I! I! Talked of the Embassy to you!"

Mr Verloc seemed scared and bewildered beyond measure. His wife
explained:

"You've been talking a little in your sleep of late, Adolf."

"What--what did I say? What do you know?"

"Nothing much. It seemed mostly nonsense. Enough to let me guess that
something worried you."

Mr Verloc rammed his hat on his head. A crimson flood of anger ran over
his face.

"Nonsense--eh? The Embassy people! I would cut their hearts out one
after another. But let them look out. I've got a tongue in my head."

He fumed, pacing up and down between the table and the sofa, his open
overcoat catching against the angles. The red flood of anger ebbed out,
and left his face all white, with quivering nostrils. Mrs Verloc, for
the purposes of practical existence, put down these appearances to the
cold.

"Well," she said, "get rid of the man, whoever he is, as soon as you can,
and come back home to me. You want looking after for a day or two."

Mr Verloc calmed down, and, with resolution imprinted on his pale face,
had already opened the door, when his wife called him back in a whisper:

"Adolf! Adolf!" He came back startled. "What about that money you drew
out?" she asked. "You've got it in your pocket? Hadn't you better--"

Mr Verloc gazed stupidly into the palm of his wife's extended hand for
some time before he slapped his brow.

"Money! Yes! Yes! I didn't know what you meant."

He drew out of his breast pocket a new pigskin pocket-book. Mrs Verloc
received it without another word, and stood still till the bell,
clattering after Mr Verloc and Mr Verloc's visitor, had quieted down.
Only then she peeped in at the amount, drawing the notes out for the
purpose. After this inspection she looked round thoughtfully, with an
air of mistrust in the silence and solitude of the house. This abode of
her married life appeared to her as lonely and unsafe as though it had
been situated in the midst of a forest. No receptacle she could think of
amongst the solid, heavy furniture seemed other but flimsy and
particularly tempting to her conception of a house-breaker. It was an
ideal conception, endowed with sublime faculties and a miraculous
insight. The till was not to be thought of. It was the first spot a
thief would make for. Mrs Verloc unfastening hastily a couple of hooks,
slipped the pocket-book under the bodice of her dress. Having thus
disposed of her husband's capital,