صاحب مسافرخونه

Chapter three

The Innkeeper

All that day I travelled. The train stopped at Leeds station, where I bought some food and the morning newspapers. Another ticket-collector told me that I had to change trains at Dumfries.

I read the papers, but of course there was nothing in them about Scudder’s death. It was too early for that. Then I took out Scudder’s little book. It was full of numbers, but there were also a few strange names. The words “Hofgaard”, “Luneville”, “Avocado” and “Pavia” were written there. “Pavia” was there several times.

It was clearly some kind of code, and I am very interested in codes. I thought about this one. I could see that there were numbers in place of letters. But what did the names mean? I knew that some of them were towns. But what code was used for people’s names? There is usually a key word in codes like this, and I tried to guess it. “Hofgaard” was clearly not the key word, because it did not fit the rest of the code. I tried the other words too but none of them fitted.

I slept for an hour or two, and then the ticket-collector’s voice woke me up.

‘Be quick, sir. You have to change here.’

I looked out of the window. We were at Dumfries station. I got out and walked across to the Galloway train.

The train was quite full, and I had an interestng conversation with a farmer. He thought that I was a farmer too! We talked about animals and the price of milk and flour. People got out at different stations, but I continued. At five o’clock the train stopped at a small place and I liked the look of it. I cannot remember its name, but it was quiet. And it was long way from London.

I left the train and the railway man’s child took my ticket. It was a fine evening and I felt quite happy, I followed the road for about a kilometre and then took a path by a river. It was not long before I reached a small house. There was a woman at the door of the house and I spoke to her.

‘May I stay here tonight?’ I asked.

‘You’re welcome,’ she replied. ‘Please come in.’

Very soon she placed a fine meal in front of me, and I drank several glasses of thick, sweet milk.

When it grew dark, her husband came home. He was a big man with thick black hair. We talked for an hour or more, and smoked some of my tobacco. They did not ask me any questions. Perhaps they also thought that I was a farmer.

In the morning I enjoyed a large breakfast. But when I offered a pound to the woman, she refused to take it. It was a warm day, so she gave me a small can of milk to take with me. It was nine o’clock when I left the house.

I walked a few kilometres to the south because I wanted to return to the railway. But of course I could not go back to the same little station. The railway men and the child knew my face. I did not want them to remember me. So I went towards the next station and on my way there I formed a plan. The safest way was to return to Dumfries. If the police were searching for me, I was safer in a big town.

When I reached the station, I bought a ticket to Dumfries. I did not have long to wait until a train came in. I got in with an old man and his dog, and the man soon went to sleep. I borrowed his morning paper, which lay on the seat next to him. The story of the murder was on the first page in big letters: MURDER IN A LONDON FLAT.

The milkman, the paper said, waited for me for half an hour. Then he called the police. They arrived at my flat and found Scudder’s body. The milkman was arrested and taken to prison. I felt very sorry for the poor man.

The story continued on the back page. And the latest news was that the milkman was out of prison. The police were now looking for a man named Richard I Hannay! They believed that he was on his way by train to Scotland. I was happy that the milkman was free. He knew nothing about the murder, and he only got a pound for his trouble.

The train stopped at a station which I already knew. It was the place where I got out the night before. Three men were talking to the railway men and the child. I watched them. The child was showing them the road that I took.

The train started again. While it was moving out of the station, I covered my face with the newspaper. It travelled about a kilometre and it suddenly stopped again. We were not at a station. The train was near a bridge over a river. This was my chance, and I changed my plan. I opened the door and jumped out. But the old man’s dog tried to follow me. The old man woke up and ran to the door.

‘Help! Help!’ he cried.

I ran down to the river bank and hid in some long grass there. The ticket-collector and a number of other people were standing at the open door.

A lucky chance saved me. I could now see that the dog was tied to the man. Suddenly the dog jumped out of the train and pulled the old man out too. They fell down the bank, and everybody forgot me for a moment. They picked up the old man, and in the excitement the dog bit somebody. I took my chance and ran away through the long grass.

When I looked back, the excitement was over. People were climbing into the train again, and soon it began to move.

I walked along the river bank and thought about my problem. I was safe but I was also frightened. I do not mean that I was afraid of the police. I was thinking about Scudder’s enemies and their plans. I felt sure that they wanted to kill me. Perhaps they wanted to see me in prison. They were a real danger to me, and I felt very frightened. My troubles were not over yet.

I climbed up from the river and I reached the top of a hill. There were other hills around me, and I could see clearly for several miles. There was the railway station and one or two houses. A road ran from the station towards the east. Then I looked up into the blue sky, and my heart almost stopped beating. A small plane was flying towards me. And I knew that Scudder’s enemies were in that plane. The British police never used planes to look for people.

I hid behind a rock and watched. The plane flew up and down the river bank. It was so low that I could see a man inside. But I was sure that he did not see me. Then it climbed and turned. It flew over the river again and went back to the south. I decided to leave those hills. There was no place for me to hide. And I had no chance against a plane.

At six o’clock I reached the road. I followed it for a few kilometres. It was beginning to get dark when I came to a house standing alone next to a bridge.

A young man was on the bridge reading.

‘Good evening,’ he said. ‘It’s a fine evening, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, it is,’ I replied. ‘Is this house an inn?’

‘Yes, sir, and I’m the innkeeper. Would you like to stay here tonight?’

