The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale
the precise image), has still the time as he flies through the door to
launch a nasty kick at the shin-bones of a subordinate. Without
softening very much the basilisk nature of his stare, he said
impassively:
“We are coming to that part of my investigation, sir.”
“That’s right. Well, what have you brought away from it?”
The Chief Inspector, who had made up his mind to jump off the rope, came
to the ground with gloomy frankness.
“I’ve brought away an address,” he said, pulling out of his pocket
without haste a singed rag of dark blue cloth. “This belongs to the
overcoat the fellow who got himself blown to pieces was wearing. Of
course, the overcoat may not have been his, and may even have been
stolen. But that’s not at all probable if you look at this.”
The Chief Inspector, stepping up to the table, smoothed out carefully the
rag of blue cloth. He had picked it up from the repulsive heap in the
mortuary, because a tailor’s name is found sometimes under the collar.
It is not often of much use, but still—He only half expected to find
anything useful, but certainly he did not expect to find—not under the
collar at all, but stitched carefully on the under side of the lapel—a
square piece of calico with an address written on it in marking ink.
The Chief Inspector removed his smoothing hand.
“I carried it off with me without anybody taking notice,” he said. “I
thought it best. It can always be produced if required.”
The Assistant Commissioner, rising a little in his chair, pulled the
cloth over to his side of the table. He sat looking at it in silence.
Only the number 32 and the name of Brett Street were written in marking
ink on a piece of calico slightly larger than an ordinary cigarette
paper. He was genuinely surprised.
“Can’t understand why he should have gone about labelled like this,” he
said, looking up at Chief Inspector Heat. “It’s a most extraordinary
thing.”
“I met once in the smoking-room of a hotel an old gentleman who went
about with his name and address sewn on in all his coats in case of an
accident or sudden illness,” said the Chief Inspector. “He professed to
be eighty-four years old, but he didn’t look his age. He told me he was
also afraid of losing his memory suddenly, like those people he has been
reading of in the papers.”
A question from the Assistant Commissioner, who wanted to know what was
No. 32 Brett Street, interrupted that reminiscence abruptly. The Chief
Inspector, driven down to the ground by unfair artifices, had elected to
walk the path of unreserved openness. If he believed firmly that to know
too much was not good for the department, the judicious holding back of
knowledge was as far as his loyalty dared to go for the good of the
service. If the Assistant Commissioner wanted to mismanage this affair
nothing, of course, could prevent him. But, on his own part, he now saw
no reason for a display of alacrity. So he answered concisely:
“It’s a shop, sir.”
The Assistant Commissioner, with his eyes lowered on the rag of blue
cloth, waited for more information. As that did not come he proceeded to
obtain it by a series of questions propounded with gentle patience. Thus
he acquired an idea of the nature of Mr Verloc’s commerce, of his
personal appearance, and heard at last his name. In a pause the
Assistant Commissioner raised his eyes, and discovered some animation on
the Chief Inspector’s face. They looked at each other in silence.
“Of course,” said the latter, “the department has no record of that man.”
“Did any of my predecessors have any knowledge of what you have told me
now?” asked the Assistant Commissioner, putting his elbows on the table
and raising his joined hands before his face, as if about to offer
prayer, only that his eyes had not a pious expression.
“No, sir; certainly not. What would have been the object? That sort of
man could never be produced publicly to any good purpose. It was
sufficient for me to know who he was, and to make use of him in a way
that could be used publicly.”
“And do you think that sort of private knowledge consistent with the
official position you occupy?”
“Perfectly, sir. I think it’s quite proper. I will take the liberty to
tell you, sir, that it makes me what I am—and I am looked upon as a man
who knows his work. It’s a private affair of my own. A personal friend
of mine in the French police gave me the hint that the fellow was an
Embassy spy. Private friendship, private information, private use of
it—that’s how I look upon it.”
The Assistant Commissioner after remarking to himself that the mental
state of the renowned Chief Inspector seemed to affect the outline of his
lower jaw, as if the lively sense of his high professional distinction
had been located in that part of his anatomy, dismissed the point for the
moment with a calm “I see.” Then leaning his cheek on his joined hands:
“Well then—speaking privately if you like—how long have you been in
private touch with this Embassy spy?”
To this inquiry the private answer of the Chief Inspector, so private
that it was never shaped into audible words, was:
“Long before you were even thought of for your place here.”
The so-to-speak public utterance was much more precise.
“I saw him for the first time in my life a little more than seven years
ago, when two Imperial Highnesses and the Imperial Chancellor were on a
visit here. I was put in charge of all the arrangements for looking
after them. Baron Stott-Wartenheim was Ambassador then. He was a very
nervous old gentleman. One evening, three days before the Guildhall
Banquet, he sent word that he wanted to see me for a moment. I was
downstairs, and the carriages were at the door to take the Imperial
Highnesses and the Chancellor to the opera. I went up at once. I found
the Baron walking up and down his bedroom in a pitiable state of
distress, squeezing his hands together. He assured me he had the fullest
confidence in our police and in my abilities, but he had there a man just
come over from Paris whose information could be trusted implicity. He
wanted me to hear what that man had to say. He took me at once into a
dressing-room next door, where I saw a big fellow in a heavy overcoat
sitting all alone on a chair, and holding his hat and stick in one hand.
