Chapter: The Professor had turned into a street to the left, and walked along,
with his head carried rigidly erect, in a crowd whose every individual
almost overtopped his stunted stature.  It was vain to pretend to himself
that he was not disappointed.  But that was mere feeling; the stoicism of
his thought could not be disturbed by this or any other failure.  Next
time, or the time after next, a telling stroke would be
delivered--something really startling--a blow fit to open the first crack
in the imposing front of the great edifice of legal conceptions
sheltering the atrocious injustice of society.  Of humble origin, and
with an appearance really so mean as to stand in the way of his
considerable natural abilities, his imagination had been fired early by
the tales of men rising from the depths of poverty to positions of
authority and affluence.  The extreme, almost ascetic purity of his
thought, combined with an astounding ignorance of worldly conditions, had
set before him a goal of power and prestige to be attained without the
medium of arts, graces, tact, wealth--by sheer weight of merit alone.  On
that view he considered himself entitled to undisputed success.  His
father, a delicate dark enthusiast with a sloping forehead, had been an
itinerant and rousing preacher of some obscure but rigid Christian
sect--a man supremely confident in the privileges of his righteousness.
In the son, individualist by temperament, once the science of colleges
had replaced thoroughly the faith of conventicles, this moral attitude
translated itself into a frenzied puritanism of ambition.  He nursed it
as something secularly holy.  To see it thwarted opened his eyes to the
true nature of the world, whose morality was artificial, corrupt, and
blasphemous.  The way of even the most justifiable revolutions is
prepared by personal impulses disguised into creeds.  The Professor's
indignation found in itself a final cause that absolved him from the sin
of turning to destruction as the agent of his ambition.  To destroy
public faith in legality was the imperfect formula of his pedantic
fanaticism; but the subconscious conviction that the framework of an
established social order cannot be effectually shattered except by some
form of collective or individual violence was precise and correct.  He
was a moral agent--that was settled in his mind.  By exercising his
agency with ruthless defiance he procured for himself the appearances of
power and personal prestige.  That was undeniable to his vengeful
bitterness.  It pacified its unrest; and in their own way the most ardent
of revolutionaries are perhaps doing no more but seeking for peace in
common with the rest of mankind--the peace of soothed vanity, of
satisfied appetites, or perhaps of appeased conscience.

Lost in the crowd, miserable and undersized, he meditated confidently on
his power, keeping his hand in the left pocket of his trousers, grasping
lightly the india-rubber ball, the supreme guarantee of his sinister
freedom; but after a while he became disagreeably affected by the sight
of the roadway thronged with vehicles and of the pavement crowded with
men and women.  He was in a long, straight street, peopled by a mere
fraction of an immense multitude; but all round him, on and on, even to
the limits of the horizon hidden by the enormous piles of bricks, he felt
the mass of mankind mighty in its numbers.  They swarmed numerous like
locusts, industrious like ants, thoughtless like a natural force, pushing
on blind and orderly and absorbed, impervious to sentiment, to logic, to
terror too perhaps.

That was the form of doubt he feared most.  Impervious to fear!  Often
while walking abroad, when he happened also to come out of himself, he
had such moments of dreadful and sane mistrust of mankind.  What if
nothing could move them?  Such moments come to all men whose ambition
aims at a direct grasp upon humanity--to artists, politicians, thinkers,
reformers, or saints.  A despicable emotional state this, against which
solitude fortifies a superior character; and with severe exultation the
Professor thought of the refuge of his room, with its padlocked cupboard,
lost in a wilderness of poor houses, the hermitage of the perfect
anarchist.  In order to reach sooner the point where he could take his
omnibus, he turned brusquely out of the populous street into a narrow and
dusky alley paved with flagstones.  On one side the low brick houses had
in their dusty windows the sightless, moribund look of incurable
decay--empty shells awaiting demolition.  From the other side life had
not departed wholly as yet.  Facing the only gas-lamp yawned the cavern
of a second-hand furniture dealer, where, deep in the gloom of a sort of
narrow avenue winding through a bizarre forest of wardrobes, with an
undergrowth tangle of table legs, a tall pier-glass glimmered like a pool
of water in a wood.  An unhappy, homeless couch, accompanied by two
unrelated chairs, stood in the open.  The only human being making use of
the alley besides the Professor, coming stalwart and erect from the
opposite direction, checked his swinging pace suddenly.

"Hallo!" he said, and stood a little on one side watchfully.

The Professor had already stopped, with a ready half turn which brought
his shoulders very near the other wall.  His right hand fell lightly on
the back of the outcast couch, the left remained purposefully plunged
deep in the trousers pocket, and the roundness of the heavy rimmed
spectacles imparted an owlish character to his moody, unperturbed face.

It was like a meeting in a side corridor of a mansion full of life.  The
stalwart man was buttoned up in a dark overcoat, and carried an umbrella.
His hat, tilted back, uncovered a good deal of forehead, which appeared
very white in the dusk.  In the dark patches of the orbits the eyeballs
glimmered piercingly.  Long, drooping moustaches, the colour of ripe
corn, framed with their points the square block of his shaved chin.

