That was all. The bartenders breathed and looked again. Men were crowding like mad through the back doors. De Spain, at the cigar case, looked intently into the rainy street, lighted from the corner by a dingy lamp. The four men near him had not stirred, but, startled and alert, the right hand of each covered the butt of a revolver. De Spain moved first. While the pool players jammed the back doors to escape, he spoke to, without looking at, the bartender. “What’s the matter with your curtains?” he demanded, sheathing his revolver and pointing with an expletive to the big sheet of plate glass. “Is this the way you build up business for the house?”
Those close enough to the window saw that the bare pane had been cut, just above the middle, by two bullet-holes. Curious men examined both fractures when de Spain and Lefever had left the saloon. The first hole was the larger. It had been made by a high-powered rifle; the second 97 was from a bullet of a Colt’s revolver; it was remarked as a miracle of gun-play that the two were hardly an inch apart.
In the street a few minutes later, de Spain and Lefever encountered Scott, who, with his back hunched up, his cheap black hat pulled well down over his ears, his hands in his trousers pockets and his thin coat collar modestly turned against the drizzling rain, was walking across the parkway from the station.
“Sassoon is in town,” exclaimed Lefever with certainty after he had told the story. He waited for the Indian’s opinion. Scott, looking through the water dripping from the brim of his seasoned derby, gave it in one word. “Was,” he amended with a quiet smile.
“Let’s make sure,” insisted Lefever. “Supposing he might be in town yet, Bob, where is he?”
Scott gazed up the street through the rain lighted by yellow lamps on the obscure corners, and looked down the street toward the black reaches of the river. “If he’s here, you’ll find him in one of two places. Tenison’s–––”
“But we’ve just come from Tenison’s,” objected Lefever.
“I mean, across the street, up-stairs; or at Jim Kitchen’s barn. If he was hurried to get 98 away,” added Scott reflectively, “he would slip up-stairs over there as the nearest place to hide; if he had time he would make for the barn, where it would be easy to cache his rifle.”
Lefever took the lapel of the scout’s coat in his hand. “Then you, Bob, go out and see if you can get the whole story. I’ll take the barn. Let Henry go over to Tenison’s and wait at the head of the stairs till we can get back there. It is just around the corner––second floor––a dark hall running back, opposite the double doors that open into an anteroom. Stay there, Henry, till we come. It won’t be long, and if we don’t get track of him you may spot your man yourself.”
De Spain found no difficulty in locating the flight of marble stairs that led to the gambling-rooms. It was the only lighted entrance in the side street. No light shone at the head of the stairs, but a doorway on the left opened into a dimly lighted anteroom and this, in turn, through a large arch, opened on a large room brilliantly lighted by chandeliers––one in the centre and one near each corner. Around three sides of this room were placed the keno layouts, roulette-wheels, faro-tables, and minor gambling devices. Off the casino itself small card-rooms opened.