Page 124 - the-thirty-nine-steps

All this was very loose guessing, and I don’t pretend it
was ingenious or scientific. I wasn’t any kind of Sherlock
Holmes. But I have always fancied I had a kind of instinct
about questions like this. I don’t know if I can explain my-
self, but I used to use my brains as far as they went, and after
they came to a blank wall I guessed, and I usually found my
guesses pretty right.
So I set out all my conclusions on a bit of Admiralty pa-
per. They ran like this:
FAIRLY CERTAIN
(1) Place where there are several sets of stairs; one that
matters distinguished by having thirty-nine steps.
(2) Full tide at 10.17 p.m. Leaving shore only possible at
full tide.
(3) Steps not dock steps, and so place probably not har-
bour.
(4) No regular night steamer at 10.17. Means of transport
must be tramp (unlikely), yacht, or fishing-boat.
There my reasoning stopped. I made another list, which
I headed ‘Guessed’, but I was just as sure of the one as the
other.
GUESSED
(1) Place not harbour but open coast.
(2) Boat small trawler, yacht, or launch.
(3) Place somewhere on East Coast between Cromer and
Dover.
it struck me as odd that I should be sitting at that desk
with a Cabinet Minister, a Field-Marshal, two high Govern-
ment officials, and a French General watching me, while

124 The Thirty-Nine Steps