“They are small, and only of little value — also you will say to ’im ’oo brings it: ‘Valeria Petrovna will give you a thousand roubles if you bring this safe to ’er.’”
“You’ve been wonderful to me,” said Simon, drawing her towards him. “How can I ever tell you what I feel?”
The late dawn of the winter’s morning was already rising over the snow-white streets, and the ice-floes of the Moskawa River, when Simon Aron slipped quietly out of the block of flats which contained Valeria Petrovna’s apartment; but he left with the knowledge that Rex was held prisoner amid the desolate wastes of the Siberian snows, in the city of Tobolsk.
IX — Beyond the Pale
The Duke and Simon were walking in the great open courtyards that lie between the many buildings within the Kremlin walls.
It was the Duke’s quizzical sense of humour that had prompted him to choose this particular spot — the very heart and brain of Soviet Russia — in which to hold a conference, having for its end a conspiracy against the Soviet State.
When a tired but cheerful Simon had pushed a slip of paper across the breakfast table that morning, bearing the one word “Tobolsk”, he had only nodded and said: “Let us go and see the Kremlin this morning.”
“Tobolsk,” said the Duke as they strolled through the first courtyard, “is on the other side of the Ural mountains.”
“Yes,” Simon agreed, dismally. “Sounds an awfully long way away.”
“It is about thirteen hundred miles, that is to say, a little less than the distance from here to London.”