‘Dr Raven, my brother was sick for days and had the best care from the nurse throughout. I do not believe anything you did or did not do contributed to his death.’

‘I am sorry I could not do more,’ he replied softly.

‘Is it contagious, do you think? Are there any precautions I ought to take?’

‘Contagious? What makes you say that?’

‘It is just that I fear whatever claimed George might spread to me next, like it went to him from our mother.’

‘There is no need to be afraid. Your mother died of heart failure.’

‘So says Dr Fowler,’ she replied, sounding less than convinced.

As Raven walked back along Queen Street, his thoughts returned to his conversation with Ziegler regarding James Matthews Duncan’s anger over his perceived lack of credit for the discovery of chloroform. It was said that success had many fathers, while failure was always an orphan. Both sides of this were never quite so true as in medicine.

Today was not the first time another doctor had tried to leave him with the blame for a patient’s death. For that reason, he now saw that he ought to have been more sympathetic over the assault on Dr Simpson’s character. He was reluctant to be a pawn on the chessboard, but now he was beginning to wonder what game was really being played. When someone was so keen to pin the blame elsewhere, that often suggested they had something to hide. In Dr Fowler’s case it was merely the fact that his antiquated knowledge rendered him incompetent. But perhaps someone wanted to use Simpson as a scapegoat, and there was an agenda here beyond the one that Ziegler had suggested.

He thought of what Ziegler had told him, how he should be the answer he sought. He thought again about Sarah, how he had refused her his help, the hurt in her face when he did so, the fact that she was coming to him for assistance rather than relying on her husband.

It dawned on him that she knew how sick Archie was. Only too well, she knew. How could she not?

Sarah understood that some patients could not be saved, no matter the efforts of someone as brilliant as Dr Simpson. And Raven knew that sometimes, when you cannot fix something that is broken, you feel the need to fix something else in its stead.

TWENTY-SEVEN

he curtain rises upon the Institute’s assembly hall, where the Reverend Gillies addressed the children each morning before classes and duties commenced. There were two hundred boys learning trades beneath the Belmont’s roof, and half as many girls being taught sewing, knitting, cooking and other household skills.

It was a year later, and I was much changed: better fed and clothed, though I had not escaped the capricious rule of men. Nor had I found them to represent my only danger.