Then I told him my story⁠—how I had come off an Archangel ship at Leith a week ago, and was making my way overland to my brother at Wigtown. I had run short of cash⁠—I hinted vaguely at a spree⁠—and I was pretty well on my uppers when I had come on a hole in a hedge, and, looking through, had seen a big motorcar lying in the burn. I had poked about to see what had happened, and had found three sovereigns lying on the seat and one on the floor. There was nobody there or any sign of an owner, so I had pocketed the cash. But somehow the law had got after me. When I had tried to change a sovereign in a baker’s shop, the woman had cried on the police, and a little later, when I was washing my face in a burn, I had been nearly gripped, and had only got away by leaving my coat and waistcoat behind me.

“They can have the money back,” I cried, “for a fat lot of good it’s done me. Those perishers are all down on a poor man. Now, if it had been you, guv’nor, that had found the quids, nobody would have troubled you.”

“You’re a good liar, Hannay,” he said.