here I have realized that I must have a companion for reasons that you can very easily understand. I do not want an old person about me. It was the thought of the mental diversion that caused me to advertise for a young and vivacious girl. At the same time I must have some one who knows how to travel, how to attend to the endless details that travel involves. That is why your letter came to me as a godsend."

The widow wiped her eyes softly with a bordered handkerchief. To the innocent young girl she seemed the picture of grief. A little while was passed in conversation of a general nature. As the widow rose to go she said, "I like you. You seem to me the ideal of such a companion as I would have. The only question to be settled is whether or not you will like me.

"If you will come with me as my little daughter I can assure you that you will want for nothing. I will dress you as I would my own daughter. We shall visit the world. I have already prepared to engage passage for Europe and desire to sail Saturday, four days from today.

"In order that you may satisfy yourself as to whether or not you will like me I want you to call at my hotel tonight and take dinner with me. I am living at the Arena hotel, 1340 Michigan avenue. A quiet, retired little place."

"I will be delighted," said the girl. "I don't think that there is any question as to whether or not I will like you. You have charmed me already. I am alone in Chicago. The only relative I have here is my brother. He will be pleased I know to hear that there is such a pleasant occupation in store for me."

The widow paused in her going, as women do. The conversation prattled on. The girl spoke of her brother and, before she knew it, she was saying:

"I never take any steps without consulting him. He knows so much. I would love to bring him with me to meet you tonight, if you wouldn't—"

Her sentence was arrested by the cloud that passed over the widow's face. It was a look, sharp, keen, bitter, hard as a look can be. Even the girl, unwise as she was in the study of human nature and the ways of the world, felt an intuitive thrill that bordered on suspicion. She didn't finish her sentence exactly as she had meant to. Instead, she said: "In fact my brother would hardly let me go, you know, without first meeting you himself and talking with you. You can understand."

Quickly as it took to say it, the woman in black recovered her self-composure. Before the girl had finished she was all asmile.

"You dear child," she said, holding out her hand, "I'm so glad to hear you say that. Indeed, I couldn't think of taking you away from him without having him feel certain in his heart that it would be for your good. I'd love to have him call with you tonight. You'll both dine with me, of course. Do you remember my address?"

"Why, no, I—"

Again a peculiar look came over the widow's face. This time it was not hard, not sharp, not of dismay nor apprehension, but a sly, fox-like, satisfied smile that the girl afterwards remembered and understood.

"I'll just write it down for you," said the widow. "I'll give you the street number, too, so that you won't forget. Pardon me, I haven't a card."

The girl produced a slip of paper and a lead pencil. On the card the widow wrote:

"HOTEL IROQUOIS, 3035 Michigan avenue."

And then Mrs. Schwartz departed.

When the girl's brother arrived at home an hour or so later he found a sister bounding with joy, bubbling with excess of spirits.

The brother was a man of the world. He knew, as a cosmopolitan must know, of the guile and trickery and fraud and deceit that a great city contains. Yet, when the girl told him the story of the California widow and her desire to hire a traveling companion at an enormous salary, he doubted it not. His spirits were equally as high as his little sister's when he dressed for the trip to the Iroquois hotel. It was a smiling young couple that tripped into the lobby of the hotel an hour or so later and asked the clerk to notify Mrs. Schwartz that her guests were awaiting her pleasure.

"Schwartz?" said the clerk, as he glanced over the room book a second time. "No such person of that name here. Sure you got the name right?"

The girl produced the slip of paper in the widow's own handwriting:

"Margaret Schwartz,
Iroquois hotel, 3035 Michigan avenue."

"Maybe we've transcribed the name wrong from the register," said the clerk. "Where is she from?"

"Los Angeles, California," said the girl.

"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.

"This is Mr. ——," he said. "I believe you called upon my sister today."

"What is that?" the woman's voice answered. "Who are you? You must be mistaken. Who do you think you are talking to?"

"Mrs. Schwartz, isn't it?"

There was a moment of hesitation. The man imagined it a moment of confusion. And then the voice answered: "Oh, no, this is Miss Gartz. You are talking to the wrong person." A mocking laugh and a click of the receiver announced to the man that he had been rung off.

He called up the Arena again. He asked for Mrs. Schwartz.