Impatient at a silence promising to be interminable the Russian agent coughed suggestively.
Kolinsky, with leisurely indulgence, looked up while the sneering smile deepened the lines about his mouth.
The face of his vis-à-vis brightened.
"Well," the chief asked breathlessly.
"First, monsieur, if my plan is adopted, do I, alone, unaided, have free foot to work it out? Otherwise I'll not tell you a word of it."
Indignant for a moment that an underling should impose conditions, the Russian determined to resort to censure, but when he looked into the culprit's eyes he was puzzled at his own acquiescence.
"You may have a free foot," he said, "now your plan."
Kolinsky shifted his chair close to that of the other man to whisper long and earnestly in his ear. His auditor evidently endorsed his suggestion, judging by his grunts of applause and the grinning display of teeth.
"It is good, fine, superb," he said as Kolinsky concluded and leaned back comfortably in his chair the better to appreciate the approval displayed in his chief's countenance. He was not to view these flattering symptoms for long, however. His superior as though discovering a fatal weakness in the completed structure, said in renewed despair: "while you have the right man, it won't do."
"Why, Excellency," asked Josef with no diminution of that glacial smile. It was as though he held his superior in hardly concealed contempt.