Collis lowered his empty gun. He smiled. ‘You’re only annoyed because I made you look like an idiot. But I would have looked an even bigger idiot if I’d killed you. Now, can we consider this matter settled?’

Grant took a deep breath. ‘I suppose that etiquette demands that we have to.’

‘Well, that’s very good,’ said Collis. ‘Did you remember to bring the champagne?’

Grant looked at him, and Collis realised with surprise that the boy’s lower lip was trembling.

‘I — I only brought — one glass,’ Grant said.

Tears filled his eyes, and he quickly turned away, and hurried past Mr Snaith and Mr O’Rourke towards his carriage, which was waiting by the shore. The doctor coughed, picked up his bag, and walked slowly after him. Collis stood watching him go, and nobody else seemed to know what to do next.

Eventually, Mr Snaith came over to Collis and held out his hand for the pistol. Collis lifted the Lafoucheux, looked at it, and then gave Mr Snaith a small shake of the head.

‘A souvenir,’ he said. ‘A small reminder that the pursuit of honour for its own sake can lead to sudden death at the hands of people you hardly know.’

Chapter Nine

He returned to Sacramento the following Monday, tired, and almost glad to be back. It was much warmer inland, and he stood on the deck of the paddle-steamer with his coat unbuttoned. The steamer edged in towards the Front Street embankment, its paddles churning up the muddy river into brown foam, and the longshoremen and idlers watched it come in, leaning against trees and posts as if they were trying to form a human alphabet.

Collis saw Wang-Pu waiting for him in the shade of a red-berried elder, in a morning coat and hat. A few yards away, tethered to a rail, was Jane McCormick’s horse and carriage, which Wang-Pu must have borrowed. The implications of that weren’t lost on Collis, and he smiled to himself. The homely Mrs McCormick appeared to have missed him.

Before he disembarked, Collis talked to the steamer’s mate, a man with a striped jersey and a head the colour and shape of a brass pot. He wanted his cargo of hardware unloaded as smartly as possible, and taken down to No. 54 K Street. He gave the mate two five-dollar gold pieces, which the mate pinched between his black-edged thumbnails, as a kind of impromptu assay, and then dropped into a chamois bag tied around his neck.

Collis walked down the plank, and Wang-Pu came forward and raised his hat. ‘Good afternoon, Mr Edmonds. A pleasant journey?’

‘The ship’s piano was out of tune and the oysters were off, but apart from that, yes.’

‘Mrs McCormick sends her compliments.’

‘So I see.’