“What did you say, Mother?”

“I told him he ought to set a trap for that fox in the churchyard!”

“Why was that a hit, Mother?”

“Oh, you know! Anything about Redfern.⁠ ⁠… It bothered him that he couldn’t tell what I’d heard or what I hadn’t heard. As a matter of fact, Roger Monk told me there wasn’t a night he didn’t go rambling about. I don’t think anything of that. I like night-walking myself. But I knew it would be a hit!”

Wolf looked at his mother with frowning brows.

“But, Mother, Mother; don’t you ever take anything seriously?”

“I take my teashop seriously,” she said, with a mock-tragic air.