“Then Miss Masters is Mary Randall!”
“Murder, alive!” yelled Grogan. He slid down in his chair and attempted to conceal himself beneath the desk.
John Boland’s hands trembled as he clutched the letter.
“Mary Randall,” he said, still dazed. “By all that’s holy! That girl Mary Randall!”
CHAPTER XVII
THE CAFE SINISTER
The Cafe Sinister stands like a gilded temple at the entrance to Chicago’s tenderloin. The fact is significant. The management, the appearance, the policy, if you please, of the place are all in keeping with this one potent circumstance of location. The Cafe Sinister beckons to the passerby. It appeals to him subtly with its music, its cheap splendor, its false gayety. To the sophisticated its allurements are those of the scarlet woman, to the innocent its voice is the voice of Joy.
Two pillars of carved glass, lighted from the inside by electricity, stand at the portal. Within a huge room, filled with drinking tables sparkling with many lights, gleaming and garish, suggests without revealing the enticements of evil.