Page 127 - the-thirty-nine-steps

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 MacGil-
livray will spare me ten minutes, I think we can prepare
something for tomorrow.’
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 Han-
nay’s hands.’
By half-past three I was tearing past the moonlit hedge-
rows of Kent, with MacGillivray’s best man on the seat
beside me.

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