Mma Ramotswe nodded. “Those letters,” she said, her voice still lowered. “Those threatening letters.” She paused. She had not intended to voice her suspicions to Mma Makutsi but now she felt that she had to. “He wrote them. It was Mr. Polopetsi.”

Mma Makutsi let out a cry of surprise. Immediately she put a hand to her mouth in a gesture that was halfway between incredulity and shock.

“Yes,” Mma Ramotswe continued, glancing over her shoulder in the direction of the garage. “When we were in the van I took his coat for him and another letter dropped out of his pocket. He said that he had picked it up and was going to give it to me, but he was very evasive. I could tell that what he said was not true.”

Mma Makutsi’s eyes showed her disbelief. “Surely not. Surely not him.”

Mma Ramotswe would have liked to agree. Surely it could not be the mild, inoffensive Mr. Polopetsi, but how could she ignore the evidence of her own eyes? “Well, the letter was in his pocket.”

Mma Makutsi shook her head. It was impossible, she argued. Mr. Polopetsi was simply not a man to write a threatening letter to anybody. “It would be like…be like being threatened by a…by a rabbit, Mma. Yes, by a rabbit. Rabbits do not write threatening letters.”

Mma Ramotswe had to smile at Mma Makutsi’s turn of phrase. Her assistant sometimes said extraordinary things, but every now and then she made some remark that described a situation beautifully. This was such a one. Mr. Polopetsi a rabbit…of course he was. But even if a rabbit were to write a threatening letter, might one not be frightened? After all, how was one to know that the letter came from a rabbit?

“I don’t know, Mma,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I think that it was him, but I can’t think why he should have done it. Why? What have we done to harm Mr. Polopetsi?”

Mma Makutsi shrugged, her initial surprise fading into indifference. She herself had not been frightened by that ridiculous letter, and if this was the problem that was worrying Mma Ramotswe, then Mma Ramotswe’s trouble was a minor one when compared with her own. “Ask him,” she said. “Just ask him whether he wrote them. See what he says.”