The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale
policeman” still standing on the pavement.
“Can he be waiting for me,” thought Mr Vladimir, looking up and down for
some signs of a hansom. He saw none. A couple of carriages waited by
the curbstone, their lamps blazing steadily, the horses standing
perfectly still, as if carved in stone, the coachmen sitting motionless
under the big fur capes, without as much as a quiver stirring the white
thongs of their big whips. Mr Vladimir walked on, and the “confounded
policeman” fell into step at his elbow. He said nothing. At the end of
the fourth stride Mr Vladimir felt infuriated and uneasy. This could not
last.
“Rotten weather,” he growled savagely.
“Mild,” said the Assistant Commissioner without passion. He remained
silent for a little while. “We’ve got hold of a man called Verloc,” he
announced casually.
Mr Vladimir did not stumble, did not stagger back, did not change his
stride. But he could not prevent himself from exclaiming: “What?” The
Assistant Commissioner did not repeat his statement. “You know him,” he
went on in the same tone.
Mr Vladimir stopped, and became guttural. “What makes you say that?”
“I don’t. It’s Verloc who says that.”
“A lying dog of some sort,” said Mr Vladimir in somewhat Oriental
phraseology. But in his heart he was almost awed by the miraculous
cleverness of the English police. The change of his opinion on the
subject was so violent that it made him for a moment feel slightly sick.
He threw away his cigar, and moved on.
“What pleased me most in this affair,” the Assistant went on, talking
slowly, “is that it makes such an excellent starting-point for a piece of
work which I’ve felt must be taken in hand—that is, the clearing out of
this country of all the foreign political spies, police, and that sort
of—of—dogs. In my opinion they are a ghastly nuisance; also an element
of danger. But we can’t very well seek them out individually. The only
way is to make their employment unpleasant to their employers. The
thing’s becoming indecent. And dangerous too, for us, here.”
Mr Vladimir stopped again for a moment.
“What do you mean?”
“The prosecution of this Verloc will demonstrate to the public both the
danger and the indecency.”
“Nobody will believe what a man of that sort says,” said Mr Vladimir
contemptuously.
“The wealth and precision of detail will carry conviction to the great
mass of the public,” advanced the Assistant Commissioner gently.
“So that is seriously what you mean to do.”
“We’ve got the man; we have no choice.”
“You will be only feeding up the lying spirit of these revolutionary
scoundrels,” Mr Vladimir protested. “What do you want to make a scandal
for?—from morality—or what?”
Mr Vladimir’s anxiety was obvious. The Assistant Commissioner having
ascertained in this way that there must be some truth in the summary
statements of Mr Verloc, said indifferently:
“There’s a practical side too. We have really enough to do to look after
the genuine article. You can’t say we are not effective. But we don’t
intend to let ourselves be bothered by shams under any pretext whatever.”
Mr Vladimir’s tone became lofty.
“For my part, I can’t share your view. It is selfish. My sentiments for
my own country cannot be doubted; but I’ve always felt that we ought to
be good Europeans besides—I mean governments and men.”
“Yes,” said the Assistant Commissioner simply. “Only you look at Europe
from its other end. But,” he went on in a good-natured tone, “the
foreign governments cannot complain of the inefficiency of our police.
Look at this outrage; a case specially difficult to trace inasmuch as it
was a sham. In less than twelve hours we have established the identity
of a man literally blown to shreds, have found the organiser of the
attempt, and have had a glimpse of the inciter behind him. And we could
have gone further; only we stopped at the limits of our territory.”
“So this instructive crime was planned abroad,” Mr Vladimir said quickly.
“You admit it was planned abroad?”
“Theoretically. Theoretically only, on foreign territory; abroad only by
a fiction,” said the Assistant Commissioner, alluding to the character of
Embassies, which are supposed to be part and parcel of the country to
which they belong. “But that’s a detail. I talked to you of this
business because it’s your government that grumbles most at our police.
You see that we are not so bad. I wanted particularly to tell you of our
success.”
“I’m sure I’m very grateful,” muttered Mr Vladimir through his teeth.
“We can put our finger on every anarchist here,” went on the Assistant
Commissioner, as though he were quoting Chief Inspector Heat. “All
that’s wanted now is to do away with the agent provocateur to make
everything safe.”
Mr Vladimir held up his hand to a passing hansom.
“You’re not going in here,” remarked the Assistant Commissioner, looking
at a building of noble proportions and hospitable aspect, with the light
of a great hall falling through its glass doors on a broad flight of
steps.
But Mr Vladimir, sitting, stony-eyed, inside the hansom, drove off
without a word.
The Assistant Commissioner himself did not turn into the noble building.
It was the Explorers’ Club. The thought passed through his mind that Mr
Vladimir, honorary member, would not be seen very often there in the
future. He looked at his watch. It was only half-past ten. He had had
a very full evening.
CHAPTER XI
After Chief Inspector Heat had left him Mr Verloc moved about the
parlour.
From time to time he eyed his wife through the open door. “She knows all
about it now,” he thought to himself with commiseration for her sorrow
and with some satisfaction as regarded himself. Mr Verloc’s soul, if
lacking greatness perhaps, was capable of tender sentiments. The
prospect of having to break the news to her had put him into a fever.
