Chapter Chapter 9 · Chapter IX The Thirty-Nine Steps

. Chapter IX The Thirty-Nine Steps

“Nonsense!” said the official from the Admiralty.

Sir Walter got up and left the room while we looked blankly at the

table. He came back in ten minutes with a long face. “I have spoken to

Alloa,” he said. “Had him out of bed—very grumpy. He went straight home

after Mulross’s dinner.”

“But it’s madness,” broke in General Winstanley. “Do you mean to tell

me that that man came here and sat beside me for the best part of half

an hour and that I didn’t detect the imposture? Alloa must be out of

his mind.”

“Don’t you see the cleverness of it?” I said. “You were too interested

in other things to have any eyes. You took Lord Alloa for granted. If

it had been anybody else you might have looked more closely, but it was

natural for him to be here, and that put you all to sleep.”

Then the Frenchman spoke, very slowly and in good English.

“The young man is right. His psychology is good. Our enemies have not

been foolish!”

He bent his wise brows on the assembly.

“I will tell you a tale,” he said. “It happened many years ago in

Senegal. I was quartered in a remote station, and to pass the time used

to go fishing for big barbel in the river. A little Arab mare used to

carry my luncheon basket—one of the salted dun breed you got at

Timbuctoo in the old days. Well, one morning I had good sport, and the

mare was unaccountably restless. I could hear her whinnying and

squealing and stamping her feet, and I kept soothing her with my voice

while my mind was intent on fish. I could see her all the time, as I

thought, out of a corner of my eye, tethered to a tree twenty yards

away. After a couple of hours I began to think of food. I collected my

fish in a tarpaulin bag, and moved down the stream towards the mare,

trolling my line. When I got up to her I flung the tarpaulin on her

back—”

He paused and looked round.

“It was the smell that gave me warning. I turned my head and found

myself looking at a lion three feet off.... An old man-eater, that was

the terror of the village.... What was left of the mare, a mass of

blood and bones and hide, was behind him.”

“What happened?” I asked. I was enough of a hunter to know a true yarn

when I heard it.

“I stuffed my fishing-rod into his jaws, and I had a pistol. Also my

servants came presently with rifles. But he left his mark on me.” He

held up a hand which lacked three fingers.

“Consider,” he said. “The mare had been dead more than an hour, and the

brute had been patiently watching me ever since. I never saw the kill,

for I was accustomed to the mare’s fretting, and I never marked her

absence, for my consciousness of her was only of something tawny, and

the lion filled that part. If I could blunder thus, gentlemen, in a

land where men’s senses are keen, why should we busy preoccupied urban

folk not err also?”

Sir Walter nodded. No one was ready to gainsay him.

“But I don’t see,” went on Winstanley. “Their object was to get these

dispositions without our knowing it. Now it only required one of us to

mention to Alloa our meeting tonight for the whole fraud to be

exposed.”

Sir Walter laughed dryly. “The selection of Alloa shows their acumen.

Which of us was likely to speak to him about tonight? Or was he likely

to open the subject?”

I remembered the First Sea Lord’s reputation for taciturnity and

shortness of temper.

“The one thing that puzzles me,” said the General, “is what good his

visit here would do that spy fellow? He could not carry away several

pages of figures and strange names in his head.”

“That is not difficult,” the Frenchman replied. “A good spy is trained

to have a photographic memory. Like your own Macaulay. You noticed he

said nothing, but went through these papers again and again. I think we

may assume that he has every detail stamped on his mind. When I was

younger I could do the same trick.”

“Well, I suppose there is nothing for it but to change the plans,” said

Sir Walter ruefully.

Whittaker was looking very glum. “Did you tell Lord Alloa what has

happened?” he asked. “No? Well, I can’t speak with absolute assurance,

but I’m nearly certain we can’t make any serious change unless we alter

the geography of England.”

“Another thing must be said,” it was Royer who spoke. “I talked freely

when that man was here. I told something of the military plans of my

Government. I was permitted to say so much. But that information would

be worth many millions to our enemies. No, my friends, I see no other

way. The man who came here and his confederates must be taken, and

taken at once.”

