Knickerbocker Jane had received him in her parlour. She had been dressed in black, ironically, for the death of a favourite client. He had died on Tuesday — an elderly banker who for nine years had lavished on her his thick bankroll and his thin seed, and had always called her ‘my lamb’. Jane hadn’t been particularly pleased to see Collis, and she had turned her cheek away when he had attempted to kiss her. Like the queen of the whores; which she was. Or like his own mother.

‘Do you want a drink?’ she had asked him. ‘You look as if you could use one.’

‘I’ve had enough, thanks. Down on the waterfront.’

She had watched him silently for a while, her back straight, her freckled cleavage swelling over her tight black ruched bodice. ‘Something’s happened,’ she had said, and her voice had been a touch softer. ‘Have you had a spat with your Hannah?’

He had had trouble speaking. Whisky and delayed shock seemed to have swollen his lips, and made it difficult for him to enunciate. ‘I went around this afternoon to see her husband, to talk about their divorce. We thought it was best if I faced him directly. More honourable. But when I got there, he was dead.’

‘Dead? What do you mean?’

‘Exactly that. Murdered. Cut to pieces like meat. There was so much blood I don’t know how I kept my lunch down.’

‘Did anybody see you there?’ asked Knickerbocker Jane. She was immediately alert to the danger of the law.

‘I don’t think so. I left right away.’

‘Well, that’s one blessing at least. If anyone asks, you spent the afternoon here, with my new girl Laura from Denver. Brunette, she is, with a birthmark inside of her thigh the shape of Rhode Island.’

‘Rhode Island?’ Collis had asked incredulously.

Knickerbocker Jane had stood up, with a rustle of black skirts. ‘Do you know who might have killed him, or why?’

‘I don’t have any idea. He was only a shopkeeper. I mean, miners get killed, gamblers get killed. But shopkeepers?’

Knickerbocker Jane had laid a hand on his arm. ‘Did anybody know you were going to see him, apart from your Hannah? Did anybody know you were in the vicinity?’

‘I saw Horace Johnson at the Pacific Mail Steamship Company directly beforehand. But I don’t think he knows about Hannah. He wouldn’t connect me with her husband’s death.’

‘You have to be careful of Horace. He’s fat, but he’s sly.’

‘You know him?’

Knickerbocker Jane had smiled. ‘Horace Johnson has appetites far beyond food and drink, my love. He’s one of my regulars.’

Collis had looked at Knickerbocker Jane with his head on one side. ‘You, er, you wouldn’t — tell me what those particular appetites are? By any chance?’

‘I shouldn’t.’

‘But supposing he’s heard about Hannah? If he doesn’t know about her now, he’s bound to hear about it sooner or later, when we marry. Or, if we marry. Wouldn’t it be safer if I knew just a little about him? Something to protect me?’