behind the table, and the felling of the
woman to the ground with a heavy wooden chair. But they were not
leisurely enough to allow Mr Verloc the time to move either hand or foot.
The knife was already planted in his breast. It met no resistance on its
way. Hazard has such accuracies. Into that plunging blow, delivered
over the side of the couch, Mrs Verloc had put all the inheritance of her
immemorial and obscure descent, the simple ferocity of the age of
caverns, and the unbalanced nervous fury of the age of bar-rooms. Mr
Verloc, the Secret Agent, turning slightly on his side with the force of
the blow, expired without stirring a limb, in the muttered sound of the
word "Don't" by way of protest.

Mrs Verloc had let go the knife, and her extraordinary resemblance to her
late brother had faded, had become very ordinary now. She drew a deep
breath, the first easy breath since Chief Inspector Heat had exhibited to
her the labelled piece of Stevie's overcoat. She leaned forward on her
folded arms over the side of the sofa. She adopted that easy attitude
not in order to watch or gloat over the body of Mr Verloc, but because of
the undulatory and swinging movements of the parlour, which for some time
behaved as though it were at sea in a tempest. She was giddy but calm.
She had become a free woman with a perfection of freedom which left her
nothing to desire and absolutely nothing to do, since Stevie's urgent
claim on her devotion no longer existed. Mrs Verloc, who thought in
images, was not troubled now by visions, because she did not think at
all. And she did not move. She was a woman enjoying her complete
irresponsibility and endless leisure, almost in the manner of a corpse.
She did not move, she did not think. Neither did the mortal envelope of
the late Mr Verloc reposing on the sofa. Except for the fact that Mrs
Verloc breathed these two would have been perfect in accord: that accord
of prudent reserve without superfluous words, and sparing of signs, which
had been the foundation of their respectable home life. For it had been
respectable, covering by a decent reticence the problems that may arise
in the practice of a secret profession and the commerce of shady wares.
To the last its decorum had remained undisturbed by unseemly shrieks and
other misplaced sincerities of conduct. And after the striking of the
blow, this respectability was continued in immobility and silence.

Nothing moved in the parlou