The basement canteen of the Alhambra was a long room, with a bar running down its entire length. It had plain, whitewashed walls, but the simplicity of decoration was more than made up for by the exotic clientele. Both performers and spectators drank there in the interval, so you saw jugglers, magicians and clowns, and strong men towering over the heads of the crowd, still dressed in leopard-skins and glistening with sweat.

James Whittaker had come down to the bar, but the red-head had lingered in the lobby, as though she was waiting for someone before she could make another attempt on his life. Ellini had persuaded Robin that Mr Whittaker was the important one, and they had left the red-head to her own devices and dived into the thick, smoky air of the canteen.

The man was sitting by himself at the bar, flashing bank-notes and drinking champagne. He would probably not be by himself for long.

"Let me talk to him first," she said to Robin as they elbowed their way through the throng. Her stomach heaved at the thought of being alone with someone in the same position as Jack had been in, not so long ago, but she wouldn't find out much with Robin in tow.

There wasn't much space beside James Whittaker at the bar, but she squeezed into what little there was, and widened it with gentle shoving.

She tried to remind herself that men like James Whittaker were the ones she was, in theory, trying to save – that the Wylies were the real villains, tricking lovers into a game they could never win, turning the confidence of young love against itself. The thought did nothing to ease her nausea.

She had no idea how to begin a conversation – she wondered now if she had ever sought one in her life – but, fortunately, he was taking out a cigarette when she joined him. He looked up, assessed her for the barest skin of a second, and then offered her one.

"No, thank you," said Ellini, trying to fight down all the nauseous memories she associated with cigarettes. "I never really caught the habit."

"I wish I hadn't either," he said, assessing her again while he took out his matches.

She wondered whether he was trying to decide if she was pretty. Was her curse working on him already? And did he smoke for the same reason Jack had smoked? Was it a displaced longing for his dead fiancée?

"Well, how about a drink then, if I can't tempt you with a cigarette? Do you like champagne? I never met a girl who didn't."

Ellini forced herself to smile. "Yes. Thank you. I'm Ellie."

"James Whittaker," said the young man – and then winced, as though he'd said too much. "I suppose you've read about me in the papers?"

"I have a bit," Ellini confessed. "It was an extraordinary case."

"I'd sooner it had been less extraordinary," said Mr Whittaker, motioning to the barman for two champagnes. "In fact, I'd sooner there'd been no case at all, and no poor dead girl dragged out of the river." 

He hesitated, and then went on. "They took me to see her body, you know, to make certain I didn't know her. I can't get it out of my head. Whatever the truth of it – whatever her parents hoped to achieve by claiming I was engaged to her – no girl deserved to end her days on that slab."

Ellini blinked. She had been afraid he wouldn't want to talk about it, but the details were dripping from him like river-water. He did look very troubled. And there was a hint of desperation in the way he knocked back his champagne.

Of course, he was not trying to forget, because he'd already forgotten, but it was as though he felt an absence within himself, and was frantically trying to fill it with something.

A nice man, as Robin had said. So why did she feel the urge to grab him by the shoulders and shake him?

"I'm sorry," said Ellini, taking a shaky sip of her champagne. "Was she very pretty?"

James Whittaker shrugged uncomfortably. "I don't know. Isn't that an odd thing to say? I didn't know what to make of her. I only felt sorry for her. I tried to be kind, you know, when she-" He motioned for another champagne, "when she accosted me in the street and insisted I was her fiancé. I knew the poor girl must have been out of her wits. I hope it was that, and not anything I said, which made her..." He downed the second champagne, and looked at Ellini. "She wasn't pretty in the way that you're pretty, anyway. It would be hard to be undecided about your charms."

Before Ellini could answer this, someone squeezed into the space on his other side, pressing so close that she almost pitched him off his stool. Ellini caught a flash of red hair, and couldn't help staring.

Up close, the woman with the cigarette-holder was very pretty, with placid grey eyes and a flawless, almost featureless, complexion.

Her skin was as smooth as a fish's – which was an odd image, but one that seemed to fit. It wasn't grey or slippery or scaly like a fish's skin, but there was something so unearthly about its smoothness that you got the feeling she must have evolved underwater. Ellini wouldn't have been surprised to hear that her body was completely hairless, to minimize drag.

"Oh, excuse me," said the woman, beaming at James Whittaker. She fanned herself with her hand and said, "It's so close in here!"

"Let me get you a drink," he said, presumably assessing her prettiness and deciding it was more than equal to Ellini's. "Two more champagnes here, barman."

Ellini tried to mumble some kind of excuse, and then realized that no-one was paying any attention to her anyway. She elbowed her way through the crowd to Robin.

"It's her," she hissed when she reached him, trying not to notice how infuriatingly cool and unruffled he looked.

