Perhaps I have trained myself to see what others overlook. If not, why
should you come to consult me?"

"I came to you, sir, because I heard of you from Mrs. Etherege, whose
husband you found so easily when the police and everyone had given him up
for dead. Oh, Mr. Holmes, I wish you would do as much for me. I'm not
rich, but still I have a hundred a year in my own right, besides the
little that I make by the machine, and I would give it all to know what
has become of Mr. Hosmer Angel."

"Why did you come away to consult me in such a hurry?" asked Sherlock
Holmes, with his finger tips together, and his eyes to the ceiling.

Again a startled look came over the somewhat vacuous face of Miss Mary
Sutherland. "Yes, I did bang out of the house," she said, "for it made me
angry to see the easy way in which Mr. Windibank--that is, my father--took
it all. He would not go to the police, and he would not go to you, and so
at last, as he would do nothing, and kept on saying that there was no harm
done, it made me mad, and I just on with my things and came right away to
you."

"Your father?" said Holmes. "Your stepfather, surely, since the name is
different."

"Yes, my stepfather. I call him father, though it sounds funny, too, for
he is only five years and two months older than myself."

"And your mother is alive?"

"Oh, yes; mother is alive and well. I wasn't best pleased, Mr. Holmes,