Down the hall were angry voices, and entering the surgery, I gave Inspector Barbier standing at the doorway a nod of acknowledgment.

“Thanks for coming, Elinor. Welcome to the circus.”

Unlike his sergeant, he wore every-day clothes for the working man: a brown tweed coat, with matching trousers and a waistcoat with black buttons. Barbier’s long dour face was that of a mournful hound disappointed with his life: large brown eyes, flat hollow cheeks, and a long black mustache that brushed the corners of his mouth. With his chin tucked to his chest, he was slowly stroking the ends, a sign of deep concentration.

It was the surgeon, Doctor LaRue, who was arguing. She was at least twenty years older than my almost-thirty, rail thin, like a vine bean, with an oval face and a nose that would shame the beak of a water bird.

She wore dark blue trousers and a black vest, a daring choice for a woman. Her rolled-up shirtsleeves exposed strong sinewy forearms that were still red, evidence she had scrubbed them with the harsh bar soap used in the morgue, but her apron was still white, proving she hadn’t started the autopsy yet.

The doctor was a very skilled butcher of men, but not so excellent as a bedside healer; she was a blunt speaker and without a grain of sentimentality. I found her a good friend.

The only other occupant of the room was a woman I knew little about but recognized: Madame Nyght. She was a flashy bird among us plain crows, dressed in a bold black-and-white striped satin, with the smallest waist the best corset could make, and a stylish hat that dripped with jet fringe.

You might mistake Nyght for a rich man’s mistress. In truth, she was a huckster, a fraud who amused the rich. I wish I had her clientèle.

“I don’t care who told you to be here. This is my surgery and I am in charge here,” snapped Dr. LaRue.

“Do you think I wish to be here looking at your dead meat? Taken from my home and escorted here by a gendarme?” Seeing her wild gestures puncturing the air made me believe the rumor that she had once worked on the stage before becoming a Ghost Talker.

Madame Nyght pointed at me. “First you ask for my help, then you insult me by bringing this donkey here?”

“As I’ve been saying, I don’t want you here,” replied Dr. LaRue tersely.

“Is she calling me a donkey?” I asked, turning to Inspector Barbier.

“Don’t feel insulted. She called me a mule, and Dr. LaRue, a goat.”

“A fixation on barnyard animals, perhaps?”

“You’d have to take that up with a mind-doctor. I only catch them, not explain them.”

Madame Nyght made a dismissive hiss and waved her hand at us all. “Do I crawl into the gutters and look for dead bodies? No. I am Madame Nyght. I am genteel and talk with spirits in the drawing rooms of the best society.”

Behind me, a voice with the harshness of a northern accent said, “And tonight we will be grateful for whatever your talents can reveal to us about this mystery.”

The Duke de Archambeau had arrived.