Lunchtime read: The 39 Steps post IV

It’s hard just to read this during my lunch break because it is a real page turner and the temptation is the carry on but work beckons.

Highlights from chapters five and six

Five
* After having taken the liberal candidate into his confidence Hannay sets off on a bike to set out for the farmlands where he intends to lie low being undetected but before he has got very far he is spotted by a plane and then men start beating the glen to discover him

* A stroke of good luck comes in the guise of a roadworker who willingly lets him spend the day doing his jobs and then three men do stop and interrogate him but leave satisfied

* Just as he is wondering how he will escape an acquaintance from London appears and Hannay gets him to hand over his car and he drives down through the valley and through the cordon of watchers

Six
* He sleeps rough but the acquaintance from London has told the police and they have started to comb the hill looking for him so he has to keep dodging them and finally runs into an old house that respects a museum

* The man in the museum seems to know him and it turns out Hannay has walked into a trap but tries to act his way out of it but fails and is put into the storeroom while the leader goes out to get the men who interrogated him as a road mender

* In the storeroom he is kept in he discovers a locked cupboard and inside is some explosives which he recognises from his time as a mining engineer and he uses this the blow the wall down and makes good his escape after discovering a hidden aerodrome