CHAPTER XVIJOHN BOLAND MEETS MARY RANDALL
But Patience did not leave the office of the Lake City Electrical Company as quickly as she had hoped to do. She was intercepted by the young man, who deliberately placed himself between her and the door, effectually blocking the way.
He eyed the small figure in black with an inquisitiveness which was almost rude, attempting to peer through the meshes of the heavy veil, as he spoke to Miss Masters:
“I beg your pardon, I thought you were alone.”
Before she could reply a rasping voice called from the inner office:
“Oh, Harry, send Miss Masters in here, will you?”
“The Governor wants you, Miss Masters,” said Harry, his eyes still on Patience.
“I’m coming, Mr. Boland,” proclaimed the stenographer.
With only a glance at her companions, she made a detour of the desk in the center of the room and glided into the other office.
“I’m afraid Miss Masters may be kept busy for some time,” volunteered Harry kindly, “but if—if you care to wait—”
Patience only bowed her head and attempted to pass him; but she caught her breath quickly and her body swayed slightly, but perceptibly.
“I beg your pardon,” went on Harry, fencing for time.
Again endeavoring to pass him, she staggered and put out one hand to steady herself, which Harry clasped quickly.
“Let me help you,” he said.
She made a movement to release her hand as she recovered from the dizziness which had seized her.
“Better put up your veil, dear,” said Harry gently. “I’m sure it is you.”
“Please!” pleaded Patience. The word was scarcely audible.
“Put up your veil,” he persisted.
When she complied, he gazed into her deep, dark eyes and stroked her hand tenderly.
“Did you think I could be in the same room with you and not know you? Oh, my dear—”
“No, Harry, no!” protested Patience, withdrawing her hand.
“If you knew how long and patiently I’ve searched for you, I don’t think you could be so unkind.”
“It’s the only safe way,” she replied, stepping away from him and clutching the back of a chair.
“Why?” he asked as he went close to her again.
“Because—because—”
“Because you do really care for me and you’re fighting against yourself.”
“Please let me go,” begged Patience.
“No!” returned the young man stoutly.
“What shall I do?” she pleaded distractedly.
“Just turn around,” was the smiling retort, “and run straight into the arms of the man who loves you.”
“And bring trouble and sorrow on you? No—no—no!”
“I don’t understand.”
“Please don’t ask me,” she went on. “I’ve been through the deep waters of grief and suffering. Harry, I’ve been hungry.”
“Hungry!” exclaimed Harry. “Oh, my poor girl, you must let me—”
Patience shook her head slowly, sadly; an eager light of desire for his love and tender care illuminated her face.
“Do you love me?” pursued the young man fervently.
“You mustn’t ask me that—wait!”
“And lose you again?” He laid his hand on one of hers. “No; I want my answer now.”
A harsh, commanding voice interrupted them.
“Harry!”
Patience started and drew her hand from beneath the other’s touch as an elderly man came into the room.
“Governor!” exclaimed Harry, a little surprised, but entirely composed as he went on:
“Governor, I want you to meet the young lady who is to be my wife.”
“What!” ejaculated John Boland, scarcely believing his own ears.
“Miss Patience Welcome.”
“Welcome?” the older man turned his back to conceal the startled expression which came over his features.
“Yes. This is my good old dad, Patience,” said Harry, laying one arm affectionately about his father’s shoulders.
“Rather sudden, isn’t it?” demanded Boland, senior, in a sharp tone.
But Harry was accustomed to his father’s abrupt ways and gave no heed to the testiness of the query.
“No, Governor, I met Miss Welcome when I was in Millville.”
“Oh, yes,” hemmed John Boland, truculently unmindful of the introduction. “But just now get that contract off; Miss Masters is waiting.”
“All right,” assented Harry cheerfully. Then he turned to Patience. “I won’t be long, dear.”
Boland placed himself before his desk, covertly watching from beneath his shaggy, lowered brows until his son had disappeared. Then he cleared his throat and wheeled upon Patience without ceremony.
“Now, listen, Miss Welcome, you’re not taking this seriously, I hope.”
“No, Mr. Boland,” she replied, moving toward the door. “I’ve tried to tell Harry how impossible it is—that—”
“You’re a sensible girl,” he broke in bluntly. “As it happens, Harry is already engaged.”
