The room was dominated by the kitchen table. It was where the undercook weighed ingredients and chopped vegetables before handing them over to be boiled or fried or baked at the range. It had been scrubbed down and two china bowls set out ready for Cook to prepare Crillick’s breakfast. I skirted round it, past a large dresser that half-covered one wall, and made for the small room on the far side of the kitchen, where I knew there was a cot as well as a table and shelves full of pots and pans. The door creaked open but when I looked over to the makeshift bed, it was tidy, the covers neatly made. No one had slept here tonight. I looked around, puzzled. There was no chance that Crillick would have given the Leopard Lady a guest room. Where else would she be?

For a moment I wavered, knowing that the most sensible thing to do would be to go back to bed. I’d not run into anyone so far but I didn’t want to push my luck. I stood still, straining my ears for the noises of people moving about but there were only the night-time sounds of the house settling. Yes, Vincent would be annoyed if he woke to find I’d disobeyed him, but I wasn’t ready to give up on the Leopard Lady yet. Grace would start her chores in less than an hour. After last night’s event, she would no doubt begin in the library. I would wait for her there and ask where the Leopard Lady was being kept.

The library door swung back at the push of my fingertips and I saw that the room had not been righted since the performance. The chairs remained in loose rows, but some had been scattered as their occupants got up to touch the Leopard Lady, or to storm out at the end of the night. Others had been turned to one side when members of the audience whispered to their neighbours trying to work out what she was. There was a haze of fruit-scented cigar smoke and discarded glasses lined the mantelpiece. A sadness descended on me. I’d never be here again without feeling the Leopard Lady’s presence, remembering the vacant terror as she looked out from the stage at the men and women to whom she was nothing more than a curiosity.

The little trolley of medical instruments was still there, by the side of the improvised stage. Better not to know exactly what was on it, but I couldn’t resist the pull. A long thin needle – Lord knew what that was for. A scalpel. They’d tried to remove her colour with saliva and the scratch of a fingernail. Was the curved blade of the scalpel the next step? I grazed it lightly against my arm, wondering what it would feel like.

‘Careful, Zillah, you might cut yourself.’