"I am not looking for you," he said curtly.

The Professor did not stir an inch.  The blended noises of the enormous
town sank down to an inarticulate low murmur.  Chief Inspector Heat of
the Special Crimes Department changed his tone.

"Not in a hurry to get home?" he asked, with mocking simplicity.

The unwholesome-looking little moral agent of destruction exulted
silently in the possession of personal prestige, keeping in check this
man armed with the defensive mandate of a menaced society.  More
fortunate than Caligula, who wished that the Roman Senate had only one
head for the better satisfaction of his cruel lust, he beheld in that one
man all the forces he had set at defiance: the force of law, property,
oppression, and injustice.  He beheld all his enemies, and fearlessly
confronted them all in a supreme satisfaction of his vanity.  They stood
perplexed before him as if before a dreadful portent.  He gloated
inwardly over the chance of this meeting affirming his superiority over
all the multitude of mankind.

It was in reality a chance meeting.  Chief Inspector Heat had had a
disagreeably busy day since his department received the first telegram
from Greenwich a little before eleven in the morning.  First of all, the
fact of the outrage being attempted less than a week after he had assured
a high official that no outbreak of anarchist activity was to be
apprehended was sufficiently annoying.  If he ever thought himself safe
in making a statement, it was then.  He had made that statement with
infinite satisfaction to himself, because it was clear that the high
official desired greatly to hear that very thing.  He had affirmed that
nothing of the sort could even be thought of without the department being
aware of it within twenty-four hours; and he had spoken thus in his
consciousness of being the great expert of his department.  He had gone
even so far as to utter words which true wisdom would have kept back.
But Chief Inspector Heat was not very wise--at least not truly so.  True
wisdom, which is not certain of anything in this world of contradictions,
would have prevented him from attaining his present position.  It would
have alarmed his superiors, and done away with his chances of promotion.
His promotion had been very rapid.

"There isn't one of them, sir, that we couldn't lay our hands on at any
time of night and day.  We know what each of them is doing hour by hour,"
he had declared.  And the high official had deigned to smile.  This was
so obviously the right thing to say for an officer of Chief Inspector
Heat's reputation that it was perfectly delightful.  The high official
believed the declaration, which chimed in with his idea of the fitness of
things.  His wisdom was of an official kind, or else he might have
reflected upon a matter not of theory but of experience that in the
close-woven stuff of relations between conspirator and police there occur
unexpected solutions of continuity, sudden holes in space and time.  A
given anarchist may be watched inch by inch and minute by minute, but a
moment always comes when somehow all sight and touch of him are lost for
a few hours, during which something (generally an explosion) more or less
deplorable does happen.  But the high official, carried away by his sense
of the fitness of things, had smiled, and now the recollection of that
smile was very annoying to Chief Inspector Heat, principal expert in
anarchist procedure.

This was not the only circumstance whose recollection depressed the usual
serenity of the eminent specialist.  There was another dating back only
to that very morning.  The thought that when called urgently to his
Assistant Commissioner's private room he had been unable to conceal his
astonishment was distinctly vexing.  His instinct of a successful man had
taught him long ago that, as a general rule, a reputation is built on
manner as much as on achievement.  And he felt that his manner when
confronted with the telegram had not been impressive.  He had opened his
eyes widely, and had exclaimed "Impossible!" exposing himself thereby to
the unanswerable retort of a finger-tip laid forcibly on the telegram
which the Assistant Commissioner, after reading it aloud, had flung on
the desk.  To be crushed, as it were, under the tip of a forefinger was
an unpleasant experience.  Very damaging, too!  Furthermore, Chief
Inspector Heat was conscious of not having mended matters by allowing
himself to express a conviction.

"One thing I can tell you at once: none of our lot had anything to do
with this."

He was strong in his integrity of a good detective, but he saw now that
an impenetrably attentive reserve towards this incident would have served
his reputation better.  On the other hand, he admitted to himself that it
was difficult to preserve one's reputation if rank outsiders were going
to take a hand in the business.  Outsiders are the bane of the police as
of other professions.  The tone of the Assistant Commissioner's remarks
had been sour enough to set one's teeth on edge.

And since breakfast Chief Inspector Heat had not managed to get anything
to eat.

Starting immediately to begin his investigation on the spot, he had
swallowed a good deal of raw, unwholesome fog in the park.  Then he had
walked over to the hospital; and when the investigation in Greenwich was
concluded at last he had lost his inclination for food.  Not accustomed,
as the doctors are, to examine closely the mangled remains of human
beings, he had been shocked by the sight disclosed to his view when a
waterproof sheet had been lifted off a table in a certain apartment of
the hospital.

Another waterproof sheet was spread over that table in the manner of a
table-cloth, with the corners turned up over a sort of mound--a heap of
rags, scorched and bloodstained, half concealing what might have been an
accumulation of raw material for a cannibal feast.  It required
considerable firmness of mind not to recoil before that sight.  Chief
Inspector Heat, an efficient officer of his department, stood his ground,
but for a whole minute he did not advance.  A local constable in uniform
cast a sidelong glance, and said, with stolid simplicity:

"He's all there.  Every bit of him.  It was a job."

