Mma Makutsi could see that. She had been stolen from when she was at the Botswana Secretarial College. Somebody in the class had taken her purse, which contained all her money for that week, which was not very much anyway, but which was needed, every thebe of it. Once that was gone, there was no money for food, and she would have to depend on the help of others. Did the person who took the purse know that? Would that person care if he or she knew that the loss of the money would mean hunger?

“It always hurts,” she said. There had been two days of hunger because she had been too proud to ask, and then a friend, who had heard what had happened, had shared her food with her.

Mma Makutsi folded her hands; they would have to progress from these observations on the human condition to the business in hand. “You would like me to find out who is doing this?” She paused and stared at Teenie with a serious look; it would be best for her to know that these things were far from easy. “When something is being stolen by somebody on the inside,” she said, “it is not always easy. In fact, it can be very hard to discover who is doing it. We have to look at who’s spending what, at who’s living beyond their means. That’s one way. But it can be hard…”

Teenie interrupted her. The pleading look now became something more confident. “No, Mma,” she said. “It will not be hard. It will not be hard because I can tell you who is doing it. I know exactly who it is.”

Mma Makutsi could not conceal her surprise. “Oh yes?”

“Yes. I can point to the person who’s stealing. I know exactly who it is.”

Well, thought Mma Makutsi, if she knows who is responsible, then what is there for me to do? “So, Mma,” she said. “What do you want me to do? It seems that you have already been a detective.”

Teenie took this in her stride. “I cannot prove anything,” she said. “I know who it is, but I have no proof. That is what I want you to find for me. Proof. Then I can get rid of that person. The employment laws say: proof first, then dismissal.”

Mma Makutsi smiled. Clovis Andersen in The Principles of Private Detection had something to say about this, she recalled—as had Mma Ramotswe. You do not know anything until you know why you know it, he had written. And Mma Ramotswe, who had read the passage out to Mma Makutsi with an admonitory wagging of her finger, had qualified this by saying that although this was generally true, sometimes she knew that she knew something because of a special feeling that she had. But what Clovis Andersen said was nonetheless correct, she felt.