第77章

The Assistant Commissioner paused, then added: `Those fellows are a perfect pest.' In order to raise his drooping glance to the speaker's face, the Personage on the hearthrug had gradually tilted his head farther back, which gave him an aspect of extraordinary haughtiness.

`Why not leave it to Heat?'

`Because he is an old departmental hand.They have their own morality.

My line of inquiry would appear to him an awful perversion of duty.For him the plain duty is to fasten the guilt upon as many prominent anarchists as he can on some slight indications he had picked up in the course of his investigation on the spot; whereas I, he would say, am bent upon vindicating their innocence.I am trying to be as lucid as I can in presenting this obscure matter to you without details.'

`He would, would he?' muttered the proud head of Sir Ethelred from its lofty elevation.

`I am afraid so - with an indignation and disgust of which you or Ican have no idea.He's an excellent servant.We must not put an undue strain on his loyalty.That's always a mistake.Besides, I want a free hand -a freer hand than it would be perhaps advisable to give Chief Inspector Heat.I haven't the slightest wish to spare this man Verloc.He will, Iimagine, be extremely startled to find his connection with this affair, whatever it may be, brought home to him so quickly.Frightening him will not be very difficult.But our true objective lies behind him somewhere.

I want your authority to give him such assurances of personal safety as I may think proper.'

`Certainly,' said the Personage on the hearthrug.`Find out as much as you can; find it out in your own way.

`I must set about it without loss of time, this very evening,' said the Assistant Commissioner.

Sir Ethelred shifted one hand under his coat tails, and tilting back his head looked at him steadily.

`We'll have a late sitting tonight,' he said.`Come to the House with your discoveries if we are not gone home.I'll warn Toodles to look out for you.He'll take you into my room.'

The numerous family and the wide connections of the youthful looking Private Secretary cherished for him the hope of an austere and exalted destiny.Meantime, the social sphere he adorned in his hours of idleness chose to pet him under the above nickname.And Sir Ethelred, hearing it on the lips of his wife and girls every day (mostly at breakfast-time), had conferred upon it the dignity of unsmiling adoption.

The Assistant Commissioner was surprised and gratified extremely.

`I shall certainly bring my discoveries to the House on the chance of you having the time to--'

`I won't have the time,' interrupted the great Personage.`But I will see you.I haven't the time now - And you are going yourself?'

`Yes, Sir Ethelred.I think it the best way.'

The Personage had tilted his head so far back that, in order to keep the Assistant Commissioner under his observation, he had to nearly close his eyes.

`H'm.Ha! And how do you propose - Will you assume a disguise?'

`Hardly a disguise! I'll change my clothes, of course.'

`Of course,' repeated the great man, with a sort of absent-minded loftiness.

He turned his big head slowly, and over his shoulder gave a haughty, oblique stare to the ponderous marble timepiece with the sly, feeble tick.The gilt hands had taken the opportunity to steal through no less than five and twenty minutes behind his back.

The Assistant Commissioner, who could not see them, grew a little nervous in the interval.But the great man presented to him a calm and undismayed face.

`Very well,' he said, and paused, as if in deliberate contempt of the official clock.`But what first put you in motion in this direction?'

`I have been always of opinion,' began the Assistant Commissioner.

`Ah.Yes! Opinion.That's of course.But the immediate motive?'

`What shall I say, Sir Ethelred? A new man's antagonism to old methods.

A desire to know something at first hand.Some impatience.It's my old work, but the harness is different.It has been chafing me a little in one or two tender places.'

`I hope you'll get on over there,' said the great man, kindly, extending his hand, soft to the touch, but broad and powerful like the hand of a glorified farmer.The Assistant Commissioner shook it, and withdrew.

In the outer room Toodles, who had been waiting perched on the edge of a table, advanced to meet him, subduing his natural buoyancy.

`Well? Satisfactory?' he asked, with airy importance.

`Perfectly.You've earned my undying gratitude,' answered the Assistant Commissioner, whose long face looked wooden in contrast with the peculiar character of the other's gravity, which seemed perpetually ready to break into ripples and chuckles.

`That's all right.But, seriously, you can't imagine how irritated he is by the attacks on his Bill for the Nationalization of Fisheries.They call it the beginning of social revolution.Of course, it is a revolutionary measure.But these fellows have no decency.The personal attacks--'

`I read the papers,' remarked the Assistant Commissioner.

`Odious? Eh? And you have no notion what a mass of work he has got to get through every day.He does it all himself.Seems unable to trust any one with these Fisheries.'

`And yet he's given a whole half hour to the consideration of my very small sprat,' interjected the Assistant Commissioner.

`Small! Is it? I'm glad to hear that.But it's a pity you didn't keep away, then.This fight takes it out of him frightfully.The man's getting exhausted.I feel it by the way he leans on my arm as we walk over.And, I say, is he safe in the streets? Mullins has been marching his men up here this afternoon.There's a constable stuck by every lamp-post, and every second person we meet between this and Palace Yard is an obvious tec.It will get on his nerves presently.I say, these foreign scoundrels aren't likely to throw something at him - are they? It would be a national calamity.The country can't spare him.'