The Dark Frontier (4 page)

How could they be stopped? And, even supposing they could be stopped, who was to do the stopping? Even supposing that the ordinary man could be warned of his danger and organised for action, how would he proceed? The very existence of his organisation would probably precipitate the Armageddon it was designed to avert. No, the only chance for the ordinary man lay in the appearance of some extraordinary man to champion him; some man with superhuman qualities and superhuman abilities capable of frustrating the combined efforts of Kassen, the Ixanian Government and Messrs. Cator & Bliss and of doing his work both unobtrusively and effectually.

Where was such a man to be found? It was in a fit of desperation that he picked up the book.

It had been left by its owner on the sofa next to the Professor’s chair. It lay open, face downward, displaying the full expanse of a bright yellow jacket. One half of this was devoted to a list of the publisher’s other offerings while, on the front
cover, above a three-colour reproduction of a lantern-jawed man with a blue jowl and an automatic pistol, was the title, in blood-red letters.

The Professor’s first instinct was to put the book down again. It was someone else’s property. Then a paragraph on the open page caught his eye. He began to read.

Professor Barstow sighed. It was years since he had read anything like that. Barstow the mathematician had no use for Barstow the romantic. Yet, in some men the romantic vision never fades. Pure reason may distort it; everyday life may leave it uncultivated; yet it remains—to trap men in their weaker moments, and sometimes trick them into strength. Reason had worn the Professor to the verge of collapse. Romance, in the highly coloured person of “Conway Carruthers,” beckoned. It was, therefore, understandable that the Professor should turn to the beginning of the book and start to read in earnest.

Your true adventure and mystery story lover demands but one thing from heroes—competence. Be he detective or be he master criminal he must be a paragon. If he is at a loss it must be only momentarily; his vast armoury of experience must be ready at a moment’s notice to supply a weapon equal to any desperate occasion or a train of thought leading ultimately, if circuitously, to the correct goal.

Professor Barstow was no exception among such readers.

Conway Carruthers more than satisfied his requirements.

Nothing was beyond the powers of this remarkable man. His age, judging by his relations with other characters in the
book, might have been in the neighbourhood of forty. Against this estimate, however, must be set the evidence of his physical prowess which would have done credit to an Olympian athlete of twenty-five. On the other hand, he had somehow found time during his adult lifetime to save the lives of, or otherwise befriend, natives of a remarkable number of countries. The gratitude of these fortunates contributed largely to his success. Certain death might stare him in the face and he would extricate himself from his predicament by means of a trick learnt from a Patagonian Indian or a Bessarabian moujik. The outcome of a humanitarian encounter with a Chinese juggler or a Batavian stevedore would retrieve an apparently hopeless situation from disaster. Yet this curious erudition would have been useless without his amazing insight into human character and motives. Indeed, his ability to perceive enemies was only equalled by his talent for creating them. Let him but get near enough to a man to observe that his eyes were set too close together and Carruthers could read the evil there like an open book. Under Carruthers’ steely regard, moreover, apparently innocent occurrences were shown in their true and sinister colours. From the glint of the murderer’s knife descending behind him (and perceived in the nick of time) to the slight scratch by the keyhole of the old escritoire, nothing escaped him. Withal he was the very soul of discretion. Kings, queens, cabinet ministers, ambassadors, eastern potentates—all poured their confidences into his ears. Behind that high, clear-cut forehead reposed state secrets of awe-inspiring portent. Yet the lips of Conway Carruthers were sealed irrevocably. Free from the fears and the vanities, the blunderings and the shortcomings of ordinary men, he was of that illustrious company which numbers Sherlock Holmes, Raffles, Arsène Lupin, Bulldog Drummond and Sexton Blake among its members.

Groom and his business momentarily forgotten, the Professor
followed Conway Carruthers on the trail of his prey. In London he saw an attempt on Carruthers’ life foiled; in Paris he saw the
Chef de la Sûreté
welcome Carruthers as an old friend; in a suburb of Berlin he saw Carruthers fight his way out of a den of international crooks. The ever-competent Carruthers, a grim smile on his thin lips, a steely glint in his eye, pursued his quarry with the Professor at his elbow and a smiling fate to guide him for forty-three pages before reality intervened.

It is interesting, if unprofitable, to speculate on the part played in world history by the owner of the book. We can only record, however, that he chose to enter and claim it just as the Professor turned to
this page
.

He was a short man in large plus-fours.

“I left a book on the sofa there,” he began.

The Professor started guiltily and apologising profusely handed Conway Carruthers over.

“You’re welcome, you’re welcome,” the other assured him. “I know what it is myself. Once I start these darn things I can’t put them down for long until I’ve finished them. That’s what I like; a rattling good yarn that takes your mind off things. My wife likes a bit of real life in her reading, but who wants to read about real life? I don’t. Give me Carruthers. There’s nothing real about him.”

The Professor returned his farewell nod absently, but as he sat watching the rain trickling jerkily down the windows, the other’s parting words still drifted through his brain. “
There’s nothing real about him
.”

If only Conway Carruthers
were
real. In the resource, the competence of that fantastic character, there was something curiously satisfying. Carruthers would have dealt with Kassen and his bomb. Carruthers would have handled Groom. Above all, Carruthers would have known what he should do now. If only he were sitting in that chair, his steel-grey eyes alert and ready, his long, lean, sensitive fingers manipulating his tobacco
pouch calmly and precisely. In the Professor’s tired brain the phantasy became vivid to the point of reality.

