The Assistant Commissioner gave this definition in an apologetic
voice. But in truth there is a sort of lucidity proper to
extravagant language, and the great man was not offended. A slight
jerky movement of the big body half lost in the gloom of the green
silk shades, of the big head leaning on the big hand, accompanied
an intermittent stifled but powerful sound. The great man had
laughed.
“What have you done with him?”
The Assistant Commissioner answered very readily:
“As he seemed very anxious to get back to his wife in the shop I
let him go, Sir Ethelred.”
“You did? But the fellow will disappear.”
“Pardon me. I don’t think so. Where could he go to? Moreover,
you must remember that he has got to think of the danger from his
comrades too. He’s there at his post. How could he explain
leaving it? But even if there were no obstacles to his freedom of
action he would do nothing. At present he hasn’t enough moral
energy to take a resolution of any sort. Permit me also to point
out that if I had detained him we would have been committed to a
course of action on which I wished to know your precise intentions
first.”
The great personage rose heavily, an imposing shadowy form in the
greenish gloom of the room.
“I’ll see the Attorney-General to-night, and will send for you to-
morrow morning. Is there anything more you’d wish to tell me now?”
The Assistant Commissioner had stood up also, slender and flexible.
“I think not, Sir Ethelred, unless I were to enter into details
which – ”
“No. No details, please.”
The great shadowy form seemed to shrink away as if in physical
dread of details; then came forward, expanded, enormous, and
weighty, offering a large hand. “And you say that this man has got
a wife?”
“Yes, Sir Ethelred,” said the Assistant Commissioner, pressing
deferentially the extended hand. “A genuine wife and a genuinely,
respectably, marital relation. He told me that after his interview
at the Embassy he would have thrown everything up, would have tried
to sell his shop, and leave the country, only he felt certain that
his wife would not even hear of going abroad. Nothing could be
more characteristic of the respectable bond than that,” went on,
with a touch of grimness, the Assistant Commissioner, whose own
wife too had refused to hear of going abroad. “Yes, a genuine
wife. And the victim was a genuine brother-in-law. From a certain
point of view we are here in the presence of a domestic drama.”
The Assistant Commissioner laughed a little; but the great man’s
thoughts seemed to have wandered far away, perhaps to the questions
of his country’s domestic policy, the battle-ground of his
crusading valour against the paynim Cheeseman. The Assistant
Commissioner withdrew quietly, unnoticed, as if already forgotten.
He had his own crusading instincts. This affair, which, in one way
or another, disgusted Chief Inspector Heat, seemed to him a
providentially given starting-point for a crusade. He had it much
at heart to begin. He walked slowly home, meditating that
enterprise on the way, and thinking over Mr Verloc’s psychology in
a composite mood of repugnance and satisfaction. He walked all the
way home. Finding the drawing-room dark, he went upstairs, and
spent some time between the bedroom and the dressing-room, changing
his clothes, going to and fro with the air of a thoughtful
somnambulist. But he shook it off before going out again to join
his wife at the house of the great lady patroness of Michaelis.
He knew he would be welcomed there. On entering the smaller of the
two drawing-rooms he saw his wife in a small group near the piano.
A youngish composer in pass of becoming famous was discoursing from
a music stool to two thick men whose backs looked old, and three
slender women whose backs looked young. Behind the screen the
great lady had only two persons with her: a man and a woman, who
sat side by side on arm-chairs at the foot of her couch. She
extended her hand to the Assistant Commissioner.
“I never hoped to see you here to-night. Annie told me – “