The Thirty-Nine Steps Trivia Quiz

Answer: Dead

The first chapter of the book was called "The Man Who Died". Franklin P. Scudder was that man, and when he introduced himself to Richard Hannay, he told him that he was "a bit rattled tonight. You see, I happen at this moment to be dead". It turned out that he had faked his death to trick people who were after him.

He found a corpse ("you can always get a body in London if you know where to go for it") that was a similar size and then shot the jaw since it was different from his. He had left the body in his apartment and wanted to hide out in Hannay's apartment, which Hannay agreed to since it gave him some of the adventure that he found lacking in London.

Answer: The Greek Premier, Karolides

Scudder told Hannay that after college, he had spent time traveling in Europe and made many contacts; through them, he had pieced together a plot against Constantine Karolides. Hannay had just been reading about Karolides in the newspaper that day, so he became particularly interested in the story. Scudder told him that Karolides was being targeted because he was "an honest man" who had interfered with the anarchists' plans.

They weren't able to get to Karolides in Greece because he was too well protected, but they believed they could get him in England. Scudder believed that he could stop the assassination if he could just keep alive until June 15th, the day that Karolides was scheduled to be in London.

Unfortunately, the group that was after Karolides knew about Scudder, and they were following him now, which was why he faked his death.

Answer: Milkman

Chapter two was called "The Milkman Sets Out on his Travels". Not only did Hannay think that the men would be after him, he didn't think that he could go to the police because they might arrest him for Scudder's murder. He decided to escape, lay low until June when Karolides was scheduled to be in London and somehow contact someone in the government who would listen to the tale that Scudder had told him.

He waited in the morning until the milkman arrived, and he gave the man a sovereign coin for letting him use his cap and overalls for ten minutes; he told the man that it was for a bet.

The man agreed, and Hannay headed out on his journey disguised as a milkman.

Answer: Scotland

Hannay decided to head to Scotland because he believed there would be places to hide there, and since his family was Scottish, he thought he could pass for a Scotsman. He decided on Galloway since it wasn't heavily populated. After ditching the milkman disguise he used to escape his apartment, he went straight to St. Pancras station and got on a train headed north.

Answer: Give a speech on free trade at a political meeting

Sir Harry helped Hannay after their near collision; he offered to take him to his house and give him a bed for the night. But when he found out that Hannay was a colonial, he talked him into giving a speech at a meeting that was taking place that evening. Sir Harry was campaigning and had lined up a speaker who had canceled at the last moment. Hannay presented the speech, pretending to be an Australian ("praying there should be no Australian there").

Afterward, Hannay told his true story to Sir Harry, and not only did Sir Harry believe him, he offered to help. Sir Harry's godfather was the Permanent Secretary at the Foreign Office, so Sir Harry wrote him a letter, asking him to listen to Hannay (who was going by the name of Twisdon).

Answer: Road construction worker

In the chapter, "The Adventure of the Spectacled Roadman", Hannay had spotted the roadman, Alexander Turnbull, as Hannay was trying to find somewhere to hide from his pursuers (not only were the Black Stone agents looking for him, the police were also pursuing him as a suspect in Scudder's murder). Turnbull was a bit the worse for wear, as he told Hannay, because he'd been up late drinking at his daughter's wedding, and he was worried because the new road surveyor was doing an inspection that day, and he'd be in trouble because of his condition. Hannay volunteered to take his place since the surveyor didn't know what Turnbull looked like. Turnbull was apparently too much out of it to question why Hannay would do so; he just gladly turned over his coat, hat and glasses to Hannay, and he returned to his house to sleep it off. Hannay meanwhile scuffed up his boots and rubbed dirt into his skin to disguise his appearance and then set to work in Turnbull's place.

The disguise worked; when agents of the Black Stone stopped and questioned him, they believed him to be a workman.

Answer: He could hood his eyes like a hawk.

Scudder had described "an old man with a young voice who could hood his eyes like a hawk" as one of the men that he most feared. In the chapter "The Adventure of the Bald Archaeologist", Hannay was being chased by the police and had headed to the farmhouse because he saw smoke coming from the chimney.

