er them.

Farland went up the steps, opened the door, and stepped inside the
lobby. He walked across to the mail boxes and began looking at the
names. He found some one named Gilbert had an apartment on the third
floor, front.

The stairs were before him, and Farland was about to start up them when
a door leading to the basement was opened, and a janitor appeared. He
was an old man, bent and withered, and he looked at Farland with sudden
suspicion.

"You want to see somebody in the house?" he asked, in a voice that
quavered.

"I want to see you," Jim Farland answered.

"What about, sir?"

Farland exhibited his shield, and the old janitor recoiled, fright
depicted in his face.

"I ain't done anything wrong, mister," he said hoarsely. "I obey all the
regulations about ashes and garbage and everything like that."

"Don't be afraid of me," Farland said. "I'm not accusing you of doing
anything wrong, am I? I can see that you're a law-abiding man. You
haven't nerve enough to be anything else. Suppose you step outside with
me for a few minutes. I just want to ask you a few questions about
something."

"All right, sir, if that's it," the old janitor said.

He opened the front door and led the way outside, and Farland forced him
to walk a short distance down the street, and there they stopped in a
doorway to talk.

"I'm going to ask you a few questions, and you are going to answer them,
and then you are going to forget that you ever saw me or that I ever
asked you a thing," Farland said.

"I understand, sir. I won't give away any police business," the old
janitor replied. "I know all about such things. I had a nephew once who
was a policeman."

"There's a party living in your place who goes by the name of Gilbert,
isn't there?"

"Yes, sir."

"How many are there in the family, and who are they, and what do you
know about them?"

"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 ja