“Yes, yes,” urged Mma Ramotswe. “You can leave those lists for a while. It will do us both good to get downtown and do some shopping. And maybe we’ll have some ideas while we’re about it. I always find that shopping clears the head, don’t you agree, Mma?”

“And it clears the bank account,” joked Mma Makutsi as she closed the file in front of her. “This Mr Cedric Disani must have done a bit of shopping—you should see how much he owes.”

“I knew a lady of that name once,” said Mma Ramotswe. “She was a very fashionable lady. You used to see her in very expensive clothes. She was a very fancy lady.”

“That will be his wife,” said Mma Makutsi. “The lawyers told me about her. They said that Mr Disani put a lot of things in her name so that his creditors cannot touch them. They said that she still drives around in a Mercedes-Benz and wears very grand clothing.”

Mma Ramotswe made a clucking sound of disapproval. “Those Mercedes-Benzes, Mma—have you noticed how whenever we come across them in our line of work they are driven by the same sort of people? Have you noticed that, Mma?”

Mma Makutsi replied that she had. “I would never get a Mercedes-Benz,” she said. “Even if I had the money. They are very fine cars, but people would talk.”

Mma Ramotswe, halfway to the door, paused and looked at Mma Makutsi. “You said Even if I had the money, Mma. Do you realise that?”

Mma Makutsi looked blank. “Yes,” she said. “That is what I said.”

“But, Mma,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Don’t you realise that now you could have a Mercedes-Benz if you wanted one? Remember who you’re going to marry. Phuti Radiphuti is very well off with that Double Comfort Furniture Shop of his. Yes, he is well off—not that I really like the furniture that he sells in that shop, Mma. Sorry to say that, but it’s not really to my taste.”

Mma Makutsi looked at Mma Ramotswe for a moment, and swallowed hard. It had not occurred to her that Mr J.L.B. Matekoni might fail to inform her of his purchase of the new chair, but now it struck her that this was precisely what had happened. And when he eventually came to explain that he had bought a chair, he would reveal, no doubt, that she had taken him there and had encouraged him to make the purchase. She was uncertain as to whether she should tell Mma Ramotswe herself; whether she should make a clean breast of it, or whether she should let matters take their natural course.

“So you would never buy a chair there?” she asked innocently. “Not even if it was on sale? Say, fifty per cent off?”