before making a start himself. + +The train was drawn up, with hardly anybody about its row of open doors. +Owing to the time of the year and to the abominable weather there were +hardly any passengers. Mrs Verloc walked slowly along the line of empty +compartments till Ossipon touched her elbow from behind. + +“In here.” + +She got in, and he remained on the platform looking about. She bent +forward, and in a whisper: + +“What is it, Tom? Is there any danger? Wait a moment. There’s the +guard.” + +She saw him accost the man in uniform. They talked for a while. She +heard the guard say “Very well, sir,” and saw him touch his cap. Then +Ossipon came back, saying: “I told him not to let anybody get into our +compartment.” + +She was leaning forward on her seat. “You think of everything. . . . +You’ll get me off, Tom?” she asked in a gust of anguish, lifting her veil +brusquely to look at her saviour. + +She had uncovered a face like adamant. And out of this face the eyes +looked on, big, dry, enlarged, lightless, burnt out like two black holes +in the white, shining globes. + +“There is no danger,” he said, gazing into them with an earnestness +almost rapt, which to Mrs Verloc, flying from the gallows, seemed to be +full of force and tenderness. This devotion deeply moved her—and the +adamantine face lost the stern rigidity of its terror. Comrade Ossipon +gazed at it as no lover ever gazed at his mistress’s face. Alexander +Ossipon, anarchist, nicknamed the Doctor, author of a medical (and +improper) pamphlet, late lecturer on the social aspects of hygiene to +working men’s clubs, was free from the trammels of conventional +morality—but he submitted to the rule of science. He was scientific, and +he gazed scientifically at that woman, the sister of a degenerate, a +degenerate herself—of a murdering type. He gazed at her, and invoked +Lombroso, as an Italian peasant recommends himself to his favourite +saint. He gazed scientifically. He gazed at her cheeks, at her nose, at +her eyes, at her ears. . . . Bad! . . . Fatal! Mrs Verloc’s pale lips +parting, slightly relaxed under his passionately attentive gaze, he gazed +also at her teeth. . . . Not a doubt remained . . . a murdering type. . . . +If Comrade Ossipon did not recommend his terrified soul to Lombroso, it +was only because on scientific grounds he could not believe that he +carried about him such a thing as a soul. But he had in him the +scientific spirit, which moved him to testify on the platform of a +railway station in nervous jerky phrases. + +“He was an extraordinary lad, that brother of yours. Most interesting to +study. A perfect type in a way. Perfect!” + +He spoke scientifically in his secret fear. And Mrs Verloc, hearing +these words of commendation vouchsafed to her beloved dead, swayed +forward with a flicker of light in her sombre eyes, like a ray of +sunshine heralding a tempest of rain. + +“He was that indeed,” she whispered softly, with quivering lips. “You +took a lot of notice of him, Tom. I loved you for it.” + +“It’s almost incredible the resemblance there was between you two,” +pursued Ossipon, giving a voice to his abiding dread, and trying to +conceal his nervous, sickening impatience for the train to start. “Yes; +he resembled you.” + +These words were not especially touching or sympathetic. But the fact of +that resemblance insisted upon was enough in itself to act upon her +emotions powerfully. With a little faint cry, and throwing her arms out, +Mrs Verloc burst into tears at last. + +Ossipon entered the carriage, hastily closed the door and looked out to +see the time by the station clock. Eight minutes more. For the first +three of these Mrs Verloc wept violently and helplessly without pause or +interruption. Then she recovered somewhat, and sobbed gently in an +abundant fall of tears. She tried to talk to her saviour, to the man who +was the messenger of life. + +“Oh, Tom! How could I fear to die after he was taken away from me so +cruelly! How could I! How could I be such a coward!” + +She lamented aloud her love of life, that life without grace or charm, +and almost without decency, but of an exalted faithfulness of purpose, +even unto murder. And, as often happens in the lament of poor humanity, +rich in suffering but indigent in words, the truth—the very cry of +truth—was found in a worn and artificial shape picked up somewhere among +the phrases of sham sentiment. + +“How could I be so afraid of death! Tom, I tried. But I am afraid. I +tried to do away with myself. And I couldn’t. Am I hard? I suppose the +cup of horrors was not full enough for such as me. Then when you came. . . . ” + +She paused. Then in a gust of confidence and gratitude, “I will live all +my days for you, Tom!” she sobbed out. + +“Go over into the other corner of the carriage, away from the platform,” +said Ossipon solicitously. She let her saviour settle her comfortably, +and he watched the coming on of another crisis of weeping, still more +violent than the first. He watched the symptoms with a sort of medical +air, as if counting seconds. He heard the guard’s whistle at last. An +involuntary contraction of the upper lip bared his teeth with all the +aspect of savage resolution