‘Where is he?’ Nicholas asked in astonishment. ‘He couldn’t have – got up?’

‘That would have been impossible. Someone has taken him.’ I looked frantically round the darkness of the lane, but there was nothing to be seen.

‘But where?’

I thought hard. ‘If someone found him, they might have taken him to St Bartholomew’s. It is hard by. Come, we will go there first.’

We arrived at the hospital ten minutes later: Nicholas had had not only to accommodate his long stride to my own, but almost to run. The doors were closed, but a porter answered our knock, holding up a lamp. I spoke urgently. ‘We wish to ask whether a man was brought here tonight. He had a sword wound to the body and – he had lost his hand.’

The man’s eyes narrowed. ‘Was it you that left him there? A man so wounded, left on a dungheap?’

‘No, it was not us, we are his friends.’

‘Old Francis Sybrant found him, and brought him in.’

The porter still looked at us dubiously. ‘Please,’ Nicholas asked. ‘Does he live?’

‘Just, but he’s as near death as a man can be. He has been unconscious since he came.’

‘Has the doctor been sent for? Dr Malton?’

The man shook his head. ‘A doctor only comes once a day.’

‘Well, send for Dr Malton now,’ Nicholas said. ‘He is a friend of my master here, and also of the man brought in by Francis Sybrant.’

I looked at Nicholas’s face in the lamplight. I would swear new lines had appeared on it since this afternoon. I reached for my purse and thrust two shillings at the porter. ‘Here. Get someone to fetch Dr Malton, then take us to Barak.’

The porter stared at the coins in his palm, then back at me. ‘Who’s Barak?’

‘The man who was brought in. Please, hurry.’

He scurried away, leaving us in the vestibule. Nicholas smiled wryly. ‘With all the money you’re giving away, sir, you’ll have none left.’

I thought, insolence, the boy becomes more confident. Then I thought of Timothy, and wondered whether he was lost to me as well. Between the fight at the house, and my ordeal at Whitehall, I had forgotten him.

The porter returned, his manner obsequious now. ‘I will take you to your friend. Sybrant is with him. He is in a chamber we keep for those who may need the last rites.’