He had to wait in San Francisco for two days for a steamer. He visited Andy Hunt, who had been making himself a healthy profit by selling supplies to the army, and ‘services’, too, with the help of Maria-Mamuska. Maria-Mamuska herself was prettier than ever, and thicketed with diamonds and pearls, and almost every gentleman in San Francisco who had a taste for high-class ladies’ boarding-houses had visited her four-storey gingerbread house on Bush Street for ‘cakes, champagne and l’amour.’

Collis even had a drink with Arthur Teach, who had grudgingly forgiven him for l’affaire des couvertures and was even quite eager to talk about railroad investment. The news had arrived in San Francisco that the Rebels were playing havoc with the Missouri railroads. They had dynamited bridges, torn up tracks, wrecked trains, and captured engineers. They had even kidnapped the president of the Hannibal & St Joseph and threatened to blow off his head unless train services were halted. The Leavenworth railroad was just as vulnerable to the Confederate cavalry, and for all James C. Stone’s political weight, it was becoming increasingly plain that the only safe route was going to be westward from Omaha.

‘I think you have it in the bag,’ said Arthur Teach. ‘And once you have it, you might look to Pacific Securities for some finance.’

‘Considering the blankets, that’s very generous of you,’ Collis told him. He raised his glass.

‘Considering the blankets, that’s the only way I’m likely to get my money back,’ Arthur said and snorted.

The morning on which Collis and Kwang Lee were due to sail for Panama City on the Gulf of California something odd and unsettling occurred. Collis was shaving in the bathroom of his suite at the Oriental Hotel when there was a knock at the door. He slung his towel over his shoulder and went with foam on his face to see who was there. It was Kwang Lee, already dressed in his grey tweed travelling suit and grey derby.

‘Come in,’ said Collis, ‘I won’t be ready for a while yet.’

‘No hurry, sir,’ Kwang Lee told him, closing the door. ‘While you shave, let me tell you some interesting news.’

‘What’s that?’ asked Collis, lifting his nose so that he could shave his moustache. He rinsed his razor and peered at himself in the mirror. Every morning he looked older, he thought. Every day the railroad was delayed, another hair turned grey. ‘There are more damned lines on my face than there are over the Sierra Nevada,’ he muttered.

‘I was talking to friends of mine in Chinatown,’ said Kwang Lee, taking off his hat and sitting down in Collis’s armchair. ‘They told me interesting news of Sarah Melford.’

‘Sarah Melford? What on earth can anyone in Chinatown have to do with Sarah Melford?’