“Good-night. I am going to the Hotel Vladimir.”
“It is nothing to me. Good-night.”
I moved off; and just then some one called out—“Burski, the chief wants you.”
I turned my head at the call; and was just in time to catch his eyes fixed upon me with an expression which set me thinking as I stepped into the street and started for the hotel.
It was a look which suggested that the mask was off in that moment.
Had he been just fooling me?
CHAPTER XXIII
SPY WORK
IT is never pleasant to have to admit even in the secrecy of one’s own private thoughts that one has been fooled; nor does the cleverness of the fooler afford any but the coldest consolation.
Yet when I sat down to think things over calmly, I could come to only one conclusion—that in my trial of wits against Bremenhof and his agents I had been wofully worsted.
A little thing will suffice to start suspicion; and in this case it was that strange look which I had surprised on Burski’s face.