“Then I’ve got one of the most unpleasant jobs I’ve ever had in my life.” Richard began to pace uneasily up and down.
“How do you mean?”
“Why, to tell you the truth about Valeria Petrovna. I suppose she never told you about seeing me in Moscow a week ago?”
“Ner.” Simon looked puzzled. “Didn’t know you’d been there.”
“Well, I have; it’s less than a week as a matter of fact, though it seems like a month in some ways. You remember you asked me to start digging round if I didn’t hear from you in three weeks? That was at Miriam’s party. Well, in the middle of February I began to get worried. I stirred up the Foreign Office, but I couldn’t get any satisfaction, so by the end of the month I decided to come over myself. When I got to Moscow it occurred to me that you might have looked up Valeria Petrovna, so I went to see her. By an incredible slice of good luck that angel, Marie Lou, was there when I arrived.”
“I see.” Simon nodded. “Of course, Valeria Petrovna told me that Marie Lou had turned up with the locket, and that she’d got her safely out of the country.”
“She did — I took her! But before we left your lady friend told me quite a lot about her plans for your future, and her views on Rex and the Duke.”
“Did she?”
“Yes.” Richard faced his friend. “Now I’m not going to ask you, Simon, if you agreed to register with the lady, or whatever they call it here, solely because you do think it would be worth giving up the old life to be with her, or if she brought some pressure to bear about De Richleau and Rex, though I’m inclined to think it was the latter, but either way, you’re not the man to sit here drinking that filthy wine unless she had promised to get your friends out of it, too!”
“Ner — of course she promised, and she has, too!”