CHAPTER XVI
UNDER SURVEILLANCE
I paid my bill, strolled out, and in the doorway encountered a man I knew slightly—a young officer—with whom I paused to chat, thereby blocking the doorway temporarily, with the result that I found my friend the spy—as I was now convinced he was—at my elbow. My unexpected halt had pulled him up short.
“Pardon!” I said with the utmost politeness, stepping aside, so he had to pass out, though I guessed he was angry enough at losing my conversation, for I was telling Lieutenant Mirakoff of my arrest,—as a great joke, at which we both laughed uproariously.
“They should have seen that you were a foreigner, and therefore quite mad,—and harmless,” he cried.
“Now, I ought to call you out for that!” I asserted.
“At your service!” he answered, still laughing, as we separated.
The spy was apparently deeply interested in the contents of a shop window near at hand, and I went off briskly in the other direction; but in a minute or two later, when I paused, ostensibly to compare my watch with a clock which I had just passed, I saw, as I glanced back, that he was on my track once more.