He had been the first man on the spot after the explosion.  He mentioned
the fact again.  He had seen something like a heavy flash of lightning in
the fog.  At that time he was standing at the door of the King William
Street Lodge talking to the keeper.  The concussion made him tingle all
over.  He ran between the trees towards the Observatory.  "As fast as my
legs would carry me," he repeated twice.

Chief Inspector Heat, bending forward over the table in a gingerly and
horrified manner, let him run on.  The hospital porter and another man
turned down the corners of the cloth, and stepped aside.  The Chief
Inspector's eyes searched the gruesome detail of that heap of mixed
things, which seemed to have been collected in shambles and rag shops.

"You used a shovel," he remarked, observing a sprinkling of small gravel,
tiny brown bits of bark, and particles of splintered wood as fine as
needles.

"Had to in one place," said the stolid constable.  "I sent a keeper to
fetch a spade.  When he heard me scraping the ground with it he leaned
his forehead against a tree, and was as sick as a dog."

The Chief Inspector, stooping guardedly over the table, fought down the
unpleasant sensation in his throat.  The shattering violence of
destruction which had made of that body a heap of nameless fragments
affected his feelings with a sense of ruthless cruelty, though his reason
told him the effect must have been as swift as a flash of lightning.  The
man, whoever he was, had died instantaneously; and yet it seemed
impossible to believe that a human body could have reached that state of
disintegration without passing through the pangs of inconceivable agony.
No physiologist, and still less of a metaphysician, Chief Inspector Heat
rose by the force of sympathy, which is a form of fear, above the vulgar
conception of time.  Instantaneous!  He remembered all he had ever read
in popular publications of long and terrifying dreams dreamed in the
instant of waking; of the whole past life lived with frightful intensity
by a drowning man as his doomed head bobs up, streaming, for the last
time.  The inexplicable mysteries of conscious existence beset Chief
Inspector Heat till he evolved a horrible notion that ages of atrocious
pain and mental torture could be contained between two successive winks
of an eye.  And meantime the Chief Inspector went on, peering at the
table with a calm face and the slightly anxious attention of an indigent
customer bending over what may be called the by-products of a butcher's
shop with a view to an inexpensive Sunday dinner.  All the time his
trained faculties of an excellent investigator, who scorns no chance of
information, followed the self-satisfied, disjointed loquacity of the
constable.

"A fair-haired fellow," the last observed in a placid tone, and paused.
"The old woman who spoke to the sergeant noticed a fair-haired fellow
coming out of Maze Hill Station."  He paused.  "And he was a fair-haired
fellow.  She noticed two men coming out of the station after the uptrain
had gone on," he continued slowly.  "She couldn't tell if they were
together.  She took no particular notice of the big one, but the other
was a fair, slight chap, carrying a tin varnish can in one hand."  The
constable ceased.

"Know the woman?" muttered the Chief Inspector, with his eyes fixed on
the table, and a vague notion in his mind of an inquest to be held
presently upon a person likely to remain for ever unknown.

"Yes.  She's housekeeper to a retired publican, and attends the chapel in
Park Place sometimes," the constable uttered weightily, and paused, with
another oblique glance at the table.

Then suddenly: "Well, here he is--all of him I could see.  Fair.
Slight--slight enough.  Look at that foot there.  I picked up the legs
first, one after another.  He was that scattered you didn't know where to
begin."

The constable paused; the least flicker of an innocent self-laudatory
smile invested his round face with an infantile expression.

"Stumbled," he announced positively.  "I stumbled once myself, and
pitched on my head too, while running up.  Them roots do stick out all
about the place.  Stumbled against the root of a tree and fell, and that
thing he was carrying must have gone off right under his chest, I
expect."

The echo of the words "Person unknown" repeating itself in his inner
consciousness bothered the Chief Inspector considerably.  He would have
liked to trace this affair back to its mysterious origin for his own
information.  He was professionally curious.  Before the public he would
have liked to vindicate the efficiency of his department by establishing
the identity of that man.  He was a loyal servant.  That, however,
appeared impossible.  The first term of the problem was
unreadable--lacked all suggestion but that of atrocious cruelty.

Overcoming his physical repugnance, Chief Inspector Heat stretched out
his hand without conviction for the salving of his conscience, and took
up the least soiled of the rags.  It was a narrow strip of velvet with a
larger triangular piece of dark blue cloth hanging from it.  He held it
up to his eyes; and the police constable spoke.

"Velvet collar.  Funny the old woman should have noticed the velvet
collar.  Dark blue overcoat with a velvet collar, she has told us.  He
was the chap she saw, and no mistake.  And here he is all complete,
velvet collar and all.  I don't think I missed a single piece as big as a
postage stamp."

At this point the trained faculties of the Chief Inspector ceased to hear
the voice of the constable.  He moved to one of the windows for better
light.  His face, averted from the room, expressed a startled intense
interest while he examined closely the triangular piece of broad-cloth.
By a sudden jerk he detached it, and _only_ after stuffing it into his
pocket turned round to the room, and flung the velvet collar back on the
table--

"Cover up," he directed the attendants curtly, without another look, and,
saluted by the constable, carried off his spoil hastily.

