As I walk along the Bois de Boulogne

With an independent __

You can hear the __ declare

He must be a __.

The handbag was whisked from her grasp before she’d even registered the footsteps behind her, and she was left standing open-mouthed as a young man ran down the slope towards the fair, stuffing her bag under his plum-coloured jacket as he went, glancing back at her and then slowing – actually slowing – to a casual stroll as he neared the striped shooting-booth at the perimeter.

‘Thief!’ she shouted, starting forward. ‘Thief!’ Her foot touched an object that rolled, and she looked down to see the miniature of whisky that had fallen from the bag as he’d tugged it away. She snatched it up – it was full, a decent weight, heavy enough to startle, too light to maim – and then she straightened, took aim and flung it side-arm, as if skimming a stone. The slope was in her favour; the missile maintained its height, kept its trajectory, and she was able to feel a split second of wondering pride in an unlost skill before a red-headed girl ran, laughing, from behind the booth, dodged round the thief and received the bottle full in the mouth.

‘I am really most dreadfully, dreadfully sorry,’ called Mattie, hurrying down the path. The redhead had been joined by a boy and the pair of them were kneeling, staring up at her in round-eyed disbelief, the boy pressing a handkerchief to his companion’s mouth.

‘You’re a bloody lunatic,’ said the boy.

‘Ooh fooh a oll a ee,’ said the girl.

‘That was accidental. I was aiming at a man who had stolen my bag and I would awfully like to—’ She stepped to one side and looked round the booth at the shifting crowd. ‘I really must try and catch him. As I say, I am enormously sorry. May I see?’ She reached towards the handkerchief and the girl jerked away.

‘Don’t touch her,’ ordered the boy.

‘I have myself been the recipient of a large number of superficial injuries, many of them deliberately inflicted. In the case of a blow to the mouth, the only worry is whether the teeth are broken or the outline of the lips transected.’

Momentarily, the girl lifted the cloth and Mattie glimpsed an upper lip the size of a frankfurter and a row of undamaged teeth.

‘Cold compress,’ she said, exiting round the tent. ‘No other treatment needed. Awfully sorry.’

For half an hour she hunted the fairground. It appeared that plum-coloured jackets were commonplace this season. She accosted four or five self-declared innocents before accepting that the thief was certainly long gone; there really was nothing further she could do.

The Flea was in the drawing room, taking down the Christmas cards, re-reading each one to ensure that she’d not missed a change of address, or an item of news that might require a note in the diary.