The Australian lady appeared to be doing the woman at my table a favour. She said that she was returning the lime green purse that had dropped out of the other woman’s handbag. I, however, was unconvinced that this was true.

As she made to sneak off I grabbed her by the wrist, we grabbled for a couple of minutes, and I eventually pinned her to the ground. Meanwhile the owner of the green purse checked its contents and, sure enough, all the cash was missing.

Closer inspection of the thief revealed that “she” was in fact a “he”. His wallet, extracted from the inside pocket of his jacket, also showed that he was not Australian, but of Chinese nationality, and a former employee of Sun Microsystems.