‘One thousand dollars would do me very well,’ he said, after a few minutes of rumination. ‘One thousand dollars would do me fine.’

‘Is it a deal, then?’ asked Collis.

Captain Heikefelt took out his green handkerchief and blew his nose. ‘You have time for one more schnapps?’

‘You mean it’s settled?’ asked Collis.

Captain Heikefelt closed his eyes. ‘I have the papers for the blankets right here, in my desk. Seven thousand dollars, is it, in gold?’

‘That’s right. I have it in thousand-dollar pouches. You shouldn’t have any trouble transferring one thousand dollars into your own pocket.’

‘I’ll drink to that,’ said the captain.

Collis picked up his brimming glass of schnapps. ‘I was afraid you might.’

On Saturday morning, a bright sharp morning with the first snap of October in the air, Charles Tucker was expected to call for Collis at Knickerbocker Jane’s at seven. They were going to Market Street wharf to board the steamboat Wallace S. Martin at eight, along with Billy, Charles’s coachman, and Wang-Pu, his Chinese buyer. They were bound for Sacramento, for Collis to join Charles in his dry-goods and hardware business, and they wouldn’t return to San Francisco until November. Charles had warned Collis to leave off his woollen underwear and stay with his summer cottons, because it was a good deal warmer inland at this time of year, and ‘there can’t be many things less comfortable than travelling to Sacramento in woollen long johns, when you should’ve worn cotton.’

A little after seven, Charles Tucker arrived, and Billy the coachman was sent upstairs to Collis’s room to bring down his trunk. As Collis came downstairs, with Billy behind him, Knickerbocker Jane came out into the hallway, in a white morning dress with pale-yellow embroidery flowers on it.

‘Goodbye,’ she said, with a curtsy. ‘I hope you enjoy Sacramento. And do come back, whenever you wish. I’ll always make you welcome.’

Collis leaned forwards and kissed her. She wore the same perfume as his mother used to wear, and for a moment he was overwhelmed with déjà vu. But then he stood straight, and smiled at her, and said quietly, ‘Thank you, Jane. I may take you up on that, one day.’

Chapter Seven

To any man who might have been disappointed on his first arrival in San Francisco that life on the brink of the world was not boisterous enough, nor eccentric enough, nor crowded with enough gambling and swearing and drinking and womanising, the paddle steamer Wallace S. Martin was a floating consolation prize.