The Dark Frontier (19 page)

She gave a sharp order in Ixanian and the door closed again. She turned to me.

“Andrassin, I believe, was a friend of yours, Mr. Casey?”

I nodded. I could not trust myself to speak.

“A pity he had to die. A most intelligent man; I have had some delightful conversations with him. He held some interesting views on the international banking system which I shall make it my business to propagate at some future date. But he remained curiously immature—like a youth who has just read Paine’s
Rights of Man
for the first time—he had no sense of proportion.” She said the last six words very slowly.

I made no comment. She looked me in the eyes. She seemed to have forgotten Carruthers. “Death is very lonely, Mr. Casey. It is best that it should remain so.”

The door opened behind me. I turned round. A man stood in the doorway. He was tall and thin. His small eyes were pale blue and dull like pebbles; not even the heavy moustache he wore could conceal the thin cruelty of his mouth. Above his right eye were two deep duelling scars.

“This gentleman,” said the Countess, “is Colonel Marassin—my aide-de-camp.”

The man bowed slightly. We returned his bow.

“I wanted you to see Professor Barstow and Mr. Casey,” said the Countess in French, “in order that you may remember them. The Professor here has decided of his own free will to leave Ixania within twenty-four hours. Mr. Casey tells me that he plans to devote himself exclusively to journalism in the future.”

Marassin’s pale eyes flickered from one to the other of us.

“I shall myself be on the train to the frontier tomorrow morning,” he said. His voice was pitched in an unexpectedly high monotone.

“The Colonel will have no objection if I select a crowded compartment?” said Carruthers blandly.

There was a dead silence. I saw Marassin’s eyes flicker towards the Countess and her barely perceptible nod. I cursed Carruthers’ stupidity.

“On the train by which I arrived in Zovgorod,” continued Carruthers affably, “a poor fellow, whose name I do not know, was shot. You know, Colonel, I can’t help thinking I’ve seen you before somewhere.”

I saw Marassin’s hand move quickly to his pocket, but he stopped and his expressionless eyes turned to the Countess.

“Unlikely, I think,” she said coldly. “The Colonel rarely appears in public.” She stood up and addressed Carruthers. “You will meet Colonel Marassin at the station at ten o’clock tomorrow morning, Professor. That is all.”

The interview was ended. Marassin stood aside. We walked to the door.

“Good-bye, Professor,” said the Countess.

Carruthers looked back. He bowed slightly. “Good-bye, Madame,” he said.

But my eyes were for Marassin.

• • •

An hour later we sat over the remains of our lunch, and held a desultory council of war.

“There’s not a shadow of doubt in my mind,” said Carruthers in reply to my question, “that Marassin was responsible for the deaths of Rovzidski and Andrassin. What’s more, I’m the next on the list.”

“But what grounds can they have?”

“You heard what she said. I am suspect. My association with Groom, the suspicion that I was somehow mixed up in last night’s affair. These people don’t wait for judicial proof, they act.”

“But why get you on the train?” I asked. “They could have finished you off easily this morning. That hoodlum, Marassin, was itching to do it. What on earth induced you to make those cracks about having seen him before?”

He grinned. “It made no difference. My death warrant had already been signed.”

I temporised. “Look here, Carruthers, aren’t you dramatising the situation a bit? If they wanted to get rid of you, that was their opportunity. As it is, they want to get you out of the country with as little fuss as possible.”

He shook his head. “No; they wouldn’t feel safe even if I were out of the country. I might talk. They don’t know how much Groom’s told me. As for this morning, they obviously couldn’t kill me in the Countess’s house and with you knowing I was there. The fact that you are a pressman would make it additionally risky for them. The idea probably is for me to take my leave of you under ordinary circumstances. Then, when we’ve lost touch, exit Professor Barstow, shot up by bandits or something like that; letters of regret, criminals will not go unpunished, a peasant or two hanged.”

I felt that he was right. “The curse of it is,” I said bitterly,
“that she’s got the whiphand of us. I’m not supposed to get myself deported.”

He nodded absently and sucked at his pipe for a time; then he said: “What do you think we ought to do?”

I felt that the question was purely rhetorical, but he seemed to expect an answer.

