The Thirty-Nine Steps

an Wh

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

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

e to their houses, but they didn't seem much interested in me. They would fling me a question or two about South Africa, and then get on their own affairs. A lot of Imperialist ladies asked me to tea to meet schoolmasters from New Zealand and editors from Vancouver, and that

East, and there was an article about Karolides, the Greek Premier. I rather fancied the chap. From all accounts he seemed the one big man in the show; and he played a straight game too, which was more than could be said for most of them. I gathered that they hated him pretty blackl

Portland Place. The crowd surged past me on the pavements, busy and chattering, and I envied the people for having something to do. These shop-girls and clerks and dandies and policemen had some interest in life that kept them going. I gave half-a-crown t

here was no restaurant or anything of that sort, and each flat was quite shut off from the others. I hate servants on the premises, so I had a fe

sudden appearance made me start. He was a slim man, with a short brown beard and small, gimlety blue eyes. I

for a minute?' He was steadying his voice wi

er the threshold than he made a dash for my back room, wher

d feverishly, and he fastened

ed the kind of man who would understand. I've had you in my mind all t

l I'll promise.' I was getting worried b

ch he filled himself a stiff whisky-and-soda. He drank it

rattled tonight. You see, I ha

an armchair an

sked. I was pretty certain th

're a cool customer. I reckon, too, you're an honest man, and not afraid of playing a bold hand. I'm going

yarn,' I said, '

on the queerest rigmarole. I didn't get hold of it at first, and

d as war correspondent for a Chicago paper, and spent a year or two in South-Eastern Europe. I gathered that he was a fine linguist, and h

hen because he couldn't help himself. I read him as a sharp, restless fellow, who alway

e. He had come on it by accident; it fascinated him; he went further, and then he got caught. I gathered that most of the people in it were the sort of educated anarchists that make revolutions

how one state suddenly came out on top, why alliances were made and broken, why certain men disappeared, and w

, and they looked to see a new world emerge. The capitalists would rake in the shekels, and make fortunes by buying up wreckage.

legant young man who talks Eton-and-Harrow English. But he cuts no ice. If your business is big, you get behind him and find a prognathous Westphalian with a retreating brow and the manners of a hog. He is the German business man that gives your English papers the shakes. But if you're on the biggest kind of job and are bound to g

his Jew-anarchists seemed to

nvent some kind of flag and country to fight for, and if you survive you get to love the thing. Those foolish devils of soldiers have found something they care for, and that has upset the pretty plan lai

t you were de

n I knew.) 'I'm coming to that, but I've got to put you wise about a lot of things fi

had been reading about

an. Therefore he has been marked down these twelve months past. I found that out-not that it was difficult, for any fool could gu

d it for him myself, for I was g

e is coming to this city. The British Foreign Office has taken to having International tea-parties, and the biggest of them is due on tha

how,' I said. 'You can war

the only man that can straighten out the tangle. And if his Government are warned

're not going to let their guests be murdered. Tip

an, and there'll be plenty of evidence to show the connivance of the big folk in Vienna and Berlin. It will all be an infernal lie, of course, but the case will look black enough to the world. I'm not talking hot air, my friend. I happen to know every detail of the hellish contrivance, and I

e a rat-trap, and there was the fire of battle in his gimle

find out this s

u the details now, for it's something of a history. When I was quite sure in my own mind I judged it my business to disappear, and I reached this city by a mighty queer circuit. I left Paris a dandified young French-American, and I sailed from Hamburg a Jew diamond merchant. In Norway I was an English student of

to upset him, and he gul

an hour or two. I watched him for a bit from my window, and I thought I recognized him ... He came in and spoke to the porter ... Whe

d scare on his face, completed my conviction of his honesty.

ng, and that there was only one way out. I had to die. If

you man

doctor, but I swore some and said I couldn't abide leeches. When I was left alone I started in to fake up that corpse. He was my size, and I judged had perished from too much alcohol, so I put some spirits handy about the place. The jaw was the weak point in the likeness, so I blew it away with a revolver. I daresay there will be somebody tomorrow to swear to having heard a shot, but there are no neighbours on my floor, and I guessed I could risk it. So I left the body in bed dressed up in my pyjamas, with a revo

t with me. It was the wildest sort of narrative, but I had heard in my time many steep tales which had turned out to be true, and I had made a practic

e a look at the corpse. Excuse my caution

had to leave it behind, for I couldn't leave any clues to breed suspicions. The gentry who are after me are pretty bright-ey

ou into this room and keep the key. Just one word, Mr Scudder. I believe you're st

't the privilege of your name, Sir, but let me tell you t

d clean, his hair was parted in the middle, and he had cut his eyebrows. Further, he carried himself as if he had been drilled, and was the very model, even to the brown compl

Scudder-'

ilus Digby, of the 40th Gurkhas, presently home

h, more cheerful than I had been for the past month. Things d

ad done a good turn to out on the Selakwe, and I had inspanned him as my servant as soon as I got to England. He had abou

aptain-Captain' (I couldn't remember the name) 'dossing down i

d by communications from the India Office and the Prime Minister and his cure would be ruined. I am bound to say Scudder played up splendidly when he came to breakfast. He fixed Paddock with his eyeglass, ju

rs, and went down to the City till luncheon. Wh

No. 15 been and shot 'isself. They've just took '

ic questions, and they soon kicked me out. Then I found the man that had valeted Scudder, and pumped him, but I coul

American business. The jury found it a case of suicide while of unsound mind, and the few effects were handed over to the American Consul to deal with. I gave Scudder a full account

. I think he was nursing his nerves back to health, for he had had a pretty trying time. But on the third day I could see he was beginning to get restless. He fixed up a list of the days till June 15th, and ticked

ays asking me if Paddock could be trusted. Once or twice he got very peevish, and apologized

cess of the scheme he had planned. That little man was clean grit al

iness. I should hate to go out without leaving somebody else to put up a fig

very clear that the danger to Karolides would not begin till he had got to London, and would come from the very highest quarters, where there would be no thought of suspicion. He mentioned the name of a woman-Julia Czechenyi-as having something to do with the danger. She would be the deco

mortally anxious about winning through with hi

day with the scent of hay coming in at the window. I used to thank God for such mornings way back

the time. I went out to dinner with a mining engineer I had got to see on business,

he smoking-room door. The lights were not lit, which stru

. Then I saw something in the far corner which m

k. There was a long knife through his