“Good God,” I cried, “and we have not a rag of a clue.”

“Besides,” said Whittaker, “there is the post. By this time the news

will be on its way.”

“No,” said the Frenchman. “You do not understand the habits of the spy.

He receives personally his reward, and he delivers personally his

intelligence. We in France know something of the breed. There is still

a chance, _mes amis_. These men must cross the sea, and there are ships

to be searched and ports to be watched. Believe me, the need is

desperate for both France and Britain.”

Royer’s grave good sense seemed to pull us together. He was the man of

action among fumblers. But I saw no hope in any face, and I felt none.

Where among the fifty millions of these islands and within a dozen

hours were we to lay hands on the three cleverest rogues in Europe?

Then suddenly I had an inspiration.

“Where is Scudder’s book?” I cried to Sir Walter. “Quick, man, I

remember something in it.”

He unlocked the door of a bureau and gave it to me.

I found the place. “_Thirty-nine steps_,” I read, and again,

“_Thirty-nine steps—I counted them—High tide_, 10.17 p.m.”

The Admiralty man was looking at me as if he thought I had gone mad.

“Don’t you see it’s a clue,” I shouted. “Scudder knew where these

fellows laired—he knew where they were going to leave the country,

though he kept the name to himself. Tomorrow was the day, and it was

some place where high tide was at 10.17.”

“They may have gone tonight,” someone said.

“Not they. They have their own snug secret way, and they won’t be

hurried. I know Germans, and they are mad about working to a plan.

Where the devil can I get a book of Tide Tables?”

Whittaker brightened up. “It’s a chance,” he said. “Let’s go over to

the Admiralty.”

We got into two of the waiting motor-cars—all but Sir Walter, who went

off to Scotland Yard—to “mobilize MacGillivray”, so he said.

We marched through empty corridors and big bare chambers where the

charwomen were busy, till we reached a little room lined with books and

maps. A resident clerk was unearthed, who presently fetched from the

library the Admiralty Tide Tables. I sat at the desk and the others

stood round, for somehow or other I had got charge of this expedition.

It was no good. There were hundreds of entries, and so far as I could

see 10.17 might cover fifty places. We had to find some way of

narrowing the possibilities.

I took my head in my hands and thought. There must be some way of

reading this riddle. What did Scudder mean by steps? I thought of dock

steps, but if he had meant that I didn’t think he would have mentioned

the number. It must be some place where there were several staircases,

and one marked out from the others by having thirty-nine steps.

Then I had a sudden thought, and hunted up all the steamer sailings.

There was no boat which left for the Continent at 10.17 p.m.

Why was high tide so important? If it was a harbour it must be some

little place where the tide mattered, or else it was a heavy-draught

boat. But there was no regular steamer sailing at that hour, and

somehow I didn’t think they would travel by a big boat from a regular

harbour. So it must be some little harbour where the tide was

important, or perhaps no harbour at all.

But if it was a little port I couldn’t see what the steps signified.

There were no sets of staircases on any harbour that I had ever seen.

It must be some place which a particular staircase identified, and

where the tide was full at 10.17. On the whole it seemed to me that the

place must be a bit of open coast. But the staircases kept puzzling me.

Then I went back to wider considerations. Whereabouts would a man be

likely to leave for Germany, a man in a hurry, who wanted a speedy and

a secret passage? Not from any of the big harbours. And not from the

Channel or the West Coast or Scotland, for, remember, he was starting

from London. I measured the distance on the map, and tried to put

myself in the enemy’s shoes. I should try for Ostend or Antwerp or

Rotterdam, and I should sail from somewhere on the East Coast between

Cromer and Dover.

All this was very loose guessing, and I don’t pretend it was ingenious

or scientific. I wasn’t any kind of Sherlock Holmes. But I have always

fancied I had a kind of instinct about questions like this. I don’t

know if I can explain myself, but I used to use my brains as far as

they went, and after they came to a blank wall I guessed, and I usually

found my guesses pretty right.

So I set out all my conclusions on a bit of Admiralty paper. They ran

like this:

FAIRLY CERTAIN.

