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  ‘Address?’

  ‘Fourteen, Windsor Lane, Luton.’

  ‘Show me something to prove this is your real name and address,’ the policeman said.

  My passenger fished in his pockets and came out with a driving-licence of his own. The policeman checked the name and address and handed it back to him. ‘What’s your job?’ he asked sharply.

  ‘I’m an ’od carrier.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘An ’od carrier.’

  ‘Spell it.’

  ‘H-O-D C-A-…’

  ‘That’ll do. And what’s a hod carrier, may I ask?’

  ‘An ‘od carrier, officer, is a person ’oo carries the cement up the ladder to the bricklayer. And the ’od is what ’ee carries it in. It’s got a long ’andle, and on the top you’ve got two bits of wood set at an angle…’

  ‘All right, all right. Who’s your employer?’

  ‘Don’t ’ave one. I’m unemployed.’

  The policeman wrote all this down in the black notebook. Then he returned the book to its pocket and did up the button.

  ‘When I get back to the station I’m going to do a little checking up on you,’ he said to my passenger.

  ‘Me? What’ve I done wrong?’ the rat-faced man asked.

  ‘I don’t like your face, that’s all,’ the policeman said. ‘And we just might have a picture of it somewhere in our files.’ He strolled round the car and returned to my window.

  ‘I suppose you know you’re in serious trouble,’ he said to me.

  ‘Yes, officer.’

  ‘You won’t be driving this fancy car of yours again for a very long time, not after we’ve finished with you. You won’t be driving any car again come to that for several years. And a good thing, too. I hope they lock you up for a spell into the bargain.’

  ‘You mean prison?’ I asked, alarmed.

  ‘Absolutely,’ he said, smacking his lips. ‘In the clink. Behind the bars. Along with all the other criminals who break the law. And a hefty fine into the bargain. Nobody will be more pleased about that than me. I’ll see you in court, both of you. You’ll be getting a summons to appear.’

  He turned away and walked over to his motor-cycle. He flipped the prop stand back into position with his foot and swung his leg over the saddle. Then he kicked the starter and roared off up the road out of sight.

  ‘Phew! ’ I gasped. ‘That’s done it.’

  ‘We was caught,’ my passenger said. ‘We was caught good and proper.’

  ‘I was caught, you mean.’

  ‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘What you goin’ to do now, guv’nor?’

  ‘I’m going straight up to London to talk to my solicitor,’ I said. I started the car and drove on.

  ‘You mustn’t believe what ’ee said to you about goin’ to prison,’ my passenger said. ‘They don’t put nobody in the clink just for speedin’.’

  ‘Are you sure of that?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m positive,’ he answered. ‘They can take your licence away and they can give you a whoppin’ big fine, but that’ll be the end of it.’

  I felt tremendously relieved.

  ‘By the way,’ I said, ‘why did you lie to him?’

  ‘Who, me?’ he said. ‘What makes you think I lied?’

  ‘You told him you were an unemployed hod carrier. But you told me you were in a highly skilled trade.’

  ‘So I am,’ he said. ‘But it don’t pay to tell everythin’ to a copper.’

  ‘So what do you do?’ I asked him.

  ‘Ah,’ he said slyly. ‘That’d be tellin’, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Is it something you’re ashamed of?’

  ‘Ashamed?’ he cried. ‘Me, ashamed of my job? I’m about as proud of it as anybody could be in the entire world!’

  ‘Then why won’t you tell me?’

  ‘You writers really is nosey parkers, aren’t you?’ he said. ‘And you ain’t goin’ to be ’appy, I don’t think, until you’ve found out exactly what the answer is?’

  ‘I don’t really care one way or the other,’ I told him, lying.

  He gave me a crafty little ratty look out of the sides of his eyes. ‘I think you do care,’ he said. ‘I can see it on your face that you think I’m in some kind of a very peculiar trade and you’re just achin’ to know what it is.’

  I didn’t like the way he read my thoughts. I kept quiet and stared at the road ahead.

  ‘You’d be right, too,’ he went on. ‘I am in a very peculiar trade. I’m in the queerest peculiar trade of ’em all.’

  I waited for him to go on.

  ‘That’s why I ’as to be extra careful ’oo I’m talkin’ to, you see. ’Ow am I to know, for instance, you’re not another copper in plain clothes?’

  ‘Do I look like a copper?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘You don’t. And you ain’t. Any fool could tell that.’

  He took from his pocket a tin of tobacco and a packet of cigarette papers and started to roll a cigarette. I was watching him out of the corner of one eye, and the speed with which he performed this rather difficult operation was incredible. The cigarette was rolled and ready in about five seconds. He ran his tongue along the edge of the paper, stuck it down and popped the cigarette between his lips. Then, as if from nowhere, a lighter appeared in his hand. The lighter flamed. The cigarette was lit. The lighter disappeared. It was altogether a remarkable performance.

  ‘I’ve never seen anyone roll a cigarette as fast as that,’ I said.

  ‘Ah,’ he said, taking a deep suck of smoke. ‘So you noticed.’

  ‘Of course I noticed. It was quite fantastic.’

  He sat back and smiled. It pleased him very much that I had noticed how quickly he could roll a cigarette. ‘You want to know what makes me able to do it?’ he asked.

  ‘Go on then.’

  ‘It’s because I’ve got fantastic fingers. These fingers of mine,’ he said, holding up both hands high in front of him, ‘are quicker and cleverer than the fingers of the best piano player in the world!’

  ‘Are you a piano player?’

  ‘Don’t be daft,’ he said. ‘Do I look like a piano player?’

  I glanced at his fingers. They were so beautifully shaped, so slim and long and elegant, they didn’t seem to belong to the rest of him at all. They looked more like the fingers of a brain surgeon or a watchmaker.

  ‘My job,’ he went on, ‘is a hundred times more difficult than playin’ the piano. Any twerp can learn to do that. There’s titchy little kids learnin’ to play the piano in almost any ‘ouse you go into these days. That’s right, ain’t it?’

  ‘More or less,’ I said.

  ‘Of course it’s right. But there’s not one person in ten million can learn to do what I do. Not one in ten million! ’Ow about that?’

  ‘Amazing,’ I said.

  ‘You’re darn right it’s amazin’,’ he said.

  ‘I think I know what you do,’ I said. ‘You do conjuring tricks. You’re a conjurer.’

  ‘Me?’ he snorted. ‘A conjurer? Can you picture me goin’ round crummy kids’ parties makin’ rabbits come out of top ’ats?’

  ‘Then you’re a card player. You get people into card games and deal yourself marvellous hands.’

  ‘Me! A rotten card-sharper!’ he cried. ‘That’s a miserable racket if ever there was one.’

  ‘All right. I give up.’

  I was taking the car along slowly now, at no more than forty miles an hour, to make quite sure I wasn’t stopped again. We had come on to the main London–Oxford road and were running down the hill towards Denham.

  Suddenly, my passenger was holding up a black leather belt in his hand. ‘Ever seen this before?’ he asked. The belt had a brass buckle of unusual design.

  ‘Hey!’ I said. ‘That’s mine, isn’t it? It is mine! Where did you get it?’

  He grinned and waved the belt gently from side to side. ‘Where d’you think I got it?’ he said. ‘Off the top of your trousers, of