Collis left the platform and walked across the churned-up street. He had almost reached his carriage when someone called his name, and he turned around to see Mrs Pangborn making her way towards him, her skirts lifted out of the mud, her bonnet stained with damp.

‘Mr Edmonds,’ she said breathlessly, catching him up. ‘Mr Edmonds, I must congratulate you on your wonderful locomotive.’

‘Thank you, Mrs Pangborn,’ said Collis. ‘I’m glad that somebody around here has faith in what we’re doing.’

‘There was something else,’ said Mrs Pangborn.

‘Something else?’

‘Yes — rather personal, in a way.’

Collis looked around at the crowds, but nobody seemed to be showing any interest in them.

‘Do you want to tell me now?’ asked Collis.

‘Well,’ said Mrs Pangborn, ‘I was wondering if you wouldn’t rather call by my house this evening. You see, I have a guest staying with me at the moment who knows you, and has expressed an interest in meeting you again.’

‘A guest? Who is it?’

Mrs Pangborn raised her finger to her lips. ‘I’ll see you tonight, Mr Edmonds. Nine o’clock would be ideal.’

It was a few minutes after nine when Collis knocked at Mrs Pangborn’s door. The door was opened right away, by a silent Chinese girl, and Collis was led through into the perfumed front parlour. Mrs Pangborn was waiting for him, playing with a small white kitten with a pink bow around its neck.

‘Ah … Mr Edmonds,’ she said, rising to her feet, and curtseying. ‘I’m delighted you could come.’

‘I don’t have a great deal of time,’ said Collis edgily. These days he didn’t like to be seen at Mrs Pangborn’s. There were too many fundamentalists in the Sacramento business community, and too many anti-railroad lobbyists who would seize on the slightest moral misdemeanour as evidence that Collis was not fit to run a railroad on which women and children might travel.

‘Well,’ said Mrs Pangborn, smiling, ‘I’m sure this won’t take very long. Lin Lee, would you ask the new girl to come down, please.’

Collis stood in the centre of the room, tall and formal in his dark-blue topcoat, his silk hat in his hand. Mrs Pangborn asked him if he cared for a glass of champagne, but he shook his head. He was too taken up with the day’s railroad business and the problems of finance to be giving this little circus act of Mrs Pangborn’s much serious thought.