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.
"I am satisfied," she said at last. "Are you very busy at present?"
"Tolerably," I said with a busy air. It would never have done to let
her think otherwise.
"I would like you to take my case," she said with an enchanting note of
appeal, "but it would have to be on the condition that you attended to
it yourself, solely. I would have to ask you to agree not to delegate
any part of it to even the most trusted of your employees."
This was easy, since I didn't have any.
"You must, please, further agree not to take any steps without
consulting me in advance, and you must not mind--perhaps I might call
the whole thing off at any moment. But of course I would pay you."