The Dark Frontier (24 page)

“If it hadn’t been for Beker, they’d have stirred me up.”

Beker’s grim face relaxed into a smile.

“Anyway,” said Carruthers, “how’s the wrist?”

I showed him and he examined my tourniquet with a professional eye.

“It’ll be all right,” was his verdict. “But you’ll have to have it dressed. See if you can find some lint.”

He resumed his search. Beker disappeared outside. I went through a door and found myself in a bedroom with a smaller compartment fitted up as a bathroom adjoining it. I found a thick roll of lint bandage in a small enamelled iron cabinet fixed on the wall and took it back to the laboratory. Carruthers was crouching on the floor making a bonfire of the reams of notes and calculations that he had unearthed.

“Have you got the lint?” he asked as I came in.

I nodded.

“Good. I’ll bandage it for you.” He nodded towards the pile of papers. “The papers we want are not there, but I’m taking no chances. There may be stuff here that would give the right person the dope he needed.” He paused. “You know,” he went on, “I feel like a criminal, destroying all this brilliant work.” He toed the charred remains thoughtfully.

“What are you going to do now?” I asked.

“You remember telling me about those hotheads who wanted to blow up the dam?”

“Yes—what about them?”

“Well, I’m giving them their opportunity to do some blowing up. There are six full-blooded nihilists with a hundredweight or so of nitroglycerine and shot firing equipment one
hundred yards up the valley, and they’re itching to get to work. I was keeping that picnic for tomorrow, but as soon as I knew that Groom was getting desperate I decided that I couldn’t leave it any longer. This crew has been just over the other side of the hill in a village for three days now. Beker telephoned to them before we left to take up their posts immediately. They’re getting the stuff into position now.”

“You mean you’re going to blow up this dump?”

He nodded solemnly. “Yes. I’m taking no chances. There mustn’t be the remotest possibility of the Kassen secret surviving. Kassen’s copy of the process may go elsewhere, but this place must go.”

I found that I could hear footsteps crunching on the stones and the sound of low voices. “We’d better get out, hadn’t we?”

“There’s no immediate hurry. I want to delay it until the morning if possible. I don’t wish to prejudice Toumachin’s show by alarming them before he’s well on the move.”

“What about Kassen? The Countess still has her copy, too.”

“Neither of them will be allowed to get away with it. Toumachin is seeing to that.”

He started to bandage my wrist and for a time I concentrated on that. It was very painful. Running through my mind, however, was the thought that, whatever Carruthers proposed to do, the Kassen secret was still as much alive as it had been on the day we had come to Zovgorod. Blowing up laboratories wasn’t going to help and was, I thought, a trifle childish. But I was beginning to know my Carruthers and kept quiet about my misgivings. In any case, I did not feel up to arguing.

Carruthers quickly completed the bandage and gave me the roll of lint to hold while he cut it. My left hand is never very useful. I fumbled and dropped the roll. It fell to the floor. Suddenly Carruthers gave a yelp of excitement. The next instant he was on his knees unrolling the lint. I soon saw what he was
after. As the lint unrolled itself, strips of paper were falling out. Each was covered with masses of minute writing.

Carruthers collected the last of them and stood up, his eyes gleaming.

“We’ve got it,” he crowed, excitedly waving the papers in my face. “The second copy of the Kassen conditioning process.”

I grabbed the papers and glanced through them quickly. He was right. There was no mistaking the similarity between the writings on them and those in the Countess’s safe. The next moment Carruthers had grabbed my shoulders and was waltzing me round the laboratory. The festivities did not last long. Someone coughed and a dry voice said in perfect English:

“Highly diverting, but I am afraid I shall have to ask you to put your hands up.”

A small, narrow-shouldered little man with a large head stood at the door regarding us with a thin, twisted smile on his lips. Behind him, with big German pistols in their hands, stood Marassin, the pink-eyed officer and another uniformed man. Over their heads I could see others.

We stood still and said nothing. I, at any rate, was beyond uttering words. The little man advanced into the centre of the room and bowed to Carruthers.

“Professor Barstow, I believe. My name is Kassen. You may have heard of me.”