“And so,” murmured Carruthers, “we are to save civilisation.” For an instant, the hard line of his mouth softened. Then the mask reasserted itself
. “The first thing,” he snapped, “is to forestall Cator & Bliss. I leave for Zovgorod tonight.”

To his surprise, the Professor realised that he himself had spoken the last sentence aloud. With a start he pulled himself together. In Heaven’s name what was the matter with him? The chair opposite was empty and he had been talking to himself. Feeling strangely frightened, he rose and walked to the window. He had a sudden desire to get out of the place, into the air, on to his holiday at Truro. Let Groom and Kassen and civilisation look after themselves, he was tired, tired, tired.

As it leaves Launceston the road rises steeply on to the moorlands which lie between there and Truro. There is not perhaps a more desolate stretch of country in England and most motorists take the main road across the moor sooner than risk a breakdown miles away from a garage. The Professor, however, preferred to avoid the beaten track and took a secondary road.

He hoped that the clean moorland wind would refresh him; but the drone of the engine and the roar of the wind served only to hasten the drowsiness that was stealing over him. His first realisation of it was a swerve that sent him perilously near the edge of the road. He had dropped off to sleep for a moment. There was a curious sensation of lightness in his head as he strove to collect his thoughts. A curious lightness and … something else. Normally he would have stopped the car and revived himself with a sharp walk; but now panic seized him and he put on speed. He must get on faster, faster, away from the jabbering of voices buzzing in his brain maddeningly. They
rose to a frantic, clattering babel as the car accelerated. Suddenly, with a sharp
click
, they ceased and he could hear nothing but soft, scratching, scuttling noises which grew gradually, gradually nearer, getting louder and louder, almost reaching him and dying away again, leaving only the hum of the engine and the beating of his heart. Then they came again, only this time, amid the hellish maelstrom of sound that battered at his brain, he heard a voice, Groom’s voice, speaking slowly as if from a great distance.

“
Should you change your mind
 …”

With a sob he drove his foot down on the accelerator.

“
Should you change your mind … should you change your mind … should you change your mind
.…” The words had fastened on to the rhythm of the engine. He could not escape them, could not shake them off. “
Should you change your mind
 …” His grip on the steering-wheel tightened until the knuckles were white. The sweat ran into his eyes. “
Should you change your mind
 …” The repetition was maddening. Then, gradually at first, but with ever-gathering momentum, another sentence took up the rhythm.

But now it was the voice of Conway Carruthers, a stronger, more compelling voice that seemed to overwhelm the other.

“
I leave for Zovgorod tonight. I leave for Zovgorod tonight. I leave for Zovgorod tonight
.”

With a cry, the Professor flung up his hands to his head.

The car hit the embankment at the side of the road with a grinding crash. The Professor, opening his eyes a fraction of a second later, saw the radiator rising and twisting in the air before him. Then he felt himself sinking, sinking.

It was dark and the moon had risen when the Professor opened his eyes.

He was lying on the side of the embankment. He sat up with an effort. He could see the outline of his car where it lay overturned by the side of the road. His head ached abominably. He put his hand to it. The hand came away black with blood in the moonlight. He rose to his feet unsteadily.

A stream ran by the foot of the embankment. He clambered down to it painfully and bathed his head. The water was ice cold and revived him a little. He crawled back to the car.

It lay almost completely upside-down and wedged between the slope of the embankment and the road. He knew that it was useless to attempt to right it. The rear end, however, was relatively undamaged and the Professor managed to retrieve his suitcase from the trunk. Then he returned to the road.

For a moment he paused undecided as to which way to go. To the left of the road the moor gleamed like silver before him. Suddenly he spoke. He seemed to be repeating a lesson learnt by heart.

“And so,” he said slowly, “we are to save civilisation.” He paused. When he went on, his voice was stronger. “The first thing is to forestall Cator & Bliss—I leave for Zovgorod tonight.”

He buttoned up his coat collar, then, with a resolute step, he left the road and trudged off southward across the moor.

On the evening of the day following that on which Professor Barstow lunched at Launceston a man carrying a suitcase walked into the Imperial Hotel at Plymouth and asked for a room.

Two things about him impressed the reception clerk. One was a dried trickle of blood on the man’s temple. The other was the cold, unwavering stare of his steel-grey eyes.

“Number three-five-six, sir,” said the reception clerk. “Do you mind signing the register?”

He handed him a pen.

The man took it and signed without hesitation.

The clerk gave the name no more than a passing glance.

He signalled to the hall porter.

“Send Mr. Carruthers’ luggage up to three-five-six,” he said.

H
is scarf adjusted to conceal the lower half of his face, his hat pulled down well over his eyes, the man who called himself Conway Carruthers boarded the train for Paris at Havre.

There were few passengers that day and he had no difficulty in securing a compartment to himself. Concealment, he told himself, was important at that stage for it was possible that he might be recognised. Still, thanks to the faultless organisation of Department “Y,” he had a convincing
alias
. As Professor Barstow, the eminent physicist, his presence would excite no suspicion, where the name of Conway Carruthers would arouse both suspicion and counter-productive fear.