They began to descend the stairs together. Collis said, ‘I don’t suppose I need to introduce myself. You’ve probably seen all you require for the striking up of a fairly close relationship.’

The girl laughed. ‘I’m only teasing you. It was Mr Hunt and Mr Tucker who put you to bed, really. But you were bad. If you’d had to make your own way back here, you would have been worked over for sure.’

The words of the street seemed strange, coming from the lips of such a young girl. ‘Do you mind if I ask you your name?’ Collis said.

‘Why should I? Clara, they call me, although my real name is Clarabelle.’

‘I think I prefer Clarabelle. It’s prettier.’

She made a face. ‘I hate it. I hate Clara, too.’

They reached the downstairs parlour. Collis opened the door for her, and she curtsied again and went in. Knickerbocker Jane was there, with her hair tied up in rags, in a lounging gown of layer upon layer of exquisite scalloped lace, with wide sleeves gathered at the cuffs, and a wide skirt. She was reading the San Francisco Bulletin on a long tasselled stick, with the aid of a pair of amber-tinted spectacles. Collis was sure he could see the rose-pink of her nipples through the lace.

‘Ah, the dreamer awakes,’ said Knickerbocker Jane. ‘There’s some black coffee here, fresh, if you’d like some. Charles tells me you created quite a stir last night, and it seems that you’re richer, too.’

‘It was only a game of faro,’ said Collis. His face felt stiff, and he didn’t seem to be able to pronounce his words properly. It would probably pass after a plate of ham and eggs and a quart of steamer beer.

‘Only a game of faro? Well, it was the kind of faro that gets this city all stirred up. I wouldn’t be surprised if the newspapers write about it. We’ll have to buy this afternoon’s editions to see if you’re in them.’

Collis sat down. Clara went across to the rickety little occasional table and poured coffee. ‘I didn’t kill the man,’ Collis said. ‘I only shot a hole in his hat.’

‘That’s precisely the point,’ Knickerbocker Jane told him. ‘So many people get shot in San Francisco that it’s not news any more. But hats! How many hats get shot? They’ll love you, you know. That’s exactly the kind of extravagant behaviour that everybody in San Francisco adores.’

‘In New York, it would be frowned on,’ said Collis. ‘If I did anything like that nobody would speak to me for at least a month.’

‘In New York, there are more interesting things to do,’ replied Knickerbocker Jane. ‘Here, what is there? In the spring, you can go for a picnic on the seashore; in the summer, you can stay indoors and swelter. In the fall, it’s so foggy you can never see where you are; and in the winter it rains all the time. Charles swears that Montgomery Street was so bad last year that an entire ox wagon sank into the mud and was never seen again.’