The girl is found for the monster. His crime must be committed in the dark, in a secure and safe place, in a place where no one shall see him committing his soul-murder.
Again “Miss Harris” comes to the front. She directs her customer with the trembling, wondering and frightened girl, to the “Arena,” a pretentious residence in Michigan avenue near Fifteenth street.
His coming is known before his arrival. “Miss Harris” has informed the “Madam” that a “live wire with a young kid” is on the way to the place. The man and his victim are received politely and ushered into a luxuriously furnished room, delicately scented with perfume and stripped of any suggestion that it is a crime-chamber where sin is intangibly present, waiting for the next victim.
The desecration of soul and body begins and ends in that room. If the man wishes it, supper with delicate morsels of food and wines of choice and expensive brands are served. The atmosphere wooes to sleep the last moral rebellion and all is lost.
The “Arena” is mentioned here as a type, again. Chicago is infested with such places. They may be found in our best residence districts, near fashionable churches and adjoining homes where purity is sacred.
To state more specific facts on such places we will name several more similar “flats.”
A “Mrs. Clouds” conducts a similar place on La Salle avenue near Erie street. It is necessary to have a letter of introduction or be known before entrance can be effected. Here, nightly, men of wealth and even of prominence with wives and families, ignorant of their orgies, take young girls.
The automobiles of the wealthy drive up to this place every evening and their occupants seek their pleasure within.
Here many-course dinners with wine as a zest giver—usually champagne—are served to the patrons for $12 a plate. It is the vice haunt of the millionaires and their purchased women.
Then there is the place of Mrs. Mohr in Erie street, west of Rush street, where the same luxuries are in evidence, where the same vices are committed and where the range of prices eats deep into anything but a plethoric bank account.