Page 135 - the-thirty-nine-steps

like dyed hair and false beards and such childish follies.
The only thing that mattered was what Peter called ‘atmo-
sphere’.
If a man could get into perfectly different surroundings
from those in which he had been first observed, and this
is the important part really play up to these surroundings
and behave as if he had never been out of them, he would
puzzle the cleverest detectives on earth. And he used to tell
a story of how he once borrowed a black coat and went to
church and shared the same hymn-book with the man that
was looking for him. If that man had seen him in decent
company before he would have recognized him; but he had
only seen him snuffing the lights in a public-house with a
revolver. The recollection of Peter’s talk gave me the first
real comfort that I had had that day. Peter had been a wise
old bird, and these fellows I was after were about the pick of
the aviary. What if they were playing Peter’s game? A fool
tries to look different: a clever man looks the same and is
different.
Again, there was that other maxim of Peter’s which had
helped me when I had been a roadman. ‘If you are playing
a part, you will never keep it up unless you convince your-
self that you are it.’ That would explain the game of tennis.
Those chaps didn’t need to act, they just turned a handle
and passed into another life, which came as naturally to
them as the first. It sounds a platitude, but Peter used to say
that it was the big secret of all the famous criminals.
It was now getting on for eight o’clock, and I went back
and saw Scaife to give him his instructions. I arranged with

135