The Thirty Nine Steps

Though he dies by the end of Chapter 1, Scudder remains influential throughout the story. Hannay describes him as “a slim man, with a short brown beard and small, gimlet blue eyes” (5) and “the tidiest of mortals” (19). During his brief appearance, he appears skilled at spy craft (scribbling in his encoded notebook and quickly changing disguises), with a strong moral code but also streaks of paranoia and problematic biases (“borrowing” a corpse to stage his death and sprinkling antisemitic views through his speeches to Hannay). While Scudder is not present long enough for these features to be expanded, his death serves as the inciting incident to spark Hannay’s adventure.

Hannay says that though Scudder comes from an unremarkable background, he is “a sharp, restless fellow, who always wanted to get down to the roots of things” (6). Like Hannay, he also “got a little further down than he wanted” (6). He chose to become involved in espionage and underground schemes, though he realized (and his death confirms) how those schemes were more intricate than he was prepared to handle.

As a patriotic individual, Scudder gives both Hannay and Sir Walter the tools they need to thwart the Black Stone. Even so, Sir Walter shows that human character is subjective when he assesses that Scudder “was half crank, half genius, but he was wholly honest” (90). Because he dies early on, Scudder is not able to change over the course of the story. However, Hannay’s and Sir Walter’s perceptions of him become more complicated, and his encoded notebook provides the central clue and book’s title: the location where the German spies intend to leave the country.

The story’s primary antagonist, the Black Stone, is a German spy organization. Though Scudder suggests the group has many members, this story centers around three men. They are described in varying terms, but Hannay says in Chapter 10, “One was old and bald, one was stout, one was dark and thin” (124). Buchan gives few details about the stout and lean men beyond their appearances. They take a car through Scotland in search of Hannay, asking the innkeeper about him in Chapter 3 and questioning Hannay in the guise of a road repairman in Chapter 5. When Hannay finally recognizes them at the climax of the story, he speculates that the younger embodies “cruelty and ruthlessness” and is responsible for murdering Scudder (126). The larger man, he says, “hadn’t a face, only a hundred masks that he could assume” (126). Though Hannay suspected them in earlier chapters when they spoke German to each other, the ending scene at the vacation house establishes that they are all masters of disguise.

The most notable of the three is the old man. When they meet in Chapter 6, Hannay says, “There was something weird and devilish in those eyes, cold, malignant, unearthly, and most hellishly clever” (71). The old man half-lowers his eyelids in a way Scudder compares to a hawk (15) and absentmindedly taps his fingers on his knee when he thinks, which helps Hannay recognize him in Chapter 10. From the moorland house, he keeps an eye on Hannay’s progress and convinces the local police either that Hannay is not in his house or that he has the right to question the fugitive. The way the locals talk about Mr. Appleton (his alias) establishes that he has effectively blended into their community.

The innkeeper appears only in Chapter 3 and is not otherwise named. Hannay meets him while still feeling generally lighthearted. That feeling aligns with the innkeeper’s own Romantic idealism. Hannay says that the innkeeper is “a young man” who, when Hannay first sees him, is “smoking a long clay pipe and studying the water with spectacled eyes” (32). He recites lines from Milton’s Paradise Lost, which he has been reading. Like other literary allusions sprinkled through their conversation, Milton represents great British literature about which the men feel a sense of patriotic pride. Paradise Lost dramatizes Satan’s fall from heaven and the temptation of Adam and Eve. Being a tale of the struggle between good and evil, its inclusion lends a sense of heightened drama to Hannay’s struggle.

The innkeeper’s Romanticism is presented somewhat sardonically. While Hannay entrusts Sir Harry and Sir Walter with the whole truth, he tells the innkeeper only part of his story and plays on the innkeeper’s sensibilities to win his help. At the same time, his attitude reflects the nature of Hannay’s adventure: “I believe everything out of the common. The only thing to distrust is the normal” (34). The innkeeper also proves capable of helping Hannay, as he lies to the German spies and local police while Hannay drives away in a stolen car. The innkeeper invites the audience to embrace the narrative’s humor, even to be somewhat skeptical of its drama, while not dismissing the reality of its dangers.

