第10章

When Mr Vladimir ceased speaking the Assistant Commissioner lowered his glance, and the conversation dropped.Almost immediately afterwards Mr Vladimir took leave.Directly his back was turned on the couch the Assistant Commissioner rose, too.

`I thought you were going to stay and take Annie home,' said the lady patroness of Michaelis.

`I find that I've yet a little work to do tonight.'

`In connection--'

`Well, yes - in a way.'

`Tell me, what is it really - this horror?'

`It's difficult to say what it is, but it may yet be a cause célébre , said the Assistant Commissioner.'

He left the drawing-room hurriedly, and found Mr Vladimir still in the hall, wrapping up his throat carefully in a large silk handkerchief.Behind him a footman waited, holding his overcoat.Another stood ready to open the door.The Assistant Commissioner was duly helped into his coat, and let out at once.After descending the front steps he stopped, as if to consider the way he should take.On seeing txis through the door held open, Mr Vladimir lingered in the hall to get out a cigar and asked for a light.

It was furnished to him by an elderly man out of livery with an air of calm solicitude.But the match went out; the footman then closed the door, and Mr Vladimir lighted his large Havana with leisurely care.When at last he got out of the house, he saw with disgust the `confounded policeman'

still standing on the pavement.

`Can he be waiting for me,' thought Mr Vladimir, looking up and down for some signs of a hansom.He saw none.A couple of carriages waited by the kerbstone, their lamps blazing steadily, the horses standing perfectly still, as if carved in stone, the coachmen sitting motionless under the big fur capes, without as much as a quiver stirring the white thongs of their big whips.Mr Vladimir walked on, and the `confounded policeman'

fell into step at his elbow.He said nothing.At the end of the fourth stride Mr Vladimir felt infuriated and uneasy.This could not last.

`Rotten weather,' he growled, savagely.

`Mild,' said the Assistant Commissioner without passion.He remained silent for a little while.`We've got hold of a man called Verloc,' he announced, casually.

Mr Vladimir did not stumble, did not stagger back, did not change his stride.But he could not prevent himself from exclaiming: `What?'

The Assistant Commissioner did not repeat his statement.`You know him,'

he went on in the same tone.

Mr Vladimir stopped, and became guttural.

`What makes you say that?'

`I don't.It's Verloc who says that.'

`A lying dog of some sort,' said Mr Vladimir in somewhat Oriental phraseology.

But in his heart he was almost awed by the miraculous cleverness of the English police.The change of his opinion on the subject was so violent that it made him for a moment feel slightly sick.He threw away his cigar, and moved on.

`What pleased me most in this affair,' the Assistant Commissioner went on, talking slowly, `is that it makes such an excellent starting-point for a piece of work which I've felt must be taken in hand - that is, the clearing out of this country of all the foreign political spies, police, and that sort of - of - dogs.In my opinion they are a ghastly nuisance;also an element of danger.But we can't very well seek them out individually.

The only way is to make their employment unpleasant to their employers.