The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad

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.

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