The Secret Agent

Mrs Neale won't be able to come for a few days.

Her boy's sick again.

Will you be able to manage? - Yes.

Mother's been spending half-crowns and five shillings on cab fairs every day this week.

She won't give a hint of what she's up to.

I'm sure your mother's allowed to do as she pleases with her money.

It'll be for your sake, my dears.

I'll go.

Thank you.

Mr Verloc's been kind to me, but...

I'm in the way here.

And if I have a place of my own, it'll be for the best.

You're no trouble, mother.

You made the right marriage.

It's been good for Stevie.

He's quite enough to look after.

Will you be back for supper tonight? - Supper? Probably.

Stevie.

Stevie?

Stevie?

Adolf Verloc.

We're not very satisfied with the attitude of the police here.

Every country has its police.

What is required is something definite that might stimulate their vigilance.

That is your province, is it not?

The absence of repressive measures is a scandal.

In spite of appearances to the contrary we know that unrest exists.

Yes, yes, it does, undoubtedly. To a dangerous degree.

My reports for the last twelve months...

I've read them, I don't know why you wrote them.

What is required is not words

but the bringing to light of a distinct, significant fact.

Yes, well, I'll do my best.

You're getting fat.

I'm sorry for that.

I think you'd better see Mr Vladimir.

I suppose you understand French.

Er, yes, I did my military service there. I...

I was in the French artillery.

Ah, yes. You got us the design of the improved breech block on their field gun.

What did you get for that? Five years? - Five years.

You were lucky. You shouldn't have been caught.

Why did you start selling yourself?

Cherchez la femme?

She got hold of the money and sold you to the police.

You're not very clever, are you?

Are you susceptible?

I'm married.

A married anarchist!

My wife is not one!

How long have you been drawing pay from this embassy?

Since Stott-Wartenheim's time?

Eleven years.

You're an idle fellow.

Are you an anarchist? Or a socialist? - An anarchist.

I have called you here to tell you the Secret Service is not a philanthropic organisation.

What we need is activity.

If you would be good enough to look up my record.

You call yourself an agent provocateur?

The proper business of an agent provocateur is to provoke.

You have done nothing for three years.

Several times I have prevented... - We don't want prevention, we want cure.

You're too... English.

I am English.

Oh. You are English?

Yes. I am a natural born British subject.

My father was French, and so... - You were born in England?

Yes. - How absurd the English are.

This sentimental regard for individual liberty.

So you are the famous secret agent

so valuable that you appear only as a symbol in the correspondence of my predecessor.

I have been here only twice before.

Permit me to observe to you that it is not wise to call me here

especially during the day. There's a chance I might be seen.

It would destroy my usefulness.

That's your affair. When you cease to be useful, you cease to be employed.

Oh, sit down, for goodness sake.

The result of this English respect for liberty

is that London is full of revolutionaries planning criminal acts abroad.

Terrorists from my country, particularly.

Is it not easier to keep an eye on them here?

It would be easier to keep them under lock and key.

You surely agree, the middle classes here are stupid.

Oh, yes. Yes. - To tolerate the very people who drive them out of their houses

to starve in ditches. - Yes, they are.

It's vanity.

What the English need is a good scare.

Mm.

Now is the psychological moment to set your friends to work.

Report back to me with a plan.

A plan?

Yes. Why are you looking at me like that?

I mean an act of violence.

Wu Wu mm mew?

Well, I don't care who does it, I want you to organise it.

You'd better think about it and get back to me when you've got a plan.

But why?

There is this conference in Milan.

We want all European countries to crack down on these revolutionaries wherever they find them.

Unfortunately, the conference will get nowhere

because certain countries are too fond of the rights of man.

We want to administer a tonic to this conference in Milan.

We want you to do it, Verloc. Here in London.

Then perhaps our European neighbours might realise

there is only one way to deal with terror.

It will cost money.

We give you money. Don't ask for any more.

