The Dark Frontier (17 page)

It descended sharply. On either side of us the walls towered higher and higher, shutting out almost every vestige of light. We felt our way along the wall. My hand encountered a wooden doorway. Carruthers whispered that it was the entrance to the servants’ quarters and that I must go carefully as there was a flight of stairs ahead. A little way on I asked him how he had got through the gate in broad daylight. He answered that it had been open but that as it had shown signs of use he had provided himself with a pick-lock fashioned from one of the Hotel Europa’s forks. This piece of ingenuity encouraged me, and, for the first time, I felt a pleasurable sense of excitement.

We reached the bottom of the steps and I was relieved to find that the walls were lower there and that we could see our way. We went a little faster and must have covered a quarter of a mile before Carruthers halted, cupped his hands and brought his head close to mine.

“Go carefully now,” he whispered, “we’re near the quay.”

I listened and could hear the sound of water. The walls seemed to dissolve into a black pool of shadow ahead. Carruthers drew me into the shadows and whispered that we were at the foot of the stairs leading up to the quay. The passage had obviously been made for the use of boatmen and servants belonging to the house to obviate the necessity for their going through the grounds.

I followed Carruthers up two or three stairs and saw the top of his head outlined against the skyline. A glow from a fire lit up one side of his face. Someone coughed close at hand and I heard the sound of a match striking. It was the guard. Carruthers turned round and motioned me down the stairs again. We retreated a little way up the passage.

“He’s about twelve yards from the top of the stairs,” he said.
“I’m going to get him over to the far side of the quay by lobbing a stone into the water. When I give the signal come on quickly. Turn right at the top and you’ll come to some more steps leading down into the garden. The quay was built high to stop the flood waters. There’s quite a drop on the other side.”

He picked up a large stone from the path and we went back to the steps. I heard the swish of Carruthers’ arm and a loud splash some way ahead. There was a pause; I heard a movement from the quay and Carruthers’ whispered “Now.” I followed him on my toes. The glow from the brazier seemed like a searchlight, but I dared not pause until I felt Carruthers’ hand on my arm steadying me. We were at the top of the steps into the garden. The next moment we were in the shadows once more.

We stayed there for several minutes before Carruthers once more led the way into the blackness. I could feel grass beneath my feet and leaves brushed against my face. We seemed to be zigzagging. Once the black form in front of me stopped and I heard the crunch of feet on a gravel path and saw the gleam of a lamp. It disappeared and we went on until the house loomed suddenly above us. We stopped in the shadow of a wall and, whispering to me to stay there until he returned, Carruthers stole silently away.

I was shivering and turned my coat collar up. There was a lightening in the sky that foretold the rising of the moon and I could make out the shape of a low balcony above my head. I tried to see the time by my watch, but it was still too dark. Once I heard a slight scraping noise from the house, but that was all. It must have been about ten minutes later that I jumped as Carruthers touched me.

“I’ve been inside,” he whispered, “through a window in the servants’ quarters. The room at the end of the balcony is the one we want, I think.”

“How do you know?” I whispered back.

“It’s the only one with a locked door. Come on.”

“What about the guard in front?”

“Asleep like a good Ixanian.”

At the end of the wall he paused and I saw him drawing himself up on to the balcony. I went forward, felt a drainpipe against the wall and followed suit. I crouched beside him by a pair of tall French windows.

“This is the one,” he said.

It was locked—naturally. Once again I found myself cursing the childish absurdity of this crazy adventure. But I had reckoned without Carruthers’ preposterous accomplishments. He pressed the window top and bottom.

“It’s one of those double fastenings,” he said softly; “a handle turns in the middle and shoots the bolts top and bottom. When the wood warps they’re child’s play to open.”

Once more the mutilated fork came into play and a minute later I heard the bolts ease back and saw the door swing inwards. We stepped in on to a soft-carpeted floor. Carruthers shut and bolted the windows behind us.

The first thing I noticed was a strong perfume. Carruthers struck a match which he shielded carefully with his hands and I saw the reason, a large bowl of lilies on an eighteenth-century writing-desk in the middle of the room. Besides this there were two easy chairs and a bookcase, little else. I had time to see that the heavy window curtains were undrawn before Carruthers blew his match out.

