d at once to go over the evidence to be found in the carefully
guarded house of Madame Blanche. "This place, to judge from the
records has been run along two lines. For one thing, it is what we
term a 'house of call.' Madame Blanche has a regular card index of at
least two hundred girls."

"Then, that gives a pretty good list for you to get after, doesn't it?"
said Burke, who was joining in the conference between the detective,
the captain of the precinct, and the inspector of the police district.

"Well, the list won't do much good. About all you can actually prove
is that these girls are bad ones. There's a description of each girl,
her age, her height, her complexion and the color of her hair. It's
horribly business like," replied the detective. "But I'm used to this.
We don't often get such a complete one for our records. This list
alone is no proof against the girls--even if it does give the list
price of their shame, like the tag on a department store article. This
woman has been keeping what you might call an employment agency by
telephone. When a certain type of girl is wanted, with a certain
price--and that's the mark of her swellness, as you might call
it--Madame Blanche is called up. The girl is sent to the address
given, and she, too, is given her orders over the telephone; so you see
nothing goes on in this house which would make it strictly within the
law as a house of ill repute."

"But, do you think there is much of this particular kind of trade?"
queried Bobbie. "I've heard a lot of this sort of thing. But I put
down a great deal of it to the talk of men who haven't anything else
much to discuss."

"There certainly is a lot of it. When the police cleaned up the old
districts along Twenty-ninth Street and Thirtieth and threw the regular
houses out of the business, the call system grew up. These girls, many
of them, live in quiet boarding houses and hotels where they keep up a
strict appearance of decency--and yet they are living the worst kind of
immoral lives, because they follow this trade scientifically."

Reggie Van Nostrand, by reason of his gallant assistance, and at his
urgent request, had been allowed to listen.

"By George, gentlemen, I have a lot of money that I don't know what to
do with. I wish there was some way I could help in getting this sort
of thing stopped. Here's my life--I've been a silly spender of a lot
of money my great grandfather made because he bought a f