The Thirty-Nine Steps
happened?” he asked. “No? Well, I can’t speak with absolute assurance,
but I’m nearly certain we can’t make any serious change unless we alter
the geography of England.”
“Another thing must be said,” it was Royer who spoke. “I talked freely
when that man was here. I told something of the military plans of my
Government. I was permitted to say so much. But that information would
be worth many millions to our enemies. No, my friends, I see no other
way. The man who came here and his confederates must be taken, and
taken at once.”
“Good God,” I cried, “and we have not a rag of a clue.”
“Besides,” said Whittaker, “there is the post. By this time the news
will be on its way.”
“No,” said the Frenchman. “You do not understand the habits of the spy.
He receives personally his reward, and he delivers personally his
intelligence. We in France know something of the breed. There is still
a chance, _mes amis_. These men must cross the sea, and there are ships
to be searched and ports to be watched. Believe me, the need is
desperate for both France and Britain.”
Royer’s grave good sense seemed to pull us together. He was the man of
action among fumblers. But I saw no hope in any face, and I felt none.
Where among the fifty millions of these islands and within a dozen
hours were we to lay hands on the three cleverest rogues in Europe?
Then suddenly I had an inspiration.
“Where is Scudder’s book?” I cried to Sir Walter. “Quick, man, I
remember something in it.”
He unlocked the door of a bureau and gave it to me.
I found the place. “_Thirty-nine steps_,” I read, and again,
“_Thirty-nine steps—I counted them—High tide_, 10.17 p.m.”
The Admiralty man was looking at me as if he thought I had gone mad.
“Don’t you see it’s a clue,” I shouted. “Scudder knew where these
fellows laired—he knew where they were going to leave the country,
though he kept the name to himself. Tomorrow was the day, and it was
some place where high tide was at 10.17.”
“They may have gone tonight,” someone said.
“Not they. They have their own snug secret way, and they won’t be
hurried. I know Germans, and they are mad about working to a plan.
Where the devil can I get a book of Tide Tables?”
Whittaker brightened up. “It’s a chance,” he said. “Let’s go over to
the Admiralty.”
We got into two of the waiting motor-cars—all but Sir Walter, who went
off to Scotland Yard—to “mobilize MacGillivray”, so he said.
We marched through empty corridors and big bare chambers where the
charwomen were busy, till we reached a little room lined with books and
maps. A resident clerk was unearthed, who presently fetched from the
library the Admiralty Tide Tables. I sat at the desk and the others
stood round, for somehow or other I had got charge of this expedition.
It was no good. There were hundreds of entries, and so far as I could
see 10.17 might cover fifty places. We had to find some way of
narrowing the possibilities.
I took my head in my hands and thought. There must be some way of
reading this riddle. What did Scudder mean by steps? I thought of dock
steps, but if he had meant that I didn’t think he would have mentioned
the number. It must be some place where there were several staircases,
and one marked out from the others by having thirty-nine steps.
Then I had a sudden thought, and hunted up all the steamer sailings.
There was no boat which left for the Continent at 10.17 p.m.
Why was high tide so important? If it was a harbour it must be some
little place where the tide mattered, or else it was a heavy-draught
boat. But there was no regular steamer sailing at that hour, and
somehow I didn’t think they would travel by a big boat from a regular
harbour. So it must be some little harbour where the tide was
important, or perhaps no harbour at all.
But if it was a little port I couldn’t see what the steps signified.
There were no sets of staircases on any harbour that I had ever seen.
It must be some place which a particular staircase identified, and
where the tide was full at 10.17. On the whole it seemed to me that the
place must be a bit of open coast. But the staircases kept puzzling me.
Then I went back to wider considerations. Whereabouts would a man be
likely to leave for Germany, a man in a hurry, who wanted a speedy and
a secret passage? Not from any of the big harbours. And not from the
Channel or the West Coast or Scotland, for, remember, he was starting
from London. I measured the distance on the map, and tried to put
myself in the enemy’s shoes. I should try for Ostend or Antwerp or
Rotterdam, and I should sail from somewhere on the East Coast between
Cromer and Dover.
All this was very loose guessing, and I don’t pretend it was ingenious
or scientific. I wasn’t any kind of Sherlock Holmes. But I have always
fancied I had a kind of instinct about questions like this. I don’t
know if I can explain myself, but I used to use my brains as far as
they went, and after they came to a blank wall I guessed, and I usually
found my guesses pretty right.
So I set out all my conclusions on a bit of Admiralty paper. They ran
like this:
FAIRLY CERTAIN.
(1) Place where there are several sets of stairs; one that matters
distinguished by having thirty-nine steps.
(2) Full tide at 10.17 p.m. Leaving shore only possible at full tide.
(3) Steps not dock steps, and so place probably not harbour.
(4) No regular night steamer at 10.17. Means of transport must be tramp
(unlikely), yacht, or fishing-boat.
There my reasoning stopped. I made another list, which I headed
“Guessed”, but I was just as sure of the one as the other.
GUESSED.
(1) Place not harbour but open coast.
(2) Boat small—trawler, yacht, or launch.
(3) Place somewhere on East Coast between Cromer and Dover.
