Chapter 1:
Description of Mr Adolf Verloc and his "little business", which is a dingy pornography shop. However his real work, which he describes as "in a way political" requires him to leave the shop at odd hours. His wife Winnie is introduced as "a young woman with a full bust, in a tight bodice, and with broad hips she preserved an air of unfathomable indifference", which establishes her maternal quality, and also her characteristic impenetrability. It is explained that the couple met when Mr Verloc was a lodger in the house kept by Winnie's mother, who now lives with them above the shop. She suffers from swollen legs and is dependent upon her daughter. Winnie also looks after her brother Stevie who is blond, "delicate" and unworldly. An incident from the past, illustrates how Stevie cannot be trusted to work, and how he can be exploited: when working in an office two other boys persuaded him to set off "fierce rockets" in the corridor by telling him that the company was unjust and oppressive. This is an important anecdote as it pre-shadows the role Stevie plays in the novel. The first chapter thus sets up the Verloc family situation.
Chapter 2:
Mr Verloc makes his way across Rotten Row to the Embassy where he has an appointment with his employer. En route, Conrad employs irony to show up Verloc as indolent and ineffectual; juxtaposing descriptions of him as a man with a mission "to protect the social mechanism" with wry mentions of his innate laziness - "Mr Verloc would have rubbed his hands with glee had he not been constitutionally averse to every superfluous action".
Subtle and snide comedy also pervades the visit: "The Embassy" is never given a clearer name, and Verloc first meets the "mincing" Privy Councillor Wurmt, Chancelier d'Ambassade, who despite his titles finds himself unable to conduct the interview with Verloc. Instead, he passes him on to Mr Vladimir, the "First Secretary". The depiction of bureaucracy teeters between parody and far-fetched realism. The interview is long and full of digressions (typifying the incompetence of the officials) e.g. "You are very corpulent" but the thrust of what Vladimir has to say to Verloc is that in twelve years he has performed no true anarchistic outrages, that he no longer deserves his code name unless he makes a successful attack upon the peace of mind of the bourgeoisie. Vladimir recommends that Verloc assaults "the fetish of the hour", science, by exploding a bomb at the Greenwich meridian, an act which cannot be seen as an assassination attempt and must be recognised as pure anarchic "ferocious imbecility". While Vladimir's lips twitch at the humour of sending Verloc off on such a mission, Verloc himself returns home in a daze.
The narrative returns to filling in general information about the Verloc family, and it emerges that the reason Winnie married Verloc was to give the vulnerable and incompetent Stevie a stable home. The irony of this becomes clear.
Chapter 3:
At Brett street where the Verlocs live, a meeting of anarchists is taking place. They are an unimpressive group: Michaelis the fat and pasty protégé of a rich old lady; Karl Yundt, a toothless old terrorist with "no pity for anything on this earth"; and Comrade Ossipon, a robust and womanising failed-medic. They argue over their half-baked theories of anarchism while Stevie quietly draws concentric circles. He seems to have been disturbed by their violent talk of "sizzling flesh" (note the proleptic irony given Stevie's fate) since he is in a "very excitable state" and Winnie has to put him to bed. Verloc is troubled by thoughts of how he is to enact the commissioned bomb outrage
Chapter 4:
Since Winnie turned off the light at the end of the preceding chapter, the narrative has jumped forward three weeks. The darkness of the gap is to be illuminated gradually through flashbacks. This chapter begins in a mediaeval-themed restaurant, a regular haunt of anarchists where Ossipon is sitting with the Professor, a wizened bomb-maker. Their conversation is slightly cryptic to the reader since they are speaking about events as yet unexplained. When Ossipon asks the man "the business of this confounded affair" his meaning is unclear but by the end of the chapter we realise that he is expecting details about that morning's explosion in Greenwich that has just been reported by the newspapers. A man died in the explosion and Ossipon expects it was an anarchist whom he knew; five pages later he decides it must have been Verloc. Although the reader naturally supposes him to be correct, one is not told certainly that it was Verloc, and should keep examining clues as to whom it was that died.
