Thirty-Nine Steps from Baker Street

by J. R. Trtek

  “Yes,” said the spymaster. “But the key piece of information gleaned from it thus far is, no doubt, the plan to assassinate Karolides.”

  “There are two additional items of immediate interest as well,” amended Holmes. “But, to conclude our little tale, Hannay and I left Mr. Turnbull’s cottage in the company of a cattle drover the next day. We arrived in Moffat after twelve miles of slow travel, during which we chose to evade a pair of men in a motor, whom I took to be police inspectors. We then discreetly ate in a public house and waited at the rail junction for the southern express, which was due at midnight.”

  “And from there,” said Hannay, “It was third-class cushions all the way to your station here.”

  “I allowed my companion to walk a distance ahead of me,” Holmes explained, “for I was fearful that, while Hannay’s appearance was expected, my arrival might create a bit of commotion.” A sympathetic glint in his eye, the detective glanced at me. “I thought it best if the full reunion proceeded at low key instead. Thus, I hid while you greeted our friend and then followed him discreetly to this house, where we both entered, though I had to quickly persuade Sir Walter’s servant that two guests were expected for dinner rather than one.”

  “Well, it all worked out well in the end,” said Bullivant. “But if you do not mind, I should like to return to the contents of Scudder’s notebook. You mentioned there were two items of additional interest in it beyond the Karolides plot.”

  “Yes,” said Holmes. “First, Scudder’s book has some sketchy notes about Moncrief’s operation up in Scotland.”

  “Which may be the third head of Cerberus that we have been hoping to find,” said Bullivant.

  “I’m afraid that is not likely to be the case, Sir Walter.”

  “Oh?” said the spymaster. “Why is that? This bunch in Scotland are clearly Germans, are they not?”

  “Yes,” said Holmes. “But they are Germans who knew of Hannay’s importance from the very beginning. How would they know of his value so quickly unless they were part of the Black Stone apparatus themselves?”

  “Ah,” replied Bullivant with a sigh. “I see. But then, the Black Stone is therefore widespread.”

  “As is Von Bork’s operation,” observed Holmes. “Remember, I was recruited for his group up in Skibereen.”76

  “And so the presumed third head of Cerberus lies somewhere else, still uncovered,” I remarked.

  “I fear that is so, Watson,” Holmes said. “Parts of Scudder’s notebook that I have translated confirm what we initially surmised: there are indeed three distinct German spy rings in our land, each operating independently, with knowledge of each other but communicating among themselves infrequently, if at all.”

  “That sounds rather inefficient,” I noted. “Three German spy rings? Would they not duplicate their efforts?”

  “Yes, but that would seem to be the point. Berlin apparently planted three such groups so that these separate cells might gather information independently, thus unknowingly corroborating data gained by any one ring.”

  At the last comment by Holmes, Sir Walter shifted uncomfortably his chair. “You mean Moncrief and his Black Stone group may have gathered information in the same vein as that which we supplied Von Bork’s ring?”

  “Yes, I am afraid so,” replied Holmes. “And, of course, in matching those different sets of information, Berlin may have begun to notice how often Von Bork’s information has failed to agree with that from the other—and, perhaps, that of the presumed third spy ring as well.”

  I watched as Sir Walter spent a prolonged moment engrossed in silent thought. Then, after sighing, he said, “Might we be, then, have reached the moment when our charade with Von Bork must end?”

  “I think so,” replied Holmes.

  “You mentioned two additional items of interest in Scudder’s book,” Bullivant said. “What is the second?”

  Hannay silently deferred to Holmes, who pulled from the pocket of his jacket a small black pocketbook and leaned over to hand it to Sir Walter.

  “The material about the Black Stone in Scudder’s notes mentions not only the plan to assassinate Karolides, the Greek premier, when he visits London this month, but also an intention to steal knowledge of the dispositions of our Home Fleet in the event of mobilisation. Apparently, our General Staff regularly meets with a representative of the French government to coordinate possible strategies, and that information is discussed at those gatherings. That is the second item that caught my attention.”

