THE THIRTY-NINE STEPS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 13 June 1939, Page 10

THE THIRTY-NINE STEPS

(PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT.) (COPYRIGHT.)

By

JOHN BUCHAN

(Lord Tweedsmuir, Governor-General of Canada.)

CHAPTER V. (Continued). I got some dinner in a humble Moffat public house, and walked the two miles to the junction of the main line, The night express for the south was not due till' near midnight, and to fill up the time I went up on the hillside and fell asleep, for the walk had tired me. 1 all out slept too long, and had to run to the station and catch the train with two minutes to spare. The feel of the hard thirdclass cushions, and the smell of stale tobacco cheered me up wonderfully, fully. At any rate, I felt now that I was getting to grips with my job. 1 was decanted at Crewe in the small hours and had to wait till six to get a train for Birmingham. In the afternoon I got to Reading, and changed into a local train which journeyed into the deeps of Berkshire. Presently I was in a land of lush watermeadows and slow reedy streams. About eight o’clock in the evening, a weary and travelled-stained being a cross between a farm-labourer and a vet —with a checked black-and-white plaid over his arm (for I did not dare to wear it south of the Border), descended at the little station of Artinswell. There were several people on the platform, and I thought I had better wait to ask my way till I was clear of the place. The road led ' through a wood of great beeches into a shallow valley, with the green backs of downs peeping over the distant trees. After Scotland, the air smelt heavy and flat, but infinitely sweet, for the limes and chestnuts and lilac bushes were domes of blossom. Presently I came to a bridge, below which a clear, slow stream flowed between snowy beds of water-buttercups. A little above it was a mill; and the lasher made a pleasant cool sound in the scented dusk. Somehow the place soothed me, and put me at my' ease. I fell to whistling as i looked into the green depths, and the tune which came to my lips was “Annie Laurie.” A fisherman came up from the waterside, and as he neared me he too began to whistle. The tune was infectious. for he followed my suit. He was a huge man in untidy old flannels and a wire-brimmed hat with a canvas bag slung on his shoulder. He nodded to me, and I thought I had never seen a shrewder or better-tem-pered face. He leaned his delicate ten-foot split cane rod against the bridge, and looked with me at the water.

“Clear, isn’t it?” he said pleasantly. “I back our Kennet any day against the Test. Look at that big fellow. Four pounds if he’s an ounce. But the evening rise is over and you can’t tempt ’em.” “I don’t see him,” said I. “Look! There! A yard from the reeds just above that stickle.” “I’ve got him now. You might swear he was a Black Stone.”

“So,” he said, and whistled another bar of Annie Laurie.” “Twisdon’s the name, isn't it!” he said, his eyes still fixed on the stream. “No,'' I said. “I mean to say, Yes.” I had forgotten all about my alias. “It’s a wise conspirator that knows his own name,” he ooserved, grinning broadly at a moor-hen that emerged from the bridge’s shadow. I stood up and looked at' him, at the square, left jaw and broad, lined brow and the firm folds of cheek, and began to think tnat here at last was an ally worth having. His whimsical blue eyes seemed to go very deep. Sudden he frowned. “I call it disgraceful,” he said, raising his voice. “Disgraceful that an able-bodied man like you should dare to beg. You can get a meal from my kitchen, but you’ll get no money from me.” A dog-cart was passing, driven by a young man who raised his whip to salute ,the fisherman. When he had gone, he picked up his rod. “That’s my house,” he said, pointing to white gate a hundred yards on. “Wait five minutes and then go round to the back door.” And with that he left me. I did as I was bidden. I found a pretty cottage with a lawn running down to the stream, and a perfect jungle of guelder-rose and lilac flankings, a brown flannel suit, shirts, colopen, and a grave butler was awaiting me.

“Come this way, sir," he said, and he led me along a passage and up a back staircase to a pleasant bedroom looking towards the river. There I found a complete outfit laid out for me —dress clothes with all the fixing, a brown flannel suit, shirts, collars, ties, shaving things and hairbrushes, even a pair of patent shoes. “Sir Walter thought as how Mr Reggie's things would fit you, sir,” said the butler. “Ho keeps some clothes 'ore for ’e comes regular on the weekends. There’s a bathrqom next door, and I've prepared a 'of bath. Dinner in 'all' an hour, sir. You'll ’ear the gong.”

