A few nights later I was summoned to an adjoining house where I again met Crespo and had a long talk with him alone. He asked me how much I expected to make in my new business. Without going into any of the details of my plans and giving myself the benefit of every doubt, I told him I ought to make fifty thousand dollars a year. He said he did not know whether he could pay me that much in salary but in one way and another he would see that I lost nothing if I would consent to stay with him. Through a visit to the United States shortly before he took the field for the presidency he had learned of the work of our Pinkertons, and had become impressed with the need of a secret detective force of his own. It was the same idea that Guzman had when I became his confidential agent, but Crespo wanted it worked out on a broader scale so that he could be kept advised as to the movements and plans of his most important enemies, and truthfully told of the fluctuations in public sentiment. He asked me to undertake the organization of a force of secret service agents, whom I was to employ and pay in my own discretion and for such time as I needed them, and I consented. A means of communication was established through an unused rear door to his private apartments at Santa Inez Palace, to which I was given a key, and I was to have access to him at any hour of the day or night. I told him, however, that our intimate relationship had best not be known, so that I could keep on friendly terms with all classes, and that I would openly criticise him, and even denounce him, whenever it served my purpose and his welfare.