“Who,” said Carruthers fulsomely, “has not?”

Kassen acknowledged the compliment with a gesture. He ignored me and glanced round the room. I watched his face apprehensively, but it was expressionless as his eyes stopped at the pile of charred papers.

“I hope,” he said evenly without turning his head, “that you have found your visit instructive, Professor.” His eyes alighted on the unrolled bandage. “Ah, yes, of course, I see you have.” He carefully gathered up the papers that Carruthers had
dropped, put them in his pocket and went through the door leading to the High-Tension building and we were left staring into the inhuman eyes of Marassin. The man had not spoken a word, but a wave of sick fear swept over me as I looked at him. Only a ceaseless twitching of his jaw muscles proclaimed the fact that he was alive. He had a necrophilitic quality that I found unutterably repellent. Suddenly, Kassen called out something and the third man of the trio who carried a hand-lamp followed Kassen into the other building. A moment later Kassen returned. His eyes were blazing. He snapped something at Marassin, then went up to Carruthers and struck him on the mouth. Carruthers did not flinch.

“So,” said Kassen, his voice trembling with rage, “you have seen fit to torture my assistant to death as well as destroy my records.”

“No, Monsieur,” said Carruthers calmly, “that is the work of someone else.”

Kassen drew back with a sneer of disbelief.

He looked ugly and I hoped that Beker would not delay his return too long. My eyes went involuntarily to the window. The sounds had ceased and I guessed that the nihilists had decamped. He must have read my thoughts, for he laughed shortly.

“You need not expect any help from the other member of your little expedition,” he said; “we were fortunate enough to meet him on the road.” He turned to Marassin. “Have him brought in.”

Marassin called an order over his shoulder and there was the sound of a scuffle outside. I gave up hope. With Beker taken, we were as good as lost. Two soldiers entered. Supported between them was the owner of the rubber truncheon. It was the man who had escaped with Groom.

“Search him,” directed Kassen.

The first thing to come to light was the truncheon. Kassen
weighed it in his hand thoughtfully for a moment, then turned to Carruthers.

“An excellent weapon, Professor. You will be desolated to learn, however, that I have a powerful sense of poetic justice. If poor Vasa were alive, I should probably allow him to be the instrument of it.” He shrugged. “As it is, perhaps Colonel Marassin will oblige me.”

He turned to Marassin, who stepped forward. His jaw muscles still twitched, but now his eyes were glowing strangely. He passed his gun to his pink-eyed companion and took the truncheon from Kassen.

“They must be bound,” he said.

We were in an unpleasant predicament. If we disclaimed all knowledge of the man with the truncheon, they would start looking for Beker. If we said nothing we were in for a bad time. There was this deciding factor; we were probably going to be killed in any case, but with Beker at large we at least stood a remote chance.

We were seized, seated in chairs and bound. The ropes on my wrist were agonising, but I managed to keep silent. There was no point in inviting torture. The truncheon wielder, who seemed to guess what was coming and who wept and pleaded unceasingly, was trussed in the same way. Marassin flourished the truncheon menacingly.

“The owner of the truncheon first, I think,” said Kassen.

Marassin advanced towards the whimpering occupant of the chair beside me, raised the truncheon and brought it down heavily on the man’s shoulders. I heard his collar-bone crack and he screamed. There was a pause, then Marassin lifted the truncheon again. Kassen held up his hand.

“Please, Colonel,” he said apologetically in French, “I have not the stomach of you military men. Also, I have thought of a better way of disposing of these men. I take it that they are to be disposed of? The Countess wishes it?”

Marassin spoke an unintelligible sentence or two in his high monotone.

Kassen nodded his head understandingly. “There will be no mistake, Colonel,” he said. He broke into Ixanian for a moment or two and we were then carried into the High-Tension building preceded by the man with the hand-lamp.

Seen from the interior it presented an even more bizarre appearance than before. Kassen went straight to the switchboard and a dozen resistance lamps glowed. The assistant, Vasa, had been released from the chair, evidently by Carruthers and Beker, and lay on the floor. The cloth by his knee had been cut away, exposing a red mess.

