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.