THE THIRTY-NINE STEPS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 June 1939, Page 12

THE THIRTY-NINE STEPS

(PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT.) (COPYRIGHT.)

By

JOHN BUCHAN

(Lord Tweedsmuir, Governor-General of Canada.)

CHAPTER 11. (Continued). Happily the drunken herd provided a diversion. He and his dog, which was attached by a rope to his waist, suddenly cascaded out of 5 the carriage, landed on their heads on the track, and rolled some way down the bank towards the water. In the rescue which followed, the dog bit somebody, for I could hear the sound of hard swearing. Presently they had forgotten me, ana when, after a quarter of a mile’s crawl, I ventured to look, back, the train had started again, and was vanishing in the cutting. I was in a wide semi-circle of moorland, with the brown river as radius, and the high hills forming the northern circumference. There was not a sign or sound of a human being, only the plashing water and the interminable crying ot curlews. Yet, oddly enough, for the first time I felt the terror of the hunted on me. It was not- the police that I thought of, but the other folk, who knew that I knew Scudder's secret and dared not let me live. I was certain that they would pursue me with a keenness and vigilance unknown to the British law, and that once their grip closed on me I

should find no mercy. I looked back, but there was nothing in the landscape. The sun glinted on the metals of the line, and the wet stones in the stream, and you could not have found a more peaceful sight in the wdrld. Nevertheless I started to run. Crouching low in the runnels of the bog, I ran till the sweat blinded my eyes. The mood did not leave till I had reached the rim of mountain and Hung myself panting on a ridge high above the young waters of the brown river. From my vantage-ground I could scan the whole mooy right away to the railway line, and to the south of it where green fields took the place of heather. I have eyes like a hawk, but 1 could see nothing moving in trie whole countryside. Then I looked east beyond the ridge and saw a new kind of landscape—shallow green valleys with plentiful fir plantations, and the faint lines of dust which spoke of high roads. Last of all I looked into the blue May sky, and there I saw that which set my pulses racing ... Low down in the south a monoplane was climbing into the heavens. I was as certain as if I had been told that the aeroplane was looking for me, and that it did not belong to the police. For an hour or two I watched it from a pit of heather. It flew low along the hill-tops, and then in narrow circles over the valley up which I had come. Then it seemed to change its mind, rose to a great height, and flew away back to the south.

I did not like tnis espionage from the air, and I began to think less well of the countryside I nad chosen for a refuge. These heather hills were no sort of cover'if my enemies were in the sky, and 1 must find a different kind of sanctuary. I looked with more satisfaction to the green country beyond the ridge, for there I should find woods and stone houses.

About six in the evening I capie out of the moorland to a white ribbon of road which wound up the narrow vale of a lowland stream. As I followed it, fields gave place to bent, the glen became a plateau, and presently I had reached a kind of pass where a solitary house smoked in the twilight. The road swung over a bridge, and leaning on the parapet was a young man. He was smoking a long clay pipe apd studying the water with spectacled eyes. In his left hand was a small book with a finger marking the place Slowly he repealed—-

“As when a Gryphon through the wilderness, With winged step o’er hill and moory dale, Pursues the Arimaspian.” He jumped round as my step rang on the keystone, and I saw a pleasant sunburnt boyish face. “Good evening to you,’’ he said gravely. "It’s a fine night for the road.” The smell of peat smoke and of some savoury roast floated to me from the house. “Is that place an inn?” I asked. “At your service.” he said politely. Hm the landlord, sir, and 1 hope you will stay the night, for, to tell the truth, I have had no company for a week.” I pulled myself up on the parapet of the bridge and filled my pipe. 1 began to detect an ally. “You’re young to be an innkeeper,” I said. "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 actually blushed. “I want to write books,” be said. And what better chance could you “ sk? ’’ 1 , criecL “ Man ' rve often thought that an innkeeper would make the best story-teller in the world.”

“Not now," he said eagerly. “Maybe in the old days when you had pilgrims and ballad-makers and highwaymen and mail coaches on the road. But not now.' Nothing comes here but motor-cars, full of fat women. who stop for lunch, and a fishermen or two in the spring, and the shooting tenants in August. There is not much material to be got out of that. I want to see life, to travel the word, and write things like Kin hng and Conrad. But the most I’ve done yet is to get some verses printed at our local paper.” I looked at the inn standing golden m the sunset against the brown hills I ve knocked a bit about the world and I wouldn’t despise such a hermitage. Dyou think that adventure is found only m the tropics or among gentry m rod shirts? Maybe you're nibbing shoulders with it at this mo ment.” mo " “That’s what Kipling says,” he said his eyes brightening, and he quoted some verses about “Romance bringing up the 9.15.” b Heres a fine tale for you then,” I -lied, and a month from now you can make a novel out of it.” Sitting on the bridge in the soft Jay gloaming I pitched him a lovely X a)n ' 1 'VP 8 true in ess entials, too though I altered the minor details. f made out that I was a mining mag-

