THE Assistant Commissioner, driven rapidly in a hansom from the neighbourhood of Soho in the direction of Westminster, got out at the very centre of the Empire on which the sun never  sets. Some stalwart constables, who did not seem particularly impressed by the duty of watching the august spot, saluted him. Penetrating through a portal by no means lofty into the  precincts of the Hour which is the House, par excellence, in the minds of many millions of men, he was met at last by the volatile and revolutionary Toodles.

　　That neat and nice young man concealed his astonishment at the early appearance of the Assistant Commissioner, whom he had been told to look out for some time about midnight. His  turning up so early he concluded to be the sign that things, whatever they were, had gone wrong. With an extremely ready sympathy, which in nice youngsters goes often with a joyous  temperament, he felt sorry for the great Presence he called `The Chief, and also for the Assistant Commissioner, whose face appeared to him more ominously wooden than ever before,  and quite wonderfully long. `What a queer, foreign-looking chap he is,' he thought to himself, smiling from a distance with friendly buoyancy. And directly they came together he began to  talk with the kind intention of burying the awkwardness of failure under a heap of words. It looked as if the great assault threatened for that night were going to fizzle out. An inferior  henchman of `that brute Cheeseman' was up boring mercilessly a very thin House with some shamelessly cooked statistics. He, Toodles, hoped he would bore them into a count out every  minute. But then he might be only marking time to let that guzzling Cheeseman dine at his leisure. Anyway, the Chief could not be persuaded to go home.

　　`He will see you at once, I think. He's sitting all alone in his room thinking of all the fishes of the sea,' concluded Toodles, airily. `Come along.'

　　Notwithstanding the kindness of his disposition, the young Private Secretary (unpaid) was accessible to the common failings of humanity. He did not wish to harrow the feelings of the  Assistant Commissioner, who looked to him uncommonly like a man who has made a mess of his job. But his curiosity was too strong to be restrained by mere compassion. He could not  help, as they went along, to throw over his shoulder lightly:

　　`And your sprat?'

　　`Got him,' answered the Assistant Commissioner with a concision which did not mean to be repellent in the least.

　　`Good. You've no idea how these great men dislike to be disappointed in small things.'

　　After this profound observation the experienced Toodles seemed to reflect. At any rate he said nothing for quite two seconds. Then:

　　`I'm glad. But - I say - is it really such a very small thing as you make it out?'

　　`Do you know what may be done with a sprat?' the Assistant Commissioner asked in his turn.

　　`He's sometimes put into a sardine box,' chuckled Toodles, whose erudition on the subject of the fishing industry was fresh and, in comparison with his ignorance of all other industrial  matters, immense. `There are sardine canneries on the Spanish coast which--'

　　The Assistant Commissioner interrupted the apprentice statesman.

　　`Yes. Yes. But a sprat is also thrown away sometimes in order to catch a whale.'

　　`A whale. Phew!' exclaimed Toodles, with bated breath. `You're after a whale, then?'

　　`Not exactly. What I am after is more like a dog-fish. You don't know perhaps what a dog-fish is like.'

　　`Yes; I do. We're buried in special books up to our necks - whole shelves full of them - with plates... It's a noxious, rascally looking, altogether detestable beast, with a sort of smooth face  and moustaches.'

　　`Described to a T,' commended the Assistant Commissioner. `Only mine is clean-shaven altogether. You've seen him. It's a witty fish.'

　　`I have seen him!' said Toodles, incredulously. `I can't conceive where I could have seen him.'

　　`At the Explorers', I should say,' dropped the Assistant Commissioner, calmly. At the name of that extremely exclusive club Toodles looked scared, and stopped short.

　　`Nonsense,' he protested, but in an awestruck tone. `What do you mean? A member?'

　　`Honorary,' muttered the Assistant Commissioner through his teeth.

　　`Heavens!'

　　Toodles looked so thunderstruck that the Assistant Commissioner smiled faintly.

　　`That's between ourselves strictly,' he said.

　　`That's the beastliest thing I've ever heard in my life,' declared Toodles, feebly, as if astonishment had robbed him of all his buoyant strength in a second.

　　The Assistant Commissioner gave him an unsmiling glance. Till they came to the door of the great man's room, Toodles preserved a scandalized and solemn silence, as though he were  offended with the Assistant Commissioner for exposing such an unsavoury and disturbing fact. It revolutionized his idea of the Explorers' Club's extreme selectness, of its social purity.  Toodles was revolutionary only in politics; his social beliefs and personal feelings he wished to preserve unchanged through all the years allotted to him on this earth which, upon the  whole, he believed to be a nice place to live on.

　　He stood aside.

　　`Go in without knocking,' he said.

　　Shades of green silk fitted low over all the lights imparted to the room something of a forest's deep gloom. The haughty eyes were physically the great man's weak point. This point was  wrapped up in secrecy. When an opportunity offered, he rested them conscientiously. The Assistant Commissioner entering saw at first only a big pale hand supporting a big head, and  concealing the upper part of a big pale face. An open dispatch-box stood on the writing-table near a few oblong sheets of paper and a scattered handful of quill pens. There was absolutely  nothing else on the flat surface except a little bronze statuette draped in a toga, mysteriously watchful in in shadowy immobility. The Assistant Commissioner, invited to take a chair, sat  down. In the dim light, the salient points of his personality, the long face, the black hair, his lankness, made him look more foreign than ever.

