第32章

`It would be dangerous in that case.The money would have then to be dealt specially with.Very specially.We'd have perhaps to lose more than half the amount in order to get these notes changed in a certain safe place I know of in Paris.In the other case - I mean if he had his account and got paid out under some other name - say Smith, for instance - the money is perfectly safe to use.You understand? The bank has no means of knowing that Mr Verloc and, say, Smith are one and the same person.Do you see how important it is that you should make no mistake in answering me? Can you answer that query at all? Perhaps not.Eh?

She said composedly:

`I remember now! He didn't bank in his own name.He told me once that it was on deposit in the name of Prozor.'

`You are sure?'

`Certain.'

`You don't think the bank had any knowledge of his real name? Or anybody in the bank or--'

She shrugged her shoulders.

`How can I know? Is it likely, Tom?'

`No.I suppose it's not likely.It would have been more comfortable to know...Here we are.Get out first, and walk straight in.Move smartly.'

He remained behind, and paid the cabman out of his own loose silver.

The programme traced by his minute foresight was carried out.When Mrs Verloc, with her ticket for St Malo in her hand, entered the ladies' waiting-room, Comrade Ossipon walked into the bar, and in seven minutes absorbed three goes of hot brandy and water.

`Trying to drive out a cold,' he explained to the barmaid, with a friendly nod and a grimacing smile.Then he came out, bringing out from that festive interlude the face of a man who had drunk at the very Fountain of Sorrow.

He raised his eyes to the clock.It was time.He waited.

Punctual, Mrs Verloc came out, with her veil down, and all black - black as commonplace death itself, crowned with a few cheap and pale flowers.

She passed close to a little group of men who were laughing, but whose laughter could have been struck dead by a single word.Her walk was indolent, but her back was straight, and Comrade Ossipon looked after it in terror before making a start himself.

The train was drawn up, with hardly anybody about its row of open doors.

Owing to the time of the year and to the abominable weather there were but few passengers.Mrs Verloc walked slowly along the line of empty compartments till Ossipon touched her elbow from behind.

`In here.'

She got in, and he remained on the platform looking about.She bent forward, and in a whisper:

`What is it, Tom? Is there any danger?'

`Wait a moment.There's the guard.'

She saw him accost the man in uniform.They talked for a while.She heard the guard say `Very well, sir,' and saw him touch his cap.Then Ossipon came back, saying: `I told him not to let anybody get into our compartment.'

She was leaning forward on her seat.`You think of everything...You'll get me off, Tom?' she asked in a gust of anguish, lifting her veil brusquely to look at her saviour.

She had uncovered a face like adamant.And out of this face the eyes looked on, big, dry, enlarged, lightless, burnt out like two black holes in the white, shining globes.

`There is no danger,' he said, gazing into them with an earnestness almost rapt, which to Mrs Verloc, flying from the gallows, seemed to be full of force and tenderness.This devotion deeply moved her - and the adamantine face lost the stern rigidity of its terror.Comrade Ossipon gazed at it as no lover ever gazed at his mistress's face.Alexander Ossipon, anarchist, nicknamed the Doctor, author of a medical (and improper) pamphlet, late lecturer on the social aspects of hygiene to working men's clubs, was free from the trammels of conventional morality - but he submitted to the rule of science.He was scientific, and he gazed scientifically at that woman, the sister of a degenerate, a degenerate herself - of a murdering type.He gazed at her, and invoked Lombroso, as an Italian peasant recommends himself to his favourite saint.He gazed scientifically.He gazed at her cheeks, at her nose, at her eyes, at her ears...Bad!...Fatal!

Mrs Verloc's pale lips patting, slightly relaxed under his passionately attentive gaze, he gazed also at her teeth...Not a doubt remained...a murdering type...If Comrade Ossipon did not recommend his terrified soul to Lombroso, it was only because on scientific grounds he could not believe that he carried about him such a thing as a soul.But he had in him the scientific spirit, which moved him to testify on the platform of a railway station in nervous, jerky phrases.

`He was an extraordinary lad, that brother of yours.Most interesting to study.A perfect type in a way.Perfect!'

He spoke scientifically in his secret fear.And Mrs Verloc, hearing these words of commendation vouchsafed to her beloved dead, swayed forward with a flicker of light in her sombre eyes, like a ray of sunshine heralding a tempest of rain.

`He was that indeed,' she whispered, softly, with quivering lips.`You took a lot of notice of him, Tom.I loved you for it.'

`It's almost incredible the resemblance there was between you two,'

pursued Ossipon, giving a voice to his abiding dread, and trying to conceal his nervous, sickening impatience for the train to start.`Yes, he resembled you.'