Free The Dark Frontier by Eric Ambler Page A

even the most hardened travellers are subject.
    Occasionally he saw the Countess Schverzinski and the Ixanian envoy, whose name he had learnt from the sleeping-car attendant was Rovzidski, in the restaurant car. With the American acquaintance he exchanged remote nods. He endeavoured to pass the time with a Tauchnitz edition ofButler’s
Erewhon
purchased hastily from a station bookstall; but his thoughts kept wandering from Butler’s stimulating conceptions to the more momentous business on which he was bent.
    If Groom’s plans went smoothly, it would not be long before Kassen’s secret was in his possession. The time was near when he, Carruthers, would have to show his hand and deal with two groups of enemies. Neither group was to be despised. On one hand there would be Groom backed by the unknown, but no doubt extensive, resources of his international organisation. On the other, there was the Countess Schverzinski, an even more formidable enemy if Groom’s estimate of her were true.
    Mere possession of the Kassen secret was not enough. He must prevent its use in Ixania as well. That was an essential part of his task. What happened to it afterwards was another matter. If the peace of the world demanded that it should be destroyed, then destroyed it should be. But meanwhile there was this problem of preventing manufacture. Destroy some essential piece of laboratory equipment? It could be made again. Sabotage in any shape or form would merely serve to delay manufacture, not to prevent it absolutely. Kill Kassen? It was unlikely that the contingency of his death had not been anticipated and provided for.
    They arrived in Bucharest early in the evening. Rain was lashing down when the train drew in. They had just over an hour to wait before the branch line train for Zovgorod left. They spent it in a small café near the station, where Groom related with some gusto a lurid account of a previous experience in the city.
    The train for Zovgorod proved to be composed mainly of empty cattle trucks with two very dirty coaches and a mail van hitched to the rear. They were not due in Zovgorod until 7 A.M . the following morning and Carruthers did not look forwardto the two-hundred-and-fifty-mile journey ahead. Groom tempered fastidious disgust with philosophic resignation and, to Carruthers’ amusement, produced an atomiser and sprayed the upholstery with eau de cologne. It was, he declared, a powerful germicide.
    Carruthers’ first thought was to see if the Countess and Rovzidski, the Ixanian envoy, were on the train. They were, he found, in separate compartments in the next coach. He was mildly surprised to notice also that his American acquaintance was in the same coach.
    There were, besides, two men whom he could not quite sum up to his satisfaction. They were roughly dressed, yet they had about them an indefinable air of authority. The elder of the two, a man about forty, had two deep scars on his forehead just above the right eye. His companion, who looked about twenty-five, wore a truculent expression and had the more usual type of duelling scars on his cheek. Both wore moustaches of an unmistakably military character. Neither of them, Carruthers noticed, carried any baggage. A few peasants with their families seemed to be the only other passengers on the train.
    It was forty minutes late in starting. When finally it did get under way, however, the train rattled along at a fair pace. Lounging comfortably along the seat, cigar in mouth, Groom surveyed Carruthers with a benign smile.
    “Well, Professor,” he said heartily, “I’m sorry to have to subject you to all this discomfort, but I can tell you this much: our little business will take a good deal less time than I thought at first. In two or three days, if all goes well, we shall be on our way back with all the information we need in our pockets.”
    Carruthers looked as surprised as he could. Groom chuckled.
    “You’ve heard of Sir Basil Zaharoff?” he went