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lying—I really did have an early start the following day. I got up as soon as the cats woke me, fed them, had a quick shower and then caught a train into town. Styli wasn’t yet open when I arrived, but I knocked on the window and Jerry let me in. “Put the kettle on while I finish opening up.” I made myself a coffee and a tea for Jerry and then went back into the front room and sat down opposite him. Jerry had a pile of
The Absolute Sound
magazines beside his chair. “A little light reading,” he said.
    “How’s that new collection you bought?”
    He nodded happily. “Very nice. Some very fine stuff.”
    “And you say there’s some jazz?”
    “Some rather excellent items, as it happens. I think you’ll definitely be interested. But I haven’t finished sorting them yet. The whole collection is still sitting at my house and it will be a few days before we can take the van around and bring the records back here.”
    “That’s all right. No hurry. I actually didn’t come here to talk about that. I want some information about an obscure record label. It’s called Hathor.”
    He nodded immediately. “A jazz label, of course—since it’s you that’s asking. Small West Coast firm. Mid 1950s. Named after the Egyptian goddess of music and beauty.” Well, that explained the stupid name. Come to think of it, there was an Egyptian look to the design of the label.
    “It was run by a fellow called Bobby Schoolcraft,” said Jerry.
    “Who committed suicide,” I said.
    “That’s right.”
    “Because the label went bust.”
    Jerry shook his head. “Not quite. There was more to the story than that. I seem to remember reading something…” He frowned thoughtfully. “I’ll look it up when I go home tonight.” He had an extensive library of music-related books and journals in his house in Primrose Hill. I had never seen the place but I’d heard it was huge. It had to be, to house his record collection.
    “But Hathor went bust because their records didn’t sell?”
    “Oh no. On the contrary, their records sold very well indeed, at least initially, and for a while it looked like they were going to turn into a major jazz label.” Jerry sipped his tea.
    I said, “They’re definitely an intriguing outfit. Danny DePriest was their engineer, wasn’t he?”
    He nodded. “Ron Longmire was his mentor and the senior engineer. And I think Bones Howe might have worked there too.” Bones Howe was another great sound engineer of jazz in the fifties. He had gone on to fame in the rock era and memorably produced some classic Tom Waits albums. “I’ll check on all that when I get home,” he said.
    I tried my coffee. It was instant but I could drink it. I said, “So if their records were selling so well, why did they go broke?”
    Jerry set his teacup aside. “Legal problems. Rather nasty legal problems. They were being sued by some very heavy people.”
    “Heavy in what way?”
    “People who owned a major piece of the American entertainment industry. Have you ever heard of the Davenports?” I shook my head. “They were teenage impresarios. Second-generation show-business exploiters. Very unpleasant.”
    “And they sued Bobby Schoolcraft.”
    “It was a protracted and nasty—and costly—business and apparently the pressure got too much for poor old Schoolcraft. He put an end to himself and, along with him, one of the most promising record labels in America.”
    * * *
    I got back to my house mid-morning, just in time to make a sandwich and be greeted by the cats before my rendezvous with Miss N. Warren. It had turned cold and wet and she arrived wearing a dove-grey raincoat and white knit hat with a large red strawberry embroidered on it. On anyone else it might have looked ridiculous. On her it looked elegant and fetching.
    I came out of the house and joined her. “How did you get here,” I said. “Taxi?”
    She shook her head. “No, I got a lift with a friend. Well, I say
friend
. He’s actually this