Part 1 (1/2)

The Thirty-Nine Steps

by John Buchan

CHAPTER ONE

The Man Who Died

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 toldlike that I should have laughed at him; but there was the fact The weather lishh exercise, and the amusements of London see in the sun 'Richard Hannay,' I kept tellingditch, my friend, and you had better climb out' Itup those last years in Bulawayo I had got h fore of six, and I had never been hohts tothere 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 h of restaurants and theatres and race-o about with, which probably explains things Plenty of people invited me to their houses, but they didn't see et 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 li 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 doto work on, and on my way home I turned into my club - rather a pot-house, which took in Colonialpapers 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 Fro ame too, which was athered that they hated hi to stick by him, and one paper said that he was the only barrier between Europe and Aret a job in those parts It struck ht keep a

About six o'clock I went home, dressed, dined at the Cafe Royal, and turned into awoht was fine and clear as I walked back to the flat I had hired near Portland Place The crowd surged past , and I envied the people for having soirls and clerks and dandies and policeave half-a-crown to a beggar because I saw him yawn; he was a fellow-sufferer At Oxford Circus I looked up into the spring sky and I ive the Old Country another day to fithappened, I would take the next boat for the Cape

My flat was the first floor in a new block behind Langham Place There was a common staircase, with a porter and a lift of that sort, and each flat was quite shut off from the others I hate servants on the premises, so I had a fellow to look after ht o'clock everyand used to depart at seven, for I never dined at ho my key into the door when I noticed a man at my elbow I had not seen him approach, and the sudden appearance made me start He was a sliinized him as the occupant of a flat on the top floor, hom I had passed the time of day on the stairs

'Can I speak to you?' he said 'May I co his voice with an effort, and his hand was pawing ot my door open and motioned him in No sooner was he over the threshold than he made a dash for my back room, where I used to smoke and write my letters Then he bolted back

'Is the door locked?' he asked feverishly, and he fastened the chain with his own hand

'I'hty liberty, but you looked the kind of man ould understand I've had you in ot troublesoood turn?'

'I'll listen to you,' I said 'That's all I'll pro worried by the antics of this nervous little chap

There was a tray of drinks on a table beside him, from which he filled hiulps, and cracked the glass as he set it down

'Pardon,' he said, 'I'ht You see, I happen at this moment to be dead'

I sat down in an armchair and lit my pipe

'What does it feel like?' I asked I was pretty certain that I had to deal with a madman

A smile flickered over his drawn face 'I' you, and I reckon you're a cool customer I reckon, too, you're an honestto confide in you I need help worse than any man ever needed it, and I want to know if I can count you in'

'Get on with your yarn,' I said, 'and I'll tell you'

He seereat effort, and then started on the queerest riget hold of it at first, and I had to stop and ask hiist of it: He was an A pretty well off, he had started out to see the world He wrote a bit, and acted as war correspondent for a Chicago paper, and spent a year or two in South-Eastern Europe I gathered that he was a fine linguist, and had got to know pretty well the society in those parts He spoke familiarly of many names that I remembered to have seen in the newspapers

He had played about with politics, he told me, at first for the interest of them, and then because he couldn't help himself I read hiet down to the roots of things He got a little further down than he wanted

I a you what he told me as well as I could make it out Away behind all the Governoing on, engineered by very dangerous people He had come on it by accident; it fascinated hiathered that most of the people in it were the sort of educated anarchists that make revolutions, but that beside the formarket, and it suited the book of both classes to set Europe by the ears

He told s that explained a lot that had puzzled s that happened in the Balkan War, how one state suddenly came out on top, why alliances were made and broken, why certain men disappeared, and where the sinews of war caet Russia and Gererheads

When I asked why, he said that the anarchist lot thought it would give the- pot, and they looked to see a neorld ee The capitalists would rake in the shekels, and e Capital, he said, had no conscience and no fatherland Besides, the Jeas behind it, and the Jew hated Russia worse than hell

'Do you wonder?' he cried 'For three hundred years they have been persecuted, and this is the return roo far down the backstairs to find his with it the firstlish But he cuts no ice If your business is big, you get behind hi brow and the ives your English papers the shakes But if you're on the biggest kind of job and are bound to get to the real boss, ten to one you are brought up against a little white-faced Jew in a bath-chair with an eye like a rattlesnake Yes, Sir, he is thethe world just now, and he has his knife in the Eed and his father flogged in soa'

I could not help saying that his Jew-anarchists seeot left behind a little

'Yes and no,' he said 'They won up to a point, but they struck a bigger thing than hting instincts ofand country to fight for, and if you survive you get to love the thing Those foolish devils of soldiers have found so they care for, and that has upset the pretty plan laid in Berlin and Vienna But ht They've gotten the ace up their sleeves, and unless I can keep alive for a ht you were dead,' I put in

'MORS JANUA VITAE,' he snized the quotation: it was about all the Latin I knew) 'I'ot to put you wise about a lot of things first If you read your newspaper, I guess you know the name of Constantine Karolides?'

I sat up at that, for I had been reading about him that very afternoon

'He is thebrain in the whole show, and he happens also to be an honest man Therefore he has been marked down these twelve months past I found that out - not that it was difficult, for any fool could guess as et hie was deadly That's why I have had to decease'

He had another drink, and Iinterested in the beggar

'They can't get hiuard of Epirotes that would skin their grand to this city The British Foreign Office has taken to having International tea-parties, and the biggest of them is due on that date Now Karolides is reckoned the principal guest, and ifcountryh, anyhow,' I said 'You can warn hiame?' he asked sharply 'If he does not cohten out the tangle And if his Govern the stakes will be on June the 15th'

'What about the British Governuests be murdered Tip theood They ht stuff your city with plain-clothes detectives and double the police and Constantine would still be a dooa off, with the eyes of all Europe on it He'll be murdered by an Austrian, and there'll be plenty of evidence to show the connivance of the big folk in Vienna and Berlin It will all be an infernal lie, of course, but the case will look black enough to the world I' hot air, my friend I happen to know every detail of the hellish contrivance, and I can tell you it will be the ias But it's not going to come off if there's a certain ht here in London on the 15th day of June And thatto be your servant, Franklin P Scudder'

I was getting to like the little chap His jaw had shut like a rat- trap, and there was the fire of battle in his gi me a yarn he could act up to it

'Where did you find out this story?' I asked

'I got the first hint in an inn on the Achensee in Tyrol That set , and I collected my other clues in a fur-shop in the Galician quarter of Buda, in a Strangers' Club in Vienna, and in a little bookshop off the Racknitzstrasse in Leipsic I coo in Paris I can't tell you the details now, for it's so of a history When I was quite sure in ed it hty queer circuit I left Paris a dandified young French-A a Jew dialish student of Ibsen collecting en I was a cinema-man with special ski films And I came here from Leith with a lot of pulp-wood propositions in my pocket to put before the London newspapers Till yesterday I thought I hadpretty happy Then '

The recollection seeulped down so in the street outside this block I used to stay close in my room all day, and only slip out after dark for an hour or two I watched hinized himHe came in and spoke to the porterWhen I caht I found a card in my letter-box It bore the name of the man I want least to meet on God's earth'

I think that the look in my companion's eyes, the sheer naked scare on his face, completed my conviction of his honesty My own voice sharpened a bit as I asked him what he did next

'I realized that I was bottled as sure as a pickled herring, and that there was only one way out I had to die If ain'