The girl’s breath came in short, sharp gasps, but she managed to control her voice as she murmured:
“He is?”
“Yes.”
Boland placed his fingers in his vest pocket and drew out a fountain pen, the point of which he examined attentively. Patience felt that she ought to go at once, but somehow she couldn’t. She stood there trembling, scarcely knowing whether or not she should believe the other’s statement. She could not believe that Harry would do such an ignoble thing.
Boland glanced over his shoulder and saw her still hesitating on the threshold.
“Yes,” he repeated blandly. “He is going to marry the daughter of my business partner—a girl who will inherit half a million.”
He could see from the corner of his eye that the shot had told, but still Patience lingered, dazed.
“I—I see,” she faltered weakly.
“Now you go along like a good girl,” advised Boland, “and I’ll see that you are treated fairly.”
He opened a pretentious looking check book which lay on the desk.
“Just tell me how much you want and—”
“Nothing!” was the firm, decisive reply.
He eyed the girl critically as he remarked:
“You look as though ready money were a stranger to you.”
“It is—but I have a position with the Mining Company in this building.”
“I know them,” declared Boland thoughtfully. Patience made no comment. She went on proudly, drawing her figure to its full height:
“And I want nothing; I amgivingyou back your son, Mr. Boland, I am not selling him to you.”
He shrugged his shoulders and stared stupidly at the vacant doorway as he heard the girlish voice in the hallway, saying:
“Down, please.”
He closed his check book with a snap, and involuntarily fumbled about his well arranged desk, replacing a paper here and a contract there.
“Hum!” he mused, “I thought there was something wrong with Harry.”
The desk telephone rang sharply. He picked up the instrument and placed the receiver to his ear.
“Hello! hello!” he jerked out irritably. “Yes—yes, this is John Boland. Who wants me?”
His acute features contracted as he listened to the reply.
“Oh, Martin Druce,” he said. “Want to see me about the lease of the Cafe Sinister, eh?”
His mind worked rapidly while he again listened.
“All right,” he blustered finally, “all right, see you in fifteen minutes. Yes,—yes, here!”
He hung up the receiver and took a cigar from his pocket, thoughtfully biting off the end, as he muttered half aloud:
“Martin Druce, eh? Cafe Sinister—Ah!”
His lips ceased moving as he looked about him. He was still thinking deeply; then he struck a match and lighted the cigar at the glowing flame which he contemplated for a second before extinguishing it. With a look of one who has just solved a problem, he cast aside the charred ember and gritted:
“I guess so.”
He seized a sheet of paper and rapidly scratched a few words on its white surface, settling back comfortably in the big chair as Harry came in.
“All right, Governor,” called out the son; but he paused in astonishment when he saw that his father was alone. “Why—why, where’s Patience?”
“Miss Welcome had to go,—she said,” returned the other, calmly puffing his cigar.
“Didn’t she leave any word for me?”
“Yes, she said she’d see you again.”
“When?” asked Harry, impatiently. “Why, I don’t even know where she lives.”
“I thought of that,” replied his father, as he handed the memorandum slip to Harry, on which he had just written. “Here’s her address.”
Harry took the bit of paper gratefully, and looked at it.
“Why—”
“What’s the matter?” John Boland surveyed the wrapper of his cigar with keen interest, deftly closing a small broken place in it.
“This address!” exclaimed Harry.
“Well, what about it?”
“It’s in the lowest, most depraved section of the city.”
“Yes, I noticed that.”
Harry looked up at his father quizzically.
“You did?”
“Yes.”
“Governor,” began Harry pointedly, a new idea beginning to dawn upon him, “if you do not know that a great deal of your property is rented and used for the most immoral purposeshow do you know this address so well?”
“Why,” spluttered Boland, senior, “I—I’ve read the papers.”
“But this vile section of the city that you own has never been published.”
“Look here, Harry,” demanded his father, aggressively, “do you doubt my word?”
“I do,” was the firm reply.
“I’m your father,” he retorted angrily.
“You are,” agreed Harry, “but this is a matter of right and wrong, and you can’t fool me again as you have all these years.”
“I’ll show you who’s master,” threatened John Boland, grimly.
