He did not notice the actions of the stenographer as he dictated:

"I, John Boland, am a business man. I stand on my record. I defy Miss Mary Randall--"

In pausing to formulate his thoughts, he became conscious that Miss Masters had not been taking his dictation; that she had laid an envelope on his desk directly in front of where he usually sat, and that she was putting on her hat.

"Here, hold on!" he cried peremptorily. "What does this mean, Miss Masters?"

"It means, Mr. Boland," she replied quietly, as she adjusted a hat pin, "that I have resigned. Good day."

When she started to leave Boland called out to her in amazement:

"Here--wait--why do you resign?"

"That letter on the desk will tell you," she said as she moved through the doorway. "Good day."

John Boland picked up the letter and opened it. He was dazed as he read aloud:

"I refuse to lend my aid to the owners of vice property. Mary Randall."

Boland stared into s.p.a.ce, while Harry exclaimed:

"Then Miss Masters is Mary Randall!"

"Murder, alive!" yelled Grogan. He slid down in his chair and attempted to conceal himself beneath the desk.

John Boland's hands trembled as he clutched the letter.

"Mary Randall," he said, still dazed. "By all that's holy! That girl Mary Randall!"

CHAPTER XVII

THE CAFE SINISTER

The Cafe Sinister stands like a gilded temple at the entrance to Chicago's tenderloin. The fact is significant. The management, the appearance, the policy, if you please, of the place are all in keeping with this one potent circ.u.mstance of location. The Cafe Sinister beckons to the pa.s.serby. It appeals to him subtly with its music, its cheap splendor, its false gayety. To the sophisticated its allurements are those of the scarlet woman, to the innocent its voice is the voice of Joy.

Two pillars of carved gla.s.s, lighted from the inside by electricity, stand at the portal. Within a huge room, filled with drinking tables sparkling with many lights, gleaming and garish, suggests without revealing the enticements of evil.

This is the set trap. Above is that indispensable appurtenance to the pander's trade--the private dining room. Above that is what, in the infinite courtesy of the police, is called a hotel. And behind and beyond lies the Levee itself--naked and unashamed, blatantly vicious, consuming itself in the caustic of its own vices.

To the trained observer of cities the words: "All hope abandon, ye who enter here," are written as plainly over the door of the Cafe Sinister as if it were that other portal through which Dante pa.s.sed with Beatrice.

But the unlearned in vice cannot read the writing. By thousands every year they enter joyously and by thousands they are cast out into the Levee, wrecked in morals, ruined in health, racked by their own consciences.

The Cafe Sinister is not an inst.i.tution peculiar to Chicago. Every great city in America possesses one. It is the place through which recruits are won to the underworld. It is the entrance to the labyrinth where lost souls wander. Viewed from its portal it is the Palace of Pleasure; seen from behind, through those haggard eyes from which vice has torn away the illusions of innocence, it is the Saddest Place in the World.

Druce owned the Cafe Sinister with Carter Anson; their lease was written for them by John Boland. Thus the upper world and the under were leagued for its maintenance. And though the press might shriek and the pulpit thunder the combination and the Cafe Sinister went on forever.

These three men had been drawn together by a common characteristic. Their consciences were dead. That atrophy of conscience made them all worshipers of the same idol--money. The motives that propelled each of the three to the altar were as diverse as their separate natures, but the sacrifice that each offered to the Moloch was the same--their souls.

Having forfeited by their deeds the thing that made them men, the three shrunk to the moral stature of animals. Boland was the tiger, brooding over the city with yellow eyes, seeking whom he might devour. Druce was the wolf; cunning, ruthless, prowling. Anson was the mastiff; savage, brutal, given to wild bursts of rending pa.s.sion. Love of power lashed Boland to his crimes; lechery prompted Druce in his prowlings; and whisky was the fire that smouldered under Anson's brutalities.

On an afternoon in June Druce and Anson sat together in conference in one of the little booths of the Cafe Sinister's main dining room. The cafe, after its orgy of the night before, was quiet. Waiters, cat-footed and villain faced, gathered up the debris of the night's revel, slinking about their work like men ashamed of it. The sunlight peered dimly through the curtained windows; the air was heavy with the lees of liquor and the dead smoke of tobacco.

