Authors: Eric Ambler
Carruthers pondered this new aspect of commercial probity. Such agile moralists would, no doubt, be more than equal to the task of reconciling the necessity for bribery and corruption of state officials with their other principles.
He looked across the compartment at Groom. Night was falling. Whoever was in charge of the train had apparently forgotten or been unable to switch on the lights, for they were in semi-darkness. Carruthers could see Groom, faintly outlined by the failing daylight behind the glowing end of his cigar, sprawled comfortably on the seat. Suddenly, a cold rage possessed him; a rage against these monsters who battened on the wretchedness, the weakness of mankind. Just for once, he resolved, they would be defeated—yes, even if it cost him his life.
He felt incapable of remaining in the compartment with Groom and, with a muttered excuse, went into the corridor.
Leaning on the window-rail he gazed out into the gathering darkness. Far away he could see a line of hills traced delicately against the strip of cold cerulean sky left by a dying sun. The clouds still hung, black and heavy, overhead. The sound of the train seemed to echo across the plain as if in a great waiting silence. He turned his head towards the freshening breeze.
They reached the Ixanian frontier at two o’clock in the morning.
Roused by the slowing of the train, Carruthers stretched his cramped limbs and climbed down on to the platform of the frontier station. The moon had risen and by the look of the surrounding country, Carruthers guessed that they were in a high-altitude pass.
It was bitterly cold and, burying his hands in the pockets of his thin overcoat, he walked up and down to restore his circulation.
Some slovenly-looking soldiers were grouped round a brazier at one end of the platform. These, doubtless, were the Ixanian frontier guards. Several corrugated-iron sheds flanked the station and as Carruthers drew level with them a disreputable-looking official appeared.
Carruthers was joined by Groom and the other passengers on the train, and the shivering group was ushered into one of the sheds. He looked round for the Countess, but she was not with them. The American vouchsafed a distant nod. Rovzidski stood just behind him. Then, through an open door on the far side of the building, he saw a large Mercedes saloon drawn up in the road beyond. A few seconds later, the Countess appeared, followed by one of the soldiers with her luggage. The official greeted her deferentially; she stepped into the car and was driven away immediately. He heard faintly the tyres of the Mercedes screech round a corner. The Countess was evidently in a hurry.
He produced his passport. As soon as the official saw it an unpleasant change came over him. His air of bored negligence gone, he ordered Carruthers to wait and glanced through the remaining passports hurriedly but carefully. Then summoning two of the soldiers, he announced that there would be a customs examination of baggage on board the train.
A murmur of surprise rose from the passengers as they returned to their compartments. Groom’s eyes met those of Carruthers with a look of triumphant amusement as he turned to follow. Carruthers faced the official.
The man said nothing but, seating himself at a table, proceeded to copy out painstakingly the information contained in Carruthers’ passport. Having done so, he handed back the passport with a flourish and waved Carruthers to the train.
Accompanied by the soldiers the customs official moved from compartment to compartment on his examination. Not even the peasants’ bundles were immune. Waving aside the chorus of protests that rose, he inspected every piece of luggage in the train. Groom and Carruthers in the last compartment came in for the closest examination of all.
Groom, protesting with studied ill-humour, was made to open his two huge suitcases and submit them to the pummellings and proddings of one of the soldiers. It was Carruthers’ turn next.
Following Groom’s example, he complained vigorously in English, French and German. The official took no notice and ordered him curtly to unlock his suitcase. With a show of bad grace, Carruthers obeyed. The official undertook the examination himself, removing singly every article in it and keeping up a running fire of unintelligible comment as he did so.
Acutely conscious of the Browning reposing in his hip pocket, Carruthers was hoping desperately that they would not deem it necessary to search his clothes. He was soon reassured. With a grunt of satisfaction his camera was unearthed from the suitcase. A whispered colloquy with the soldiers followed. Then, turning to Carruthers, the official announced in hideous German that it was forbidden to bring cameras into the country and that his instrument was confiscated.