“It’s your privilege to try,” conceded the son with suppressed anger.
“Hold on—hold on,” hedged his father, apologetically, “don’t let’s get mad about it. Finish up that contract and then—”
“And then?”
Harry’s manner was alert, defensive, but wholly questioning.
“Then we’ll talk this over calmly.”
“All right, but Governor—” the young man turned at the door, grasping the contract inone hand as he put out the other warningly and pointed with his forefinger to the scrap of paper he had laid on the desk, on which was written Patience’s supposed address: “Let me give you a piece of advice. Don’t try to fool me.”
John Boland stood motionless for a moment looking after his son; then he clenched his hand and brought it down on the desk with a forcible thump, as he thought:
“I’ve got to do something—quick.”
“Well, made up your mind to see me, did you, Mr. Boland?”
Martin Druce’s suave voice recalled Boland from the revery into which he had lapsed.
“Yes,” he replied quickly, walking to the door through which Harry had gone and closing it.
“Now, don’t talk,” he commanded as he returned to his desk. “Listen! You and Anson want a renewal of the lease for the Cafe Sinister, don’t you?”
“Sure,” responded Druce, affably. “And I suppose you’ll raise the rent on us.”
“No,” replied Boland, shaking his head.
“Eh?”
“Not if you’re smart.”
“I don’t get you,” announced Druce inquiringly, as he seated himself on the edge of the desk.
“My boy, Harry, thinks he is in love with a girl who has come to Chicago.”
“Yes, Mr. Boland, but I don’t see—”
“Now,” continued Boland, regardless of the interruption, “if Harry happened to see this girl in some questionable resort,—say, like Cafe Sinister—if he were tipped off that this girl would be there—”
“I get you.” Druce sprang to his feet; he was now keen and alert, like a hound on the scent. “Who’s the girl?”
“She’s got a position of some kind with the Alpha Mining Company on this floor,” replied Boland. “She’ll lose that tomorrow.”
“I’m on. What’s her name?”
“Patience Welcome!”
“What!” exclaimed Druce, with a sneering twist to the word.
“Do you know her?”
“Yes.”
“Well?” Boland gazed at him, anxiously awaiting the reply.
“About the lease?” veered Druce with cunning perception.
Boland hesitated and scrutinized the other closely. He was satisfied with what he saw stamped on Druce’s face, but he only said pointedly:
“I always make good when a man delivers the goods. Now get out—I’m busy.”
“On my way,” returned Druce easily, as he sauntered to the door, but he turned there, saying significantly:
“I’ll deliver the goods,—don’t worry.”
John Boland sighed contentedly as he watched Druce go. Then he muttered:
“There, I guess I—”
“All right, Mr. Boland,” rang out a clear feminine voice, as Miss Masters came from the inner office. “That contract is all ready.”
“Oh, Miss Masters!”
“Yes, Mr. Boland,” she replied in saccharine tones.
“Make out a lease for that property in South Twelfth street.”
“For the Cafe Sinister, John?” inquired Michael Grogan, who had followed Miss Masters into the main office. “You’re crazy.”
“Oh, shut up, Mike,” snapped Boland. “What ails you, anyway?”
“I’ve been reading the last edition,” replied Grogan, lugubriously. “Mary Randall has had special officers sworn in at her own expense to help her make raids. She’s put goose flesh all over me.”
“Let me see it.”
Boland took the paper which Grogan was fingering nervously.
“Take it,” said the Irishman. “It’s a live coal.”
The other glanced over the sheet and threw it on the desk.
“Get busy on that lease, Miss Masters,” he commanded.
“Just a moment, Governor,” interrupted Harry, who had overheard the conversation as he came in. “If you lease that property to that hound, Anson, you and I are through.”
“What?” exclaimed John Boland, astounded.
“It has come to a show-down,” went on Harry, with determination expressed in both his tone and manner, “and I’m damned if I’ll touch a cent of dirty money like that.”
“You’ve been reading the Mary Randall stuff, eh?” sneered his father.
“Yes. And she’s right. Now, you make your choice.”
“Hold on—hold on,” commanded the irate father. “Aren’t you forgetting that I own and control this Lake City Company—that you are—”
“No! I realize that,” retorted Harry, resolutely.