A convenient train whirled him up to town, alone and pondering deeply, in
a third-class compartment.  That singed piece of cloth was incredibly
valuable, and he could not defend himself from astonishment at the casual
manner it had come into his possession.  It was as if Fate had thrust
that clue into his hands.  And after the manner of the average man, whose
ambition is to command events, he began to mistrust such a gratuitous and
accidental success--just because it seemed forced upon him.  The
practical value of success depends not a little on the way you look at
it.  But Fate looks at nothing.  It has no discretion.  He no longer
considered it eminently desirable all round to establish publicly the
identity of the man who had blown himself up that morning with such
horrible completeness.  But he was not certain of the view his department
would take.  A department is to those it employs a complex personality
with ideas and even fads of its own.  It depends on the loyal devotion of
its servants, and the devoted loyalty of trusted servants is associated
with a certain amount of affectionate contempt, which keeps it sweet, as
it were.  By a benevolent provision of Nature no man is a hero to his
valet, or else the heroes would have to brush their own clothes.
Likewise no department appears perfectly wise to the intimacy of its
workers.  A department does not know so much as some of its servants.
Being a dispassionate organism, it can never be perfectly informed.  It
would not be good for its efficiency to know too much.  Chief Inspector
Heat got out of the train in a state of thoughtfulness entirely untainted
with disloyalty, but not quite free of that jealous mistrust which so
often springs on the ground of perfect devotion, whether to women or to
institutions.

It was in this mental disposition, physically very empty, but still
nauseated by what he had seen, that he had come upon the Professor.
Under these conditions which make for irascibility in a sound, normal
man, this meeting was specially unwelcome to Chief Inspector Heat.  He
had not been thinking of the Professor; he had not been thinking of any
individual anarchist at all.  The complexion of that case had somehow
forced upon him the general idea of the absurdity of things human, which
in the abstract is sufficiently annoying to an unphilosophical
temperament, and in concrete instances becomes exasperating beyond
endurance.  At the beginning of his career Chief Inspector Heat had been
concerned with the more energetic forms of thieving.  He had gained his
spurs in that sphere, and naturally enough had kept for it, after his
promotion to another department, a feeling not very far removed from
affection.  Thieving was not a sheer absurdity.  It was a form of human
industry, perverse indeed, but still an industry exercised in an
industrious world; it was work undertaken for the same reason as the work
in potteries, in coal mines, in fields, in tool-grinding shops.  It was
labour, whose practical difference from the other forms of labour
consisted in the nature of its risk, which did not lie in ankylosis, or
lead poisoning, or fire-damp, or gritty dust, but in what may be briefly
defined in its own special phraseology as "Seven years hard."  Chief
Inspector Heat was, of course, not insensible to the gravity of moral
differences.  But neither were the thieves he had been looking after.
They submitted to the severe sanctions of a morality familiar to Chief
Inspector Heat with a certain resignation.

They were his fellow-citizens gone wrong because of imperfect education,
Chief Inspector Heat believed; but allowing for that difference, he could
understand the mind of a burglar, because, as a matter of fact, the mind
and the instincts of a burglar are of the same kind as the mind and the
instincts of a police officer.  Both recognise the same conventions, and
have a working knowledge of each other's methods and of the routine of
their respective trades.  They understand each other, which is
advantageous to both, and establishes a sort of amenity in their
relations.  Products of the same machine, one classed as useful and the
other as noxious, they take the machine for granted in different ways,
but with a seriousness essentially the same.  The mind of Chief Inspector
Heat was inaccessible to ideas of revolt.  But his thieves were not
rebels.  His bodily vigour, his cool inflexible manner, his courage and
his fairness, had secured for him much respect and some adulation in the
sphere of his early successes.  He had felt himself revered and admired.
And Chief Inspector Heat, arrested within six paces of the anarchist
nick-named the Professor, gave a thought of regret to the world of
thieves--sane, without morbid ideals, working by routine, respectful of
constituted authorities, free from all taint of hate and despair.

After paying this tribute to what is normal in the constitution of
society (for the idea of thieving appeared to his instinct as normal as
the idea of property), Chief Inspector Heat felt very angry with himself
for having stopped, for having spoken, for having taken that way at all
on the ground of it being a short cut from the station to the
headquarters.  And he spoke again in his big authoritative voice, which,
being moderated, had a threatening character.

"You are not wanted, I tell you," he repeated.

The anarchist did not stir.  An inward laugh of derision uncovered not
only his teeth but his gums as well, shook him all over, without the
slightest sound.  Chief Inspector Heat was led to add, against his better
judgment:

"Not yet.  When I want you I will know where to find you."

Those were perfectly proper words, within the tradition and suitable to
his character of a police officer addressing one of his special flock.
But the reception they got departed from tradition and propriety.  It was
outrageous.  The stunted, weakly figure before him spoke at last.

