There are moments when images flash into my mind and some of them even look a little like this poster. I'm sure that I've spent too much time reading pulp fiction and watching film noir.

OK, depending on how you start counting, we have either 39 or 40 steps going up the Armstrong building stairs -- there may well be many mysteries in the Armstrong building but I don't think these steps will lead to the answer!!! I think I will keep looking as I rather fancy the spiral stairs even though they appear to be out of bounds now.

The 39 steps mystery

Well, it's OK being stuck in a library for 40 odd years but being dropped into the childrens collection has just made things harder (we only have a "J" version of The 39 Steps -- you try finding the 39 steps in this building when when you can't even rely on Robert Donat or Kenneth Moore!! On the other hand, being a children's book creates its own opportunities and these days I can always access the etext version of the adult original via Project Gutenberg. Things really got mucked up about 10 years ago when they started playing with the archtecture and removing spiral staircases, altering bits and pieces and even building new stairs in the so called Armstrong Building. I can't remember how many times I've lost count on the pendulum staircase... I probably need to find Mr Memory from the Hitchcock film version to keep count. The other problem is the grey area of being "lost in space", but also "lost in text" and "lost in film" -- you can wander around for ages and be distracted by so many books, spaces, ideas...