The Thirty-Nine Steps (13 page)

The first thing he did was to take me round to Scotland Yard. There we saw a prim
gentleman, with a clean-shaven, lawyer’s face.

‘I’ve brought you the Portland Place murderer,’ was Sir Walter’s introduction.

The reply was a wry smile. ‘It would have been a welcome present, Bullivant. This,
I presume, is Mr Richard Hannay, who for some days greatly interested my department.’

‘Mr Hannay will interest it again. He has much to tell you, but not today. For certain
grave reasons his tale must wait for four hours. Then, I can promise you, you will
be entertained and possibly edified. I want you to assure Mr Hannay that he will suffer
no further inconvenience.’

This assurance was promptly given. ‘You can take up your life where you left off,’
I was told. ‘Your flat, which probably you no longer wish to occupy, is waiting for
you, and your man is still there. As you were never publicly accused, we considered
that there was no need of a public exculpation. But on that, of course, you must please
yourself.’

‘We may want your assistance later on, MacGillivray,’ Sir Walter said as we left.

Then he turned me loose.

‘Come and see me tomorrow, Hannay. I needn’t tell you to keep deadly quiet. If I were
you I would go to bed, for you must have considerable arrears of sleep to overtake.
You had better lie low, for if one of your Black Stone friends saw you there might
be trouble.’

I felt curiously at a loose end. At first it was very pleasant to be a free man, able
to go where I wanted without fearing anything. I had only been a month under the ban
of the law, and it was quite enough for me. I went to the Savoy and ordered very carefully
a very good luncheon, and then smoked the best cigar the house could provide. But
I was still feeling nervous. When I saw anybody look at me in the lounge, I grew shy,
and wondered if they were thinking about the murder.

After that I took a taxi and drove miles away up into North London. I walked back
through fields and lines of villas and terraces and then slums and mean streets, and
it took me pretty nearly two hours. All the while my restlessness was growing worse.
I felt that great things, tremendous things, were happening or about to happen, and
I, who was the cog-wheel of the whole business, was out of it. Royer would be landing
at Dover, Sir Walter would be making plans with the few people in England who were
in the secret, and somewhere in the darkness the Black Stone would be working. I felt
the sense of danger and impending calamity, and I had the curious feeling, too, that
I alone could avert it, alone could grapple with it. But I was out of the game now.
How could it be otherwise? It was not likely that Cabinet Ministers and Admiralty
Lords and Generals would admit me to their councils.

I actually began to wish that I could run up against one of my three enemies. That
would lead to developments. I felt that I wanted enormously to have a vulgar scrap
with those gentry, where I could hit out and flatten something. I was rapidly getting
into a very bad temper.

I didn’t feel like going back to my flat. That had to be faced some time, but as I
still had sufficient money I thought I would put it off till next morning, and go
to a hotel for the night.

My irritation lasted through dinner, which I had at a restaurant in Jermyn Street.
I was no longer hungry, and let several courses pass untasted. I drank the best part
of a bottle of Burgundy, but it did nothing to cheer me. An abominable restlessness
had taken possession of me. Here was I, a very ordinary fellow, with no particular
brains, and yet I was convinced that somehow I was needed to help this business through—that
without me it would all go to blazes. I told myself it was sheer silly conceit, that
four or five of the cleverest people living, with all the might of the British Empire
at their back, had the job in hand. Yet I couldn’t be convinced. It seemed as if a
voice kept speaking in my ear, telling me to be up and doing, or I would never sleep
again.

The upshot was that about half-past nine I made up my mind to go to Queen Anne’s Gate.
Very likely I would not be admitted, but it would ease my conscience to try.

I walked down Jermyn Street, and at the corner of Duke Street passed a group of young
men. They were in evening dress, had been dining somewhere, and were going on to a
music-hall. One of them was Mr Marmaduke Jopley.

He saw me and stopped short.

‘By God, the murderer!’ he cried. ‘Here, you fellows, hold him! That’s Hannay, the
man who did the Portland Place murder!’ He gripped me by the arm, and the others crowded
round. I wasn’t looking for any trouble, but my ill-temper made me play the fool.
A policeman came up, and I should have told him the truth, and, if he didn’t believe
it, demanded to be taken to Scotland Yard, or for that matter to the nearest police
station. But a delay at that moment seemed to me unendurable, and the sight of Marmie’s
imbecile face was more than I could bear. I let out with my left, and had the satisfaction
of seeing him measure his length in the gutter.

Then began an unholy row. They were all on me at once, and the policeman took me in
the rear. I got in one or two good blows, for I think, with fair play, I could have
licked the lot of them, but the policeman pinned me behind, and one of them got his
fingers on my throat.

Through a black cloud of rage I heard the officer of the law asking what was the matter,
and Marmie, between his broken teeth, declaring that I was Hannay the murderer.

‘Oh, damn it all,’ I cried, ‘make the fellow shut up. I advise you to leave me alone,
constable. Scotland Yard knows all about me, and you’ll get a proper wigging if you
interfere with me.’

‘You’ve got to come along of me, young man,’ said the policeman. ‘I saw you strike
that gentleman crool ’ard. You began it too, for he wasn’t doing nothing. I seen you.
Best go quietly or I’ll have to fix you up.’

