feet front on Jimpson Street and 160 feet on the flanking
side streets. A bright electric sign covered the front with a flare of
yellow lights and there was one entrance, under the sign.

As Terabon, Carline, and the cotton broker came along, they saw a tall,
broad-shouldered, smooth-shaven policeman in uniform standing where the
lights showed him up.

"Watch your pocketbooks!" the policeman called softly to the patrons.
"Watch your change; pickpockets, short-changers, and card-stackers work
the unwary here! Keep sober--look out for knock-out drops!"

He said it over and over again, in a purring, jeering tone, and Terabon
noticed that he was poised and tense. In the shadows on both sides of
the policeman Terabon detected figures lurking and he was thrilled by
the evident fact that one brave policeman had been sent alone into that
deadly peril to confront a desperate gang of crooks, and that the lone
policeman gloried to be there.

The cotton broker, neutral that he was, whispered as they disregarded
the warnings: "Laddam cleaned up Front Street in six months; the mob has
all come up here, and this is their last stand. It'll hurt business if
they close this joint up, because the town'll be dead, but I wish
Palura'd kind of ease down a bit. He's getting rough."

Little hallways and corridors led into dark recesses on either side of
the building, and faint lights of different colours showed the way to
certain things. Terabon saw a wonderfully beautiful woman, in furs, with
sparkling diamonds, and of inimitable grace waiting in a little
half-curtained cubby hole; he heard a man ask for "Pete," and caught the
word "game" twice. The sounds were muffled, and a sense of repression
and expectancy permeated the whole establishment.

They entered a reception room, with little tables around the sides,
music blaring and blatant, a wide dancing floor, and a scurrying throng.
All kinds were there: spectators who were sight-seeing; participants who
were sporting around; men, women, and scoundrels; thugs and their
prospective victims; people of supposed allurement; and sports of
insipid, silly pose and tricked-up conspicuousness.

Terabon's gaze swept the throng. Noise and merriment were increasing.
Liquor was working on the patrons. The life of Mendova was stirring to
blaring music. The big hall was bare, rough, and gaunt. Dusty flags and
cobwebs dangled from the rafters and hog-chain braces. A few hard, white
lights cast a blin