The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad

The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad
The Secret Agent
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
aesthetic 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 breakfastroom
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. Wildeyed,
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 businesslike
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 newlyborn
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 writingtable,
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, cleanshaved
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 armchair.
"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 today
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 armchair
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 workingmen'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 exprisoner
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 revolutionises
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 brotherin-
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 halfoff
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
mediaeval 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 selfconfident
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 selfconfidence
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 revolutionises," the other continued, with leisurely selfconfidence,
"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
revolutionises 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 onegallon
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 fairhaired
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 selflaudatory
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, selfconfident
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 manhunting.
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, mildvoiced
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, longlimbed,
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 selfdeception.
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 - oddlooking,
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 wormeaten
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 fellowcreatures
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 writingtable
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 shinbones
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 simplicity. 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 addresssing 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 revolutionises. 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 youthfullooking
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 gaslight
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 handbag,
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 lowfronted
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 hid 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 selfconfident
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 mediaeval 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 horsehide,
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 cafes 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 selfrestraint.
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-inlaw.
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 toll, 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 gasburners,
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 pocketbook
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. Find - 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, rascallylooking,
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 tomorrow
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
CELEBRE," 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 its 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-ofleave
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 has 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 an
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 revolutionises 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 tonight."
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. It's 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. It's 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' eatinghouse
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 selfpreservation
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 he 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 is 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.