The Thirty-Nine Steps
THE THIRTY-NINE STEPS
John Buchan
TO
THOMAS ARTHUR NELSON
(LOTHIAN AND BORDER HORSE)
My Dear Tommy,
You and I have long cherished an affection for that elemental type of tale which Americans
call the ‘dime novel’ and which we know as the ‘shocker’—the romance where the incidents
defy the probabilities, and march just inside the borders of the possible. During
an illness last winter I exhausted my store of those aids to cheerfulness, and was
driven to write one for myself. This little volume is the result, and I should like
to put your name on it in memory of our long friendship, in the days when the wildest
fictions are so much less improbable than the facts.
J.B.
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter 1: The Man Who Died
Chapter 2: The Milkman Sets Out on his Travels
Chapter 3: The Adventure of the Literary Innkeeper
Chapter 4: The Adventure of the Radical Candidate
Chapter 5: The Adventure of the Spectacled Roadman
Chapter 6: The Adventure of the Bald Archaeologist
Chapter 7: The Dry-Fly Fisherman
Chapter 8: The Coming of the Black Stone
Chapter 9: The Thirty-Nine Steps
Chapter 10: Various Parties Converging on the Sea
Classic Literature: Words and Phrases: Adapted from the Collins English Dictionary
About the Author
History of Collins
Copyright
About the Publisher
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 told me a year ago that I would have been feeling like that I should have
laughed at him; but there was the fact. The weather made me liverish, the talk of
the ordinary Englishman made me sick, I couldn’t get enough exercise, and the amusements
of London seemed as flat as soda-water that has been standing in the sun. ‘Richard
Hannay,’ I kept telling myself, ‘you have got into the wrong ditch, my friend, and
you had better climb out.’
It made me bite my lips to think of the plans I had been building up those last years
in Bulawayo. I had got my pile—not one of the big ones, but good enough for me; and
I had figured out all kinds of ways of enjoying myself. My father had brought me out
from Scotland at the age of six, and I had never been home since; so England was a
sort of Arabian Nights to me, and I counted on stopping there 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 month I had had enough of restaurants and theatres and
race-meetings. I had no real pal to go about with, which probably explains things.
Plenty of people invited me to their houses, but they didn’t seem much interested
in me. They would fling me a question or two about South Africa, and then get 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 limb, with enough money to have
a good time, yawning 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 man in the United Kingdom.
That afternoon I had been worrying my brokers about investments to give my mind something
to work on, and on my way home I turned into my club—rather a pot-house, which took
in Colonial members. I had a long drink, and read the evening papers. 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. From all accounts he seemed the one big man in the show;
and he played a straight game too, which was more than could be said for most of them.
I gathered that they hated him pretty blackly in Berlin and Vienna, but that we were
going to stick by him, and one paper said that he was the only barrier between Europe
and Armageddon. I remember wondering if I could get a job in those parts. It struck
me that Albania was the sort of place that might keep a man from yawning.
About six o’clock I went home, dressed, dined at the Cafe Royal, and turned into a
music-hall. It was a silly show, all capering women and monkey-faced men, and I did
not stay long. The night was fine and clear as I walked back to the flat I had hired
near Portland Place. The crowd surged past me on the pavements, busy and chattering,
and I envied the people for having something to do. These shop-girls and clerks and
dandies and policemen had some interest in life that kept them going. I gave 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 made a vow. I would give the Old Country another day
to fit me into something; if nothing happened, 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 liftman at the entrance, but there was no restaurant
or anything 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 me who came in by the day.
He arrived before eight o’clock every morning and used to depart at seven, for I never
dined at home.
I was just fitting 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 slim man, with
a short brown beard and small, gimlety blue eyes.
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