The Thirty-Nine Steps Read Free

lying on the bed-clothes and a considerable mess
     around. Then I got into a suit of clothes I had kept waiting for emergencies. I didn’t
     dare to shave for fear of leaving tracks, and besides, it wasn’t any kind of use my
     trying to get into the streets. I had had you in my mind all day, and there seemed
     nothing to do but to make an appeal to you. I watched from my window till I saw you
     come home, and then slipped down the stair to meet you … There, Sir, I guess you know
     about as much as me of this business.’
    He sat blinking like an owl, fluttering with nerves and yet desperately determined.
     By this time I was pretty well convinced that he was going straight with me. It was
     the wildest sort of narrative, but I had heard in my time many steep tales which had
     turned out to be true, and I had made a practice of judging the man rather than the
     story. If he had wanted to get a location in my flat, and then cut my throat, he would
     have pitched a milder yarn.
    ‘Hand me your key,’ I said, ‘and I’ll take a look at the corpse. Excuse my caution,
     but I’m bound to verify a bit if I can.’
    He shook his head mournfully. ‘I reckoned you’d ask for that, but I haven’t got it.
     It’s on my chain on the dressing-table. I had to leave it behind, for I couldn’t leave
     any clues to breed suspicions. The gentry who are after me are pretty bright-eyed
     citizens. You’ll have to take me on trust for the night, and tomorrow you’ll get proof
     of the corpse business right enough.’
    I thought for an instant or two. ‘Right. I’ll trust you for the night. I’ll lock you
     into this room and keep the key. Just one word, Mr Scudder. I believe you’re straight,
     but if so be you are not I should warn you that I’m a handy man with a gun.’
    ‘Sure,’ he said, jumping up with some briskness. ‘I haven’t the privilege of your
     name, Sir, but let me tell you that you’re a white man. I’ll thank you to lend me
     a razor.’
    I took him into my bedroom and turned him loose. In half an hour’s time a figure came
     out that I scarcely recognized. Only his gimlety, hungry eyes were the same. He was
     shaved clean, his hair was parted in the middle, and he had cut his eyebrows. Further,
     he carried himself as if he had been drilled, and was the very model, even to the
     brown complexion, of some British officer who had had a long spell in India. He had
     a monocle, too, which he stuck in his eye, and every trace of the American had gone
     out of his speech.
    ‘My hat! Mr Scudder—’ I stammered.
    ‘Not Mr Scudder,’ he corrected; ‘Captain Theophilus Digby, of the 40th Gurkhas, presently
     home on leave. I’ll thank you to remember that, Sir.’
    I made him up a bed in my smoking-room and sought my own couch, more cheerful than
     I had been for the past month. Things did happen occasionally, even in this God-forgotten
     metropolis.
    I woke next morning to hear my man, Paddock, making the deuce of a row at the smoking-room
     door. Paddock was a fellow I had done a good turn to out on the Selakwe, and I had
     inspanned him as my servant as soon as I got to England. He had about as much gift
     of the gab as a hippopotamus, and was not a great hand at valeting, but I knew I could
     count on his loyalty.
    ‘Stop that row, Paddock,’ I said. ‘There’s a friend of mine, Captain—Captain’ (I couldn’t
     remember the name) ‘dossing down in there. Get breakfast for two and then come and
     speak to me.’
    I told Paddock a fine story about how my friend was a great swell, with his nerves
     pretty bad from overwork, who wanted absolute rest and stillness. Nobody had got to
     know he was here, or he would be besieged by communications from the India Office
     and the Prime Minister and his cure would be ruined. I am bound to say Scudder played
     up splendidly when he came to breakfast. He fixed Paddock with his eyeglass, just
     like a British officer, asked him about the Boer War, and