Page:Buchan - The Thirty-Nine Steps (Grosset Dunlap, 1915).djvu/80

 there was a man, Ducrosne, who got five out of a possible five, and another fellow, Ammersfoort, who got three. The bare bones of the tale were all that was in the book—that, and one queer phrase which occurred half a dozen times inside brackets. "Thirty-nine steps" was the phrase, and at its last time of use it ran—"Thirty-nine steps I counted them; high tide 10:17 P.M." I could make nothing of that.

The first thing I learned was that it was no question of preventing a war. That was coming, as sure as Christmas, had been arranged, said Scudder, ever since February, 1912. Karolides was going to be the occasion. He was booked all right and was to hand in his checks on June 14th, two weeks and four days from that May morning. I gathered from Scudder's notes that nothing on earth could prevent that. His talk of Epirote guards that would skin their own grandmother was all billy-o.

The second thing was that this war was going to come as a mighty surprise to Britain.