“I take it that you have no intention of trying to leave Ixania?”

“Not the slightest. Apart from the fact that I have no intention of being killed, I have work to do here.”

I asked a question that had been troubling me.

He became vague. “Who I really am is unimportant at the moment. Perhaps I shall be able to tell you soon.” He lapsed into a thoughtful silence and I saw a puzzled frown gathering on his face. Then his hand moved ever so slightly in a gesture of dismissal. He turned to me.

“I must go into hiding. There’s nothing else for it.”

“But where?”

He shrugged. “We must see Toumachin at once. He may be able to help.”

I had almost forgotten Toumachin. But the position seemed hopeless. I barely knew the man. In any case he would probably be far too busy looking after his own life to bother about our affairs. I said so.

Carruthers ignored my comment. He spoke almost to himself. “It was bound to happen sooner or later. Perhaps it’s just as well; now, at least, we do know where we are.”

My headache, the after-effect of the drug that had been administered in the taxi, was wearing off. I began to sit up and take notice.

“Look here, Carruthers,” I said. “Don’t you think we’re being rather foolish? Wouldn’t it be better if we took the Countess at her word and laid off?”

He shook his head. “No, Casey,” he said quietly, “it
wouldn’t. I, at least, am too deeply in it to draw back now, even if I wanted to do so, which I don’t. I can’t ask you, of course, to risk your job and possibly your life, seeing the business through, but, if you do feel like going on with it, I shall be glad of your help.”

It was an appeal to my feelings which both irritated and impressed me in its moderation. I argued round the point. Then he casually broached the subject of Andrassin’s murder and I knew that, willy-nilly, I would commit myself again. When, ten minutes later, we started on our way, walking this time, to visit Toumachin, I had forgotten everything but the enterprise in hand. That was the last occasion on which I tried to make Carruthers or myself see sense. It was, I had seen at last, a waste of time.

We played the now-familiar game of spotting the shadower before Carruthers announced that the “bodyguard” had been withdrawn. This was a piece of good luck. The Countess had evidently decided that we were sufficiently chastened. Carruthers insisted, however, on taking me past the American and British Consulates. That the sprinkling of loungers in the vicinity of each were planted there for a purpose was apparent even to my sceptical eye. We made no attempt to enter either. I was not sorry.

After a good deal of trouble we found the Sa’ Maria prospek. It was one of the innumerable narrow streets that honeycombed the older parts of the city. Number eleven formed part of a large flat façade that embraced three other houses—all, judging from a rickety signboard, divided into one- and two-room lodgings. There was a bell at the side of the door and we heard it peal faintly in the distance as we pulled it.

A minute or so elapsed before the door was opened by a dishevelled woman of about fifty. She had obviously been struggling unsuccessfully to do up her corsets for the ceremony, for she was clasping her solar plexus in a peculiar fashion.

“Toumachin?” I said.

The door was slammed sharply in our faces. I thought I heard the purr of an electric buzzer immediately afterwards. I looked at Carruthers. He grinned.

“Being careful,” he said.

We waited for a moment or two. Then I looked up and caught a glimpse of a head being withdrawn hastily from a window. A little while later the door was opened again, this time by a man. He was short and thick-set and dark. His protruding jaw and creased forehead gave him a grim look, as though he had just done, or was about to do, some very dark deed. His brown eyes stared at us suspiciously. His hand was in his pocket.

“Toumachin?” I said again.

We were subject to another searching stare, then, reluctantly I thought, he motioned us in with a movement of his head. As the door closed behind us I saw his hand come out of his pocket holding an old-fashioned nickel-plated revolver. He waved us up the stairs ahead of him. We climbed about three flights before he called on us to halt.

We were on a small landing. He flung open one of the two doors leading off it and we went inside. He followed us and shut the door. It was a low room with a long narrow window at one end stretching from the ceiling to within a foot of the bare floor. A bed, a table, a wash-basin and several chairs furnished it. At the table, revolver in hand, sat Toumachin.

As we came in he stood up. Then he recognised me and, putting his revolver down on the table, came forward and greeted me politely in French. I introduced Carruthers. I saw his eyes gleam as I did so, but he only hesitated a moment before asking us to sit down. His solemn face did not betray the curiosity and uneasiness he must have felt.

