e
repeated, and with all four fingers of his right hand had gripped the
left lapel of his unbuttoned waistcoat. Thereat there had been a general
raising of heads all over the place. Since the days of Jonathan Wild and
even before that--since the days when the Romany Rye came out of the
East into England--the signal of the collar has been the sign of the
collar, which means the cop.

The man they sought eyed them contemptuously from under the down-tilted
visor of his cap as they approached him. His arms were folded upon the
table top and for the moment he kept them so.

"Evening," said Casane civilly, pausing alongside him. "Call yourself
Gorman, don't you?"

"I've been known to answer to that name," he answered back in the
curious flat tone that is affected by some of his sort and is natural
with the rest of them. "Wot of it?"

"There's somebody wants to have a talk with you up at the front
office--that's all," said Casane.

"It's a pinch, then, huh?" The gangster put his open hands against the
edge of the table as though for a rearward spring.

"I'm tellin' you all we know ourselves?" countered Casane. His voice was
conciliatory--soothing almost. But Ginsburg had edged round past Casane,
ready at the next warning move to take the gang leader on the flank with
a quick forward rush, and inside their overcoats, the shapes of both the
officers had tensed.

"Call it a pinch if you want to," went on Casane. "I'd call it more of
an invitation just to take a little walk with us two and then have a
chat with somebody else. Unless you or some of your friends here feel
like startin' something there'll be no rough stuff--that's orders. We're
askin' you to go along--first. How about it?"

"Oh, I'll go--I'll go! There's nobody got anything on me. And nobody's
goin' to get anything on me neither."

He stood up and with a quick movement jerked back the skirts of his
coat, holding them aloft so that his hip pockets and his waistband,
showed.

"Take notice!" he cried, invoking as witnesses all present. "Take notice
that I'm carryin' no gat! So don't you bulls try framin' me under the
Sullivan Law for havin' a gat on me. There's half a dozen here knows I
ain't heeled and kin swear to it--case of a frame-up. Now go ahead and
frisk me!"

"That'll be all right--we could easy take your word for it," said
Casane, still maintaining his placating pose. Nevertheless he signed to
Ginsburg and the latter moved a step nearer their ma