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Sheffield steel long as my forearm.”
    Langton tried to remember what the stoker had told McBride. If a small boat had dumped the faceless corpse into the dock, it could have come from a thousand places along the river, if not from one of the hundreds of moored ships. Langton could spend weekssearching even if the stoker had given a good description. All they had now was fog.
    “Did any strangers board the
Asención
?”
    McBride scratched his head. “Funny you should say that, sir. The captain put a man at the top of the gangplank, just like in every port. Third mate, sober and trusted. Seems he heard someone calling for help, splashing around, and thought it was a sailor worse for drink. So he rushes off to starboard with a life preserver in his hand.”
    “And found nothing.”
    “That’s right, sir.”
    That would give someone time to board the ship and search for Olsen, who probably slept close to the boilers and the coal hoppers, as stokers did on most vessels. But was Langton being too fanciful? Could there really be a connection between the faceless corpse and the death of the stoker? If such a connection did exist, Olsen’s killers must have learned of his sighting and his identity within hours. And then acted.
    “There was something else, sir,” McBride said, fishing in his jacket pocket and producing a crumpled envelope. “I found this waiting for you when I got back to the station.”
    Copperplate handwriting, blue ink on cream paper. In the top-right corner, embossed gilt script:
Professor H. Caldwell Chivers.
“We’ve been summoned, Sergeant.”
    “Sir?”
    Langton folded the note into his pocket. “It seems that the Professor wishes to see us tonight.”
    *  *  *
    S EATED WITH McB RIDE in the rear of a jostling hansom cab, Langton thought of the few people who had known of Stoker Olsen’s information. He could see the group standing around the faceless corpse at Albert Dock, could picture their faces: the docker, Connolly; Perkins,the assistant piermaster; Olsen, clutching the lamppost to keep himself upright. And McBride, of course.
    With his elbow, Langton wiped a clear patch in the cab window’s condensation. Lights glimmered like swollen eyes in the fog that had thickened and now clogged every street, pressed down on the city like a soporific pad over a patient’s mouth. Langton envied the sleeping inhabitants. He envied the sweet ignorance of their slumber.
    After the driver halted the cab at the corner of Hope Street and Hope Place, Langton paid him and stood on the snow-crusted pavement looking up at the Infirmary. A high, wide building in red brick and local sandstone, with a single electric globe burning above the side portico. A dimmer light glowed yellow in an adjacent window, no doubt the night porter’s quarters.
    Despite himself, Langton remembered the last time he had visited this place. Running through the stifling streets, unable to hail a cab, then stumbling up the steps to the emergency ward. All in vain.
    “Sir? Is everything all right?”
    Langton uncurled his fists in his pockets and made for the steps. “Come on, Sergeant.”
    Inside the echoing marble lobby, the old porter yawned as he slid aside the glass panel. “Emergency?”
    “No, we’re here—”
    “We only see emergencies after ten at night, gents. Proper hours is seven till ten.”
    Langton retrieved his warrant card and said, “Professor Caldwell Chivers said he’d wait for us.”
    “Oh. Right, sir.” The porter pulled on half-moon spectacles and checked his ledger. “The Professor is still signed in. You might find him in Theater, sir. Take those stairs on your left, third floor. Or he might be in Casualty.”
    Langton and McBride followed the directions. Their boots echoed from the white-tiled walls. They passed the open doors of long, coldwards lit by dim electric lights, where patients became indistinct mounds beneath grey blankets. Young nurses in white looked up from their desks as if