“Get out with your hands up,” one of the colored cops ordered in a hard, hurried voice.

“Right,” the white cop echoed.

“What is this all about, officer?” Mister Baron said haughtily, assuming an indignant attitude.

“Manslaughter,” the colored cop said harshly.

“Hit and run,” the white cop echoed.

“We ain’t hit nobody,” Sassafras protested in her keening, nerve-scraping voice.

“Tell it to the judge,” the colored cop said.

The white cop opened the outside door of the Cadillac and jerked Mister Baron from his seat. He handled him roughly, gripping the lapels of his chesterfield coat.

Roman had got out on the other side and was standing holding his hands level with his shoulders.

The white cop jerked Mister Baron out of the way so Sassafras could alight.

“Listen to me for a moment,” Mister Baron said in a low, persuasive voice. “There hasn’t anything happened that can’t be settled between the few of us. The woman’s not hurt bad. I could see in the rear view mirror that she was getting up.”

Mister Baron was small and effeminate with unusually expressive eyes for a man. They were a strange shade of light brown, fringed with long, black, curling lashes. But they fitted his girlish, heart-shaped face. His only masculine feature was the small fuzzy mustache and the bebop goatee that looked as though it might have been stuck on his chin with paste.

He was using his eyes now for all they were worth.

“If you want to be reasonable, this doesn’t have to go to court. And,” he added, fluttering his lashes, “you can benefit in more ways than one-if you know what I mean.”

The three cops exchanged glances.

Sassafras shook herself and looked at Mister Baron with infinite scorn. A small-boned, doll-like girl with a bottom like a duck’s, she was wearing a gray imitation fur coat and a red knitted cap which might have belonged to one of the seven dwarfs.