‘Oh, constable . . . thank goodness! There’s a crime being committed not far from here and I want you to arrest someone; two someones in fact. They’ve got an axe and are breaking up the very dressing table I’ve set my heart on. Only we’d best fetch my dad in case you don’t believe me.’ She tugged imperiously at the constable’s jacket. ‘Please, do hurry, or they’ll escape!’

The policeman was beginning to argue as they reached Sam and Glenys, and Sam, conscious that his daughter had a bee in her bonnet about the Huxtables, would have pooh-poohed her fears, but Glenys had never forgotten the wretched state the children had been in when she had first met them, and joined her voice to Mo’s. ‘I’d be very much obliged, constable, if you’d come with us, especially if Cyril Huxtable has an axe. He’s a dangerous man without one, but armed . . . I shudder to think what he might do.’

The policeman looked at Glenys’s earnest face and Mo’s frightened one, and nodded gravely. ‘Lead on, young lady,’ he said. ‘Maybe you’re right and maybe you’re wrong, but I do seem to remember the name Huxtable from somewhere, so if it really is him, I’ll take him in charge.’

When they got back to the farm, the whole story came tumbling out. Despite his initial objection Sam had agreed to accompany Mo, Glenys and the constable to the stable block and find out if Mo really had seen someone wielding an axe. ‘Though why anyone would want to destroy a nice little piece of furniture in this day and age, I can’t imagine,’ Sam had said. ‘It’s not as if the weather’s cold and the fellow needed kindling for his fire . . . ah, there’s the stable. In we go, constable.’

As they entered the tack room, two enquiring faces turned towards them, and Mo shrank back until she was half hidden by Glenys. The man began to speak, demanding angrily why they were all staring at him and his mother. ‘And if you want to know why I’m smashin’ this perishin’ dressing table, it’s to get at my wallet what I’d put safely away in the middle drawer for the journey home, only somehow the drawer got stuck and it’s got all my money in it.’ He turned to the old woman. ‘Ain’t that so, Ma?’

‘Oh, really?’ the constable said, with a world of disbelief in his tone. ‘That sounds a pretty thin story, Mr Cyril Huxtable.’

Cyril’s eyes fairly bulged. ‘Cyril Huxtable?’ he said, his voice vibrant with astonishment. ‘Who’s Cyril Huxtable? I ain’t never heard of no one by that name. What makes you think I’m him?’

Sam began to laugh. ‘I know this man,’ he said. ‘And his name’s certainly not Cyril Huxtable. He was a rating aboard my ship towards the end of the war. His name’s Ernie Beaver, and he and I had several run-ins, Mr Beaver not understanding the difference between yours and mine as regards rum rations and personal property. In fact he’s a thoroughly unreliable person whom the Navy will be glad to do without in future.’