"There is an old man, sir," the janitor answered. "He's a sort of cripple, I guess. He always sits in one of them invalid chairs, and when he goes out somebody has to wheel him. If he ain't exactly a cripple, then he's mighty sick and weak."
"Who else is in the family?"
"He's got a daughter, whose name is Miss Kate," the janitor said. "She's a mighty fine-lookin' girl, too. She's a nice woman, I reckon. 'Pears to be, anyway."
"Do you know anything in particular about her?" Jim Farland asked him.
"Well, she's been away for about three months, and she just got back," the janitor replied. "I don't know where she was—didn't hear. While she was gone, there was a man nurse 'tended to her father—cooked the meals and kept the apartment clean and took him out in his wheel chair. Miss Kate has a maid they call Marie—a big, ugly woman. She takes care of things generally when she is here, but she was away with Miss Kate."
"How long have they lived here?" Farland asked.
"About three years, sir. But I don't know much about them. They ain't the kind of folks a man can find out a lot about. They act peculiar sometimes."
"Are they rich?"
"My gracious, no!" said the old janitor. "They pay their rent on time, and they always seem to have plenty to eat, and I guess they can afford to keep that maid and hire a nurse once in a while, but they ain't what you'd call rich. But Miss Kate comes home in a big automobile now and then, and she seems to have a lot of clothes. There's something funny about it, at that."
"Think she isn't a decent woman?" Farland asked.