The Secret Agent

Content warning: This section of the guide discusses suicide, abuse, and ableism.

Mr. Verloc is the central figure in the novel and the eponymous secret agent. He is half French and half English. After living some time in France, he now lives in London with his wife Winnie. As a condition of their marriage, he agrees to support her mother and brother, though he views them almost as part of the furniture in his house rather than actual people. Instead, Verloc is more concerned with his professional ventures. He runs a small shop that sells illicit materials, such as pornography and propaganda. At the same time, he works as a secret agent for an unnamed foreign embassy. He is paid to spy on British radicals and follow orders. He also has an arrangement with Chief Inspector Heat, in which he supplies information to Heat in exchange for allowing his quasi-illegal shop to continue to trade. Verloc’s professional enterprises are, in reality, a murky mix of illegality, deceit, and indolence. He is a lazy man who is willing to sell his integrity and his beliefs in exchange for a more laid-back lifestyle. Verloc is hardly even interested in his family, accumulating them through a series of informal agreements as though they were more backhanded deals in embassy corridors.