The Thirty-Nine Steps. Selected Stories / 39 ступеней. Избранные новеллы. Джон Бакен

hills. They asked me no questions, but I could see they thought I was a kind of cattle dealer. So I spoke a lot about cattle, of which they knew very little, and I learned from them a lot about the local Galloway markets.

      I woke up at five the next morning, had breakfast at six, and then was on my way again. My kind hosts didn't take any payment. My plan was to get to the next railway station and to go some way back. I thought that that was the safest way because the police would think that I was always going farther from London.

      The station, when I reached it, was ideal for my purpose. The moor was around it, making it quite isolated. There was no road to it from anywhere. I waited in the heather till I saw the smoke of a train on the horizon. Then I came up to the tiny booking-office and took a ticket for Dumfries.

      The only passengers in the carriage were an old shepherd and his dog. The man was asleep, and beside him was that morning's newspaper. I took it, hoping it would tell me something.

      There were two columns about the Portland Place Murder, as it was called. My man Paddock had called the police, and the milkman had been arrested. Later the milkman had been let go, I read, and the true criminal had got away from London by one of the northern lines. There was a short note about me as the owner of the flat. I guessed the police had put that in, trying to tell me that I was not a suspect.

      There was nothing else in the paper, nothing about foreign politics or Karolides, or the things that had interested Scudder. I put the paper back and saw that we were coming to the station at which I had got out yesterday. On the platform three men were talking to the station-master. I supposed that they were the local police, who had been called by Scotland Yard. Sitting in the shadow, I watched them carefully. One of them had a book and took notes. All four men looked at the moor and the white road.

      As we moved away from that station, the shepherd woke up. He looked at me, kicked his dog, and asked where he was. I told him. Clearly he was very drunk.

      'That's what happens when you're a teetotaler,' he said.

      I showed my surprise.

      'Ay, but I'm a strong teetotaler,' he said. 'I haven't touched a drop of whisky for a long time.'

      'What did it then?' I asked.

      'A drink they call brandy. Being a teetotaler, I kept off the whisky, but I was drinking this brandy,' he explained and fell asleep again.

      My plan had been to get out at some station, but the train suddenly gave me a better chance because it came to a standstill at the end of a culvert. I looked out and saw that every carriage window was closed and there was no one in the landscape. So I opened the door and jumped into the bushes that grew along the line.

      It would've been all right, but that shepherd's dog started to bark. I crawled through the bushes for a hundred yards or so. Then from there I looked back and saw the guard and several passengers standing at the open carriage door and staring in my direction. My departure was not unnoticed. When after a quarter of a mile's crawl I looked back again, the train had started and was disappearing into the distance.

      There was moorland and the high hills around me, and not a sign or sound of a human being. Yet, for the first time I felt the terror. It was not the police that I thought of, but the other people who knew that I knew Scudder's secret and would not let me live. I was certain that they would follow me and when they found me, they would have no mercy. I looked back, but there was nothing in the landscape which was the most peaceful sight in the world. Nevertheless, I started to run.

      I ran till I had reached the top of a mountain high above the moor. From there I could see the railway line. I have eyes like a hawk, but I could see nothing moving in the whole countryside. Then I looked east and saw another kind of landscape. There were green valleys with plantations and roads. Last of all, I looked into the blue May sky and froze.

      In the south a small plane was rising into the sky. I was certain that that airplane was looking for me and that it did not belong to the police. For an hour or two I watched it hiding in the heather. It flew low along the hill-tops, and then in circles over the valley from which I had come. Then it rose to a greater height and flew away back to the south.

      I did not like this espionage from the air, and I began to think about the countryside I had chosen for hiding. These heather hills were no good if my enemies were in the sky, and I had to find another place to hide. I looked at the green country beyond where I could find woods and stone houses.

      At about six in the evening I came out of the moorland to a road which went along the narrow stream. As I followed it, in the twilight I reached a small house. The road went over a bridge, and there stood a young man. He was smoking a pipe and looking at the water. In his left hand was a small book.

      He turned round when he heard my footsteps, and I saw a pleasant boyish face.

      'Good evening to you,' he said. 'It's a fine night for the road.'

      The smell of smoke and some tasty roast reached me from the house.

      'Is that place an inn?' I asked.

      'At your service,' he said politely. 'I am the landlord, Sir, and I hope you will stay the night. To tell you the truth, I have had no company for a week.'

      'You're young to be an innkeeper,' I said and took out my pipe.

      'My father died a year ago and left me the business. I live there with my grandmother. It's a slow job for a young man, and it wasn't my choice of profession.'

      'Which was?'

      He blushed. 'I want to write books,' he said.

      'Well, I've often thought that an innkeeper would make the best story-teller in the world.'

      'Not now,' he said. 'Maybe in the old days. But not now. Nothing happens here. There is not much material. I want to see life, to travel the world.'

      'I've traveled the world a bit, and I wouldn't say that adventure is found only in the tropics. Maybe it's standing right next to you at this moment. Here's a true tale for you then,' I cried, 'and a month from now you can make a novel out of it.'

      Sitting on the bridge in the soft May evening, I told him a lovely story. It was mostly true, though I changed some details. I said that I was a mining magnate from South Africa, who had had a lot of trouble with a gang. They had pursued me across the ocean, and had killed my best friend, and were now on my tracks. I told the story well. I described an attack on my life on the voyage home and the Portland Place murder.

      'You're looking for adventure?' I cried. 'Well, you've found it here. The devils are after me, and the police are after them.'

      'My God!' he whispered.

      'You believe me?' I asked.

      'Of course I do,' he said. 'I believe everything out of the ordinary.'

      He was very young, but he was the man for my money.

      'I think I must lie low[29] for a couple of days. Can you take me in?'

      He pointed towards the house. 'You can lie low here. I'll make sure no one asks you questions. And you'll give me some more material about your adventures?'

      As I was walking into the inn, I heard an engine. There, in the sky, was my friend – the little plane.

      The young man gave me a room at the back of the house. I never saw the grandmother, but an old woman called Margit brought me my meals, and the innkeeper was around me all the time. I wanted some time to myself, so I invented a job for him. He had a motorcycle, and the next morning I sent him for the daily paper. I also told him to keep his eyes open for any strange figures, motors or airplanes.

      He came back at midday with the paper. There was nothing in it, except some evidence of Paddock and the milkman, and the statement that the murderer had gone north. But there was a long article about Karolides and the affairs in the Balkans, though it did not mention any visits to England.

      In the afternoon I sat down to work on Scudder's note-book. As I told you, it was a numerical cipher. The trouble was the key word, and I felt hopeless. But about three o'clock I had a sudden inspiration.

      I remembered

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