It struck me as odd that I should be sitting at that desk with a
Cabinet Minister, a Field-Marshal, two high Government officials, and a
French General watching me, while from the scribble of a dead man I was
trying to drag a secret which meant life or death for us.
Sir Walter had joined us, and presently MacGillivray arrived. He had
sent out instructions to watch the ports and railway stations for the
three men whom I had described to Sir Walter. Not that he or anybody
else thought that that would do much good.
“Here’s the most I can make of it,” I said. “We have got to find a
place where there are several staircases down to the beach, one of
which has thirty-nine steps. I think it’s a piece of open coast with
biggish cliffs, somewhere between the Wash and the Channel. Also it’s a
place where full tide is at 10.17 tomorrow night.”
Then an idea struck me. “Is there no Inspector of Coastguards or some
fellow like that who knows the East Coast?”
Whittaker said there was, and that he lived in Clapham. He went off in
a car to fetch him, and the rest of us sat about the little room and
talked of anything that came into our heads. I lit a pipe and went over
the whole thing again till my brain grew weary.
About one in the morning the coastguard man arrived. He was a fine old
fellow, with the look of a naval officer, and was desperately
respectful to the company. I left the War Minister to cross-examine
him, for I felt he would think it cheek in me to talk.
“We want you to tell us the places you know on the East Coast where
there are cliffs, and where several sets of steps run down to the
beach.”
He thought for a bit. “What kind of steps do you mean, sir? There are
plenty of places with roads cut down through the cliffs, and most roads
have a step or two in them. Or do you mean regular staircases—all
steps, so to speak?”
Sir Arthur looked towards me. “We mean regular staircases,” I said.
He reflected a minute or two. “I don’t know that I can think of any.
Wait a second. There’s a place in Norfolk—Brattlesham—beside a
golf-course, where there are a couple of staircases, to let the
gentlemen get a lost ball.”
“That’s not it,” I said.
“Then there are plenty of Marine Parades, if that’s what you mean.
Every seaside resort has them.”
I shook my head. “It’s got to be more retired than that,” I said.
“Well, gentlemen, I can’t think of anywhere else. Of course, there’s
the Ruff—”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“The big chalk headland in Kent, close to Bradgate. It’s got a lot of
villas on the top, and some of the houses have staircases down to a
private beach. It’s a very high-toned sort of place, and the residents
there like to keep by themselves.”
I tore open the Tide Tables and found Bradgate. High tide there was at
10.27 p.m. on the 15th of June.
“We’re on the scent at last,” I cried excitedly. “How can I find out
what is the tide at the Ruff?”
“I can tell you that, sir,” said the coastguard man. “I once was lent a
house there in this very month, and I used to go out at night to the
deep-sea fishing. The tide’s ten minutes before Bradgate.”
I closed the book and looked round at the company.
“If one of those staircases has thirty-nine steps we have solved the
mystery, gentlemen,” I said. “I want the loan of your car, Sir Walter,
and a map of the roads. If Mr MacGillivray will spare me ten minutes, I
think we can prepare something for tomorrow.”
It was ridiculous in me to take charge of the business like this, but
they didn’t seem to mind, and after all I had been in the show from the
start. Besides, I was used to rough jobs, and these eminent gentlemen
were too clever not to see it. It was General Royer who gave me my
commission. “I for one,” he said, “am content to leave the matter in Mr
Hannay’s hands.”
By half-past three I was tearing past the moonlit hedgerows of Kent,
with MacGillivray’s best man on the seat beside me.
Chapter X.
Various Parties Converging on the Sea
A pink and blue June morning found me at Bradgate looking from the
Griffin Hotel over a smooth sea to the lightship on the Cock sands
which seemed the size of a bell-buoy. A couple of miles farther south
and much nearer the shore a small destroyer was anchored. Scaife,
MacGillivray’s man, who had been in the Navy, knew the boat, and told
me her name and her commander’s, so I sent off a wire to Sir Walter.
After breakfast Scaife got from a house-agent a key for the gates of
the staircases on the Ruff. I walked with him along the sands, and sat
down in a nook of the cliffs while he investigated the half-dozen of
them. I didn’t want to be seen, but the place at this hour was quite
deserted, and all the time I was on that beach I saw nothing but the
seagulls.
It took him more than an hour to do the job, and when I saw him coming
towards me, conning a bit of paper, I can tell you my heart was in my
mouth. Everything depended, you see, on my guess proving right.
He read aloud the number of steps in the different stairs.
“Thirty-four, thirty-five, thirty-nine, forty-two, forty-seven,” and
“twenty-one’ where the cliffs grew lower. I almost got up and shouted.
We hurried back to the town and sent a wire to MacGillivray. I wanted
half a dozen men, and I directed them to divide themselves among
different specified hotels. Then Scaife set out to prospect the house
at the head of the thirty-nine steps.
He came back with news that both puzzled and reassured me. The house
was called Trafalgar Lodge, and belonged to an old gentleman called
Appleton—a retired stockbroker, the house-agent said. Mr Appleton was
there a good deal in the summer time, and was in residence now—had been
for the better part of a week. Scaife could pick up very little
information about him, except that he was a decent old fellow, who paid
his bills regularly, and was always good for a fiver for a local
charity. Then Scaife seemed to have penetrated to the back door of the
house, pretending he was an agent for sewing-machines. Only three