It held files. The first one contained Dunworthy's personal income and expenses, recorded in a 1924 ledger in the same fussy hand that had penned the notice on the meeting-room door. Rent, bills from the newsagent, the grocer, the butcher, small contributions to a savings account in the expenses columns; income in another, regular amounts for the past three months; before that, the sums varied in size and date. The ledger went back to January and bore mute witness to a life of considerable tedium.

The file behind it bore the notation: Children of Lights.

I opened it on the desk-top. It, too, had a ledger, with weekly amounts for tea, biscuits, hall rental, newspaper adverts, and the like. Every so often there would be small amounts for “supplies,” the type unspecified. The earliest noted expense was for hall rental, paid on 1 February of this year. It was followed by a man's name with the notation Builder-for the fitted cabinets in the meeting-hall, no doubt.

No payment had been recorded to Damian Adler for the painting.

The back half of the ledger was a list of names, dates, and sums. About half the names repeated, some of them every week, with amounts ranging from £10 to £1,000. I raised my eyebrows, because by rough tally, the Children of Lights had brought in just under £12,000 in seven months. I copied the names of everyone who had donated more than £100; the list came to forty-seven names.

Behind the ledger was an ordinary mailing envelope containing assorted bits of paper, including the receipt for a pair of shoes from Harrods on 11 August. It was pinned to a sales receipt for a frock from Selfridges, another sales receipt for a pair of stockings, also from Selfridges, and a straw hat from a shop just a few doors down from Selfridges on Oxford Street.

Also in the envelope were a piece of note-paper with a list of sums, although no indication of what they might be for; a scrap of lined paper with several times written on it, again with no explanation; a chemist's receipt for “The Mixture”; and a piece of different note-paper on which was written:

two first class return tickets, Victoria to Eastbourne 1 picnic basket Fortnum & Mason, to be called for

I read the lines, and wondered darkly if a child of three required her own ticket.

I copied the information concerning chemists, picnic baskets, and sums, and returned the envelope to the file and the file to the drawer. A glance at the other files showed nothing of interest, so I closed the drawer and returned to the top one, this time drawing out the book. It was a thing of beauty: hand bound, heavy paper that was a pleasure to touch, and again the symbol. I turned to the title page, half expecting it to be called The Book of Lights, but instead saw only the word Testimony in the precise centre of the page. Below the word was the symbol, this time with a number beside it, hand-written in brownish ink:

There was no publishing information, which did not surprise me; what interested me more was the lack of an author's name. I turned to the beginning of the print, and ran my eyes over the text:

First Birth

The boy came into being on a night of celestial alignment, when a comet travelled the firmament and the sky threw forth a million shooting stars to herald his arrival.

Birth is a nexus, a time in which the Elements come together to form a new thing. Earth and air, fire and water, mingle and transform, to create a living being with the potential to become a vessel, glowing and pulsating with True Spirit.

The boy's mother lay on her birth-bed and saw the meteor shower, and knew it to be an omen. She felt no surprise when, at the very height of her birth pangs, one of the celestial celebrants plummeted to earth in the pond at the foot of the house-stripe of flame roaring through the air to hit the water with a crash and a billow of steam-and once she had given the new life suck, she rose from her bloody sheets to oversee the rescue of the precious scrap of metal. It was still hot, even after hours in the water.

Three lines down the second page, sudden voices jolted through me, shockingly near. The stairway door squeaked shut as the voices approached. I flung the book into the drawer, risking a split second to arrange it back to the centre, then snatched up my notes, shoved the chair back into place, and leapt for the bedroom.

“Well, I shall certainly have a word with Mr Wilberham about those pipes, the hammering is simply unbearable, and if you-oh look, Millicent, is this your shopping basket?”

Millicent did not answer, not that I heard, but while the other voice was puzzling loudly over the unclaimed basket of lettuces, perched on the hallway table like some idiosyncratic flower arrangement, the basket's owner was ducking behind an unclosable bedroom door, her heart pounding. An instant later, the key hit the lock.

The door to the flat opened to the other woman's ongoing debate over the ownership of these wilting vegetables. Millicent Dunworthy came inside, and I heard the other woman say, “I do hope you're feeling better, dear, these things can be such a shock, I-”

The door closed; the voice trailed off. I strained to hear, but the only sounds were the clump, clump of heavy shoes retreating down the hallway. A distant door slammed. I frowned: Why was Millicent Dunworthy just standing there? Had she somehow perceived that her home had been invaded?

To my relief, sound came at last: a small sigh or stifled cry, then by the soft slap of a newspaper hitting a table, followed by keys and some other object. Her feet clacked over the floorboards, crossed the carpet, then clacked again on linoleum. Water ran into a kettle. I wrapped my fingers around the knob that brushed my hip, lest the door drift open.

She set the kettle onto its ring and flame popped into life. Her heels rapped again: Lino, carpet, boards, then she passed by me, a foot away on the other side of a flimsy door. I stood tensely, my nose against the wood, scarcely breathing.

The wardrobe door rattled open, causing its yellowing side to shift against my left shoulder. Hangers scraped; the door clicked shut; she walked past me again, her footsteps turning immediately to the right. I heard the snap of a light-switch.

I drew a slow breath, then let it spill. Counting to twenty, I opened my fingers on the knob to let the door drift open, then took a step around it into the bedroom. Sounds from the lavatory assured me that Millicent Dunworthy was occupied for the next half minute or so. I pressed myself to the narrow swath of wall separating the two doors, and craned my neck forward a fraction of an inch-then smiled in relief: Millicent was the sort of lady who automatically closed the lavatory door even when she was all alone. It was not completely shut, and if she happened to be staring directly at the gap, she would see motion, but short of stretching out beneath her bed and hoping I didn't sneeze before she left for work the next morning, this was my best chance for escape.

I stepped briskly on my crepe-soled shoes to the door, then paused. The tinkling sounds had ceased, but over the rising burble from the tea-kettle was something else. Crying. Millicent Dunworthy was weeping softly. I scowled downward as I listened, and my gaze slowly came to focus on the folded newspaper she had laid on the table along with her keys and hand-bag. Here was the explanation of her tears:

ARTIST'S WIFE SLAIN AT LONG MAN

“THE ADDLER” AND SMALL DAUGHTER MISSING

The front door-knob rattled slightly under my hand; if the apartment behind me had been completely still, she would have heard the door coming open, but it was not, and she did not.