The clock behind the bar mirror struck three-thirty. Collis took out his watch, checked the time, and turned the winder a few times.

‘Are you playing, or what?’ asked the dealer.

‘I’m playing,’ said Collis. ‘Keep your shirt on.’

‘I just dealt a card. Did you see it, or were you too busy with your timepiece?’

‘You just dealt the nine of clubs. I have one hundred dollars on nines, to lose. Therefore you owe me one hundred dollars. Now, are you playing, or what?’

There was a tense silence. The dealer’s eyes didn’t blink, even through the thick cigar smoke, and his face might have been some failed bank robber’s death mask.

‘I’m playing,’ he said, and dealt a six.

By four, Collis was beginning to feel the strain of his first day in San Francisco. His sleep during yesterday afternoon had eased the worst of his fatigue, but now he was ready for bed again. He asked for one more whisky all round and then said to the dealer, ‘I’m set for one last game. You want to play?’

‘I’ll play,’ said the dealer.

The girl brought more tumblers of bourbon and set them down. She glanced at the heap of silver and gold in front of Collis. ‘If you get out of here with half of that, you can walk me home,’ she said. ‘You’re pretty.’

The dealer said, without changing his expression, ‘If he tries to get out of here with even a quarter of that, he won’t be so pretty any more.’

Charles looked up, glared, and then snapped loudly, ‘What kind of a dumb remark is that?’

But Collis reached across and restrained him. Feeling unnaturally unruffled, he gave the dealer one of his worried, sincere smiles. ‘You’ll have to excuse my friend,’ he said. ‘Do you want to play faro, or do you want to spend the rest of the night making cheap remarks?’

The dealer, for the first time that evening, gave a grin. Most of his front teeth were brown, and more than half were missing. Collis turned to Andrew and remarked, ‘I wish I hadn’t amused him now.’

They played. Collis lost steadily for the first part of the game, but then, as the odds narrowed, he began to win. He staked thirty dollars on queens to lose, and the next card was a losing queen. He staked forty on aces to lose, and the next card was a losing ace. By the time the dealer dealt the twenty-fourth winning card, Collis had nearly one thousand dollars in front of him.

‘Do you want to name ’em?’ asked the dealer coldly. ‘I’ll give you four to one.’

Collis puffed steadily at his cheroot. ‘Not me,’ he said amiably.

The dealer stared at him. ‘You’ve bet every other game. You’ve bet big.’

‘Sure. But there’s nothing in the rules says I have to.’

‘Supposing I say you have to?’

‘You and that Navy revolver under your table?’