Zorinsky looked indifferently over the top of his newspaper.
“Guarantee? None,” he replied, in his usual laconic manner.
“Then why the devil should I throw away another 30,000 roubles on the off-chance——?”
“You needn’t if you don’t want to,” he put in, in the same tone.
“Are you not interested in the subject?” I said, secretly indignant at his manner.
“Of course I am. But what is the use of getting on one’s hind-legs about it? The investigator wants his money in advance. Without it, he will certainly risk nothing. With it, he may, and there’s an end of it. If I were you I would pay up, if you want Melnikoff let out. What is the good of losing your first 30,000 for nothing? You won’t get that back, anyway.”
I thought for a moment. It seemed to me highly improbable that a rascal investigator, having got his money, would deliberately elect to put his neck in a noose to save someone he didn’t care two pins about. Was there no other means of effecting the escape? I thought of the Policeman. But with inquiries being made along one line, inquiries along a second would doubtless be detected by the first, with all sorts of undesirable complications and discoveries. An idea occurred to me.
“Can we not threaten the life of the investigator if he plays false?” I suggested.
Zorinsky considered. “You mean hire someone to shoot him? That would cost a lot of money and we should be in the hands of our hired assassin as much as we are now in those of our investigator, while if he were shot we should lose the last chance of saving Melnikoff. Besides, the day after we threaten the investigator’s life he will decamp with the first thirty thousand in his pocket. Pay up, Pavel Ivanitch, pay up and take the chance—that’s my advice.”
Zorinsky picked up his paper and went on reading.