The Thirty-Nine Steps
detail. I broke one of the bootlaces and retied it in a clumsy knot,
and loosed the other so that my thick grey socks bulged over the
uppers. Still no sign of anything on the road. The motor I had observed
half an hour ago must have gone home.
My toilet complete, I took up the barrow and began my journeys to and
from the quarry a hundred yards off.
I remember an old scout in Rhodesia, who had done many queer things in
his day, once telling me that the secret of playing a part was to think
yourself into it. You could never keep it up, he said, unless you could
manage to convince yourself that you were _it_. So I shut off all other
thoughts and switched them on to the road-mending. I thought of the
little white cottage as my home, I recalled the years I had spent
herding on Leithen Water, I made my mind dwell lovingly on sleep in a
box-bed and a bottle of cheap whisky. Still nothing appeared on that
long white road.
Now and then a sheep wandered off the heather to stare at me. A heron
flopped down to a pool in the stream and started to fish, taking no
more notice of me than if I had been a milestone. On I went, trundling
my loads of stone, with the heavy step of the professional. Soon I grew
warm, and the dust on my face changed into solid and abiding grit. I
was already counting the hours till evening should put a limit to Mr
Turnbull’s monotonous toil.
Suddenly a crisp voice spoke from the road, and looking up I saw a
little Ford two-seater, and a round-faced young man in a bowler hat.
“Are you Alexander Turnbull?” he asked. “I am the new County Road
Surveyor. You live at Blackhopefoot, and have charge of the section
from Laidlawbyres to the Riggs? Good! A fair bit of road, Turnbull, and
not badly engineered. A little soft about a mile off, and the edges
want cleaning. See you look after that. Good morning. You’ll know me
the next time you see me.”
Clearly my get-up was good enough for the dreaded Surveyor. I went on
with my work, and as the morning grew towards noon I was cheered by a
little traffic. A baker’s van breasted the hill, and sold me a bag of
ginger biscuits which I stowed in my trouser-pockets against
emergencies. Then a herd passed with sheep, and disturbed me somewhat
by asking loudly, “What had become o’ Specky?”
“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.”
He picked it up, glanced at the superscription, and laid it down again.
One of the others had been looking at my boots, and a word in German
called the speaker’s attention to them.
“You’ve a fine taste in boots,” he said. “These were never made by a
country shoemaker.”
“They were not,” I said readily. “They were made in London. I got them
frae the gentleman that was here last year for the shootin’. What was
his name now?” And I scratched a forgetful head. Again the sleek one
spoke in German. “Let us get on,” he said. “This fellow is all right.”
They asked one last question.
“Did you see anyone pass early this morning? He might be on a bicycle
or he might be on foot.”
I very nearly fell into the trap and told a story of a bicyclist
hurrying past in the grey dawn. But I had the sense to see my danger. I
pretended to consider very deeply.
“I wasna up very early,” I said. “Ye see, my dochter was merrit last
nicht, and we keepit it up late. I opened the house door about seeven
and there was naebody on the road then. Since I cam up here there has
just been the baker and the Ruchill herd, besides you gentlemen.”
One of them gave me a cigar, which I smelt gingerly and stuck in
Turnbull’s bundle. They got into their car and were out of sight in
three minutes.
My heart leaped with an enormous relief, but I went on wheeling my
stones. It was as well, for ten minutes later the car returned, one of
the occupants waving a hand to me. Those gentry left nothing to chance.
I finished Turnbull’s bread and cheese, and pretty soon I had finished
the stones. The next step was what puzzled me. I could not keep up this
roadmaking business for long. A merciful Providence had kept Mr
Turnbull indoors, but if he appeared on the scene there would be
trouble. I had a notion that the cordon was still tight round the glen,
and that if I walked in any direction I should meet with questioners.
But get out I must. No man’s nerve could stand more than a day of being
spied on.
I stayed at my post till five o’clock. By that time I had resolved to
go down to Turnbull’s cottage at nightfall and take my chance of
getting over the hills in the darkness. But suddenly a new car came up
the road, and slowed down a yard or two from me. A fresh wind had
risen, and the occupant wanted to light a cigarette.
It was a touring car, with the tonneau full of an assortment of
baggage. One man sat in it, and by an amazing chance I knew him. His
name was Marmaduke Jopley, and he was an offence to creation. He was a
sort of blood stockbroker, who did his business by toadying eldest sons
and rich young peers and foolish old ladies. “Marmie’ was a familiar
figure, I understood, at balls and polo-weeks and country houses. He
was an adroit scandal-monger, and would crawl a mile on his belly to
anything that had a title or a million. I had a business introduction
to his firm when I came to London, and he was good enough to ask me to
dinner at his club. There he showed off at a great rate, and pattered
about his duchesses till the snobbery of the creature turned me sick. I
asked a man afterwards why nobody kicked him, and was told that
Englishmen reverenced the weaker sex.
