Secrets of the lost ledg.., p.1
Secrets of the Lost Ledgers, page 1
Secrets of the Lost Ledgers
The Glass Library, Book #5
C.J. Archer
www.cjarcher.com
Contents
About Secrets of the Lost Ledgers
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
A Message From The Author
Also by C.J. Archer
About the Author
Copyright © 2024 by C.J. Archer
Visit C.J. at www.cjarcher.com
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
About Secrets of the Lost Ledgers
An invisible message from a dead man resurrects a decades-old mystery.
With her sharpened magical senses, Sylvia recognizes invisible writing while cataloging an obscure book for the library. She’s shocked to discover the message, written many years earlier, pleaded for help. She’s even more shocked to discover the author of the message was married to a paper magician. Could there be a connection to Sylvia’s father?
With a magical mystery on her hands, Sylvia engages the help of Gabe Glass, and together they follow the clues to the location of two hidden ledgers that implicate a very dangerous individual in an illegal bookmaking scheme. Although not named, Gabe is convinced he knows who the bookmaker is, and sets out to prove it.
The investigation draws them into the shady underbelly of the horse racing industry and uncovers a link to Gabe’s parents that takes everyone by surprise. As they unravel the mystery’s tangled threads, unexpected twists and turns lead them to the truth.
But the greatest twist of all is the danger no one saw coming.
Chapter 1
London, Summer 1920
I’d spent a lifetime studying the faces of men I passed in the street, looking for any resemblance to my own. Although I had my mother’s gray eyes and small stature, my fair coloring must have come from my father. I’d pay close attention to the noses, hoping to find a matching pattern of freckles to mine.
I employed the same scrutiny as I studied the photograph of the late Mr. Peterson, Walter and Evaline’s father. I saw no similarities to myself. The photograph had been taken when he was middle-aged, his two teenaged children standing either side of him. He was short and boxy like Walter, with brown hair, and not a freckle in sight. That particular paper magician was most likely not my father.
A few weeks ago, after learning that I’d just discovered my paper magic, a long-time employee of the Petersons’ paper factory accused me of making it all up. He suspected I was going to pass myself off as the half-sister of Walter and Evaline to gain a portion of their inheritance. He watched me now from the doorway to Walter’s office, as if he was worried I’d steal the valuables.
“You look nothing like him,” he said.
I returned the photograph to the table by the window, where it was flanked by two more—one of Walter’s wife and children, and another of Walter and Evaline on the front steps of the factory’s administrative building in which I now stood, waiting for them.
The employee glanced over his shoulder before taking a step into the office. “Mr. Peterson might seem foolish, but he’s smarter than he looks. And Miss Peterson is as sharp as a tack. Neither will fall for any tricks.”
I looked past him to my escape route. I almost took a step in that direction. I wanted to. But I dug in, settled my feet apart, and remained put.
Once upon a time, I would have fled from such an antagonistic man, but I’d gained confidence in the last few months. Nothing would happen to me here. This man was no threat, merely protective of his employers. Even so, it took effort to hide my apprehension.
“I have no tricks, sir.” There was more I could have said, more I wanted to say, but it was none of his business.
Evaline’s arrival put an end to our conversation. He acknowledged her politely, if a little curtly, handed her the report he’d come to deliver, and went on his way.
She placed it on the desk and gave me her full attention. “This is a pleasant surprise, Sylvia. Are you here to speak to Walter or me?”
“Both. Either.” I laughed nervously.
Evaline’s employee was right when he called her sharp as a tack. She missed nothing. She picked up the photograph I’d been studying and handed it to me. “Take a closer look. I want you to be sure, one way or another.”
She knew. We’d never discussed the possibility that her father and mine were the same man, but it had clearly crossed her mind.
“I’m not after anything,” I said on a rush of breath. “I don’t want any part of this.” I indicated the office. “But…tell me honestly. You and Walter knew him best…do you see a resemblance?”
She shook her head without hesitation. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” I glanced over the photograph of the late Mr. Peterson one last time before returning it to her.
She studied it, too, then with a sigh, placed it back on the table. It must pain her to know that her father had kept mistresses. It must be even more painful knowing that everyone else knew, too. No matter how much she may have adored him, his memory would always be tarnished.
Evaline invited me to sit at the desk, then poured tea from the fine silver teapot the assistant must have brought in shortly before my arrival. She’d just finished filling both cups when Walter walked in.
He greeted me heartily, a genuine smile making his cheeks as round and red as ripe apples. “Don’t get up,” he said to his sister, who’d taken the chair behind the desk. He sat in a guest chair alongside me. “You look well, Sylvia. Clearly the heat doesn’t affect you as much as it does me.” He removed a folded handkerchief from his pocket and patted his sweating forehead. “I don’t know how you ladies always manage to look so cool and composed.”
