Page 83 - the-thirty-nine-steps

guard outside.
I sat down in that chilly darkness in a very miserable
frame of mind. The old boy had gone off in a motor to col-
lect the two ruffians who had interviewed me yesterday.
Now, they had seen me as the roadman, and they would re-
member me, for I was in the same rig. What was a roadman
doing twenty miles from his beat, pursued by the police? A
question or two would put them on the track. Probably they
had seen Mr Turnbull, probably Marmie too; most likely
they could link me up with Sir Harry, and then the whole
thing would be crystal clear. What chance had I in this
moorland house with three desperadoes and their armed
servants?
I began to think wistfully of the police, now plod-
ding over the hills after my wraith. They at any rate were
fellow-countrymen and honest men, and their tender mer-
cies would be kinder than these ghoulish aliens. But they
wouldn’t have listened to me. That old devil with the eyelids
had not taken long to get rid of them. I thought he probably
had some kind of graft with the constabulary. Most likely he
had letters from Cabinet Ministers saying he was to be giv-
en every facility for plotting against Britain. That’s the sort
of owlish way we run our politics in the Old Country.
The three would be back for lunch, so I hadn’t more than
a couple of hours to wait. It was simply waiting on destruc-
tion, for I could see no way out of this mess. I wished that I
had Scudder’s courage, for I am free to confess I didn’t feel
any great fortitude. The only thing that kept me going was
that I was pretty furious. It made me boil with rage to think

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