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

name, Julia Czechenyi. Scudder had said it was the key to the Karolides business, and I decided to try it on his cipher. It worked. The five letters of 'Julia' gave me the position of the vowels. 'Czechenyi' gave me the numerals for the consonants. I wrote them on a piece of paper and sat down to read Scudder's pages.

      In half an hour, while I was still reading it, I glanced out of the window and saw a big car coming towards the inn. It stopped at the door, and two people got out.

      Ten minutes later the innkeeper came into the room. His eyes were bright with excitement.

      'There are two chaps below, looking for you,' he whispered. 'They're in the dining-room, having drinks. They asked about you and said they had hoped to meet you here. Oh, and they described you well, even your boots and shirt. I told them you had been here last night and had gone off on a motorcycle this morning, and one of the chaps swore.'

      I asked him to tell me what they looked like. One was a thin, dark-eyed fellow with thick eyebrows, and the other smiled and lisped in his talk.

      I took a piece of paper and wrote these words in German: '…Black Stone. Scudder had got to this, but he could not act for two weeks. I doubt if I can do any good now, especially as Karolides is uncertain about his plans. But if Mr. T. advises I will do the best I.'

      I made it look like a page of a private letter.

      'Take this to them and say it was found in my bedroom, and ask them to give it to me when they see me.'

      Three minutes later I heard the car engine start, and the innkeeper came back in great excitement.

      'Your paper woke them up,' he said. 'The dark fellow went as white as death and cursed like hell, and the fat one whistled. They paid for their drinks and didn't wait for change.'

      'Now I'll tell you what I want you to do,' I said. 'Get on your motorcycle and go to the police station. Describe the two men and say you think they have something to do with the London murder. You can invent reasons. The two will come back, that's for sure. Not tonight, as they'll follow me forty miles along the road, but probably tomorrow morning. Tell the police to be here early tomorrow.'

      He went off, and I worked on Scudder's notes. When he came back, we had dinner together, and when he went to bed, I finally finished with Scudder. I smoked sitting in a chair till daylight because I could not sleep.

      At about eight the next morning I saw the arrival of the policemen. They left their car behind the inn and entered the house. Twenty minutes later, I saw from my window a second car, coming from the opposite direction. It did not come up to the inn, but stopped two hundred yards off in the wood. A minute or two later I heard steps outside the window.

      My plan had been to hide in my bedroom, and see what happened. I had an idea that if I could bring the police and my other more dangerous pursuers together, something might work out of it. But now I had a better idea. I wrote thanks to my host, opened the window, and quietly jumped down into a gooseberry bush. I ran to the trees along the road to where the car stood. I jumped into the driver's seat and started the engine. Almost immediately the road went downhill, so I couldn't see the inn, but the wind brought me the sounds of angry voices.

      4

      That shining May morning I was driving the car at high speed along the moor roads, thinking of what I had found in Scudder's pocket-book.

      The little man had told me a lot of lies. All his tales about the Balkans, and the anarchists, and the Foreign Office Conference were lies, and so was Karolides. Yet not quite[30]. I had believed in his story enough to risk my own life, but he had let me down. His book was telling me a different tale, and I believed it absolutely. Why, I don't know.

      The fifteenth of June was going to be a big day of destiny. It was so big that I wasn't surprised Scudder hadn't told me all about it. He had told me something which sounded big enough, but the real thing was so big that he – the man who had found it out – wanted it all for himself.

      The whole story was in the notes with gaps. The four names he had written were authorities, and he had given them a numerical value. There was a man, Ducrosne, who got five, and another fellow, Ammersfoort, who got three. There also was one queer phrase which appeared several times, in brackets. It was '(Thirty-nine steps)', and the last time he used it, he wrote: '(Thirty-nine steps, I counted them, high tide 10.17p.m.)'. I could not understand that.

      The first thing I learned was that it was not about preventing a war. The war was coming anyway. Karolides was going to be dead on June 14th, and nothing could prevent that.

      The second thing was that this war was going to be a surprise for Britain. Karolides' death would anger the Balkans, and then Vienna would give an ultimatum. Russia wouldn't like that, but Berlin would play the peacemaker at first, then find a reason for a conflict and attack us. That was the idea.

      But all this depended on the third thing, which would happen on June 15th. I had known back in my days in Africa that there was an alliance between France and Britain, and that the two countries could act together in case of war. Well, in June a very important man, Royer, was coming to London from Paris, and he was going to get information about the disposition of the British Fleet.

      But on the 15th of June, other important people were going to be in London, too. Scudder simply called them the 'Black Stone'. They were not our allies, but rather our enemies. So the information intended for France could end up in their pockets.

      This was the story I had deciphered in the country inn.

      My first impulse had been to write a letter to the Prime Minister, but then I thought that it would be useless. Who would believe my tale? I must have some proof first. But what could that be? Most importantly, I had to keep going despite the fact that the police and the Black Stone were pursuing me.

      I had no clear idea of my journey, but I kept going east. I drove along a river, through little old villages, over peaceful streams, and past gardens and parks. The land was so peaceful that I could hardly believe that in a month the country men would be lying dead in English fields.

      At about midday I came to one village where I had planned to stop and eat. A policeman saw me and tried to make me stop. I almost did. Then I realized that the description of me and the car had been already sent to thirty villages through which I might pass. I sped up again and thought that main roads were no place for me. I turned onto a narrow lane, but without a map I could be turning onto a farm road and ending up in someone's yard.

      What a fool I had been to steal the car! But even if I left it, it would be found in an hour or two, and I wouldn't get far enough either. The only thing to do now was not to take the main roads. The road I was driving along was taking me too far north, so I turned east along a bad track and finally reached a big double-line railway. Beyond it I saw another valley, and thought that if I crossed it I might find some inn to stay for the night. I was tired and hungry. Just then I heard a noise in the sky, and there was that airplane, flying low, coming towards me.

      There were no trees on the moor, so I hurried to get to the valley. I went downhill, turning my head round to watch that plane. Soon I was on a road between hedges and slowed down a bit.

      Suddenly on my left I heard the hoot of another car, and realized to my horror that I was running into a couple of posts of a private road. I stepped on my brakes, but it was too late. So I did the only thing possible and drove into the hedge on the right.

      But it was a mistake. My car went through the hedge and then started falling forward. I saw what was coming. I tried to jump out and got caught on a branch of hawthorn which held me, while my car dropped fifty feet down to the stream below. This was a good way of getting rid of the car, I thought.

      Slowly I crawled back to the road where a scared voice asked me if I was hurt. It was a tall young man from the other car.

      'My fault, Sir,' I said to him. 'That's the end of my Scotch motor tour, but it might have been the end of my life.'

      He looked at his watch. 'I have a quarter of an hour, and my house is two minutes away. I'll see that you have something to put on and eat. Where are all your things, by the way? Are they in the car?'

      'They're

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