Джон Бакен – The Thirty-Nine Steps. Selected Stories / 39 ступеней. Избранные новеллы (страница 4)

There was moorland and the high hills around me, and not a sign or sound of a human being. Yet, for the first time I felt the terror. It was not the police that I thought of, but the other people who knew that I knew Scudder's secret and would not let me live. I was certain that they would follow me and when they found me, they would have no mercy. I looked back, but there was nothing in the landscape which was the most peaceful sight in the world. Nevertheless, I started to run.

I ran till I had reached the top of a mountain high above the moor. From there I could see the railway line. I have eyes like a hawk, but I could see nothing moving in the whole countryside. Then I looked east and saw another kind of landscape. There were green valleys with plantations and roads. Last of all, I looked into the blue May sky and froze.

In the south a small plane was rising into the sky. I was certain that that airplane was looking for me and that it did not belong to the police. For an hour or two I watched it hiding in the heather. It flew low along the hill-tops, and then in circles over the valley from which I had come. Then it rose to a greater height and flew away back to the south.

I did not like this espionage from the air, and I began to think about the countryside I had chosen for hiding. These heather hills were no good if my enemies were in the sky, and I had to find another place to hide. I looked at the green country beyond where I could find woods and stone houses.

At about six in the evening I came out of the moorland to a road which went along the narrow stream. As I followed it, in the twilight I reached a small house. The road went over a bridge, and there stood a young man. He was smoking a pipe and looking at the water. In his left hand was a small book.

He turned round when he heard my footsteps, and I saw a pleasant boyish face.

'Good evening to you,' he said. 'It's a fine night for the road.'

The smell of smoke and some tasty roast reached me from the house.

'Is that place an inn?' I asked.

'At your service,' he said politely. 'I am the landlord, Sir, and I hope you will stay the night. To tell you the truth, I have had no company for a week.'

'You're young to be an innkeeper,' I said and took out my pipe.

'My father died a year ago and left me the business. I live there with my grandmother. It's a slow job for a young man, and it wasn't my choice of profession.'

'Which was?'

He blushed. 'I want to write books,' he said.

'Well, I've often thought that an innkeeper would make the best story-teller in the world.'

'Not now,' he said. 'Maybe in the old days. But not now. Nothing happens here. There is not much material. I want to see life, to travel the world.'

'I've traveled the world a bit, and I wouldn't say that adventure is found only in the tropics. Maybe it's standing right next to you at this moment. Here's a true tale for you then,' I cried, 'and a month from now you can make a novel out of it.'

Sitting on the bridge in the soft May evening, I told him a lovely story. It was mostly true, though I changed some details. I said that I was a mining magnate from South Africa, who had had a lot of trouble with a gang. They had pursued me across the ocean, and had killed my best friend, and were now on my tracks. I told the story well. I described an attack on my life on the voyage home and the Portland Place murder.

'You're looking for adventure?' I cried. 'Well, you've found it here. The devils are after me, and the police are after them.'

'My God!' he whispered.

'You believe me?' I asked.

'Of course I do,' he said. 'I believe everything out of the ordinary.'

He was very young, but he was the man for my money.

'I think I must lie low[29] for a couple of days. Can you take me in?'

He pointed towards the house. 'You can lie low here. I'll make sure no one asks you questions. And you'll give me some more material about your adventures?'

As I was walking into the inn, I heard an engine. There, in the sky, was my friend – the little plane.

The young man gave me a room at the back of the house. I never saw the grandmother, but an old woman called Margit brought me my meals, and the innkeeper was around me all the time. I wanted some time to myself, so I invented a job for him. He had a motorcycle, and the next morning I sent him for the daily paper. I also told him to keep his eyes open for any strange figures, motors or airplanes.

He came back at midday with the paper. There was nothing in it, except some evidence of Paddock and the milkman, and the statement that the murderer had gone north. But there was a long article about Karolides and the affairs in the Balkans, though it did not mention any visits to England.

