Section 2

THE SECRET AGENT 15
of unhygienic labour. It had to and Mr Verloc would have rubbed his hands with satisfaction had he not been constitutionally averse from every superfluous exertion. His idleness was not hygienic, but it suited him very well. He was in a manner devoted to it with a sort of inert fanaticism, or perhaps rather with a fanati- cal inertness. Born of industrious parents for a life of toil, he had embraced indolence from an impulse as profound as inexplicable and as imperious as the impulse which directs a man's preference for one particular woman in a given thousand. He was too lazy even for a mere demagogue, for a workman orator, for a leader of labour. It was too much trouble. He required a more perfect form of ease ; or it might have been that he was the victim of a philosophical un- belief in the effectiveness of every human effort. Such a form of indolence requires, implies, a certain amount of intelligence. Mr Verloc was not devoid of intelligence and at the notion of a menaced social order he would perhaps have winked to himself if there had not been an effort to make in that sign of scepticism. His big, prominent eyes were not well adapted to wink- ing. They were rather of the sort that closes solemnly in slumber with majestic effect.
Undemonstrative and burly in a fat-pig style,
16 THE SECRET AGENT
Mr Verloc, without either rubbing his hands with satisfaction or winking sceptically at his thoughts, proceeded on his way. He trod the pavement heavily with his shiny boots, and his general get-up was that of a well-to-do mechanic in business for himself. He might have been anything from a picture-frame maker to a lock- smith; an employer of labour in a small way. But there was also about him an indescribable air which no mechanic could have acquired in the practice of his handicraft however dis- honestly exercised : the air common to men who live on the vices, the follies, or the baser fears of mankind ; the air of moral nihilism common to keepers of gambling hells and dis- orderly houses ; to private detectives and inquiry agents ; to drink sellers and, I should say, to the sellers of invigorating electric belts and to the inventors of patent medicines. But of that last I am not sure, not having carried my in- vestigations so far into the depths. For all I know, the expression of these last may be per- fectly diabolic. I shouldn't be surprised. What I want to affirm is that Mr Verloc's expression was by no means diabolic.
Before reaching Knightsbridge, Mr Verloc took a turn to the left out of the busy main thoroughfare, uproarious with the traffic of
THE SECRET AGENT 17
swaying omnibuses and trotting vans, in the almost silent, swift flow of hansoms. Under his hat, worn with a slight backward tilt, his hair had been carefully brushed into respectful sleek- ness ; for his business was with an Embassy. And Mr Verloc, steady like a rock a soft kind of rock marched now along a street which could with every propriety be described as private. In its breadth, emptiness, and extent it had the majesty of inorganic nature, of matter that never dies. The only reminder of mortality was a doctor's brougham arrested in august solitude close to the curbstone. The polished knockers of the doors gleamed as far as the eye could reach, the clean windows shone with a dark opaque lustre. And all was still. But a milk cart rattled noisily across the distant per- spective ; a butcher boy, driving with the noble recklessness of a charioteer at Olympic Games, dashed round the corner sitting high above a pair of red wheels. A guilty-looking cat issuing from under the stones ran for a while in front of Mr Verloc, then dived into another basement ; and a thick police constable, looking a stranger to every emotion, as if he too were part of in- organic nature, surging apparently out of a lamp-post, took not the slightest notice of Mr Verloc. With a turn to the left Mr Verloc
18 THE SECRET AGENT
pursued his way along a narrow street by the side of a yellow wall which, for some inscrutable reason, had No. i Chesham Square written on it in black letters. Chesham Square was at least sixty yards away, and Mr Verloc, cosmo- politan enough not to be deceived by London's topographical mysteries, held on steadily, with- out a sign of surprise or indignation. At last, with business-like persistency, he reached the Square, and made diagonally for the number 10. This belonged to an imposing carriage gate in a high, clean wall between two houses, of which one rationally enough bore the number 9 and the other was numbered 37; but the fact that this last belonged to Porthill Street, a street well known in the neighbourhood, was proclaimed by an inscription placed above the ground-floor windows by whatever highly efficient authority is charged with the duty of keeping track of London's strayed houses. Why powers are not asked of Parliament (a short act would do) for compelling those edifices to return where they belong is one of the mysteries of municipal administration. Mr Verloc did not trouble his head about it, his mission in life being the protection of the social mechanism, not its per- fectionment or even its criticism.
It was so early that the porter of the Embassy
THE SECRET AGENT 19
issued hurriedly out of his lodge still struggling with the left sleeve of his livery coat. His waistcoat was red, and he wore knee-breeches, but his aspect was flustered. Mr Verloc, aware of the rush on his flank, drove it off by simply holding out an envelope stamped with the arms of the Embassy, and passed on. He produced the same talisman also to the footman who opened the door, and stood back to let him enter the hall.
