Chapter Nine. The Thirty-Nine Steps

The Thirty-Nine Steps

by John Buchan

'Nonsense!' said the official from the Admiralty.

Sir Walter got up and left the room while we looked blankly at
the table. He came back in ten minutes with a long face. 'I have
spoken to Alloa,' he said. 'Had him out of bed - very grumpy. He
went straight home after Mulross's dinner.'

'But it's madness,' broke in General Winstanley. 'Do you mean
to tell me that that man came here and sat beside me for the best
part of half an hour and that I didn't detect the imposture?
Alloa

must be out of his mind.' 'Don't you see the cleverness of it?'
I said. 'You were too interested in other things to have any eyes.
You took Lord Alloa for granted. If it had been anybody else you
might have looked more closely, but it was natural for him to be
here, and that put you all to sleep.'

Then the Frenchman spoke, very slowly and in good English.

'The young man is right. His psychology is good. Our enemies
have not been foolish!'

He bent his wise brows on the assembly.

'I will tell you a tale,' he said. 'It happened many years ago
in Senegal. I was quartered in a remote station, and to pass the
time used to go fishing for big barbel in the river. A little Arab
mare used to carry my luncheon basket - one of the salted dun breed
you got at Timbuctoo in the old days. Well, one morning I had good
sport, and the mare was unaccountably restless. I could hear her
whinnying and squealing and stamping her feet, and I kept soothing
her with my voice while my mind was intent on fish. I could see her
all the time, as I thought, out of a corner of my eye, tethered to a
tree twenty yards away. After a couple of hours I began to think of
food. I collected my fish in a tarpaulin bag, and moved down the
stream towards the mare, trolling my line. When I got up to her I
flung the tarpaulin on her back -' He paused and looked round.

'It was the smell that gave me warning. I turned my head and
found myself looking at a lion three feet off ... An old man-eater,
that was the terror of the village ... What was left of the mare, a
mass of blood and bones and hide, was behind him.'

'What happened?' I asked. I was enough of a hunter to know a
true yarn when I heard it.

'I stuffed my fishing-rod into his jaws, and I had a pistol.
Also my servants came presently with rifles. But he left his mark on
me.' He held up a hand which lacked three fingers.

'Consider,' he said. 'The mare had been dead more than an hour,
and the brute had been patiently watching me ever since. I never saw
the kill, for I was accustomed to the mare's fretting, and I never
marked her absence, for my consciousness of her was only of something
tawny, and the lion filled that part. If I could blunder thus,
gentlemen, in a land where men's senses are keen, why should we busy
preoccupied urban folk not err also?'

Sir Walter nodded. No one was ready to gainsay him.

'But I don't see,' went on Winstanley. 'Their object was to get
these dispositions without our knowing it. Now it only required one
of us to mention to Alloa our meeting tonight for the whole fraud to
be exposed.'

Sir Walter laughed dryly. 'The selection of Alloa shows their
acumen. Which of us was likely to speak to him about tonight? Or
was he likely to open the subject?'

I remembered the First Sea Lord's reputation for taciturnity and
shortness of temper.

'The one thing that puzzles me,' said the General, 'is what good
his visit here would do that spy fellow? He could not carry away
several pages of figures and strange names in his head.'

'That is not difficult,' the Frenchman replied. 'A good spy is
trained to have a photographic memory. Like your own Macaulay. You
noticed he said nothing, but went through these papers again and
again. I think we may assume that he has every detail stamped on his
mind. When I was younger I could do the same trick.'

'Well, I suppose there is nothing for it but to change the
plans,' said Sir Walter ruefully.

Whittaker was looking very glum. 'Did you tell Lord Alloa what
has 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 10.17 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.