“Then why,” I asked, “did Melnikoff associate with him?”
“He never saw him, so far as I know.”
“What!” I exclaimed. “But Zorinsky said he knew him well and always called him ‘an old friend’!”
“Zorinsky may have seen Melnikoff, but he never spoke to him, that I know of. Melnikoff was a friend of a certain Vera Alexandrovna X., who kept a secret café—you knew it? Ah, if I had known Melnikoff had told you of it I should have warned you. From other people who escaped from Petrograd I learned that Zorinsky frequented the café too. He was merely lying in wait for Melnikoff.”
“You mean he deliberately betrayed him?”
“It is evident. Put two and two together. Melnikoff was a known and much-feared counterrevolutionary. Zorinsky was in the service of the Extraordinary Commission and was well paid, no doubt. He also betrayed Vera Alexandrovna and her café, probably receiving so much per head. I heard of that from other people.”
“Then why did he not betray me too?” I asked, incredulously.
“You gave him money, I suppose?”
I told Ivan Sergeievitch the whole story; how I had met Zorinsky, his offer to release Melnikoff, the sixty thousand roubles and other payments “for odd expenses” amounting to about a hundred thousand in all. I also told him of the valuable and accurate information Zorinsky had provided me with.
“That is just what he would do,” said Ivan Sergeievitch. “He worked for both sides. A hundred thousand, I suppose, is all he thought he could get out of you, so now he has gone to Finland. Something must have happened to you here, for he wanted to prevent your returning to Russia and pose as your saviour. Is it not true that something has happened?”
I told him of the discovery of the Journalist’s flat and “No. 5,” but, unless I had been tracked unnoticed, there was no especial reason to believe Zorinsky could have discovered either of these. The betrayal of the name “Krylenko” was of course easily traceable to him, but whence had he known the addresses?
And then I remembered that I had never telephoned to Zorinsky from anywhere except from “No. 5” and the Journalist’s, for those were the only places where I could speak without being overheard. I suggested the coincidence to Ivan Sergeievitch.
“Aha!” he cried, obviously regarding the evidence as conclusive. “Of course he inquired for your telephone numbers directly you had spoken! But he would not betray you as long as you continued to pay him. Besides, he doubtless hoped eventually to unearth a big organization. As for your betrayal, any time would do, and the reward was always certain. It might be another hundred thousand for your haunts. And then, you see, in Finland he would warn you against returning and get some more out of you for this further great service. He was furious to find you had just left.”
From the Windows of the Winter Palace prying eyes were looking down into the garden. Two figures sitting so long on a cold day in the bushes would begin to rouse suspicion. We rose and walked out on to the quay.
Seating ourselves on one of the stone benches set in the parapet of the river, Ivan Sergeievitch told me many things that were of the greatest value. An entirely new set of associations grew out of this conversation. He also said that Varia had just been released from prison and that he was going to take her with him across the frontier that night. He had been unable to find Stepanovna, but supposed she was staying with friends. I agreed if ever I heard of her to let him know.
“Will Zorinsky come back to Russia, do you think?” I asked.
“I have no idea,” was the reply; and he added, again staring at my transformed physiognomy and laughing, “But you certainly have no cause to fear his recognizing you now!”
Such was the strange story of Zorinsky as I learnt it from Ivan Sergeievitch. I never heard it corroborated except by the Doctor, who didn’t know Zorinsky, but I had no reason to doubt it. It certainly tallied with my own experiences. And he was only one of several. As Ivan Sergeievitch observed: “There are not a few Zorinskys, I fear, and they are the ruin and shame of our class.”
Twice, later, I was reminded acutely of this singular personage, who, as it transpired, did return to Russia. The first time was when I learned through acquaintances of Ivan Sergeievitch that Zorinsky believed me to be back in Petrograd, and had related to somebody in tones of admiration that he himself had seen me driving down the Nevsky Prospect in a carriage and pair in the company of one of the chief Bolshevist Commissars!
The second time was months later, when I espied him standing in a doorway, smartly dressed in a blue “French” and knee-breeches, about to mount a motorcycle. I was on the point of descending from a streetcar when our eyes met. I stopped and pushed my way back into the crowd of passengers. Being in the uniform of a Red soldier I feared his recognition of me not by my exterior, but by another peculiar circumstance. Under the influence of sudden emotion a sort of telepathic communication sometimes takes place without the medium of words and even regardless of distance. It has several times happened to me. Rightly or wrongly I suspected it now. I pushed my way through the car to the front platform and, looking back over the heads of the passengers, imagined (maybe it was mere imagination) I saw Zorinsky’s eyes also peering over the passengers’ heads toward me.
I did not wait to make sure. The incident occurred in the Zagorodny Prospect. Passing the Tsarskoeselsky station I jumped off the car while it was still in motion, stooped beneath its side till it passed, and boarded another going in the