‘You’re a very young innkeeper, aren’t you?’

‘Well, my father died last year and left me this inn. I’m living here with my mother but I don’t like the work at all. I prefer to write stories, but what can I write about? I don’t meet many interesting people.’

I suddenly had the idea that this young man could help me. ‘I’ll tell you a story,’ I said, ‘and it’s true too. I need a friend. And I’ll tell you this story if you help me. I’ll give you permission to write it down, but don’t do anything before 15 June. That’s a very important date.’

Then I sat on the bridge and told him a story. He listened, and his eyes shone with excitement.

‘I’m a farmer from Rhodesia,’ I said, ‘and I came to Britain a few weeks ago. I travelled by ship from German West Africa. The Germans there thought that I was a spy. They followed me all the way to Britain. They’ve already killed my best friend, and now they’re trying to kill me. Have you read the newspaper today?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well then, you know about the murder of Franklin Scudder.’ The young man’s eyes opened wide.

‘He was my best friend, and he was killed in my own flat.’

I told him that Scudder was working for the Foreign Office before his death. And I explained that he told me some of the Germans’ secrets. It was quite a long story, and I made it very exciting. At the end I said, ‘You’re looking for adventure, aren’t you? Well, you’ve found it now. These German spies may come here, and I want to hide from them.’

He took my arm and pulled me towards the inn. ‘You’ll be safe here, sir,’ he said. ‘Tell me your adventures again, and I’ll write them down.’

‘All right. But I have some work to do first. Scudder gave me a long message in code. And I have to find out what it means.’ While we were going into the inn, I heard the plane again. It was flying low towards the bridge.

I had a quiet room at the back of the house. The innkeeper’s mother brought me my meals. This place suited me very well.

The next morning I took out Scudder’s notebook and began to work. The code was a difficult one, and I had to try many possible key words. By midday I knew where the spaces between the words were. I did not yet know the letters.

After dinner I tried again and worked hard until three o’clock. Then suddenly I had an idea. I was lying back in my chair when a woman’s name came into my head. It was Julia Czechenyi, one of Scudder’s worst enemies. Perhaps her name was the key word. I tried it quickly on the code and it was right!

“Julia” has five letters, and these letters were used in place of a, e, i, o and u. J is the tenth letter in English, and so he used the number ten to mean a. The letter e was the u of “Julia”, and u is the twenty-first letter. So Scudder wrote the number 21 for e.

The name “Czechenyi” gave me nine other numbers, and I could soon read Scudder’s notes. I sat in my room working quietly all afternoon. The facts in Scudder’s little book were terrible. By the time the woman brought my tea, I was a very nervous man. My face looked pale, and I did not want to eat anything.

‘Are you all right, sir?’ she asked. ‘You look ill.’

‘Oh, it’s nothing,’ I said. ‘Please put the things on the table.’

There was a sudden noise outside the inn, and the woman left my room. I heard a car stopping and then there were voices downstairs. A few minutes later the innkeeper ran into my room. ‘Two men have just arrived,’ he said, ‘and they’re looking for you. They described you very well.’

‘What did you tell them?’

‘I told them that you stayed here last night but left early this morning.’

‘Can you describe them?’

‘One is a thin man with dark eyes, and the other is rather fat.’

‘Do they talk like Englishmen?’

‘Oh, yes, I think so.’

I picked up a bit of paper and wrote quickly in German:

Black Stone. Scudder knew about this, but he could not act until 15 june. Karolides is unsure of his plans, and I probably cannot help. But I will try if Mr T thinks I should Then I tore the sides of the paper. It looked like part of a private letter.

‘Give this to them,’ I said. ‘Tell them that you found it in my room.’

Three minutes later the men drove away in the car. The innkeeper came back in great excitement.

‘Your paper gave them a surprise,’ he said. ‘The dark one turned pale, and the fat one looked very ugly. They paid for their drinks and left.’

‘Now I want you to do something for me,’ I said. ‘Get on your bicycle and go to the police at Newton-Stewart. Describe the two men and talk about the London murder. You can make something up. You can say that you heard a conversation between them. One man told the other that he was just out of prison. And say that you also heard Scudder’s name. It isn’t finished yet. Those two men will come back tomorrow morning, and the police have to be here to arrest them.’

He ran for his bicycle, and I continued my work on Scudder’s notes. It was six o’clock when he returned.

‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘The police will be here at eight o’clock in the morning.’

We had a meal together, and I had to tell him my adventures again. He made notes about them during the meal. I could not sleep that night. I finished Scudder’s book and then sat up in my chair until morning. I was thinking about Scudder’s terrible story.

At eight o’clock three policemen arrived at the inn. The innkeeper met them and showed them the garage. They left their car there and then came into the inn.

Twenty minutes later another car stopped a little way from the inn. I was watching from a window above the front door. The car was driven under some trees and left there. Two men got out of it and walked towards the inn.

My plan was not a very good one. I wanted the police to arrest the men. Then I was safe. But now I had a better idea. I wrote a note to the innkeeper and left it in my room. Then I opened my window and dropped quietly into the garden. I ran across the grass and along the side of a field. A few minutes later I reached the trees.

The car was standing there, and I got in. I started it and drove away. The wind carried the sound of angry voices to my ears. But soon I was travelling along that road at 80 kilometres an hour.