Gumshoeing is the doing: going around like a detective, trying to find things out. You follow people, ask quiet questions, look at papers, wait and watch. It comes from gumshoe, the slang word for a detective. It is informal, a little old-fashioned and a little funny — the kind of word a newspaper might use with a wink, not the word a lawyer would put in a report. People gumshoe when they are investigating something themselves, often in a slightly sneaky way, and not always as a real job. A missing cat, a cheating partner, a rumour at work: all of that can be gumshoeing. It names the looking and asking, not the person.