He entered the house and found a "benevolent old gentleman" sitting at a desk surrounded by books and papers. Without knowing his story, the man offered to help him; he told Hannay to hide in a closet while he sent the police away, claiming that he didn't appreciate them violating his privacy.

But when he let Hannay out of the closet, Hannay saw the movement of his eyelids and realized that he had walked into a trap. He soon found himself locked in a storeroom but was able to escape by blowing a hole in the wall, thanks to some explosives he found in a cabinet.

Answer: Fishing in a river

The chapter "The Dry-Fly Fisherman" started out with Hannay going to the home of the roadman Alexander Turnbull to get his clothes and Scudder's notebook. Hannay ended up staying there for nearly two weeks while he recovered from a recurrence of malaria, and then he joined a friend of Turnbull's who was driving cattle to the town of Moffat. From there, Hannay caught the train back to England.

He headed to Sir Walter Bullivant's estate and started humming the tune "Annie Laurie" as he walked along the river.

A fisherman heard him and started humming the same tune. The fisherman then started chatting with Hannay about the size of a fish he was pursuing, saying that it was four pounds or so. Hannay replied that "you might swear he was a black stone". Thus, Hannay and Bullivant met. Bullivant had good news for him; he knew Scudder and had received a letter from him that was written just before he died.

In it, Scudder had mentioned that he was staying with a friend, which Bullivant took to be his way of clearing Hannay if anything happened. Bullivant informed him that he had been cleared of suspicion in Scudder's death. Bullivant was very interested in reading Scudder's notebook, but he felt that Scudder was wrong about Karolides.

However, he soon received a phone call informing him that the Greek premier had been shot, and he realized that Scudder was on to something.

Answer: A spy attended the meeting in disguise.

Sir Walter Bullivant was surprised to find that the Black Stone knew about the visit of the French Deputy Chief of General Staff Royer; he claimed only five people knew about it in England and "fewer in France, for they manage these things better there".

He arranged for Royer to come over a day earlier but didn't think it would help since the Black Stone would probably find out about the change. Bullivant stated that Royer would be meeting with a few senior staff at his house and would then be taken directly to Portsmouth to catch a ship to France.

The hope was that there wouldn't be an opportunity for the Black Stone to steal any documents from him. But the Black Stone had a different objective. The First Sea Lord Alloa was supposed to attend the meeting but was ill; however he showed up after all. Hannay was sitting in an alcove in the hallway of Bullivant's house and saw the man arrive; he recognized his distinct face from pictures he'd seen of him.

But as Lord Alloa was leaving twenty minutes later, the two happened to briefly glance at each other, and Hannay realized that Alloa had recognized him. Hannay called Alloa's residence and discovered that he was sick in bed.

He then burst into the meeting and let Bullivant and the others know that an impostor had been there.

Answer: A staircase from a villa to the sea

Hannay determined that the Black Stone spies were going to leave the country from some place where high tide would occur at 10:17 pm and that somehow, there were thirty-nine steps at that location. He guessed that the location was probably a remote site on the east coast and that the high tide was necessary for a boat to reach the location.

A Coastguard Inspector was brought in and questioned regarding possible locations, and he mentioned the Ruff, "a big chalk headland in Kent, close to Bradgate.

It's got a lot of villas on the top, and some of the houses have staircases down to a private beach." Hannay then went to the Ruff and asked a house agent to count the steps on the private staircases; sure enough, one of them had a staircase with thirty-nine steps.

The house belonged to a retired gentleman named Appleton, and both he and his property appeared to be traditionally British. But Hannay knew better than to trust appearances, and he arranged for Scotland Yard to send some men to station around the property. Meanwhile, he went on a fishing trip that gave him an opportunity to see the property from the sea.

He also was able to get a close-up view of a yacht that had dropped anchor offshore and realized that the officer on board was German. When he later went to the villa and confronted Appleton and his guests, he began to think that he made a mistake; the men seemed to truly be English gentleman living a quiet life. But then he noticed Appleton tapping his fingers on his knee, the same gesture that the bald archaeologist had made when he trapped Hannay in the farmhouse. He saw through their disguises and blew his whistle to alert the authorities who captured the men.