Rex shrugged his broad shoulders. “He wasn’t what you’d call a fat wad, but he was agent for some fruit firm. I thought we might sting him for a thousand bucks. Anyhow, in the meantime, I became great friends with old wicked face — used to go to the hospital every afternoon for a yarn with the old man. Not that I really cottoned to him, but I was fascinated in a kind of way. He, as was as evil as they make ’em, and a lecherous old brute, but I’ll say he had charm all right. He was worth ten thousand of those half-breed Cubans, or the pie-faced Yanks with their talk of how much better things were at home!”
“Surely,” remarked the Duke, “Shulimoff must have had investments outside Russia before the Revolution. How did he come to be in such a state?”
“He’d, blown every cent; got no sense of money. If he’d got a grand out of the fruit merchant he’d have spent it next day. But money or no money, he’d got personality all right; that hospital was just run for him while he was there. He tipped me off he was pretending to be a Catholic; all those places are run by nuns, and he knew enough about the drill to spoof them all; they fairly ran round the old crook! After I’d been there a few times he told me his real name, and then the fun started. He wouldn’t open his mouth if anyone who could speak a word of English was within fifty yards; but, bit by bit, he told me how he’d cheated the Bolshies.”
“Are you sure he was not amusing himself at your expense?” asked the Duke. “He seems just the sort of man who would.”
“Not on your life. He was in deadly earnest, and he’d only tell a bit at a time, then he’d get kind of nervous, and dry up — say he’d thought better of it — if the goods stayed where they were the Bolshies would never find them till the crack of doom; but if he told me, maybe I’d get done in after I’d got ’em, and then the something — something — something Bolsheviks would get them after all.”
“And where had he hidden this famous hoard?” De Richleau asked with a smile.
“You’ve hit it.” Rex threw up his hands with a sudden shout of mirth. “Where? I’m damned if I know myself!”
“But, Rex — I mean,” Simon protested. “You — er — wouldn’t risk getting into all this trouble without knowing where they were?”
“I’ve got a pretty shrewd idea,” Rex admitted. “They’re at Romanovsk all right, and I was getting right down to the details with the old prince, when — ”
“What happened? Did he refuse at last to tell you?” The Duke’s shrewd grey eyes were fixed intently on Rex’s face.