may discriminate. When a woman has been seriously wronged by a man
she no longer oscillates, and the usual symptom is a broken bell
wire. Here we may take it that there is a love matter, but that the
maiden is not so much angry as perplexed, or grieved. But here she
comes in person to resolve our doubts."
As he spoke there was a tap at the door, and the boy in buttons
entered to announce Miss Mary Sutherland, while the lady herself
loomed behind his small black figure like a full-sailed merchant-man
behind a tiny pilot boat. Sherlock Holmes welcomed her with the easy
courtesy for which he was remarkable, and, having closed the door and
bowed her into an armchair, he looked her over in the minute and yet
abstracted fashion which was peculiar to him.
"Do you not find," he said, "that with your short sight it is a
little trying to do so much typewriting?"
"I did at first," she answered, "but now I know where the letters are
without looking." Then, suddenly realising the full purport of his
words, she gave a violent start and looked up, with fear and
astonishment upon her broad, good-humoured face. "You've heard about
me, Mr. Holmes," she cried, "else how could you know all that?"
"Never mind," said Holmes, laughing; "it is my business to know
things. 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 easy 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, 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 traveller in wines. They got ?700 for the
goodwill 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 4?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 ?0."
"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 just for the time. Mr. Windibank draws
my interest every quarter and pays it over to mother, and I find that
I can do pretty well with what I earn at typewriting. It brings me
twopence a sheet, and I can often do from fifteen to twenty sheets in
a day."
"You have made your position very clear to me," said Holmes. "This is
my friend, Dr. Watson, before whom you can speak as freely as before
myself. Kindly tell us now all about your connection with Mr. Hosmer
Angel."
A flush stole over Miss Sutherland's face, and she picked nervously
at the fringe of her jacket. "I met him first at the gasfitters'
ball," she said. "They used to send father tickets when he was alive,
and then afterwards they remembered us, and sent them to mother. Mr.
Windibank did not wish us to go. He never did wish us to go anywhere.
He would get quite mad if I wanted so much as to join a Sunday-school
treat. But this time I was set on going, and I would go; for what
right had he to prevent? He said the folk were not fit for us to
know, when all father's friends were to be there. And he said that I
had nothing fit to wear, when I had my purple plush that I had never
so much as taken out of the drawer. At last, when nothing else would
do, he went off to France upon the business of the firm, but we went,
mother and I, with Mr. Hardy, who used to be our foreman, and it was
there I met Mr. Hosmer Angel."
"I suppose," said Holmes, "that when Mr. Windibank came back from
France he was very annoyed at your having gone to the ball."
"Oh, well, he was very good about it. He laughed, I remember, and
shrugged his shoulders, and said there was no use denying anything to
a woman, for she would have her way."
"I see. Then at the gasfitters' ball you met, as I understand, a
gentleman called Mr. Hosmer Angel."
"Yes, sir. I met him that night, and he called next day to ask if we
had got home all safe, and after that we met him--that is to say, Mr.
Holmes, I met him twice for walks, but after that father came back
again, and Mr. Hosmer Angel could not come to the house any more."
"No?"
"Well, you know father didn't like anything of the sort. He wouldn't
have any visitors if he could help it, and he used to say that a
woman should be happy in her own family circle. But then, as I used
to say to mother, a woman wants her own circle to begin with, and I
had not got mine yet."
"But how about Mr. Hosmer Angel? Did he make no attempt to see you?"
"Well, father was going off to France again in a week, and Hosmer
wrote and said that it would be safer and better not to see each
other until he had gone. We could write in the meantime, and he used
to write every day. I took the letters in in the morning, so there
was no need for father to know."
"Were you engaged to the gentleman at this time?"
"Oh, yes, Mr. Holmes. We were engaged after the first walk that we
took. Hosmer--Mr. Angel--was a cashier in an office in Leadenhall
Street--and--"
"What office?"
"That's the worst of it, Mr. Holmes, I don't know."
"Where did he live, then?"
"He slept on the premises."
"And you don't know his address?"
"No--except that it was Leadenhall Street."
"Where did you address your letters, then?"