as he felt the train beginning to move. Mrs +Verloc heard and felt nothing, and Ossipon, her saviour, stood still. He +felt the train roll quicker, rumbling heavily to the sound of the woman’s +loud sobs, and then crossing the carriage in two long strides he opened +the door deliberately, and leaped out. + +He had leaped out at the very end of the platform; and such was his +determination in sticking to his desperate plan that he managed by a sort +of miracle, performed almost in the air, to slam to the door of the +carriage. Only then did he find himself rolling head over heels like a +shot rabbit. He was bruised, shaken, pale as death, and out of breath +when he got up. But he was calm, and perfectly able to meet the excited +crowd of railway men who had gathered round him in a moment. He +explained, in gentle and convincing tones, that his wife had started at a +moment’s notice for Brittany to her dying mother; that, of course, she +was greatly up-set, and he considerably concerned at her state; that he +was trying to cheer her up, and had absolutely failed to notice at first +that the train was moving out. To the general exclamation, “Why didn’t +you go on to Southampton, then, sir?” he objected the inexperience of a +young sister-in-law left alone in the house with three small children, +and her alarm at his absence, the telegraph offices being closed. He had +acted on impulse. “But I don’t think I’ll ever try that again,” he +concluded; smiled all round; distributed some small change, and marched +without a limp out of the station. + +Outside, Comrade Ossipon, flush of safe banknotes as never before in his +life, refused the offer of a cab. + +“I can walk,” he said, with a little friendly laugh to the civil driver. + +He could walk. He walked. He crossed the bridge. Later on the towers +of the Abbey saw in their massive immobility the yellow bush of his hair +passing under the lamps. The lights of Victoria saw him too, and Sloane +Square, and the railings of the park. And Comrade Ossipon once more +found himself on a bridge. The river, a sinister marvel of still shadows +and flowing gleams mingling below in a black silence, arrested his +attention. He stood looking over the parapet for a long time. The clock +tower boomed a brazen blast above his drooping head. He looked up at the +dial. . . . Half-past twelve of a wild night in the Channel. + +And again Comrade Ossipon walked. His robust form was seen that night in +distant parts of the enormous town slumbering monstrously on a carpet of +mud under a veil of raw mist. It was seen crossing the streets without +life and sound, or diminishing in the interminable straight perspectives +of shadowy houses bordering empty roadways lined by strings of gas lamps. +He walked through Squares, Places, Ovals, Commons, through monotonous +streets with unknown names where the dust of humanity settles inert and +hopeless out of the stream of life. He walked. And suddenly turning +into a strip of a front garden with a mangy grass plot, he let himself +into a small grimy house with a latch-key he took out of his pocket. + +He threw himself down on his bed all dressed, and lay still for a whole +quarter of an hour. Then he sat up suddenly, drawing up his knees, and +clasping his legs. The first dawn found him open-eyed, in that same +posture. This man who could walk so long, so far, so aimlessly, without +showing a sign of fatigue, could also remain sitting still for hours +without stirring a limb or an eyelid. But when the late sun sent its +rays into the room he unclasped his hands, and fell back on the pillow. +His eyes stared at the ceiling. And suddenly they closed. Comrade +Ossipon slept in the sunlight. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +The enormous iron padlock on the doors of the wall cupboard was the only +object in the room on which the eye could rest without becoming afflicted +by the miserable unloveliness of forms and the poverty of material. +Unsaleable in the ordinary course of business on account of its noble +proportions, it had been ceded to the Professor for a few pence by a +marine dealer in the east of London. The room was large, clean, +respectable, and poor with that poverty suggesting the starvation of +every human need except mere bread. There was nothing on the walls but +the paper, an expanse of arsenical green, soiled with indelible smudges +here and there, and with stains resembling faded maps of uninhabited +continents. + +At a deal table near a window sat Comrade Ossipon, holding his head +between his fists. The Professor, dressed in his only suit of shoddy +tweeds, but flapping to and fro on the bare boards a pair of incredibly +dilapidated slippers, had thrust his hands deep into the overstrained +pockets of his jacket. He was relating to his robust guest a visit he +had lately been paying to the Apostle Michaelis. The Perfect Anarchist +had even been unbending a little. + +“The fellow didn’t know anything of Verloc’s death. Of course! He never +looks at the newspapers. They make him too sad, he says. But never +mind. I walked into his cottage. Not a soul anywhere. I had to shout +half-a-dozen times before he answered me. I thought he was fast asleep +yet, in bed. But not at all. He had been writing his book for four +hours already. He sat in that tiny cage in a litter of manuscript. +There was a half-eaten raw carrot on the table near him. His breakfast. +He lives on a diet of raw carrots and a little milk now.” + +“How does he look on it?” asked Comrade Ossipon listlessly. + +“Angelic. . . . I picked up a handful of his pages from the floor. The +poverty of reasoning is astonishing. He has no logic. He can’t think +consecutively. But that’s nothing. He has divided his biography into +three parts, entitled—‘Faith, Hope, Charity.’ He is elaborating now the +idea of a world planned out like an immense and nice hospital, with +gardens and flowers, in which the strong are to devote themselves to the +nursing of the weak.” + +The Professor paused. + +“Conceive you this folly, Ossipon? The weak! The source of all evil on +this earth!” he continued with his grim assurance. “I told him that I +dreamt of a world like shambles, where the weak would be taken in hand +for utter extermination.” + +“Do you understand, Ossipon? The source of all evil! They are our +sinister masters—the weak, the flabby, the silly, the cowardly, the faint +of heart, and the slavish of mind. They have power. They are the +multitude. Theirs is the kingdom of the earth. Exterminate, +exterminate! That is the only way of progress. It is! Follow me, +Ossipon. First the great multitude of the weak must go, then the only +relatively strong. You see? First the blind, then the deaf and the +dumb, then the halt and the lame—and so on. Every taint, every vice, +every prejudice, every convention must meet its doom.” + +“And what remains?” asked Ossipon in a stifled voice. + +“I remain—if I am strong enough,” asserted the sallow little Professor, +whose large ears, thin like membranes, and standing far out from the +sides of his frail skull, took on suddenly a deep red tint. + +“Haven’t I suffered enough from this oppression of the weak?” he +continued forcibly. Then tapping the breast-pocket of his jacket: “And +yet _I am_ the force,” he went on. “But the time! The time! Give me +time! Ah! that multitude, too stupid to feel either pity or fear. +Sometimes I think they have everything on their side. Everything—even +death—my own weapon.” + +“Come and drink some beer with me at the Silenus,” said the robust +Ossipon after an interval of silence pervaded by the rapid flap, flap of +the slippers on the feet of the Perfect Anarchist. This last accepted. +He was jovial that day in his own peculiar way. He slapped Ossipon’s +shoulder. + +“Beer! So be it! Let us drink and be merry, for we are strong, and +to-morrow we die.” + +He busied himself with putting on his boots, and talked meanwhile in his +curt, resolute tones. + +“What’s the matter with you, Ossipon? You look glum and seek even my +company. I hear that you are seen constantly in places where men utter +foolish things over glasses of liquor. Why? Have you abandoned your +collection of women? They are the weak who feed the strong—eh?” + +He stamped one foot, and picked up his other laced boot, heavy, +thick-soled, unblacked, mended many times. He smiled to himself grimly. + +“Tell me, Ossipon, terrible man, has ever one of your victims killed +herself for you—or are your triumphs so far incomplete—for blood alone +puts a seal on greatness? Blood. Death. Look at history.” + +“You be damned,” said Ossipon, without turning his head. + +“Why? Let that be the hope of the weak, whose theology has invented hell +for the strong. Ossipon, my feeling for you is amicable contempt. You +couldn’t kill a fly.” + +But rolling to the feast on the top of the omnibus the Professor lost his +high spirits. The contemplation of the multitudes thronging the +pavements extinguished his assurance under a load of doubt and uneasiness +which he could only shake off after a period of seclusion in the room +with the large cupboard closed by an enormous padlock. + +“And so,” said over his shoulder Comrade Ossipon, who sat on the seat +behind. “And so Michaelis dreams of a world like a beautiful and cheery +hospital.” + +“Just so. An immense charity for the healing of the weak,” assented the +Professor sardonically. + +“That’s silly,” admitted Ossipon. “You can’t heal weakness. But after +all Michaelis may not be so far wrong. In two hundred years doctors will +rule the world. Science reigns already. It reigns in the shade +maybe—but it reigns. And all science must culminate at last in the +science of healing—not the weak, but the strong. Mankind wants to +live—to live.” + +“Mankind,” asserted the Professor with a self-confident glitter of his +iron-rimmed spectacles, “does not know what it wants.” + +“But you do,” growled Ossipon. “Just now you’ve been crying for +time—time. Well. The doctors will serve you out your time—if you are +good. You profess yourself to be one of the strong—because you carry in +your pocket enough stuff to send yourself and, say, twenty other people +into eternity. But eternity is a damned hole. It’s time that you need. +You—if you met a man who could give you for certain ten years of time, +you would call him your master.” + +“My device is: No God! No Master,” said the