e was mysterious, with the mysteriousness of living
beings. The far-famed secret agent [delta] of the late Baron
Stott-Wartenheim's alarmist despatches was not the man to break into such
mysteries. He was easily intimidated. And he was also indolent, with
the indolence which is so often the secret of good nature. He forbore
touching that mystery out of love, timidity, and indolence. There would
be always time enough. For several minutes he bore his sufferings
silently in the drowsy silence of the room. And then he disturbed it by
a resolute declaration.

"I am going on the Continent to-morrow."

His wife might have fallen asleep already. He could not tell. As a
matter of fact, Mrs Verloc had heard him. Her eyes remained very wide
open, and she lay very still, confirmed in her instinctive conviction
that things don't bear looking into very much. And yet it was nothing
very unusual for Mr Verloc to take such a trip. He renewed his stock
from Paris and Brussels. Often he went over to make his purchases
personally. A little select connection of amateurs was forming around
the shop in Brett Street, a secret connection eminently proper for any
business undertaken by Mr Verloc, who, by a mystic accord of temperament
and necessity, had been set apart to be a secret agent all his life.

He waited for a while, then added: "I'll be away a week or perhaps a
fortnight. Get Mrs Neale to come for the day."

Mrs Neale was the charwoman of Brett Street. Victim of her marriage with
a debauched joiner, she was oppressed by the needs of many infant
children. Red-armed, and aproned in coarse sacking up to the arm-pits,
she exhaled the anguish of the poor in a breath of soap-suds and rum, in
the uproar of scrubbing, in the clatter of tin pails.

Mrs Verloc, full of deep purpose, spoke in the tone of the shallowest
indifference.

"There is no need to have the woman here all day. I shall do very well
with Stevie."

She let the lonely clock on the landing count off fifteen ticks into the
abyss of eternity, and asked:

"Shall I put the light out?"

Mr Verloc snapped at his wife huskily.

"Put it out."

CHAPTER IX

Mr Verloc returning from the Continent at the end of ten days, brought
back a mind evidently unrefreshed by the wonders of foreign travel and a
countenance unlighted by the joys of home-coming. He entered in the
clatter of the shop bell with an air of sombre and vexed exhaustion. His
bag in h