Anyhow there he was now, nattily dressed, in a fine new car, obviously
on his way to visit some of his smart friends. A sudden daftness took
me, and in a second I had jumped into the tonneau and had him by the
shoulder.
“Hullo, Jopley,” I sang out. “Well met, my lad!” He got a horrid
fright. His chin dropped as he stared at me. “Who the devil are you?”
he gasped.
“My name’s Hannay,” I said. “From Rhodesia, you remember.”
“Good God, the murderer!” he choked.
“Just so. And there’ll be a second murder, my dear, if you don’t do as
I tell you. Give me that coat of yours. That cap, too.”
He did as he was bid, for he was blind with terror. Over my dirty
trousers and vulgar shirt I put on his smart driving-coat, which
buttoned high at the top and thereby hid the deficiencies of my collar.
I stuck the cap on my head, and added his gloves to my get-up. The
dusty roadman in a minute was transformed into one of the neatest
motorists in Scotland. On Mr Jopley’s head I clapped Turnbull’s
unspeakable hat, and told him to keep it there.
Then with some difficulty I turned the car. My plan was to go back the
road he had come, for the watchers, having seen it before, would
probably let it pass unremarked, and Marmie’s figure was in no way like
mine.
“Now, my child,” I said, “sit quite still and be a good boy. I mean you
no harm. I’m only borrowing your car for an hour or two. But if you
play me any tricks, and above all if you open your mouth, as sure as
there’s a God above me I’ll wring your neck. _Savez?_”
I enjoyed that evening’s ride. We ran eight miles down the valley,
through a village or two, and I could not help noticing several
strange-looking folk lounging by the roadside. These were the watchers
who would have had much to say to me if I had come in other garb or
company. As it was, they looked incuriously on. One touched his cap in
salute, and I responded graciously.
As the dark fell I turned up a side glen which, as I remember from the
map, led into an unfrequented corner of the hills. Soon the villages
were left behind, then the farms, and then even the wayside cottage.
Presently we came to a lonely moor where the night was blackening the
sunset gleam in the bog pools. Here we stopped, and I obligingly
reversed the car and restored to Mr Jopley his belongings.
“A thousand thanks,” I said. “There’s more use in you than I thought.
Now be off and find the police.”
As I sat on the hillside, watching the tail-light dwindle, I reflected
on the various kinds of crime I had now sampled. Contrary to general
belief, I was not a murderer, but I had become an unholy liar, a
shameless impostor, and a highwayman with a marked taste for expensive
motor-cars.
Chapter VI.
The Adventure of the Bald Archaeologist
I spent the night on a shelf of the hillside, in the lee of a boulder
where the heather grew long and soft. It was a cold business, for I had
neither coat nor waistcoat. These were in Mr Turnbull’s keeping, as was
Scudder’s little book, my watch and—worst of all—my pipe and tobacco
pouch. Only my money accompanied me in my belt, and about half a pound
of ginger biscuits in my trousers pocket.
I supped off half those biscuits, and by worming myself deep into the
heather got some kind of warmth. My spirits had risen, and I was
beginning to enjoy this crazy game of hide-and-seek. So far I had been
miraculously lucky. The milkman, the literary innkeeper, Sir Harry, the
roadman, and the idiotic Marmie, were all pieces of undeserved good
fortune. Somehow the first success gave me a feeling that I was going
to pull the thing through.
My chief trouble was that I was desperately hungry. When a Jew shoots
himself in the City and there is an inquest, the newspapers usually
report that the deceased was “well-nourished”. I remember thinking that
they would not call me well-nourished if I broke my neck in a bog-hole.
I lay and tortured myself—for the ginger biscuits merely emphasized the
aching void—with the memory of all the good food I had thought so
little of in London. There were Paddock’s crisp sausages and fragrant
shavings of bacon, and shapely poached eggs—how often I had turned up
my nose at them! There were the cutlets they did at the club, and a
particular ham that stood on the cold table, for which my soul lusted.
My thoughts hovered over all varieties of mortal edible, and finally
settled on a porterhouse steak and a quart of bitter with a welsh
rabbit to follow. In longing hopelessly for these dainties I fell
asleep.
I woke very cold and stiff about an hour after dawn. It took me a
little while to remember where I was, for I had been very weary and had
slept heavily. I saw first the pale blue sky through a net of heather,
then a big shoulder of hill, and then my own boots placed neatly in a
blaeberry bush. I raised myself on my arms and looked down into the