The Secret Agent

J >> Joseph Conrad >> The Secret Agent


"The bomb. No, I would not say that exactly. We may never find that
out. But it's clear that he is connected with this in some way, which we
can find out without much trouble."

His countenance had that look of grave, overbearing indifference once
well known and much dreaded by the better sort of thieves. Chief
Inspector Heat, though what is called a man, was not a smiling animal.
But his inward state was that of satisfaction at the passively receptive
attitude of the Assistant Commissioner, who murmured gently:

"And you really think that the investigation should be made in that
direction?"

"I do, sir."

"Quite convinced?

"I am, sir. That's the true line for us to take."

The Assistant Commissioner withdrew the support of his hand from his
reclining head with a suddenness that, considering his languid attitude,
seemed to menace his whole person with collapse. But, on the contrary,
he sat up, extremely alert, behind the great writing-table on which his
hand had fallen with the sound of a sharp blow.

"What I want to know is what put it out of your head till now."

"Put it out of my head," repeated the Chief Inspector very slowly.

"Yes. Till you were called into this room--you know."

The Chief Inspector felt as if the air between his clothing and his skin
had become unpleasantly hot. It was the sensation of an unprecedented
and incredible experience.

"Of course," he said, exaggerating the deliberation of his utterance to
the utmost limits of possibility, "if there is a reason, of which I know
nothing, for not interfering with the convict Michaelis, perhaps it's
just as well I didn't start the county police after him."

This took such a long time to say that the unflagging attention of the
Assistant Commissioner seemed a wonderful feat of endurance. His retort
came without delay.

"No reason whatever that I know of. Come, Chief Inspector, this
finessing with me is highly improper on your part--highly improper. And
it's also unfair, you know. You shouldn't leave me to puzzle things out
for myself like this. Really, I am surprised."

He paused, then added smoothly: "I need scarcely tell you that this
conversation is altogether unofficial."

These words were far from pacifying the Chief Inspector. The indignation
of a betrayed tight-rope performer was strong within him. In his pride
of a trusted servant he was affected by the assurance that the rope was
not shaken for the purpose of breaking his neck, as by an exhibition of
impudence. As if anybody were afraid! Assistant Commissioners come and
go, but a valuable Chief Inspector is not an ephemeral office phenomenon.
He was not afraid of getting a broken neck. To have his performance
spoiled was more than enough to account for the glow of honest
indignation. And as thought is no respecter of persons, the thought of
Chief Inspector Heat took a threatening and prophetic shape. "You, my
boy," he said to himself, keeping his round and habitually roving eyes
fastened upon the Assistant Commissioner's face--"you, my boy, you don't
know your place, and your place won't know you very long either, I bet."

As if in provoking answer to that thought, something like the ghost of an
amiable smile passed on the lips of the Assistant Commissioner. His
manner was easy and business-like while he persisted in administering
another shake to the tight rope.

"Let us come now to what you have discovered on the spot, Chief
Inspector," he said.

"A fool and his job are soon parted," went on the train of prophetic
thought in Chief Inspector Heat's head. But it was immediately followed
by the reflection that a higher official, even when "fired out" (this was
the precise image), has still the time as he flies through the door to
launch a nasty kick at the shin-bones of a subordinate. Without
softening very much the basilisk nature of his stare, he said
impassively:

"We are coming to that part of my investigation, sir."

"That's right. Well, what have you brought away from it?"

The Chief Inspector, who had made up his mind to jump off the rope, came
to the ground with gloomy frankness.

"I've brought away an address," he said, pulling out of his pocket
without haste a singed rag of dark blue cloth. "This belongs to the
overcoat the fellow who got himself blown to pieces was wearing. Of
course, the overcoat may not have been his, and may even have been
stolen. But that's not at all probable if you look at this."

The Chief Inspector, stepping up to the table, smoothed out carefully the
rag of blue cloth. He had picked it up from the repulsive heap in the
mortuary, because a tailor's name is found sometimes under the collar. It
is not often of much use, but still--He only half expected to find
anything useful, but certainly he did not expect to find--not under the
collar at all, but stitched carefully on the under side of the lapel--a
square piece of calico with an address written on it in marking ink.

The Chief Inspector removed his smoothing hand.

