The Thirty-Nine Steps
He went out each morning, leaving me milk for the day, and locking the
door behind him; and came in in the evening to sit silent in the
chimney corner. Not a soul came near the place. When I was getting
better, he never bothered me with a question. Several times he fetched
me a two days’ old _Scotsman_, and I noticed that the interest in the
Portland Place murder seemed to have died down. There was no mention of
it, and I could find very little about anything except a thing called
the General Assembly—some ecclesiastical spree, I gathered.
One day he produced my belt from a lockfast drawer. “There’s a terrible
heap o’ siller in’t,” he said. “Ye’d better coont it to see it’s a’
there.”
He never even sought my name. I asked him if anybody had been around
making inquiries subsequent to my spell at the road-making.
“Ay, there was a man in a motor-cawr. He speired whae had ta’en my
place that day, and I let on I thocht him daft. But he keepit on at me,
and syne I said he maun be thinkin’ o’ my gude-brither frae the Cleuch
that whiles lent me a haun’. He was a wersh-lookin’ sowl, and I couldna
understand the half o’ his English tongue.”
I was getting restless those last days, and as soon as I felt myself
fit I decided to be off. That was not till the twelfth day of June, and
as luck would have it a drover went past that morning taking some
cattle to Moffat. He was a man named Hislop, a friend of Turnbull’s,
and he came in to his breakfast with us and offered to take me with
him.
I made Turnbull accept five pounds for my lodging, and a hard job I had
of it. There never was a more independent being. He grew positively
rude when I pressed him, and shy and red, and took the money at last
without a thank you. When I told him how much I owed him, he grunted
something about “ae guid turn deservin’ anitherv” You would have
thought from our leave-taking that we had parted in disgust.
Hislop was a cheery soul, who chattered all the way over the pass and
down the sunny vale of Annan. I talked of Galloway markets and sheep
prices, and he made up his mind I was a “pack-shepherd” from those
parts—whatever that may be. My plaid and my old hat, as I have said,
gave me a fine theatrical Scots look. But driving cattle is a mortally
slow job, and we took the better part of the day to cover a dozen
miles.
If I had not had such an anxious heart I would have enjoyed that time.
It was shining blue weather, with a constantly changing prospect of
brown hills and far green meadows, and a continual sound of larks and
curlews and falling streams. But I had no mind for the summer, and
little for Hislop’s conversation, for as the fateful fifteenth of June
drew near I was overweighed with the hopeless difficulties of my
enterprise.
I got some dinner in a humble Moffat public-house, and walked the two
miles to the junction on the main line. The night express for the south
was not due till near midnight, and to fill up the time I went up on
the hillside and fell asleep, for the walk had tired me. I all but
slept too long, and had to run to the station and catch the train with
two minutes to spare. The feel of the hard third-class cushions and the
smell of stale tobacco cheered me up wonderfully. At any rate, I felt
now that I was getting to grips with my job.
I was decanted at Crewe in the small hours and had to wait till six to
get a train for Birmingham. In the afternoon I got to Reading, and
changed into a local train which journeyed into the deeps of Berkshire.
Presently I was in a land of lush water-meadows and slow reedy streams.
About eight o’clock in the evening, a weary and travel-stained being—a
cross between a farm-labourer and a vet—with a checked black-and-white
plaid over his arm (for I did not dare to wear it south of the Border),
descended at the little station of Artinswell. There were several
people on the platform, and I thought I had better wait to ask my way
till I was clear of the place.
The road led through a wood of great beeches and then into a shallow
valley, with the green backs of downs peeping over the distant trees.
After Scotland the air smelt heavy and flat, but infinitely sweet, for
the limes and chestnuts and lilac bushes were domes of blossom.
Presently I came to a bridge, below which a clear slow stream flowed
between snowy beds of water-buttercups. A little above it was a mill;
and the lasher made a pleasant cool sound in the scented dusk. Somehow
the place soothed me and put me at my ease. I fell to whistling as I
looked into the green depths, and the tune which came to my lips was
“Annie Laurie”.
A fisherman came up from the waterside, and as he neared me he too
began to whistle. The tune was infectious, for he followed my suit. He
was a huge man in untidy old flannels and a wide-brimmed hat, with a
canvas bag slung on his shoulder. He nodded to me, and I thought I had
never seen a shrewder or better-tempered face. He leaned his delicate
ten-foot split-cane rod against the bridge, and looked with me at the
water.
“Clear, isn’t it?” he said pleasantly. “I back our Kennet any day
against the Test. Look at that big fellow. Four pounds if he’s an
ounce. But the evening rise is over and you can’t tempt ’em.”
“I don’t see him,” said I.
“Look! There! A yard from the reeds just above that stickle.”
“I’ve got him now. You might swear he was a black stone.”
“So,” he said, and whistled another bar of “Annie Laurie”.
“Twisdon’s the name, isn’t it?” he said over his shoulder, his eyes
still fixed on the stream.
“No,” I said. “I mean to say, Yes.” I had forgotten all about my
_alias_.
“It’s a wise conspirator that knows his own name,” he observed,
grinning broadly at a moor-hen that emerged from the bridge’s shadow.
I stood up and looked at him, at the square, cleft jaw and broad, lined
brow and the firm folds of cheek, and began to think that here at last
was an ally worth having. His whimsical blue eyes seemed to go very
deep.
