Page:Buchan - The Thirty-Nine Steps (Grosset Dunlap, 1915).djvu/70

 details. I made out that I was a mining magnate from Kimberley, who had a lot of trouble with I. D. B. and had shown up a gang. They had pursued me across the ocean and had killed my best friend and were now on my tracks.

I told the story well, though I say it who shouldn't. I pictured a flight across the Kalahari to German Africa, the crackling, parching days, the wonderful blue-velvet nights. I described an attack on my life on the voyage home, and I made a really horrid affair of the Portland Place murder.

"You've looking for adventure," I cried. "Well, you've found it here. The devils are after me, and the police are after them. It's a race that I mean to win."

"By God," he whispered, drawing his breath in sharply, "it is all pure Rider Haggard and Conan Doyle."

"You believe me," I said gratefully.

"Of course I do," and he held out his hand. "I believe everything out of the common. The only thing to distrust is the normal."