"I carried it off with me without anybody taking notice," he said. "I
thought it best. It can always be produced if required."

The Assistant Commissioner, rising a little in his chair, pulled the
cloth over to his side of the table. He sat looking at it in silence.
Only the number 32 and the name of Brett Street were written in marking
ink on a piece of calico slightly larger than an ordinary cigarette
paper. He was genuinely surprised.

"Can't understand why he should have gone about labelled like this," he
said, looking up at Chief Inspector Heat. "It's a most extraordinary
thing."

"I met once in the smoking-room of a hotel an old gentleman who went
about with his name and address sewn on in all his coats in case of an
accident or sudden illness," said the Chief Inspector. "He professed to
be eighty-four years old, but he didn't look his age. He told me he was
also afraid of losing his memory suddenly, like those people he has been
reading of in the papers."

A question from the Assistant Commissioner, who wanted to know what was
No. 32 Brett Street, interrupted that reminiscence abruptly. The Chief
Inspector, driven down to the ground by unfair artifices, had elected to
walk the path of unreserved openness. If he believed firmly that to know
too much was not good for the department, the judicious holding back of
knowledge was as far as his loyalty dared to go for the good of the
service. If the Assistant Commissioner wanted to mismanage this affair
nothing, of course, could prevent him. But, on his own part, he now saw
no reason for a display of alacrity. So he answered concisely:

"It's a shop, sir."

The Assistant Commissioner, with his eyes lowered on the rag of blue
cloth, waited for more information. As that did not come he proceeded to
obtain it by a series of questions propounded with gentle patience. Thus
he acquired an idea of the nature of Mr Verloc's commerce, of his
personal appearance, and heard at last his name. In a pause the
Assistant Commissioner raised his eyes, and discovered some animation on
the Chief Inspector's face. They looked at each other in silence.

"Of course," said the latter, "the department has no record of that man."

"Did any of my predecessors have any knowledge of what you have told me
now?" asked the Assistant Commissioner, putting his elbows on the table
and raising his joined hands before his face, as if about to offer
prayer, only that his eyes had not a pious expression.

"No, sir; certainly not. What would have been the object? That sort of
man could never be produced publicly to any good purpose. It was
sufficient for me to know who he was, and to make use of him in a way
that could be used publicly."

"And do you think that sort of private knowledge consistent with the
official position you occupy?"

"Perfectly, sir. I think it's quite proper. I will take the liberty to
tell you, sir, that it makes me what I am--and I am looked upon as a man
who knows his work. It's a private affair of my own. A personal friend
of mine in the French police gave me the hint that the fellow was an
Embassy spy. Private friendship, private information, private use of
it--that's how I look upon it."

The Assistant Commissioner after remarking to himself that the mental
state of the renowned Chief Inspector seemed to affect the outline of his
lower jaw, as if the lively sense of his high professional distinction
had been located in that part of his anatomy, dismissed the point for the
moment with a calm "I see." Then leaning his cheek on his joined hands:

"Well then--speaking privately if you like--how long have you been in
private touch with this Embassy spy?"

To this inquiry the private answer of the Chief Inspector, so private
that it was never shaped into audible words, was:

"Long before you were even thought of for your place here."

The so-to-speak public utterance was much more precise.

"I saw him for the first time in my life a little more than seven years
ago, when two Imperial Highnesses and the Imperial Chancellor were on a
visit here. I was put in charge of all the arrangements for looking
after them. Baron Stott-Wartenheim was Ambassador then. He was a very
nervous old gentleman. One evening, three days before the Guildhall
Banquet, he sent word that he wanted to see me for a moment. I was
downstairs, and the carriages were at the door to take the Imperial
Highnesses and the Chancellor to the opera. I went up at once. I found
the Baron walking up and down his bedroom in a pitiable state of
distress, squeezing his hands together. He assured me he had the fullest
confidence in our police and in my abilities, but he had there a man just
come over from Paris whose information could be trusted simplicity. He
wanted me to hear what that man had to say. He took me at once into a
dressing-room next door, where I saw a big fellow in a heavy overcoat
sitting all alone on a chair, and holding his hat and stick in one hand.
The Baron said to him in French 'Speak, my friend.' The light in that
room was not very good. I talked with him for some five minutes perhaps.
He certainly gave me a piece of very startling news. Then the Baron took
me aside nervously to praise him up to me, and when I turned round again
I discovered that the fellow had vanished like a ghost. Got up and
sneaked out down some back stairs, I suppose. There was no time to run
after him, as I had to hurry off after the Ambassador down the great
staircase, and see the party started safe for the opera. However, I
acted upon the information that very night. Whether it was perfectly
correct or not, it did look serious enough. Very likely it saved us from
an ugly trouble on the day of the Imperial visit to the City.