Suddenly he frowned. “I call it disgraceful,” he said, raising his
voice. “Disgraceful that an able-bodied man like you should dare to
beg. You can get a meal from my kitchen, but you’ll get no money from
me.”
A dog-cart was passing, driven by a young man who raised his whip to
salute the fisherman. When he had gone, he picked up his rod.
“That’s my house,” he said, pointing to a white gate a hundred yards
on. “Wait five minutes and then go round to the back door.” And with
that he left me.
I did as I was bidden. I found a pretty cottage with a lawn running
down to the stream, and a perfect jungle of guelder-rose and lilac
flanking the path. The back door stood open, and a grave butler was
awaiting me.
“Come this way, sir,” he said, and he led me along a passage and up a
back staircase to a pleasant bedroom looking towards the river. There I
found a complete outfit laid out for me—dress clothes with all the
fixings, a brown flannel suit, shirts, collars, ties, shaving things
and hair-brushes, even a pair of patent shoes. “Sir Walter thought as
how Mr Reggie’s things would fit you, sir,” said the butler. “He keeps
some clothes ’ere, for he comes regular on the week-ends. There’s a
bathroom next door, and I’ve prepared a ’ot bath. Dinner in ’alf an
hour, sir. You’ll ’ear the gong.”
The grave being withdrew, and I sat down in a chintz-covered easy-chair
and gaped. It was like a pantomime, to come suddenly out of beggardom
into this orderly comfort. Obviously Sir Walter believed in me, though
why he did I could not guess. I looked at myself in the mirror and saw
a wild, haggard brown fellow, with a fortnight’s ragged beard, and dust
in ears and eyes, collarless, vulgarly shirted, with shapeless old
tweed clothes and boots that had not been cleaned for the better part
of a month. I made a fine tramp and a fair drover; and here I was
ushered by a prim butler into this temple of gracious ease. And the
best of it was that they did not even know my name.
I resolved not to puzzle my head but to take the gifts the gods had
provided. I shaved and bathed luxuriously, and got into the dress
clothes and clean crackling shirt, which fitted me not so badly. By the
time I had finished the looking-glass showed a not unpersonable young
man.
Sir Walter awaited me in a dusky dining-room where a little round table
was lit with silver candles. The sight of him—so respectable and
established and secure, the embodiment of law and government and all
the conventions—took me aback and made me feel an interloper. He
couldn’t know the truth about me, or he wouldn’t treat me like this. I
simply could not accept his hospitality on false pretences.
“I’m more obliged to you than I can say, but I’m bound to make things
clear,” I said. “I’m an innocent man, but I’m wanted by the police.
I’ve got to tell you this, and I won’t be surprised if you kick me
out.”
He smiled. “That’s all right. Don’t let that interfere with your
appetite. We can talk about these things after dinner.” I never ate a
meal with greater relish, for I had had nothing all day but railway
sandwiches. Sir Walter did me proud, for we drank a good champagne and
had some uncommon fine port afterwards. It made me almost hysterical to
be sitting there, waited on by a footman and a sleek butler, and
remember that I had been living for three weeks like a brigand, with
every man’s hand against me. I told Sir Walter about tiger-fish in the
Zambesi that bite off your fingers if you give them a chance, and we
discussed sport up and down the globe, for he had hunted a bit in his
day.
We went to his study for coffee, a jolly room full of books and
trophies and untidiness and comfort. I made up my mind that if ever I
got rid of this business and had a house of my own, I would create just
such a room. Then when the coffee-cups were cleared away, and we had
got our cigars alight, my host swung his long legs over the side of his
chair and bade me get started with my yarn.
“I’ve obeyed Harry’s instructions,” he said, “and the bribe he offered
me was that you would tell me something to wake me up. I’m ready, Mr
Hannay.”
I noticed with a start that he called me by my proper name.
I began at the very beginning. I told of my boredom in London, and the
night I had come back to find Scudder gibbering on my doorstep. I told
him all Scudder had told me about Karolides and the Foreign Office
conference, and that made him purse his lips and grin.
Then I got to the murder, and he grew solemn again. He heard all about
the milkman and my time in Galloway, and my deciphering Scudder’s notes
at the inn.
“You’ve got them here?” he asked sharply, and drew a long breath when I
whipped the little book from my pocket.
I said nothing of the contents. Then I described my meeting with Sir
Harry, and the speeches at the hall. At that he laughed uproariously.
“Harry talked dashed nonsense, did he? I quite believe it. He’s as good
a chap as ever breathed, but his idiot of an uncle has stuffed his head
with maggots. Go on, Mr Hannay.”
My day as roadman excited him a bit. He made me describe the two
fellows in the car very closely, and seemed to be raking back in his
memory. He grew merry again when he heard of the fate of that ass
Jopley.
But the old man in the moorland house solemnized him. Again I had to
describe every detail of his appearance.
“Bland and bald-headed and hooded his eyes like a bird.... He sounds a
sinister wild-fowl! And you dynamited his hermitage, after he had saved
you from the police. Spirited piece of work, that!” Presently I reached
the end of my wanderings. He got up slowly, and looked down at me from
the hearthrug.
“You may dismiss the police from your mind,” he said. “You’re in no
danger from the law of this land.”
“Great Scot!” I cried. “Have they got the murderer?”