We were set down under Kassen’s directions against the one vacant wall. Then he left us to get a large wheel in motion at the other end of the laboratory. I heard an exclamation from Carruthers and, glancing up, saw that the two copper globes suspended from the roof were slowly descending. Except for the creaking of the winding gear there was silence until the globes were within a metre of the floor. Then Kassen rejoined us.

“Familiar surroundings for you, Professor,” he said smoothly. “Not, of course, as grand as those in which you have worked, but the best brains in science have always been able to make do with mediocre equipment. I do not need million-dollar laboratories to supplement my abilities.”

“Admirably put,” said Carruthers calmly.

Kassen smiled. “I am glad, Professor, that you are taking this so philosophically. In fact, I deeply regret that there is no time for us to discuss my latest work. I have been able, let me tell you, to effect changes of state, polymerisations, you will understand, in the atomic structure of certain substances. I should like to tell you more about it, of how I succeeded in establishing what, for want of a better phrase, I may call colloidal suspension of a proportion of the atoms in these substances;
but I must forgo that pleasure for a different one. I am going to kill you. You have had the impertinence to meddle with matters which do not concern you. You were warned. You took no heed. So you and your stupid friends must die. Your death will be sudden, but there will be a certain period of anticipation preceding it. In point of fact I propose to discharge a million volts across your bodies. You, Professor, will understand how I am going to do it; but for the benefit of Mr. Casey here,” he bowed to me, “I shall demonstrate first in order that he may enjoy the same stimulating sensations.”

A dozen retorts rose to my lips, but Carruthers said nothing and I thought it best to follow his lead. I comforted myself with the thought that Beker could not be far away now.

Kassen went to the switchboard and operated two large circuit breakers. Then he returned.

“The condensers are being charged,” he informed us; “in a moment you will hear the eddy current vibrations commence.”

We listened in silence. Marassin stood immobile beside us. The other men looked interested. Then, faintly at first, we heard a humming sound coming from the rows of horned containers. About two minutes went by. In that time the humming had risen to a loud and angry buzz. Then I noticed a blue glow surrounding each of the copper globes.

“Ionisation of the air,” explained Kassen.

The blue glows intensified and became larger. I felt a curious sensation on the top of my head. It was as though my hair were lifting. I noticed then that the hair on Kassen’s head was moving as though a stiff breeze were blowing. Suddenly the buzz went up a semi-tone in pitch. The next moment there was an ear-splitting crack like the sound of a giant stock-whip and a huge blue-white flame played for a second or two between the two globes. Simultaneously there was a crash from the switchboard as the circuit breakers flew out. A curious acrid smell filled the air.

“The smell, Mr. Casey,” said Kassen, “is due principally to ozone. There is also a little nitric acid created by the arc. A splendid entertainment is it not?” He paused. “Having aroused the interest of our audience,” he added ominously, “we will now proceed to the second act.”

We were lifted again and, this time, placed between the two globes. By this time, the man in the third chair was only partly conscious and his head lolled from side to side as they carried him. There was little room between the globes and our chairs were touching. I could hear him moaning softly to himself.

“What about it, Carruthers?” I whispered.

“We must hope for Beker,” he returned, but I noticed that his mouth was set in a curious way.

There came an excited burst of speech from Marassin, to which Kassen replied briefly.

“Our friend the Colonel is becoming impatient,” he said, “we must not disappoint him.”

He went to the switchboard again and was about to press the breakers home when respite came from an unexpected quarter. There was a sudden commotion outside and the Countess swept into the laboratory.

She glanced round, saw us, then turned imperiously to Kassen. “I heard that Kortner had telephoned from the power station to say that the searchlight here was being used. What is the explanation?”

“These gentlemen here are the explanation, my dear Magda,” he answered in a conciliatory tone. “Marassin and I found them rifling the laboratory. They had also been torturing Vasa for information that he did not possess. He is dead. In deference to Mr. Casey’s American citizenship, I was about to electrocute them. They are, so Colonel Marassin tells me, under sentence of death.”

She swept a quick glance over us. I saw Carruthers smile
faintly. She seemed to hesitate. Then she nodded. She was about to go when suddenly she turned on us in a cold fury.