Exasperation and an overwhelming sense that at no cost must I delay gave me the strength
of a bull elephant. I fairly wrenched the constable off his feet, floored the man
who was gripping my collar, and set off at my best pace down Duke Street. I heard
a whistle being blown, and the rush of men behind me.

I have a very fair turn of speed, and that night I had wings. In a jiffy I was in
Pall Mall and had turned down towards St James’s Park. I dodged the policeman at the
Palace gates, dived through a press of carriages at the entrance to the Mall, and
was making for the bridge before my pursuers had crossed the roadway. In the open
ways of the Park I put on a spurt. Happily there were few people about and no one
tried to stop me. I was staking all on getting to Queen Anne’s Gate.

When I entered that quiet thoroughfare it seemed deserted. Sir Walter’s house was
in the narrow part, and outside it three or four motor-cars were drawn up. I slackened
speed some yards off and walked briskly up to the door. If the butler refused me admission,
or if he even delayed to open the door, I was done.

He didn’t delay. I had scarcely rung before the door opened.

‘I must see Sir Walter,’ I panted. ‘My business is desperately important.’

That butler was a great man. Without moving a muscle he held the door open, and then
shut it behind me. ‘Sir Walter is engaged, Sir, and I have orders to admit no one.
Perhaps you will wait.’

The house was of the old-fashioned kind, with a wide hall and rooms on both sides
of it. At the far end was an alcove with a telephone and a couple of chairs, and there
the butler offered me a seat.

‘See here,’ I whispered. ‘There’s trouble about and I’m in it. But Sir Walter knows,
and I’m working for him. If anyone comes and asks if I am here, tell him a lie.’

He nodded, and presently there was a noise of voices in the street, and a furious
ringing at the bell. I never admired a man more than that butler. He opened the door,
and with a face like a graven image waited to be questioned. Then he gave them it.
He told them whose house it was, and what his orders were, and simply froze them off
the doorstep. I could see it all from my alcove, and it was better than any play.

I hadn’t waited long till there came another ring at the bell. The butler made no
bones about admitting this new visitor.

While he was taking off his coat I saw who it was. You couldn’t open a newspaper or
a magazine without seeing that face—the grey beard cut like a spade, the firm fighting
mouth, the blunt square nose, and the keen blue eyes. I recognized the First Sea Lord,
the man, they say, that made the new British Navy.

He passed my alcove and was ushered into a room at the back of the hall. As the door
opened I could hear the sound of low voices. It shut, and I was left alone again.

For twenty minutes I sat there, wondering what I was to do next. I was still perfectly
convinced that I was wanted, but when or how I had no notion. I kept looking at my
watch, and as the time crept on to half-past ten I began to think that the conference
must soon end. In a quarter of an hour Royer should be speeding along the road to
Portsmouth …

Then I heard a bell ring, and the butler appeared. The door of the back room opened,
and the First Sea Lord came out. He walked past me, and in passing he glanced in my
direction, and for a second we looked each other in the face.

Only for a second, but it was enough to make my heart jump. I had never seen the great
man before, and he had never seen me. But in that fraction of time something sprang
into his eyes, and that something was recognition. You can’t mistake it. It is a flicker,
a spark of light, a minute shade of difference which means one thing and one thing
only. It came involuntarily, for in a moment it died, and he passed on. In a maze
of wild fancies I heard the street door close behind him.

I picked up the telephone book and looked up the number of his house. We were connected
at once, and I heard a servant’s voice.

‘Is his Lordship at home?’ I asked.

‘His Lordship returned half an hour ago,’ said the voice, ‘and has gone to bed. He
is not very well tonight. Will you leave a message, Sir?’

I rang off and almost tumbled into a chair. My part in this business was not yet ended.
It had been a close shave, but I had been in time.

Not a moment could be lost, so I marched boldly to the door of that back room and
entered without knocking.

Five surprised faces looked up from a round table. There was Sir Walter, and Drew
the War Minister, whom I knew from his photographs. There was a slim elderly man,
who was probably Whittaker, the Admiralty official, and there was General Winstanley,
conspicuous from the long scar on his forehead. Lastly, there was a short stout man
with an iron-grey moustache and bushy eyebrows, who had been arrested in the middle
of a sentence.

Sir Walter’s face showed surprise and annoyance.

‘This is Mr Hannay, of whom I have spoken to you,’ he said apologetically to the company.
‘I’m afraid, Hannay, this visit is ill-timed.’

I was getting back my coolness. ‘That remains to be seen, Sir,’ I said; ‘but I think
it may be in the nick of time. For God’s sake, gentlemen, tell me who went out a minute
ago?’

‘Lord Alloa,’ Sir Walter said, reddening with anger. ‘It was not,’ I cried; ‘it was
his living image, but it was not Lord Alloa. It was someone who recognized me, someone
I have seen in the last month. He had scarcely left the doorstep when I rang up Lord
Alloa’s house and was told he had come in half an hour before and had gone to bed.’

‘Who—who—’ someone stammered.

‘The Black Stone,’ I cried, and I sat down in the chair so recently vacated and looked
round at five badly scared gentlemen.

‘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—’