The Dark Frontier Read Online Free PDF

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 tobaccopouch 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. Theyrose 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