The Thirty-Nine Steps

I returned from the city about three o’clock on that May afternoon pretty well disgusted with life. I had been three months in the Old Country, and was fed up with it. If anyone had told me a year ago that I would have been feeling like that I should have laughed at him; but there was the fact. The weather made me liverish, the talk of the ordinary Englishman made me sick. I couldn’t get enough exercise, and the amusements of London seemed as flat as soda-water that has been standing in the sun. “Richard Hannay,” I kept telling myself, “you have got into the wrong ditch, my friend, and you had better climb out.”

It made me bite my lips to think of the plans I had been building up those last years in Bulawayo. I had got my pile⁠—not one of the big ones, but good enough for me; and I had figured out all kinds of ways of enjoying myself. My father had brought me out from Scotland at the age of six, and I had never been home since; so England was a sort of Arabian Nights to me, and I counted on stopping there for the rest of my days.

I was just fitting my key into the door when I noticed a man at my elbow. I had not seen him approach, and the sudden appearance made me start. He was a slim man, with a short brown beard and small, gimlety blue eyes. I recognized him as the occupant of a flat on the top floor, with whom I had passed the time of day on the stairs.

“Can I speak to you?” he said. “May I come in for a minute?” He was steadying his voice with an effort, and his hand was pawing my arm.

I got my door open and motioned him in. No sooner was he over the threshold than he made a dash for my back room, where I used to smoke and write my letters. Then he bolted back.

“Is the door locked?” he asked feverishly, and he fastened the chain with his own hand.

“I’m very sorry,” he said humbly. “It’s a mighty liberty, but you looked the kind of man who would understand. I’ve had you in my mind all this week when things got troublesome. Say, will you do me a good turn?”

“I’ll listen to you,” I said. “That’s all I’ll promise.” I was getting worried by the antics of this nervous little chap.

There was a tray of drinks on a table beside him, from which he filled himself a stiff whisky-and-soda. He drank it off in three gulps, and cracked the glass as he set it down.

It was risks after all that he was chiefly greedy about.

The whole story was in the notes⁠—with gaps, you understand, which he would have filled up from his memory. He stuck down his authorities, too, and had an odd trick of giving them all a numerical value and then striking a balance, which stood for the reliability of each stage in the yarn. The four names he had printed were authorities, and there was a man, Ducrosne, who got five out of a possible five; and another fellow, Ammersfoort, who got three. The bare bones of the tale were all that was in the book⁠—these, and one queer phrase which occurred half a dozen times inside brackets. “(Thirty-nine steps)” was the phrase; and at its last time of use it ran⁠—“(Thirty-nine steps, I counted them⁠—high tide 10:17 p.m.).” I could make nothing of that.

“In bed wi’ the colic,” I replied, and the herd passed on.

Just about midday a big car stole down the hill, glided past and drew up a hundred yards beyond. Its three occupants descended as if to stretch their legs, and sauntered towards me.

Two of the men I had seen before from the window of the Galloway inn⁠—one lean, sharp, and dark, the other comfortable and smiling. The third had the look of a countryman⁠—a vet, perhaps, or a small farmer. He was dressed in ill-cut knickerbockers, and the eye in his head was as bright and wary as a hen’s.

“Morning,” said the last. “That’s a fine easy job o’ yours.”

I had not looked up on their approach, and now, when accosted, I slowly and painfully straightened my back, after the manner of roadmen; spat vigorously, after the manner of the low Scot; and regarded them steadily before replying. I confronted three pairs of eyes that missed nothing.

“There’s waur jobs and there’s better,” I said sententiously. “I wad rather hae yours, sittin’ a’ day on your hinderlands on thae cushions. It’s you and your muckle cawrs that wreck my roads! If we a’ had oor richts, ye sud be made to mend what ye break.”

The bright-eyed man was looking at the newspaper lying beside Turnbull’s bundle.

“I see you get your papers in good time,” he said.

I glanced at it casually. “Aye, in gude time. Seein’ that that paper cam’ out last Setterday I’m just sax days late.”

I emerged into the sunlight to find the master of the house sitting in a deep armchair in the room he called his study, and regarding me with curious eyes.

“Have they gone?” I asked.

“They have gone. I convinced them that you had crossed the hill. I do not choose that the police should come between me and one whom I am delighted to honour. This is a lucky morning for you, Mr. Richard Hannay.”

As he spoke his eyelids seemed to tremble and to fall a little over his keen grey eyes. In a flash the phrase of Scudder’s came back to me, when he had described the man he most dreaded in the world. He had said that he “could hood his eyes like a hawk.” Then I saw that I had walked straight into the enemy’s headquarters.

My first impulse was to throttle the old ruffian and make for the open air. He seemed to anticipate my intention, for he smiled gently, and nodded to the door behind me.

I turned, and saw two menservants who had me covered with pistols.

He knew my name, but he had never seen me before. And as the reflection darted across my mind I saw a slender chance.