It was an uphill climb from the Channel Road to the center of Harborshire, and Hitchcock, of course, wasn’t in shape for it. The almost full moon helped light his way, the village being notoriously short of adequate streetlights. He knew it was an artist’s colony and at one time had been celebrated for its oysters, these having mysteriously disappeared when erosions along the coast destroyed their beds. The houses he had passed were picturesque and best described as quaint if undistinguished. Harborshire thrived in the summer, and Hitchcock could see the natives were wrestling with freshly painted exteriors to give the village its famous summer color. Thoroughly exhausted and winded, he reached the village square and settled onto a bench. He faced a statue of a man he did not recognize and wondered if it had been erected in the memory of an unknown artist. The wind was rising, and so was Hitchcock’s anxiety. He hoped Herbert had safely eluded the circus lorry. He hoped there was someone about who could direct him to The Thirty-Nine Steps. He wished he didn’t look and feel as grotty as he did, his clothes a shabby shambles, especially after the incident in the granary. He adjusted his hat in the dark, hoping it might give him a dashing, devil-may-care look, but in his heart he knew that a devil-may-care look would be forever elusive with his girth. He dwelt on the previous forty-eight hours and the realization that so much had befallen him in so brief a span of time. The cast of characters he had encountered formed a kaleidoscope designed by a demented choreographer. He saw Alma and Hans and the corpse of Martin Mueller. There were Nancy Adair and Detective Superintendent Jennings and the corpse of Angus McKellin. Oscar with his tic and a knife being thrown at Hitchcock and then the menacing buskers. Miss Farquhar doing a gavotte with her cousin, Miss Allerton, and Madeleine Lockwood singing ‘There’ll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight,” which he assumed she must have attacked and destroyed at some time in her career. Miss Lockwood was rudely nudged aside by a man wearing an American Indian suit, who in turn gave way to a midget named Cupid surrounded by Siamese twins and a pinheaded woman and a bearded lady.… A hand fell heavily on his shoulder and Hitchcock cried out with surprise and fright.
“Didn’t mean to startle you, sir. But you were talking to yourself.” It was a young constable with a look of concern. Little did he know that constables of any age filled Hitchcock with fear.
Hitchcock stood up. “I frequently talk to myself. It’s the only time I get intelligent answers.”
“I haven’t seen you before, have I?” He held his truncheon in front of him with both hands, as though it were a trapeze and he were thinking of performing.
“No, you haven’t. I’ve never been here before.” Control, you damn fool, control. Stop being so nervous, you’ll make him suspicious.
“Where are you staying?” He towered over Hitchcock, as most people did.
Hitchcock thought quickly. “Well, actually, I’m expected at Sir Rufus Derwent’s.”
“Oh. You too.”
“Me too what?”
“The party. “
“The party?”
“Aren’t you going to the party?”
“At Sir Rufus?”
“Where else would there be one tonight?”
“I haven’t the vaguest idea. I’m not very social.”
The policeman was studying Hitchcock with what seemed an unpleasant curiosity. “If you’re expected at The Thirty-Nine Steps, then you’re here to celebrate his birthday. “
“Oh, of course!” Hitchcock grinned. So did the constable. Hitchcock felt better. “The party.”
“Thought you’d be going to the party, dressed the way you are.”
Hitchcock considered striking him, then realized he looked like a tramp, and that was absolutely fitting for his mission. “It’s a masquerade party, of course.”
“Where’s your mask?”
“Oh, dear,” said Hitchcock, looking like a naughty cherub, “I knew I’d forgotten something.” He pursed his lips and then said. “That’s why I was talking to myself. I was trying to remember what I’d forgotten. Like Sir Arthur Sullivan looking for his lost chord.”
“Oh? Is he about too?”
The young man was obviously not heavy in the brains department. Hitchcock decided that if he had any brains, he’d be dangerous. “Could you direct me to The Thirty-Nine Steps? It appears I’ve lost my way.”
“Certainly, sir.” He used the truncheon as a pointer. “You continue diagonally across the square, just past the statue ahead, and you come to the Mason’s Lane. You follow the Lane to the very top.…”
“Uphill?” The constable nodded, and Hitchcock’s heart sank.
“At the top, you turn left and walk about one hundred yards. There you’ll come to a flight of wooden steps, thirty-nine of them. You climb to the top of them…” Hitchcock