"I've no doubt the papers would give you an obituary notice then.  You
know best what that would be worth to you.  I should think you can
imagine easily the sort of stuff that would be printed.  But you may be
exposed to the unpleasantness of being buried together with me, though I
suppose your friends would make an effort to sort us out as much as
possible."

With all his healthy contempt for the spirit dictating such speeches, the
atrocious allusiveness of the words had its effect on Chief Inspector
Heat.  He had too much insight, and too much exact information as well,
to dismiss them as rot.  The dusk of this narrow lane took on a sinister
tint from the dark, frail little figure, its back to the wall, and
speaking with a weak, self-confident voice.  To the vigorous, tenacious
vitality of the Chief Inspector, the physical wretchedness of that being,
so obviously not fit to live, was ominous; for it seemed to him that if
he had the misfortune to be such a miserable object he would not have
cared how soon he died.  Life had such a strong hold upon him that a
fresh wave of nausea broke out in slight perspiration upon his brow.  The
murmur of town life, the subdued rumble of wheels in the two invisible
streets to the right and left, came through the curve of the sordid lane
to his ears with a precious familiarity and an appealing sweetness.  He
was human.  But Chief Inspector Heat was also a man, and he could not let
such words pass.

"All this is good to frighten children with," he said.  "I'll have you
yet."

It was very well said, without scorn, with an almost austere quietness.

"Doubtless," was the answer; "but there's no time like the present,
believe me.  For a man of real convictions this is a fine opportunity of
self-sacrifice.  You may not find another so favourable, so humane.
There isn't even a cat near us, and these condemned old houses would make
a good heap of bricks where you stand.  You'll never get me at so little
cost to life and property, which you are paid to protect."

"You don't know who you're speaking to," said Chief Inspector Heat
firmly.  "If I were to lay my hands on you now I would be no better than
yourself."

"Ah!  The game!'

"You may be sure our side will win in the end.  It may yet be necessary
to make people believe that some of you ought to be shot at sight like
mad dogs.  Then that will be the game.  But I'll be damned if I know what
yours is.  I don't believe you know yourselves.  You'll never get
anything by it."

"Meantime it's you who get something from it--so far.  And you get it
easily, too.  I won't speak of your salary, but haven't you made your
name simply by not understanding what we are after?"

"What are you after, then?" asked Chief Inspector Heat, with scornful
haste, like a man in a hurry who perceives he is wasting his time.

The perfect anarchist answered by a smile which did not part his thin
colourless lips; and the celebrated Chief Inspector felt a sense of
superiority which induced him to raise a warning finger.

"Give it up--whatever it is," he said in an admonishing tone, but not so
kindly as if he were condescending to give good advice to a cracksman of
repute.  "Give it up.  You'll find we are too many for you."

The fixed smile on the Professor's lips wavered, as if the mocking spirit
within had lost its assurance.  Chief Inspector Heat went on:

"Don't you believe me eh?  Well, you've only got to look about you.  We
are.  And anyway, you're not doing it well.  You're always making a mess
of it.  Why, if the thieves didn't know their work better they would
starve."

The hint of an invincible multitude behind that man's back roused a
sombre indignation in the breast of the Professor.  He smiled no longer
his enigmatic and mocking smile.  The resisting power of numbers, the
unattackable stolidity of a great multitude, was the haunting fear of his
sinister loneliness.  His lips trembled for some time before he managed
to say in a strangled voice:

"I am doing my work better than you're doing yours."

"That'll do now," interrupted Chief Inspector Heat hurriedly; and the
Professor laughed right out this time.  While still laughing he moved on;
but he did not laugh long.  It was a sad-faced, miserable little man who
emerged from the narrow passage into the bustle of the broad
thoroughfare.  He walked with the nerveless gait of a tramp going on,
still going on, indifferent to rain or sun in a sinister detachment from
the aspects of sky and earth.  Chief Inspector Heat, on the other hand,
after watching him for a while, stepped out with the purposeful briskness
of a man disregarding indeed the inclemencies of the weather, but
conscious of having an authorised mission on this earth and the moral
support of his kind.  All the inhabitants of the immense town, the
population of the whole country, and even the teeming millions struggling
upon the planet, were with him--down to the very thieves and mendicants.
Yes, the thieves themselves were sure to be with him in his present work.
The consciousness of universal support in his general activity heartened
him to grapple with the particular problem.

The problem immediately before the Chief Inspector was that of managing
the Assistant Commissioner of his department, his immediate superior.
This is the perennial problem of trusty and loyal servants; anarchism
gave it its particular complexion, but nothing more.  Truth to say, Chief
Inspector Heat thought but little of anarchism.  He did not attach undue
importance to it, and could never bring himself to consider it seriously.
It had more the character of disorderly conduct; disorderly without the
human excuse of drunkenness, which at any rate implies good feeling and
an amiable leaning towards festivity.  As criminals, anarchists were
distinctly no class--no class at all.  And recalling the Professor, Chief
Inspector Heat, without checking his swinging pace, muttered through his
teeth:

"Lunatic."