"Some time later, a month or so after my promotion to Chief Inspector, my
attention was attracted to a big burly man, I thought I had seen
somewhere before, coming out in a hurry from a jeweller's shop in the
Strand. I went after him, as it was on my way towards Charing Cross, and
there seeing one of our detectives across the road, I beckoned him over,
and pointed out the fellow to him, with instructions to watch his
movements for a couple of days, and then report to me. No later than
next afternoon my man turned up to tell me that the fellow had married
his landlady's daughter at a registrar's office that very day at 11.30
a.m., and had gone off with her to Margate for a week. Our man had seen
the luggage being put on the cab. There were some old Paris labels on
one of the bags. Somehow I couldn't get the fellow out of my head, and
the very next time I had to go to Paris on service I spoke about him to
that friend of mine in the Paris police. My friend said: 'From what you
tell me I think you must mean a rather well-known hanger-on and emissary
of the Revolutionary Red Committee. He says he is an Englishman by
birth. We have an idea that he has been for a good few years now a
secret agent of one of the foreign Embassies in London.' This woke up my
memory completely. He was the vanishing fellow I saw sitting on a chair
in Baron Stott-Wartenheim's bathroom. I told my friend that he was quite
right. The fellow was a secret agent to my certain knowledge. Afterwards
my friend took the trouble to ferret out the complete record of that man
for me. I thought I had better know all there was to know; but I don't
suppose you want to hear his history now, sir?"

The Assistant Commissioner shook his supported head. "The history of
your relations with that useful personage is the only thing that matters
just now," he said, closing slowly his weary, deep-set eyes, and then
opening them swiftly with a greatly refreshed glance.

"There's nothing official about them," said the Chief Inspector bitterly.
"I went into his shop one evening, told him who I was, and reminded him
of our first meeting. He didn't as much as twitch an eyebrow. He said
that he was married and settled now, and that all he wanted was not to be
interfered in his little business. I took it upon myself to promise him
that, as long as he didn't go in for anything obviously outrageous, he
would be left alone by the police. That was worth something to him,
because a word from us to the Custom-House people would have been enough
to get some of these packages he gets from Paris and Brussels opened in
Dover, with confiscation to follow for certain, and perhaps a prosecution
as well at the end of it."

"That's a very precarious trade," murmured the Assistant Commissioner.
"Why did he go in for that?"

The Chief Inspector raised scornful eyebrows dispassionately.

"Most likely got a connection--friends on the Continent--amongst people
who deal in such wares. They would be just the sort he would consort
with. He's a lazy dog, too--like the rest of them,"

"What do you get from him in exchange for your protection?"

The Chief Inspector was not inclined to enlarge on the value of Mr
Verloc's services.

"He would not be much good to anybody but myself. One has got to know a
good deal beforehand to make use of a man like that. I can understand
the sort of hint he can give. And when I want a hint he can generally
furnish it to me."

The Chief Inspector lost himself suddenly in a discreet reflective mood;
and the Assistant Commissioner repressed a smile at the fleeting thought
that the reputation of Chief Inspector Heat might possibly have been made
in a great part by the Secret Agent Verloc.

"In a more general way of being of use, all our men of the Special Crimes
section on duty at Charing Cross and Victoria have orders to take careful
notice of anybody they may see with him. He meets the new arrivals
frequently, and afterwards keeps track of them. He seems to have been
told off for that sort of duty. When I want an address in a hurry, I can
always get it from him. Of course, I know how to manage our relations. I
haven't seen him to speak to three times in the last two years. I drop
him a line, unsigned, and he answers me in the same way at my private
address."

