“Well, what is it?” he said kindly. “I am Inspector Sandoff.”
“I—I beg pardon, your honor,” stammered the fellow appealingly. “I—I must see you alone.”
“Very well,” replied Sandoff. “That is easily arranged.”
He led the man into the adjoining apartment, which was the middle one of the suite of three rooms which formed the headquarters of the Third Section. A third room adjoined this, and like the one into which Sandoff had just ushered his visitor, it had a few chairs, a table, and a cot, and was lighted by a small barred window high up in the wall. These two rear apartments had witnessed many a tragic scene, for here prisoners were often brought for secret examination, and sometimes confined for a day or two. The walls were thick and the doors massive.
When Sandoff had shut off communication with the front room by closing the door, he turned questioningly to the stranger, who was sitting on the edge of a chair, with a very pale face.
“Is it true, your honor,” began the man finally, in a weak, quavering voice, “that a reward of five thousand rubles is offered for information that will cause the arrest of Felix Shamarin, the Nihilist?”
The fellow spoke the last words glibly enough. He had evidently committed them to memory.
“Ah!” thought Sandoff, “an informer?
“Yes,” he said aloud, “it is true that such a sum will be paid—not for any indefinite information, though. We have already located our man within a certain radius. Who are you, and what do you know?”