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 didn’t, 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,
