A Shilling for Candles

by Josephine Tey

‘He didn’t need a reason. I’m a Jew.’ ‘Oh, come, Mr Harmer! Do you ask me to—’ ‘Oh yes, you don’t have to say it all again. I know it by heart. England’s a country of complete tolerance. She makes no difference between races. It doesn’t matter to an Englishman what creed you believe in or what the shade of your skin is.’ He blew his breath expressively through his teeth.

‘Did it ever occur to you, Inspector, that you’re the only people who’ve really kept us out? Kept us in our place. That’s your pet expression, and that describes it. No mixing. No marrying. Infra dig to marry a Jew if he has less than a hundred thousand. And not so hot then. You’re the only country in the world where a Jew is unmistakable. A German Jew looks like a German as often as not, a Russian Jew looks like a Russian. The countries have taken them into themselves. But an English Jew looks like a Jew. And you call it tolerance.’

Weak people can be very stubborn.

Not that she missed the papers much. A matter of habit, didn’t Mr Sanger think? After three days without one, the desire to read a newspaper vanished. And really, one was happier without. Very depressing reading they made these days. In her little home she found it difficult to believe in so much violence and hatred.

Some were cranks (one saw the same faces at “anti” meetings and folk-dance revivals),