The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad (short books to read txt) 📕

police, of the press, and of the cocksure Professor as well. Indeed, thought Ossipon, in astonishment, it seemed almost certain that he did! Poor beggar! It struck him as very possible that of that household of two it wasn’t precisely the man who was the devil.

Alexander Ossipon, nicknamed the Doctor, was naturally inclined to think indulgently of his men friends. He eyed Mrs. Verloc hanging on his arm. Of his women friends he thought in a specially practical way. Why Mrs. Verloc should exclaim at his knowledge of Mr. Verloc’s death, which was no guess at all, did not disturb him beyond measure. They often talked like lunatics. But he was curious to know how she had been informed. The papers could tell her nothing beyond the mere fact: the man blown to pieces in Greenwich Park not having been identified. It was inconceivable on any theory that Verloc should have given her an inkling of his intention⁠—whatever it was. This problem interested Comrade Ossipon immensely. He stopped short. They had gone then along the three sides of Brett Place, and were near the end of Brett Street again.

“How did you first come to hear of it?” he asked in a tone he tried to render appropriate to the character of the revelations which had been made to him by the woman at his side.

She shook violently for a while before she answered in a listless voice.

“From the police. A chief inspector came, Chief Inspector Heat he said he was. He showed me⁠—”

Mrs. Verloc choked. “Oh, Tom, they had to gather him up with a shovel.”

Her breast heaved with dry sobs. In a moment Ossipon found his tongue.

“The police! Do you mean to say the police came already? That Chief Inspector Heat himself actually came to tell you.”

“Yes,” she confirmed in the same listless tone. “He came just like this. He came. I didn’t know. He showed me a piece of overcoat, and⁠—just like that. Do you know this? he says.”

“Heat! Heat! And what did he do?”

Mrs. Verloc’s head dropped. “Nothing. He did nothing. He went away. The police were on that man’s side,” she murmured tragically. “Another one came too.”

“Another⁠—another inspector, do you mean?” asked Ossipon, in great excitement, and very much in the tone of a scared child.

“I don’t know. He came. He looked like a foreigner. He may have been one of them Embassy people.”

Comrade Ossipon nearly collapsed under this new shock.

“Embassy! Are you aware what you are saying? What Embassy? What on earth do you mean by Embassy?”

“It’s that place in Chesham Square. The people he cursed so. I don’t know. What does it matter!”

“And that fellow, what did he do or say to you?”

“I don’t remember.⁠ ⁠… Nothing.⁠ ⁠… I don’t care. Don’t ask me,” she pleaded in a weary voice.

“All right. I won’t,” assented Ossipon tenderly. And he meant it too, not because he was touched by the pathos of the pleading voice, but because he felt himself losing his footing in the depths of this tenebrous affair. Police! Embassy! Phew! For fear of adventuring his intelligence into ways where its natural lights might fail to guide it safely he dismissed resolutely all suppositions, surmises, and theories out of his mind. He had the woman there, absolutely flinging herself at him, and that was the principal consideration. But after what he had heard nothing could astonish him any more. And when Mrs. Verloc, as if startled suddenly out of a dream of safety, began to urge upon him wildly the necessity of an immediate flight on the Continent, he did not exclaim in the least. He simply said with unaffected regret that there was no train till the morning, and stood looking thoughtfully at her face, veiled in black net, in the light of a gas lamp veiled in a gauze of mist.

Near him, her black form merged in the night, like a figure half chiselled out of a block of black stone. It was impossible to say what she knew, how deep she was involved with policemen and Embassies. But if she wanted to get away, it was not for him to object. He was anxious to be off himself. He felt that the business, the shop so strangely familiar to chief inspectors and members of foreign Embassies, was not the place for him. That must be dropped. But there was the rest. These savings. The money!

“You must hide me till the morning somewhere,” she said in a dismayed voice.

“Fact is, my dear, I can’t take you where I live. I share the room with a friend.”

He was somewhat dismayed himself. In the morning the blessed ’tecs will be out in all the stations, no doubt. And if they once got hold of her, for one reason or another she would be lost to him indeed.

“But you must. Don’t you care for me at all⁠—at all? What are you thinking of?”

She said this violently, but she let her clasped hands fall in discouragement. There was a silence, while the mist fell, and darkness reigned undisturbed over Brett Place. Not a soul, not even the vagabond, lawless, and amorous soul of a cat, came near the man and the woman facing each other.

“It would be possible perhaps to find a safe lodging somewhere,” Ossipon spoke at last. “But the truth is, my dear, I have not enough money to go and try with⁠—only a few pence. We revolutionists are not rich.”

He had fifteen shillings in his pocket. He added:

“And there’s the journey before us, too⁠—first thing in the morning at that.”

She did not move, made no sound, and Comrade Ossipon’s heart sank a little. Apparently she had no suggestion to offer. Suddenly she clutched at her breast, as if she had felt a sharp pain there.

“But I have,” she gasped. “I have the money. I have enough money. Tom! Let us go from here.”

“How much have you got?” he inquired, without stirring to her tug; for he was a cautious man.

“I have the money, I tell you. All the money.”

“What do you