Catching thieves was another matter altogether.  It had that quality of
seriousness belonging to every form of open sport where the best man wins
under perfectly comprehensible rules.  There were no rules for dealing
with anarchists.  And that was distasteful to the Chief Inspector.  It
was all foolishness, but that foolishness excited the public mind,
affected persons in high places, and touched upon international
relations.  A hard, merciless contempt settled rigidly on the Chief
Inspector's face as he walked on.  His mind ran over all the anarchists
of his flock.  Not one of them had half the spunk of this or that burglar
he had known.  Not half--not one-tenth.

At headquarters the Chief Inspector was admitted at once to the Assistant
Commissioner's private room.  He found him, pen in hand, bent over a
great table bestrewn with papers, as if worshipping an enormous double
inkstand of bronze and crystal.  Speaking tubes resembling snakes were
tied by the heads to the back of the Assistant Commissioner's wooden
arm-chair, and their gaping mouths seemed ready to bite his elbows.  And
in this attitude he raised only his eyes, whose lids were darker than his
face and very much creased.  The reports had come in: every anarchist had
been exactly accounted for.

After saying this he lowered his eyes, signed rapidly two single sheets
of paper, and only then laid down his pen, and sat well back, directing
an inquiring gaze at his renowned subordinate.  The Chief Inspector stood
it well, deferential but inscrutable.

"I daresay you were right," said the Assistant Commissioner, "in telling
me at first that the London anarchists had nothing to do with this.  I
quite appreciate the excellent watch kept on them by your men.  On the
other hand, this, for the public, does not amount to more than a
confession of ignorance."

The Assistant Commissioner's delivery was leisurely, as it were cautious.
His thought seemed to rest poised on a word before passing to another, as
though words had been the stepping-stones for his intellect picking its
way across the waters of error.  "Unless you have brought something
useful from Greenwich," he added.

The Chief Inspector began at once the account of his investigation in a
clear matter-of-fact manner.  His superior turning his chair a little,
and crossing his thin legs, leaned sideways on his elbow, with one hand
shading his eyes.  His listening attitude had a sort of angular and
sorrowful grace.  Gleams as of highly burnished silver played on the
sides of his ebony black head when he inclined it slowly at the end.

Chief Inspector Heat waited with the appearance of turning over in his
mind all he had just said, but, as a matter of fact, considering the
advisability of saying something more.  The Assistant Commissioner cut
his hesitation short.

"You believe there were two men?" he asked, without uncovering his eyes.

The Chief Inspector thought it more than probable.  In his opinion, the
two men had parted from each other within a hundred yards from the
Observatory walls.  He explained also how the other man could have got
out of the park speedily without being observed.  The fog, though not
very dense, was in his favour.  He seemed to have escorted the other to
the spot, and then to have left him there to do the job single-handed.
Taking the time those two were seen coming out of Maze Hill Station by
the old woman, and the time when the explosion was heard, the Chief
Inspector thought that the other man might have been actually at the
Greenwich Park Station, ready to catch the next train up, at the moment
his comrade was destroying himself so thoroughly.

"Very thoroughly--eh?" murmured the Assistant Commissioner from under the
shadow of his hand.

The Chief Inspector in a few vigorous words described the aspect of the
remains.  "The coroner's jury will have a treat," he added grimly.

The Assistant Commissioner uncovered his eyes.

"We shall have nothing to tell them," he remarked languidly.

He looked up, and for a time watched the markedly non-committal attitude
of his Chief Inspector.  His nature was one that is not easily accessible
to illusions.  He knew that a department is at the mercy of its
subordinate officers, who have their own conceptions of loyalty.  His
career had begun in a tropical colony.  He had liked his work there.  It
was police work.  He had been very successful in tracking and breaking up
certain nefarious secret societies amongst the natives.  Then he took his
long leave, and got married rather impulsively.  It was a good match from
a worldly point of view, but his wife formed an unfavourable opinion of
the colonial climate on hearsay evidence.  On the other hand, she had
influential connections.  It was an excellent match.  But he did not like
the work he had to do now.  He felt himself dependent on too many
subordinates and too many masters.  The near presence of that strange
emotional phenomenon called public opinion weighed upon his spirits, and
alarmed him by its irrational nature.  No doubt that from ignorance he
exaggerated to himself its power for good and evil--especially for evil;
and the rough east winds of the English spring (which agreed with his
wife) augmented his general mistrust of men's motives and of the
efficiency of their organisation.  The futility of office work especially
appalled him on those days so trying to his sensitive liver.

He got up, unfolding himself to his full height, and with a heaviness of
step remarkable in so slender a man, moved across the room to the window.
The panes streamed with rain, and the short street he looked down into
lay wet and empty, as if swept clear suddenly by a great flood.  It was a
very trying day, choked in raw fog to begin with, and now drowned in cold
rain.  The flickering, blurred flames of gas-lamps seemed to be
dissolving in a watery atmosphere.  And the lofty pretensions of a
mankind oppressed by the miserable indignities of the weather appeared as
a colossal and hopeless vanity deserving of scorn, wonder, and
compassion.

