Mr J.L.B. Matekoni stood back as Mma Ramotswe showed the children round the house. Everything that he had felt about her was, in his mind, now confirmed beyond doubt. Obed Ramotswe, her father, who had brought her up after the death of her mother, had done a very fine job. He had given Botswana one of its finest ladies. He was a hero, perhaps without ever knowing it.

While Mma Ramotswe was preparing lunch for the children, Mr J.L.B. Matekoni telephoned the garage to check that the apprentices were managing to deal with the chores with which he had left them. The younger apprentice answered, and Mr J.L.B. Matekoni knew immediately from his tone that there was something seriously wrong. The young man’s voice was artificially high and excited.

“I am glad that you telephoned, Rra,” he said. “The police came. They wanted to speak to you about your maid. They have arrested her and she has gone off to the cells. She had a gun in her bag. They are very cross.”

The apprentice had no further information, and so Mr J.L.B. Matekoni put down the receiver. His maid had been armed! He had suspected her of a great deal—of dishonesty, and possibly worse—but not of being armed. What was she up to in her spare time—armed robbery? Murder?

He went into the kitchen, where Mma Ramotswe was boiling up squares of pumpkin in a large enamel pot.

“My maid has been arrested and taken off to prison,” he said flatly. “She had a gun. In a bag.”

Mma Ramotswe put down her spoon. The pumpkin was boiling satisfactorily and would soon be tender. “I am not surprised,” she said. “That was a very dishonest woman. The police have caught up with her at last. She was not too clever for them.”

MR J.L.B. Matekoni and Mma Ramotswe decided that afternoon that life was becoming too complicated for both of them and that they should declare the rest of the day to be a day of simple activities, centred around the children. To this end, Mr J.L.B. Matekoni telephoned the apprentices and told them to close the garage until the following morning.

“I have been meaning to give you time off to study,” he said. “Well, you can have some study time this afternoon. Put up a sign and say that we shall reopen at eight tomorrow.”

To Mma Ramotswe he said: “They won’t study. They’ll go off chasing girls. There is nothing in those young men’s heads. Nothing.”

“Many young people are like that,” she said. “They think only of dances and clothes, and loud music. That is their life. We were like that too, remember?”