“Oh,” replied Susan. She blinked back a tear, thinking of her mother’s difficulties. “I see. I suppose that makes sense. She always said she didn’t do drugs, though she hung out with lots of bands before I was born . . . the Stones and the Kinks and everyone, taking photographs—she’s a photographer, and a painter—I should have believed her. . . .”
“What are your other clues?” asked Merlin gently.
Susan took a tarnished silver gilt cigarette case out of one of the many pockets of her boiler suit. She carried it with her everywhere, since her mother had given it to her on her twelfth birthday “from your dad” but then denied having done so later, and said she’d never seen it before. The case was also convenient for carrying the other scant clues she’d gleaned over the years.
“This case was apparently my father’s,” she said, pressing the catch to open it, revealing a folded piece of paper and a washed-out rectangle of printed cardboard. “Mum gave it to me on my birthday. We were here in London, as a matter of fact. She said something or someone reminded her of him, but she couldn’t think what it was, and then she gave me this—but she wouldn’t talk about it afterwards, not ever. So it hasn’t been very helpful.”
“Is that a crest or badge, engraved on the front of the case?” asked Vivien eagerly.
“Maybe . . .” replied Susan, angling the case so they could all see the faded engraving.
“I suppose it could be an animal head of some kind,” said Thurston. “Rather abstract, all those straight lines. Not a boar, horse, or lion . . . hmm . . .”
“I took it in to Antiques Roadshow when they came to Bath a few years ago,” said Susan. “But they weren’t very interested. Their silver specialist confirmed something I’d looked up before; she said the hallmarks are wrong, and dismissed it as a fake.
“It has the anchor mark for Birmingham, and the sterling lion and a date mark for 1962. But there’s also a hand, which usually means Sheffield, but of course it can’t have been made in Sheffield and Birmingham. And the hand is back to front anyway. The expert couldn’t identify the maker’s mark, either. It’s a kind of rune, but not Norse or like one of Tolkien’s. I didn’t get on the show, needless to say.”
“Birmingham? And an extra hallmark, is it? Well, well,” mused Thurston. “May I see?”
He took a loupe out of his waistcoat and screwed it into his eye. Susan took the papers out and handed over the case.
“The card has been through the wash,” she said, putting it down on the table. “But you can still see it says ‘Reading Ticket’ and part of a number, ‘something, something seven three,’ but the name was written on in blue ink and it’s almost completely gone. I thought it might be for the British Museum reading room.”
“It isn’t,” said Vivien immediately. “Wrong design and shape. It’s for one of the private libraries. We can easily find that out, and we might be able to restore the number, maybe the name as well.”
“With magic?”
“No,” said Vivien. “We’ll try more usual means first. Our conservation workshop is over at the Old Bookshop, which of course makes no sense because all the old books are here at the New Bookshop—”
“Happen there’s more room and better light over at the Old Bookshop,” said Thurston, looking up from the cigarette case. “There’s method there, young Vivien.”
“Anyway,” continued Vivien. “Aunt Helen and Aunt Zoë are considered among the best paper conservators in the world. Lots of museums send books and papers for us to investigate, repair, and conserve. I’m sure we can find out where it’s from, and maybe even retrieve the name.”
“And as I thought,” said Thurston, handing the case back to Susan. “Harshton and Hoole, our right-handed silversmiths. Sterling silver, Birmingham, 1964. The reversed hand mark indicates it was a pact gift. Given to encourage some kind of agreement or alliance between mythic entities who must have been in human form at the time. Though I can’t say I recall anything of that nature in the early sixties. Or cigarette cases . . .”
“We can probably look it up,” said Vivien. “Though 1964 . . . Harshton and Hoole had a fire that year, didn’t they? Or was it 1963?”
“They did, in 1964,” rumbled Thurston. “Electrical. The whole place should have been rebuilt after the war—it was damaged during the Blitz—and we ended up having to do so anyway in 1970. But very little was lost in that 1964 fire. Their papers are archived to the mine with everyone else’s.”
“It’s not so far back; the silversmith who made it is probably still working,” said Vivien. “I’ll write a note to inquire.”
“And be lucky to get a reply before the solstice, knowing them,” complained Thurston. “So the case, a reader’s ticket . . . and what’s on yon piece of paper?”
“A list of names,” said Susan. “Mum would never come out and tell me a complete name, or she couldn’t, but at various times she’d mention people and things that happened or who she did something with, and I’ve been keeping a list of the men who she mentioned multiple times. But I don’t know which first names line up with the surnames. Except for Frank Thringley, who I knew from the Christmas cards, and like I said, Mum never talked about him in quite the same way as these others.”
“So what do you have?” asked Vivien.
Susan unfolded the sheet of paper and smoothed it out on the table. Everyone peered in, except Merrihew, who was busy demolishing her third biscuit and, if she leaned, might lose the plate.
“So you see I have John, Magnus, Edwin, Rex. But only three surnames came up more than once, and I couldn’t link them up to any particular first name or the events she was talking about. They’re Smith . . . yes, I know, completely useless; Asher or Usher; and Liston or Biston, or maybe something else -iston.”
Merrihew made a