“All right!” Boland turned to Miss Masters grimly: “Make out that lease to Anson.”
“Then here,” said Harry quietly, as he wrote a few words on a sheet of blank paper and laid it on the desk; “here is my resignation as president of your Electrical Company, to take effectnow.”
“Harry!” protested his father.
“I’ll get my personal things together at once,” went on the young man, securing his hat from the rack.
“This has gone far enough,” rasped John Boland, springing to his feet. “I’ll show this Mary Randall there’s one she can’t scare.”
He paced nervously up and down the office, pausing finally beside his desk.
“Miss Masters, take an open letter from me to the newspapers.”
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 space, 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 XVIITHE 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 circumstance of location. The Cafe Sinister beckons to the passerby. 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 glass, 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 passed 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 institution 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 wildbursts of rending passion. 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 glass 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 damned,” 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 Saturday 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 Saturday night as a scrub woman. She’s agreed to keep that partof it quiet. Then I’ll drag the other one in—mine, do you understand. We’ll make young Boland think the whole damned 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 glass. “This vice commission and this crazy yap of a Mary Randall—”
“O, hell!” interrupted Druce in disgust. “You’ve got it, too, have you? Mary Randall! My God, 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 nigger.”
“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.”
“Damn her,” muttered Druce, “I don’t likeher 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.
“Here he comes,” called the girl, catching sight of Anson. “Good old Carter. Ans,” she went on, “chase this coon out of here; he won’t let me sleep.” Anson motioned the porter to keep his distance. “An’ say, Ans,” the girl went on, “gimme a quarter. I’m broke and I got to have some hop or die.”
Anson handed the negro a quarter without a word. The porter hurried out of the cafe.
“He wanted to chase me out,” the girl whimpered.
“Well, Rose,” Anson went on pacifically, “you’ve got to cut out this all night booze thing. You’re hurting the house.”
The girl looked up at the dive keeper with dull eyes.
“Hurting the house, eh?” she echoed. “What about me? Think I ain’t hurting myself? Say, it’s got so I’d rather be drunk than sober. I can’t stand to be sober. I always start thinking. Some of these days you’ll hear of me walking out of this place and making a dent in the lake—”
The negro returned with the drug. The girl seized it with trembling hands. While the two men stood and looked she drew a small lancet from the bosom of her dress, inserted its point under the skin of her white forearm and drove a few drops of the drug into the vein. The effect was instantaneous. She laughed loudly.
“Now, you get to bed,” ordered Anson.
“Bed, hell,” retorted the girl.
“I said get to bed.” Anson glowered at her.
“There’ll be a big night tonight, and—”
“You can’t give me no orders.”
Anson had held in his temper as long as he was able. His fierce eyes twinkled and his brutal mouth twitched. Without a word he reached across the table, clutched the girl by the throat and dragged her out of her seat. He hurled her, half strangled, on the floor.
“Here,” he bellowed to some of his servitors, “take this damn hell-cat out of here. Take her up to the hotel. If she won’t go to bed, throw her into the street.”
“You—you—” gasped the girl, struggling to her feet.
“Don’t talk back to me,” roared Anson, “or I’ll kill you. I’ll show you what you are and who’s running this place.” Then to the waiters: “Get her out of here.”
The girl was dragged out of the room, screaming and fighting. A wisp of curses came back into the big room as she was lugged up the stairs towards the hotel.
Anson stood panting with anger. A mailcarrier entered and placed a letter in his hand. He opened and read:
“Mr. Carter Anson: Take your choice. Close the Cafe Sinister, or I’ll see that it is closed. Mary Randall.”
The big man flushed crimson with rage. He tried to speak, but the words choked in his throat. He crumpled the letter and hurled it with a curse across the room.
“Druce,” he bellowed.
Druce hurried across the room.
“Did you see that?”
“Yes, I saw you beat her up. Why don’t you let ’em alone? You’ll kill one of them some of these days.”
“Naw, not her. I mean the letter. Mary Randall—she says she’s going to close us.” A waiter recovered the letter and brought it to Druce. He read it.
“Say, listen, are you turning yellow—”
“No, I ain’t yellow,” returned Anson, “but this thing is getting my goat. You’re sure about that lease?”
