I bought a fire-proof document file for cases, and had some note-paper and cards printed in the same neat style:
B. ENDERBY
Confidential Investigator
You see I wished to avoid the sensational. I was not looking for any common divorce evidence business. Since I had enough to exist on, I was determined to wait for important, high-priced, kid-glove cases.
And I waited—more than a year in fact. But it was a delightful time! Fellows were always dropping in to smoke and chin. My little office became like our club. You see I had missed all this when I was a boy. Any youngster who has ever been speeded up in a big clerical office will understand how good it was. Meanwhile I studied crime in all its aspects.
I worked, too, at another ambition which I shared with a few million of my fellow-creatures, viz.: to write a successful play. I started a dozen and finished one. I thought it was a wonder of brilliancy then. I have learned better. In pursuance of this aim I had to attend the theatre a good deal, and from the top gallery I learned something about actors and actresses if not how to write a great play.
I mention the play-writing for it was that which brought me my first case. I used to haunt the office of a certain prominent play-broker who was always promising to read my play and never did. One afternoon in the up-stairs corridor of the building where she had her offices I came face to face with the famous Irma Hamerton.
Nowadays Irma is merely a tradition of loveliness and grace. Theatregoers of this date have nothing like her to rejoice their eyes. Then, to us humble fellows she stood for the rarest essence of life, the ideal, the unattainable—call it what you like. Tall, slender and dark, with a voice that played on your heartstrings, she was one of the fortunate ones of earth. She had always been a star, always an idol of the public. Not only did I and my gang never miss a show in which she appeared, but we would sit up half the night afterwards talking about her. None of us naturally had ever dreamed of seeing her face to face.
We met at a corner of the corridor, and almost collided. I forgot my manners entirely. My eyes almost popped out of my head. I wished to fix that moment in my life forever. Imagine my confusion when I saw that she was crying, that glorious creature!—actually the tears were running down her soft cheeks like any common woman's. Do you wonder that a kind of convulsion took place inside me?
Seeing me, she quickly turned her head, but it was too late, I had already seen them stealing like diamonds down her cheeks. I stared at her like a clown, and like a clown I blurted out without thinking:
"Oh, what's the matter?"