“Good. Thank you. I cannot say how . . . relieved I am.”

“Ah, but you have,” said the surgeon.

Lacroix left the hospital—or he set out to leave but having descended two rather than three flights of stairs he turned at the volute, was led by it, its wooden flourish, and walked some twenty paces before waking to the fact he was not where he had expected to be. He was in a gallery at the rear of the building, a part of the hospital he had not seen before. There were large windows with long views, and on the opposite wall life-sized portraits of men who looked like hanging judges but who were no doubt donors or hospital governors—tobacco merchants making a lunge for heaven. Halfway down the gallery a collection of armchairs and a pair of leathery aspidistras made a kind of public drawing room. Two of the chairs were occupied by men dressed in the hospital uniform of brown woollen robes, those for the men indistinguishable from those worn by the women. They were playing chess, were engrossed, and did not look up at Lacroix. He settled himself in the chair nearest the window, stared out a while then let his eyes close. He felt subtly poisoned by the brandy, perhaps more unwell than the chess players. Would he object if someone came and wrapped him in a brown robe? He thought he would not. Yet he also felt perfectly at ease, languorous, cheerful. Tempting to call it happiness.

On the way up from the inn—though he had not allowed the words to sound in his head—he had come close to convincing himself that Emily Frend was dead. He would meet a grim-faced Rizzo, be given a parcel of her clothes and be taken to a room to view her corpse. But she was alive still! They had cut her and she had stood on her own feet, had descended a flight of stairs with no more help than the surgeon’s arm! O Shoreditch! What daughters you have!