(1) Place where there are several sets of stairs; one that matters

distinguished by having thirty-nine steps.

(2) Full tide at 10.17 p.m. Leaving shore only possible at full tide.

(3) Steps not dock steps, and so place probably not harbour.

(4) No regular night steamer at 10.17. Means of transport must be tramp

(unlikely), yacht, or fishing-boat.

There my reasoning stopped. I made another list, which I headed

“Guessed”, but I was just as sure of the one as the other.

GUESSED.

(1) Place not harbour but open coast.

(2) Boat small—trawler, yacht, or launch.

(3) Place somewhere on East Coast between Cromer and Dover.

It struck me as odd that I should be sitting at that desk with a

Cabinet Minister, a Field-Marshal, two high Government officials, and a

French General watching me, while from the scribble of a dead man I was

trying to drag a secret which meant life or death for us.

Sir Walter had joined us, and presently MacGillivray arrived. He had

sent out instructions to watch the ports and railway stations for the

three men whom I had described to Sir Walter. Not that he or anybody

else thought that that would do much good.

“Here’s the most I can make of it,” I said. “We have got to find a

place where there are several staircases down to the beach, one of

which has thirty-nine steps. I think it’s a piece of open coast with

biggish cliffs, somewhere between the Wash and the Channel. Also it’s a

place where full tide is at 10.17 tomorrow night.”

Then an idea struck me. “Is there no Inspector of Coastguards or some

fellow like that who knows the East Coast?”

Whittaker said there was, and that he lived in Clapham. He went off in

a car to fetch him, and the rest of us sat about the little room and

talked of anything that came into our heads. I lit a pipe and went over

the whole thing again till my brain grew weary.

About one in the morning the coastguard man arrived. He was a fine old

fellow, with the look of a naval officer, and was desperately

respectful to the company. I left the War Minister to cross-examine

him, for I felt he would think it cheek in me to talk.

“We want you to tell us the places you know on the East Coast where

there are cliffs, and where several sets of steps run down to the

beach.”

He thought for a bit. “What kind of steps do you mean, sir? There are

plenty of places with roads cut down through the cliffs, and most roads

have a step or two in them. Or do you mean regular staircases—all

steps, so to speak?”

Sir Arthur looked towards me. “We mean regular staircases,” I said.

He reflected a minute or two. “I don’t know that I can think of any.

Wait a second. There’s a place in Norfolk—Brattlesham—beside a

golf-course, where there are a couple of staircases, to let the

gentlemen get a lost ball.”

“That’s not it,” I said.

“Then there are plenty of Marine Parades, if that’s what you mean.

Every seaside resort has them.”

I shook my head. “It’s got to be more retired than that,” I said.

“Well, gentlemen, I can’t think of anywhere else. Of course, there’s

the Ruff—”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“The big chalk headland in Kent, close to Bradgate. It’s got a lot of

villas on the top, and some of the houses have staircases down to a

private beach. It’s a very high-toned sort of place, and the residents

there like to keep by themselves.”

I tore open the Tide Tables and found Bradgate. High tide there was at

10.27 p.m. on the 15th of June.

“We’re on the scent at last,” I cried excitedly. “How can I find out

what is the tide at the Ruff?”

“I can tell you that, sir,” said the coastguard man. “I once was lent a

house there in this very month, and I used to go out at night to the

deep-sea fishing. The tide’s ten minutes before Bradgate.”

I closed the book and looked round at the company.

“If one of those staircases has thirty-nine steps we have solved the

mystery, gentlemen,” I said. “I want the loan of your car, Sir Walter,

and a map of the roads. If Mr MacGillivray will spare me ten minutes, I

think we can prepare something for tomorrow.”

It was ridiculous in me to take charge of the business like this, but

they didn’t seem to mind, and after all I had been in the show from the

start. Besides, I was used to rough jobs, and these eminent gentlemen

were too clever not to see it. It was General Royer who gave me my

commission. “I for one,” he said, “am content to leave the matter in Mr

Hannay’s hands.”

By half-past three I was tearing past the moonlit hedgerows of Kent,

with MacGillivray’s best man on the seat beside me.