　　The great man manifested no surprise, no eagerness, no sentiment whatever. The attitude in which he rested his menaced eyes was profoundly meditative. He did not alter it the least bit.  But his tone was not dreamy.

　　`Well! What is it that you've found out already? You came upon something unexpected on the first step.'

　　`Not exactly unexpected, Sir Ethelred. What I mainly came upon was a psychological state.'

　　The Great Presence made a slight movement. `You must be lucid, please.'

　　`Yes, Sir Ethelred. You know no doubt that most criminals at some time or other feel an irresistible need of confessing - of making a clean breast of it to somebody - to anybody. And they  do it often to the police. In that Verloc whom Heat wished so much to screen I've found a man in that particular psychological state. The man, figuratively speaking, flung himself on my  breast. It was enough on my part to whisper to him who I was and to add `I know that you are at the bottom of this affair.' It must have seemed miraculous to him that we should know  already, but he took it all in the stride. The wonderfulness of it never checked him for a moment. There remained for me only to put to him the two questions: Who put you up to it? and  Who was the man who did it? He answered the first with remarkable emphasis. As to the second question, I gather that the fellow with the bomb was his brother-in-law - quite a lad - a  weak-minded creature... It is rather a curious affair - too long perhaps to state fully just now.'

　　`What then have you learned?' asked the great man.

　　`First, I've learned that the ex-convict Michaelis had nothing to do with it, though indeed the lad had been living with him temporarily in the country up to eight o'clock this morning. It is  more than likely that Michaelis knows nothing of it to this moment.'

　　`You are positive as to that?' asked the great man.

　　`Quite certain, Sir Ethelred. This fellow Verloc went there this morning, and took away the lad on the pretence of going out for a walk in the lanes. As it was not the first time that he did  this, Michaelis could not have the slightest suspicion of anything unusual. For the rest, Sir Ethelred, the indignation of this man Verloc had left nothing in doubt - nothing whatever. He had  been driven out of his mind almost by an extraordinary performance, which for you or me it would be difficult to take as seriously meant, but which produced a great impression obviously  on him.'

　　The Assistant Commissioner then imparted briefly to the great man, who sat still, resting his eyes under the screen of his hand, Mr Verloc's appreciation of Mr Vladimir's proceedings and  character. The Assistant Commissioner did not seem to refuse it a certain amount of competency. But the great personage remarked:

　　`All this seems very fantastic.'

　　`Doesn't it? One would think a ferocious joke. But our man took it seriously, it appears. He felt himself threatened. Formerly, you know, he was in direct communication with old Stott- Wartenheim himself, and had come to regard his services as indispensable. It was an extremely rude awakening. I imagine that he lost his head. He became angry and frightened. Upon my  word, my impression is that he thought these Embassy people quite capable not only to throw him out but to give him away, too, in some manner or other--'

　　`How long were you with him?' interrupted the Presence from behind his big hand.

　　`Some forty minutes, Sir Ethelred, in a house of bad repute called Continental Hotel, closeted in a room which by-the-by I took for the night. I found him under the influence of that  reaction which follows the effort of crime. The man cannot be defined as a hardened criminal. It is obvious that he did not plan the death of that wretched lad - his brother-in-law. That was  a shock to him - I could see that. Perhaps he is a man of strong sensibilities. Perhaps he was even fond of the lad - who knows? He might have hoped that the fellow would get clear away;  in which case it would have been almost impossible to bring this thing home to anyone. At any rate, he risked consciously nothing more but arrest for him.'

　　The Assistant Commissioner paused in his speculations to reflect for a moment.

　　`Though how, in that last case, he could hope to have his own share in the business concealed is more than I can tell,' he continued, in his ignorance of poor Stevie's devotion to Mr Verloc  (who was good), and of his truly peculiar dumbness, which in the old affair of fireworks on the stairs had for many years resisted entreaties, coaxing, anger, and other means of  investigation used by his beloved sister. For Stevie was loyal... `No, 1 can't imagine. It's possible that he never thought of that at all. It sounds an extravagant way of putting it, Sir Ethelred,  but his state of dismay suggested to me an impulsive man who, after committing suicide with the notion that it would end all his troubles, had discovered that it did nothing of the kind.'

　　The Assistant Commissioner gave this definition in an apologetic voice. But in truth there is a sort of lucidity proper to extravagant language, and the great man was not offended. A slight  jerky movement of the big body half lost in the gloom of the green silk shades, of the big head leaning on the big hand, accompanied an intermittent stifled but powerful sound. The great  man had laughed.

　　`What have you done with him?'

　　The Assistant Commissioner answered very readily:

　　`As he seemed very anxious to get back to his wife in the shop I let him go, Sir Ethelred.'

　　`You did? But the fellow will disappear.'

　　`Pardon me. I don't think so. Where could he go to? Moreover, you must remember that he has got to think of the danger from his comrades, too. He's there at his post. How could he  explain leaving it? 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 tonight, and will send for you tomorrow morning. Is there anything more you'd wish to tell me now?'

　　The Assistant Commissioner had stood up also, slender and flexible.