With a sigh, partly of relief, partly of annoyance, Carruthers surrendered his camera. The official wrote out a receipt and with a careless salute left the coach.
As the train steamed slowly out of the station Groom laughed.
“Well, Professor,” he said genially, “how does it feel to have the Countess Magda Schverzinski interested in you?”
Carruthers smiled ruefully. He was very much the “Professor.”
“I must confess, Mr. Groom,” he said, “that after what you
have told me, I am not entirely surprised. I do, however, wish that the Ixanian Government had been satisfied with a mere inspection of the instrument. I regret its loss. It was a nice camera. I should have liked to have taken some photographs in Zovgorod—as a memento of my visit. I have always been interested in architecture.”
His answer seemed to amuse Groom.
“Well, Professor,” he said solemnly and with evident intent to humour, “we’ll see what can be done. I must say, I enjoyed the episode. That was probably the first time for years that they’ve had to conduct an ordinary customs examination at that station. The only goods contraband in Ixania are bristles for brushes. That’s about the only thing they export now that their lead mines have worked out; and they have a huge protective tariff on. However, looking for bristles must have dulled their faculties a little. Look!”
He struck a match and, reaching to his hip pocket, produced an exact replica of the camera that Carruthers had just lost.
“Keep it, Professor,” he said in a matter-of-fact voice, “we may need it. At all events you can now take your photographs in Zovgorod.”
Groom settled himself once more in his voluminous travelling-rug and, closing his eyes, was soon, to judge from his snores, asleep.
Carruthers, however, could not sleep. For a long time he tried, but the discomfort of the train and his thoughts kept him awake. The episode at the frontier had impressed him. Whatever doubts he had hitherto entertained concerning Groom’s judgement of the situation had been dispelled. This was reality and he was dealing with powerful and decisive people. He must be decisive in his turn. Mistakes would be dangerous.
He must have dozed for a time. Suddenly, however, he was alert and wide awake. He had an intuitive feeling that
something was wrong. The train seemed to be travelling fast. Through the window, he could see a faint lightening of the sky in the east. Then, from the other end of the corridor, came the unmistakable sound of a shot, followed three seconds later by two more in rapid succession.
In an instant he was in the corridor. The moon had set and it was still too dark to see much, but he thought he discerned two figures moving in the corridor ahead.
An excited babel of voices told him that the shots had been heard by others. At that moment there was a scream of brakes and he was flung forward off his balance. He saved himself by clutching at the rail. Screams and shouts from the other coach told him that others had not been so fortunate. The train ground to a standstill. Obviously, someone had pulled the emergency cord.
Between him and the place from which the sound of the shots had seemed to come, there were three empty compartments. As the train stopped he heard the click of the outside door of one of them. He slid into the nearest compartment and leant out of the window. He could just see two shadowy forms moving rapidly away across a field.
He withdrew his head and went back into the corridor. A guard with a lantern was approaching. Groom came out of their compartment and Carruthers told him what had occurred.
By that time the guard was near them, peering into each compartment in turn. Suddenly he stopped and shouted. The passengers crowded towards him. Pushing Carruthers aside, Groom elbowed his way to where the guard stood with his lamp held aloft and a look of horror on his face. Carruthers followed him.
There, sprawling half on the seat and half on the floor, was the body of a man with blood welling from a large wound on the forehead. The light from the lantern threw his face into ghastly relief. The teeth were clenched, the eyes stared wildly,
the entire face was distorted by fear: but the dead man was easily recognisable. It was the face of Rovzidski, Ixanian envoy to London.
Groom was the first to turn away. Carruthers followed him back to the compartment. For a time the plump, white-haired man, ignoring the hubbub, stared out of the window in silence. Carruthers, marvelling at the man’s self-possession, heard him swear once under his breath. Then he turned and sat down.
“I regret to disappoint you, Professor,” he said bitterly, “but I spoke too soon. Our stay in Zovgorod may be longer than I expected.”