“Sure?—say, I thought we’d settled that—”
“Well,” pursued Anson, “I don’t like this. What have you done with this other girl—the one you married? She’ll be getting us into a row next.”
“I married her, didn’t I?”
“Yes, but—”
“Well, it’s about time she started earning her bread. This Randall woman hasn’t got me scared. You know why I married her. Well, I’m going through with it. I—”
The rest of his sentence died on his lips. A girl scarcely more than a child came in from the hotel entrance. She was dressed in a lacey gown, a size too large for her. The slit skirt displayed her slim ankles in pink silk stockings. The French heeled shoes were decorated with rhinestone buckles. In spite of this outrageous dress she was still pretty. It was Elsie Welcome.
“Hello, kid,” said Druce, his manner changing.
“I want to see you, Martin,” Elsie replied. Druce noticed that she seemed deeply agitated. There were signs of recently shed tears on her cheeks.
“I’ll run along,” said Anson, seeing the girl’s agitation. When he was gone Druce drew the girl into a booth and demanded sharply:
“What the devil do you want and how did you get here?”
“I came in a taxicab,” the girl answered.
“A taxi, eh? Well, you’re learning. Who paid for it?”
“It isn’t paid for, Martin. I wanted to see you and—”
“And what?”
“The man’s waiting outside.”
Druce flushed angrily. “Look here,” he demanded. “Don’t play me for a boob. Get someone else to pay your taxi bills.”
“But, Martin, I thought—”
Druce did not wait for the rest of the sentence. With a muttered oath he rushed outside and paid the waiting chauffeur.
“Now, what do you want?” he demanded when he returned.
Elsie looked at him piteously. “Martin,” she said, “I can’t stay in that place any longer.”
“Say, don’t my aunt treat you all right?”
The girl burst out sobbing. “She isn’t your aunt, Martin. She told me so herself. And that flat—”
“Well, what about it?”
“I—I can’t tell you. I can’t say it. I never knew until tonight.” Elsie clutched Druce’s arm pleadingly. “Martin,” she said, “a man came into my room.”
Druce saw that the time had come for him to lay his cards on the table. He folded his arms and looked at the girl.
“Well?” he demanded coolly.
“He had been drinking and—he took hold of me.”
There was a long pause. Druce gazed at the girl satirically. She quailed with sinking heart under that look. She began sobbing again.
“Don’t look at me like that, Martin,” she wailed. “Don’t—or I shall go mad. I left home to marry you.”
“Well, I married you, didn’t I?” Druce sneered.
Elsie attempted to control her voice.
“That woman you call your aunt laughed at me when I told her I was your wife. She said I was a country fool.”
“Damn her,” muttered Druce. “I’ll settle with her.”
The girl grasped Druce frantically.
“Tell me she lied,” she cried, “or I’ll go crazy. Tell me she lied.”
“Yes, she lied,” answered Druce glibly. “See here, kid, it’s about time you began helping to support the family.”
Elsie dried her tears. “I’m—I’m ready,” she said. “I’ve practiced my songs—”
“O, the songs,” said Druce. “That isn’t all.”
“What do you mean, Martin?”
“Why—don’t be so stand-offish. When a man offers to buy you a bottle of wine, let him.”
“Martin!”
Druce stopped her sharply. “Now don’t begin that Millville Sunday school stuff,” he said. “This is business.”
“Is it?” Elsie spoke in a whisper.
“Sure. When a man’s got a wad of bills and he’s willing to buy, string him along!”
“But I’m your wife, Martin.” Elsie was dead white and calm.
“Well, don’t let that worry you. Go as far as you like—or as far as he likes.”
The girl stood motionless, looking straight before her.
“Is—is that what you brought me here for?” she asked with forced calmness.
“Sure. Why do you suppose I dressed you up like that? Your stock in trade is your good looks. Sell it.”
The girl drew herself up rigidly.
“I won’t do it,” she said. She started toward the door.
“You will!” grated Druce, following her.
“Never,” she answered. “I’ll die first. Good-by!” The door closed after her.
Anson had returned to the room and had witnessed the scene.
“Well,” he sneered, “there goes the first move in your plan. You’ve lost that one.”
“You think so?” Druce sneered in return. “Well, don’t lose any sleep worrying about that one. She ain’t got a dime. She’ll be back.”
