“This foundry was a kind of laboratory and study all in one. I reckon they chose it as his prison because it was one of the only rooms that had strong iron bars to the windows. That let them all out for the drunk! All being equal in the Red Army, no one wanted to miss a party to do sentry-go.”
“How did he get out, then,” Simon asked, “if the windows were barred?”
“Easy; he had all his gear in the foundry, so he cut those bars like bits of cheese with an oxy-acetylene lamp. But the old man kept his head — as luck would have it, the jewels were in the foundry. He wouldn’t risk taking them with him, in case he was caught, so he occupied the time while the Reds were getting tight in making something at his forge to hide ’em in.”
“What was it?” came Simon’s eager question.
“Now you’ve got me,” Rex shook his head. “That’s just what I never squeezed out of the old fox before he went and died on me.
“It was some sort of metal container, and he put the stones inside. It was something that ’ud look like part of the fittings of the foundry, and something that nobody would trouble to take away. He soldered it in, too, I gathered, so that nobody could shift it without breaking the plant. You should have heard that wicked old devil chuckle when he thought how clever he’d been!”
“I can hardly imagine that it can still be there,” said De Richleau, thoughtfully; “the place must have been ransacked a dozen times. They would not have overlooked the plant in the foundry, especially a portion which had been newly forged!”
“Old Shulimoff was an artist. I’ll bet it’s there to this day among a mass of rusty machinery. He realized they’d spot the new bit, so he had to make it all look alike. What d’you think he did?”
“Don’t know,” said Simon.
“Set fire to the house, and then legged it through the snow. That foundry can’t have been much to look at, even if there were any Reds left to look at it next day. He reckoned that he’d get back there when things were quieter, but he never did. He was lucky in falling in with a party of ‘White’ officers, and later they all got over the Persian frontier together. I’ll bet — ”
But they were never to know what Van Ryn meant to bet. The crack of a whip brought them scrambling to their feet. Twenty yards away the sleigh had leapt into motion. They had all been so interested in listening to Rex that they had forgotten to keep an eye on their prisoner. He had stealthily harnessed the horses while their backs were turned. The Duke drew his automatic and fired over Simon’s shoulder; the bullet hit an intervening tree and ricochetted with a loud whine. He ran forward, firing again and again, but the sleigh was rounding the bend of the track at full gallop on the road to Tobolsk. Rex snatched up the prisoner’s rifle, but he threw it down again in disgust. Nobody could hit a moving target through those trees.
They looked at each other in real dismay. They were now utterly helpless in the depths of the Siberian forests, an easy prey to the hunters who would soon be on their tracks. It could only be a matter of hours until they were captured, or dead of cold and exhaustion in the wastes of these eternal snows.
XIV — The Secret of the Forbidden Territory
It was Rex who broke the unhappy silence. “If we’re not the world’s prize suckers,” he declared bitterly, “I’d like to know who are!” And he began to roar with such hearty laughter that the Duke and Simon could not forbear joining in.
“This is no laughing matter.” De Richleau shook his head. “What the devil are we to do now?”
“Walk,” said Simon, the ever practical, and in truth it was the only thing they could do.
“Good for you,” Van Ryn exclaimed, patting him on the shoulder with one large hand while with the other he picked up the rifle and the strap of Simon’s rucksack. His cheerful face showed no hint of his quick realization that the pace of the party must be that of the slowest member, or his anxiety as to how many hours it would be before Simon’s frail physique gave out under the strain. He only added: “Come on, let’s beat it.”
De Richleau collected his things more slowly. “Yes,” he agreed, “we must walk — at least, until we can buy or steal horses. But which way?”
“To Romanovsk,” said Rex. “That way’s as easy as any other, and I’d sure like to have a cut at those jewels before I go back home.”
“As you wish.” The Duke gently removed the ash from his cigar. “We have had no time to tell you our own adventures, Rex, but there is one little episode which makes me particularly anxious to avoid capture.”
“Give me that sack and let’s hear the worst,” Rex remarked casually, as he slung the Duke’s rucksack over his shoulder next to Simon’s.
“My dear fellow, you can’t carry two!” De Richleau protested, “particularly after having driven all night.”
“I certainly can,” Rex assured him. “I’d carry a grand piano if I felt that way, but I’ll give ’em back quick enough if I get tired, don’t you worry. Let’s hear just how you blotted your copybook!”
“An agent of the Ogpu followed us as far as Sverdlovsk. If his body should chance to be discovered, and we are captured, it might prove a little difficult to explain,” said the Duke mildly.
Rex whistled. “You gave him the works, eh? Great stuff; but if that’s so, they’ll not be content to put us behind the bars this time; it’ll be we three for the high jump!”
“We — er — hid the body,” Simon remarked; “if we’re lucky they won’t find it till the spring.”
Side by side they walked down the cart-track, and turning into the road set their faces to the north. “I’ll say we’re lucky today anyhow,” Van Ryn threw out; “if it had snowed last night we’d not make a mile an hour without snowshoes, as it is the going won’t be too bad on the frozen crust.”
They trudged on for a long time in silence; there was no traffic on the long, empty road, and the intense stillness was only broken by a hissing “plop”, as a load of snow slid from the weighted branches of the firs, and the steady drip, drip, as the hot sun melted the icicles hanging from the trees.
It must have been about half past nine when Rex suddenly stopped in his tracks — he gripped the others tightly, each by an arm, as he exclaimed: “Listen — what’s that?”
A faint hum came to their ears from the westward. “’Plane,” said Simon, quickly. Even as he spoke Rex had run them both into the cover of the trees at the roadside.
“It’s a ’plane all right,” he agreed, “but that engine’s like no other that I’ve ever heard — and I know quite a considerable piece about aeroplane engines.”
All three craned their necks to the sky from the cover of the larches — the deep, booming note grew louder, and a moment later the ’plane came in sight. It was a small, beetle-shaped affair, flying low and at very high speed; it turned north when it was over the road, and passed over their heads with a great roar of engines. In a few seconds it was out of sight, and in a few minutes out of hearing.
“The hunt is up, my friends,” laughed the Duke, a little grimly. “These will be more difficult to throw off the trail than bloodhounds.”
“Somehow, I never thought of being chased with ’planes,” Rex admitted. “That certainly puts us in some predicament!”
“We must stick to the forest,” Simon answered. “Follow the road as long as there are trees, and leave it when there aren’t.”
As they journeyed on other ’planes came over; that it was not the same one going backwards and forwards was certain — since the numbers on each were different. Each time one came over Rex strained to catch a glimpse of the design, so different to anything he had seen before. The others cursed the necessity of stopping every twenty minutes, and often having to make long detours to keep under cover when the trees left the road.