Chapter Ten. Various Parties Converging on the Sea

The Thirty-Nine Steps

by John Buchan

A pink and blue June morning found me at Bradgate looking from the
Griffin Hotel over a smooth sea to the lightship on the Cock sands
which seemed the size of a bell-buoy. A couple of miles farther
south and much nearer the shore a small destroyer was anchored.
Scaife, MacGillivray's man, who had been in the Navy, knew the boat,
and told me her name and her commander's, so I sent off a wire to Sir
Walter.

After breakfast Scaife got from a house-agent a key for the
gates of the staircases on the Ruff. I walked with him along the
sands, and sat down in a nook of the cliffs while he investigated the
half- dozen of them. I didn't want to be seen, but the place at this
hour was quite deserted, and all the time I was on that beach I saw
nothing but the sea-gulls.

It took him more than an hour to do the job, and when I saw him
coming towards me, conning a bit of paper, I can tell you my heart
was in my mouth. Everything depended, you see, on my guess proving
right.

He read aloud the number of steps in the different stairs.
'Thirty- four, thirty-five, thirty-nine, forty-two, forty-seven,' and
'twenty- one' where the cliffs grew lower. I almost got up and
shouted.

We hurried back to the town and sent a wire to MacGillivray. I
wanted half a dozen men, and I directed them to divide themselves
among different specified hotels. Then Scaife set out to prospect
the house at the head of the thirty-nine steps.

He came back with news that both puzzled and reassured me. The
house was called Trafalgar Lodge, and belonged to an old gentleman
called Appleton - a retired stockbroker, the house-agent said. Mr
Appleton was there a good deal in the summer time, and was in
residence now - had been for the better part of a week. Scaife could
pick up very little information about him, except that he was a
decent old fellow, who paid his bills regularly, and was always good
for a fiver for a local charity. Then Scaife seemed to have
penetrated to the back door of the house, pretending he was an agent
for sewing-machines. Only three servants were kept, a cook, a
parlour-maid, and a housemaid, and they were just the sort that you
would find in a respectable middle-class household. The cook was not
the gossiping kind, and had pretty soon shut the door in his face,
but Scaife said he was positive she knew nothing. Next door there
was a new house building which would give good cover for observation,
and the villa on the other side was to let, and its garden was rough
and shrubby.

I borrowed Scaife's telescope, and before lunch went for a walk
along the Ruff. I kept well behind the rows of villas, and found a
good observation point on the edge of the golf-course. There I had a
view of the line of turf along the cliff top, with seats placed at
intervals, and the little square plots, railed in and planted with
bushes, whence the staircases descended to the beach. I saw
Trafalgar Lodge very plainly, a red-brick villa with a veranda, a
tennis lawn behind, and in front the ordinary seaside flower-garden
full of marguerites and scraggy geraniums. There was a flagstaff
from which an enormous Union Jack hung limply in the still air.

Presently I observed someone leave the house and saunter along
the cliff. When I got my glasses on him I saw it was an old man,
wearing white flannel trousers, a blue serge jacket, and a straw hat.
He carried field-glasses and a newspaper, and sat down on one of the
iron seats and began to read. Sometimes he would lay down the paper
and turn his glasses on the sea. He looked for a long time at the
destroyer. I watched him for half an hour, till he got up and went
back to the house for his luncheon, when I returned to the hotel for
mine.

I wasn't feeling very confident. This decent common-place
dwelling was not what I had expected. The man might be the bald
archaeologist of that horrible moorland farm, or he might not. He
was exactly the kind of satisfied old bird you will find in every
suburb and every holiday place. If you wanted a type of the
perfectly harmless person you would probably pitch on that.

But after lunch, as I sat in the hotel porch, I perked up, for I
saw the thing I had hoped for and had dreaded to miss. A yacht came
up from the south and dropped anchor pretty well opposite the Ruff.
She seemed about a hundred and fifty tons, and I saw she belonged to
the Squadron from the white ensign. So Scaife and I went down to the
harbour and hired a boatman for an afternoon's fishing.