Sir Harry is introduced in a dramatic moment in Chapter 4 when his car nearly collides with Hannay’s. He appears, Hannay says, as “a tall young man in goggles and a leather ulster, who kept on blessing his soul and whinnying apologies” (44). He takes Hannay to his house for food and a change of clothes before unabashedly asking for Hannay’s help. That evening, Sir Harry is scheduled to speak at the Masonic Hall of a local village, a “stronghold” of the rival political party (45). The colonial representative he had scheduled to speak canceled at the last minute, and he was desperate both for the promised perspective and for someone to save him from having to speak through the whole meeting. Hannay calls his talking points nonsensical, especially his suggestion that the Germans could be allies who will not escalate naval conflict. Like the innkeeper, Sir Harry begins as rather naïve, though he also has a chance to prove useful by the end of the chapter.

When they return to Sir Harry’s house after the rally, Hannay tells him the full story of his adventure and the German plot. Sir Harry then recognizes how ingrained ignorance is a consequence of political bureaucracy. Sir Harry admits that he accepts what others say without much thought for himself. He lets Hannay examine a map of the nearby country to help him navigate better when he continues his journey. Sir Harry also writes to his godfather, Sir Walter, who becomes an essential figure at the conclusion of the story.

Hannay meets Turnbull in Chapter 5 when he is feeling hemmed in by pursuers in the Scottish moorlands. Turnbull is, he says, “a wild figure” with “big horn spectacles” who speaks in a thick dialect, pronouncing his own name “Trummle” (55). Like several Scottish locals Hannay encounters, Turnbull expresses overtly anti-establishment attitudes, claiming to be a “slave to the Government” who is forced to work while feeling sick with a hangover (54). Like the innkeeper and Sir Harry, Turnbull is also innately trusting. When Hannay offers to finish his work for the day, including covering for him when the county road surveyor comes for his inspection, Turnbull accepts without question.

Turnbull repays Hannay’s favor by welcoming him back in Chapter 7. Hannay, injured from blowing up a wall of the old archaeologist’s house, spends 10 days recovering in Turnbull’s cottage. When he arrives, he finds Turnbull sober and dressed for church, reflecting Buchan’s upbringing with his Free Church minister father in Scotland. Hannay and Turnbull pass the time largely in companionable silence, and Turnbull becomes almost angry when Hannay attempts to pay him for his hospitality (85). Turnbull represents the working-class Scottish citizens who are essential to but often overlooked by the British Empire. They aid Hannay on his journey through the highlands (he sleeps for free in several barns), and they fight for Great Britain in multiple wars (including WWI, which ends the narrative).

Marmaduke Jopley, or “Marmie,” appears in two brief scenes. First, in Chapter 5 when Hannay is disguised as a roadman, Marmie approaches in a car. Under duress, Marmie drives Hannay away from the patrolled area to a more remote backroad on the Scottish moors. The next morning, when Hannay is again being chased by police, he speculates Marmie notified them as “revenge” for his temporary kidnapping.

Marmie’s second appearance is in Chapter 8 on the sidewalk in London with a group of friends. Hannay runs into them when trying to get to Sir Walter’s house. Marmie yells out to a nearby police officer that Hannay is a murderer on the loose. Marmie and his friends attempt to detain him, but Hannay punches Marmie in the face.

This confrontation in the last mention of Marmie, who primarily provides comic relief and is a foil character to Hannay. Both men have privileged social positions. While Hannay can talk as equals with upper-class figures like Sir Walter, he maintains his individualism as demonstrated by his reasoning through how to best thwart the Black Stone. In contrast, Marmie courts upper-class connections for their prestige and wealth. Though Marmie’s confrontation with Hannay on the street could come from a sense of patriotic individualism, his immediate deferral to the authority figure of the police officer align him instead with blind bureaucracy.