Simon pulled on his furs, and followed the Rabbi through the great wooden door into the narrow street.
They walked quickly and silently — the cold was piercing. Their way lay through the twisting streets of the old town,” and at last they came to a high wall surrounding a number of bleak, two-storeyed stone buildings. The great gates in the wall stood wide open. One heavily bearded man, wrapped in a great top coat, sat in a little watch-house, warming his feet at an open brazier. He nodded to the Rabbi, and they walked through into the courtyard. A very different business, Simon thought, to the regulations which he had encountered when he had had occasion to enter Brixton Prison on account of Richard Eaton.
Several men were playing a game of volley-ball in the courtyard, but Simon saw that Rex was not among them. They entered a long, low room in one of the buildings. Most of the occupants seemed to be asleep.
The place was furnished only with trestle tables, hard benches, and the usual big porcelain stove. The floor looked as though it had not been swept for weeks.
Simon’s sharp eyes travelled backwards and forwards, while the Rabbi spoke to one or two of the prisoners, evidently men of the Jewish race, but there was no sign of the big American.
They left the building, and entered a hall in the second block; it was furnished in the same way, and was identical in size with the first. No warders were in evidence, and it seemed that the prisoners were allowed to move freely in and out just as they liked. Here also the majority of the occupants were sleeping or talking quietly together — still no sign of Rex.
In the common-room of the third block, a similar scene met Simon’s eyes; filth, discomfort, lassitude, but no attempt at any ordered control. It was in the third building that he noticed a curious thing — none of the men wore boots! Instead, they had list slippers. He was just pondering over this when his attention was attracted by a small group squatting on the floor in the corner. Two little Yakuts, with merry faces and long Mongolian eyes, sat with their backs to the wall; before them, facing away from Simon, was a fat, bald-headed man, and a broad, strapping fellow, of unusual height, with powerful shoulders.
The bald man shook a small box that rattled, and it was evident that the four were engaged in a primitive form of dice.
Simon looked again at the colossal back of the young giant. “Could it be? If it was — gone were the dark, wavy curls — this man’s head was close cropped. Suddenly, in a loud voice, he spoke: “Come on, digger — spill the beans!”
Then Simon knew that the first part of their mission was accomplished. In this sordid Siberian prison, he had run to earth that most popular figure among the younger generation of society from Long Island to Juan les Pins — Mr. Rex Mackintosh Van Ryn.