Night, the inevitable reward of men’s faithful labours on this earth, night had fallen on Mr Verloc, the tried revolutionist – ‘one of the old lot’ -the humble guardian of society; the invaluable secret agent Δ of Baron Stott-Wartenheim’s dispatches; a servant of law and order, faithful, trusted, accurate, admirable, with perhaps one single amiable weakness: the idealistic belief in being loved for himself.
