Bowen’s eyes moved to the bottle on the table. It still contained a few fingers of whiskey. Caleb laid a hand on the doctor’s wrist and shook his head. Bowen nodded. No other words were necessary.

Adelaide Greaves sat at the table with the men of the newly styled Emergency Committee, a notebook and pencil set before her. Her eyes widened when she saw Caleb.

‘Mr Hunt,’ she said. ‘I am surprised to see you.’

‘And I you, Mrs Greaves,’ he replied with icy politeness.

‘We need to advise Melbourne and the telegraph is our best form of communication. It seemed easier to have Mrs Greaves at the meeting rather than relay the information,’ Russell said. ‘If you are concerned, I assure you, we can rely on Mrs Greaves’s discretion.’

Caleb had no doubt as to Adelaide Greaves’s discretion. His eyes met hers and he cleared his throat. ‘If Murray has returned to his home, I suggest our only course of action is to isolate the house completely.’

‘How?’ Mackie asked.

‘I saw it done in an outbreak back home. We have to enclose the house in a wall. No one in or out.’

The town councillors looked at each other and without further discussion, agreement on this drastic course of action was reached. Now it only remained to inform Murray.

The Murray’s house was set back from the road on an isolated plot of ground a couple of hundred yards north of the gate to the Chinese gardens. The creek curved behind it and a rose garden had been laid out in front. Lace curtains hung at the windows. On a normal day it would appear a pretty, much loved home. Today the blinds were drawn and, under a lowering grey sky, it looked as obstinately silent and stubborn as its owner.

Several wagonloads of lumber and the mine carpenters, arranged by Cowper, had already arrived and these stood well back on the road as the members of the newly styled Emergency Committee approached the house.

In response to Sergeant Maidment’s call, Murray appeared on the verandah, arms crossed. He glared at his distant visitors.

‘I told you I was going home,’ the man said. ‘I’m not going to any smallpox hospital. This is our home and this is where we’re staying. I’ll look after Lizzie, same as I always have.’

‘You’re a fool, Murray,’ Maidment said. ‘You’ve not only endangered your wife and family, but the whole town. I should arrest you. Unfortunately you leave us with no choice.’ He nodded at the mine foreman and the wagons creaked forward.

‘What’s going on?’ Murray demanded.

‘We’re building a fence around this property.’

All the defiance seemed to leach from Murray. He staggered back against his front door. ‘You can’t—’