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them bigger & he was using an instrument to hold one wound open so that he could get at the ball.
    “Aaaaaah!” screamed Murphy.
    “For God’s sake,” muttered Doc Pinkerton. “I can’t work with all that noise. Here. Bite on this bullet.” He put something in Murphy’s mouth.
    I came closer and knelt down beside the chair, so I could see better. I held the teacup ready for when Doc Pinkerton extracted the second ball.
    “These are .36 caliber balls, ain’t they?” I asked, as it went into my teacup with a clink.
    “Yes, indeed,” said Doc Pinkerton. “Thirty-six caliber Navy balls.” For the first time he seemed to notice me. “Why, hello, P.K.,” he said. “How are you? How is your arm coming along?”
    “I am tolerable,” I said. “My arm aches a little and has recently started to itch.”
    “Itching is good,” grunted Doc Pinkerton. “That means it’s healing. Just resist the urge to scratch it. Can you reach me the long tweezers from my black bag?” he added. “This last ball has gone in deep.”
    “Yes, sir,” I said. I put down the china teacup & fetched out his long tweezers.
    I handed them over.
    Murphy had stopped screaming. He had gone very still. His eyes were closed.
    “Is he dead?” I asked.
    “Just passed out, I hope,” said the doctor. “Probably best for all concerned. It is lucky for him that I heard those shots.”
    “I think he swallowed that bullet he was biting on,” I said.
    Doc Pinkerton did not reply. He was intent on his work.
    “If someone punched him hard in the stomach,” I said, “would the bullet go off?”
    Doc Pinkerton smiled. “Only if he swallowed powder and a lit match,” he said. “I gave him a lead ball to bite on, not a cartridge.”
    I nodded. My own Smith & Wesson’s seven-shooter has cartridges with the cap & ball & powder all encased in a single shell but most gunmen here in Virginia have to combine those separate ingredients in the chambers of their revolvers.
    I watched Doc Pinkerton probe with the tweezers for a while.
    Ping had revived Isaiah Coffin & was now standing just behind me & holding a sponge floating in a bowl of water.
    “Doggone it!” said Doc Pinkerton. “That sky window provides excellent light but my spectacles are badly scratched and befogged. I am waiting for a new pair to arrive from San Francisco. P.K., can you see the ball in there?”
    “I see it,” I said. “It is kind of a silver glint among all the red slimy bits.”
    “Here,” said Doc Pinkerton, handing me the long tweezers. “I will hold the sides of the wound open. See if you can fetch it out. Be careful not to pierce any throbbing veins or vital organs.”
    I stood up & bent over the wound & probed for the ball.
    A moment later I held up the ball, held fast by the long tweezers.
    Doc Pinkerton squinted at it. “Is the ball whole?” he said. “That is to say, in one piece?”
    “Yes, sir,” I said.
    “Well done, P.K.,” said he. “Ping? Hand me that sponge. Let’s clean him up before we bandage him.”
    I put the ball in the teacup with the two others. I had enjoyed helping Doc Pinkerton. Concentrating like that made me forget everything else. I reckoned operating on a person was almost as good as ordering a Collection for staving off the Mulligrubs.
    Doc Pinkerton showed me how to pack the wounds with lint and bind them with bandages. As he was finishing, I heard footsteps come into the shop & I smelled cigar smoke.
    “Doc,” said a man’s voice.
    Doc Pinkerton glanced up. “Hello, Deputy Marshal,” he said.
    I looked at the Deputy Marshal with interest. He was a short man with a coffee-colored plug hat on his head, a thin cheroot in his mouth & a big Colt’s Army stuck into his belt. He had a thick black mustache & matching eyebrows & a squashed nose.
    I had not yet met any of the lawmen here in Virginia.Maybe this Deputy Marshal could help me find Sally’s Killer and protect Martha.
    I do not like touching people but I stood up and