‘I don’t see the relevance,’ said Watkins, standing up and supporting himself on the table. ‘Fugitive Senators and transcontinental railroads are birds of a very different species, and I don’t care to discuss them both at the same meeting. I’ll have to bid you good-day.’

‘I’m afraid you’re mistaken,’ Collis told him, stepping between Watkins’s green broadcloth belly and the door of the suite. ‘Fugitive Senators and transcontinental railroads are all part and parcel of the same arrangement, by courtesy of the camera.’

‘Camera? I don’t understand you.’

Collis reached behind him and drew back the curtain. Blinking in the light, like a gopher discovered in its burrow, was the reticent gentleman from Ninth Street, with his waxed moustache and his tinted spectacles, and his large box camera.

‘You have just been photographed, Representative Watkins. Not once, but several times, in the act of accepting money from a Southern Senator whom you know to be a wanted fugitive. It seems to me that the only way in which you can prevent those photographs from falling into the hands of those who might wish to damage your career, or even those who might wish to throw you into prison for collusion with an enemy — it seems to me that the only possible way you can do that is to withdraw your objections to the route of the Sierra Pacific Railroad, and to advise your cronies to do likewise.’

‘Get out of my way,’ said Watkins haughtily. ‘You don’t alarm me one bit.’

‘And why’s that? Because you don’t mind solitary confinement? Or don’t you tremble at the prospect of political disgrace?’

Watkins came very close to Collis, so that Collis could smell the lunchtime brandy on his breath. He lifted one pudgy hand and prodded Collis hard on the breastbone.

‘You don’t alarm me because if you show those photographs to anybody at all, they’ll ask you, too, what you were doing in the company of a wanted murderer and escaped prisoner of war, without making any effort to detain him. You will be liable to arrest and disgrace, just as much as I.’

Collis smiled. ‘You don’t understand, Congressman Watkins. I have already sent my Chinese assistant to bring the military here.’

Senator Stride, who had been sitting silently in his chair, now suddenly turned towards Collis and stared at him in shock.

‘You’ve betrayed me?’ he demanded. ‘You’ve betrayed my daughter’s confidence?’

Collis thought, and then nodded. ‘You could call it betrayal. But perhaps a better word for it would be revenge.’

‘My God, you’re unscrupulous,’ said Senator Stride. He stood up, his face concentrated with indecision, and then he reached into his coat and tugged out a short-barrelled revolver. He aimed it at Collis without saying a word. Representative Watkins stepped back in alarm, and behind him Collis heard the breaking of glass as the Ninth Street photographer dropped one of his plates.