THE THIRTY-NINE STEPS
in this very month, and I used to go out at I night to the deep-sea fishing. The tide's ten minutes before Bradgate."
I closed the book and looked round at the company.
"If one of those staircases has thirty-nine steps we have solved the mystery, gentlemen," I said. "I want the loan of your car, Sir Walter, and a map of the roads. If Mr. MacGillivray will spare me ten minutes I think we I can prepare something for to-morrow."
It was ridiculous in me to take charge of the business like this, but they didn't seem to mind, and after all I had been in the show from the start. Besides, I was used to rough jobs, and these eminent gentlemen were too clever not to see it.
It was General Royer who gave me my commission.
"I for one," he said, "am content to leave the matter in Mr. Hannay's hands."
By half-past three I was tearing past the moonlit hedgerows of Kent with MacGillivray's best man on the seat beside me.
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