"Horrible, horrible!" thought the Assistant Commissioner to himself, with
his face near the window-pane.  "We have been having this sort of thing
now for ten days; no, a fortnight--a fortnight."  He ceased to think
completely for a time.  That utter stillness of his brain lasted about
three seconds.  Then he said perfunctorily: "You have set inquiries on
foot for tracing that other man up and down the line?"

He had no doubt that everything needful had been done.  Chief Inspector
Heat knew, of course, thoroughly the business of man-hunting.  And these
were the routine steps, too, that would be taken as a matter of course by
the merest beginner.  A few inquiries amongst the ticket collectors and
the porters of the two small railway stations would give additional
details as to the appearance of the two men; the inspection of the
collected tickets would show at once where they came from that morning.
It was elementary, and could not have been neglected.  Accordingly the
Chief Inspector answered that all this had been done directly the old
woman had come forward with her deposition.  And he mentioned the name of
a station.  "That's where they came from, sir," he went on.  "The porter
who took the tickets at Maze Hill remembers two chaps answering to the
description passing the barrier.  They seemed to him two respectable
working men of a superior sort--sign painters or house decorators.  The
big man got out of a third-class compartment backward, with a bright tin
can in his hand.  On the platform he gave it to carry to the fair young
fellow who followed him.  All this agrees exactly with what the old woman
told the police sergeant in Greenwich."

The Assistant Commissioner, still with his face turned to the window,
expressed his doubt as to these two men having had anything to do with
the outrage.  All this theory rested upon the utterances of an old
charwoman who had been nearly knocked down by a man in a hurry.  Not a
very substantial authority indeed, unless on the ground of sudden
inspiration, which was hardly tenable.

"Frankly now, could she have been really inspired?" he queried, with
grave irony, keeping his back to the room, as if entranced by the
contemplation of the town's colossal forms half lost in the night.  He
did not even look round when he heard the mutter of the word
"Providential" from the principal subordinate of his department, whose
name, printed sometimes in the papers, was familiar to the great public
as that of one of its zealous and hard-working protectors.  Chief
Inspector Heat raised his voice a little.

"Strips and bits of bright tin were quite visible to me," he said.
"That's a pretty good corroboration."

"And these men came from that little country station," the Assistant
Commissioner mused aloud, wondering.  He was told that such was the name
on two tickets out of three given up out of that train at Maze Hill.  The
third person who got out was a hawker from Gravesend well known to the
porters.  The Chief Inspector imparted that information in a tone of
finality with some ill humour, as loyal servants will do in the
consciousness of their fidelity and with the sense of the value of their
loyal exertions.  And still the Assistant Commissioner did not turn away
from the darkness outside, as vast as a sea.

"Two foreign anarchists coming from that place," he said, apparently to
the window-pane.  "It's rather unaccountable."'

"Yes, sir.  But it would be still more unaccountable if that Michaelis
weren't staying in a cottage in the neighbourhood."

At the sound of that name, falling unexpectedly into this annoying
affair, the Assistant Commissioner dismissed brusquely the vague
remembrance of his daily whist party at his club.  It was the most
comforting habit of his life, in a mainly successful display of his skill
without the assistance of any subordinate.  He entered his club to play
from five to seven, before going home to dinner, forgetting for those two
hours whatever was distasteful in his life, as though the game were a
beneficent drug for allaying the pangs of moral discontent.  His partners
were the gloomily humorous editor of a celebrated magazine; a silent,
elderly barrister with malicious little eyes; and a highly martial,
simple-minded old Colonel with nervous brown hands.  They were his club
acquaintances merely.  He never met them elsewhere except at the
card-table.  But they all seemed to approach the game in the spirit of
co-sufferers, as if it were indeed a drug against the secret ills of
existence; and every day as the sun declined over the countless roofs of
the town, a mellow, pleasurable impatience, resembling the impulse of a
sure and profound friendship, lightened his professional labours.  And
now this pleasurable sensation went out of him with something resembling
a physical shock, and was replaced by a special kind of interest in his
work of social protection--an improper sort of interest, which may be
defined best as a sudden and alert mistrust of the weapon in his hand.

