The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale
“I come here sometimes,” said the other, preserving his provoking
coolness of demeanour.
“It’s wonderful that you of all people should have heard nothing of it,”
the big Ossipon continued. His eyelids snapped nervously upon the
shining eyes. “You of all people,” he repeated tentatively. This
obvious restraint argued an incredible and inexplicable timidity of the
big fellow before the calm little man, who again lifted the glass mug,
drank, and put it down with brusque and assured movements. And that was
all.
Ossipon after waiting for something, word or sign, that did not come,
made an effort to assume a sort of indifference.
“Do you,” he said, deadening his voice still more, “give your stuff to
anybody who’s up to asking you for it?”
“My absolute rule is never to refuse anybody—as long as I have a pinch by
me,” answered the little man with decision.
“That’s a principle?” commented Ossipon.
“It’s a principle.”
“And you think it’s sound?”
The large round spectacles, which gave a look of staring self-confidence
to the sallow face, confronted Ossipon like sleepless, unwinking orbs
flashing a cold fire.
“Perfectly. Always. Under every circumstance. What could stop me? Why
should I not? Why should I think twice about it?”
Ossipon gasped, as it were, discreetly.
“Do you mean to say you would hand it over to a ‘teck’ if one came to ask
you for your wares?”
The other smiled faintly.
“Let them come and try it on, and you will see,” he said. “They know me,
but I know also every one of them. They won’t come near me—not they.”
His thin livid lips snapped together firmly. Ossipon began to argue.
“But they could send someone—rig a plant on you. Don’t you see? Get the
stuff from you in that way, and then arrest you with the proof in their
hands.”
“Proof of what? Dealing in explosives without a licence perhaps.” This
was meant for a contemptuous jeer, though the expression of the thin,
sickly face remained unchanged, and the utterance was negligent. “I
don’t think there’s one of them anxious to make that arrest. I don’t
think they could get one of them to apply for a warrant. I mean one of
the best. Not one.”
“Why?” Ossipon asked.
“Because they know very well I take care never to part with the last
handful of my wares. I’ve it always by me.” He touched the breast of
his coat lightly. “In a thick glass flask,” he added.
“So I have been told,” said Ossipon, with a shade of wonder in his voice.
“But I didn’t know if—”
“They know,” interrupted the little man crisply, leaning against the
straight chair back, which rose higher than his fragile head. “I shall
never be arrested. The game isn’t good enough for any policeman of them
all. To deal with a man like me you require sheer, naked, inglorious
heroism.” Again his lips closed with a self-confident snap. Ossipon
repressed a movement of impatience.
“Or recklessness—or simply ignorance,” he retorted. “They’ve only to get
somebody for the job who does not know you carry enough stuff in your
pocket to blow yourself and everything within sixty yards of you to
pieces.”
“I never affirmed I could not be eliminated,” rejoined the other. “But
that wouldn’t be an arrest. Moreover, it’s not so easy as it looks.”
“Bah!” Ossipon contradicted. “Don’t be too sure of that. What’s to
prevent half-a-dozen of them jumping upon you from behind in the street?
With your arms pinned to your sides you could do nothing—could you?”
“Yes; I could. I am seldom out in the streets after dark,” said the
little man impassively, “and never very late. I walk always with my
right hand closed round the india-rubber ball which I have in my trouser
pocket. The pressing of this ball actuates a detonator inside the flask
I carry in my pocket. It’s the principle of the pneumatic instantaneous
shutter for a camera lens. The tube leads up—”
With a swift disclosing gesture he gave Ossipon a glimpse of an
india-rubber tube, resembling a slender brown worm, issuing from the
armhole of his waistcoat and plunging into the inner breast pocket of his
jacket. His clothes, of a nondescript brown mixture, were threadbare and
marked with stains, dusty in the folds, with ragged button-holes. “The
detonator is partly mechanical, partly chemical,” he explained, with
casual condescension.
“It is instantaneous, of course?” murmured Ossipon, with a slight
shudder.
“Far from it,” confessed the other, with a reluctance which seemed to
twist his mouth dolorously. “A full twenty seconds must elapse from the
moment I press the ball till the explosion takes place.”
“Phew!” whistled Ossipon, completely appalled. “Twenty seconds!
Horrors! You mean to say that you could face that? I should go crazy—”
“Wouldn’t matter if you did. Of course, it’s the weak point of this
special system, which is only for my own use. The worst is that the
manner of exploding is always the weak point with us. I am trying to
invent a detonator that would adjust itself to all conditions of action,
and even to unexpected changes of conditions. A variable and yet
perfectly precise mechanism. A really intelligent detonator.”
“Twenty seconds,” muttered Ossipon again. “Ough! And then—”
With a slight turn of the head the glitter of the spectacles seemed to
gauge the size of the beer saloon in the basement of the renowned Silenus
Restaurant.
“Nobody in this room could hope to escape,” was the verdict of that
survey. “Nor yet this couple going up the stairs now.”