He rightly assumes that the Professor supplied the bomb, as is indicated by his question "Do you... give your stuff to anybody who's up to asking for it?". The Professor explains that Verloc was not intending to die, and that a mistake caused the fatality "He either ran the time too close, or simply let the thing fall... You can't expect a detonator to be absolutely foolproof."
Their conversation strays on to the bomb that the Professor always carries with him in his breast pocket, so that he can commit a kamikaze explosion at any moment. This gives the Professor a sense of power, especially since he feels it means he could outwit the police since if they tried to arrest him he could detonate the bomb thus killing himself and anyone close by him. The chapter ends with Ossipon keen to save his own skin from any police enquiries regarding the bomb, but the Professor has alternative advice: "Fasten yourself upon the woman for all she's worth", meaning that Ossipon should find Winnie and exploit her new widowhood. In order to do so, Ossipon sets off for Brett Street.
Chapter 5:
The narrator follows the Professor as he walks through the streets, dwarfed by the crowds but "meditating confidently on his power", the power he gains from having a bomb in his pocket and thus a "supreme guarantee of his sinister freedom". He bumps into Chief Inspector Heat as he is walking down an alleyway, a detective who recognises the Professor as one of the anarchists.
The narrative slips into the mind of Heat as he remembers how that afternoon he was hauled over by his boss (the Assistant Commissioner) for the Greenwich bomb, since his job was to prevent such events by patrolling the anarchists' activities. In defence, Heat denied that it could have been anything to do with the anarchists. His visit to the hospital to view the remains of the victim of the bomb is described: the body he inspects is "a heap of rags, scorched and bloodstained, half concealing what might have been an accumulation of raw material for a cannibal feast". Importantly, the Chief Inspector is told that the man seen heading towards the scene of the explosion just before the bomb went off was "a fair-haired fellow". This is the first of four major clues in this chapter that point to the idea that it was not Verloc who died.
Secondly, it is reported by a witness that the person carrying the bomb must have stumbled, a hint that the victim was not particularly practical. Thirdly, the Chief Inspector salvages from the remains a small, triangular label attached to a velvet collar, which later turns out to be a sure sign of the identity of the corpse. The narrative moves back into the alley where the detective is facing the Professor. They exchange slightly ridiculous threats, such as Heat's assertion, "You may be sure our side will win in the end". They part, the Professor disappearing into the crowd and Heat heading back to his office. More information about the bomb emerges - the fourth hint as to who it was who died - the bomber was "escorted" to the park by another man, a detail which reaffirms the likelihood of the dead man being somewhat incompetent.
Chapter 6:
Set in the grand apartments of the patroness of Michaelis, this chapter mocks patronage as conducted by high society. The "Lady Patroness" (no other name is given for her, reinforcing the sense that the agencies behind the anarchists' activities - as with The Embassy - are nobodies, or rather anybodies, and totally outside the law) likes to "watch what the world was coming to" by inviting various people to her salon. These include the Assistant Commissioner, as well as the anarchist Michaelis, who is a great favourite with his patroness because of child-like quality, fostered by a life spent in prison, for a crime committed when he was very young. The Patroness makes it clear that a police officer that makes any moves to arrest Michaelis for his anarchist activities will lose her favour, and "Her arbitrary kindness would not brook patiently any interference with Michaelis' safety".
The chapter moves to the office of the Assistant Commissioner, where he is interviewing his subordinate Heat regarding the bomb attack. The Assistant Commissioner seems keen to protect Michaelis from the enquiry: Conrad thus highlights the ingrained corruption of the police, by showing the Assistant Commissioner protecting his own connections at the expense of public safety. The old system of patronage is still running in the institutions Conrad depicts. Heat tells his boss (and the readers) that the triangular label found on the velvet coat of the dead bomber bore the address "32 Brett Street". Heat knows Verloc (because he has been acting as a double agent and informing the British police of anarchist activities) and thus recognises this as where Verloc lives. Is the dead man Verloc, or possibly another resident at the address?
