The Dark Frontier (15 page)

“He’s all right,” he said, “he doesn’t understand. I expect he told the Countess he knew English. Hotel English wouldn’t help him with the subject of our conversation. The key was in the door, too. He can’t have heard much.”

“He may not even have been trying to listen,” I said maliciously.

Carruthers smiled. “Still sceptical, Mr. Casey? I wonder for how long you will remain so.”

He poked his head back round the door as if he was going. “By the way, Mr. Casey,” he said, “I should very much like to meet your friend Andrassin. Will you arrange it?”

I nodded with my mouth full, and he went.

My breakfast finished, I dressed slowly. There were some hours to go before the three-o’clock appointment, but I had to secure the telephone receivers and wanted to leave myself plenty of time. It was eleven when I left the hotel and walked towards the Kudbek. I remembered that there were some booths in the post office there.

I reached the post office all too quickly. Outside, I stopped and stood there for a minute or two feeling rather foolish. There is nothing so damaging to a man’s self-esteem as the thought that he has been too credulous. It is a charge against his intelligence that he finds the greatest difficulty in defending. There is no excuse, no self-justification that he may use as balm to this wound to his pride. Brought face to face with the necessity of acting, and acting, I thought, rather childishly, upon my hasty estimate of Carruthers’ story, I was acutely conscious of behaving like a cub reporter on his first assignment. The foreign correspondent of the
Tribune
in Europe stealing telephone receivers to listen to what would probably turn out to be a perfectly ordinary business conference, at the behest of a crank with a penchant for ten-cent shockers, was a picture that made me blush. Atomic bombs! Secret papers! Secret agents—the blush deepened until I was glowing with self-contempt. But, such is man’s hatred of knowing himself for a fool, I knew that, credulous or not, I should keep that appointment at three and that, reposing uneasily in my pockets, would be two telephone receivers, the property of the Ixanian Government. In the end, only the evidence of his senses will convince a man,
especially should he be a newspaper man, that he has actually been deceived by a lunatic.

I pulled myself together and entered the post office. The line of telephone booths seemed terribly conspicuous. I chose the remotest of them and stepped inside, opening my penknife in my coat pocket as I did so. Lifting the receiver from its hook, I asked for the first number that came into my head and started sawing at the flex where it entered the box. It was surprisingly tough and I was additionally handicapped by a blunt knife and having only one hand free to use it. I managed at last, made a show of replacing the receiver and slipped it into the pocket of my raincoat which I carried over my arm. I stepped out of the booth and walked rapidly away in a cold sweat of fear. I did not like to go back to the same post office for the second receiver and after some difficulty found another booth where I repeated the process.

I walked back to the Kudbek with the receivers bumping against my side and made for the nearest café. I felt I had earned a drink. The café was crowded, but an unmistakable head of wild white hair caught my eye. It was Andrassin. Beside him sat a middle-aged man with a narrow intelligent head, a black moustache and dark-blue eyes. I made my way to the table. Andrassin greeted me enthusiastically and begged me to take the vacant chair. Holding my overcoat carefully in my lap, I sat down gratefully and ordered brandy. Andrassin flourished his arm expansively in the direction of his companion.

“Mr. Casey,” he said, beaming, “I’d like you to know Toumachin.”

He addressed a few rapid words of Ixanian to Toumachin, who bowed gravely and surveyed me with a pair of shrewd eyes. Andrassin beamed at us both and then turned to me with an apologetic twinkle.

“Mr. Casey, we are at the moment plotting the overthrow of Capitalism; you will excuse us for a moment?”

I reassured him and for two or three minutes the two conversed
in rapid undertones, Andrassin doing most of the talking, the other listening solemnly. They presented a remarkable contrast. Andrassin, shock-headed, voluble and bright of eye with enthusiasm and vitality, was admirably offset by the grave, level-headed, deliberate Toumachin. Each, it was easy to see, was the complement of the other. What Toumachin lacked in freedom of imagination, Andrassin supplied; what Andrassin lacked in executive force was brought by Toumachin: common purpose and sincerity bound them together. Andrassin had told me of Toumachin as a young man talks of a hero. Toumachin, it was obvious, held Andrassin in the same high regard.

