“What can an inn on Hampstead Heath have to do with a mine in Russia? There must be some other explanation.”
“Perhaps,” Simon hesitated, “it is the meeting-place of some secret Bolshevik society.”
“But, my friend, if Rex has fallen foul of the Ogpu, surely they would be the last people to give us any information about him?”
“It might be a society of counter-revolutionaries, and Rex has been arrested for being in touch with them.”
“If you are right, Rex may have gone to Russia on behalf of these émigrés, and been arrested on that account — if so, the mine may be anything of value — perhaps even secret information.”
“Well — I’ll tell you,” said Simon, “I don’t like it a little bit — look at the last sentence in that letter — ‘ I certainly need help pretty badly in my present position, it’s too much for me alone.’”
The Duke gently laid the long blue-grey ash of his cigar in the onyx ash tray. “There is not a doubt,” he said, slowly, “our good friend Van Ryn is a prisoner in Soviet Russia — Rex is one of the bravest men I have ever known, he would never have written that last paragraph unless he were in dire distress. It is a cry for help. Where he may be in that vast territory which constitutes the Union of Soviet Peoples, it will be no easy task to discover. He has found somebody — a fellow prisoner, perhaps — who was about to leave the country, and persuaded him to take this letter in the hope that it would get through. The chances were all against it reaching it’s destination, but as it has done so — the point is now — what are we to do?”
Simon Aron leant forward and laughed his short, jerky laugh into his hand. “Well — er — I hate to say so,” he laughed again, “but it seems to me that you and I have got to take a trip to Russia.”
II — A Plan of Campaign
“Now this,” said the Duke, “is indeed a pleasant surprise. I thought you might bring fresh light to bear upon some aspect of this affair — but to have your actual help was more than I had dared to hope.”