How It All Goes Down
Meet Mr. Verloc, a man who runs a pornography shop and hangs out with a bunch of anarchists…but who is also a secret agent for a foreign government. Talk about double lives. One day, he is suddenly summoned to meet his new boss at the embassy, a guy named Mr. Vladimir who hatches a plan that'll force the police to start locking up political agitators without due process. Vladimir orders Verloc to make sure that a bomb is planted at the Greenwich Observatory. Verloc doesn't want to do it, but when Mr. Vladimir threatens his cushy life, he becomes very anxious and agrees to the plan.
Next thing you know, you're listening to one of Verloc's friends, Ossipon, chatting with another guy (called the Professor) at a bar. Ossipon says that someone has blown himself up in Greenwich Park, near the observatory. The Professor reveals to Ossipon that he gave a bomb to Verloc a few days earlier, and Ossipon becomes convinced that Verloc is the man who's blown himself up. While investigating the crime, Chief Inspector Heat finds a piece of material with Verloc's address sewn into it. Despite the connection with Verloc, though, Heat chooses to blame another known anarchist named Michaelis for the crime. Heat's boss, however, doesn't want Michaelis tied up with the crime, so after consulting a member of English parliament, he goes over Inspector Heat's head and investigates the crime himself.
Phew. You doing okay? That was a lot of names and a lot of intrigue. Take a breather.
You good? Good? Good! The novel suddenly jumps back in time (though you don't know it right away). Mr. Verloc takes a trip to the continent to supposedly clear his head, although you can guess that he's trying to find some way to deal with the task Mr. Vladimir has set for him. One day, when he's about to go for a walk, Verloc's wife Winnie asks him to bring Stevie (Winnie's brother) along. Verloc is surprised at the request, and after Winnie tells him that Stevie would do anything for him, Verloc starts to take more of a notice in Stevie.
Eventually, we reach the day of the Greenwich explosion again. Late in the day, Verloc comes home in a fit and Winnie thinks he has a cold. Verloc is obviously very agitated. A little while after that, a man shows up in the shop looking for Verloc. You can tell from the narrator's description that the man is Heat's boss, the Assistant Commissioner.
While Verloc and the Assistant Commissioner are gone, Chief Inspector Heat enters the shop. He is angry to learn that the Assistant Commissioner has already been there. He tells Winnie about the bomb that went off in Greenwich, and shows Winnie the piece of overcoat that he collected from the human remains. Winnie starts to panic when she recognizes that the piece of fabric is from the overcoat of her brother, Stevie.
Verloc comes back and sees Heat, and goes into the next room to speak with him. Winnie goes to listen at the keyhole, fearing the worst. Her fears are confirmed when she hears Verloc talking about how he made Stevie carry the bomb to the Greenwich observatory. As Winnie breaks down in grief, Verloc and Heat continue their conversation. Verloc says that he's going to go to court and tell everything he knows about his spy network and the Embassy that told him to plant a bomb. He's going to bring everyone down with him. Heat thinks this is a bad idea, but can't convince Verloc to do otherwise.
Verloc tries to apologize to Winnie and console her about Stevie's death, but her disgust toward him keeps her silent. Eventually, Verloc loses his temper and says they need to stop grieving and think about how they can leave the country. He even starts to argue that Stevie's death was Winnie's fault, since she was always pushing the boy into Verloc's life. Also, he blames her for bringing the cops on them by sewing Stevie's address into his coat. Eventually, Verloc lies down to rest. Winnie completely loses it and stabs him with a kitchen knife, killing him.
Once she's done the job, Winnie becomes extremely afraid of being tried for murder. She runs out of the house and meets Comrade Ossipon, one of Verloc's anarchist buddies. She asks him to take care of her, and he agrees to help her get on a boat that is leaveing England that night. At first he thinks that Verloc blew himself up, but after he realizes that Winnie has murdered the man, he becomes very afraid of her. Once he's on the train with Winnie, Ossipon becomes convinced that she's going to kill him as soon as his usefulness runs out. He leaps from the train with all of her money and leaves her with no hope as she rides away.
In the final chapter, Ossipon sits with the Professor, though he's completely engrossed in a week-old newspaper article about a woman who committed suicide by jumping off a boat. He knows that it's Winnie who has killed herself. That doesn't stop him, though, from spending his stolen money on a bunch of beer. As he and the Professor leave the pub, both are overwhelmed by a sense that their lives mean nothing. But hey, that's just Conrad doing his Conrad-tastic thing.