At this point Tommy felt it his duty to strike a more discouraging note.
“Calm yourself, Tuppence, and try and forget the cheap fiction you are in the habit of reading. Our clientele, if we have any clientele at all—will consist solely of husbands who want their wives shadowed, and wives who want their husbands shadowed. Evidence for divorce is the sole prop of private inquiry agents.”
“Ugh!” said Tuppence wrinkling a fastidious nose. “We shan’t touch divorce cases. We must raise the tone of our new profession.”
“Ye‑es,” said Tommy doubtfully.
And now a week after installation they compare notes rather ruefully.
“Three idiotic women whose husbands go away for weekends,” sighed Tommy. “Anyone come whilst I was out at lunch?”
“A fat old man with a flighty wife,” sighed Tuppence sadly. “I’ve read in the papers for years that the divorce evil was growing, but somehow I never seemed to realize it until this last week. I’m sick and tired of saying ‘We don’t undertake divorce cases.’ ”
“We’ve put it in the advertisements now,” Tommy reminded her. “So it won’t be so bad.”
“I’m sure we advertise in the most tempting way too,” said Tuppence, in a melancholy voice. “All the same, I’m not going to be beaten. If necessary, I shall commit a crime myself, and you will detect it.”
“And what good would that do? Think of my feelings when I bid you a tender farewell at Bow Street—or is it Vine Street?”
“You are thinking of your bachelor days,” said Tuppence pointedly.
“The Old Bailey, that is what I mean,” said Tommy.