  “Yes,” Bullivant whispered. “The fact of those meetings is not generally known.”

  “Well, the Black Stone know about them and intend to infiltrate the next such meeting and come away with the dispositions.”

  Sir Walter gave a slight intake of breath and set the notebook down on a table beside his chair. “Ah,” he said. “I see.”

  “Has such a meeting already occurred?” enquired Holmes.

  The spymaster cast a cautious glance among the three of us and then drew himself up in his chair. “No, but one is scheduled to take place in eight days.”

  Just then, there was a knock at the door to the study. It was Bullivant’s servant, who announced that someone was waiting to speak to our host on the telephone.

  “Excuse me for a moment, gentlemen,” Sir Walter said before leaving us.

  Hannay stared at the carpet for a moment and then said in a soft voice, “I must again express my sincere gratitude to both of you, as well as to Sir Walter.” He looked me squarely in the eye when adding, “And I am so sorry, Dr. Watson, that you suffered the hardships you did and yet never made contact with me.”

  “I have made contact now,” I said. “And, as I have noted so many times before to myself, in past years,” I added, glancing at Sherlock Holmes, “the joy is in the chase itself. Looking back, I realise that, despite the hardships and frustrations, there was much joy in chasing you, Mr. Hannay.”

  “A great game, yes,” said the younger man.

  “That is the phrase often employed,” murmured Sherlock Holmes in a bemused tone.

  Suddenly, the study door opened again. It was Sir Walter, his face now ashen and his expression quite blank. He held his tortoiseshell spectacles in one hand.

  “It was Mycroft who rang,” he said, his voice hollow. “The Greek premier, Karolides, was murdered earlier today.”

  * * *

  68 Named after French philosopher Jean Buridan, this paradox refers to an imaginary situation where a hungry and thirsty ass is placed exactly midway between a pile of hay and a pail of water. Unable to choose between the two, since they are equidistant from it, the animal dies of both hunger and thirst.

  69 A box bed is one enclosed in furniture that looks like a cupboard.

  70 A press, in this instance, is a wall cupboard.

  71 According to The Thirty-Nine Steps, Hannay did in fact employ the fictional explosive lentonite by himself in order to escape, contradicting this account.

  72 A mill lade or millrun is the channel of water going to or from a water wheel.

  73 A dovecot is a structure built to house pigeons or doves, which traditionally were an important food source in Europe. Dovecots usually contain holes in which the birds can nest.

  74 When an aircraft volplanes, it makes a steep, controlled drive, probably with the engine off. The word derives from the French vol plané, which means “gliding flight.”

  75 The German publishing house Verlag Karl Baedeker was a pioneer in the business of worldwide travel guides.

  76 Skibereen is a town in Ireland.

  CHAPTER NINE: THE THIRTY-NINE STEPS

  I came down to breakfast the next morning, after a night of troubled sleep, to find Sir Walter decoding telegrams in the company of Sherlock Holmes. A moment after I reached the table at which they sat, I turned and saw Hannay appear in the doorway behind me.

  “Good morning, Doctor,” he said sullenly before glancing at Bullivant with an expectant look.

 
; “Holmes and I had a busy hour on the telephone after the two of you retired last night,” the spymaster said. “I talked to Mycroft again, and we agreed that the French military attaché—a man named Reyer77—should come over to meet with our General Staff much sooner than originally planned. Moreover, the participants will be reduced in number and the gathering held in a different venue than usual.”

  “I see,” Hannay remarked.

  “In fact, Reyer will arrive in London today at five and then dine with Mycroft,” explained Bullivant. “He is scheduled to come to my London home in Queen Anne’s Gate78 afterward, where four people will see him: representatives of the army chiefs of staff and the admiralty, the war minister, and myself. There will also, of course, be various aides in attendance.

  “We need to start for London presently,” said Holmes.

