“You did the right thing,” said Mma Ramotswe. Clovis Andersen, in The Principles of Private Detection, advised that it could look just as odd to distance oneself unnaturally from the object of one’s attention as to come too close. Neither too near nor too far, he wrote. That’s what the Ancients called the golden mean, and they were right—as always! She had wondered who these ancients were; whether they were the same people whom one called the elders in Botswana, or whether they were somebody else altogether. But the important thing was that Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, who had never read The Principles of Private Detection, should have done just the right thing without any specialist knowledge. This only went to show, she decided, that much of what was written in The Principles of Private Detection was simply common sense, leading to decisions at which one could have anyway arrived unaided.

Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni accepted the compliment graciously. “Thank you, Mma. Well, there I was sitting at the table, so close to Charlie Gotso that I could see the place on his neck where he has a barber’s rash—rough skin, Mma, like a little ploughed field. And there were flecks on his collar from the blood.”

Mma Ramotswe made a face. “Poor man.”

Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni looked at her in surprise. “He is no good, that man.”

“Of course not,” Mma Ramotswe corrected herself. “But I would not wish anybody to be uncomfortable, would you, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni?”

He thought for a moment, and then agreed. He did not wish misfortune on anybody, he decided, even if they deserved it. Mma Ramotswe was undoubtedly right about that, even if she was inclined to be a little bit too generous in her judgements.

“They started to talk, and I pretended to be very interested in reading the menu which the waiter had brought me.” He laughed. “I read about the price of a Castle lager and about the various sorts of sandwich fillings. Then I read it all again.

“In the meantime, I was listening as closely as I could to what they were saying. It was a bit hard, as there was somebody sitting nearby who was laughing like a donkey. But I did hear something.”

Mma Ramotswe frowned. “Excuse me, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni,” she said. “But why were you listening to them? Where was the woman?”

“What woman?” asked Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni.

“The woman with whom Mr. Botumile is having an affair,” Mma Ramotswe replied. “That woman.”