“Wait,” cried Spear and laid his cards down hastily.  But Adrian was already on his way.  At the rear were half a dozen small compartments where visitors might drink in semi-privacy with women who frequented the place.

Adrian made the round of them, flinging aside each curtain as he went.  Some greeted him with curses for intruding; some with invitations.  But he did not find the men he sought, until the last curtain was thrown back.  There sat Gasket and McTurpin opposite Ensenada Rose.  She looked up impudently as Adrian entered.  Into the gambler’s visage sprang a quick surprise and fear.  Instantly he blew out the lamp.

A pistol spoke savagely almost in Adrian’s face.  He staggered, clasping one hand to his head.  Something warm ran down his cheek and the side of his neck.  He felt giddy, stunned.  But a dominant impulse jerked his own revolver into position and he shot twice—­as rapidly as he could operate the weapon.  The narrow space was chokingly filled with acrid vapor.  Somewhere a woman screamed; then came a rush of feet.

It seemed to Adrian he had stood for hours in a kind of stupor when a light was brought.  Gasket lay, his head bowed over on the table and an arm flung forward.  He was dead.  On the floor was a lace mantilla.

Spear reached Adrian’s side ahead of the others.  “I heard him shoot first,” he said, so that all might hear him.  “Are you hit?”

Adrian’s hand went once more to his cheek.  “Just a furrow,” he said and smiled a trifle dazedly.  “He fired straight into my face.”

“By Harry!  He must have.  Your cheek’s powder-marked,” cried Brannan, running up and holding the lamp for a better view.  “See that, gentlemen?  They tried to murder Mr. Stanley.  This is self-defense.  Who fired at you?”

“This fellow!” Adrian indicated the sprawled figure.  “Must have been.  I shot at the flash from his gun; then I aimed at McTurpin.  I missed him, probably.”

“Not so sure of that,” said Brown, who had come running from his hostelry across the square.  “Look, here’s blood on the floor.  A trail—­let’s follow it.  Either McTurpin or the woman was hit.”

“I tried to avoid her,” Adrian said.  “I—­hope I didn’t—­”

“Never mind.  You were attacked.  They’re all of a parcel,” cried a man who wore the badge of a constable.  “We’ve had our eyes on the three of them a long time.  This fellow,” he indicated Gasket, “was one of the crowd suspected of the Warren murders.  He’s the one who killed old Burthen.  Dandy Carter let it out tonight; he’s half delirious.  We’d have strung him up most probably, if you hadn’t—­”

“Come,” urged Brannan, “let us follow this trail to the wounded.  Perhaps he or she needs assistance.”  He held the lamp low, tracing the dark spots across an intervening space to the rear entrance; thence to a hitching rack where several horses still were tethered.  “They mounted here,” the constable decided.  “One horse probably.  No telling which it was that got the bullet.”