  “Yes,” agreed Bullivant, who turned to Hannay and me and directed us to the hot dishes that remained upon the breakfast table. “I suggest you fill up yourselves,” he said. “I believe we have a long day ahead of us.”

  We four drove to London later that morning, with Hannay acting as chauffeur—Bullivant’s butler was to come up by train with the luggage. At half past eleven, we arrived at Queen’s Anne Gate and entered Sir Walter’s residence to find Inspector Magillivray waiting for us.

  “I’ve brought you the Portland Place murderer,” Sir Walter proclaimed jovially.

  A wry smile swept over the inspector’s face. “It would be a welcome present, indeed, sir, were that the case. However, it appears that you have instead brought me Mr. Richard Hannay. Halloa,” he said as he extended a hand. “My department and others have been very interested in you these past few days, as I’m sure you’ve been aware.”

  “Mr. Hannay will interest you all again,” affirmed Bullivant. “He has much to tell, but not at present. For now, I wish only that you ensure that he will suffer no further inconvenience while in town.”

  “Of course,” said Magillivray, turning once more to the South African. “You may take up your life where you left off,” he declared. “Your flat is waiting for you, and your man is still there. As you were never publicly accused, I should think there is no need of a public exculpation. Shall I set a guard on you, though?”

  “I don’t think that will be necessary,” replied Hannay.

  “In any event,” Sherlock Holmes advised the South African, “I strongly suggest you lie low, for if any member of the Black Stone were to see and recognise you, there might be serious consequences.”

  “I understand,” replied Hannay, who shortly thereafter took leave of us, hailing a taxicab to spend time in the north end of London. Meanwhile, Holmes made use of Bullivant’s telephone to ring up Jack James, who at length arrived in his taxi.

  “All the news is about the murder of that Greek politician,” said the young man as we boarded his vehicle. “Everyone seems quite upset about it all. There’s a lot of talk about war breaking out.”

  I merely nodded in agreement, remembering a comment that Holmes and Hannay had gleaned from Scudder’s notebook about conflict being inevitable once the assassination had been successfully accomplished.

  “Steiner and Hollins gave Von Bork to understand that I was travelling to Scapa Flow?” Holmes asked the American.

  “That they did,” Jack replied. “And you are to report directly to the German once you are back. Are you back?” he asked after a moment.

  “No,” replied the detective. He pulled from his coat pocket an object I recognised at once: Scudder’s battered notebook. “I have again been entrusted with this for the moment,” he told me. “And I believe we should employ the next few hours to continue the decipherment of pages that Hannay and I had not the time to translate before, in preparation for what is to come. To Safety House, Jack,” he ordered.

  “It is a substitution cipher,” Holmes explained as we sat at the table in what would have been the dining room, had Safety House served as an actual residence. My friend had spread the notebook open before us and wrote on a stack of blank foolscap positioned to the side.

  “Hannay was very attentive and perceptive,” the detective declared. “While still alive, Scudder had told him that a woman named Julia Dobranski79 would be the key to the entire affair. And so she is, metaphorically—or, rather, her name, as Hannay cleverly speculated.”

  “How so?” I asked.

  “Scudder’s notebook text is written entirely in Roman numerals, each of which we may assume represents a letter of the alphabet. As Hannay related to me on the trip down to Berkshire, it suddenly occurred to him that there are five letters in the name Julia and five vowels in the English language. Taking those vowels in order, he surmised that the first alphabetically, A, might be represented by the first letter of the woman’s name, J. Now J is the tenth letter of the alphabet, and so in Scudder’s cipher text, the numeral X would be translated as A. Similarly, the next vowel in alphabetic order, E, would correspond to the U in Julia, and thus XXI in the cipher might represent U. In this manner, all five vowels are accounted for.”

  “And how does the last name—Dobranski—come into play?”

  Hannay’s guess was that it gives consonants, except that there are only nine letters in that surname. Hence, he supposed it was related to merely the principal consonants, and that turns out to be the case. If one makes all the previous assumptions stated, the numeral text in Scudder’s book yields partial words, phrases, and sentences, allowing the translator to guess the remainder.”

