"No; for a business house in St. Louis. We formerly lived there."
"St. Louis is a pleasant city," commented Morgan. "Still, many people prefer Chicago."
"Oh, I think I should prefer to live in St. Louis, because I have a few friends there," she said. "But I am studying music, and when my mother died, father suggested that I live in Chicago where I could attend a better musical college. Then, too, father could get home more often as he travels in this vicinity."
"I suppose your father travels for some well known St. Louis house?" suggested Morgan.
"Well, really, I don't know the name of his firm," returned the girl. "Business has never held any interest for me."
It struck Morgan as strange that even a girl who did not take an interest in business should be ignorant of the name of the firm by whom her father was employed, yet he seemed to find many things that were contradictory in this girl. The chatty line of conversation he had taken was bringing out information in a manner highly satisfactory to Morgan. He was about to make another comment, that might elicit further facts, when he was interrupted by a question which he had been expecting.
"Tell me," inquired Miss Atwood, a slight color coming to her cheeks, "what this man Marsh said about me."
Morgan was pleased. This gave him an opening for some questioning which he had hesitated to take up before. He wanted to know just how much this girl knew about Marsh. "Don't you really know Mr. Marsh?" he began.
"No," she replied. "I didn't even know there was such a person in the house."
"Well, that is certainly strange. I'm sure that he told me to talk to the young lady on the top floor. Perhaps he meant some young lady who lived across the hall. Still, there doesn't seem to have been anyone there since the trouble."