Simpson put his own glass on the tray and indicated to Jarvis that he would like it removed just as the dining-room door opened and dinner arrived. As the various dishes were placed on the table, Raven felt a pang of disappointment over who was serving them, or more specifically who was not. He watched the young girl who had answered the door as she made her way round the table, and it brought home to him once again what had so dramatically and irrevocably changed in his time away. He tried to imagine Sarah sitting at her own table with her husband, but he could not bring the image to mind. Even the attempt caused him to feel a distinct ache in his chest.

He found that he was disproportionately pleased by the things in the household that had remained the same: the irascible Jarvis, Mrs Lyndsay’s cooking, even Glen the Dalmatian, who was sitting by Simpson’s right hand waiting for scraps.

‘Tell me, Will, how fares chloroform on the Continent?’ the doctor asked, interrupting his ruminations.

‘Almost universally used in surgery in preference to ether.’

‘And in midwifery?’

‘It tends to be reserved for difficult cases. There are concerns about its safety.’

‘I am entirely convinced that it is safe,’ Simpson said emphatically. ‘Problems only arise when there is a want of caution in its administration. If improperly given, chloroform may well prove injurious or even fatal – as will opium, calomel or every other powerful remedy or strong drug.’

‘When in London, I heard John Snow speak at a meeting of the Westminster Medical Society,’ Raven said. ‘He advocates the use of an inhaler to determine and control the precise amount of chloroform the patient receives.’

‘I find a handkerchief serves well enough.’

Raven felt that the professor was being a little dismissive.

‘Snow maintains it was an excessive amount of chloroform that was responsible for Hannah Greener’s death.’

Hannah Greener was a fifteen-year-old girl who had perished within minutes of receiving chloroform for the removal of a toenail. The case had provoked a prolonged debate about why she had died.

‘As I understand it, in that case the girl fell into a state of syncope which I have occasionally seen myself,’ Simpson replied. ‘But then cold water was poured into her mouth followed by brandy, which of course she was unable to swallow. She was no more able to breathe than if her whole head had been submersed. The girl died of asphyxia. She died not of the chloroform but of the attempts made to revive her.’

Raven was beginning to feel discomfited, as though his contributions were not being given due weight. He decided to change tack.

‘In London, concern is still expressed about anaesthetic midwifery being anti-scriptural.’

Raven sat back, expecting an entertaining eruption of some kind. There was none.