The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad

“So this instructive crime was planned abroad,” Mr Vladimir said

quickly. “You admit it was planned abroad?”

“Theoretically. Theoretically only, on foreign territory; abroad

only by a fiction,” said the Assistant Commissioner, alluding to

the character of Embassies, which are supposed to be part and

parcel of the country to which they belong. “But that’s a detail.

I talked to you of this business because its your government that

grumbles most at our police. You see that we are not so bad. I

wanted particularly to tell you of our success.”

“I’m sure I’m very grateful,” muttered Mr Vladimir through his

teeth.

“We can put our finger on every anarchist here,” went on the

Assistant Commissioner, as though he were quoting Chief Inspector

Heat. “All that’s wanted now is to do away with the agent

provocateur to make everything safe.”

Mr Vladimir held up his hand to a passing hansom.

“You’re not going in here,” remarked the Assistant Commissioner,

looking at a building of noble proportions and hospitable aspect,

with the light of a great hall falling through its glass doors on a

broad flight of steps.

But Mr Vladimir, sitting, stony-eyed, inside the hansom, drove off

without a word.

The Assistant Commissioner himself did not turn into the noble

building. It was the Explorers’ Club. The thought passed through

his mind that Mr Vladimir, honorary member, would not be seen very

often there in the future. He looked at his watch. It was only

half-past ten. He had had a very full evening.

CHAPTER XI

After Chief Inspector Heat had left him Mr Verloc moved about the

parlour.

From time to time he eyed his wife through the open door. “She

knows all about it now,” he thought to himself with commiseration

for her sorrow and with some satisfaction as regarded himself. Mr

Verloc’s soul, if lacking greatness perhaps, was capable of tender

sentiments. The prospect of having to break the news to her had

put him into a fever. Chief Inspector Heat had relieved him of the

task. That was good as far as it went. It remained for him now to

face her grief.

Mr Verloc had never expected to have to face it on account of

death, whose catastrophic character cannot be argued away by

sophisticated reasoning or persuasive eloquence. Mr Verloc never

meant Stevie to perish with such abrupt violence. He did not mean

him to perish at all. Stevie dead was a much greater nuisance than

ever he had been when alive. Mr Verloc had augured a favourable

issue to his enterprise, basing himself not on Stevie’s

intelligence, which sometimes plays queer tricks with a man, but on

the blind docility and on the blind devotion of the boy. Though

not much of a psychologist, Mr Verloc had gauged the depth of

Stevie’s fanaticism. He dared cherish the hope of Stevie walking

away from the walls of the Observatory as he had been instructed to

do, taking the way shown to him several times previously, and

rejoining his brother-in-law, the wise and good Mr Verloc, outside

the precincts of the park. Fifteen minutes ought to have been

enough for the veriest fool to deposit the engine and walk away.

And the Professor had guaranteed more than fifteen minutes. But

Stevie had stumbled within five minutes of being left to himself.

And Mr Verloc was shaken morally to pieces. He had foreseen

everything but that. He had foreseen Stevie distracted and lost –

sought for – found in some police station or provincial workhouse

in the end. He had foreseen Stevie arrested, and was not afraid,

because Mr Verloc had a great opinion of Stevie’s loyalty, which

had been carefully indoctrinated with the necessity of silence in

the course of many walks. Like a peripatetic philosopher, Mr

Verloc, strolling along the streets of London, had modified

Stevie’s view of the police by conversations full of subtle

reasonings. Never had a sage a more attentive and admiring

disciple. The submission and worship were so apparent that Mr

Verloc had come to feel something like a liking for the boy. In

any case, he had not foreseen the swift bringing home of his

connection. That his wife should hit upon the precaution of sewing

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