Professor sententiously as +he rose to get off the ’bus. + +Ossipon followed. “Wait till you are lying flat on your back at the end +of your time,” he retorted, jumping off the footboard after the other. +“Your scurvy, shabby, mangy little bit of time,” he continued across the +street, and hopping on to the curbstone. + +“Ossipon, I think that you are a humbug,” the Professor said, opening +masterfully the doors of the renowned Silenus. And when they had +established themselves at a little table he developed further this +gracious thought. “You are not even a doctor. But you are funny. Your +notion of a humanity universally putting out the tongue and taking the +pill from pole to pole at the bidding of a few solemn jokers is worthy of +the prophet. Prophecy! What’s the good of thinking of what will be!” +He raised his glass. “To the destruction of what is,” he said calmly. + +He drank and relapsed into his peculiarly close manner of silence. The +thought of a mankind as numerous as the sands of the sea-shore, as +indestructible, as difficult to handle, oppressed him. The sound of +exploding bombs was lost in their immensity of passive grains without an +echo. For instance, this Verloc affair. Who thought of it now? + +Ossipon, as if suddenly compelled by some mysterious force, pulled a +much-folded newspaper out of his pocket. The Professor raised his head at +the rustle. + +“What’s that paper? Anything in it?” he asked. + +Ossipon started like a scared somnambulist. + +“Nothing. Nothing whatever. The thing’s ten days old. I forgot it in +my pocket, I suppose.” + +But he did not throw the old thing away. Before returning it to his +pocket he stole a glance at the last lines of a paragraph. They ran +thus: “_An impenetrable mystery seems destined to hang for ever over this +act of madness or despair_.” + +Such were the end words of an item of news headed: “Suicide of Lady +Passenger from a cross-Channel Boat.” Comrade Ossipon was familiar with +the beauties of its journalistic style. “_An impenetrable mystery seems +destined to hang for ever_. . . . ” He knew every word by heart. “_An +impenetrable mystery_. . . . ” + +And the robust anarchist, hanging his head on his breast, fell into a +long reverie. + +He was menaced by this thing in the very sources of his existence. He +could not issue forth to meet his various conquests, those that he +courted on benches in Kensington Gardens, and those he met near area +railings, without the dread of beginning to talk to them of an +impenetrable mystery destined. . . . He was becoming scientifically +afraid of insanity lying in wait for him amongst these lines. “_To hang +for ever over_.” It was an obsession, a torture. He had lately failed +to keep several of these appointments, whose note used to be an unbounded +trustfulness in the language of sentiment and manly tenderness. The +confiding disposition of various classes of women satisfied the needs of +his self-love, and put some material means into his hand. He needed it +to live. It was there. But if he could no longer make use of it, he ran +the risk of starving his ideals and his body . . . “_This act of madness +or despair_.” + +“An impenetrable mystery” was sure “to hang for ever” as far as all +mankind was concerned. But what of that if he alone of all men could +never get rid of the cursed knowledge? And Comrade Ossipon’s knowledge +was as precise as the newspaper man could make it—up to the very +threshold of the “_mystery destined to hang for ever_. . . .” + +Comrade Ossipon was well informed. He knew what the gangway man of the +steamer had seen: “A lady in a black dress and a black veil, wandering at +midnight alongside, on the quay. ‘Are you going by the boat, ma’am,’ he +had asked her encouragingly. ‘This way.’ She seemed not to know what to +do. He helped her on board. She seemed weak.” + +And he knew also what the stewardess had seen: A lady in black with a +white face standing in the middle of the empty ladies’ cabin. The +stewardess induced her to lie down there. The lady seemed quite +unwilling to speak, and as if she were in some awful trouble. The next +the stewardess knew she was gone from the ladies’ cabin. The stewardess +then went on deck to look for her, and Comrade Ossipon was informed that +the good woman found the unhappy lady lying down in one of the hooded +seats. Her eyes were open, but she would not answer anything that was +said to her. She seemed very ill. The stewardess fetched the chief +steward, and those two people stood by the side of the hooded seat +consulting over their extraordinary and tragic passenger. They talked in +audible whispers (for she seemed past hearing) of St Malo and the Consul +there, of communicating with her people in England. Then they went away +to arrange for her removal down below, for indeed by what they could see +of her face she seemed to them to be dying. But Comrade Ossipon knew +that behind that white mask of despair there was struggling against +terror and despair a vigour of vitality, a love of life that could resist +the furious anguish which drives to murder and the fear, the blind, mad +fear of the gallows. He knew. But the stewardess and the chief steward +knew nothing, except