"I can see that," said Robin.

"But she'll try to kill him again!"

"Very likely."

"Well, what do I do?"

Robin took a sip of his wine and said, "What I taught you to do: win."

He pushed her back towards the bar, and then seemed to change his mind, pulling her closer and giving her the same cool, assessing look that James Whittaker had directed at her. 

"Let's see..." He pulled a few pins out of her hair, causing it to spill down her shoulders, and whipped off the lacy shawl that was covering the bodice of her dress. "Now you've got a chance," he said, pushing her back towards the bar. "And try not to slouch. Remember, a man's life is at stake."

She drifted back to James Whittaker, who seemed to have been looking for her anyway. "Ellie, this is Isabella." His voice was apologetic, but his face was flushed with the thrill of having two pretty girls competing for his attention. It was endearing and infuriating at the same time.

"She was just telling me that she's a trapeze artist," he went on.

"I prefer aerialiste," said the redhead, with a toss of her buoyant curls. "Although I've performed many jobs in the circus – acrobat, contortionist." Here, she gave Mr Whittaker a not-very-subtle nudge and exclaimed, "The things I can do with these arms and legs!"

James Whittaker blushed again, and turned to Ellini. "And – and do you have a profession, Miss Ellie?"

Oddly, at this moment, Ellini remembered Mrs Gratton's advice to never tell a strange man you were a needlewoman, in case he wondered how you supplemented your income.

"Dressmaker," she said, with a queasy smile. She then realized that her beautiful gown could support this assertion, and she indicated the bodice, with its low, square neckline. Isabella might have supple arms and legs, but the one thing that could be guaranteed to win a man's attention was cleavage. "I made this myself," she said, "although, of course, I don't often get a chance to keep the things I sew."

"Lovely," said Isabella frostily, and called for another champagne.

They spent another ten minutes at the bar – during which time, Ellini tried to smile, and watched the redhead with interest. There was something curious about her eyes. It took her a long time to realize what it was. And, once she had, it took just as long again to put into words.

She blinked like an amphibian. She had eyelids, but they were just for show – she never lowered them. Instead, two membranes closed over her eyeballs from the sides, and met in the middle like doors. It was over in an instant. You couldn't really be sure what had happened.

And instead of thinking 'What a fascinating demonic symptom', Ellini found herself wondering whether those membranes closed when the woman was surprised or uncertain, or whether it was simply a way to keep the moisture of her eyeballs from evaporating.

At half-past nine, Isabella said she had champagne and oysters at home, and invited them both – quite reluctantly, in the case of Ellini – to her lodgings in St. John's Wood. She grabbed Mr Whittaker by the arm and dragged him through the crowd and out into the cool, smoky air of Leicester Square.

Ellini followed them, casting a look at Robin as she went. She was determined that it wouldn't be a pleading look, but it quickly turned into a scowl when he gave her a merry wave and continued to drink his wine.

Out in the night air, she looked for Mr Whittaker. He seemed to have temporarily extricated himself from Isabella, because he was alone. He met Ellini at the door, his manner still apologetic but smug. "She's gone to find a cab," he said. "I couldn't stop her. But, when she gets back, I'll tell her that we want to stay here, together. I – uh – I like you better."

Ellini was so surprised by this that she even forgot about the nausea. She stared at him with her mouth open for a moment, and then recovered herself. "I – thank you, sir. You're very kind. I'd be very glad to get to know you too, and, though I may not be as free with my affections as some women, I-"

She stopped, because Mr Whittaker's smile had frozen. He backed away, keeping the smile in place as though it was a shield. "Would you...wait here a moment?" 

Then he turned and hurried after Isabella, leaving Ellini standing, nonplussed, on the steps of the Alhambra.

After a few seconds, she became aware of a soft chuckling behind her, and felt Robin's hand on her shoulder.

"That was the funniest thing I've ever seen in my life. That was funnier than when I tied Gargotha's two sets of arms together and made him fight me like a quadraped!"

"I don't understand what happened," said Ellini, watching Mr Whittaker get into the cab without so much as a backward glance in her direction.

"You don't?" said Robin. "You don't think the words 'I may not be as free with my affections as some women' had something to do with it?"

"But he – he seemed so nice..."

Robin chuckled again. "How nice did you expect him to be? He thought he was getting a woman tonight. He had two to choose from, and you almost cost him both."

"But won't the red-head try to kill him again?"

"Almost certainly," said Robin, leaning against the wall. "I have a cab waiting if you'd like to follow them, but perhaps you'd prefer to leave him to his fate now?"

Ellini glared at him. "Don't be ridiculous. He doesn't deserve to die."

"And what you have in store for him – is that much better?"

"I haven't decided what I have in store for him yet," she said sniffily. "Let's go."