The Thirty-Nine Steps | Page 7

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 tomorrow 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 time many steep tales which had turned out to be true, and I had
made a practice of judging the man rather than the story. If he had
wanted to get a location in my flat, and then cut my throat, he would

have pitched a milder yarn.
'Hand me your key,' I said, 'and I'll take a look at the corpse. Excuse my
caution, but I'm bound to verify a bit if I can.'
He shook his head mournfully. 'I reckoned you'd ask for that, but I
haven't got it. It's on my chain on the dressing-table. I had to leave it
behind, for I couldn't leave any clues to breed suspicions. The gentry
who are after me are pretty bright-eyed citizens. You'll have to take me
on trust for the night, and tomorrow you'll get proof of the corpse
business right enough.'
I thought for an instant or two. 'Right. I'll trust you for the night. I'll
lock you into this room and keep the key. just one word, Mr Scudder. I
believe you're straight, but if so be you are not I should warn you that
I'm a handy man with a gun.'
'Sure,' he said, jumping up with some briskness. 'I haven't the privilege
of your name, Sir, but let me tell you that you're a white man. I'll thank
you to lend me a razor.'
I took him into my bedroom and turned him loose. In half an hour's
time a figure came out that I scarcely recognized. Only his gimlety,
hungry eyes were the same. He was shaved clean, his hair was parted in
the middle, and he had cut his eyebrows. Further, he carried himself as
if he had been drilled, and was the very model, even to the brown
complexion, of some British officer who had had a long spell in India.
He had a monocle, too, which he stuck in his eye, and every trace of the
American had gone out of his speech.
'My hat! Mr Scudder -' I stammered.
'Not Mr Scudder,' he corrected; 'Captain Theophilus Digby, of the 40th
Gurkhas, presently home on leave. I'll thank you to remember that, Sir.'
I made him up a bed in my smoking-room and sought my own couch,
more cheerful than I had been for the past month. Things did happen
occasionally, even in this God-forgotten metropolis.

I woke next morning to hear my man, Paddock, making the deuce of a
row at the smoking-room door. Paddock was a fellow I had done a
good turn to out on the Selakwe, and I had inspanned him as my
servant as soon as I got to England. He had about as much gift of the
gab as a hippopotamus, and was not a great hand at valeting, but I knew
I could count on his loyalty.
'Stop that