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 wild bursts 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,