Obviously that was lost on him, because some days later he called me. He asked me if I could help him. He said his agency had been requested by the husband of a famous Bengali actress to spy on her, because he suspected her of infidelity. The detective wanted to speak to her to get out the finer details but didn’t know how to approach her. He asked if I would interview the actress for our newspaper and try to ferret out the facts and pass on the information to the agency. He explained to me that the agency had various ways of getting information for their clients, including, according to him, many journalists who had helped him in the past by finding and sharing inside information on particular people. In return, the journalists get access to a rich source of information which detective agencies necessarily are, given their resources for covertly tracking a wide range of people and activities. I was appalled and at a loss for words for a time. Then I found myself giving him a didactic lecture about journalistic ethics. In the end, I told him that I couldn’t and — more importantly — wouldn’t do what he asked.