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apparently sane and balanced veterans. Physicians refuted them, just as they had with the Resurrectionists, but the newspapers reported Jar Boy gangs in Liverpool, London, Edinburgh, and Newcastle; in Paris and Frankfurt; in America. As far as Langton knew, that was all they were: sensationalist stories.
    The stories all shared the same basic “facts”: The Jar Boys stole the souls of the dying. With their bizarre apparatus, they waited at the bedsides of those close to the end and captured the soul as it left the body,trapped it in special vessels of glass or clay. Poor families, either tricked or paid a guinea or two, allowed the Jar Boys access during those final minutes.
    It was madness. It had to be madness.
    What if it was true?
    Langton stumbled at the junction of Briar Street and Islington. He clung to a hissing gas lamp standard and pressed his face to the clammy, ridged steel. What if Sarah’s soul had been captured? Trapped and alone, she could be anywhere now, beyond Langton’s help. He’d sworn to shelter her, to protect her. Always.
    No, it could not be true. Mrs. Grizedale must be wrong. That seizure had not been an act; Langton still had her blood on his clothes. And she’d spat out fragments of broken tooth. She had been sincere, of that he was sure.
    Heavy footfalls in the fog preceded a constable in a slick black cape. He stood watching Langton for a moment, rocking on his heels.
    Langton straightened up, nodded to the constable, and walked on; since Langton didn’t stagger like a drunk, the constable didn’t call out. That made Langton remember the array of bottles locked in the sideboard at home. Whiskey and port. Wine, brandy, Curaçao. All waiting, collecting dust for so long. Wasted for so long. He walked faster.
    One question would not leave his mind. It returned again and again like a moth beating at an electrolier’s glass globe: Why would anyone
want
to capture another person’s soul?
    And that led to another question: What would they do with it?
    Elsie, the young maid, opened the door of Langton’s house. The hall gaslight gave her two spots of color high in her cheeks. “Evening, sir. There’s a visitor.”
    Slipping out of his Ulster, Langton said, “At this time of the night? Who?”
    Elsie took the coat and looked away. “Sergeant McBride, sir. He said it was urgent, so I took the liberty of putting him in the front sitting room, sir. Hope I did right.”
    Langton couldn’t help a slight smile. “That’s quite all right, Elsie.”
    “Could I get you anything, sir? Cook made a nice pie, steak and kidney. It’s in the larder.”
    Langton wondered why he kept a cook on his staff when he never ate anymore. Perhaps because Sarah had taken her on. Perhaps because to let Cook go would be to admit to change. “Thank you, Elsie, I’m not hungry. That will be all for tonight.”
    She turned away, blushing deeper. “Oh, I’ll stay up for a while yet, sir, in case there’s anything you and the sergeant need.”
    Langton found McBride standing by the fire in the front room. “I asked if I could wait, sir. Wasn’t Elsie’s idea.”
    Langton glanced at the sideboard in the corner, remembering the ranked bottles, then waved McBride to a chair. “You have news?”
    “A few things, sir. Remember Olsen, the stoker on board the
Asención
, the one who said he saw a small boat in the dock just before the body washed up?”
    “What did he have to say?”
    “Not as much as we’d hoped, sir. He’s dead.”
    “The drink?”
    McBride shook his head. “Someone slid a knife in his back while he was asleep, sir.”
    Langton stared into the fire. He didn’t like coincidences; he didn’t trust them. “Did anyone have a grudge against him? Any of the other sailors?”
    “If they do they’re not saying, sir. Nice clean wound it was, too: straight through the back of the ribs and into the heart.”
    “The weapon?”
    “Got it down at the station, sir. A narrow blade, a piece of