The two men sat facing each other. A gla.s.s of whisky was cupped in Anson's closed hand. His clothes, unbrushed and unpressed, flapped about his huge figure. His throat bagged with flabby dewlaps. His head was bullet-shaped, his eyes fierce, his mouth loose-lipped and brutal. He made a strange contrast to his companion. Druce was lithe, well made and gifted with a sort of Satanic handsomeness. He was immaculately dressed.

"It's fixed, I tell you," Druce was saying.

"Fixed, be d.a.m.ned," rumbled Anson. "I know Boland. Nothing's fixed with him until the lease is drawn and delivered."

"I say the thing's fixed," insisted Druce. "All we've got to do now is carry out our part of the agreement and I've completed all of the arrangements. We've got a week."

"I know," said Anson, unconvinced. "It's fixed and you've completed the arrangements. I'm from Missouri."

"Boland wants this girl, Patience Welcome, brought in here next Sat.u.r.day night," said Druce. "He has arranged that his pious pup of a son, Harry, shall be here the same evening. We are to manage it so that he will get the impression that the girl has been amusing herself with him, that she has been kidding him along and playing this tenderloin game on the side.

He's not to be allowed to talk to her. He'll see her--that will be enough. She's to come here to help her mother earn a little cash. I sent a fellow to hire the old woman to start here on Sat.u.r.day night as a scrub woman. She's agreed to keep that part of it quiet. Then I'll drag the other one in--mine, do you understand. We'll make young Boland think the whole d.a.m.ned Welcome family belongs to us. We can see to it that the Patience girl gets some glad rags and some dope when she gets here. She's seen me in Millville, so it's up to you, Anson, to sign her up at good pay as a singer--" He stopped significantly.

"Too complicated," was Anson's rejoinder. "Sounds good on paper, but it won't work, I tell you, it won't work. I don't like the way things have been going lately." He drained the whisky gla.s.s. "This vice commission and this crazy yap of a Mary Randall--"

"O, h.e.l.l!" interrupted Druce in disgust. "You've got it, too, have you?

Mary Randall! My G.o.d, you talk like an old woman!"

"I tell you--" Anson began.

"You can't tell me nothing. I'm sick and tired of framing stuff and then have you throw it down because you've lost your nerve and are afraid of a girl. I'm done, I tell you. If you think you can improve on my plans, go ahead. I'm through. I won't--"

Anson capitulated immediately. "Now don't get sore, Mart," he whined, "I know I'm no good on this frameup stuff. Maybe I am a little nervous. Go ahead with your plan--I guess it's the best one. Don't let's fight about it."

"All right," rejoined Druce. "Now that's settled. I'll handle this thing.

All you've got to do is keep your trap shut and stand pat."

The conversation was interrupted by the angry and maudlin exclamations of a girl. She had been sitting at a distant table half asleep. A porter had wakened her.

"I won't go home and sleep," she shrieked. "Keep your hands off me, you dirty n.i.g.g.e.r."

"Now what's the trouble?" demanded Druce of Anson.

"Swede Rose has been drunk all night."

"We've got to get rid of her. She's always pulling this rough stuff."

"Not now," warned Anson. "It's too hard to get new girls. When she's sober she's a wise money getter."

"d.a.m.n her," muttered Druce, "I don't like her anyway. She had the nerve to slap my face the other night because I wouldn't give her money for hop. As soon as this lease is signed I'm going down state. I'll bring back some new stock and then it's 'On your way' for that wildcat."

"Let me handle her," advised Anson. He got up and walked over to the table where the girl was having the altercation with the negro. She was still young, but drink and drugs had left ineffaceable lines upon her face. She was beautiful, even this morning after her night's debauch, for she possessed a regularity of feature and a fine contour of figure that not even death itself could wreck. Her disheveled hair showed here and there traces of gray. Her skin was a dead white, save where two pink spots blazed in either cheek.