CHAPTER XVIIILOST IN THE LEVEE
So stupefied was Elsie Welcome by her emotions as she fled from the Cafe Sinister that it was not until her clothes were drenched that she realized it had begun to rain. Even then she did not halt and seek shelter. Her numbed brain knew only one thing—that she must get away from Druce and the place of sin to which he had brought her.
Up to the time of her last interview with her husband she had been living in a dream; now that dream had turned into a nightmare. But the nightmare, she at last realized, was reality. The veil of deception Druce had woven around her had been torn away by his own brutal words. She had come to feel a vague terror of the man. As for the Cafe Sinister, her whole nature revolted against it.
It was an hour before sunset. The sullenhouses about her were beginning to show signs of life. Here and there a door opened and a man or woman stepped quickly out with rapid glances up and down the street. There was no loitering. They went their way quickly, always with a half furtive look over the shoulder.
As the girl reached a corner she found at last that she was too exhausted to go farther. Her clothes dripped. She sought an entrance way for shelter. A tall girl in a broad hat with showy plumes was just coming out of the door. She looked at Elsie’s tear stained face and stopped.
“What’s the matter, girlie?” There was sympathy in her voice.
“Nothing. Can you tell me where this number is?” She produced a card on which Druce’s “aunt” at their last interview had written the address of a woman from whom she could get work.
The tall girl glanced at the slip of paper.
“It’s just over there, two doors from that corner,” she said. Elsie turned to cross the street. The tall girl stood still regarding herthoughtfully. Suddenly she seemed to reach a decision. She darted forward and stopped Elsie.
“It’s none of my business, kid,” she said, “but what do you want of Mother Lankee?”
Elsie looked at her in surprise. “Why,” she said pitifully, “I expect to get work there.”
“Do you know the kind of work Mother Lankee would ask you to do?”
“I don’t know, but I’m willing to do anything.”
“Anything?” repeated the tall girl.
“Why, yes. I’ve got to the point where I can’t afford to be particular.”
The tall girl laid her hand on Elsie’s arm.
“What is your name?”
“Elsie Welcome.”
“Where do you live?”
“On South Tenth street.”
“You come from down state?”
“How did you know?”
“It’s written all over you. What man brought you here?”
The question surprised Elsie and broughtback memory of her sorrows. She did not answer. Her eyes filled with tears.
“Come, kid,” said the tall girl, cheerfully, “get hold of yourself. Now, listen! You stay away from Mother Lankee. You’re hungry, ain’t you, dearie? You come with me and we’ll get something to eat.”
Elsie was too tired to resist and, instinctively, she trusted this tall girl with her assumption of guardianship. Together they crossed the street and entered the rear room of a saloon. Three men sat near the entrance playing cards. They looked at the two girls, inspecting Elsie narrowly and nodding carelessly at her companion. The girl took seats at a distant table.
“What do you want, Lou?” inquired one of the men, getting up from the table.
“Not you,” retorted Lou curtly. “Send one of your waiters here with a plain lemonade, a glass of milk and some of that beef stew.”
“Milk, eh?” said the man, “and lemonade. On the wagon again, Lou?”
“Run along now,” returned the girl. “Ifyou keep on asking questions someone is going to tell you lies.”
The man went into another room, spoke to someone there and rejoined the card players. In a few moments a negro waiter appeared with the viands Lou had ordered.
Elsie began to eat famishedly. The other girl watched her approvingly.
“Go to it, girlie,” she advised. “I know how you feel. I’ve been hungry myself.”
She sipped her lemonade until Elsie had finished. Then, as though it had not been interrupted, she resumed the conversation they had begun in the street.
“The same old game,” she said cynically. “You came to Chicago because you loved him. He strung you along—” Her glance fell on Elsie’s wedding ring. “You fell for that ‘I do take thee’ thing. Then he shook you. Is that right, girlie?”
Elsie shook her head. A stupor due to the food and the reaction from her nervous and physical exhaustion came over her. She felt too languid to grapple with the problem of existence.
The tall girl arched her eyebrows in surprise.
