Tales of Mysteries & Espionage - John Buchan Edition. Buchan John

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       John Buchan

      Tales of Mysteries & Espionage - John Buchan Edition

      Gripping Tales of Dangerous Exploits, Mysteries & Espionage Intrigue

      Published by

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      - Advanced Digital Solutions & High-Quality eBook Formatting -

       [email protected]

      2017 OK Publishing

      ISBN 978-80-7583-348-8

      Table of Contents

       The Thirty-Nine Steps

       The Courts of the Morning

       Prester John

       A Prince of the Captivity

       Salute to Adventurers

       The Path of the King

       Midwinter

      THE THIRTY-NINE STEPS

      Richard Hannay’s First Adventure

       Table of Contents

Table of Contents

       DEDICATION

       CHAPTER 1. THE MAN WHO DIED

       CHAPTER 2. THE MILKMAN SETS OUT ON HIS TRAVELS

       CHAPTER 3. THE ADVENTURE OF THE LITERARY INNKEEPER

       CHAPTER 4. THE ADVENTURE OF THE RADICAL CANDIDATE

       CHAPTER 5. THE ADVENTURE OF THE SPECTACLED ROADMAN

       CHAPTER 6. THE ADVENTURE OF THE BALD ARCHAEOLOGIST

       CHAPTER 7. THE DRY-FLY FISHERMAN

       CHAPTER 8. THE COMING OF THE BLACK STONE

       CHAPTER 9. THE THIRTY-NINE STEPS

       CHAPTER 10. VARIOUS PARTIES CONVERGING ON THE SEA

      DEDICATION

       Table of Contents

      TO THOMAS ARTHUR NELSON

       (LOTHIAN AND BORDER HORSE)

      My Dear Tommy,

      You and I have long cherished an affection for that elemental type of tale which Americans call the ‘dime novel’ and which we know as the ‘shocker’—the romance where the incidents defy the probabilities, and march just inside the borders of the possible. During an illness last winter I exhausted my store of those aids to cheerfulness, and was driven to write one for myself. This little volume is the result, and I should like to put your name on it in memory of our long friendship, in the days when the wildest fictions are so much less improbable than the facts.

      J.B.

      CHAPTER 1

       THE MAN WHO DIED

       Table of Contents

      I returned from the City about three o’clock on that May afternoon pretty well disgusted with life. I had been three months in the Old Country, and was fed up with it. If anyone had told me a year ago that I would have been feeling like that I should have laughed at him; but there was the fact. The weather made me liverish, the talk of the ordinary Englishman made me sick, I couldn’t get enough exercise, and the amusements of London seemed as flat as soda-water that has been standing in the sun. ‘Richard Hannay,’ I kept telling myself, ‘you have got into the wrong ditch, my friend, and you had better climb out.’ It made me bite my lips to think of the plans I had been building up those last years in Bulawayo. I had got my pile—not one of the big ones, but good enough for me; and I had figured out all kinds of ways of enjoying myself. My father had brought me out from Scotland at the age of six, and I had never been home since; so England was a sort of Arabian Nights to me, and I counted on stopping there for the rest of my days.

      But from the first I was disappointed with it. In about a week I was tired of seeing sights, and in less than a month I had had enough of restaurants and theatres and race-meetings. I had no real pal to go about with, which probably explains things. Plenty of people invited me to their houses, but they didn’t seem much interested in me. They would fling me a question or two about South Africa, and then get on their own affairs. A lot of Imperialist ladies asked me to tea to meet schoolmasters from New Zealand and editors from Vancouver, and that was the dismalest business of all. Here was I, thirty-seven years old, sound in wind and limb, with enough money to have a good time, yawning my head off all day. I had just about settled to clear out and get back to the veld, for I was the best bored man in the United Kingdom.

      That afternoon I had been worrying my brokers about investments to give my mind something to work on, and on my way home I turned into my club—rather a pot-house, which took in Colonial members. I had a long drink, and read the evening papers. They were full of the row in the Near East, and there was an article about Karolides, the Greek Premier. I rather fancied the chap. From all accounts he seemed the one big man in the show; and he played a straight game too, which was more than could be said for most of them. I gathered that they hated him pretty blackly in Berlin and Vienna, but that we were going to stick by him, and one paper said that he was the only barrier between Europe and Armageddon. I remember wondering if I could get a job in those parts. It struck me that Albania was the sort of place that might keep a man from yawning.

      About six o’clock I went home, dressed, dined at theCafé Royal, and turned into a music-hall. It was a silly show, all capering women and monkey-faced men, and I did not stay long. The night was fine and clear as I walked back to the flat I had hired near Portland Place. The crowd surged past me on the pavements, busy and chattering, and I envied the people for having something to do. These shop-girls and clerks and dandies and policemen had some