"Why do you ask?" Mrs. Douglas inquired in a tone that betrayed considerable relief.
"Because I can tell you something of her, I think."
"A friend of mine—a Mrs. Murray. Why?"
"Aren't you just a little bit afraid of—er—friends that you may chance to make in the city?" queried Constance.
"Afraid?" repeated the other.
"Yes," said Constance, coming gradually to the point. "You know there are so many detectives about."
Mrs. Douglas laughed half nervously. "Oh, I've been shadowed," she replied confidently. "I know how to shake them off. If you can't do anything else, you can always take a taxi. Besides, I think I can uncover almost any shadow. All you have to do, if you think you're being shadowed, is to turn a corner and stop. That uncovers the shadow as soon as he comes up to the corner, and after that he is useless. You know him."
"That's all right," nodded Constance; "but you don't know these crooked detectives nowadays as I do. They can fake up evidence to order. That is their business, you know, to manufacture it. You may uncover a six-dollar operative, Mrs. Douglas, but are you the equal of a twenty-dollar-a-day investigator?"
The woman looked genuinely scared. Evidently Constance knew some things she didn't know, at least about detectives.
"You—you don't think there is anything like that, do you?" she asked anxiously.