e John
Boland where you wanted him?"

"Boland?"

"I'm his agent."

"All right." Druce snatched up the paper and read it. "Write in the
names." Miss Masters wrote the names of six girls into the document. 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

Saturday night begins at the Cafe Sinister at nine o'clock. At that hour
the twin columns of glass at its portal are lighted and the Levee pours
the first of its revelers into the spacious ground floor drinking room.
The orchestra strikes up the first of its syncopated melodies; the
barkeepers arrange their polished glasses 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 circumstance. 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 th