‘Ow, come on Norman, it’s none of our business,’ and so forth, so I attracted his interest by taking out the fat little Banker’s Special revolver and spinning the cylinder, as though to check the load. This fascinated him, it was the Wild West come true.

‘You the police, then, eh?’

I chuckled fatly.

‘No, no. It’s a little more important than that,’ I said, in what he may well have taken for a Secret Service voice. ‘Have you seen or heard anyone else – on foot perhaps?’

‘No.’

‘Would you have noticed, do you think?’

‘Bloody right. I’m keeping me ear open for the young lady’s dad, ain’t I?’

‘Yes, of course. Quite right. Well, thanks for your help.’

I was almost at the car when he made a chirruping noise and beckoned me. I went back to him.

‘Funny you should ask that, mister. There’s a bugger in the field of taters behind us, just come in through the hedge. I can’t see him but I can hear him.’

‘Ow, Norman, it’s none of our business, etc.’

‘Belt up, daft cow.’ (How courtship has changed since our days, has it not?)

Norman and I stole into the field and, sure enough, a bugger was, indeed, tip-toeing through the taters. When the time and place were ripe I swept his feet from under him and Norman dived. The man squealed, cursed foully, kicked and clawed. When we had subdued him he proved to be Jock’s domino-pupil, much chagrined: about five pounds’ worth as it turned out. I gave Norman a sweetener too, and he eagerly proffered his name and address in case I ever needed any more deeds of derring-do.

The domino-man and I arrived at La Gouluterie at the very moment when George’s Rover arrived with George and Sam, who had been picked up on the Route Militaire. Jock swept up on his Ariel before we had entered the house. Nothing to report, from anyone.

Except the doctor. He didn’t like any part of this; he was a measles-and-mumps man and his mask of professional confidence was slipping. Much of what he said was for Sam’s ear alone but we others could see Sam’s face twist and darken as he listened. The professional murmuring went on, while Sam ground his teeth. George looked detachedly into space and I fidgeted. It was not, as the children say nowadays, my scene at all.

The situation was so fraught that Sam almost forgot to give the doctor his ritual glass of brown sherry before speeding him off on some other errand of mercy. (He was probably an excellent chap, a credit to Apothecaries’ Hall, but I find it hard to trust doctors with large, unhygienic moustaches. ‘He that sinneth, let him fall into the hands of the Physician’, I always say.)