“Let’s go through it carefully,” said Simon at last “What’s all this business about a mine? I didn’t know that Rex ever trained as a mining engineer.”
“Nor I,” agreed the Duke. “What do you make of the passage about Eatonov?”
Simon’s dark eyes flickered over his spectacles at the Duke.
“That’s where the muddle comes in — Eatonov is Richard Eaton, of course — and poor Richard went to Brixton! Rex is in prison — that’s what it seems to me.”
“Without a doubt,” De Richleau nodded, “that reference to Eaton was a clever way of putting it — no ordinary person could understand it, but he would know that, to us, it would be abundantly clear. If one needs further confirmation, one has only to note the suggestion about his transfer being arranged for, and that ‘it will be impossible for him to come to Moscow now to meet us’; he is somewhere in Soviet Russia, but he is not a free man.”
“The letter was posted in Finland,” Simon remarked.
“Certainly.” The Duke pushed the old brandy across the table to his guest. “It looks as if the letter was smuggled out of Russia, evidently Rex was afraid that his messenger might be searched at the frontier, and so made him commit the address to memory. From the envelope I doubt if the man could even speak English. The whole thing, with its talk of centres, comrades, and reactionary Governments, is obviously designed to throw dust in the eyes of any Soviet official.”
“Who is Jack Straw? I don’t — er — understand that bit at all. The only Jack Straw’s that I’ve ever heard of is the Castle on the Heath.”
“Jack Straw’s Castle — what is that?” The Duke looked puzzled.
“An inn on Hampstead Heath — place where Dick Turpin, the highwayman, used to make his headquarters about a hundred and fifty years ago — at least,” Simon corrected himself, “I’m not certain that isn’t ‘The Spaniards’.”