From time to time the Assistant Commissioner gave an almost imperceptible
nod. The Chief Inspector added that he did not suppose Mr Verloc to be
deep in the confidence of the prominent members of the Revolutionary
International Council, but that he was generally trusted of that there
could be no doubt. "Whenever I've had reason to think there was
something in the wind," he concluded, "I've always found he could tell me
something worth knowing."

The Assistant Commissioner made a significant remark.

"He failed you this time."

"Neither had I wind of anything in any other way," retorted Chief
Inspector Heat. "I asked him nothing, so he could tell me nothing. He
isn't one of our men. It isn't as if he were in our pay."

"No," muttered the Assistant Commissioner. "He's a spy in the pay of a
foreign government. We could never confess to him."

"I must do my work in my own way," declared the Chief Inspector. "When
it comes to that I would deal with the devil himself, and take the
consequences. There are things not fit for everybody to know."

"Your idea of secrecy seems to consist in keeping the chief of your
department in the dark. That's stretching it perhaps a little too far,
isn't it? He lives over his shop?"

"Who--Verloc? Oh yes. He lives over his shop. The wife's mother, I
fancy, lives with them."

"Is the house watched?"

"Oh dear, no. It wouldn't do. Certain people who come there are
watched. My opinion is that he knows nothing of this affair."

"How do you account for this?" The Assistant Commissioner nodded at the
cloth rag lying before him on the table.

"I don't account for it at all, sir. It's simply unaccountable. It
can't be explained by what I know." The Chief Inspector made those
admissions with the frankness of a man whose reputation is established as
if on a rock. "At any rate not at this present moment. I think that the
man who had most to do with it will turn out to be Michaelis."

"You do?"

"Yes, sir; because I can answer for all the others."

"What about that other man supposed to have escaped from the park?"

"I should think he's far away by this time," opined the Chief Inspector.

The Assistant Commissioner looked hard at him, and rose suddenly, as
though having made up his mind to some course of action. As a matter of
fact, he had that very moment succumbed to a fascinating temptation. The
Chief Inspector heard himself dismissed with instructions to meet his
superior early next morning for further consultation upon the case. He
listened with an impenetrable face, and walked out of the room with
measured steps.

Whatever might have been the plans of the Assistant Commissioner they had
nothing to do with that desk work, which was the bane of his existence
because of its confined nature and apparent lack of reality. It could
not have had, or else the general air of alacrity that came upon the
Assistant Commissioner would have been inexplicable. As soon as he was
left alone he looked for his hat impulsively, and put it on his head.
Having done that, he sat down again to reconsider the whole matter. But
as his mind was already made up, this did not take long. And before
Chief Inspector Heat had gone very far on the way home, he also left the
building.




CHAPTER VII


The Assistant Commissioner walked along a short and narrow street like a
wet, muddy trench, then crossing a very broad thoroughfare entered a
public edifice, and sought speech with a young private secretary (unpaid)
of a great personage.

This fair, smooth-faced young man, whose symmetrically arranged hair gave
him the air of a large and neat schoolboy, met the Assistant
Commissioner's request with a doubtful look, and spoke with bated breath.

"Would he see you? I don't know about that. He has walked over from the
House an hour ago to talk with the permanent Under-Secretary, and now
he's ready to walk back again. He might have sent for him; but he does
it for the sake of a little exercise, I suppose. It's all the exercise
he can find time for while this session lasts. I don't complain; I
rather enjoy these little strolls. He leans on my arm, and doesn't open,
his lips. But, I say, he's very tired, and--well--not in the sweetest of
tempers just now."

"It's in connection with that Greenwich affair."

"Oh! I say! He's very bitter against you people. But I will go and
see, if you insist."

"Do. That's a good fellow," said the Assistant Commissioner.

The unpaid secretary admired this pluck. Composing for himself an
innocent face, he opened a door, and went in with the assurance of a nice
and privileged child. And presently he reappeared, with a nod to the
Assistant Commissioner, who passing through the same door left open for
him, found himself with the great personage in a large room.