"To the Leadenhall Street Post Office, to be left till called for. He
said that if they were sent to the office he would be chaffed by all
the other clerks about having letters from a lady, so I offered to
typewrite them, like he did his, but he wouldn't have that, for he
said that when I wrote them they seemed to come from me, but when
they were typewritten he always felt that the machine had come
between us. That will just show you how fond he was of me, Mr.
Holmes, and the little things that he would think of."
"It was most suggestive," said Holmes. "It has long been an axiom of
mine that the little things are infinitely the most important. Can
you remember any other little things about Mr. Hosmer Angel?"
"He was a very shy man, Mr. Holmes. He would rather walk with me in
the evening than in the daylight, for he said that he hated to be
conspicuous. Very retiring and gentlemanly he was. Even his voice was
gentle. He'd had the quinsy and swollen glands when he was young, he
told me, and it had left him with a weak throat, and a hesitating,
whispering fashion of speech. He was always well dressed, very neat
and plain, but his eyes were weak, just as mine are, and he wore
tinted glasses against the glare."
"Well, and what happened when Mr. Windibank, your stepfather,
returned to France?"
"Mr. Hosmer Angel came to the house again and proposed that we should
marry before father came back. He was in dreadful earnest and made me
swear, with my hands on the Testament, that whatever happened I would
always be true to him. Mother said he was quite right to make me
swear, and that it was a sign of his passion. Mother was all in his
favour from the first and was even fonder of him than I was. Then,
when they talked of marrying within the week, I began to ask about
father; but they both said never to mind about father, but just to
tell him afterwards, and mother said she would make it all right with
him. I didn't quite like that, Mr. Holmes. It seemed funny that I
should ask his leave, as he was only a few years older than me; but I
didn't want to do anything on the sly, so I wrote to father at
Bordeaux, where the company has its French offices, but the letter
came back to me on the very morning of the wedding."
"It missed him, then?"
"Yes, sir; for he had started to England just before it arrived."
"Ha! that was unfortunate. Your wedding was arranged, then, for the
Friday. Was it to be in church?"
"Yes, sir, but very quietly. It was to be at St. Saviour's, near
King's Cross, and we were to have breakfast afterwards at the St.
Pancras Hotel. Hosmer came for us in a hansom, but as there were two
of us he put us both into it and stepped himself into a four-wheeler,
which happened to be the only other cab in the street. We got to the
church first, and when the four-wheeler drove up we waited for him to
step out, but he never did, and when the cabman got down from the box
and looked there was no one there! The cabman said that he could not
imagine what had become of him, for he had seen him get in with his
own eyes. That was last Friday, Mr. Holmes, and I have never seen or
heard anything since then to throw any light upon what became of
him."
"It seems to me that you have been very shamefully treated," said
Holmes.
"Oh, no, sir! He was too good and kind to leave me so. Why, all the
morning he was saying to me that, whatever happened, I was to be
true; and that even if something quite unforeseen occurred to
separate us, I was always to remember that I was pledged to him, and
that he would claim his pledge sooner or later. It seemed strange
talk for a wedding-morning, but what has happened since gives a
meaning to it."
"Most certainly it does. Your own opinion is, then, that some
unforeseen catastrophe has occurred to him?"
"Yes, sir. I believe that he foresaw some danger, or else he would
not have talked so. And then I think that what he foresaw happened."
"But you have no notion as to what it could have been?"
"None."
"One more question. How did your mother take the matter?"
"She was angry, and said that I was never to speak of the matter
again."
"And your father? Did you tell him?"
"Yes; and he seemed to think, with me, that something had happened,
and that I should hear of Hosmer again. As he said, what interest
could anyone have in bringing me to the doors of the church, and then
leaving me? Now, if he had borrowed my money, or if he had married me
and got my money settled on him, there might be some reason, but
Hosmer was very independent about money and never would look at a
shilling of mine. And yet, what could have happened? And why could he
not write? Oh, it drives me half-mad to think of it, and I can't
sleep a wink at night." She pulled a little handkerchief out of her
muff and began to sob heavily into it.
"I shall glance into the case for you," said Holmes, rising, "and I
have no doubt that we shall reach some definite result. Let the
weight of the matter rest upon me now, and do not let your mind dwell
