I shrank from returning to the shop in Brighton, though it was a duty I had undertaken. The shop was part of the iniquity, and the prospect of re-opening all that business struck a chill through me, like getting into a wet shirt.
To discuss the matter with Schultz was particularly revolting, for he alone, of them all, struck me as being completely abject and unclean. Jakoub was at least a courageous scoundrel and had a dignity of his own; even Van Ermengen was probably in some respects a man. But there was that about Schultz which made me think of him as an insult to humanity.
Nevertheless, stimulated by the presence of Snape in my house, I drove over to Brighton and visited the shop.
Schultz received me with an obsequious reproachfulness in his manner that covered a hint of possible impertinence. His smooth, pink, waxen face, his curls of the barber’s block, and teeth of the dental showcase, all brought back upon me the feeling of nausea I had experienced on first seeing him.
But now there was added to this a nausea of the soul, for I knew that he regarded me, quite naturally, as a party to his foul intrigues.
Except for these sensations I was indifferent to him, for I knew that Welfare had power to keep him harmless.
I waited while he served, and doubtless swindled, a stray customer, and then went with him into the little office behind the shop.
“I have been most uneasy,” he complained, “at hearing nothing, at receiving no more stock. For weeks I have expected the consignment from Guernsey, and I have had difficulty in explaining to our London agents. See, here are their letters.”
He took a file from a shelf and pointed to letters from the people who I suppose were to have been the receivers of our contraband.
I closed the file, and pushed it back to him. “But they are indignant,” he continued; “they have received only the first consignment; our contract with them——”