“Behind the curtains for us, I think,” he said.

We enveloped ourselves in the heavy lined velvet folds and stood with our backs pressed against the wall, about two feet from the window. A large pelmet supported the curtains away from the wall, so that by holding ourselves flat there was nothing to betray our presence to anyone in the room.

“What now?” I whispered.

“We wait.”

Wait we did. The moon had risen and sent a shaft of light
through the window into the room when I stuck my arm out cautiously and saw by my watch that it was after one o’clock. Carruthers had forbidden the slightest movement and my feet were numb and my calves aching with the strain. I began to think that we had presumed too much in believing that we had anticipated Groom’s intentions. I was soon to learn that Carruthers had been right.

I was wondering whether it would be possible to ease the pain in my legs by raising myself up and down on my toes when there was the crunch of a step outside the window. I felt Carruthers stiffen. A moment or two later there was the sound of a tool being used on the window. There was a pause, then the handle of the fastening turned jerkily and the window swung inwards against the curtain behind which we were standing. Groom’s men had arrived. I held my breath.

A man stepped slowly into the path of the moonlight and stood still. He glanced over his shoulder, then peered forward. He moved out of my range of vision. I felt Carruthers’ shoulder leave mine as he leaned sideways. From his side of the curtain he could in this way command a view of the room. A sudden glow of reflected light told me that the visitor had a flashlight. I could hear my watch ticking in the silence and pressed my wrist against my leg to deaden the sound.

Whatever the man was doing, he was very quiet about it. I put my hand out to touch Carruthers and met his hand moving slowly out of his coat pocket. There was something cold and hard in it. I felt the outline. It was a gun. Suddenly there was a distinct click from the other side of the room. I put my hand out again. Carruthers had gone. The next instant I heard a thump on the floor and Carruthers’ voice near the curtain saying “Quick.”

I came out of hiding and saw Carruthers bending over the man he had slugged. Above his head was a small circular safe. It was open. Carruthers looked up.

“See if there’s anyone down below.”

I tiptoed to the window, bent double and edged out cautiously on to the balcony. There was plenty of light now. Through the balustrade I could see just below me a man’s head. I crept back and reported to Carruthers. I found him, flashlight in hand, poring over the pages of a hand-written manuscript clipped in a black folder. The writing was in Ixanian, but several pages consisted almost exclusively of chemical formulae unmistakable in any language.

Suddenly there was a “hsst” from outside the window and a voice softly called, “Nikolai.” Carruthers doused the flashlight instantly and, thrusting the papers into the safe, swung the door to and twisted the combination lock. My eye caught the gleam of the knife just in time. The man on the floor, Nikolai, had come to and was gathering himself for a spring when I jumped. I landed right on top of him and we rolled over on the floor. We finished up with him on top and his knife went back to strike when Carruthers intervened. I saw the man go hurtling back against the desk. There was a crash as the bowl of lilies went over.

“The window!” snapped Carruthers.

As I scrambled to my feet I heard him re-engaging Nikolai. I saw the shadow by the window and ran towards it. Attracted, evidently, by the noise, the man was on the balcony. My fist caught him on the side of the face and he went down. He was up again in an instant, but before I could follow up my attack he was over the balustrade. I heard him land on the path below and rushed back into the room. I was just in time to see Carruthers deliver a short-arm jab which sent Nikolai flying into an overturned chair. Carruthers did not wait for the man to get up but grabbed my arm and pulled me behind the curtain again. I soon discovered the reason. Behind the panting of the man on the floor I could hear footsteps. I made an involuntary movement to go, but Carruthers held me.

“Wait,” he hissed in my ear.

Nikolai had evidently heard the sound too, for he straightened himself and started towards the window. There was the sound of a key in the lock. Carruthers drew me back against the wall. I saw Nikolai outlined against the window and heard the door open. An instant later I was deafened by the sound of two shots from the door. The man at the window stopped and swayed, and I caught a glimpse of a wolfish face contorted with pain in the moonlight. The next instant he was gone and I heard him stumble as he landed on the path. There was a shout from the front of the house. The shots had evidently woken the guard. I heard running footsteps and further shots sounded from the grounds. Then the lights in the room went up.

