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by steps? I thought of dock steps, but if he had meant that I
didn’t think he would have mentioned the number. It must
be some place where there were several staircases, and one
marked out from the others by having thirty-nine steps.
Then I had a sudden thought, and hunted up all the
steamer sailings. There was no boat which left for the Con-
tinent at 10.17 p.m.
Why was high tide so important? If it was a harbour it
must be some little place where the tide mattered, or else it
was a heavydraught boat. But there was no regular steamer
sailing at that hour, and somehow I didn’t think they would
travel by a big boat from a regular harbour. So it must be
some little harbour where the tide was important, or per-
haps no harbour at all.
But if it was a little port I couldn’t see what the steps sig-
nified. There were no sets of staircases on any harbour that
I had ever seen. It must be some place which a particular
staircase identified, and where the tide was full at 10.17. On
the whole it seemed to me that the place must be a bit of
open coast. But the staircases kept puzzling me.
Then I went back to wider considerations. Whereabouts
would a man be likely to leave for Germany, a man in a hur-
ry, who wanted a speedy and a secret passage? Not from any
of the big harbours. And not from the Channel or the West
Coast or Scotland, for, remember, he was starting from
London. I measured the distance on the map, and tried to
put myself in the enemy’s shoes. I should try for Ostend or
Antwerp or Rotterdam, and I should sail from somewhere
on the East Coast between Cromer and Dover.

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