"Now, we'll have to have a bit of writing."

"No writing for mine," retorted Druce. "This check is plenty."

"Oh, Mr. Druce," Miss Masters spoke appealingly. "You don't think that's fair, do you? You've got my check."

"I guess it's you that's not trusting me now," said Druce.

"But you admit yourself that you may not deliver."

"No I don't. I will deliver."

"But this isn't business."

"It's the way we do this kind of business in Chi."

Miss Masters got up from the table, as if exasperated.

"Look here, Mr. Druce," she said. "How can signing an agreement covering this sale hurt you? Oh, what a lot of cowards you 'live stock dealers'

are! Can't you see that if you sign this agreement with me I'm incriminated as well as you are? The Mann act gets the buyer as well as the seller."

"Well, what's the agreement?"

"It says simply this: 'In consideration of $1,000 I agree to deliver two days from date the following girls'--I'll write in their names--'to Miss Masters.'"

"You're not trying to put anything over?"

"Did it ever strike you that by selling these girls to me you'd have John Boland where you wanted him?"

"Boland?"

"I'm his agent."

"All right." Druce s.n.a.t.c.hed up the paper and read it. "Write in the names." Miss Masters wrote the names of six girls into the doc.u.ment. She handed it back to Druce and picked up a pen.

"Just a moment," she said, giving him the pen. "It's dark here. I'll raise the curtain."

She stepped quickly across the room and adjusted the curtain so that the sunlight fell full across Druce as he signed his name to the agreement.

As he finished the last stroke he heard a faint "click."

"What was that?" he demanded anxiously.

"The curtain caught on the window latch," replied Miss Masters. She picked up the agreement and blotted the signature. "Thank you," she said, "now I've got something for my $1,000."

Druce laughed uneasily. The maid, Anna, entered from an adjoining apartment. Druce realized uncomfortably that the interview was over.

"Well," he said, going to the door and smiling sentimentally at Miss Masters, "so long. See you later."

"Yes," replied Miss Masters in a tone he didn't just like, "I'll see you later."

CHAPTER XXI

DRUCE PROVES A TRUE PROPHET

Sat.u.r.day night begins at the Cafe Sinister at nine o'clock. At that hour the twin columns of gla.s.s at its portal are lighted and the Levee pours the first of its revelers into the s.p.a.cious ground floor drinking room.

The orchestra strikes up the first of its syncopated melodies; the barkeepers arrange their polished gla.s.ses in glittering rows; the waiters, soft-footed and watchful, take their places at their appointed stations.

The revelers come in an order regulated by inexorable circ.u.mstance. In the van are the women with the professional escorts, haggard creatures who have served their time in the district and who are on the brink of that oblivion which means starvation and slow death. Youth and health have flown and now no paint nor cosmetic can cloak their real character.

They must come early because their need of money is bitter and a watchful eye for opportunity must take the place of the physical allurement that once made life in the tenderloin so easy. They sink into their seats and wait, contemptuous of their escorts, and yet pitifully dependent upon them. For without the escorts they cannot enter the Cafe Sinister. That is a tribute which the rulers of the tenderloin, through them, pays tribute to the majesty of the law.

A group of hardened rounders follows. These are men to whom the Cafe Sinister and the district have become a habit. They bring with them women of their own kind--women who, through years of dissipation, have still, like misers, managed to h.o.a.rd some trace of bloom. They drink deeply, for the men are spenders. The wine flows free and the talk grows loud.

Occasionally a man quarrels profanely with his companion and a soft-footed waiter with a thug's face whispers him to sullen silence.

An hour flies by. Now the Levee, roused from its sodden, day-long slumber, is wide awake. The way between the twin pillars at the Cafe Sinister's entrance is choked with the flood of merry-makers. These newcomers are not so easy to cla.s.sify as their predecessors. They are the crowd from the street,--the thief with his girl pal, eager to spend the plunder of their last successful exploit; the big corporation's entertainer, out to show a party of country customers the sights of a great city; the visitor from afar, lonely and seeking excitement; the man about town, the respectable woman who with a trusted male confidant seeks shady and clandestine amus.e.m.e.nt; college students with unspoiled appet.i.tes off for a lark; women of the district still new enough to the life of vice to find pleasure in its excitements; periodical drinkers out for a night of it; clerks, cashiers, bookkeepers, schoolboys and roues.

And here and there, weaving in and out through this heterogeneous mob lurks the pander seeking for his prey--the ignorant young girl, trembling on the verge of her first step into the depths, the little lost sister of tomorrow.

By ten o'clock the merry making in the Cafe Sinister had attained the vociferousness of a riot. As the swift-footed waiters pa.s.sed more and more liquor about, the voices of the speakers rose higher and higher. At last the orchestra itself could scarcely be heard. The singers, half maudlin themselves, and knowing they could not be heard above the universal din, abandoned harmony and resorted to shouts and suggestive gyrations. A woman fell helplessly into the arms of her escort who, gloating, winked knowingly at a male companion. Another drunkenly attempted to dance and was restrained by the waiters. An elderly reprobate, convoying two unsteady young girls, importuned Druce for one of his private dining rooms.

Druce and Anson watched over the revelers and directed the entertainers.

"The Mastiff," comfortably full of his favorite liquor, whisky, glowered on the crowd with as near an aspect of good nature as he was able to muster. Druce, who knew his own success in business was due to alertness of mind and who was almost an ascetic in the matter of drink, was no less at peace with the world.

"Money in that crowd," rumbled the huge Anson.

"Yes," replied Druce, "business is mighty good."

"How about our lease?"

"The blow-off comes tonight."

"You're sure of your plans?"

"I am, if young Boland shows up."

"Well, he'll be here?"

"Yes, I wrote him an anonymous letter telling him if he wanted to see his girl, he could find her singing at the Cafe Sinister."

"That ought to fetch him. How about the old man?"

"He sent me word today that he'd be here and that he'd dropped hints to the son he'd heard some bad stuff about the girl."

"You haven't talked to him?"

"No; I got my orders. I stayed away."