My heart thumping, I waited breathlessly for discovery. There was no sound in the room. Then I heard a familiar click. The safe had been opened again. I turned my head slightly. Carruthers could see into the room. I heard the safe shut again and the door of the room swing to. The owner of the gun had gone out.

“Now,” hissed Carruthers.

Ten seconds later we were out of the room and standing under the balcony. Carruthers listened. I saw the flash of a shot in the grounds and a shout.

He turned to me. “If once we get in that passageway we’re trapped for a cert,” he whispered, “Nikolai and Co. are there. We must go by the front.”

We skirmished our way round the side of the house and Carruthers went forward and reconnoitred. A minute or so later he reported that the coast was clear. There were further shots from the rear of the house as we dashed down the grass verge of the short drive, but we gained the square without encountering any further trouble.

It was not until we were seated in a taxi and my breath
was returning that I asked the questions that were perplexing me.

“What happened to the guards in the grounds? And ten men couldn’t have passed the man on the quay as we did.”

“You didn’t imagine, did you, that those cut-throats would take Groom’s injunction seriously? The poor devils were knifed,” he answered. “There’s nothing like the knife for that sort of job. It’s silent and certain and it’s the favourite weapon in this part of the world.”

“Very probably. But the thing that’s bothering me is: who fired those shots and then calmly went to the safe? It couldn’t have been the Countess.”

“It was, all the same. She gave me the last piece of confirmation I needed. The second copy of the Kassen process is in that safe. She flew to it immediately to make sure it hadn’t gone. Did she hit Nikolai?”

“Winged him, I think.”

He looked thoughtful. “I wish she’d killed him. He saw my face in the moonlight. It may mean trouble with Groom sooner than I had bargained for.” He turned to me suddenly, a new light in his face. “An amazing woman that,” he said softly. “Did you see? She fired from the hip and winged him.” He paused; then with a comically elaborate air of carelessness went on: “Her head has an almost Madonna-like quality, don’t you think?”

I was silent. It may have been that the tension of the past few hours had produced a violent reaction. I had an almost irresistible desire to roar with laughter, for a fantastic idea had entered my head. This incredible man had fallen in love.

I arrived back at my hotel at two forty-five. About an hour and a half later two men entered Andrassin’s lodging, dragged him from his bed and beat him to death.

Only one man in the house saw them leave. Roused by the noise he opened his door and saw two men disappearing down the stairs. He caught a glimpse of the face of one of them, not enough to enable him to recognise the man again, but enough to notice that he had pronounced duelling scars.

C
arruthers brought me the news.

We had arranged before we parted the night before that we should meet at a café in the Kudbek at eleven in the morning. Hearing of Andrassin’s murder he had come straight to the Bucharesti. He arrived at about half-past ten.

He had learned about it from the waiter who had brought him his breakfast. He had been pumping the man to find out whether anything was known of the fracas at the Schverzinski’s house and the whole story had come out. The government-controlled newspaper had devoted a few unimportant inches in a late edition to the affair; but Andrassin, it seemed, was held in respect by the people and rumour and gossip were busy. According to Carruthers’ informant the murder was a political move by Andrassin’s enemies and a blow to freedom.

To say I was horrified would be to put it mildly. I behaved, in fact, a trifle melodramatically, as most of us do under the stress of a strong emotion, and was enraged by Carruthers’
calm acceptance of the situation. I called violently for immediate action. “I’ll get those dirty thugs,” I raged, “if it’s the last thing I do.”

“It will certainly be the last thing you do,” said Carruthers quietly, “if you attempt to do it at the moment.”

I calmed down eventually and Carruthers waved my apologies aside, but the feelings of horror and anger at the wanton and brutal destruction of the good man who had been my friend still haunted me. I paced the room restlessly. Carruthers sat in my armchair deep in thought. As I walked, my mind ran over my last meeting with Andrassin. It was only yesterday. Ages ago! He seemed now an infinitely tragic figure. I saw him once again receding into the crowd, his brisk, alert figure, his white mop of hair bobbing, a man who knew more than was good for him. I stopped suddenly and turned to Carruthers. The events of the night had driven my conversation with Andrassin out of my head.