value for
the individual and for the society. It was sorry, sorry meddling. It
would leave Michaelis unscathed; it would drag to light the Professor's
home industry; disorganise the whole system of supervision; make no end
of a row in the papers, which, from that point of view, appeared to him
by a sudden illumination as invariably written by fools for the reading
of imbeciles. Mentally he agreed with the words Mr Verloc let fall at
last in answer to his last remark.

"Perhaps not. But it will upset many things. I have been a straight
man, and I shall keep straight in this--"

"If they let you," said the Chief Inspector cynically. "You will be
preached to, no doubt, before they put you into the dock. And in the end
you may yet get let in for a sentence that will surprise you. I wouldn't
trust too much the gentleman who's been talking to you."

Mr Verloc listened, frowning.

"My advice to you is to clear out while you may. I have no instructions.
There are some of them," continued Chief Inspector Heat, laying a
peculiar stress on the word "them," "who think you are already out of the
world."

"Indeed!" Mr Verloc was moved to say. Though since his return from
Greenwich he had spent most of his time sitting in the tap-room of an
obscure little public-house, he could hardly have hoped for such
favourable news.

"That's the impression about you." The Chief Inspector nodded at him.
"Vanish. Clear out."

"Where to?" snarled Mr Verloc. He raised his head, and gazing at the
closed door of the parlour, muttered feelingly: "I only wish you would
take me away to-night. I would go quietly."

"I daresay," assented sardonically the Chief Inspector, following the
direction of his glance.

The brow of Mr Verloc broke into slight moisture. He lowered his husky
voice confidentially before the unmoved Chief Inspector.

"The lad was half-witted, irresponsible. Any court would have seen that
at once. Only fit for the asylum. And that was the worst that would've
happened to him if--"

The Chief Inspector, his hand on the door handle, whispered into Mr
Verloc's face.

"He may've been half-witted, but you must have been crazy. What drove
you off your head like this?"

Mr Verloc, thinking of Mr Vladimir, did not hesitate in the choice of
words.

"A Hyperborean swine," he hissed forcibly. "A what you might call a--a
gentleman."

The Chief Inspector, steady-eyed, nodded briefly his comprehension, and
opene