But in case you think you can carry on in the same ineffective manner

remember - we also give you protection.

Think what the consequences would be if we were to remove that protection.

If certain people were to know what kind of man you are, Verloc.

If certain people were to hear about you.

Ruthless. Ruthless. No pity for anything.

That's the kind of men I want to see.

Men who believe in death.

Look at you. You're all cynics. Pessimists.

Remember, I was in prison for 15 years.

If I was a pessimist, I would have put an end to myself.

All that is necessary is patience. Believe me.

One day the poor and the meek of the earth will inherit all its riches. You can be sure of it.

This is not a philosophy, I assure you.

It is a law of nature, and we must wait for it to happen.

Wait? No! The poor must destroy their oppressors.

And who are they? - The capitalists.

The rich invented capitalism because of their greed.

Destroy capitalism, and you destroy those who grow fat on it.

You forget that capitalism has helped to create socialism

and socialism is the great humanitarian hope of the future.

Men did not create it in their heads, history created it.

So what do we do then? We sit around and do nothing, do we?

I might as well throw all these away.

I didn't say that.

It doesn't matter sitting around educating the masses.

What matters is their emotional state.

Are they angry or hungry enough to act?

Why do we waste our time with this nonsense?

If you did not exist, Michaelis, the capitalists would create you to make their lives safer.

The rich are nourishing their greed on warm blood.

Feeding off the quivering flesh of the poor.

Time for me to go, I think.

I'm sorry to leave so early.

Probably time to break up anyway.

I hope to see you next week, yes?

Blood money. He's going to visit his patron.

You know she sent him to Marienbad for his health?

First he was arrested, then they wouldn't let him take the waters.

Winnie.

What are you doing here?

Go to bed, Stevie. Were you listening at the door?

Here. You look at this.

You are looking particularly beautiful this evening, Mrs Verloc.

I don't know what he was doing there.

He's alright, Verloc. He's a good boy.

Yes, he's an interesting case of degeneracy. Of a certain kind. Medically speaking.

- You think so, do you, Tom? - Haven't you read Lombroso?

- Look at his earlobes. You'll see. - Lombroso was a fool!

Strange contrast. Neurotioism and a bourgeois marriage.

Goodnight, Tom.

Margaret.

My dear Natalie.

Well, Henry. I shall have to call you Assistant Commissioner now.

You can call me anything you please, dear lady.

Allow me to introduce Mr Vladimir Penskov.

Vladimir has charmed us all since he was posted here.

He will tell you everything about himself.

Everything and nothing.

Is he here?

He bears himself with such grace for one who has suffered so much.

They could still drag him back to prison if it pleases them.

Surely not?

There was a great deal of popular feeling at the time, encouraged by the newspapers.

You probably don't remember. They were trying to release some comrades.

His job was to force open the door at the back of the prison van.

But one of them shot a policeman instead of the horse.

Michaelis didn't even know a man had died when they arrested him.

He can't practise a trade, his parents are dead

and the girl he was going to marry died while he was in prison.

I suppose it will embarrass Henry.

The Assistant Commissioner of Police in the same room as a notorious political criminal.

Then Henry will just have to be embarrassed.

He can usually look after himself.

Not in everything.

He is beginning to grow accustomed to the

Then Henry can afford to be civil to poor Mr Michaelis.

Is that him? - Mm. But don't stare.

He's still a little gauche. - I'm sorry.

I feel no bitterness. None whatsoever.

What happens to me as an individual doesn't matter.

Besides, I have the generosity of friends to thank.

I must go now.

Will you excuse me?

Of course.

In prison, they turn the lights out early.

Can't stay awake after nine.

I have managed to find him a small cottage in Kent where he may be in peace.

And this is supposed to be officially a revolutionist? What nonsense.

Not a dangerous one, perhaps.

I should think not, indeed.

How can such a thing be allowed to happen to an innocent man?

All that time in prison