And Ivan Sergeievitch unfolded to me a tale that was strange indeed. I have forgotten some details of it, but it was roughly as follows:
Zorinsky, under another name, had been an officer in the old army. He distinguished himself for reckless bravery at the front and drunkenness in the rear. During the war he had had some financial losses, became implicated in attempted embezzlement, and later was caught cheating at cards. He was invited to resign from his regiment, but was reinstated after an interval in view of his military services. He again distinguished himself in battle, but was finally excluded from the regiment shortly before the revolution, this time on the ground of misconduct. During 1917 he was known to have failed in some grandiose deals of a speculative and doubtful character. He then disappeared for a time, but in the summer of 1918 was found living in Petrograd under various names, ostensibly hiding from the Bolsheviks. Although his business deals were usually unsuccessful, he appeared always to be in affluent circumstances. It was this fact, and a certain strangeness of manner, that led Ivan Sergeievitch to regard him with strong suspicion. He had him watched, and established beyond all doubt that he was endeavouring to gain admission to various counter-revolutionary organizations on behalf of the Bolsheviks.
Shortly afterward, Ivan Sergeievitch was arrested under circumstances that showed that only Zorinsky could have betrayed him. But he escaped on the very night that he was to be shot by breaking from his guards and throwing himself over the parapet of the Neva into the river. In Finland, whither he fled, he met and formed a close friendship with Melnikoff, who, after the Yaroslavl affair and his own escape, had assisted in the establishment of a system of communication with Petrograd, occasionally revisiting the city himself.
“Of course I told Melnikoff of Zorinsky,” said Ivan Sergeievitch, “though I could not know that Zorinsky would track him. But he got the better of us both.”
“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 counter-revolutionary. 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.”