A child’s glove. Stained as if by water it was the colour of old parchment and finely wrinkled like an old, old face. It had been elegantly embroidered with tiny roses in gold and scarlet. A gold tassel, now blackened and partly unravelled, was attached to the tapered gauntlet. It was the most heartrending object Peregrine had ever seen.

Underneath it lay two pieces of folded paper, very much discoloured.

‘Will you read the papers?’ Mr Conducis invited. He had returned to the fireplace.

Peregrine felt an extraordinary delicacy in touching the glove. ‘Cheverel,’ he thought. ‘It’s a cheverel glove. Has it gone brittle with age?’ No. To his fingertip it was flaccid: uncannily so as if it had only just died. He slipped the papers out from beneath it. They had split along the folds and were foxed and faded. He opened the larger with great care and it lay broken before him. He pulled himself together and managed to read it.

This little glove and accompanying note were given to my Great-Great-Grandmother by her Beft Friend: a Mifs Or Mrs J. Hart. My dear Grandmother always infifted that it had belonged to the poet. N. B. mark infide gauntlet.

M. E. 23 April 1830

The accompanying note was no more than a slip of paper. The writing on it was much faded and so extraordinarily crabbed and tortuous that he thought at first it must be hieroglyphic and that he therefore would never make it out. Then it seemed to him that there was something almost familiar about it. And then, gradually, words began to emerge. Everything was quiet. He heard the fire settle. Someone crossed the room above the library. He heard his own heart thud.

He read:

Mayde by my father for my sonne on his XI birthedy and never worne butte ync

Peregrine sat in a kind of trance and looked at the little glove and the documents. Mr Conducis had left the paper knife on the table. Peregrine slid the ivory tip into the gauntlet and very slowly lifted and turned it. There was the mark, in the same crabbed hand. ‘H. S.’

‘– But where –’ Peregrine heard his own voice saying, ‘– where did it come from? Whose is it?’

‘It is mine,’ Mr Conducis said and his voice seemed to come from a great distance. ‘Naturally.’

‘But – where did you find it?’

A long silence.

‘At sea.’

‘At sea?’

‘During a voyage six years ago. I bought it.’

Peregrine looked at his host. How pale Mr Conducis was and how odd was his manner!

He said: ‘The box – it is some kind of portable writing desk – was a family possession. The former owner did not discover the false bottom until – ’ He stopped.

‘Until – ?’ Peregrine said.

‘Until shortly before he died.’

Peregrine said: ‘Has it been shown to an authority?’

‘No. I should, no doubt, get an opinion from some museum or perhaps from Sotheby’s.’