The Thirty Nine Steps

As Hannay travels on a northbound train, he admires the landscapes and reads morning newspapers as well as Scudder’s notebook. Hannay realizes Scudder encoded the notebook using a cipher, which will require a linguistic or numerical key to understand. Though he knows decoding it will take some time, the prospect of a puzzle intrigues him. At Dumfries, Hannay switches trains to one bound for Galloway and realizes he is successfully blending in with the Scottish farmers. That evening, he waits until most of the other passengers have left his car before getting out at a “forgotten little station” (26). At this point, Hannay is enjoying planning his next steps and does not yet feel pressured by pursuit.

Hannay walks over the moors and spends the night in the hayloft of friendly farmers. The next morning, he walks to another remote station and travels back through the one where he disembarked the day before. He sees local police questioning the station workers and assumes they have been notified by Scotland Yard to look for him. From the newspapers, he learns he is wanted for questioning in Scudder’s death, now dubbed the Park Place Murder.

Fearing capture, Hannay jumps from the train car.