Now he would return to his other role—to the investigation of the errant Mr. Botumile. His last observation of this man had revealed nothing more than that he kept surprisingly bad company. But that was not the same thing as adultery, and it was a suspected affair that had brought Mma Botumile to the door of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. She wanted to know the identity of the woman whom she suspected her husband was seeing—a reasonable thing for a wife to want to know, thought Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni—and he was determined to find that out. What happened after that was another matter. Mma Botumile was a formidable person, and Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni did not envy the other woman any encounter that she might have with her. That was not really his business, though. At the most, he imagined that he or Mma Ramotswe might be asked to warn the girlfriend off, which was something that could be done quite tactfully. All that would be necessary, he thought, would be to tell her that Mma Botumile knew, and that Mma Botumile was not the sort of woman who would countenance her husband’s having an affair. A sensible girlfriend would then understand that a choice had to be made. She could fight for Mr. Botumile and prise him away from his wife, or she could find another man. What she could not do was to continue to be a rival to Mma Botumile while her husband was still with her.

It was almost on impulse that Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni went into the office to ask Mma Makutsi if he could borrow the agency camera. This camera had been bought at an early stage in the existence of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, in the belief that it would be necessary for the obtaining of evidence. Clovis Andersen had advised this, saying that while one cannot say that a camera never lies, it is hard to beat photographic evidence. Many is the time that I have personally confronted a malefactor with a photograph of himself engaged in something discreditable and said, “There, who’s that then? The Man in the Moon?” It was Mma Makutsi who had read this passage, been impressed, and suggested the purchase of the camera. She had hardly ever used it, but the camera, ready and loaded with film, sat on a shelf behind Mma Ramotswe’s desk, awaiting its moment.