With that he settled himself once more in his rug. When they woke him some fifteen minutes later for questioning, he wore an air of tired martyrdom.
By seven, the time the train was due to arrive, they were still some sixty kilometers from Zovgorod. Thoroughly unnerved by the murder, the train officials had lost their heads and showed it by alternately browbeating the passengers and demanding their moral support.
This much was clear. Whoever had shot the man had left the train via the door which was found open. Carruthers refrained from saying anything about the two men whom he had seen making their escape. They had been seen by another passenger and this, in conjunction with the fact that the two passengers with the military moustaches whom Carruthers had noticed were nowhere to be found, seemed to reassure the chief interrogator. Carruthers was glad that it did.
Obviously, Rovzidski had been suspected of trafficking with Cator & Bliss while he was still in London. The Countess Schverzinski had escorted him home to Ixania not only to ensure that he did not get into further touch with Groom, but also probably because the best place to deal with
him was in Ixania where drastic measures could be hushed up if necessary. Rovzidski, if he had found that he was suspected, might have been tempted to remain abroad. True, the Countess had not been able to prevent his meeting with Groom in Bâle, but—he remembered the rabbit-faced watcher—the meeting had doubtless not gone unreported. Rovzidski’s executioners had boarded the train at Bucharest. Having delivered the traitor, the Countess had discreetly left the train at the frontier, leaving them to do their work. They had done it, stopped the train and made their escape in a part of the country where immediate pursuit was impossible. One thing was evident. The Countess Magda Schverzinski did not stand on ceremony where her enemies were concerned.
Groom, brooding in his corner, was reticent on the subject.
“He knew too much,” was his guarded rejoinder when Carruthers attempted to discuss the motive for Rovzidski’s murder.
Regarding the two men who had done it, he vouchsafed an opinion.
“You may remember the Society of the Black Hand which flourished in Macedonia some years ago. Ixania has a parallel organisation today. It calls itself, a trifle ridiculously, the Society of the Red Gauntlet and the members, as in the case of the Black Hand, are mostly of the officer class. They call themselves a patriotic society, but their speciality is political terrorism. The Black Hand wielded enormous political power at one time. They had a finger in practically every governmental pie and numbered even judges, generals and cabinet ministers among their members. The Red Gauntlet, however, is far less impressive. It is, I believe, largely the tool of the aristocratic party. The business looks like their work.”
He lit a cigar and added petulantly:
“The real trouble with this damned country is that they don’t put restaurant cars on the trains.”
Carruthers found himself wondering whether, when the time came, his own elimination would be received so calmly. His eyes met those of the man opposite. Groom was smiling his faint contemptuous smile; but in his eyes there were other things. Carruthers shuddered involuntarily. For the first time he felt afraid.
T
he city of Zovgorod is well situated. Set in the bowl formed by the junction of three valleys, it is protected both from the winds that sweep down from the cold north and up from the hot, dry south. The climate is temperate for Eastern Europe. If Nature had had the forethought to make the River Kuder navigable, Zovgorod might have had commercial importance. As it is the city has had strategic importance instead; an unfortunate distinction for a Balkan city. It lies in the path of a force utilising the valleys to strike northwards from the south; it lies at the point where that force can be most readily intercepted from the west. Turk, Slav, Latin and Teuton fought over the ground for centuries. The waves of conquering armies, sometimes from the west, sometimes from the east, have broken over it and receded, leaving always a dross of alien blood and alien culture behind them.
The latter was by far the more desirable inheritance. Everywhere in Zovgorod is evidence of its chequered history. The
infusion of many Western influences into an architecture predominantly Byzantine is, for the most part, strangely pleasant in its results. An astringent quality saves it from the sentimentality of the merely picturesque. The new civilisation has had little opportunity to mix its blessings in Zovgorod and the older streets still have a sinister dignity of their own; a dignity, be it said, that not even the faint smell of medieval cess-pools that pervades them can wholly dispel.