With a final rush of words from Andrassin, their conversation ceased. Toumachin stood up, bowed to me and shook hands. Then he walked gravely away.

“He goes,” said Andrassin unnecessarily; but his remark lent a touch of drama to the departure. That was Andrassin’s way. He might have been another Reinhardt.

He became suddenly serious. “Mr. Casey,” he said slowly, “we are in the midst of great happenings.”

“More mysteries, Andy?”

“No, Mr. Casey, no more mysteries. We know and we are ready to act.”

“Know what?”

He shook his head grimly.

“Well, well,” I said good-humouredly, “you’ll give an exclusive when the story does break, I hope.”

He smiled, a trifle wanly, I thought.

“Toumachin has forebodings,” he said with unusual gravity, “and when that man has forebodings, I, too, am apprehensive.”

“Whatever it is,” I urged him, “forget it.”

“You are right, Mr. Casey, I am growing old. Tell me, what have you been doing with yourself in our so gay and prosperous Zovgorod?”

“Trying to be a good newshound, Andy—which reminds me; I’ve run across a Britisher who wants to meet you very badly.”

He gave me a quick glance and smiled. “I know,” he said slowly. “His name is Professor Barstow. He is a friend of Groom, the arms-maker. He called on you this morning.”

“You know him?”

He shook his head. A light dawned on me.

“I suppose that waiter at the Bucharesti isn’t a friend of yours?”

He nodded somewhat diffidently.

“I am a little disappointed in Petar,” he said with a smile; “his knowledge of English cannot be as good as he says. He reports that you are enamoured of the Countess Schverzinski and that with the aid of the Englishman you will attempt to seduce her this afternoon at three o’clock.”

When I had recovered from the effects of this intelligence, I returned to the attack.

“What’s the idea of setting your bloodhounds on to me, Andy?”

He reddened a little.

“You must forgive me, Mr. Casey, but I am your friend and it is for your own good. You are on the edge of a conspiracy that at any moment may blow up.” Metaphor was never Andrassin’s strong point. He grew redder. “Mr. Casey,” he said earnestly, “you will please go back to Paris. God himself could not give you better advice.”

I stopped laughing and looked at him. I had never before seen him so quietly serious.

“Andy,” I said gently, “you realise, don’t you, that you’re as good as telling me not to leave on any account?”

He snorted impatiently.

“When will you Americans realise that there are times when a little, just a little, discretion is necessary?”

“It’s no use, Andy, if there’s a ghost of a chance of anything happening here, I stay. You can tell me it’s my own fault afterwards. What is it, a revolution?”

“You talk childishly, my friend,” he said wearily.

We sat silent for a time; Andrassin was behaving curiously. Obviously, he had something really serious on his mind. I caught his eye. He grinned.

“You must forgive me, Mr. Casey,” he said. “I am very worried and should have known better than to imagine that you would have returned to Paris.”

“OK, Andy, no bones broken. Now, what about getting together with this guy Barstow?”

His expression changed again. He shook his head firmly.

“No, Mr. Casey, that I am afraid I cannot do.” He was very positive.

“Why?”

He looked round and lowered his voice.

“This Barstow,” he said, “is a marked man. What you call on the spot.”

I suspected exaggeration. Andrassin was inclined to be shaky on his American idiom.

“Do you mean someone’s going to kill him?”

He shrugged.

“I do not say that, but he is, nevertheless, in a very delicate position. I would not consider him the ideal subject for a life insurance.”

Carruthers’ story loomed large in my mind. I experienced a wave of excitement; but I affected exasperation. “Look here, Andy, for goodness’ sake tell me what all this mystery is about.”

Andrassin shook his head again. “You will learn nothing from me, Mr. Casey. Already, perhaps, I have said too much.” He paused, then added: “I know more than is good for me?”

I made a last effort.

“Tell me one thing. Is Professor Barstow in any way involved in this conspiracy you talk of?”

He hesitated, then shrugged his shoulders.

“He is. Whether he knows it or not, he is. That is why I will not see him. I do not take unnecessary risks. As for you, my friend, have nothing to do with him. It will be better for you.”