The piano at the foot of the staircase clanged through a mazurka with
brazen impetuosity, as though a vulgar and impudent ghost were showing
off. The keys sank and rose mysteriously. Then all became still. For a
moment Ossipon imagined the overlighted place changed into a dreadful
black hole belching horrible fumes choked with ghastly rubbish of smashed
brickwork and mutilated corpses. He had such a distinct perception of
ruin and death that he shuddered again. The other observed, with an air
of calm sufficiency:
“In the last instance it is character alone that makes for one’s safety.
There are very few people in the world whose character is as well
established as mine.”
“I wonder how you managed it,” growled Ossipon.
“Force of personality,” said the other, without raising his voice; and
coming from the mouth of that obviously miserable organism the assertion
caused the robust Ossipon to bite his lower lip. “Force of personality,”
he repeated, with ostentatious calm. “I have the means to make myself
deadly, but that by itself, you understand, is absolutely nothing in the
way of protection. What is effective is the belief those people have in
my will to use the means. That’s their impression. It is absolute.
Therefore I am deadly.”
“There are individuals of character amongst that lot too,” muttered
Ossipon ominously.
“Possibly. But it is a matter of degree obviously, since, for instance,
I am not impressed by them. Therefore they are inferior. They cannot be
otherwise. Their character is built upon conventional morality. It
leans on the social order. Mine stands free from everything artificial.
They are bound in all sorts of conventions. They depend on life, which,
in this connection, is a historical fact surrounded by all sorts of
restraints and considerations, a complex organised fact open to attack at
every point; whereas I depend on death, which knows no restraint and
cannot be attacked. My superiority is evident.”
“This is a transcendental way of putting it,” said Ossipon, watching the
cold glitter of the round spectacles. “I’ve heard Karl Yundt say much
the same thing not very long ago.”
“Karl Yundt,” mumbled the other contemptuously, “the delegate of the
International Red Committee, has been a posturing shadow all his life.
There are three of you delegates, aren’t there? I won’t define the other
two, as you are one of them. But what you say means nothing. You are
the worthy delegates for revolutionary propaganda, but the trouble is not
only that you are as unable to think independently as any respectable
grocer or journalist of them all, but that you have no character
whatever.”
Ossipon could not restrain a start of indignation.
“But what do you want from us?” he exclaimed in a deadened voice. “What
is it you are after yourself?”
“A perfect detonator,” was the peremptory answer. “What are you making
that face for? You see, you can’t even bear the mention of something
conclusive.”
“I am not making a face,” growled the annoyed Ossipon bearishly.
“You revolutionists,” the other continued, with leisurely
self-confidence, “are the slaves of the social convention, which is
afraid of you; slaves of it as much as the very police that stands up in
the defence of that convention. Clearly you are, since you want to
revolutionise it. It governs your thought, of course, and your action
too, and thus neither your thought nor your action can ever be
conclusive.” He paused, tranquil, with that air of close, endless
silence, then almost immediately went on. “You are not a bit better than
the forces arrayed against you—than the police, for instance. The other
day I came suddenly upon Chief Inspector Heat at the corner of Tottenham
Court Road. He looked at me very steadily. But I did not look at him.
Why should I give him more than a glance? He was thinking of many
things—of his superiors, of his reputation, of the law courts, of his
salary, of newspapers—of a hundred things. But I was thinking of my
perfect detonator only. He meant nothing to me. He was as insignificant
as—I can’t call to mind anything insignificant enough to compare him
with—except Karl Yundt perhaps. Like to like. The terrorist and the
policeman both come from the same basket. Revolution, legality—counter
moves in the same game; forms of idleness at bottom identical. He plays
his little game—so do you propagandists. But I don’t play; I work
fourteen hours a day, and go hungry sometimes. My experiments cost money
now and again, and then I must do without food for a day or two. You’re
looking at my beer. Yes. I have had two glasses already, and shall have
another presently. This is a little holiday, and I celebrate it alone.
Why not? I’ve the grit to work alone, quite alone, absolutely alone.
I’ve worked alone for years.”
Ossipon’s face had turned dusky red.
“At the perfect detonator—eh?” he sneered, very low.
“Yes,” retorted the other. “It is a good definition. You couldn’t find
anything half so precise to define the nature of your activity with all
your committees and delegations. It is I who am the true propagandist.”
“We won’t discuss that point,” said Ossipon, with an air of rising above
personal considerations. “I am afraid I’ll have to spoil your holiday
for you, though. There’s a man blown up in Greenwich Park this morning.”
“How do you know?”
“They have been yelling the news in the streets since two o’clock. I
bought the paper, and just ran in here. Then I saw you sitting at this
table. I’ve got it in my pocket now.”
He pulled the newspaper out. It was a good-sized rosy sheet, as if
flushed by the warmth of its own convictions, which were optimistic. He
scanned the pages rapidly.
“Ah! Here it is. Bomb in Greenwich Park. There isn’t much so far.
Half-past eleven. Foggy morning. Effects of explosion felt as far as
Romney Road and Park Place. Enormous hole in the ground under a tree
filled with smashed roots and broken branches. All round fragments of a
man’s body blown to pieces. That’s all. The rest’s mere newspaper gup.
No doubt a wicked attempt to blow up the Observatory, they say. H’m.
That’s hardly credible.”
He looked at the paper for a while longer in silence, then passed it to