"Nobody been here from Los Angeles since December, when we put in this new register," said the clerk after running over the pages.
The tears that came to the young girl's eyes were tears of mortification, of bitter dismay. Her only thought was that she had been made the victim of some peculiar person's idea of a practical joke. It was not until the two were back in their own apartments that the girl remembered vaguely the conversation of the widow and the woman's peculiar starts.
"Charlie," she said to her brother, "that woman told me a different hotel at first. It was the Aree—, Areen—, the Arena hotel, that she told me first. She asked me to go there first. She CHANGED THE NAME WHEN I TOLD HER I WOULD BRING YOU WITH ME!"
"Hell!" said the brother. And there was a look on his face such as Cain must have worn when he committed the first murder.
"Why?" you ask, in astonishment. The answer is to be found on the police blotters of the Harrison street station.
The Arena hotel, at Thirteenth and Michigan, is the most notorious, the most terrible assignation house in the city of Chicago. When honest men are in bed the red lights of the Arena glare onto the boulevard like the bloodshot eyes of a devouring dragon. The gilded sons of fortune tear up before its yawning doors in their high powered motor cars. The keys to the doors were thrown away long ago. Without it is dismal and somber. Within it is pallid with the erotic gleam of many incandescents. Its music is the popping of champagne corks, the laughter of wine debauched women, the raucous roars of the huntsmen—huntsmen whose sole sport is the slaughter of the innocent, whose only game is the chastity of the maiden. A ten dollar bill is necessary for the purchase of the meanest private dining room in the Arena for a night of revelry. There is not a private dining room in the place without a bedroom in comfortable proximity.
The hoi polloi, the common herd, is not admitted at the Arena. To enter there you must be known, and you must be known as a spender.
The price of food is treble that of any other place. The cost of liquors is double that of many. The Arena is the sporting ground of the rich. And sport in the Arena comes high.
The brother of the young girl in question determined to probe the widow and her mystery to the bottom. He determined, in the first place, to give her the benefit of doubt despite his own convictions. He went to a telephone and called the Arena hotel. He asked for "Mrs. Schwartz." A woman answered the call.