"I'll do whatever I can," I said. I inquired and made notes about names, addresses and phone numbers, where she worked, where her brothers worked, all of that. Then I printed my home phone number on one of my business cards and gave it to her. "You may call me here or at home whenever you please," I said.

"Thank you." She smiled her first smile, gratefully.

I placed her three hundred dollars into a drawer of my desk and said, "All right. Let's go."

"Go? Where?"

"I'd like to see your apartment. May I?"

"Yes, of course." She stood up. "You're very thorough, aren't you?"

"That's the way I work," I said.

* * *

It was on the fourth floor, walk-up, of a six-story, new-fashioned, re-modeled house. It was a tiny one-room apartment: small living room with one tiny closet, a tiny bathroom, and a tiny kitchenette. There was no window in the kitchenette, one window in the bathroom, and two windows in the living room — each window with a secure inside turn-bolt.

"Excellent," I said. "Did you have these bolts put on?"

"No. The former tenant."

"They're good bolts in fine working order." I nodded approvingly, continued my inspection. "I see there's no fire-escape."

"No need," she said. "They were eyesores that were removed when the house was re-modeled because they made it fire-proof."

But the lock on the door was utterly deficient. Simple and ancient, it did not require an expert to solve it, and the door itself carried no secondary protection: no bolt.

"This'll never do," I mumbled.

"Beg pardon?" she said.

"Look, I don't know who's been visiting you, ghost or no ghost, but anyone can get in here with any old key, and a picklock can make this doorlock do somersaults. This has got to go."

"Go?" she inquired. "Go?"