Miss Lottie, who had left us for a few moments, returned unexpectedly to find him still gazing at it.
"We keep that light burning all the time," she remarked, noticing his gaze. "You see, in the daytime we never use the windows. It is always just like it is now, night or day. It makes no difference with us. You know, if we ever should be disturbed by the police," she rattled on, "this is my house and I am giving a little private party to a number of my friends."
I had heard of such places but had never seen one before. I knew that well-dressed women, once having been caught in the toils of gambling, and perhaps afraid to admit their losses to their husbands, or, often having been introduced through gambling to far worse evils, were sent out from these poker rendezvous to the Broadway cafes, there to flirt with men, and rope them into the game.
I could not help feeling that perhaps some of the richly gowned women in the house were in reality "cappers" for the game. As I studied the faces, I wondered what tragedies lay back of these rouged and painted faces. I saw broken homes, ruined lives, even lost honor written on them. Surely, I felt, this was a case worth taking up if by any chance we could put a stop or even set a limitation to this nefarious traffic.
"Have you ever had any trouble?" Garrick asked as we sipped at the refreshments.
"Very little," replied Miss Lottie, then as if the very manner of our introduction had stamped us all as "good fellows" to whom she could afford to be a little confidential in capturing our patronage, she added nonchalantly, "We had a sort of wild time a couple of nights ago."
"How was that?" asked Garrick in a voice of studied politeness that carefully concealed the aching curiosity he had for her to talk.
"Well," she answered slowly, "several ladies and gentlemen were here, playing a little high. They—well, they had a little too much to drink, I guess. There was one girl, who was the worst of all. She was pretty far gone. Why, we had to put her out—carry her out to the car that she had come in with her friend. You know we can't stand for any rough stuff like that—no sir. This house is perfectly respectable and proper and our patrons understand it."
The story, or rather, the version of it, seemed to interest Garrick, as
I knew it would.
"Who was the girl?" he asked casually. "Did you know her? Was she one of your regular patrons?"