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,
when she married again so soon after father's death, and a man who was
nearly fifteen years younger than herself. Father was a plumber in the
Tottenham Court Road, and he left a tidy business behind him, which mother
carried on with Mr. Hardy, the foreman; but when Mr. Windibank came he
made her sell the business, for he was very superior, being a traveler in
wines. They got four thousand seven hundred for the good-will and
interest, which wasn't near as much as father could have got if he had
been alive."

I had expected to see Sherlock Holmes impatient under this rambling and
inconsequential narrative, but, on the contrary, he had listened with the
greatest concentration of attention.

"Your own little income," he asked, "does it come out of the business?"

"Oh, no, sir. It is quite separate, and was left me by my Uncle Ned in
Auckland. It is in New Zealand stock, paying four and half per cent. Two
thousand five hundred pounds was the amount, but I can only touch the
interest."

"You interest me extremely," said Holmes. "And since you draw so large a
sum as a hundred a year, with what you earn into the bargain, you no doubt
travel a little, and indulge yourself in every way. I believe that a
single lady can get on very nicely upon an income of about sixty pounds."

"I could do with much less than that, Mr. Holmes, but you understand that
as long as I live at home I don't wish to be a burden to them, and so they
have the use of the money just while I am staying with them. Of course
that is only