Page 115 - the-thirty-nine-steps

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 rec-
ognized 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 want-
ed, 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 Ports-
mouth ...
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 di-
rection, 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

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