I spent a warm and peaceful afternoon. We caught between us
about twenty pounds of cod and lythe, and out in that dancing blue
sea I took a cheerier view of things. Above the white cliffs of the
Ruff I saw the green and red of the villas, and especially the great
flagstaff of Trafalgar Lodge. About four o'clock, when we had fished
enough, I made the boatman row us round the yacht, which lay like a
delicate white bird, ready at a moment to flee. Scaife said she must
be a fast boat for her build, and that she was pretty heavily
engined.

Her name was the Ariadne, as I discovered from the cap of one of
the men who was polishing brasswork. I spoke to him, and got an
answer in the soft dialect of Essex. Another hand that came along
passed me the time of day in an unmistakable English tongue. Our
boatman had an argument with one of them about the weather, and for a
few minutes we lay on our oars close to the starboard bow.

Then the men suddenly disregarded us and bent their heads to
their work as an officer came along the deck. He was a pleasant,
clean-looking young fellow, and he put a question to us about our
fishing in very good English. But there could be no doubt about him.
His close-cropped head and the cut of his collar and tie never came
out of England.

That did something to reassure me, but as we rowed back to
Bradgate my obstinate doubts would not be dismissed. The thing that
worried me was the reflection that my enemies knew that I had got my
knowledge from Scudder, and it was Scudder who had given me the clue
to this place. If they knew that Scudder had this clue, would they
not be certain to change their plans? Too much depended on their
success for them to take any risks. The whole question was how much
they understood about Scudder's knowledge. I had talked confidently
last night about Germans always sticking to a scheme, but if they had
any suspicions that I was on their track they would be fools not to
cover it. I wondered if the man last night had seen that I
recognized him. Somehow I did not think he had, and to that I had
clung. But the whole business had never seemed so difficult as that
afternoon when by all calculations I should have been rejoicing in
assured success.

In the hotel I met the commander of the destroyer, to whom
Scaife introduced me, and with whom I had a few words. Then I
thought I would put in an hour or two watching Trafalgar Lodge.

I found a place farther up the hill, in the garden of an empty
house. From there I had a full view of the court, on which two
figures were having a game of tennis. One was the old man, whom I
had already seen; the other was a younger fellow, wearing some club
colours in the scarf round his middle. They played with tremendous
zest, like two city gents who wanted hard exercise to open their
pores. You couldn't conceive a more innocent spectacle. They
shouted and laughed and stopped for drinks, when a maid brought out
two tankards on a salver. I rubbed my eyes and asked myself if I was
not the most immortal fool on earth. Mystery and darkness had hung
about the men who hunted me over the Scotch moor in aeroplane and
motor-car, and notably about that infernal antiquarian. It was easy
enough to connect those folk with the knife that pinned Scudder to
the floor, and with fell designs on the world's peace. But here were
two guileless citizens taking their innocuous exercise, and soon
about to go indoors to a humdrum dinner, where they would talk of
market prices and the last cricket scores and the gossip of their
native Surbiton. I had been making a net to catch vultures and
falcons, and lo and behold! two plump thrushes had blundered into
it.

Presently a third figure arrived, a young man on a bicycle, with
a bag of golf-clubs slung on his back. He strolled round to the
tennis lawn and was welcomed riotously by the players. Evidently
they were chaffing him, and their chaff sounded horribly English.
Then the plump man, mopping his brow with a silk handkerchief,
announced that he must have a tub. I heard his very words - 'I've
got into a proper lather,' he said. 'This will bring down my weight
and my handicap, Bob. I'll take you on tomorrow and give you a
stroke a hole.' You couldn't find anything much more English than
that.

They all went into the house, and left me feeling a precious
idiot. I had been barking up the wrong tree this time. These men
might be acting; but if they were, where was their audience? They
didn't know I was sitting thirty yards off in a rhododendron. It was
simply impossible to believe that these three hearty fellows were
anything but what they seemed - three ordinary, game-playing,
suburban Englishmen, wearisome, if you like, but sordidly
innocent.

And yet there were three of them; and one was old, and one was
plump, and one was lean and dark; and their house chimed in with
Scudder's notes; and half a mile off was lying a steam yacht with at
least one German officer. I thought of Karolides lying dead and all
Europe trembling on the edge of earthquake, and the men I had left
behind me in London who were waiting anxiously for the events of the
next hours. There was no doubt that hell was afoot somewhere. The
Black Stone had won, and if it survived this June night would bank
its winnings.