“We can’t give away all our secrets to you men,” Evaline teased. “Tea?”
“Please.” Walter pocketed the handkerchief. “Have you been practicing your spell, Sylvia?”
Walter had taught me the paper-strengthening spell, the only one he and his sister knew. The magic from the spell gave the paper they manufactured a superior quality, and it was this quality that had made their father wealthy. They didn’t speak the spell into every batch of paper—it had to be specially ordered—but even their ordinary paper was better than the paper made by an artless manufacturer.
The magic didn’t last, of course. No magician’s magic lasted forever, although my friend Gabe’s mother could extend the magic of another magician, as I’d recently learned. My magic, however, had so far lasted for the three weeks since I’d first used the spell.
I removed two pieces of paper from my bag. “I have, every day. I’m conducting an experiment, as it happens. One that will help me discover how strong my magic is. These pages came from the same notebook. This one has my magic, and this one doesn’t.”
Walter accepted the pages from me. “Oh, yes, I can feel it.” He waved the one that held my magic. “Very strong indeed, Sylvia! Did you place the spell only this morning?” He handed the page to Evaline, swapping it for a cup of tea.
Evaline tried to tear the page but couldn’t. “It’s still very warm.”
I was so thrilled that I couldn’t contain my excitement any longer. “I placed the magic in that page three weeks ago.”
Walter choked on his tea, then began to cough.
Evaline tried to tear the paper again. When she couldn’t, she handed it back to me. “That is impressive.”
“Is it?” I asked. “I thought your paper didn’t tear for months after you placed a spell on it.”
“That’s true, but ours doesn’t feel this warm after three weeks. If your magic still feels like this, then it’s strong. You are strong, Sylvia.”
“Stronger than either of us.” Walter sounded proud.
“Oh,” I murmured, not quite sure what to say. It was overwhelming, yet so satisfying. So much about casting the spell felt satisfying. Now that I’d discovered magic and actively used it, it was like finding a missing piece of myself.
There were more pieces to find, however. One of them being the identity of my father.
I placed the papers back in my bag and closed the clasp. “This isn’t why I came. I wanted to ask you both about invisible writing.”
“A curious and rather fun thing,” Walter said, smiling.
“I’m helping an ink magician with a new business venture where he creates secret messages for clients using his invisible ink on paper infused with my spell.”
Walter looked intrigued by the idea. I suspect the childish wonder in him was piqued.
His sister, however, had a less whimsical view of the world. “Does he know he’ll have to write and read the secret messages? Unless the recipient is an ink magician or can find one, he or she will only see a blank page. It’s inefficient and I suspect it’s why invisible writing never became a viable method of passing secrets.”
“Or did it?” Walter teased.
“Coded messages would work better. It requires no magician or any particular skill.”
“My ink magician friend is aware of the drawbacks,” I said.
“Then how can we help?” Walter asked.
“We hoped you knew how long invisible writing lasted, and whether it’s dependent on the strength of the paper magic, ink magic, or both.”
Walter and Evaline exchanged glances. Walter shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s not an area we’re familiar with.”
“I suspect the strength of both types of magic matters,” Evaline added.
“Didn’t a graphite magician decipher an old invisible message for you?” Walter asked.
I nodded. “It was decades old, but, so far, my friend and I haven’t managed to make his invisible ink last more than two weeks. He suggested the magic may not be strong enough.”
“His magic,” Walter pointed out. “Yours is certainly strong.”
Evaline frowned in thought. “Perhaps there’s a word or two missing from his spell.”
“Why not ask the graphite magician who helped you decipher that message?” Walter said. “He or she may know more about it.”
I would have gone to Petra Conway, if Huon Barratt hadn’t forbidden me from speaking to her about his new venture. The traditional rivalry of ink versus graphite meant they were naturally disinclined to get along, but I suspected their antagonism towards each other went deeper. I wouldn’t be surprised to find that long-suppressed desire coupled with stubbornness fueled their fiery encounters.
I thanked the Petersons and accepted Walter’s invitation to join them for dinner the following week. I’d met his wife and children and found them to be delightful company. It would be easier to enjoy myself now that I was sure I wasn’t the illicit offspring of one of the late Mr. Peterson’s transgressions. While a part of me would have liked to belong to the kind-hearted Peterson family, there would always have been that shadow between us. This way, we could be friends and fellow paper magicians without the awkwardness.