“We come,” I began, “as friends of Andrassin.”

“How did you know where to come?”

“From a friend of Andrassin’s. I will explain in a minute.”

He nodded. “Andrassin spoke of you to me,” he said, “but,” he indicated Carruthers, “this man is not a friend. He is, I think, an ally of Groom, the munitions maker.”

I nodded.

“Monsieur Casey,” he said without emotion, “if this visit is an indiscretion, you will not, I am afraid, leave here alive.”

“There is no indiscretion, Monsieur.”

“That remains to be seen.”

“Perhaps,” interposed Carruthers, “we should explain our presence to Monsieur Toumachin.”

Toumachin inclined his head. “It would, no doubt, be best.”

“We have come to you, Toumachin,” I said, “because we believe, firstly, that much of what we are about to tell you, you already know; secondly, because we believe that we can help you, and thirdly, because we ourselves need help. I think that you know sufficient of me to believe me when I say that if Andrassin had not been murdered we should have put our trust in him. It is to you as his friend and successor that we turn now.”

I had thought over my speech carefully. I intended to play on his undoubted affection for Andrassin and I succeeded to an unexpected degree. He sprang up and walked to the other end of the room. When he turned, his eyes were filled with tears.

“Even now,” he said quietly, “when Andrassin is cold and his friends dare not go to his mutilated body for fear of their lives, I cannot believe that he is dead. Nor, for me, will he ever die. What good there is in the party that he has built is of his spirit. Those who have cut him down shall pay with every drop of their blood.” His voice rose in a sudden tempest of anger. After his previous impassivity, the change was all the more impressive. We sat silent. At last he turned to me gravely,
his face once more calm. “Tell me why you are here,” he said briefly.

I waited for a moment marshalling my thoughts. Then I began. I made no attempt to refer to Carruthers by any other name than Professor Barstow. The prospect of trying to explain and justify what I still regarded as a most unsatisfactory aspect of his story was more than I could face. For all Toumachin knew it might be the custom of English professors to indulge in Wild West antics once loosed from the restraint of their laboratories. I noticed him once or twice, however, looking curiously at Carruthers placidly smoking his pipe as my recital progressed. Nearly an hour had passed before I came finally to the events of the day, told of them briefly and sat back in my chair to light a much needed cigarette.

Toumachin looked across the room questioningly at the man who had ushered us in and who had been an intent listener. The latter nodded slowly. Toumachin stroked his chin thoughtfully for a moment or two, then he looked up at me.

“As you said, Monsieur Casey, much that you have told us was already known. But we have also learned much. The Professor here is certainly correct in his conjecture that Colonel Marassin intends to kill him tomorrow. We will talk more of that later. What I am anxious to know is: what does the Professor desire? Does he desire the Kassen secret for himself?” He swung round suddenly and faced Carruthers.

Carruthers answered him.

“The only thing that I desire is the complete destruction of all practicable records of the Kassen process. I wish to render impossible the use of this gift of science for the perverted ends of the old civilisation.”

“You have no qualms about destroying the evidence of this discovery?”

“None. What man has discovered once he can discover again. I believe that next time Kassen’s secret is discovered the
world may be ready to receive the knowledge of it as a blessing. It may not be in our lifetime, but the time will come.”

Toumachin turned to me.

“It was the Professor’s idea that you should come to me?”

I nodded.

“I thought so,” he said. He turned to Carruthers. “It was my intention to preserve the discovery of Kassen in a safe place, to keep it hidden until I judged that knowledge of it could do no harm.”

Carruthers looked at him for a moment, then shook his head. “My way is the better, Monsieur,” he said. “While that secret remains even remotely accessible to mankind, there is danger. Men build for themselves battleships and guns. They tell you that these arms are only defensive and that they do not intend under any circumstances to use them offensively. But there always comes a time when fear robs the people of sanity. Then the people appeal to their leaders. Their leaders, if they are strategists, know that the best defence is attack. The damage is done. The weapons that were prepared never to be used are fulfilling the inevitable function of their existence. We cannot make a new world while men, however well-intentioned, so much as possess weapons of destruction.”