The attitude in which he rested his menaced eyes was profoundly meditative.
He did not alter it the least bit.But his tone was not dreamy.
`Well! What is it that you've found out already? You came upon something unexpected on the first step.'
`Not exactly unexpected, Sir Ethelred.What I mainly came upon was a psychological state.'
The Great Presence made a slight movement.`You must be lucid, please.'
`Yes, Sir Ethelred.You know no doubt that most criminals at some time or other feel an irresistible need of confessing - of making a clean breast of it to somebody - to anybody.And they do it often to the police.In that Verloc whom Heat wished so much to screen I've found a man in that particular psychological state.The man, figuratively speaking, flung himself on my breast.It was enough on my part to whisper to him who I was and to add `I know that you are at the bottom of this affair.' It must have seemed miraculous to him that we should know already, but he took it all in the stride.The wonderfulness of it never checked him for a moment.
There remained for me only to put to him the two questions: Who put you up to it? and Who was the man who did it? He answered the first with remarkable emphasis.As to the second question, I gather that the fellow with the bomb was his brother-in-law - quite a lad - a weak-minded creature...It is rather a curious affair - too long perhaps to state fully just now.'
`What then have you learned?' asked the great man.
`First, I've learned that the ex-convict Michaelis had nothing to do with it, though indeed the lad had been living with him temporarily in the country up to eight o'clock this morning.It is more than likely that Michaelis knows nothing of it to this moment.'
`You are positive as to that?' asked the great man.
`Quite certain, Sir Ethelred.This fellow Verloc went there this morning, and took away the lad on the pretence of going out for a walk in the lanes.
As it was not the first time that he did this, Michaelis could not have the slightest suspicion of anything unusual.For the rest, Sir Ethelred, the indignation of this man Verloc had left nothing in doubt - nothing whatever.He had been driven out of his mind almost by an extraordinary performance, which for you or me it would be difficult to take as seriously meant, but which produced a great impression obviously on him.'
The Assistant Commissioner then imparted briefly to the great man, who sat still, resting his eyes under the screen of his hand, Mr Verloc's appreciation of Mr Vladimir's proceedings and character.The Assistant Commissioner did not seem to refuse it a certain amount of competency.But the great personage remarked:
`All this seems very fantastic.'
`Doesn't it? One would think a ferocious joke.But our man took it seriously, it appears.He felt himself threatened.Formerly, you know, he was in direct communication with old Stott-Wartenheim himself, and had come to regard his services as indispensable.It was an extremely rude awakening.I imagine that he lost his head.He became angry and frightened.Upon my word, my impression is that he thought these Embassy people quite capable not only to throw him out but to give him away, too, in some manner or other--'
`How long were you with him?' interrupted the Presence from behind his big hand.
`Some forty minutes, Sir Ethelred, in a house of bad repute called Continental Hotel, closeted in a room which by-the-by I took for the night.I found him under the influence of that reaction which follows the effort of crime.
The man cannot be defined as a hardened criminal.It is obvious that he did not plan the death of that wretched lad - his brother-in-law.That was a shock to him - I could see that.Perhaps he is a man of strong sensibilities.
Perhaps he was even fond of the lad - who knows? He might have hoped that the fellow would get clear away; in which case it would have been almost impossible to bring this thing home to anyone.At any rate, he risked consciously nothing more but arrest for him.'
The Assistant Commissioner paused in his speculations to reflect for a moment.
`Though how, in that last case, he could hope to have his own share in the business concealed is more than I can tell,' he continued, in his ignorance of poor Stevie's devotion to Mr Verloc (who was good ), and of his truly peculiar dumbness, which in the old affair of fireworks on the stairs had for many years resisted entreaties, coaxing, anger, and other means of investigation used by his beloved sister.For Stevie was loyal...`No, 1 can't imagine.It's possible that he never thought of that at all.It sounds an extravagant way of putting it, Sir Ethelred, but his state of dismay suggested to me an impulsive man who, after committing suicide with the notion that it would end all his troubles, had discovered that it did nothing of the kind.'
The Assistant Commissioner gave this definition in an apologetic voice.
But in truth there is a sort of lucidity proper to extravagant language, and the great man was not offended.A slight jerky movement of the big body half lost in the gloom of the green silk shades, of the big head leaning on the big hand, accompanied an intermittent stifled but powerful sound.
The great man had laughed.
`What have you done with him?'
The Assistant Commissioner answered very readily:
`As he seemed very anxious to get back to his wife in the shop I let him go, Sir Ethelred.'
`You did? But the fellow will disappear.'
`Pardon me.I don't think so.Where could he go to? Moreover, you must remember that he has got to think of the danger from his comrades, too.
He's there at his post.How could he explain leaving it? But even if there were no obstacles to his freedom of action he would do nothing.At present he hasn't enough moral energy to take a resolution of any sort.Permit me also to point out that if I had detained him we would have been committed to a course of action on which I wished to know your precise intentions first.'
The great personage rose heavily, an imposing, shadowy form in the greenish gloom of the room.
