The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More (5 page)

I gave him my driving-
licence
.

He unbuttoned the left-hand breast-pocket of his tunic and brought out the
dreaded books of tickets. Carefully, he copied the name and address from my
licence
. Then he gave it back to me. He strolled round to
the front of the car and read the number from the number-plate and wrote that
down as well. He filled in the date, the time and the details of my offence.
Then he tore out the top copy of the ticket. But before handing it to me, he
checked that all the information had come through clearly on his own carbon
copy. Finally, he replaced the book in his tunic pocket and fastened the
button.

"Now you," he said to my passenger, and he walked around to the other
side of the car. From the other breast-pocket he produced a small black
notebook. "Name?" he snapped.

"Michael Fish," my passenger said.

"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 in 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 course."

I reached down and felt for my belt. It was gone.

"You mean you took it off me while we've been driving along?" I asked,
flabbergasted.

He nodded, watching me all the time with those little black ratty eyes.

"That's impossible," I said. "You'd have to undo the buckle and
slide the whole thing out through the loops all the way round. I'd have seen
you doing it. And even if I hadn't seen you, I'd have felt it."

"Ah, but you
didnt
, did you?" he said,
triumphant. He dropped the belt on his lap, and now all at once there was a
brown shoelace dangling from his fingers. "And what about this,
then?" he exclaimed, waving the shoelace.

"What about it?" I said.

"Anyone round 'ere
missin
' a shoelace?" he
asked, grinning.

I glanced down at my shoes. The lace of one of them was missing. "Good
grief!" I said. "How did you do that? I never saw you bending
down."

"You never saw
nothin
'," he said proudly.
"You never even saw me move an inch. And you know why?"

"Yes," I said.
"Because you've got fantastic
fingers."

"Exactly right!" he cried. "You catch on pretty quick, don't
you?" He sat back and sucked away at his homemade cigarette, blowing the
smoke out in a thin stream against the windshield. He knew he had impressed me
greatly with those two tricks, and this made him very happy. "I don't want
to be late," he said. "What time is it?"

"There's a clock in front of you," I told him.

"I don't trust car clocks," he
said."What
does your watch say?"

I hitched up my sleeve to look at the watch on my wrist. It wasn't there. I
looked at the man. He looked back at me, grinning.

"You've taken that, too," I said.

He held out his hand and there was my watch lying in his palm. "Nice bit
of stuff, this," he said.
"Superior quality.
Eighteen-carat gold.
Easy to flog,
too.
It's never any trouble
gettin
' rid of
quality goods."

"I'd like it back, if you don't mind," I said rather huffily.

He placed the watch carefully on the leather tray in front of him. "I
wouldn't nick anything from you,
guv'nor
," he
said. "You're my pal. You're giving me a lift."

"I'm glad to hear it." I said.

"All I'm
doin
' is
answerin
'
your questions," he went on. "You asked me what I did for a
livin
' and I'm
showin
' you."

"What else have you got of mine?"

He smiled again, and now he started to take from the pocket of his jacket one
thing after another that belonged to me -- my driving-
licence
,
a key-ring with four keys on it, some pound notes, a few coins, a letter from
my publishers, my diary, a stubby old pencil, a cigarette-lighter, and last of
all, a beautiful old sapphire ring with pearls around it belonging to my wife.
I was taking the ring up to the
jeweller
in London
because one of the pearls was missing.