now along a street which could with every
propriety be described as private. In its breadth, emptiness, and extent it had
the majesty of inorganic nature, of matter that never dies. The only reminder of
mortality was a doctor's brougham arrested in august solitude close to the
curbstone. The polished knockers of the doors gleamed as far as the eye could
reach, the clean windows shone with a dark opaque lustre. And all was still. But
a milk cart rattled noisily across the distant perspective; a butcher boy,
driving with the noble recklessness of a charioteer at Olympic Games, dashed
round the corner sitting high above a pair of red wheels. A guilty-looking cat
issuing from under the stones ran for a while in front of Mr. Verloc, then dived
into another basement; and a thick police constable, looking a stranger to every
emotion, as if he, too, were part of inorganic nature, surging apparently out of
a lamp-post, took not the slightest notice of Mr. Verloc. With a turn to the
left Mr. Verloc pursued his way along a narrow street by the side of a yellow
wall which, for some inscrutable reason, had No. 1 Chesham Square written on it
in black letters. Chesham Square was at least sixty yards away, and Mr. Verloc,
cosmopolitan enough not to be deceived by London's topographical mysteries, held
on steadily, without a sign of surprise or indignation. At last, with
business-like persistency, he reached the Square, and made diagonally for the
number 10. This belonged to an imposing carriage gate in a high, clean wall
between two houses, of which one rationally enough bore the number 9 and the
other was numbered 37; but the fact that this last belonged to Porthill Street,
a street well known in the neighbourhood, was proclaimed by an inscription
placed above the ground-floor windows by whatever highly efficient authority is
charged with the duty of keeping track of London's strayed houses. Why powers
are not asked of Parliament (a short act would do) for compelling those edifices
to return where they belong is one of the mysteries of municipal administration.
Mr. Verloc did not trouble his head about it, his mission in life being the
protection of the social mechanism, not its perfectionment or even its
criticism.
    It was so early that the porter of the Embassy issued hurriedly out of his
lodge still struggling with the left sleeve of his livery coat. His waistcoat
was red, and he wore knee-breeches, but his aspect was flustered. Mr. Verloc,
aware of the