“He didn’t shake you? Then why—”
“I couldn’t do what he wanted me to do,” murmured Elsie. She felt her face flushing and she dropped her head. “He wanted me to—to—”
The other interrupted her sharply. “You needn’t say it—I know.” She gripped the table in sudden anger. “One of these dogs—eh?”
Elsie stared at her blankly. The old sense of forlornness, of being alone and uncared for, returned to her.
“I don’t know what you mean,” she faltered.
“What was his name?”
“Druce,” gasped Elsie.
“Druce, eh?” replied the tall girl, as though the name had opened a whole vista of understanding. “Druce? Well, look out for him, girlie. He’ll hound you from one end of the town to the other until he gets you. That’s his business.”
“He always said he was a dealer in live stock.”
The tall girl laughed scornfully. “Live stock!” she jeered. “Did he get away with that? Well, that’s what he is—a dealer in human live stock, a trafficker in women, one of the oldest professions in the world—and the dirtiest. Live stock! That’s what he calls girls like you and me—cattle!”
For a long moment Elsie sat staring at her companion. The last prop of her faith in the man who had married her was crumbling. She could not give up this last illusion of Druce’s faithfulness without a struggle. The blood flamed to her cheeks and she started to her feet.
“I don’t believe it,” she cried in anguish.
To her surprise, Lou made no reply. She merely regarded her pityingly. This was the last blow. Elsie burst into a flood of tears.
“I know you don’t believe it,” said Lou gently. “It’s hard for anyone who is decent to believe that men can fall so low. Why, nobody believes it! The men who run the city government don’t believe it, the law makers don’t believe it, the vice commission, doesn’t believe it. The only people who believe it arethe people who, at their own bitter cost, know it—and this girl Mary Randall.”
She paused.
“Look at me, kid,” she went on. “I was sold for $175. Sold, do you get that? SOLD! And I came high. They buy and sell ’em in this district every day for fifty. Yes, I was prime stock. They brought me up here from Kentucky. Kentucky Lou, price $175—a choice article.” She broke off, laughing bitterly, and summoned a waiter.
“Whisky,” she said, “and be quick with it.”
She waited until the waiter returned without speaking. Then she tossed off the glass of fiery liquid like a man.
“Now,” she said, resuming the conversation abruptly, “let me tell you what you are up against. You can’t go home, your pride won’t let you. And if you wanted to go home you haven’t the money. Druce has turned you loose in this district to starve and when you’ve starved enough you’ll come back to him.”
Elsie shook her head.
“Yes, you will, girlie. You don’t know it now, but I know it and Druce knows it. Andwhen you come back you’ll do as Druce wants you to do, because you’ll know that if you don’t you’ll have to starve again. It’s against human nature to starve. You’ll go back to him. And when you do and Druce is tired of you he’ll sell you for what you are, cattle—his kind of cattle!”
“Oh no!” wailed Elsie. “Not that. Surely in this great city there are places where a friendless girl can find protection!”
Kentucky Lou laughed again but the laugh contained no mirth.
“I thought that too, kid,” she said more gently. “And perhaps—perhaps—if you could find the right people and they believed you they might help you. But they didn’t help me. I went to one of these institutions that advertise to help friendless girls. Yes, I went to them. I had my baby in my arms. And they began by shooting me full of questions that I’d rather die than answer. And me perishing for a kind word and a slap on the back—just something to keep me fighting to be good. They gave me tracts, and sermons and advice. And then my baby died and Ididn’t care what happened. I guess I went crazy after that. ‘It’s hell, anyway,’ I says, ‘so here goes.’ And here I am.”
While she spoke Kentucky Lou was fumbling with her dress. Her hand reappeared in a moment with a five dollar bill. She shoved the bill into Elsie’s hand.
“Take that,” she said, “and go. Go as far as you can. It’s all I can do for you and it may save you. I think you’ll come back to Druce but I’m taking a gambler’s chance.”
She took Elsie by the arm, half lifted the stupefied girl to her feet and led her to the door. Impelled by a terror which both blinded and choked her Elsie fled into the gathering darkness without even pausing to thank her benefactor.
Lou returned to the saloon and ordered more whisky.
“Lou,” inquired one of the men, “who’s you’re friend?”
Lou regarded the questioner calmly.
“That?” she replied, “Oh, that’s a little lost lamb turned loose in a den of you human hyenas.”