Chief Inspector Heat had relieved him of the task. That was good as far
as it went. It remained for him now to face her grief.
Mr Verloc had never expected to have to face it on account of death,
whose catastrophic character cannot be argued away by sophisticated
reasoning or persuasive eloquence. Mr Verloc never meant Stevie to
perish with such abrupt violence. He did not mean him to perish at all.
Stevie dead was a much greater nuisance than ever he had been when alive.
Mr Verloc had augured a favourable issue to his enterprise, basing
himself not on Stevie’s intelligence, which sometimes plays queer tricks
with a man, but on the blind docility and on the blind devotion of the
boy. Though not much of a psychologist, Mr Verloc had gauged the depth
of Stevie’s fanaticism. He dared cherish the hope of Stevie walking away
from the walls of the Observatory as he had been instructed to do, taking
the way shown to him several times previously, and rejoining his
brother-in-law, the wise and good Mr Verloc, outside the precincts of the
park. Fifteen minutes ought to have been enough for the veriest fool to
deposit the engine and walk away. And the Professor had guaranteed more
than fifteen minutes. But Stevie had stumbled within five minutes of
being left to himself. And Mr Verloc was shaken morally to pieces. He
had foreseen everything but that. He had foreseen Stevie distracted and
lost—sought for—found in some police station or provincial workhouse in
the end. He had foreseen Stevie arrested, and was not afraid, because Mr
Verloc had a great opinion of Stevie’s loyalty, which had been carefully
indoctrinated with the necessity of silence in the course of many walks.
Like a peripatetic philosopher, Mr Verloc, strolling along the streets of
London, had modified Stevie’s view of the police by conversations full of
subtle reasonings. Never had a sage a more attentive and admiring
disciple. The submission and worship were so apparent that Mr Verloc had
come to feel something like a liking for the boy. In any case, he had
not foreseen the swift bringing home of his connection. That his wife
should hit upon the precaution of sewing the boy’s address inside his
overcoat was the last thing Mr Verloc would have thought of. One can’t
think of everything. That was what she meant when she said that he need
not worry if he lost Stevie during their walks. She had assured him that
the boy would turn up all right. Well, he had turned up with a
vengeance!
“Well, well,” muttered Mr Verloc in his wonder. What did she mean by it?
Spare him the trouble of keeping an anxious eye on Stevie? Most likely
she had meant well. Only she ought to have told him of the precaution
she had taken.
Mr Verloc walked behind the counter of the shop. His intention was not
to overwhelm his wife with bitter reproaches. Mr Verloc felt no
bitterness. The unexpected march of events had converted him to the
doctrine of fatalism. Nothing could be helped now. He said:
“I didn’t mean any harm to come to the boy.”
Mrs Verloc shuddered at the sound of her husband’s voice. She did not
uncover her face. The trusted secret agent of the late Baron
Stott-Wartenheim looked at her for a time with a heavy, persistent,
undiscerning glance. The torn evening paper was lying at her feet. It
could not have told her much. Mr Verloc felt the need of talking to his
wife.
“It’s that damned Heat—eh?” he said. “He upset you. He’s a brute,
blurting it out like this to a woman. I made myself ill thinking how to
break it to you. I sat for hours in the little parlour of Cheshire
Cheese thinking over the best way. You understand I never meant any harm
to come to that boy.”
Mr Verloc, the Secret Agent, was speaking the truth. It was his marital
affection that had received the greatest shock from the premature
explosion. He added:
“I didn’t feel particularly gay sitting there and thinking of you.”
He observed another slight shudder of his wife, which affected his
sensibility. As she persisted in hiding her face in her hands, he
thought he had better leave her alone for a while. On this delicate
impulse Mr Verloc withdrew into the parlour again, where the gas jet
purred like a contented cat. Mrs Verloc’s wifely forethought had left
the cold beef on the table with carving knife and fork and half a loaf of
bread for Mr Verloc’s supper. He noticed all these things now for the
first time, and cutting himself a piece of bread and meat, began to eat.
His appetite did not proceed from callousness. Mr Verloc had not eaten
any breakfast that day. He had left his home fasting. Not being an
energetic man, he found his resolution in nervous excitement, which
seemed to hold him mainly by the throat. He could not have swallowed
anything solid. Michaelis’ cottage was as destitute of provisions as the
cell of a prisoner. The ticket-of-leave apostle lived on a little milk
and crusts of stale bread. Moreover, when Mr Verloc arrived he had
already gone upstairs after his frugal meal. Absorbed in the toil and
delight of literary composition, he had not even answered Mr Verloc’s
shout up the little staircase.
“I am taking this young fellow home for a day or two.”
And, in truth, Mr Verloc did not wait for an answer, but had marched out
of the cottage at once, followed by the obedient Stevie.
Now that all action was over and his fate taken out of his hands with
unexpected swiftness, Mr Verloc felt terribly empty physically. He
carved the meat, cut the bread, and devoured his supper standing by the
table, and now and then casting a glance towards his wife. Her prolonged
immobility disturbed the comfort of his refection. He walked again into
the shop, and came up very close to her. This sorrow with a veiled face
made Mr Verloc uneasy. He expected, of course, his wife to be very much