Thanks to its narrowness and the tall buildings on either side, Crooked Lane was shady for all but a brief window in the middle of the day. On a hot day in summer, the shade should have provided some relief, however the small entrance and lack of a breeze trapped the heat inside. Despite my loose-fitting dress, I was sweating in unmentionable places by the time I opened the library door. I regretted not taking a parasol with me. My friend Daisy had told me that fashionable women were dispensing with the accessory this summer, but I still sometimes used one on sunny days. Today, I’d left home without it.
I found Professor Nash chatting with a patron, seated on the brown leather sofa in the ground floor reading nook. A brass fan on the side table whirred noisily and did little to cool the air. Both men greeted me amiably before resuming their discussion about magic in ancient South American tribes.
I ate a wedge of egg and bacon pie my landlady, Mrs. Parry, had packed for me that morning. It was rare for there to be any leftovers, but one of the other lodgers hadn’t dined with us the previous night, so Mrs. Parry had graciously given me her portion this morning. I suspected I was her favorite lodger, although I was under no illusion that I was her favorite because she liked me best. I was her favorite because I’d introduced her to Gabe and Gabe’s cook, Mrs. Ling. The two women had struck up a friendship that involved swapping recipes and exchanging ideas and sample dishes. I didn’t care why I was the favorite, as long as I received the benefits in the form of delicious leftovers.
I ate as I worked at the front desk, cataloging a stack of books we planned to add to the library shelves. The books had been stored in the attic for years. One of my main tasks since starting work here in March had been to create a list of uncatalogued titles for the professor. Sometimes, that had meant translating the titles and subject matter from the original language into English. Other times, I merely had to peruse the contents. More than once, I’d found myself reading the entire text, simply because it intrigued me.
I still had more than half of the attic’s contents to go through, but the professor wanted to begin cataloging those I’d already listed. Together we determined which ones to add to the shelves, and which to set aside for repair or further study. It was now my job to create card files and assign unique codes according to the professor’s system.
The task would be dull for most, or so Daisy and Willie had blithely informed me on separate occasions. But I liked it. It wasn’t just the magician in me that liked handling paper; the knowledge contained within the pages appealed to me, too. It was a heady feeling, knowing I was among the first to read the texts in years and rediscover knowledge that had been thought lost. Besides, many were quite fascinating.
Yet it wasn’t the text of the thin volume titled The Dung Beetle in Ancient Egyptian Culture as a Representation of the Concept of Transformation and Rebirth that made me take a closer look at the book’s blank first page. It was the lack of it. There was nothing written or typed there, just a small brown stain at the edge, yet I could feel magic on the page. Paper magic, but something else, too.
I must have first handled the book before I became aware that I was a magician. Back then, I didn’t know what a page infused with a spell felt like. I did now, and I could definitely feel the paper magic on the blank page, but more than that, I could feel the sensation of paper magic combined with another kind. I’d felt the linked spells before, when I’d discovered invisible writing.
I contained my enthusiasm until the patron left and Professor Nash was alone, then I joined him in the reading nook. He sat on the sofa, head bent over a book that rested on a portable writing desk on his lap. The light from the floor lamp shone unflatteringly on the bare patch on the top of his head, but he needed it even during the day as the smaller of the library’s two reading nooks received little natural light. Not that he cared about his own appearance. He wore a brown tie to work each day, the same thick-rimmed spectacles, and often forgot to comb the strands of hair that still clung to his head.
He was also kind and agreeable. I’d never heard him raise his voice or begin an argument, although his calm, factual responses sometimes ended them. Despite his thoroughly agreeable nature, he had few friends. His entire life centered around the library.
Most would say that was just his way, and how he preferred it, but I wasn’t so sure. Now that I’d got to know him better, I detected a deep sadness within him. He hid it well, and it was possible he didn’t even know it existed himself, but it was there in his quiet stillness, his distant gazes. Sometimes, he seemed far away, and perhaps in another time, too. A time when he and his friend Oscar Barratt traveled the world retrieving many of the books the library now housed. He sometimes recounted their adventures to me. It was clear that the professor missed Oscar, that his death had affected him immensely. There was a part of me that suspected Professor Nash had loved Oscar, but he showed no sign of being inclined towards men, so I assumed his love was more brotherly, platonic. On the other hand, he showed no sign of being interested in women, either, so perhaps I was wrong.
“Professor, do you recall where you acquired this book?”
He studied the title page, frowning. “It’s not familiar, so we didn’t obtain it on one of our overseas adventures. It was most likely donated to the library and placed in the attic. I don’t recall putting it there, but it might have arrived here while I was away.” He closed the book and read the spine. “Does ancient Egyptian mythology interest you?”
“Not especially. It’s the very first page that interests me. I think I feel invisible writing on it.”
