A final look into Cressy’s large suitcase revealed nothing but a small selection of clothes—two open-neck shirts, underwear and undershirts, a flannel suit, a shaving kit, toothbrush and paste, knitting needles and wool, liniment, old boots and three books: the 1899 Baedeker Italy: Handbook for Travelers, Bradshaw’s Complete Anglo-Italian Phrase-book, and a novel—a rare choice for facts-man Cress—E. M. Forster’s A Room with a View. First edition but with the back cover missing.
