The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad

fortnight.” He ceased to think completely for a time. That utter

stillness of his brain lasted about three seconds. Then he said

perfunctorily: “You have set inquiries on foot for tracing that

other man up and down the line?”

He had no doubt that everything needful had been done. Chief

Inspector Heat knew, of course, thoroughly the business of man-

hunting. And these were the routine steps, too, that would be

taken as a matter of course by the merest beginner. A few

inquiries amongst the ticket collectors and the porters of the two

small railway stations would give additional details as to the

appearance of the two men; the inspection of the collected tickets

would show at once where they came from that morning. It was

elementary, and could not have been neglected. Accordingly the

Chief Inspector answered that all this had been done directly the

old woman had come forward with her deposition. And he mentioned

the name of a station. “That’s where they came from, sir,” he went

on. “The porter who took the tickets at Maze Hill remembers two

chaps answering to the description passing the barrier. They

seemed to him two respectable working men of a superior sort – sign

painters or house decorators. The big man got out of a third-class

compartment backward, with a bright tin can in his hand. On the

platform he gave it to carry to the fair young fellow who followed

him. All this agrees exactly with what the old woman told the

police sergeant in Greenwich.”

The Assistant Commissioner, still with his face turned to the

window, expressed his doubt as to these two men having had anything

to do with the outrage. All this theory rested upon the utterances

of an old charwoman who had been nearly knocked down by a man in a

hurry. Not a very substantial authority indeed, unless on the

ground of sudden inspiration, which was hardly tenable.

“Frankly now, could she have been really inspired?” he queried,

with grave irony, keeping his back to the room, as if entranced by

the contemplation of the town’s colossal forms half lost in the

night. He did not even look round when he heard the mutter of the

word “Providential” from the principal subordinate of his

department, whose name, printed sometimes in the papers, was

familiar to the great public as that of one of its zealous and

hard-working protectors. Chief Inspector Heat raised his voice a

little.

“Strips and bits of bright tin were quite visible to me,” he said.

“That’s a pretty good corroboration.”

“And these men came from that little country station,” the

Assistant Commissioner mused aloud, wondering. He was told that

such was the name on two tickets out of three given up out of that

train at Maze Hill. The third person who got out was a hawker from

Gravesend well known to the porters. The Chief Inspector imparted

that information in a tone of finality with some ill humour, as

loyal servants will do in the consciousness of their fidelity and

with the sense of the value of their loyal exertions. And still

the Assistant Commissioner did not turn away from the darkness

outside, as vast as a sea.

“Two foreign anarchists coming from that place,” he said,

apparently to the window-pane. “It’s rather unaccountable.”‘

“Yes, sir. But it would be still more unaccountable if that

Michaelis weren’t staying in a cottage in the neighbourhood.”

At the sound of that name, falling unexpectedly into this annoying

affair, the Assistant Commissioner dismissed brusquely the vague

remembrance of his daily whist party at his club. It was the most

comforting habit of his life, in a mainly successful display of his

skill without the assistance of any subordinate. He entered his

club to play from five to seven, before going home to dinner,

forgetting for those two hours whatever was distasteful in his

life, as though the game were a beneficent drug for allaying the

pangs of moral discontent. His partners were the gloomily humorous

editor of a celebrated magazine; a silent, elderly barrister with

malicious little eyes; and a highly martial, simple-minded old

Colonel with nervous brown hands. They were his club acquaintances

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