The superhuman vehemence of that whispered statement completely stunned Comrade Ossipon.Winnie Verloc turning about held him by both arms, facing him under the falling mist in the darkness and solitude of Brett Place, in which all sounds of life seemed lost as if in a triangular well of asphalt and bricks, of blind houses and unfeeling stones.
`No; I didn't know,' he declared, with a sort of flabby stupidity, whose comical aspect was lost upon a woman haunted by the fear of the gallows.
`But I do now.I - I understand,' he floundered on, his mind speculating as to what sort of atrocities Verloc could have practised under the sleepy, placid appearances of his married estate.It was positively awful.`I understand,'
he repeated, and then by a sudden inspiration uttered an `Unhappy woman!'
of lofty commiseration instead of the more familiar `Poor darling!' of his usual practice.This was no usual case.He felt conscious of something abnormal going on, while he never lost sight of the greatness of the stake.
`Unhappy, brave woman!'
He was glad to have discovered that variation; but he could discover nothing else.`Ah, but he is dead now,' was the best he could do.And he put a remarkable amount of animosity into his guarded exclamation.Mrs Verloc caught at his arm with a sort of frenzy.`You guessed then he was dead,' she murmured, as if beside herself.`You! You guessed what I had to do.Had to!'
There were suggestions of triumph, relief, gratitude in the indefinable tone of these words.It engrossed the whole attention of Ossipon to the detriment of mere literal sense.He wondered what was up with her, why she had worked herself into this state of wild excitement.He even began to wonder whether the hidden causes of that Greenwich Park affair did not lie deep in the unhappy circumstances of the Verlocs' married life.He went so far as to suspect Mr Verloc of having selected that extraordinary manner of committing suicide.By Jove! that would account for the utter inanity and wrong-headedness of the thing.No anarchist manifestation was required by the circumstances.Quite the contrary: and Verloc was as well aware of that as any other revolutionist of his standing.What an immense joke if Verloc had simply made fools of the whole of Europe, of the revolutionary world, of the police, of the press, and of the cocksure Professor as well.
Indeed, thought Ossipon in astonishment, it seemed almost certain that he did! Poor beggar! It struck him as very possible that of that household of two it wasn't precisely the man who was the devil.
Alexander Ossipon, nicknamed the Doctor, was naturally inclined to think indulgently of his men friends.He eyed Mrs Verloc hanging on his arm.
Of his women friends he thought in a specially practical way.Why Mrs Verloc should exclaim at his knowledge of Mr Verloc's death, which was no guess at all, did not disturb him beyond measure.Women often talked like lunatics.
But he was curious to know how she had been informed.The papers could tell her nothing beyond the mere fact: the man blown to pieces in Greenwich Park not having been identified.It was inconceivable on any theory that Verloc should have given her an inkling of his intention - whatever it was.This problem interested Comrade Ossipon immensely.He stopped short.
They had gone then along the three sides of Brett Place, and were near the end of Brett Street again.
`How did you first come to hear of it?' he asked in a tone he tried to render appropriate to the character of the revelations which had been made to him by the woman at his side.
She shook violently for a while before she answered in a listless voice.
`From the police.A chief inspector came.Chief Inspector Heat he said he was.He showed me--'
Mrs Verloc choked.`Oh, Tom, they had to gather him up with a shovel.'
Her breast heaved with dry sobs.In a moment Ossipon found his tongue.
`The police! Do you mean to say the police came already? That Chief Inspector Heat himself actually came to tell you.
`Yes,' she confirmed in the same listless tone.`He came.Just like this.He came.I didn't know.He showed me a piece of overcoat, and - Just like that.Do you know this? he says.
`Heat! Heat! And what did he do?'
Mrs Verloc's head dropped.`Nothing.He did nothing.He went away.The police were on that man's side,' she murmured tragically.`Another one came, too, `Another - another inspector, do you mean?' asked Ossipon, in great excitement, and very much in the tone of the scared child.
`I don't know.He came.He looked like a foreigner.He may have been one of them Embassy people.'
Comrade Ossipon nearly collapsed under this new shock.
`Embassy! Are you aware what you are saying? What Embassy? What on earth do you mean by Embassy?'
`It's that place in Chesham Square.The people he cursed so.I don't know.What does it matter!'
`And that fellow, what did he do or say to you?'
`I don't remember...Nothing...I don't care.Don't ask me,' she pleaded in a weary voice.
`All right.I won't,' assented Ossipon, tenderly.And he meant it, too, not because he was touched by the pathos of the pleading voice, but because he felt himself losing his footing in the depths of this tenebrous affair.
Police! Embassy! Phew! For fear of adventuring his intelligence into ways where its natural lights might fail to guide it safely he dismissed resolutely all suppositions, surmises, and theories out of his mind.He had the woman there, absolutely flinging herself at him, and that was the principal consideration.
But after what he had heard nothing could astonish him any more.And when Mrs Verloc, as if startled suddenly out of a dream of safety, began to urge upon him wildly the necessity of an immediate flight on the Continent, he did not exclaim in the least.He simply said with unaffected regret that there was no train till the morning, and stood looking thoughtfully at her face, veiled in black net, in the light of a gas-lamp veiled in a gauze of mist.