The Baron said to him in French ‘Speak, my friend.’ The light in that
room was not very good. I talked with him for some five minutes perhaps.
He certainly gave me a piece of very startling news. Then the Baron took
me aside nervously to praise him up to me, and when I turned round again
I discovered that the fellow had vanished like a ghost. Got up and
sneaked out down some back stairs, I suppose. There was no time to run
after him, as I had to hurry off after the Ambassador down the great
staircase, and see the party started safe for the opera. However, I
acted upon the information that very night. Whether it was perfectly
correct or not, it did look serious enough. Very likely it saved us from
an ugly trouble on the day of the Imperial visit to the City.
“Some time later, a month or so after my promotion to Chief Inspector, my
attention was attracted to a big burly man, I thought I had seen
somewhere before, coming out in a hurry from a jeweller’s shop in the
Strand. I went after him, as it was on my way towards Charing Cross, and
there seeing one of our detectives across the road, I beckoned him over,
and pointed out the fellow to him, with instructions to watch his
movements for a couple of days, and then report to me. No later than
next afternoon my man turned up to tell me that the fellow had married
his landlady’s daughter at a registrar’s office that very day at 11.30
a.m., and had gone off with her to Margate for a week. Our man had seen
the luggage being put on the cab. There were some old Paris labels on
one of the bags. Somehow I couldn’t get the fellow out of my head, and
the very next time I had to go to Paris on service I spoke about him to
that friend of mine in the Paris police. My friend said: ‘From what you
tell me I think you must mean a rather well-known hanger-on and emissary
of the Revolutionary Red Committee. He says he is an Englishman by
birth. We have an idea that he has been for a good few years now a
secret agent of one of the foreign Embassies in London.’ This woke up my
memory completely. He was the vanishing fellow I saw sitting on a chair
in Baron Stott-Wartenheim’s bathroom. I told my friend that he was quite
right. The fellow was a secret agent to my certain knowledge.
Afterwards my friend took the trouble to ferret out the complete record
of that man for me. I thought I had better know all there was to know;
but I don’t suppose you want to hear his history now, sir?”
The Assistant Commissioner shook his supported head. “The history of
your relations with that useful personage is the only thing that matters
just now,” he said, closing slowly his weary, deep-set eyes, and then
opening them swiftly with a greatly refreshed glance.
“There’s nothing official about them,” said the Chief Inspector bitterly.
“I went into his shop one evening, told him who I was, and reminded him
of our first meeting. He didn’t as much as twitch an eyebrow. He said
that he was married and settled now, and that all he wanted was not to be
interfered in his little business. I took it upon myself to promise him
that, as long as he didn’t go in for anything obviously outrageous, he
would be left alone by the police. That was worth something to him,
because a word from us to the Custom-House people would have been enough
to get some of these packages he gets from Paris and Brussels opened in
Dover, with confiscation to follow for certain, and perhaps a prosecution
as well at the end of it.”
“That’s a very precarious trade,” murmured the Assistant Commissioner.
“Why did he go in for that?”
The Chief Inspector raised scornful eyebrows dispassionately.
“Most likely got a connection—friends on the Continent—amongst people who
deal in such wares. They would be just the sort he would consort with.
He’s a lazy dog, too—like the rest of them.”
“What do you get from him in exchange for your protection?”
The Chief Inspector was not inclined to enlarge on the value of Mr
Verloc’s services.
“He would not be much good to anybody but myself. One has got to know a
good deal beforehand to make use of a man like that. I can understand
the sort of hint he can give. And when I want a hint he can generally
furnish it to me.”
The Chief Inspector lost himself suddenly in a discreet reflective mood;
and the Assistant Commissioner repressed a smile at the fleeting thought
that the reputation of Chief Inspector Heat might possibly have been made
in a great part by the Secret Agent Verloc.
“In a more general way of being of use, all our men of the Special Crimes
section on duty at Charing Cross and Victoria have orders to take careful
notice of anybody they may see with him. He meets the new arrivals
frequently, and afterwards keeps track of them. He seems to have been
told off for that sort of duty. When I want an address in a hurry, I can
always get it from him. Of course, I know how to manage our relations.
I haven’t seen him to speak to three times in the last two years. I drop
him a line, unsigned, and he answers me in the same way at my private
address.”
From time to time the Assistant Commissioner gave an almost imperceptible
nod. The Chief Inspector added that he did not suppose Mr Verloc to be
deep in the confidence of the prominent members of the Revolutionary
International Council, but that he was generally trusted of that there
could be no doubt. “Whenever I’ve had reason to think there was