There seemed only one thing to do - go forward as if I had no
doubts, and if I was going to make a fool of myself to do it
handsomely. Never in my life have I faced a job with greater
disinclination. I would rather in my then mind have walked into a
den of anarchists, each with his Browning handy, or faced a charging
lion with a popgun, than enter that happy home of three cheerful
Englishmen and tell them that their game was up. How they would
laugh at me!

But suddenly I remembered a thing I once heard in Rhodesia from
old Peter Pienaar. I have quoted Peter already in this narrative. He
was the best scout I ever knew, and before he had turned respectable
he had been pretty often on the windy side of the law, when he had
been wanted badly by the authorities. Peter once discussed with me
the question of disguises, and he had a theory which struck me at the
time. He said, barring absolute certainties like fingerprints, mere
physical traits were very little use for identification if the
fugitive really knew his business. He laughed at things like dyed
hair and false beards and such childish follies. The only thing that
mattered was what Peter called 'atmosphere'.

If a man could get into perfectly different surroundings from
those in which he had been first observed, and - this is the
important part - really play up to these surroundings and behave as
if he had never been out of them, he would puzzle the cleverest
detectives on earth. And he used to tell a story of how he once
borrowed a black coat and went to church and shared the same
hymn-book with the man that was looking for him. If that man had
seen him in decent company before he would have recognized him; but
he had only seen him snuffing the lights in a public-house with a
revolver. The recollection of Peter's talk gave me the first real
comfort that I had had that day. Peter had been a wise old bird, and
these fellows I was after were about the pick of the aviary. What if
they were playing Peter's game? A fool tries to look different: a
clever man looks the same and is different.

Again, there was that other maxim of Peter's which had helped me
when I had been a roadman. 'If you are playing a part, you will
never keep it up unless you convince yourself that you are it.' That
would explain the game of tennis. Those chaps didn't need to act,
they just turned a handle and passed into another life, which came as
naturally to them as the first. It sounds a platitude, but Peter
used to say that it was the big secret of all the famous
criminals.

It was now getting on for eight o'clock, and I went back and saw
Scaife to give him his instructions. I arranged with him how to
place his men, and then I went for a walk, for I didn't feel up to
any dinner. I went round the deserted golf-course, and then to a
point on the cliffs farther north beyond the line of the villas.

On the little trim newly-made roads I met people in flannels
coming back from tennis and the beach, and a coastguard from the
wireless station, and donkeys and pierrots padding homewards. Out at
sea in the blue dusk I saw lights appear on the Ariadne and on the
destroyer away to the south, and beyond the Cock sands the bigger
lights of steamers making for the Thames. The whole scene was so
peaceful and ordinary that I got more dashed in spirits every second.
It took all my resolution to stroll towards Trafalgar Lodge about
half-past nine.

On the way I got a piece of solid comfort from the sight of a
greyhound that was swinging along at a nursemaid's heels. He
reminded me of a dog I used to have in Rhodesia, and of the time when
I took him hunting with me in the Pali hills. We were after rhebok,
the dun kind, and I recollected how we had followed one beast, and
both he and I had clean lost it. A greyhound works by sight, and my
eyes are good enough, but that buck simply leaked out of the
landscape. Afterwards I found out how it managed it. Against the
grey rock of the kopjes it showed no more than a crow against a
thundercloud. It didn't need to run away; all it had to do was to
stand still and melt into the background.

Suddenly as these memories chased across my brain I thought of
my present case and applied the moral. The Black Stone didn't need
to bolt. They were quietly absorbed into the landscape. I was on
the right track, and I jammed that down in my mind and vowed never to
forget it. The last word was with Peter Pienaar.

Scaife's men would be posted now, but there was no sign of a
soul. The house stood as open as a market-place for anybody to
observe. A three-foot railing separated it from the cliff road; the
windows on the ground-floor were all open, and shaded lights and the
low sound of voices revealed where the occupants were finishing
dinner. Everything was as public and above-board as a charity
bazaar. Feeling the greatest fool on earth, I opened the gate and
rang the bell.