  “You mean to say that the letters of the last name specify those consonants in the order of their frequency according to common usage, rather than in alphabetical order? How could an innocent bystander know that frequency?”

  Holmes smiled. “One is often amazed by the range of minutiae our minds collect, almost unconsciously,” he said. “However he came by it, Hannay did know the order of the most frequent consonants. With all the vowels known, as well as the most common consonants, the words of the original text can be fleshed out nicely. Of course,” he went on, “Hannay did not have the time to complete the job. That is what we must do now, without delay.”

  “Are we not also to attend the meeting with the French attaché at Bullivant’s residence?”

  “No,” said Holmes as he bent over the notebook, carefully transcribing numerals and letters to the sheet on top of his pile. “I cannot see the need. The gathering with the Frenchman is to be small and well-guarded.”

  I watched as Holmes continued to decipher the notebook’s contents. “And what of your German master, Von Bork?” I asked. “When will you contact him?”

  “That remains to be seen,” remarked my friend. “Please pass that other pile of papers to me, old fellow.”

  With me assisting him in some of the transcribing, Holmes started ploughing through those portions of Scudder’s pocketbook that had not yet been deciphered.

  “We have translated some important material, Watson,” said my friend after an hour of work. “And we have also decoded notes by Scudder whose meaning escapes me. Listen to this latest line I have parsed: ‘Must disturb the sleeping dog.’ What can we make of that?”

  “An answer escapes me. In what context was the line written?”

  “It stands by itself, and there is no further reference. How odd.”

  “Perhaps it is nothing.”

  “Then why would Scudder have taken the trouble to encode and write it down? I must file it in the back of my mind, Watson.”

  At that moment, as the time was getting on toward eleven o’clock, I heard the telephone ring in the sitting room.

  Holmes looked up from the notebook, his face suddenly betraying an expression of concern. Without speaking, he rose and quickly strode into the adjoining room, and there lifted the telephone. I followed him part of the way and then stood in the open doorway to watch and listen.

  “Halloa?” said the detective. “Yes, Sir Walter…I see. And Hannay is certain? You have confirmed that fact?” Holmes took
a deep breath and turned me as he continued speaking. “We shall rush to Queen Anne’s Gate immediately.”

  Holmes rang off.

  “A difficulty?” I asked.

  “Worse. A disaster,” my friend replied.

  He walked past me and gathered up the sheets upon which our decipherment had been written.

  “The Black Stone infiltrated the meeting, after all—boldly, and with brazen ingenuity,” he informed me. “One of their number apparently attended in disguise and then left with the information we sought so desperately to guard: the Home Fleet mobilisation orders in case of war. Moreover,” he added, “he made off with some sensitive French military secrets as well.”

  “Great God!”

  “Go to the bedroom and wake Jack. We need to reach Sir Walter’s residence at once.”

  I turned to fetch the young American, who had gone off to nap while we worked on Scudder’s notebook.

  “And Watson,” added Holmes, “make certain to tidy the bed so that it appears unused. Recall that Jack is not supposed to have been here within Safety House.”

  “It was the man’s expression when our eyes met,” Hannay told us several minutes later at Bullivant’s residence. We stood amid a circle that included the South African and the spymaster, as well as the British Minister of War, representatives of the army and the admiralty, and the French military attaché Reyer.

  “He came out of the meeting room and just walked past,” Hannay said for my benefit and that of Holmes. “I’d dined at a restaurant in Jermyn Street, but then I kept thinking I should be doing something, and so I decided to come here. I arrived a bit after half past nine and saw all the motorcars drawn up along the street. Ringing the bell, I was confronted by the butler, who graciously admitted me, despite the fact that Sir Walter was still engaged in the meeting. I was ushered into an alcove and waited there for nearly an hour, at which time I heard a door open at the far end of the hall. There were footsteps, and then a man walked briskly by.