Lunchtime read: The 39 Steps post III

This thriller is already gripping just a couple of chapters in and the story continues to develop at a rapid pace

Highlights from chapters three and four

Three
* Hannay gets up to Scotland and as he leaves the small station and heads over the glen his spirits soar but they come back down with a bump when he heads back to go in a circle and reads about the murder in the paper and then sees the Police interviewing the stationmaster and his son t the small station

* As the train slows down he decides to jump out but the barking of a dog, the bleating of the herd and the belief that he has committed suicide means that it is a very public escape

* He finds an aspiring author who is running a very empty inn and offers him a secret hiding place away from the police but two strangers find him and although Hannay, who has broken the code of Scudder's notebook. gives them a decoy note he knows they will return

* He gets the inn keeper to organise the police to come at the same time as the sinister men return and as they go up to the inn to be arrested Hannay jumps out of the window and steals their car

Four
* He makes a mistake by taking the car because he is easily identifiable and as he pulls into a town the policeman tries to stop him and he has to speed away over the glens

* The next problem is that a plane is scrambled and as he searches for trees to hide in he drives up a private road and has to swerve to avoid an oncoming car and his car slips down into a brook and is destroyed

* The owner of the other car takes him home and is full of apologies and turns out to be a liberal candidate having to deliver a speech that night and asks Hannay if he is a free trader and could speak with him about the dangers of protectionism and because he is in a fix Hannay agrees

More tomorrow...