nate from Kimberley, and had had a lot of trouble with 1.D.8. and had shown up 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, though I say it who shouldn’t. I pictured a flight across the Kalahari to German Africa, the crackling, parching days, the wonderful blue-velvet nights. I described an attack on my life on the voyage home, and I made a really’horrid affair of 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. It’s a race that I mean to win.” “Heavens,” he whispered, drawing his breath in sharply, “it is all pure Rider Haggaru and Conan Doyle.’” t “You believe me.” I said gratefully. “Of course I do,” and he held out his hand. "T believe everything out of the common. The only thing to distrust Is the normal.” He was very young, but he was the man for my money. “I think they’re off my track for the moment, but I must lie close for a couple of days. Can you take me in?”

He caught my elbow in his eagerness and drew me towards the house. “You can lie as snug here as if you were in a (moss-hole. I’ll see that nobody blabs, either. And you’ll give me some more material about your adventures?” As I entered the inn porch I heard from far off the beat of an engine. There silhouetted against the dusky west was my friend, the monoplane. He gave me a room at the back of the house, with a fine outlook over the plateau, and he made me free of

his own study, which was stacked with cheap editions of his favourite authors. I never saw the grandmother, so I guessed she was bed-ridden. An old woman called _Margit brought me my meals and the"*innkeeper was around me at all hours. I wanted some time to myself, so I invented a job for him, He had a motor bicycle, and I sent him off next morning for the daily paper, which usually arrived with the post in the late afternoon. I told him to keep his eyes skinned and make note of any strange figures he saw, keeping a special sharp lookout for motors and aeroplanes. Then I sat down in real earnest to Scudder’s notebook. He came back at midday with the Scotsman. There was nothing in it, except some further evidence of Paddock and the milkman, and a repetition of yesterday’s statement that the murderer had gone North. But there was a long article, reprinted from “The Times,” about Karolides and the state of affairs in the Balkans, though there, was no mention of any visit to England. I got rid of the innkeeper for the afternoon, for I was getting very warm in my search for the cypher.

As I told you, it was a numerical cypher, and by an elaborate system of experiments I had pretty well discovered what were the nulls and stops. The trouble was the key word, and when I thought of the odd million words he might have used I felt prety hopeless. But about three o’clock I had a sudden inspiration. The name of Julia Czechenyi flashed across my memory. Scudder had said it was the key to the Karolides business, and it occurred to me to try it on his cypher. It worked. The five letters of “Julia” gave me the position of the vowels. A' was J, the tenth letter of the alphabet, and so represented by X in in me cypher. E was U—XXl,’and so on. "Czechenyi” gave me the numerals for the principal consonants. I scribbled the scheme on a bit of paper and sat down to read Scudder’s pages. In half an hour, I was reading with a whitish face and fingers that drummed on the table.

I glanced out of the window and saw a big touring-car coming up the glen towards the inn. It drew up at the door, and there was the sound of people alighting. There seemed to be two of them, men in mackintoshes and tweed caps. Ten minutes later the innkeeper slipped into the room, his eyes bright with excitement. “There's two chaps below, looking for you,” he whispered. “They’re in the dining-room having whiskies and sodas. They asked about you and said they had hopea to meet you here. Oh! and they described you jolly well, • down to your boots and shirt. I told them you had been here last night, and had gone off' on a motor bicycle this morning, and one of the chaps swore like a navvy.” I made him tell me what they looked like. One was a dark-eyed thin fellow with bushy eyebrows, the other was always smiling, and lisped in his talk. Neither was any kind of foreigner; on this my young friend was positive. 1 took a bit of paper and wrote .hese words m German as if they were part of a letter:—"Black Stone. Scudder had got on to this, but he could not act for a fortnight. 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 ...” ■ 1 manufactured it rather neatly, so that it looked like a loose page of a private letter. “Take this down and say it was found in my bedroom, and ask them to return it to me if they overtake me.” Three minutes later I heard the car begin to move, and peeping from behind the curtain caught sight of the two figures. One was slim, the other was sleek, that was the most I could make of my reconnaissance. The innkeeper appeared in great excitement. “Your paper woke them up,” he said gleefully. “The dark fellow went as white as death and cursed like blazes, and the fat one whistled and looked ugly. They paid for their drinks with half a sovereign, and wouldn't wait for change.”

(To be Continued.)