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following week.
    The following week they reported for work. I showed them the garage at the back of the house, and gave them the ignition key so that they could move the car out into the mews and use the hose on it.
    An hour or so later, I went out to see how they were getting on. I found the car gone.
    I did not call the police then. The young men had left their cleaning materials there. I did not know how long the car had been gone. They might just, at that moment, have driven out on to the road in order to turn the car before putting it back into the garage—an unnecessary manœuvre, but, providing they didn’t do any damage, one that I didn’t object to.
    I walked to the main road. There was no car. I waited at the mews entrance for the best part of an hour before they returned. The car appeared to be undamaged. I was bothrelieved and annoyed. The driver said that he had gone to a shop to buy some polish. He could not produce the polish. When I asked if he had a driving licence, both of them scrambled out of the car and ran away. I still did not know how long they had had the car out, or where they had been. If the car had been involved in an accident, the insurance company would want to know who had been driving and if he had had my permission. I decided in the end that it would be sensible to telephone the police and tell them of the incident.
    A detective-sergeant came and took particulars. I gave a fairly precise description of the driver and an indistinct one of his companion. Some weeks later, I was asked to attend an identity parade at the local police station. I had seen the pair on three separate occasions and in broad daylight, but my only clear memory was of the one who had spoken to me, and also driven the car. I had told the police this. The parade was held at night, under electric lights in a police garage.
    As everyone who has ever been asked to make this kind of identification will know, it is an uncomfortable experience. Along with the wish to be helpful goes the determination not to make a mistake because of that wish. As you sit alone in the waiting room while the final preparations are made, you try to cast your mind back and clarify the relevant images in your mind’s eye. After a few minutes of this, you become convinced that you are really so unobservant that any identification you make is bound to be incompetent. You consider advising the police to call the whole thing off.
    A uniformed inspector was in charge of the parade, which seemed to be conducted according to a strict set of rules. There was a line of about twenty hatless young men standing on the far side of the garage and well away from the door by which I was brought in. At the door, the inspector asked me to go across the garage to the line, walk along it, and see if Irecognised ‘any of the persons standing there.’ He was no more specific than that. He suggested also that I looked at every man in the line, and that I did not hurry. Then, he and the one or two other uniformed men who were there moved well away and stood where I would not be able to see them while the parade was on.
    I walked over to the line and immediately recognised the driver standing somewhere near the centre. Nevertheless, I did as I had been asked, and walked slowly along the line from left to right. When I came to the driver, I took a long look at him to make quite sure. He stared through me as if he had never seen me before. I went on along the line. If the companion was there I did not recognise him. I walked back and stopped again in front of the driver.
    I said: ‘I recognise this young man.’
    The inspector came forward and asked me: ‘Where have you seen him before?’
    ‘Driving my car.’
    ‘Are you quite sure that this is the person?’
    ‘Quite sure.’
    Then the driver spoke: ‘Mr Ambler has made a mistake.’ It was said firmly and without indignation.
    I recognised the voice, too. Of course, I did not know his name then. For convenience