Mma Makutsi inserted a piece of paper into her typewriter and waited for Mma Ramotswe to dictate. The letter was not an interesting one—it was all about the tracing of a company accountant who had sold most of the company’s assets and then disappeared. The police had stopped looking for him but the company wanted to trace its property.

Mma Makutsi typed automatically. Her mind was not on the task, but her training enabled her to type accurately even if she was thinking about something else. Now she was thinking of Oswald Ranta, and of how they might trace him. The spelling of Ranta was slightly unusual, and the simplest thing would be to look the name up in the telephone directory. Oswald Ranta was a smart-looking man who could be expected to have a telephone. All she had to do was to look him up and write down the address. Then she could go and make her own enquiries, if she wished, and present Mma Ramotswe with the information.

The letter finished, she passed it over to Mma Ramotswe for signature and busied herself with addressing the envelope. Then, while Mma Ramotswe made a note in the file, she slipped open her drawer and took out the Botswana telephone directory. As she had thought, there was only one Oswald Ranta.

“I must make a quick telephone call,” she said. “I shall only be a moment.”

Mma Ramotswe grunted her assent. She knew that Mma Makutsi could be trusted with the telephone, unlike most secretaries, who she knew used their employers’ telephones to make all sorts of long-distance calls to boyfriends in remote places like Maun or Orapa.

Mma Makutsi spoke in a low voice, and Mma Ramotswe did not hear her.

“Is Rra Ranta there, please?”

“He is at work, Mma. I am the maid.”

“I’m sorry to bother you, Mma. I must phone him at work. Can you tell me where that is?”

“He is at the University. He goes there every day.”

“I see. Which number there?”

She noted it down on a piece of paper, thanked the maid, and replaced the receiver. Then she dialled, and again her pencil scratched across paper.

“Mma Ramotswe,” she said quietly. “I have all the information you need.”

Mma Ramotswe looked up sharply.

“Information about what?”

“Oswald Ranta. He is living here in Gaborone. He is a lecturer in the Department of Rural Economics in the University. The secretary there says that he always comes in at eight o’clock every morning and that anybody who wishes to see him can make an appointment. You need not look any further.”

Mma Ramotswe smiled.

“You are a very clever person,” she said. “How did you find all this out?”

“I looked in the telephone directory,” answered Mma Makutsi. “Then I telephoned to find out about the rest.”

“I see,” said Mma Ramotswe, still smiling. “That was very good detective work.”

Mma Makutsi beamed at the praise. Detective work. She had done the job of a detective, although she was only a secretary.