She opened the door and stood aside; Miss Mayfield stepped out, and as she set foot on the path, from the dark shadow of the holly tree a shadow moved and began to circle around her feet.

‘Well, how extraordinary! My cat. He must have followed me and waited, like a dog.’

‘Now, Miss,’ said Mrs Rigby in a light, rallying voice, ‘we can’t have you laying claim to my cat. Five years I’ve had him. Look, I’ll show you something. Hi, Vesper! Up, boy, up!’

The cat in one little movement jumped up and landed on her shoulder and stood there balancing, his four paws bunched together. Miss Mayfield looked straight into his greenish-amber eyes.

‘Well,’ she said slowly, ‘perhaps I was wrong to say “my” cat, but that is certainly the cat which spends a good deal of time with me.’

‘I suppose that is possible,’ Mrs Rigby said, in a voice which said the opposite. ‘But it’s a good long way, and right across the road, too.’ The cat nuzzled his head against her ear. ‘He’s my Vesper, though, my lovely boy, aren’t you, love?’

Something drew Miss Mayfield’s eye to the interior of the room. Ethel was sitting bolt upright on the sofa, her face, a paper-white mask of horror and repulsion.

Informed by the expression on Miss Mayfield’s face, Mrs Rigby then turned and said:

‘Oh dear, I’m sorry, Ethel. Wasn’t thinking.’ She lifted the cat down and set him on the path. ‘Ethel just can’t abide cats, but she loves rabbits. Funny, don’t you think? But I have to humour her.’

They said good evening to one another, and Mrs Rigby, having watched Miss Mayfield to the gate, closed the door.

‘Smut,’ said Miss Mayfield, addressing the cat by the unimaginative name which she had given him when Berta Creek said that so far as she knew he had no other. ‘Smut, come along home.’

It was her cat. He fell in beside and slightly behind her, his tail held high; and together they walked home through the level golden light.

6

‘WELL?’ MISS BENSON’S VOICE HAD A TEASING friendliness. ‘Did you discover the rack and thumbscrews?’

It was five minutes to nine on the following morning, and Miss Benson, carrying the big hymn-book, paused on her way to the piano to ask her question.

‘You tell me something first. How do you know I went to look for them?’

‘Elementary, my dear Watson. At five thirty-five, or so near as makes no matter, you were seen inquiring the direction of the Rigby cottage of one Gertrude Flack, Postmistress in this village. The said Gertrude Flack has a sister Ella, who is number one in Aunt Edith’s chain-gang of daily helps. She laid information about your movements – together with the kippers – on the breakfast table this morning.’