A man of my sort, who has travelled about the world in rough
places, gets on perfectly well with two classes, what you may call
the upper and the lower. He understands them and they understand
him. I was at home with herds and tramps and roadmen, and I was
sufficiently at my ease with people like Sir Walter and the men I had
met the night before. I can't explain why, but it is a fact. But
what fellows like me don't understand is the great comfortable,
satisfied middle-class world, the folk that live in villas and
suburbs. He doesn't know how they look at things, he doesn't
understand their conventions, and he is as shy of them as of a black
mamba. When a trim parlour-maid opened the door, I could hardly find
my voice.

I asked for Mr Appleton, and was ushered in. My plan had been
to walk straight into the dining-room, and by a sudden appearance
wake in the men that start of recognition which would confirm my
theory. But when I found myself in that neat hall the place mastered
me. There were the golf-clubs and tennis-rackets, the straw hats and
caps, the rows of gloves, the sheaf of walking-sticks, which you will
find in ten thousand British homes. A stack of neatly folded coats
and waterproofs covered the top of an old oak chest; there was a
grandfather clock ticking; and some polished brass warming-pans on
the walls, and a barometer, and a print of Chiltern winning the St
Leger. The place was as orthodox as an Anglican church. When the
maid asked me for my name I gave it automatically, and was shown into
the smoking-room, on the right side of the hall.

That room was even worse. I hadn't time to examine it, but I
could see some framed group photographs above the mantelpiece, and I
could have sworn they were English public school or college. I had
only one glance, for I managed to pull myself together and go after
the maid. But I was too late. She had already entered the
dining-room and given my name to her master, and I had missed the
chance of seeing how the three took it.

When I walked into the room the old man at the head of the table
had risen and turned round to meet me. He was in evening dress - a
short coat and black tie, as was the other, whom I called in my own
mind the plump one. The third, the dark fellow, wore a blue serge
suit and a soft white collar, and the colours of some club or
school.

The old man's manner was perfect. 'Mr Hannay?' he said
hesitatingly. 'Did you wish to see me? One moment, you fellows, and
I'll rejoin you. We had better go to the smoking-room.'

Though I hadn't an ounce of confidence in me, I forced myself to
play the game. I pulled up a chair and sat down on it.

'I think we have met before,' I said, 'and I guess you know my
business.'

The light in the room was dim, but so far as I could see their
faces, they played the part of mystification very well.

'Maybe, maybe,' said the old man. 'I haven't a very good
memory, but I'm afraid you must tell me your errand, Sir, for I
really don't know it.'

'Well, then,' I said, and all the time I seemed to myself to be
talking pure foolishness - 'I have come to tell you that the game's
up. I have a warrant for the arrest of you three gentlemen.'

'Arrest,' said the old man, and he looked really shocked.
'Arrest! Good God, what for?'

'For the murder of Franklin Scudder in London on the 23rd day of
last month.'

'I never heard the name before,' said the old man in a dazed
voice.

One of the others spoke up. 'That was the Portland Place
murder. I read about it. Good heavens, you must be mad, Sir! Where
do you come from?'

'Scotland Yard,' I said.

After that for a minute there was utter silence. The old man
was staring at his plate and fumbling with a nut, the very model of
innocent bewilderment.

Then the plump one spoke up. He stammered a little, like a man
picking his words.

'Don't get flustered, uncle,' he said. 'It is all a ridiculous
mistake; but these things happen sometimes, and we can easily set it
right. It won't be hard to prove our innocence. I can show that I
was out of the country on the 23rd of May, and Bob was in a nursing
home. You were in London, but you can explain what you were
doing.'

'Right, Percy! Of course that's easy enough. The 23rd! That
was the day after Agatha's wedding. Let me see. What was I doing?
I came up in the morning from Woking, and lunched at the club with
Charlie Symons. Then - oh yes, I dined with the Fishmongers. I
remember, for the punch didn't agree with me, and I was seedy next
morning. Hang it all, there's the cigar-box I brought back from the
dinner.' He pointed to an object on the table, and laughed
nervously.

'I think, Sir,' said the young man, addressing me respectfully,
'you will see you are mistaken. We want to assist the law like all
Englishmen, and we don't want Scotland Yard to be making fools of
themselves. That's so, uncle?'

