“The police! Do you mean to say the police came already? That Chief Inspector Heat himself actually came to tell you.”
“Yes,” she confirmed in the same listless tone. “He came just like this. He came. I didn’t know. He showed me a piece of overcoat, and—just like that. Do you know this? he says.”
“Heat! Heat! And what did he do?”
Mrs Verloc’s head dropped. “Nothing. He did nothing. He went away. The police were on that man’s side,” she murmured tragically. “Another one came too.”
“Another—another inspector, do you mean?” asked Ossipon, in great excitement, and very much in the tone of a scared child.
“I don’t know. He came. He looked like a foreigner. He may have been one of them Embassy people.”
Comrade Ossipon nearly collapsed under this new shock.
“Embassy! Are you aware what you are saying? What Embassy? What on earth do you mean by Embassy?”
“It’s that place in Chesham Square. The people he cursed so. I don’t know. What does it matter!”
“And that fellow, what did he do or say to you?”