All things considered he decides it will be safer to head back to his native Scotland. What if the murderers come back for him or think he is somehow working with Scudder? He is also worried because he realizes he will be the prime suspect in the murder of a man staying in his flat. Unfortunately this does not seem to throw the Germans off the scent one evening, a man who lives in Hannay's building is murdered, and a couple of days after that, Hannay returns home to his flat to find that Hannay too has been murdered, stabbed in he heart. He tells of a group of Germans chasing him, and Hannay offers to allow him to stay at his flat for a little while. Scudder elaborates and tells Hannay that he is a freelance spy and has faked his own death in order to be able to conduct his investigations more safely. He tells Hannay that he is actually dead, which of course intrigues Hannay, because it is not often one finds oneself talking to a dead man. Scudder is an American who is convinced that the world is about to erupt into war. He is gregarious and talks to strangers in passing, but one seems to attach himself more than the average casual acquaintance. There is talk of war in Europe it is May, 1914, and Richard Hannay, a Scot, is starting afresh in London after time spent in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe).

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