But meanwhile how was I to find out who and where she was? Fitzpiers, as I have said, was out. So was Sharon’s bookshop. I thought of putting an advertisement in the Thomas Hardy Yearbook but I was afraid that Sharon and Fitzpiers would come across it and enjoy a shared joke at my expense. When I recovered my strength I went to libraries and searched bibliographies of Hardy to see who had written anything – a book, an article, a passing paragraph, anything – on the actress Gertrude Bugler; but I found nothing that could have been by the fierce unforgiving girl I remembered. I quizzed librarians: was there anything forthcoming? I wrote to societies. I scanned publishers’ lists. But all to no avail. Gertrude Bugler was a neglected area.