“Well, I’ll say we’ve taken the right road,” Rex laughed. “Romanovsk is just the one place in all the Russias I’ve been wanting to see for a long, long time.”
“Let us be serious, Rex,” De Richleau protested. “We shall need all our wits if we are ever to get out of Russia alive.”
Van Ryn shook his head. “I’m on the level. You boys wouldn’t know the fool reason that brought me to this Goddam country.”
“Oh, yes, we do,” said Simon promptly. “You’re after the Shulimoff treasure — Jack Straw told us!”
“Did he, though! He’s a great guy. Well, the goods are under fifteen miles from where we’re sitting now, in the old man’s place at Romanovsk; it ’ud be a real shame to go back home without those little souvenirs — we’ll split up on the deal!”
“I should be interested to hear how you learnt about this treasure, Rex,” said the Duke; “also how you were caught. Tell us about it now. We must give the horses at least an hour, they’re looking pretty done.”
“It happened this way.” Rex pushed the last piece of a ham and rye bread sandwich into his month, and leant back against the trunk of a near-by tree.
“Last fall I went to take a look at some of those one-eyed South American States — tho’, come to that, they’re not so one-eyed after all. Of course, as kids in the States, we’re always taught to look on them as pothole places — run by Dagoes, half-breeds, and dirty-dicks, and just crying out for real intelligent civilization as handed out by Uncle Sam — but that’s another story. On the way home I stopped off for a spell in the West Indies.”
“Cuba?” suggested De Richleau.
“Yes, Havana.”