Chapter 7:
The Assistant Commissioner visits "a great personage", Sir Ethelred the Secretary of State. He is a haughty figure, telling the Assistant Commissioner, "Don't go into details. I have no time for that", and giving the impression that he finds the bombing highly irritating. The Assistant Commissioner gets out of the situation by blaming Heat and implying he is unprofessional, which, given the preceding chapter, strikes the reader as hypocritical.
Sir Ethelred sheds more light on the incident, stating that the bomber "has destroyed himself by accident", and muses on whether the man was a deaf mute. Chapter by chapter, the reader gains more information about the identity of the corpse, and is thus forced to carry out a process of deduction similar to the one the characters are enacting. This is similar to the gathering of hearsay about the mysterious Kurtz in Conrad's other early masterpiece, Heart of Darkness.
Under order to report any developments to Sir Ethelred at the House (of Commons) later that evening, the Assistant Commissioner sets off for Brett Street. He stops to dine in an Italian restaurant before continuing on to the sinister and shadowy Brett Street.
Chapter 8:
The novel now flashes back to an earlier time, where Chapter Three left off, which is three weeks before the day of the bombing. While Verloc is absorbed in "deep meditations" (he is wondering how to accomplish Vladimir's commission), Winnie's frail mother has arranged for herself to live away from the family in an almshouse (charity accommodation). She has done so to lessen Verloc's burden as breadwinner for the whole household, in the hope that he will have more patience with Stevie if he is the only dependant. She meekly breaks the news to Winnie, who mistakes her good intentions for ingratitude: "Weren't you comfortable enough in the house?". Winnie also says that she is worried that Stevie might get lost when he goes to visit his mother. The conclusion the attentive reader reaches is that she is going to fix his address on a label onto his coat in case he should forget it.
On their way to the almshouse, there is an incident which defines Stevie's character far more clearly. The horse-driven cab which they are riding in has a pitifully thin horse whom the driver insists on whipping. Stevie protests, and tries to get out of the cab to help the horse, an act typical of his unsuccessful altruism. He is deeply disturbed by the "steed of apocalyptic misery" and the unhealthy old cab- driver, and twitches and stammers, his "immoderate compassion succeeded by innocent but pitiless rage" until he manages to sum up his feelings with "Bad world for poor people". He evidently has a rare sympathy for the oppressed, which is ready to be exploited.
Chapter 9:
Verloc returns from France, where he has been for about a week, but has still found no solution to his problem. Having always reverenced Verloc, Stevie is, as ever, at his beck and call. "You could do anything with that boy, Adolf... He would go through fire for you" says Winnie with grim significance. It is ironic that Stevie's main protector in life inadvertently causes his destruction by putting ideas into her husband's head. Verloc begins to take a new interest in Stevie, taking him on walks and to stay with Michaelis in the country, and the reader realises that Verloc is grooming him to help him undertake the bomb attack.
Verloc returns home one evening extremely morose and agitated. He is mysterious regarding what he has been doing that day, and asks Winnie to get out their savings, indicating that he wants to emigrate. Winnie reacts calmly, knowing nothing of what is bothering her husband. The reader however, due to the mounting pieces of evidence, guesses rightly that the bomb attack has just taken place, and that Stevie has died.
A stranger arrives at the shop, whom we deduce to be the Assistant Commissioner. While he walks with Verloc outside, another visitor arrives: Chief Inspector Heat. There is an element of comedy in this because petty rivalries have meant that the colleagues are acting like competitors. Heat questions Winnie about Stevie's overcoat, and she is amazed that it should have come into the hands of the police. Verloc returns and Winnie listens at the door as Heat discusses the death of Stevie with him. Heat departs having warned Verloc; Winnie sits catatonic in a corner.
Chapter 10:
The Assistant Commissioner visits Sir Ethelred at the House of Commons, informing him, and we the readers, of what went on in his interview with Verloc. We learn that Verloc was in an unusual "psychological state" which caused him to confess all to the Assistant Commissioner, as criminals sometimes do directly after a crime. The Assistant Commissioner identifies shock, if not remorse, in Verloc: "It is obvious that he did not plan the death of that wretched lad... his brother in law". No decision as to whether to arrest Verloc is taken.