that when they came back for her in less than five +minutes the lady in black was no longer in the hooded seat. She was +nowhere. She was gone. It was then five o’clock in the morning, and it +was no accident either. An hour afterwards one of the steamer’s hands +found a wedding ring left lying on the seat. It had stuck to the wood in +a bit of wet, and its glitter caught the man’s eye. There was a date, +24th June 1879, engraved inside. “_An impenetrable mystery is destined +to hang for ever_. . . . ” + +And Comrade Ossipon raised his bowed head, beloved of various humble +women of these isles, Apollo-like in the sunniness of its bush of hair. + +The Professor had grown restless meantime. He rose. + +“Stay,” said Ossipon hurriedly. “Here, what do you know of madness and +despair?” + +The Professor passed the tip of his tongue on his dry, thin lips, and +said doctorally: + +“There are no such things. All passion is lost now. The world is +mediocre, limp, without force. And madness and despair are a force. And +force is a crime in the eyes of the fools, the weak and the silly who +rule the roost. You are mediocre. Verloc, whose affair the police has +managed to smother so nicely, was mediocre. And the police murdered him. +He was mediocre. Everybody is mediocre. Madness and despair! Give me +that for a lever, and I’ll move the world. Ossipon, you have my cordial +scorn. You are incapable of conceiving even what the fat-fed citizen +would call a crime. You have no force.” He paused, smiling sardonically +under the fierce glitter of his thick glasses. + +“And let me tell you that this little legacy they say you’ve come into +has not improved your intelligence. You sit at your beer like a dummy. +Good-bye.” + +“Will you have it?” said Ossipon, looking up with an idiotic grin. + +“Have what?” + +“The legacy. All of it.” + +The incorruptible Professor only smiled. His clothes were all but +falling off him, his boots, shapeless with repairs, heavy like lead, let +water in at every step. He said: + +“I will send you by-and-by a small bill for certain chemicals which I +shall order to-morrow. I need them badly. Understood—eh?” + +Ossipon lowered his head slowly. He was alone. “_An impenetrable +mystery_. . . . ” It seemed to him that suspended in the air before him +he saw his own brain pulsating to the rhythm of an impenetrable mystery. +It was diseased clearly. . . . “_This act of madness or despair_.” + +The mechanical piano near the door played through a valse cheekily, then +fell silent all at once, as if gone grumpy. + +Comrade Ossipon, nicknamed the Doctor, went out of the Silenus beer-hall. +At the door he hesitated, blinking at a not too splendid sunlight—and the +paper with the report of the suicide of a lady was in his pocket. His +heart was beating against it. The suicide of a lady—_this act of madness +or despair_. + +He walked along the street without looking where he put his feet; and he +walked in a direction which would not bring him to the place of +appointment with another lady (an elderly nursery governess putting her +trust in an Apollo-like ambrosial head). He was walking away from it. +He could face no woman. It was ruin. He could neither think, work, +sleep, nor eat. But he was beginning to drink with pleasure, with +anticipation, with hope. It was ruin. His revolutionary career, +sustained by the sentiment and trustfulness of many women, was menaced by +an impenetrable mystery—the mystery of a human brain pulsating wrongfully +to the rhythm of journalistic phrases. “ . . . _Will hang for ever over +this act_. . . . It was inclining towards the gutter . . . _of madness or +despair_.” + +“I am seriously ill,” he muttered to himself with scientific insight. +Already his robust form, with an Embassy’s secret-service money +(inherited from Mr Verloc) in his pockets, was marching in the gutter as +if in training for the task of an inevitable future. Already he bowed +his broad shoulders, his head of ambrosial locks, as if ready to receive +the leather yoke of the sandwich board. As on that night, more than a +week ago, Comrade Ossipon walked without looking where he put his feet, +feeling no fatigue, feeling nothing, seeing nothing, hearing not a sound. +“_An impenetrable mystery_. . . .” He walked disregarded. . . . “_This +act of madness or despair_.” + +And the incorruptible Professor walked too, averting his eyes from the +odious multitude of mankind. He had no future. He disdained it. He was +a force. His thoughts caressed the images of ruin and destruction. He +walked frail, insignificant, shabby, miserable—and terrible in the +simplicity of his idea calling madness and despair to the regeneration of +the world. Nobody looked at him. He passed on unsuspected and deadly, +like a pest in the street full of men. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SECRET AGENT *** + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the +United States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, +and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following +the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use +of the Project Gutenberg trademark. 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