The last two investigations brought Captain Zakhov considerable fame. Western intelligence agencies begin hunting for Avvakum. To prevent the disclosure of his best agent, Colonel Manov decides to temporarily mothball Zakhov. He again returns to his civilian specialty - archeology, breaks off all contacts with state security and, on the advice of his superiors, changes his apartment. Zakhov settles on the south-eastern outskirts of Sofia in a house where the manager is a retired lieutenant colonel of the medical service, Svintila Savov. The manager's grandniece Violeta has a fiancé - a young newsreel director Asen Kantardzhiev. Avvakum knows him - we met a year and a half ago in the Rhodope Mountains, where the Archaeological Institute was carrying out major excavations. A strange boyish rivalry then arose between them. Now it has resumed - either Avvakum secretly follows on the heels of Asen, or Asen secretly penetrates into Avvakum’s room. But Zakhov does not consider this empty childishness. It asks the question: who is Kantardzhiev: “a maniacally addicted to tricks and tricks” or an enemy spy?