Suddenly Benito felt the presence of new personalities.  They seemed to be in a room with other people.  Several dark lamps flashed at Po Lun’s signal.  They revealed a room sumptuously furnished.  Teakwood chairs, with red embroidered backs and cushions, stood about the walls.  Handsome gilded grillwork screened a boudoir worthy of a queen.  Clad in the laciest of robes de chambre, a dark-skinned woman sat on the edge of a canopied bed.  She was past her first youth, but still of remarkable beauty.  At the foot of the bed stood McTurpin—­pale ghost of his former self.  He looked like a cornered rat ... and quite as dangerous.  Two Chinese were crouched against a lacquered screen.

“What do you want?” asked the woman, her voice shrill with anger.

“Take your hand out from under that pillow!” ordered Lees.  “No nonsense, Smiling Rose.”

Reluctantly the ringed and tapered fingers that had clutched apparently a hidden weapon came into view.  “Light the lamps,” said Lees, and one of his men performed this office.

“That’s the woman, father,” spoke young Robert, unexpectedly.

“Put the bracelets on her,” ordered Lees, “and search the place.”  A man stepped forward.

But they had not counted on McTurpin.  “Let her be,” he screamed.  A pistol flashed.  The officer went down at Rose’s feet.

Instantly there was confusion.  The room was filled with shuffling Oriental figures.  The lights went out.  Powder-flashes leaped like fireflies in the darkness.  Through it all Lees could be heard profanely giving orders.

Then, as swiftly, it was over.  Somewhere a door closed.  Lees leaped forward just in time to hear an iron bar clang into place.

“Gone,” he muttered, as his light searched vainly for the woman.

“Who’s that on the bed?” asked Benito.

“The cursed opium-wreck, McTurpin,” Lees replied impatiently.  “I planted him when I saw Dick go down.”  He bent above the wounded officer while Benito relighted the lamps and examined curiously the body of his ancient enemy.  For McTurpin was dead.  He had evidently tried to reach the woman as he fell.  His clawlike fingers clutched, in rigor mortis, her abandoned robe.  On the floor, where it had fallen from her bosom, doubtless in the hasty flight, there lay a crumpled, bloodstained envelope.  Robert springing forward, seized it with an exclamation.  It was addressed to William C. Ralston.

CHAPTER LXIV

AN IDOL TOPPLES

News had come in early spring of Robert Windham senior’s death in Monterey; less than two months afterward his wife, Anita, lay beside him in the Spanish cemetery.

The old Californians were passing; here and there some venerable Hidalgo played the host upon broad acres as in ancient days and came to San Francisco, booted, spurred, attended by a guard of vaqueros.  But a new generation gazed at him curiously and, after a lonely interval, he departed.