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 abou