 Chapter Five follows the Professor after he has left the Silenus Restaurant. Right away, he becomes self-conscious about how short he is in the London crowd, but reassures himself by feeling the rubber ball in his pocket and fantasizing about all the people he could blow up if he chose to. Here, the narrator gives us a little more background on the Professor, saying that he is "of humble origin" and that because of his smallness and general ugliness, "his imagination had been fired early by the tales of men rising from the depths of poverty to positions of authority and affluence" . It's all well and good to want to rise up in the world, but the Professor's ambition has gone a little off the rails because of his "astounding ignorance of worldly conditions" . In other words, the Professor knows that he wants to be great, but doesn't know how to go about achieving it. So he doesn't plan on proving his greatness to people through "arts, graces, tact, wealth," but by "sheer weight of merit alone" . The Professor thinks that greatness is something that just exists inside him, and other people should acknowledge this fact whether he's good at anything or not. His idea of his own greatness is a total fantasy, and the fact that he's willing to die for this fantasy is what generally makes him a psychopath. But the Professor temporarily loses his sense of greatness when he's walking among the massive crowds of London, which make him feel "miserable and undersized" . It's not just for physical reasons that he feels small, but emotional ones too. Because, deep down, the Professor wants the world to acknowledge him as a superior person, but when he gazes around the crowds of London, he is terrified that the people of the crowds are "thoughtless like a natural force, pushing on blind and orderly and absorbed, impervious to sentiment, to logic, to terror, too, perhaps" . Sure, he could blow himself up, but people would forget about him after a few weeks. This realization makes the Professor very anxious, and he yearns for "the refuge of his room" . Getting away from the crowds and being alone would allow him to rebuild the fantasy of his greatness in peace. To escape the crowd, he cuts down an alley and runs into Chief Inspector Heat of London's Special Crime Department. The Professor regains his courage, seeing that Heat is afraid of him. This is the Professor's rock-star moment. The perspective shifts to Inspector Heat, who's already having a bad day. He basically guaranteed his boss that there wouldn't be any anarchist attacks on London, and now bam, someone's gone and blown himself up in Greenwich Park. Heat is sure that his men have been keeping a close watch on all known anarchists. As if things couldn't get any worse, Heat recalls how he had to visit Greenwich earlier in the day to examine the remains of the bomber, who after the bomb went off looked like "an accumulation of raw material for a cannibal feast" . Blegh. A local constable stands with Heat as he examines the remains. This constable is the guy who was first on the scene and who collected all of the bomber's body parts with a shovel. For a guy who just did such a gruesome job, this constable is actually pretty chatty. Inspector Heat knows that the dead man must have died instantly, but can't look at the chunks of charred flesh without thinking that the dude must have suffered intense anguish. He wonders if time slows down for people when they die, or if people can endure a lifetime of pain in the single second it takes for them to die. Yes, this novel just keeps getting cheerier and cheerier. The constable tells Heat that the dead man was "a fair-haired fellow" . An old woman has confirmed this by saying that she saw two men leave a train at a rural station called Maze Hill. One was chubbier, the other skinny, and the skinny one was carrying a "tin varnish can" in one hand. This is the exact type of can that the Professor described to Ossipon as being the case for his bomb. The constable says that the skinny person must have set off his bomb by stumbling over the exposed tree roots that are all over the Greenwich Park. The roots are easy to trip over, and it's a foggy day, so they'd be tough to see. Even though he's grossed out, Inspector Heat reaches into the chunks of flesh and pulls out "a narrow strip of velvet with a larger triangular piece of dark blue cloth hanging from it" . While the constable continues to talk, Heat goes over to a window and examines something hanging from the piece of cloth. With a quick jerk, he detaches the piece he's examining and secretly shoves it into his pocket. After this, he grabs a train back into the heart of London. It's on his way back to the police headquarters that Heat has run into the Professor. Heat tells the Professor that sooner or later, he's going to take out the little squirt. The Professor responds by saying that he hopes Inspector Heat doesn't mind the two of them being buried together, since people will never be able to sort out their chunks if the Professor decided to set off his bomb. Heat says that he's not afraid of the Professor. The Professor glances around, and seeing no one else, tells Heat to go ahead, since he might never have a better opportunity to take him out without killing other people in the process. Heat replies that at the end of the day, the side he's on will win the battle against the Professor and men like him. The Professor stays pretty cocky through all this, until Heat remarks, "You'll find we are too many for you" . This appeal to the masses of London puts the Professor back where he was when he felt surrounded by the London "multitudes." There's something about the idea of multitudes that undermines his fantasy of being a great individual. As Conrad tells us, "he resisting power of numbers, the unattackable stolidity of a great multitude, the haunting fear of his sinister loneliness" . With this, the conversation breaks off, and Inspector Heat walks away feeling better about himself than the Professor does. Heat: 1, Professor: 0 When he gets back to headquarters, Heat visits the office of the Assistant Commissioner. The Assistant Commissioner starts by saying that Heat was right, and that none of the anarchists under police watch were the ones who committed the crime. Inspector Heat delivers all the information he's collected so far, but leaves out the detail about the piece of cloth he retrieved from the body. It turns out that the second man at the scene carried the varnish can out of the train at Greenwich Park Station and gave it to the skinnier one to go ahead and do the job alone. The Assistant Commissioner questions the reliability of the old woman who described these two men, considering that the day was really foggy. But Inspector Heat says that there are people at the train station who can back up her description. The Assistant Commissioner walks over to the window and complains about how wet the London weather has been for the past few weeks . Heat gives the official description of the two men, who seem like "two respectable working-men of a superior sort--sign painters or house decorators" . The Assistant Commissioner is still not very convinced, because if every London anarchist is accounted for, the two men must be foreign terrorists. And there is a really low chance of two foreign terrorists boarding a train at Maze Hill, which is a tiny country station. Heat says that yes, this would be unusual, if Maze Hill weren't exactly where the convicted radical Michaelis was known to be living! Cue the ominous music.

