The 39 Steps - The Hotel - owner (Chapter 3) | Текст песни

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• The 39 Steps
• The Hotel - owner (Chapter 3)

THE HOTEL-OWNER

It was fine May weather as I travelled north that day, and as I watched the fields and the trees and the flowers, I wondered why, when I had been a free man, I had stayed in London. I bought some sandwiches at lunch time. I also bought the morning newspaper and read a little about south-east Europe.
When I had finished, I got out Scudder's black book and studied it. It was almost full of writing, mostly numbers, although sometimes there was a name. For example, I found the words 'Hofgaard', 'Luneville', and 'Avocado' quite often. The word I saw the most was 'Pavia'.
I was certain that Scudder was using a code. I have always been interested in codes; I enjoy games and numbers and things like that. It seemed to be a number code, where groups of numbers replace letters. I worked on the words, because you can use a word as a key in a number code.
I tried for hours, but none of the words helped. Then I fell asleep, and woke up at Dumfries just in time to take the local train into Galloway. There was a man on the platform who worried me a little; he was watching the crowd more closely than I liked. But he didn't look at me, and when I saw myself in a mirror, I understood why; with my brown face and my oId clothes I looked just like all the other hill farmers who were getting into the local train.
I travelled with a group of these farmers. The train travelled slowly through narrow valleys and then up onto an open moor. There were lakes, and in the distance I could see high mountains.
At five o'clock the carriage was empty and I was alone. I got out at the next station, a tiny place in the middle of the moor. An old man was digging in the station garden. He stopped, walked to the train, collected a packet, and went back to his potatoes. A ten-year-old child took my ticket, and I came out of the station onto a white road across the moor.
It was a beautiful, clear spring evening. I felt like a boy on a walking holiday, instead of a man of thirty-seven very much wanted by the police. I walked along that road whistling, feeling happier every minute.
After some time I left the road and followed a path along a little stream. I was getting tired when I came to a small house. The woman who lived there was friendly, and said I could sleep there. She also gave me an excellent meal.
Her husband came home from the hills later in the evening. We talked about cows and sheep and markets, and I tried to remember some of the information I heard, because it might be useful. By ten o'clock I was asleep, and I slept until five o'clock in the morning.
The couple refused any money, and by six o'clock I had eaten breakfast and was moving again. I wanted to get back to the railway at a different station. Then I would go back to the east, towards Dumfries. I hoped that if the police were following me, they would think that I had gone on to the coast in the west, where I could escape by ship.
I walked in the same beautiful spring weather as before, and still couldn't make myself feel nervous or worried. After a time I came to the railway line, and soon a little station, which was perfect for my plan. There was just a single line and moors all around. I waited until I saw a train in the distance, and then bought a ticket to Dumfries.
The only person in the carriage was an old farmer with his sheepdog. He was asleep, and next to him was a newspaper. I picked it up to see if there was any news about me. There was only a short piece about the Langham Place Murder. My servant Paddock had called the police, and the milkman had been arrested. The poor man had spent most of the day with the police, but they had let him go in the evening. The police believed that the real murderer had escaped from London on a train to the north.
When I had finished reading, I looked out of the window and noticed that we were stopping at the station where I had got out yesterday. Three men were talking to the man who I had seen digging potatoes. I sat well back from the window and watched carefully. One of the men was taking notes, and I supposed they were from the local police. Then, I saw the child who had taken my ticket talking, and the men looked out across the moor along the road I had taken.
As we left the station, the farmer woke up, looked at me, and asked where he was. He had clearly drunk too much.
'I'm like this because I never drink,' he said, sadly. 'I haven't touched whisky since last year. Not even at
Christmas. And now I've got this terrible headache.' 'What did it?' I asked.
'A drink they call brandy. I didn't touch the whisky because I don't drink, but I kept drinking this brandy. I'll be ill for a fortnight.' His voice got slower and slower and soon he fell asleep again.
I had planned to leave the train at a station, but it now stopped by a river and I decided this would be better. I looked out of the carriage window and saw nobody, so I opened the door and dropped quickly down into the long grass. My plan was going perfectly until the dog decided that I was stealing something and began to bark loudly. This woke up the farmer who started to shout. He thought I was trying to kill myself. I crawled through the long grass for about a hundred metres and then looked back. The train driver and several passengers were all staring in my direction.
Luckily, the dog was now so excited that he pulled the farmer out of the carriage. The farmer began to slide down towards the river. The other passengers ran to help him, the dog bit somebody, and there was a lot of excited shouting. Soon they had forgotten me, and the next time I looked back, the train was moving again.
I was now in the middle of the empty moor, and for the first time I felt really frightened, not of the police but of the people who knew that I knew Scudder's secret. If they caught me, I would be a dead man.
I reached the top of a low hill and looked around. To the south, a long way away, I saw something which made me tremble…

Low in the sky a small plane was flying slowly across the moor. I was certain that it was looking for me, and I was also certain that it was not the police. I hid low in the heather and watched it for an hour or two as it flew in circles. Finally it disappeared to the south.
I did not like this spying from the air, and I began to think that an open moor was perhaps not the best place to hide. I could see distant forests in the east, and decided that would be better country.
It was about six o'clock in the evening when I left the moor and entered the trees. I came to a bridge by a house, and there, on the bridge, was a young man. He was sitting smoking a pipe, dreamily watching the water, and holding a book. He jumped up as he heard my feet on the road and I saw a friendly young face.
'Good evening to you,' he said in a serious voice. 'It's a fine night to be on the road.'
The smell of cooking came from the house.
'Is that house a hotel?' I asked.
'It certainly is. I'm the owner, and I hope you'll stay the night, because I've been alone for a week.'
I sat down next to him and got out my pipe. I began to think this young man might help me.
'You're young to own a hotel,' I said.
'My father died a year ago and now it's mine. It's not an exciting job for a young man like me. I didn't choose to do it. I want to write books.'
'You've got the right job,' I said. 'With all the travellers you meet you could be the best storyteller in the world.'
'Not today,' he said. 'Two hundred years ago, there were exciting people on the road, but today there are only cars full of fat old women, and fishermen. You can't make stories out of them. I want to sail up an African river, or live in an Indian village - and write about things like that.'
The hotel looked peaceful in the evening sun.
'I've travelled a bit,' I said, 'and I'd be happy to live in a peaceful place like this. And perhaps you're sitting next to adventure now. I'll tell you a true story, and you can make a book of it if you like.'
I told him I was in the gold business in Africa, and I had discovered a group of international thieves. They had chased me to England and had killed my best friend. I described a chase across the desert, and an attack on the ship from Africa. And I described the Langham Place murder in detail. 'You want adventure,' I said, 'well, here it is. The thieves are chasing me now, and the police are chasing them.'
'It's wonderful!' he whispered.
'You believe me,' I said gratefully.
'Of course I do,' he said. 'I can believe anything strange. It's things that happen every day that are difficult to believe.'
He was very young, but he was the man I needed.
'I think my enemies have lost me for the moment. But I must hide and rest for a day or two. Will you help me?'
He jumped up and led me to the house. 'You'll be safe here. I can keep a secret. And you'll tell me some more about your adventures, won't you?'
As I entered the hotel, I heard the sound of an engine. In the sky to the west was my enemy the plane.
He gav

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