'Certainly, Bob.' The old fellow seemed to be recovering his
voice. 'Certainly, we'll do anything in our power to assist the
authorities. But - but this is a bit too much. I can't get over
it.'

'How Nellie will chuckle,' said the plump man. 'She always said
that you would die of boredom because nothing ever happened to you.
And now you've got it thick and strong,' and he began to laugh very
pleasantly.

'By Jove, yes. just think of it! What a story to tell at the
club. Really, Mr Hannay, I suppose I should be angry, to show my
innocence, but it's too funny! I almost forgive you the fright you
gave me! You looked so glum, I thought I might have been walking in
my sleep and killing people.'

It couldn't be acting, it was too confoundedly genuine. My
heart went into my boots, and my first impulse was to apologize and
clear out. But I told myself I must see it through, even though I
was to be the laughing-stock of Britain. The light from the dinner-
table candlesticks was not very good, and to cover my confusion I got
up, walked to the door and switched on the electric light. The
sudden glare made them blink, and I stood scanning the three
faces.

Well, I made nothing of it. One was old and bald, one was
stout, one was dark and thin. There was nothing in their appearance
to prevent them being the three who had hunted me in Scotland, but
there was nothing to identify them. 1 simply can't explain why I
who, as a roadman, had looked into two pairs of eyes, and as Ned
Ainslie into another pair, why I, who have a good memory and
reasonable powers of observation, could find no satisfaction. They
seemed exactly what they professed to be, and I could not have sworn
to one of them.

There in that pleasant dining-room, with etchings on the walls,
and a picture of an old lady in a bib above the mantelpiece, I could
see nothing to connect them with the moorland desperadoes. There was
a silver cigarette-box beside me, and I saw that it had been won by
Percival Appleton, Esq., of the St Bede's Club, in a golf tournament.
I had to keep a firm hold of Peter Pienaar to prevent myself bolting
out of that house.

'Well,' said the old man politely, 'are you reassured by your
scrutiny, Sir?'

I couldn't find a word.

'I hope you'll find it consistent with your duty to drop this
ridiculous business. I make no complaint, but you'll see how
annoying it must be to respectable people.'

I shook my head.

'O Lord,' said the young man. 'This is a bit too thick!'

'Do you propose to march us off to the police station?' asked
the plump one. 'That might be the best way out of it, but I suppose
you won't be content with the local branch. I have the right to ask
to see your warrant, but I don't wish to cast any aspersions upon
you. You are only doing your duty. But you'll admit it's horribly
awkward. What do you propose to do?'

There was nothing to do except to call in my men and have them
arrested, or to confess my blunder and clear out. I felt mesmerized
by the whole place, by the air of obvious innocence - not innocence
merely, but frank honest bewilderment and concern in the three
faces.

'Oh, Peter Pienaar,' I groaned inwardly, and for a moment I was
very near damning myself for a fool and asking their pardon.

'Meantime I vote we have a game of bridge,' said the plump one.
'It will give Mr Hannay time to think over things, and you know we
have been wanting a fourth player. Do you play, Sir?'

I accepted as if it had been an ordinary invitation at the club.
The whole business had mesmerized me. We went into the smoking-room
where a card-table was set out, and I was offered things to smoke and
drink. I took my place at the table in a kind of dream. The window
was open and the moon was flooding the cliffs and sea with a great
tide of yellow light. There was moonshine, too, in my head. The
three had recovered their composure, and were talking easily - just
the kind of slangy talk you will hear in any golf club-house. I must
have cut a rum figure, sitting there knitting my brows with my eyes
wandering.

My partner was the young dark one. I play a fair hand at
bridge, but I must have been rank bad that night. They saw that they
had got me puzzled, and that put them more than ever at their ease.
I kept looking at their faces, but they conveyed nothing to me. It
was not that they looked different; they were different. I clung
desperately to the words of Peter Pienaar.

Then something awoke me.

The old man laid down his hand to light a cigar. He didn't pick
it up at once, but sat back for a moment in his chair, with his
fingers tapping on his knees.

