THE 39 STEPS

Hrithik's FB Postings

Book No. 48

THE 39 STEPS

Based on the novel by John Buchan

Illustrated by Illatteo Pincelli

The setting is in London, where Hannay, a bored mining engineer recently returned from South Africa, finds his life suddenly disrupted by the arrival of a mysterious American named Scudder. Scudder claims to possess knowledge of a secret plot to assassinate a foreign political figure and ignite a global war, one Greek person called Karolides. The Clan of the Black Stone planned to do this. Based on his theory, Scudder wrote code after code, day after day. Not a cell in Hannay’s brain understood Scudder’s code. Shortly after confiding in Hannay, Scudder is murdered, and Hannay becomes the primary suspect. Before Scudder’s death, Scudder told Hannay that if he ever accounted a man that was ‘missing the top joint of his fourth finger,’ that particular man would most likely be an important member or leader of the Black Stone. Hannay quickly gathers all the notes written on paper, solely done by Scudder, and also takes a black notebook, the most important of all the bundle of critical information. Hannay boards a train, sees people reading newspapers about the ‘Portland Place Murder,’ where Scudders tragic death happened, very unfortunately in Hannay’s rented homestay. Fearing for his life and determined to stop the conspiracy, Hannay flees to the Scottish countryside, pursued by both the police and the foreign spies responsible for Scudder's death.

After an energy-draining walk on the countryside, Mr. Hannay finds a lone inn. He gratefully enters the inn and gets a good, long rest. The next morning, he though that ‘today’ was the ‘calm after the storm.’ How very wrong he was! After a while of trying to crack Scudder’s code, he finally made out that after the assasination of Karolides, military information of Britain would be given to Germany, then, Germany would wage war against Britain. A car arrived at that precise time, Richard Hannay ran towards it, after the two men came out, dressed in Black suits. Hannay, undetected, hijacked the car and drove as fast as he could, away from the inn. A small plane chased him, flown steadily by probably an agent from the Black Stone. Hannay drove the car into a stream and got hooked on a small ledge by a hawthorn branch.

Rescued by a rich man, Sir Harry Bullivant, a Liberal candidate for the town of Brattleburn, sends him to meet his uncle, Sir Walter, who was a member of Parliament, after listening to his story. On the way, Hannay gets intercepted by local authorities, although narrowly escaping them, ends up in a house where the leader of the Black Stone resided. Although Hannay has no clue about it, the man later demands Scudder’s notebook, and when Hannay does not have it, he is locked into a room, deprived of food and water. Hannay finds bricks of letonite and some fuses. He sets a fuse to blow a section of the house apart so he could escape. He does so, and escapes the clutches of the Black Stone. He runs as far away as her can, putting a few miles between the notorious trio and himself.

Hannay meets Harry Bullivant again, and takes a train to the town of Wiltshire to meet Sir Walter, Henry’s uncle, and also retrieves his notebook from Harry.

Sir Walter discusses Scudder’s notes with Hannay, but dismissed the idea of Karolides getting assasinated as fictional. Sir Walters attends a call just to find out that Karolides had been killed, just as Scudder predicted. Royer, a French Diplomat arrives, and the ‘First Sea Lord,’ who was actually a Black Stone member, heard all the security plans of Britain and France. The men in the room, along with Hannay, discuss about the 39 Steps. It turns out that the 39 steps was a secret code to a lighthouse. Hannay fights with the Black Stone trio at the house rented by the trio at the edge of the sea. A member called Franz escapes, but walks into a trap.

THE START OF THE WAR BETWEEN GERMANY AND BRITAIN.