A clear fire burned in a tall fireplace, and an elderly man standing with his back to it, in evening dress and with a chain round his neck, glanced up from the newspaper he was holding spread out in both hands before his calm and severe face. He didn't move ; but another lackey, in brown trousers and claw- hammer coat edged with thin yellow cord, approaching Mr Verloc listened to the murmur of his name, and turning round on his heel in silence, began to walk, without looking back once. Mr Verloc, thus led along a ground-floor passage to the left of the great carpeted stair- case, was suddenly motioned to enter a quite small room furnished with a heavy writing- table and a few chairs. The servant shut the door, and Mr Verloc remained alone. He did not take a seat. With his hat and stick
20 THE SECRET AGENT
held in one hand he glanced about, passing his other podgy hand over his uncovered sleek head.
Another door opened noiselessly, and Mr Verloc immobilising his glance in that direction saw at first only black clothes, the bald top of a head, and a drooping dark grey whisker on each side of a pair of wrinkled hands. The person who had entered was holding a batch of papers before his eyes and walked up to the table with a rather mincing step, turning the papers over the while. Privy Councillor Wurmt, Chancelier d'Ambassade, was rather short- sighted This meritorious official laying the papers on the table, disclosed a face of pasty com- plexion and of melancholy ugliness surrounded by a lot of fine, long dark grey hairs, barred heavily by thick and bushy eyebrows. He put on a black-framed pince-nez upon a blunt and shapeless nose, and seemed struck by Mr Verloc's appearance. Under the enormous eyebrows his weak eyes blinked pathetically through the glasses.
He made no sign of greeting ; neither did Mr Verloc, who certainly knew his place ; but a subtle change about the general outlines of his shoulders and back suggested a slight bending of Mr Verloc's spine under the vast surface of his overcoat. Theeffect was of unobtrusivedeference.
THE SECRET AGENT 21
" I have here some of your reports," said the bureaucrat in an unexpectedly soft and weary voice, and pressing the tip of his forefinger on the papers with force. He paused ; and Mr Verloc, who had recognised his own handwriting very well, waited in an almost breathless silence. " We are not very satisfied with the attitude of the police here," the other continued, with every appearance of mental fatigue.
The shoulders of Mr Verloc, without actually moving, suggested a shrug. And for the first time since he left his home that morning his lips opened.
" Every country has its police," he said philosophically. But as the official of the Embassy went on blinking at him steadily he felt constrained to add : " Allow me to observe that I have no means of action upon the police here."
" What is desired," said the man of papers, "is the occurrence of something definite which should stimulate their vigilance. That is with- in your province is it not so ? "
Mr Verloc made no answer except by a sigh, which escaped him involuntarily, for instantly he tried to give his face a cheerful expression. The official blinked doubtfully, as if affected by the dim light of the room. He repeated vaguely:
22 THE SECRET AGENT
"The vigilance of the police and the severity of the magistrates. The general leniency of the judicial procedure here, and the utter absence of all repressive measures, are a scandal to Europe. What is wished for just now is the accentuation of the unrest of the fermentation which undoubtedly exists "
" Undoubtedly, undoubtedly," broke in Mr Verloc in a deep deferential bass of an oratori- cal quality, so utterly different from the tone in which he had spoken before that his interlocutor remained profoundly surprised. " It exists to a dangerous degree. My reports for the last twelve months make it sufficiently clear/'
" Your reports for the last twelve months," State Councillor Wurmt began in his gentle and dispassionate tone, "have been read by me. I failed to discover why you wrote them at all."
A sad silence reigned for a time. Mr Verloc seemed to have swallowed his tongue, and the other gazed at the papers on the table fixedly. At last he gave them a slight push.
" The state of affairs you expose there is assumed to exist as the first condition of your employment. What is required at present is not writing, but the bringing to light of a distinct, significant fact I would almost say of an alarming fact."
THE SECRET AGENT 28
"I need not say that all my endeavours shall be directed to that end," Mr Verloc said, with convinced modulations in his conversational husky tone. But the sense of being blinked at watchfully behind the blind glitter of these eye- glasses on the other side of the table disconcerted him. He stopped short with a gesture of ab- solute devotion. The useful, hard-working, if obscure member of the Embassy had an air of being impressed by some newly-born thought
" You are very corpulent," he said.
This observation, really of a psychological nature, and advanced with the modest hesitation of an officeman more familiar with ink and paper than with the requirements of active life, stung Mr Verloc in the manner of a rude personal remark. He stepped back a pace.
" Eh ? What were you pleased to say ? " he exclaimed, with husky resentment.
The Chancelier d'Ambassade entrusted with the conduct of this interview seemed to find it too much for him.
" I think," he said, "that you had better see Mr Vladimir. Yes, decidedly I think you ought to see Mr Vladimir, Be good enough to wait here," he added, and went out with mincing steps.
