ATDTDA (16): Evening, Professor, 445-448

[Paul Nightingale]

This section deals with Gaspereaux's attempt to make contact with Sands
after failing to get a result at Whitehall. At first, the "all-purpose code
name" is juxtaposed to "the real 'Inspector Sands'", his situation sketched
in at a general level: the opening line ("Appearing these days ..." etc, to
... Would find by midcareer ..." etc) makes it clear that the passage
doesn't specify any particular occasion-until the introspection is
interrupted by the call announcing "a suspect individual". From the general
to the particular. Dialogue isn't attributed, so it isn't immediately clear
what, if anything, Sands himself actually says here, or how many other
(unnamed) characters are contributing 'intelligence'. An inability to
adequately describe the suspect's appearance (ribbon/feather/plume?) is
followed by: "The thing is, how shall we make out his short-term intentions
..." etc. The general impression is one of incompetence, confirmed by
Bloggins' inappropriate salute when Gaspereaux finally identifies himself
(446; cf. the Keystone Kops-like scenario on 341).

Gaspereaux is in disguise because he takes it for granted ("eyes and ears
everywhere, sort of thing", 447) that he is likely under surveillance;
Bloggins' self-conscious performance of an arrest, similarly, is designed to
impress/fool whoever might be watching, the surveillance of surveillance.

Upon meeting Sands Gaspereaux explains that his initial contact with
Whitehall (Toadflax's instructions on 444) has been  unsuccessful, "no more
than a madman's phantasy" (448), an interesting use of ph- as opposed to f-
there, given Freud's distinction. So Sands, ostensibly a signifier, assumes
an identity: as Gaspereaux explains what has happened, Sands slips into that
role of audience played by the Chums aboard the Saksaul. One might say Sands
("ever struggling to define and maintain a level of professional behavior",
445) requires Gaspereaux, and therefore the story he tells. On 51 Nate
explains to Lew that a terrorist threat is good for business; here, Sands
might anticipate escape from "the infant science of counter-terrorism"
(445).