I knew that it was useless to pursue the matter. He changed the subject abruptly and spoke of days in New York with a nostalgia in his heart as apparent as it was infectious. He quoted Goethe, Hobbes and, as he rose to leave, Nietzsche.

“Action has no sense,” he said. “It merely binds us to existence. I have wasted my life, Mr. Casey,” he added sombrely.

We exchanged farewells and I watched him walk away until his short sturdy figure and his white shock of hair were hidden by the passersby.

I never saw him again.

A
t five minutes of three that afternoon I arrived at the Europa and asked for Professor Barstow.

Carruthers received me enthusiastically, shut the door carefully behind me and bolted it. Then he asked me eagerly if I had brought the receivers. I produced them from my pockets. He pounced on them with a cry of satisfaction.

“Have you your knife?” he asked.

I handed it to him. He went to the bell by his bedside and cut the wire near the push. He next proceeded to strip about twelve feet of it from the wall and bared the ends of insulation.

I watched these preparations with some misgiving. It was evidently apparent in my face, for he glanced at me and smiled.

“You needn’t worry, I’m not going mad.”

“What are you doing?”

“We’re going to listen to that conference. That’s why I asked you to bring the second receiver. We can both listen.”

“What are you going to do for a microphone?”

“I’ll show you in a minute.”

He finished his work on the bell-wire, opened the door of the room softly and pointed to a door along the corridor.

“That’s Groom’s room. In it there is a telephone. That will be our microphone.”

He took the end of the bell-wire and showed it to me.

“Now then, the telephone wires run out of the room just by the door there. What I want you to do is to stand at the end of the corridor and whistle if anyone comes.”

“But …”

“I’ll explain in a minute.”

I went to the end of the corridor and waited. A waiter appeared in the distance and I whistled at Carruthers who was bending down doing something to the telephone cable. He disappeared into the bedroom. The waiter went away again and Carruthers reappeared. I saw him thrusting the wire under the carpet into the corridor; then he stood up and beckoned.

I went back into the bedroom with him. He drew the end of the bell-wire in and shut and bolted the door again.

“I’ve tapped the telephone wires,” he said. “We shall hear the conversation through the telephone transmitter.”

“Is the telephone on its hook in Groom’s room?”

He nodded and smiled. My heart sank and I sighed rather irritably.

“Then how do you suppose we’re going to hear with the transmitter out of circuit?”

“If the telephone were off its hook someone might notice and put it back. The transmitter, however, is not out of circuit. While Groom was at lunch I took the precaution of jamming a couple of matchsticks under the hook—not enough to see, but just enough to raise the hook.”

This was better; then a thought struck me.

“Is there a private exchange in the hotel?”

“Yes.”

“Then what about the operator?”

“I’d thought of that. The telephone’s worked by the clerk at the reception bureau, so I sent him to get me a time-table. While he was away I fixed a pin on the indicator disc so that it can’t signal the fact that the hook is up.”

“Supposing Groom tries to make a call?”

“In that case we shall hear him and draw our lead in under the door. I’ve fixed it so that a slight pull will disconnect it.”

I congratulated him again and my words were none the less convincing because I was also congratulating myself. The man was not a complete fool.

The receivers were soon connected and we sat down by the door to listen and wait.

At three-thirty, Groom went into his room. The telephone proved a sensitive one, and we could hear him moving about. Then there was silence for a long time and I thought the connection had broken, but at about three-fifty-five we heard the waiter arrive with the drinks and the voice of Groom telling him where to put his tray. He spoke French with a curiously clipped accent, quite unlike any British-French accent I had heard.

The hands of my watch had moved to ten after four and I was wondering whether Carruthers hadn’t jumped to conclusions about the conference when we heard the first arrival being greeted by Groom. The language was French. Groom’s ignorance of Ixanian was a stroke of luck. The name of the first arrival was not mentioned and Groom merely told him to help himself to a drink.

Several more arrived during the next ten minutes and we could hear them talking together in low tones. A pair near the telephone transmitter seemed, I thought, to be using Greek. By half-past four the party was complete, for we heard Groom’s
voice calling them to attention. There was silence. Then Groom started to speak.