7

One moonlit summer night a few weeks later Thirp was murdered by a young man to whom for some reason he had held out dazzling prospects of promotion and then disappointed. The particulars of his death are no part of this history, only its suddenness and its effect upon Rud concern us here.

Once more for a brief final phase of lucidity he realised his own personal inefficiency. Once more he felt matters beyond his management were being forced into his hands. It was a greater loss even than Bodisham, because while Bodisham left him diagrams and projects, plain, open and completely understandable, Thirp had been deliberately secretive. He had always kept his methods to himself. Rud did not know very much even about his agent's immediate underlings, and now for a time at least, until he could gain a controlling knowledge of them, he must be his own watch–dog. Rothberg came to him at once obviously intent to play the same confidential role that Thirp had filled so satisfactorily. But Rud did not like Rothberg. The evil in his nature had none of the redeeming dilettantism of Thirp; he made Rud feel unsafe with him; he was of the hard, dark police type who hated his quarry, took every advantage in the hunt and exulted self–righteously in a kill. Now Thirp had always behaved as though a political murder was a sadly regrettable necessity. For him it was a curious aspect of this strange, unaccountable game of life. He made Rud feel that though he could inflict death, he would never inflict wanton humiliation. He would do everything as it were under protest—though quite effectively. But Rothberg flushed with zealous animosity when he heard the mere name of a marked man.

Rothberg's impulse for self–assertion through destruction was far cruder in its expression than Thirp's, cruder even than Rud's. He was not merely a killer; he liked to stamp them down.