Gravely, he withdrew, and I sat down in a chintz-covered easy chair and gaped. It was like a pantomime, to come suddenly out of beggardom into comfort. Obviously Sir Walter believed in me, though why he did I could not guess. I looked at myself in the mirror and saw a wild, haggard brown fellow, with a fortnight’s ragged beard, and dust in ears, and eyes, collarless, vulgarly shirted, with shapeless old tweed clothes and boots that had not been cleaned for the better part of a month. 1 made a fine tramp and a fair drover; and here 1

was ushered by a prim butler into this temple 01 gracious ease. And the best of it was that they did not even know my name.

I resolved not to puzzle my head, but to lake the gifts the gods had provided. I shaved and bathed luxuriously, and got into the dress clothes and clean crackling shirt, which fitted me not so badly. By the time I had finished the looking-glass showed a not unpersonable young man. Sir Walter awaited me in a din-ing-room where a round table was lit with silver candles. The sight of him —so respectable and established and secure, the embodiment of law and government and all the conventions —took me aback and made me feel an interloper. He couldn’t know the truth about me, or he wouldn’t treat me like this. I simply could not accept his hospitality on false pretences.

“I’m more obliged to you than I can say, but I’m bound to make things clear,” I said. “I’m an innocent man, but I'm wanted by the police. I've got to tell you this, and I won’t be surprised if you kick me out.” He smiled. “That’s all right. Don’t let that interfere with your appetite. Wo can talk about these things after dinner.” I never ale a meal with greater relish, for 1 had had nothing all day but railway sandwiches. Sir Walter did me proud, lor we drank a good champagne and had some uncommon fine port afterwards, it made me almost hysterical to be sitting there, waited on by a footman and a sleek butler, and remember that I had been living for three weeks like a brigand, with every man’s hand against me. We went to his study for coffee, a jolly room full of books and trophies and untidiness and comfort. I made up my mind that if ever I got rid of this business and had a house of my own I would create just such a room. Then when the coffee-cups were cleared away, and we had got our cigars alight, my host swung his long legs over the side of his chair and badc me get started with my yarn. "I’ve obeyed Harry’s instructions,” he said, “and the bribe he offered me was that you would tell me something to wake me up. I’m ready, Mr Hannay.” I noticed with a start that he called me by my proper name. I began at the very beginning. I’ told of my boredom in London, and the night I had come back to find Scudder gibbering on my doorstep. I told him all Scudder had told me about Karolides and the Foreign Office conference, and that made him purse his lips and grin. Then I got to the murder, and 1 he grew solemn again. He heard all about the milkman and my time in Galloway, and my deciphering Scudder’s notes at the inn. “You’ve got them here?” he asked sharply, and drew a long breath when I whipped the little book from my pocket. I said nothing of the contents. Then I described my meeting with Sir Harry and the speeches at the hall. At that he laughed uproariously. My day as roadman excited him a bit. He made me describe the two fellows in the car very closely, and seemed to be raking back in his memory. He grew merry again when he heard of the fate of that ass Jopley. But the old man in the moorland house solemnised him. Again I had to describe every detail of his appearance.

“Bland and baldheaded and hooded his eyes like a bird . . . He sou'nds a sinister wild fowl! And you dynamited his hermitage after he had saved you from the police. Spirited piece of work that!” Presently I reached the end of my wanderings. He got up slowly, and looked down at me from the hearthrug. “You may dismiss the police from your mind,” he said. “You’re in no danger from the law of this land.” “Great Scot!” I cried. “Have they got the murderer” “No. But for the last fortnight they have dropped you from the list of possibles.” “Why?” I asked in amazement. “Principally because I received a letter from Scudder. I knew something of the man, and he did several jobs for me. He was half crank, half genius, but he was wholly honest. The trouble about him was his partiality for playing a lone hand. That made him pretty well useless in any Secret Service —a pity, for he had uncommon gifts. I think he was the bravest man in the world, for he was always shivering with fright, and yet nothing would choke him off. I had a letter from him on the 31st of May.” "But he had been dead a week by then.”

"The letter was written and posted on the twenty-third. He evidently did not anticipate- an immediate decease. His communications usually took a week to reach me, for they were sent under cover to Spain and then to Newcastle. He had a mania, you know, for concealing his tracks.” "What did he say?” I stammered. (To be Continued.)