"Do you always notice things like that?" asked the doctor.

"Not on purpose," said the amateur detective; "I can't help it. I see
ten things where other people see only one; just as some men run ten
times as fast as other men. We have tried it out often at the office;
put all sorts of junk under a newspaper, lifted the newspaper for five
seconds, and then each man wrote down what he had seen. Out of twenty
things I would remember seventeen. The next best guess would be about
nine. Once I saw a man lift his coat collar to hide his face. It was in
the Grand Central Station. I stopped him, and told him he was wanted.
Turned out he _was_ wanted. It was Goldberg, making his getaway to
Canada."

"It is a gift," said the doctor.

"No, it's a nuisance," laughed the reporter. "I see so many things I
don't want to see. I see that people are wearing clothes that are not
made for them. I see when women are lying to me. I can see when men are
on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and whether it is drink or debt or
morphine--"

The doctor snorted triumphantly.

"You did not see that the widow was on the verge of a breakdown!"

"No," returned the reporter. "Is she? I'm sorry."

"If you're sorry," urged the doctor eagerly, "you'll help her. She is
going to London alone to find her husband. He has disappeared. She
thinks that he has been murdered, or that he is lying ill in some