1 I returned from the City about three o'clock on that May afternoon pretty well disgusted with life. I had been three months in the Old Country, and was fed up with it. If anyone had told me a year ago that I would have been feeling like that I should have laughed at him; but there was the fact. The weather made me liverish, the talk of the ordinary Englishman made me sick. I couldn't get enough exercise, and the amusements of London seemed as flat as soda-water that has been standing in the sun. Richard Hannay, I kept telling myself, you have got into the wrong ditch, my friend, and you had better climb out. 2 From the first I was disappointed with the place. In about a week I was tired of seeing sights, and in less than a month I had had enough of restaurants and theaters. I had no real pal to go about with, which probably explains things. Here was I, thirty-seven years old, sound in wind and limb, with enough money to have a good time, yawning my head off all day. I had just about settled to clear out and get back to the veld, for I was the best bored man in the United Kingdom.
3 I was just fitting my key into the door when I noticed a man at my elbow. I had not seen him approach, and the sudden appearance made me start. He was a slim man, with a short brown beard and small, blue eyes. I recognized him as the occupant of a flat1 on the top floor, with whom I had passed the time of day on the stairs.
4 "Can I speak to you?" he said. "May I come in for a minute?" He was steadying his voice with an effort, and his hand was pawing my arm.
5 I got my door open and motioned him in. No sooner was he over the threshold than he made a dash for my back room. Then he bolted back.
6 "Is the door locked?" he asked feverishly, and he fastened the chain with his own hand.
7 "I'm very sorry," he said humbly. "It's a mighty liberty, but you looked the kind of man who would understand. I've had you in my mind all this week when things got troublesome. Say, will you do me a good turn?"
8 "I'll listen to you," I said. "That's all I'll promise." I was getting worried by the antics of this nervous little chap.
9 There was a tray of coffee on a table beside him, from which he filled himself a cup. He drank it off in three gulps, and cracked the cup as he set it down.
10 "Pardon," he said, "I'm a bit rattled tonight. You see, I happen at this moment to be dead."
11 "What does it feel like?" I asked. I was pretty certain that I had to deal with a madman.
12 A smile flickered over his drawn face. "I'm not mad—yet. I'm going to confide in you. I need help worse than any man ever needed it, and I want to know if I can count you in."
13 "Get on with your yarn," I said, "and I'll tell you."
14 He was an American, from Kentucky, and after college, being pretty well off, he had started out to see the world. He wrote a bit, and acted as war correspondent for a Chicago paper, and spent a year or two in South-Eastern Europe. I gathered that he was a fine linguist, and had got to know pretty well the society in those parts. He spoke familiarly of many names that I remembered to have seen in the newspapers.
15 He had played about with politics, he told me, at first for the interest of them, and then because he couldn't help himself. I read him as a sharp, restless fellow, who always wanted to get down to the roots of things. He got a little further down than he wanted.