I confessed that I was.
"It was the heading on your letter paper. What do you mean by 'confidential investigator'—a detective?"
"Something a little better than an ordinary detective, I hope."
She switched to another track. "Why did you write to me?"
This took me by surprise. "There was no reason—except what the letter said," I stammered.
Several other questions followed, by which I saw she was trying to get a line on me. I offered her references. She accepted them inattentively.
"It doesn't matter so much what other people think of you," she said. "I have to make up my mind about you for myself. Tell me more about yourself."
"I'm not much of a hand at the brass instruments," I said. "Please ask me questions."
This seemed to please her. After some further inquiries she said simply: "I wrote to you because it seemed to me from your letter that you had a good heart. I need that perhaps more than detective skill. I live in a blaze of publicity. I am surrounded by flatterers. The pushing, thick-skinned sort of people force themselves close to me, and the kind that I like avoid me, I fear. I am not sure of whom I can trust. I am very sure that if I put my business in the hands of the regular people it would soon become a matter of common knowledge."
Her simplicity and sadness affected me deeply. I could do nothing but protest my honesty and my devotion.