and one queer phrase which occurred half a dozen times inside
brackets. '(Thirty-nine steps)' was the phrase; and at its last time of
use it ran--'(Thirty-nine steps, I counted them--high tide 10.17
p.m.)'. I could make nothing of that.

The first thing I learned was that it was no question of preventing
a war. That was coming, as sure as Christmas: had been arranged,
said Scudder, ever since February 1912. Karolides was going to be
the occasion. He was booked all right, and was to hand in his
checks on June 14th, two weeks and four days from that May
morning. I gathered from Scudder's notes that nothing on earth
could prevent that. His talk of Epirote guards that would skin their
own grandmothers was all billy-o.

The second thing was that this war was going to come as a
mighty surprise to Britain. Karolides' death would set the Balkans
by the ears, and then Vienna would chip in with an ultimatum.
Russia wouldn't like that, and there would be high words. But
Berlin would play the peacemaker, and pour oil on the waters, till
suddenly she would find a good cause for a quarrel, pick it up, and
in five hours let fly at us. That was the idea, and a pretty good one
too. Honey and fair speeches, and then a stroke in the dark. While
we were talking about the goodwill and good intentions of Germany
our coast would be silently ringed with mines, and submarines
would be waiting for every battleship.

But all this depended upon the third thing, which was due to
happen on June 15th. I would never have grasped this if I hadn't
once happened to meet a French staff officer, coming back from
West Africa, who had told me a lot of things. One was that, in