“I’m sure you’re mistaken.”

“It is not my habit, Miss Kettle, to mistake the wanton extravagances of infatuated humankind. Look, if you will, at Cartarette’s associates. Look, if your stomach is strong enough to sustain the experience, at Commander Syce.”

“Good gracious me, what has the poor Commander done!”

“That man,” Mr. Phinn said, turning pale and pointing with one hand to the mother-cat and with the other in the direction of the valley, “that intemperate filibuster, who divides his leisure between alcohol and the idiotic pursuit of archery, that wardroom cupid, my God, murdered the mother of Thomasina Twitchett.”

“Not deliberately, I’m sure.”

“How can you be sure?”

Mr. Phinn leant over his garden gate and grasped the handlebars of Nurse Kettle’s bicycle. The tassel of his smoking cap fell over his face and he blew it impatiently aside. His voice began to trace the pattern of a much-repeated, highly relished narrative.

“In the cool of the evening Madame Thoms, for such was her name, was wont to promenade in the bottom meadow. Being great with kit, she presented a considerable target. Syce, flushed no doubt with wine, and flattering himself he cut the devil of a figure, is to be pictured upon his archery lawn. The instrument of destruction, a bow with the drawing-power, I am told, of sixty pounds, is in his grip and the lust of blood in his heart. He shot an arrow in the air,” Mr. Phinn concluded, “and if you tell me that it fell to earth he knew not where, I shall flatly refuse to believe you. His target, his deliberate mark, I am persuaded, was my exquisite cat. Thomasina, my fur of furs, I am speaking of your mama.”

The mother-cat blinked at Mr. Phinn and so did Nurse Kettle.

“I must say,” she thought, “he really is a little off,” and since she had a kind heart, she was filled with a vague pity for him.