"THE THIRTY-NINE STEPS" - читать интересную книгу автора (Buchan John)

Consul to deal with. I gave Scudder a full account of
the affair, and it interested him greatly. He said he
wished he could have attended the inquest, for he
reckoned it would be about as spicy as to read one's
own obituary notice.

The first two days he stayed with me in that back room
he was very peaceful. He read and smoked a bit, and
made a heap of jottings in a note-book, and every night
we had a game of chess, at which he beat me hollow. I
think he was nursing his nerves back to health, for he
had had a pretty trying time. But on the third day I
could see he was beginning to get restless. He fixed up
a list of the days fill June 15th, and ticked each off with
a red pencil, making remarks in shorthand against
them. I would find him sunk in a brown study, with his
sharp eyes abstracted, and after those spells of
meditation he was apt to be very despondent.

Then I could see that he began to get edgy again. He
listened for little noises, and was always asking me if
Paddock could be trusted. Once or twice he got very
peevish, and apologized for it. I didn't blame him. I
made every allowance, for he had taken on a fairly stiff
job.

It was not the safety of his own skin that troubled him,
but the success of the scheme he had planned. That
little man was clean grit all through, without a soft spot
in him. One night he was very solemn.

"Say, Hannay," he said, "I judge I should let you a bit
deeper into this business. I should hate to go out
without leaving somebody else to put up a fight." And
he began to tell me in detail what I had only heard
from him vaguely.

I did not give him very close attention. The fact is, I was
more interested in his own adventures than in his high
politics. I reckoned that Karolides and his affairs were
not my business, leaving all that to him. So a lot that he
said slipped clean out of my memory. I remember that
he was very clear that the danger to Karolides would
not begin till he had got to London, and would come
from the very highest quarters, where there would be
no thought of suspicion. He mentioned the name of a
woman--Julia Czechenyi--as having something to do
with the danger. She would be the decoy, I gathered, to
get Karolides out of the care of his guards. He talked,
too, about a Black Stone and a man that lisped in his