Vast in bulk and stature, with a long white face, which, broadened at the
base by a big double chin, appeared egg-shaped in the fringe of thin
greyish whisker, the great personage seemed an expanding man. Unfortunate
from a tailoring point of view, the cross-folds in the middle of a
buttoned black coat added to the impression, as if the fastenings of the
garment were tried to the utmost. From the head, set upward on a thick
neck, the eyes, with puffy lower lids, stared with a haughty droop on
each side of a hooked aggressive nose, nobly salient in the vast pale
circumference of the face. A shiny silk hat and a pair of worn gloves
lying ready on the end of a long table looked expanded too, enormous.

He stood on the hearthrug in big, roomy boots, and uttered no word of
greeting.

"I would like to know if this is the beginning of another dynamite
campaign," he asked at once in a deep, very smooth voice. "Don't go into
details. I have no time for that."

The Assistant Commissioner's figure before this big and rustic Presence
had the frail slenderness of a reed addresssing an oak. And indeed the
unbroken record of that man's descent surpassed in the number of
centuries the age of the oldest oak in the country.

"No. As far as one can be positive about anything I can assure you that
it is not."

"Yes. But your idea of assurances over there," said the great man, with
a contemptuous wave of his hand towards a window giving on the broad
thoroughfare, "seems to consist mainly in making the Secretary of State
look a fool. I have been told positively in this very room less than a
month ago that nothing of the sort was even possible."

The Assistant Commissioner glanced in the direction of the window calmly.

"You will allow me to remark, Sir Ethelred, that so far I have had no
opportunity to give you assurances of any kind."

The haughty droop of the eyes was focussed now upon the Assistant
Commissioner.

"True," confessed the deep, smooth voice. "I sent for Heat. You are
still rather a novice in your new berth. And how are you getting on over
there?"

"I believe I am learning something every day."

"Of course, of course. I hope you will get on."

"Thank you, Sir Ethelred. I've learned something to-day, and even within
the last hour or so. There is much in this affair of a kind that does
not meet the eye in a usual anarchist outrage, even if one looked into it
as deep as can be. That's why I am here."

The great man put his arms akimbo, the backs of his big hands resting on
his hips.

"Very well. Go on. Only no details, pray. Spare me the details."

"You shall not be troubled with them, Sir Ethelred," the Assistant
Commissioner began, with a calm and untroubled assurance. While he was
speaking the hands on the face of the clock behind the great man's back--a
heavy, glistening affair of massive scrolls in the same dark marble as
the mantelpiece, and with a ghostly, evanescent tick--had moved through
the space of seven minutes. He spoke with a studious fidelity to a
parenthetical manner, into which every little fact--that is, every
detail--fitted with delightful ease. Not a murmur nor even a movement
hinted at interruption. The great Personage might have been the statue
of one of his own princely ancestors stripped of a crusader's war
harness, and put into an ill-fitting frock coat. The Assistant
Commissioner felt as though he were at liberty to talk for an hour. But
he kept his head, and at the end of the time mentioned above he broke off
with a sudden conclusion, which, reproducing the opening statement,
pleasantly surprised Sir Ethelred by its apparent swiftness and force.

"The kind of thing which meets us under the surface of this affair,
otherwise without gravity, is unusual--in this precise form at least--and
requires special treatment."

The tone of Sir Ethelred was deepened, full of conviction.

"I should think so--involving the Ambassador of a foreign power!"

"Oh! The Ambassador!" protested the other, erect and slender, allowing
himself a mere half smile. "It would be stupid of me to advance anything
of the kind. And it is absolutely unnecessary, because if I am right in
my surmises, whether ambassador or hall porter it's a mere detail."

Sir Ethelred opened a wide mouth, like a cavern, into which the hooked
nose seemed anxious to peer; there came from it a subdued rolling sound,
as from a distant organ with the scornful indignation stop.

"No! These people are too impossible. What do they mean by importing
their methods of Crim-Tartary here? A Turk would have more decency."

"You forget, Sir Ethelred, that strictly speaking we know nothing
positively--as yet."

"No! But how would you define it? Shortly?"

"Barefaced audacity amounting to childishness of a peculiar sort."

"We can't put up with the innocence of nasty little children," said the
great and expanded personage, expanding a little more, as it were. The
haughty drooping glance struck crushingly the carpet at the Assistant
Commissioner's feet. "They'll have to get a hard rap on the knuckles
over this affair. We must be in a position to--What is your general
idea, stated shortly? No need to go into details."