It was the movement I remembered when I had stood before him in
the moorland farm, with the pistols of his servants behind me.

A little thing, lasting only a second, and the odds were a
thousand to one that I might have had my eyes on my cards at the time
and missed it. But I didn't, and, in a flash, the air seemed to
clear. Some shadow lifted from my brain, and I was looking at the
three men with full and absolute recognition.

The clock on the mantelpiece struck ten o'clock.

The three faces seemed to change before my eyes and reveal their
secrets. The young one was the murderer. Now I saw cruelty and
ruthlessness, where before I had only seen good-humour. His knife, I
made certain, had skewered Scudder to the floor. His kind had put
the bullet in Karolides.

The plump man's features seemed to dislimn, and form again, as I
looked at them. He hadn't a face, only a hundred masks that he could
assume when he pleased. That chap must have been a superb actor.
Perhaps he had been Lord Alloa of the night before; perhaps not; it
didn't matter. I wondered if he was the fellow who had first tracked
Scudder, and left his card on him. Scudder had said he lisped, and I
could imagine how the adoption of a lisp might add terror.

But the old man was the pick of the lot. He was sheer brain,
icy, cool, calculating, as ruthless as a steam hammer. Now that my
eyes were opened I wondered where I had seen the benevolence. His
jaw was like chilled steel, and his eyes had the inhuman luminosity
of a bird's. I went on playing, and every second a greater hate
welled up in my heart. It almost choked me, and I couldn't answer
when my partner spoke. Only a little longer could I endure their
company.

'Whew! Bob! Look at the time,' said the old man. 'You'd
better think about catching your train. Bob's got to go to town
tonight,' he added, turning to me. The voice rang now as false as
hell. I looked at the clock, and it was nearly half-past ten.

'I am afraid he must put off his journey,' I said.

'Oh, damn,' said the young man. 'I thought you had dropped that
rot. I've simply got to go. You can have my address, and I'll give
any security you like.'

'No,' I said, 'you must stay.'

At that I think they must have realized that the game was
desperate. Their only chance had been to convince me that I was
playing the fool, and that had failed. But the old man spoke
again.

'I'll go bail for my nephew. That ought to content you, Mr
Hannay.' Was it fancy, or did I detect some halt in the smoothness
of that voice?

There must have been, for as I glanced at him, his eyelids fell
in that hawk-like hood which fear had stamped on my memory.

I blew my whistle.

In an instant the lights were out. A pair of strong arms
gripped me round the waist, covering the pockets in which a man might
be expected to carry a pistol.

'Schnell, Franz,' cried a voice, 'Das Boot, Das Boot!' As it
spoke I saw two of my fellows emerge on the moonlit lawn. The young
dark man leapt for the window, was through it, and over the low fence
before a hand could touch him. I grappled the old chap, and the room
seemed to fill with figures. I saw the plump one collared, but my
eyes were all for the out-of-doors, where Franz sped on over the road
towards the railed entrance to the beach stairs. One man followed
him, but he had no chance. The gate of the stairs locked behind the
fugitive, and I stood staring, with my hands on the old boy's throat,
for such a time as a man might take to descend those steps to the
sea.

Suddenly my prisoner broke from me and flung himself on the
wall. There was a click as if a lever had been pulled. Then came a
low rumbling far, far below the ground, and through the window I saw
a cloud of chalky dust pouring out of the shaft of the stairway.

Someone switched on the light.

The old man was looking at me with blazing eyes.

'He is safe,' he cried. 'You cannot follow in time ... He is
gone ... He has triumphed ... Der schwarze stein ist in der
Siegeskrone.'

There was more in those eyes than any common triumph. They had
been hooded like a bird of prey, and now they flamed with a hawk's
pride. A white fanatic heat burned in them, and I realized for the
first time the terrible thing I had been up against. This man was
more than a spy; in his foul way he had been a patriot.

As the handcuffs clinked on his wrists I said my last word to
him.

'I hope Franz will bear his triumph well. I ought to tell you
that the Ariadne for the last hour has been in our hands.'

Three weeks later, as all the world knows, we went to war. I
joined the New Army the first week, and owing to my Matabele
experience got a captain's commission straight off. But I had done
my best service, I think, before I put on khaki.