“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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