giving an upward twist to the ends of his black moustache. He was
satisfied by the subtle modification of his personal aspect caused
by these small changes. “That’ll do very well,” he thought. “I’ll
get a little wet, a little splashed – ”
He became aware of the waiter at his elbow and of a small pile of
silver coins on the edge of the table before him. The waiter kept
one eye on it, while his other eye followed the long back of a
tall, not very young girl, who passed up to a distant table looking
perfectly sightless and altogether unapproachable. She seemed to
be a habitual customer.
On going out the Assistant Commissioner made to himself the
observation that the patrons of the place had lost in the
frequentation of fraudulent cookery all their national and private
characteristics. And this was strange, since the Italian
restaurant is such a peculiarly British institution. But these
people were as denationalised as the dishes set before them with
every circumstance of unstamped respectability. Neither was their
personality stamped in any way, professionally, socially or
racially. They seemed created for the Italian restaurant, unless
the Italian restaurant had been perchance created for them. But
that last hypothesis was unthinkable, since one could not place
them anywhere outside those special establishments. One never met
these enigmatical persons elsewhere. It was impossible to form a
precise idea what occupations they followed by day and where they
went to bed at night. And he himself had become unplaced. It
would have been impossible for anybody to guess his occupation. As
to going to bed, there was a doubt even in his own mind. Not
indeed in regard to his domicile itself, but very much so in
respect of the time when he would be able to return there. A
pleasurable feeling of independence possessed him when he heard the
glass doors swing to behind his back with a sort of imperfect
baffled thud. He advanced at once into an immensity of greasy
slime and damp plaster interspersed with lamps, and enveloped,
oppressed, penetrated, choked, and suffocated by the blackness of a
wet London night, which is composed of soot and drops of water.
Brett Street was not very far away. It branched off, narrow, from
the side of an open triangular space surrounded by dark and
mysterious houses, temples of petty commerce emptied of traders for
the night. Only a fruiterer’s stall at the corner made a violent
blaze of light and colour. Beyond all was black, and the few
people passing in that direction vanished at one stride beyond the
glowing heaps of oranges and lemons. No footsteps echoed. They
would never be heard of again. The adventurous head of the Special
Crimes Department watched these disappearances from a distance with
an interested eye. He felt light-hearted, as though he had been
ambushed all alone in a jungle many thousands of miles away from
departmental desks and official inkstands. This joyousness and
dispersion of thought before a task of some importance seems to
prove that this world of ours is not such a very serious affair
after all. For the Assistant Commissioner was not constitutionally
inclined to levity.
The policeman on the beat projected his sombre and moving form
against the luminous glory of oranges and lemons, and entered Brett
Street without haste. The Assistant Commissioner, as though he
were a member of the criminal classes, lingered out of sight,
awaiting his return. But this constable seemed to be lost for ever
to the force. He never returned: must have gone out at the other
end of Brett Street.
The Assistant Commissioner, reaching this conclusion, entered the
street in his turn, and came upon a large van arrested in front of
the dimly lit window-panes of a carter’s eating-house. The man was
refreshing himself inside, and the horses, their big heads lowered
to the ground, fed out of nose-bags steadily. Farther on, on the
opposite side of the street, another suspect patch of dim light
issued from Mr Verloc’s shop front, hung with papers, heaving with
vague piles of cardboard boxes and the shapes of books. The
Assistant Commissioner stood observing it across the roadway.