‘Of course you are,’ Dan McReady told him. ‘But don’t be scared so shitless that you forget what I told you. Aim leisurely, holding the pistol with both hands. Pull back the hammer with your thumb until it’s cocked. Then make sure your aim is true, and touch that trigger gently. That’s all. Now go blow the bastard’s brains out.’

Mr Snaith raised a red handkerchief. It snapped in the wind. ‘Are you ready, gentlemen?’

Grant Melford called out loudly, ‘Always ready, Mr Snaith, to defend my good name!’

Collis looked at Dan McReady and made a face. In return, he called out, ‘Always ready, Mr Snaith, to compound one absurdity with another!’

Mr Snaith gave Collis a disapproving squint, but then he held his handkerchief up high, paused, and brought it down to signal that the duel had begun.

Collis turned his back and began to walk. The turf was sloping and uneven. Ahead of him, in the distance, he could see his rented carriage waiting, and it occurred to him that he could keep on walking, maybe breaking into a jog, and reach the carriage before anyone really understood that he was running away. Beyond the carriage were the peaks of Fern Hill, and beyond that, the city of San Francisco, hazy with the blue fires of breakfast. He coughed. He almost stumbled on a sandy hillock.

It suddenly occurred to him that he hadn’t been counting. How many paces was this? Twelve, fifteen? Supposing Grant Melford got his first shot in before Collis had even turned around? Nervously, Collis looked over his shoulder and saw that Grant still had his back to him and was still pacing away. He was taking long strides, and in his black morning coat he looked like a big plump crow.

This must be it. Nineteen, twenty, stop. Turn. And Grant Melford was turning too. Forty paces wasn’t nearly as far apart as Collis had imagined it would be. He could still see the pale frown on Grant’s face, and the mole on his chin. Oh God, this seemed all so peculiar.

Grant Melford was raising his pistol. Collis had been so distracted by the ritual of the duel that he had almost forgotten what he had to do. But he saw Dan McReady standing there placidly in his brown tweed coat and his round hat, and he remembered his warning. Don’t put your finger anywhere near the trigger until you’re aimed and ready to fire … Aim leisurely, holding the pistol with both hands.

He had hardly brought his pistol up when there was a sharp snap, like somebody slamming a book shut. Collis winced, in spite of himself, and a surge of hot fear flooded right through his body. He waited to be hit, forgetting in his fright that any shot which struck him would have reached him and felled him before he heard it.