But how could she say “when we set up the agency…”? I set up the agency, Mma Ramotswe thought, and although I don’t expect credit, nor would I ever fish for compliments, the simple historical truth was that Mma Makutsi had come to ask for her job after the agency had been established. And she was in those days a secretary in the old-fashioned sense of the word. Secretaries had promoted themselves to something different these days and it seemed as if there were no secretaries any more. Mma Ramotswe was not one of those people who believed in holding people back—anything but—yet she felt that there was a role for secretaries, and it was a good and honourable one, and she did not see why people should be so keen to stop being a secretary and become something else.

“We’ve expanded,” went on Mma Makutsi. “To begin with it was just me and the other lady, but we were so busy that I thought we needed a bit of help. So we have a very charming man—a Mr. Polopetsi—who is a very scientific man, Mma, and he brought all those skills. And we have an office boy, Charlie, who is off on some errand at present…”

Office boy! Mma Ramotswe bit her lip. Charlie would be incensed by that description. He was, of course, very junior, but he still regarded himself as being a sort of apprentice detective, and to hear Mma Makutsi refer to him as an office boy would cause him immense distress. And as for describing her as “the other lady,” that was going just a little bit too far.

Mma Ramotswe reached for the door handle once more but again was stopped by what she heard.

“So you see, Mma,” Mma Makutsi was saying, “I am just the person to take on this enquiry of yours.”

She pushed the door open to see Mma Makutsi seated at her desk, with the client, a tall woman with long blonde hair, seated in the client’s chair in front of her. Each had a cup of tea in front of her.

“Ah,” said Mma Ramotswe, as briskly as she could. “You are already here. And I see that Mma Makutsi has been—”

Mma Makutsi did not let her finish. “This is Mma Ramotswe, Mma,” she said. “She is back now.”

The woman turned in her seat to greet Mma Ramotswe. Mma Ramotswe lowered her gaze in politeness; it was rude to stare, something that people from other cultures simply did not understand. They told their young children to look at old people when they spoke to them, but they did not do this in order to be rude—they simply did not know that a young person should not stare at a more senior person as if to issue a challenge.