Josephine Tey - The Collected Works

There is no doubt as to what the Tisdall man’s answer would have been, but the proposition was never put to him. Either he was so dead asleep that not even the uproar of Tinny’s advent could rouse him, or he was no longer in that piece of country. Erica went to the end of the mile-long straight, Tinny full out and making a noise like an express train, and came back to the spot where she had stopped yesterday. As she shut off the engine, the silence fell about her, absolute. Not even a lark sang, not a shadow stirred.

She waited there, quietly, not looking about her, her arms propped on the wheel in the attitude of one considering her future movements. There must be no expectancy in her appearance to arouse suspicion in the mind of stray countrymen. For twenty minutes she sat, relaxed and incurious. Then she stretched herself, made sure during the stretch that the lane was still unoccupied, and got out. If Tisdall had wanted to speak to her, he would have reached her before now. She took the two parcels and the chocolate and cached them where Tisdall had been lying yesterday. To these she added a packet of cigarettes produced from her own sagging pocket. Erica did not smoke herself—she had tried it, of course, had not much liked it, and with the logic that was her ruling characteristic had not persisted—and she did not know that Tisdall smoked. These, and the matches, were just “in case.” Erica never did a job that was not thorough.

She climbed in again, pressed Tinny into life, and without a pause or backward glance headed down the lane, her face and thoughts turned to the far-off coast and Dymchurch.

It was Erica’s very sound theory that no “local” had stolen that coat. She had lived all her life in a country community, and knew very well that a new black overcoat cannot make its appearance even on the meanest back without receiving a truly remarkable amount of attention. She knew, too, that your countryman is not versed in the ways of pawnshops, and that a coat lying in a car would not represent to him a possible cash value, as it would to someone “on the road.” If he coveted it at all, it would be for possession; and the difficulty of explaining its appearance would result in his leaving it where it was. The coat, therefore, according to Erica’s reasoning, had been taken by a “casual.”

This made things at once easier and more difficult. A “casual” is a much more noticeable person than a “local,” and so easier to identify. On the other hand, a “casual” is a movable object and difficult to track. In the week that had passed since the theft, that coat might have traversed most of Kent. It might now be——

Hunger gave wings to Erica’s imagination. By the time she was in sight of Dymchurch she had, thanks to modern methods of hitch-hiking and old-fashioned methods of stowing away, placed the coat on the back of a clerk in the office of the Mayor of Bordeaux. He was a little pale clerk with a delicate wife and puny baby, and Erica’s heart was sore at the thought of having to take the coat from him, even for Tisdall.

At this point Erica decided that she must eat. Fasting was good for the imagination but bad for logic. She stepped on the brake at sight of The Rising Sun, “good pull-up for car men, open all night.” It was a tin shed, set down by the roadside with the inconsequence of a matchbox, painted gamboge and violet, and set about with geraniums. The door was hospitably open, and the sound of voices floated out on the warm air.

In the tiny interior were two very large men. The proprietor was cutting very large slices from a very fresh loaf, and the other man was sipping very hot liquid from a very large mug with very great noise. At sight of Erica on the doorstep all these activities ceased abruptly.

“Good morning,” said Erica into the silence.

“Morning, miss,” said the proprietor. “Cup of tea, perhaps?”

“Well—” Erica looked round. “You haven’t any bacon, by any chance?”

“Lovely bacon,” said the owner promptly. “Melt in your mouth.”

“I’ll have a lot,” said Erica happily.

“Egg with it, perhaps?”

“Three,” said Erica.

The owner craned his neck to see out the door, and found that she really was alone.

“Come,” he said. “That’s something like. Nice to see a young girl that can appreciate her vittles these days. Have a seat, miss.” He dusted an iron chair for her with the corner of his apron. “Bacon be ready in no time. Thick or thin?”

“Thick, please. Good morning.” This to the other man, in more particular greeting, as she sat down and so definitely became a partner in this business of eating and drinking. “Is that your lorry out there? I have always wanted to drive one of those.”

“Ye’? I’ve always wanted to be a tightrope walker.”

“You’re the wrong build,” said Erica seriously. “Better stick to lorry driving.” And the owner paused in his slicing of the bacon to laugh.

The lorry driver decided that sarcasm was wasted on so literal a mind. He relaxed into amiability.

“Oh, well; nice to have ladies’ company for a change, eh, Bill?”

“Don’t you have lots of it?” asked Erica. “I thought lorries were very popular.” And before the astounded man could make up his mind whether this skinny child was being rude, provocative, or merely matter of fact, she went on, “Do you give lifts to tramps, ever, by the way?”

“Never!” said the driver promptly, glad to feel his feet on firm ground.

“That’s a pity. I’m interested in tramps.”

“Christian interest?” enquired Bill, turning the sizzling bacon in the pan.

“No. Literary.”

“Well, now. You writing a book?”

“Not exactly. I’m gathering material for someone else. You must see a lot of tramps, even if you don’t give them lifts,” she persisted, to the driver.

“No time to see anyone when you’re driving that there.”

“Tell her about Harrogate Harry,” prompted Bill, breaking eggs. “I saw him in your cab last week sometime.”

“Never saw anyone in my cab, you didn’t.”

“Oh, come unstuck, will you. The little lady’s all right. She’s not the sort to go blabbing even if you did give an odd tramp a lift?”

“Harrogate isn’t a tramp.”

“Who is he, then?” asked Erica.

“He’s a china merchant. Travelling.”

“Oh, I know. A blue-and-white bowl in exchange for a rabbit skin.”

“No. Nothing like that. Mends teapot handles and such.”

“Oh. Does he make much?” This for the sake of keeping the driver on the subject.

“Enough to be going on with. And he cadges an old coat or a pair of boots now and then.”

Erica said nothing for a moment, and she wondered if the thumping of her heart was as audible to these two men as it was in her ears. An old coat, now and then. What should she say now? She could not say: Did he have a coat the day you saw him? That would be a complete give-away.

“He sounds interesting,” she said, at last. “Mustard, please,” to Bill. “I should like to meet him. But I suppose he is at the other end of the county by now. What day did you see him?”

“Lemme see. I picked him up outside Dymchurch and dropped him near Tonbridge. That was a week last Monday.”

So it hadn’t been Harrogate. What a pity! He had sounded so hopeful a subject, with his desire for coats and boots, his wandering ways, and his friendliness with lorry-drivers who get a man away quickly from possibly unfriendly territory. Oh, well, it was no good imagining that it was going to be as easy as this had promised to be.

Bill set down the mustard by her plate. “Not Monday,” he said. “Not that it makes any difference. But Jimmy was here unloading stores when you went by. Tuesday, it was.”