South Park was an elegant ellipse of London-style brick houses, standing nearly a hundred feet above the level of the city on its own airy hill. It was here that San Francisco’s millionaires and socialites had clustered themselves, around an immaculate garden, well away from the crowds and the smells of the docks and the markets. The garden was surrounded by wrought-iron railings and locked gates, to which only the residents had keys.

It wasn’t surprising that South Park was unsettled these days. Most of the families who lived here were Southerners, and most of their money came from plantations in the South, and slave labour. In a few years’ time, many of them would be ruined; and even sooner than they could have suspected, the cable-car companies would excavate Second Street, cut right through Rincon Hill itself, and destroy their charmed way of life forever. Rincon Hill today is irrevocably buried under the approaches to the Bay Bridge.

Collis alighted from the cab outside No. 12 South Park, and told the driver to wait. The house was flat-fronted, with fresh-painted railings and gleaming brass doorhandles. The nameplate announced that it was called Colusa. The net curtains were drawn back in fancy flounces and tied with white silk ribbons. Inside one of the front windows, Collis could see a white parrot in a white cage. He rang.

The door was opened promptly by a Negro footman. ‘Sir?’ he asked.

‘I have a letter for Miss Melford,’ said Collis. ‘I’d be obliged if you’d make sure she gets it.’

The footman held out his white-gloved hand. Collis made as if he was going to give him the letter, but then suddenly whipped it back out of his reach.

‘Miss Melford, you understand?’ he said. ‘Not Papa or Mama. Not brother Grant. Miss Sarah Melford herself.’

The footman said, ‘Yes, sir. I understand you, sir.’

‘Good fellow,’ Collis told him, and handed him the letter and fifty cents. Without any sign of acknowledgement, the footman closed the door and left Collis standing in the damp afternoon wind.

Well, that was that. The first part of his plan was accomplished. Now he had to go make arrangements for the rest of it. He turned away from the door and beckoned his cab driver.

As the cab circled around the private gardens, around the breeze-blown flowers and the neat green grass, Collis sat up straight in his seat so that he could look back at the Melford House. For a moment he thought he could see one of the decorative net curtains drawn aside, by the hand of an unseen watcher, and then let fall again. He tried to smile to himself. If there was one weakness which everybody shared, rich or poor, it was curiosity; and it was curiosity which would win him the alliance of Laurence Melford.

‘Where now, sir?’ the driver enquired as they rattled over the planks of Third Street.