? But even if there were no
obstacles to his freedom of action he would do nothing. At present he hasn't
enough moral energy to take a resolution of any sort. Permit me also to point
out that if I had detained him we would have been committed to a course of
action on which I wished to know your precise intentions first.«
    The great personage rose heavily, an imposing, shadowy form in the greenish
gloom of the room.
    »I'll see the Attorney-General to-night, and will send for you to-morrow
morning. Is there anything more you'd wish to tell me now?«
    The Assistant Commissioner had stood up also, slender and flexible.
    »I think not, Sir Ethelred, unless I were to enter into details which -«
    »No. No details, please.«
    The great shadowy form seemed to shrink away as if in physical dread of
details; then came forward, expanded, enormous, and weighty, offering a large
hand. »And you say that this man has got a wife?«
    »Yes, Sir Ethelred,« said the Assistant Commissioner, pressing deferentially
the extended hand. »A genuine wife and a genuinely, respectably, marital
relation. He told me that after his interview at the Embassy he would have
thrown everything up, would have tried to sell his shop, and leave the country,
only he felt certain that his wife would not even hear of going abroad. Nothing
could be more characteristic of the respectable bond than that,« went on, with a
touch of grimness, the Assistant Commissioner, whose own wife, too, had refused
to hear of going abroad. »Yes, a genuine wife. And the victim was a genuine
brother-in-law. From a certain point of view we are here in the presence of a
domestic drama.«
    The Assistant Commissioner laughed a little; but the great man's thoughts
seemed to have wandered far away, perhaps to the questions of his country's
domestic policy, the battle-ground of his crusading valour against the paynim
Cheeseman. The Assistant Commissioner withdrew quietly, unnoticed, as if already
forgotten.
    He had his own crusading instincts. This affair, which, in one way or
another, disgusted Chief Inspector Heat, seemed to him a providentially given
starting-point for a crusade. He had it much at heart to begin. He walked slowly
home, meditating that enterprise on the way, and thinking over Mr. Verloc's
psychology in a composite mood of repugnance and satisfaction. He walked all the
