Mrs Verloc, undoing some hooks of her bodice, while she went on staring ahead beyond the splashboard, handed over to him the new pigskin pocket-book. He received it without a word, and seemed to plunge it deep somewhere into his very breast. Then he slapped his coat on the outside.
All this was done without the exchange of a single glance; they were like two people looking out for the first sight of a desired goal. It was not till the hansom swung round a corner and towards the bridge that Ossipon opened his lips again.
`Do you know how much money there is in that thing?' he asked, as if addressing slowly some hob-goblin sitting between the ears of the horse.
`No,' said Mrs Verloc. `He gave it to me. I didn't count. I thought nothing of it at the time. Afterwards--'
She moved her right hand a little. It was so expressive that little movement of that right hand which had struck the deadly blow into a man's heart less than an hour before that Ossipon could not repress a shudder. He exaggerated it then purposely, and muttered:
`I am cold. I got chilled through.'
Mrs Verloc looked straight ahead at the perspective of her escape. Now and then, like a sable streamer blown across a road, the words `The drop given was fourteen feet' got in the way of her tense stare. Through the black veil the whites of her big eyes gleamed lustrously like the eyes of a masked woman.
Ossipon's rigidity had something businesslike, a queer official expression. He was heard again all of a sudden, as though he had released a catch in order to speak.
`Look here! Do you know whether your - whether he kept his account at the bank in his own name or in some other name.
Mrs Verloc turned upon him her masked face and the big white gleam of her eyes.
`Other name?' she said, thoughtfully.
`Be exact in what you say,' Ossipon lectured in the swift motion of the hansom. `It's extremely important. I will explain to you. The bank has the numbers of these notes. If they were paid to him in his own name, then when his - his death becomes known, the notes may serve to track us since we have no other money. You have no ether money on you?'
She shook her head negatively.
`None whatever?' he insisted.
`A few coppers.
`It would be dangerous in that case. The money would have then to be dealt specially with. Very specially. We'd have perhaps to lose more than half the amount in order to get these notes changed in a certain safe place I know of in Paris. In the other case - I mean if he had his account and got paid out under some other name - say Smith, for instance - the money is perfectly safe to use. You understand? The bank has no means of knowing that Mr Verloc and, say, Smith are one and the same person. Do you see how important it is that you should make no mistake in answering me? Can you answer that query at all? Perhaps not. Eh?
She said composedly:
`I remember now! He didn't bank in his own name. He told me once that it was on deposit in the name of Prozor.'