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

back from my walk last night I found a card in my
letterbox. It bore the name of the man I want least to
meet on God's earth."

I think that the look in my companion's eyes, the sheer
naked scare on his face, completed my conviction of
his honesty. My own voice sharpened a bit as I asked
him what he did next.

"I realized that I was bottled as sure as a pickled
herring, and that there was only one way out. I had to
die. If my pursuers knew I was dead they would go to
sleep again."

"How did you manage it?"

"I told the man that valets me that I was feeling pretty
bad, and I got myself to look like death. That wasn't
difficult, for I'm no slouch at disguises. Then I got a
corpse--you can always get a body in London if you
know where to go for it. I fetched it back in a trunk on
the top of a four-wheeler, and I had to be assisted
upstairs to my room. You see I had to pile up some
evidence for the inquest. I went to bed and got my
man to mix me a sleeping-draught, and then told him
to clear out. He wanted to fetch a doctor, but I swore
some, and said I couldn't abide leeches. When I was
left alone I started in to fake up that corpse. He was my
size, and I judged had perished from too much alcohol,
so I put some spirits handy about the place. The jaw
was the weak point in the likeness, so I blew it away
with a revolver. I daresay there will be somebody to-
morrow to swear to having heard a shot, but there are
no neighbours on my floor, and I guessed I could risk
it. So I left the body in bed dressed up in my pyjamas
with a revolver lying on the bed-clothes and a
considerable mess around. Then I got into a suit of
clothes I had kept waiting for emergencies. I didn't
dare to shave for fear of leaving tracks, and besides, it
wasn't any kind of use my trying to get into the streets.
I had had you in my mind all day, and there seemed
nothing to do but to make an appeal to you. I watched
from my window till I saw you come home, and then
slipped down the stair to meet you .... There, sir, I
guess you know about as much as me of this business."

He sat blinking like an owl, fluttering with nerves and
yet desperately determined. By this time I was pretty
well convinced that he was going straight with me. It
was the wildest sort of narrative, but I had heard in my