In the afternoon I sat down to work on Scudder's note-book. As I told you, it was a numerical cipher. The trouble was the key word, and I felt hopeless. But about three o'clock I had a sudden inspiration.

I remembered the name, Julia Czechenyi. Scudder had said it was the key to the Karolides business, and I decided to try it on his cipher. It worked. The five letters of 'Julia' gave me the position of the vowels. 'Czechenyi' gave me the numerals for the consonants. I wrote them on a piece of paper and sat down to read Scudder's pages.

In half an hour, while I was still reading it, I glanced out of the window and saw a big car coming towards the inn. It stopped at the door, and two people got out.

Ten minutes later the innkeeper came into the room. His eyes were bright with excitement.

'There are two chaps below, looking for you,' he whispered. 'They're in the dining-room, having drinks. They asked about you and said they had hoped to meet you here. Oh, and they described you well, even your boots and shirt. I told them you had been here last night and had gone off on a motorcycle this morning, and one of the chaps swore.'

I asked him to tell me what they looked like. One was a thin, dark-eyed fellow with thick eyebrows, and the other smiled and lisped in his talk.

I took a piece of paper and wrote these words in German: '…Black Stone. Scudder had got to this, but he could not act for two weeks. I doubt if I can do any good now, especially as Karolides is uncertain about his plans. But if Mr. T. advises I will do the best I.'

I made it look like a page of a private letter.

'Take this to them and say it was found in my bedroom, and ask them to give it to me when they see me.'

Three minutes later I heard the car engine start, and the innkeeper came back in great excitement.

'Your paper woke them up,' he said. 'The dark fellow went as white as death and cursed like hell, and the fat one whistled. They paid for their drinks and didn't wait for change.'

'Now I'll tell you what I want you to do,' I said. 'Get on your motorcycle and go to the police station. Describe the two men and say you think they have something to do with the London murder. You can invent reasons. The two will come back, that's for sure. Not tonight, as they'll follow me forty miles along the road, but probably tomorrow morning. Tell the police to be here early tomorrow.'

He went off, and I worked on Scudder's notes. When he came back, we had dinner together, and when he went to bed, I finally finished with Scudder. I smoked sitting in a chair till daylight because I could not sleep.

At about eight the next morning I saw the arrival of the policemen. They left their car behind the inn and entered the house. Twenty minutes later, I saw from my window a second car, coming from the opposite direction. It did not come up to the inn, but stopped two hundred yards off in the wood. A minute or two later I heard steps outside the window.

My plan had been to hide in my bedroom, and see what happened. I had an idea that if I could bring the police and my other more dangerous pursuers together, something might work out of it. But now I had a better idea. I wrote thanks to my host, opened the window, and quietly jumped down into a gooseberry bush. I ran to the trees along the road to where the car stood. I jumped into the driver's seat and started the engine. Almost immediately the road went downhill, so I couldn't see the inn, but the wind brought me the sounds of angry voices.

4

That shining May morning I was driving the car at high speed along the moor roads, thinking of what I had found in Scudder's pocket-book.

The little man had told me a lot of lies. All his tales about the Balkans, and the anarchists, and the Foreign Office Conference were lies, and so was Karolides. Yet not quite[30]. I had believed in his story enough to risk my own life, but he had let me down. His book was telling me a different tale, and I believed it absolutely. Why, I don't know.

The fifteenth of June was going to be a big day of destiny. It was so big that I wasn't surprised Scudder hadn't told me all about it. He had told me something which sounded big enough, but the real thing was so big that he – the man who had found it out – wanted it all for himself.

The whole story was in the notes with gaps. The four names he had written were authorities, and he had given them a numerical value. There was a man, Ducrosne, who got five, and another fellow, Ammersfoort, who got three. There also was one queer phrase which appeared several times, in brackets. It was '(Thirty-nine steps)', and the last time he used it, he wrote: '(Thirty-nine steps, I counted them, high tide 10.17p.m.)'. I could not understand that.