Cardona made no comment as he watched the arrival study the body on the slab. It
was not until the man with the ear-rings had completed his inspection that
Cardona spoke.
"Rom?" questioned the detective.
The man with the ear-rings swung suddenly toward the sleuth. Again, his
eyes showed suspicion. Then he slowly shook his head.
"I don't mean him," declared Cardona, pointing toward the corpse. "I mean
you. Rom?"
The man's white teeth showed a sudden smile. His eyes lost their suspicious
look.
"Me isiom yek Rom," he stated. Then, as his face lost a sudden gleam, he
repeated in English: "Yes. I am a gypsy. But this man" - he turned to point to
the dead form on the slab - "he is not gypsy. He is not Rom. He is gajo."
"Where are you from?" questioned Cardona.
"We are in New Jersey." The gypsy spoke with a peculiar accent. "We have
been there many, many month. Desh-u-shov" - he paused to count on his fingers -
"Ava. Yes. Sixteen month -"
"What brought you here?" quizzed Cardona.
The gypsy grinned. He pulled a folded newspaper from his pocket. It was a
copy of the early afternoon edition of a New York journal. He pointed to the
paragraph that told of the body found in the river.
"I go to Newark," explained the gypsy. "Our great leader - baro kralis
amengoro - he send me to buy from the gaje, because I can speak like they do. I
read this. I come here.
"I think maybe some Rom has been killed. The Rom of this country go from
one band to another. Sometimes things happen to them."
"I understand," broke in Cardona "You thought maybe the dead man might be a
gypsy. Well, he isn't. Not Rom." Cardona shook his head. "Gajo."
The detective finished with a nod. The gypsy joined by bobbing his own
head.
"Gajo," he repeated.
Cardona gave the man another quizzical look. The gypsy was staring at the
body of the drowned Spaniard; his eyes showed mere curiosity.
"Where did you come from in the first place?" asked the detective.
"Somewhere in Europe? Are you Zingaro?"
"No." The gypsy shook his head and the coins bobbed beneath his ears. "I am
not of the Zingari. We have Zingari with our band - from Italy they come. I am
not of the Rom the gaje call Zingari. I am of the Czigany - from Hungary."
"I see." Cardona turned to Markham. "Well, I'm leaving you now. Give it out
that this dead man was a Spaniard; maybe somebody will come in to identify him.
I'm going down to headquarters. Have to see Inspector Klein."
"On the society robberies?" questioned Clyde Burke.
"Yes," replied Cardona, gruffly. "We're going to block that smart bunch of
crooks. They've gotten away with too much already."
"You don't know where they get their information?"
"About the places to crack? No. But it's a sure bet somebody tips them off
to the good lays. They found the hidden wall safe in Dobson's house on Long
Island so quickly that you might have thought they were the people who put it in
there for the old man."
The gypsy had loitered to look at the body. He seemed to have a morbid