At once Mr Verloc passed his hand over his
24 THE SECRET AGENT
hair. A slight perspiration had broken out on his forehead. He let the air escape from his pursed-up lips like a man blowing at a spoonful of hot soup. But when the servant in brown appeared at the door silently, Mr Verloc had not moved an inch from the place he had occupied throughout the interview. He had remained motionless, as if feeling himself surrounded by pitfalls.
He walked along a passage lighted by a lonely gas-jet, then up a flight of winding stairs, and through a glazed and cheerful corridor on the first floor. The footman threw open a door, and stood aside. The feet of Mr Verloc felt a thick carpet. The room was large, with three windows ; and a young man with a shaven, big face, sitting in a roomy arm-chair before a vast mahogany writing-table, said in French to the Chancelierd'Ambassacle, who was going out with the papers in his hand :
"You are quite right, mon cher. He's fat the animal."
Mr Vladimir, First Secretary, had a drawing- room reputation as an agreeable and entertain- ing man. He was something of a favourite in society. His wit consisted in discovering droll connections between incongruous ideas ; and when talking in that strain he sat well forward
THE SECRET AGENT 25
on his seat, with his left hand raised, as if exhi- biting his funny demonstrations between the thumb and forefinger, while his round and clean- shaven face wore an expression of merry per- plexity.
But there was no trace of merriment or per- plexity in the way he looked at Mr Verloc. Lying far back in the deep arm-chair, with squarely spread elbows, and throwing one leg over a thick knee, he had with his smooth and rosy countenance the air of a preternaturally thriving baby that will not stand nonsense from anybody.
" You understand French, I suppose ?" he said.
Mr Verloc stated huskily that he did. His whole vast bulk had a forward inclination. He stood on the carpet in the middle of the room, clutching his hat and stick in one hand; the other hung lifelessly by his side. He muttered unobtrusively somewhere deep down in his throat something about having done his mili- tary service in the French artillery. At once, with contemptuous perversity, Mr Vladimir changed the language, and began to speak idiomatic English without the slightest trace of a foreign accent.
" Ah ! Yes. Of course. Let's see. How much did you get for obtaining the design of
26 THE SECRET AGENT
the improved breech-block of their new field- gun ? "
" Five years' rigorous confinement in a for- tress," Mr Verloc answered unexpectedly, but without any sign of feeling.
"You got off easily/' was Mr Vladimir's comment. "And, anyhow, it served you right for letting yourself get caught. What made you go in for that sort of thing eh ? "
Mr Verloc's husky conversational voice was heard speaking of youth, of a fatal infatuation for an unworthy
"Aha! Cherchez la femme," Mr Vladimir deigned to interrupt, unbending, but without affability ; there was, on the contrary, a touch of grimness in his condescension. " How long have you been employed by the Embassy here ? " he asked.
" Ever since the time of the late Baron Stott- Wartenheim," Mr Verloc answered in subdued tones, and protruding his lips sadly, in sign of sorrow for the deceased diplomat. The First Secretary observed this play of physiognomy steadily.
"Ah! ever since. . . . Well! What have you got to say for yourself ? " he asked sharply.
Mr Verloc answered with some surprise that he was not aware of having anything special to
THE SECRET AGENT 27
say. He had been summoned by a letter
And he plunged his hand busily into the side pocket of his overcoat, but before the mocking, cynical watchfulness of Mr Vladimir, concluded to leave it there.
"Bah!" said that latter. "What do you mean by getting out of condition like this? You haven't got even the physique of your profession. You a member of a starving pro- letariat never ! You a desperate socialist or anarchist which is it ? "
"Anarchist/' stated Mr Verloc in a deadened tone.
" Bosh !" went on Mr Vladimir, without rais- ing his voice. " You startled old Wurmt himself. You wouldn't deceive an idiot. They all are that by - the - by, but you seem to me simply impossible. So you began your connection with us by stealing the French gun designs. And you got yourself caught. That must have been very disagreeable to our Government. You don't seem to be very smart."
Mr Verloc tried to exculpate himself huskily.
"As IVe had occasion to observe before, a fatal infatuation for an unworthy "
Mr Vladimir raised a large white, plump hand
"Ah, yes. The unlucky attachment of
23 THE SECRET AGENT
your youth. She got hold of the money, and then sold you to the police eh ? "
The doleful change in Mr Verloc's physi- ognomy, the momentary drooping of his whole person, confessed that such was the regrettable case. Mr Vladimir's hand clasped the ankle reposing on his knee. The sock was of dark blue silk.
" You see, that was not very clever of you. Perhaps you are too susceptible."
Mr Verloc intimated in a throaty, veiled murmur that he was no longer young.
" Oh ! That's a failing which age does not cure/' Mr Vladimir remarked, with sinister familiarity. " But no ! You are too fat for that You could not have come to look like this if you had been at all susceptible. I'll tell you what I think is the matter : you are a lazy fellow. How long have you been drawing pay from this Embassy?"