Zorinsky picked up his paper and went on reading.
What should I do? Faint though the chance seemed, I resolved to take it, as it was the only one. I told Zorinsky I would bring him the money on the morrow.
“All right,” he said, adding thoughtfully, as he laid aside the newspaper. “By the way, I think you were perhaps right about threatening the investigator’s life. Yes. It is not a bad idea. He need not know we know we are really powerless. We will tell him he is being tracked and cannot escape us. I will see what can be done about it. You are right, after all, Pavel Ivanitch.”
Satisfied at having made this suggestion, I set about to copy the map of the minefields and then retired for the night.
Not to sleep, however. For hours I paced up and down the soft carpet, recalling every word of the evening’s conversation, and trying to invent a means of making myself again independent of Zorinsky.
Would Melnikoff be released? The prospects seemed suddenly to have diminished. Meanwhile, Zorinsky knew my name, and might, for all I knew, out of sheer curiosity, be designing to discover my haunts and acquaintances. I recalled poignantly how I had been cornered that evening and forced to show him my passport.
With this train of thought I took my newly procured exemption certificate from my pocket and examined it again. Yes, it certainly was a treasure. “Incurable heart trouble”—that meant permanent exemption. With this and my passport, I considered, I might with comparative safety even register myself and take regular rooms somewhere on the outskirts of the town. However, I resolved I would not do that as long as I could conveniently live in the centre of the city, moving about from house to house.
The only thing I did not like about my new “document” was its patent newness. I have never yet seen anybody keep tidy “documents” in Russia, the normal condition of a passport being the verge of dissolution. There was no need to reduce my certificate to that state at once, since it was only two days old, but I decided that I would at least fold and crumple it as much as my passport, which was only five days old. I took the paper and, folding it tightly in four, pressed the creases firmly between finger and thumb. Then, laying it on the table, I squeezed the folds under my thumbnail, drawing the paper backward and forward. Finally, the creases looking no longer new, I began to ruffle the edges.
And then a miracle occurred!
You know, of course, the conundrum: “Why is paper money preferable to coin?”—the answer being, “Because when you put it in your pocket you double it, and when you take it out you find it in creases.” Well, that is what literally did occur with my exemption certificate! While holding it in my hands and ruffling the edges, the paper all at once appeared to move of itself, and, rather like protozoa propagating its species, most suddenly and unexpectedly divided, revealing to my astonished eyes not one exemption certificate—but two!
Two of the printed sheets had by some means become so closely stuck together that it was only when the edges were ruffled that they fell apart, and neither the doctor nor Zorinsky had noted it. Here was the means of eluding Zorinsky by filling in another paper! How shall I describe my joy at the unlooked-for discovery! The nervous reaction was so intense that, much to my own amusement, I found tears streaming down my cheeks. I laughed and felt like the Count of Monte Cristo unearthing his treasure—until, sobering down a little, I recollected that the blank form was quite useless until I had another passport to back it up.
That night I thrashed out my position thoroughly and determined on a line of action. Zorinsky, I reflected, was a creature whom in ordinary life I should have been inclined to shun like the pest. I record here only those incidents and conversations which bear on my story, but when not discussing “business” he lavished a good deal of gratuitous information about his private life, particularly of regimental days, which was revolting. But in the abnormal circumstances in which I lived, to “cut” with anybody with whom I had once formed a close association was very difficult, and in Zorinsky’s case doubly so. Suppose he saw me in the street afterward, or heard of me through any of his numerous connections? Pursuing his “hobby” of contre-espionnage he would surely not fail to follow the movements of a star of the first magnitude like myself. There was no course open but to remain on good terms and profit to the full by the information I obtained from him and the people I occasionally met at his house—information which proved to be invariably correct. But he must learn nothing of my other movements, and in this respect I felt the newly discovered blank exemption form would surely be of service. I had only to procure another passport from somewhere or other.
What was Zorinsky’s real attitude toward Melnikoff, I wondered? How well had they known each other? If only I had some means of checking—but I knew none of Melnikoff’s connections in Russia. He had lived at a hospital. He had spoken of a doctor friend. I had already twice seen the woman at the lodge to which he had directed me. I thought hard for a moment.
Yes, good idea! On the morrow I would resort once more to Melnikoff’s hospital on The Islands, question the woman again, and, if possible, seek an interview with the doctor. Perhaps he could shed light