The Assistant Commissioner moves on to dinner at the house of the Lady Patroness. A fellow dinner guest is Mr Vladimir! When they are alone after dinner, the Assistant Commissioner informs him, somewhat triumphantly, that Verloc has been traced as responsible, and that Mr Vladimir himself is suspected as having been connected in some way. The Chapter therefore ends on a relatively positive note for the British police.
Chapter 11:
Back to Brett Street where Verloc is about to face his wife's grief. Verloc's experiences new and unpleasant thoughts: "He had dared cherish the hope of Stevie walking away from the walls of the Observatory as he had been instructed to do... rejoining Mr Verloc outside the precincts of the park... Stevie dead was a much greater nuisance than he ever had been alive."
He radically under-estimates Winnie's reaction, trying to cheer her with "Can't be helped" as he cuts himself some ham. Meanwhile, Winnie is thinking of Stevie - "She remembered brushing the boy's hair and tying his pinafores" - and of how she married Verloc only to give her brother's life security. With the benefit of hindsight, she remembers her misguided pleasure when she saw Verloc developing an interest in the boy, and taking him for walks. The difference between the thought patterns of the two characters means that trouble only can ensue.
Winnie is stone silent, and the nervous Verloc talks at her, inadvertently making things much worse: "It's your doing as much as mine... it was you who kept shoving him in my way". He then attempts reconciliation, saying "Come here" in the hope of an embrace. Winnie, with her head full of Stevie, stabs her husband with the carving knife. She is left alone with the body in the darkened front parlour of Brett Street, with only the sound of the clock ticking and the blood dripping.
Chapter 12:
Conrad remains with Winnie as she decides what to do next. She is afraid of being caught by the police and being hung on the gallows, and resolves "to go at once and throw herself into the river off one of the bridges". She is stumbling in that direction when a man stops her. It is Comrade Ossipon who, of course, set out for Brett Street at the end of Chapter Three, in order to exploit Winnie's widowhood. A seasoned lecher, he sweet talks to her: "A love like mine could not be concealed from a woman like you", when his real thoughts are on her money. However, he thinks that her husband died in the bomb, and is unaware that she has in fact murdered him. They talk at cross purposes until, just as they are about to leave Brett Street to escape to the continent together (Ossipon thrilled by the savings book she brandishes) Ossipon sees the body of his fellow anarchist Verloc in the front room. He is instantly terrified of Winnie, yet pretends to still want to elope with her. As she grows less hysterical they ride in a cab together to the station.
Ossipon takes all her money, saying he needs to buy tickets with it. As they sit in the train together waiting for it to depart, Winnie declares love to Ossipon and calls him as her "saviour" as she weeps on his chest. Ossipon has other ideas, and as the train begins to pull out of the station he leaps from the carriage and lands on the platform, leaving the penniless Winnie abandoned on the train. Ossipon walks home through London, and sleeps through the dawn.
Chapter 13:
This Chapter shifts to a source of all the trouble: the bomb maker himself, the Professor. Ossipon is with him, and is very dejected because he has read in a newspaper of the fate of Winnie: "Suicide of Lady Passenger from a Cross Channel Boat." The article describes how a weak and vacant woman fitting the description of Winnie Verloc disappeared overboard, leaving behind her on deck only a wedding ring. The newspaper states that the case is "an impenetrable mystery", yet Ossipon is guilty with knowledge of his part in the tragedy. He has stopped womanising, and seems deeply affected by the tragedy. However, the Professor is continuing to make bombs, and still carries them around London in his pocket, ready to cause another incident at any moment. He is the true danger, the real anarchist: a man who in his singularly vicious desires is more terrifying than lazy Verloc or sensitive Ossipon. The final lines of the novel are crucial and sum this up horrifically: "He walked frail, insignificant, shabby, miserable - and terrible in the simplicity of his idea calling madness and despair to the regeneration of the world. Nobody looked at him. He passed on unsuspected and deadly, like a pest in the street full of men". The Professor is at the core of the novel's bleak message that only the brutal and heartless side of political extremism survives while all else falls by the wayside in squabbles and deception.