Dennis Wheatley - The Forbidden Territory

Their principal embarrassment was their prisoner. If they kept him they must feed him, and he would be a further drain on their supplies. He would have to be constantly watched or he might find some way of giving the alarm.

For the present they untied him; he was too stiff from his bonds to run away, and Rex had already secured his boots. They were careful also to remove his rifle from the sleigh.

The camping ground they had chosen for their meal was some twenty yards off the track, under the shelter of some bushes; the horses were unharnessed and hobbled.

De Richleau had a fair supply of “Meta” fuel in his pack, so they boiled water for tea. While they were waiting, the Duke spread out a map and pointed to their approximate position.

“Here we are, my friends,” he said, “half-way between Uvatsk and Romanovsk. We have covered something over a hundred miles since we set out fourteen hours ago. That is good going, particularly as we have reason to suppose that our pursuers will not look for us in this direction. But what now? It is over a thousand miles to the frontier. How shall we make that, with stolen horses, an escaped prisoner, and a Red Guard whom we must carry with us?”

Simon laughed his little nervous laugh into the palm of his hand. “We’re in a real muddle this time,” he said.

“Well, I’ll say we’ve taken the right road,” Rex laughed. “Romanovsk is just the one place in all the Russias I’ve been wanting to see for a long, long time.”

“Let us be serious, Rex,” De Richleau protested. “We shall need all our wits if we are ever to get out of Russia alive.”

Van Ryn shook his head. “I’m on the level. You boys wouldn’t know the fool reason that brought me to this Goddam country.”

“Oh, yes, we do,” said Simon promptly. “You’re after the Shulimoff treasure — Jack Straw told us!”

“Did he, though! He’s a great guy. Well, the goods are under fifteen miles from where we’re sitting now, in the old man’s place at Romanovsk; it ’ud be a real shame to go back home without those little souvenirs — we’ll split up on the deal!”

“I should be interested to hear how you learnt about this treasure, Rex,” said the Duke; “also how you were caught. Tell us about it now. We must give the horses at least an hour, they’re looking pretty done.”

“It happened this way.” Rex pushed the last piece of a ham and rye bread sandwich into his month, and leant back against the trunk of a near-by tree.

“Last fall I went to take a look at some of those one-eyed South American States — tho’, come to that, they’re not so one-eyed after all. Of course, as kids in the States, we’re always taught to look on them as pothole places — run by Dagoes, half-breeds, and dirty-dicks, and just crying out for real intelligent civilization as handed out by Uncle Sam — but that’s another story. On the way home I stopped off for a spell in the West Indies.”

“Cuba?” suggested De Richleau.

“Yes, Havana.”

“A lovely city. I was last there in 1926.”

“Sure, it would be a great town if there weren’t so many of our folk there — it was like Coney Island on a Sunday!”

“You were there when? November, I suppose?”

“That’s so. The American people treat Havana like Europe does Monte Carlo. Every little hick from the middle-west has to go to that place once, or he cuts no social ice in his home town at all. The bars are open night and day, and drinks about a tenth of the price they’d pay in a speakeasy back home, which isn’t calculated to make ’em behave as tho’ they were at the King’s garden party. I should have cleared out on the next boat if it hadn’t been for a Dago with a Ford!”

Simon smiled. “You don’t look as if you’d been run over!”

“Oh, it wasn’t this child,” Van Ryn laughed. “I was in my own automobile behind; I toured the Sports Bentley to South America with me. Anyhow, I was taking a spin out to the tennis-courts at the Jockey Club the second afternoon I was there, and just outside the town there was only this bird in the flivver in front of me. I was waiting to pass, when he swerves to avoid an oncoming car, and in swerving he knocked down a poor old man. Did he stop? Did he hell! He gave one look, saw the old bird lying in the ditch, and put his foot on the gas!”

“Brute,” Simon murmured.

“Brute’s the word,” Rex nodded. “Well, I don’t stand for that sort of thing, and I’ll not say Ford isn’t a big man, but he hasn’t turned out a car yet that can give the dust to a Bentley. I was after that guy as though I’d been a speed cop looking for promotion. In half a mile he’d got to take the sidewalk and the nearest light standard, or stop and have a word with me. He stopped all right, and started to jabber in Spanish or some lingo, but that cut no ice with me at all! I just happen to have been born a foot too tall for most people to try any monkeying, so I didn’t have much trouble with this little rat. When we got back they were picking up the old man.”

“Was he badly hurt?” the Duke inquired.

“Nothing serious; more shock and bruises than broken bones, but he was considerable upset, so we propped him up in the Bentley and I ran him down to the hospital. The Mexico negro — or whatever he was — I passed over to a real speed cop, who could speak his rotten tongue.”

De Richleau had been burrowing in his rucksack, and now produced a flat tin box, in which were packed a couple of layers of his famous cigars.

“Hoyo de Monterrey’s, by all that’s marvellous!” exclaimed Rex. “Well, I’ll say I never expected to smoke one of those sitting in the snow!”

“Unfortunately I had to leave most of them in Moscow,” said the Duke, “but I thought we would bring a few, and this — if ever — is an occasion!”

Simon chuckled as he carefully pinched the end of the long cigar which the Duke held out to him. “Thanks — d’you know, I believe if I meet you in the other world you’ll still have a box of Hoyos!”

“If I have not,” said De Richleau, puffing contentedly, “I shall send for my bill and move elsewhere!”

“Well, the whole party would have ended there,” Rex went on, “if it hadn’t been that I was bored fit to bust myself. So next afternoon, just to get away from all the sugar babies and card sharps in the hotel, I thought I’d go take a look at the old man.

“There he was, propped up in bed in the hospital, as wicked-looking an old sinner as ever you set eyes on; he spoke English better than I do, but he was a foreigner, of course; and, without being smarmy about it, he was grateful for what I’d done. You’ll have guessed, maybe, that he was the old Prince Shulimoff.”

Simon nodded. “I thought as much.”

“Yes, that’s who he was, tho’ he didn’t let on about it that first meeting. Just said he was a Russian émigré, down and out. We talked a bit, mainly as to what sort of damages he’d get out of our Dago friend. He was a gentleman all right — got all het up ’cause he couldn’t offer me any hospitality when I called. Well, then, you know how it is when you’ve done a chap a sort of kindness; you feel he’s your baby, in a way, and you’ve got to go on. So I saw the American representative about getting his case pushed on, and of course I had to call again to tell him what I’d done.”

“Was the Dago worth going for?” inquired the cautious Simon.

Rex shrugged his broad shoulders. “He wasn’t what you’d call a fat wad, but he was agent for some fruit firm. I thought we might sting him for a thousand bucks. Anyhow, in the meantime, I became great friends with old wicked face — used to go to the hospital every afternoon for a yarn with the old man. Not that I really cottoned to him, but I was fascinated in a kind of way. He, as was as evil as they make ’em, and a lecherous old brute, but I’ll say he had charm all right. He was worth ten thousand of those half-breed Cubans, or the pie-faced Yanks with their talk of how much better things were at home!”