‘Very well.’ Collis nodded. ‘When each sack of gold is delivered, two of the calotype negatives will be returned to you in a sealed envelope. I expect you can understand my reasons for delivering them up so parsimoniously.’

‘I will have you hanged for this one day,’ Laurence Melford said. ‘You just remember that.’

‘And you just remember that I could have blown your son’s head off, and that you thanked me for saving him, in writing; and that your daughter is safe and well, whether it was I who arranged her abduction or not. And one thing more. These fifty-thousand dollars will go towards railroad bonds, which will be made up in your name, and sent to you along with the negatives, so that when the railroad eventually prospers, you will prosper too, even though you don’t deserve to.’

Collis leaned forward and put his head very close to Laurence Melford’s. ‘I have destiny on my side, Mr Melford. It’s sweeping me along, and everybody who comes near me gets swept along too. It’s not your fault if you’ve failed, so why don’t you finish your lunch with Mr Crawford and thank the Lord for small favours.’

Collis didn’t give Laurence Melford the chance to reply. He nodded to the maître d’, to Andrew Crawford, and walked quickly out.

Back in Sacramento, a month later, he received a long letter from Theodore. Theodore’s tone was unusually warm and friendly, and he told in detail of his moderate success in stirring up political support from Congressmen and Senators, and how it now looked likely that he was going to be appointed clerk of both House and Senate committees investigating railroad routes to the Pacific.

‘I have talked for an hour to Mr Lincoln,’ Theodore wrote.

He is very enthusiastic about the route we discovered with Doc Kates, and he has privately promised me that, if elected, he will push ahead with a bill for a transcontinental railroad as soon as possible. The only thing that worries me is that if Lincoln believes the railroad to be so urgent, he must seriously be anticipating the secession of the South and even war. The Southern politicians certainly hate him here. They call him an African gorilla and a slang-whanging lawyer.

There was a long postscript. Collis took the letter to the window and read it by the last light of the sun. Hannah, who was sitting reading a book, looked up at him and saw by his expression that he was both moved and disturbed.

I met Sen. Stride twice. He said adamantly that he had invested enough in the railroad and that these were difficult times for a hard-shell Southern politician to be putting money into Northern industrial projects. However (spontaneously, and much to my regret) I reminded him of his responsibilities to Miss Delphine Spooner, and what had befallen her. Whereupon he agreed to subscribe twenty-thousand dollars more to the railroad, sufficient for a full survey of the Sierras, and I am sorry to say that I accepted. I believe I owe you an extensive apology, and I only hope that I have done nothing to harm Miss Spooner.