My mother doesn’t get many through her shop. It’s a bit of a pity; if I could get brooches with the right clip, I would use them on necklines and vest-edges, ties and cuffs alike.” Eliot looked aside, and I grinned at her.
"They're just what they say; a clip. You stick it on wherever your garment has an edge. I don't think they date to earlier than the 20s, and by the 50s they just didn't stick around. The Coro duette, or symmetrical dress-clips with uniting mount, were a flash in the pan.
"So. Imagine my surprise when Mother called me in for these." I set out the photos. The clips were triangular, with leaf-curves along their long points, and about two inches long each. The whole surface was flat, unpunched or cut, and relieved only by applied gold-work. A round gem sat on the base-side of the triangle, its intaglio carving oriented so that the whole clip would point downwards. "They're not the style you'd usually see in a dress clip. The style is that of Castellani, and I have no idea whether that shop produced any such work. I'm still waiting on a call back, but I'm not holding out hope.
"It is gold; the gems were carved, too, with the skill of Castellani. But look at the design! Nothing like that ever came out of the 'archeological' style." I passed the photos around.
"Is it something that was remade into a clip?" Atwood conjectured.
"Very possibly," I said. "So, the piece itself is odd; but I suppose someone considered it a matter of taste. It's the gems that were bizarre to me. The intaglio gems fit the rest of the style, as far as that goes; but the subject!" I spread my hands in near-ridicule. "Look at the two of them! That thing there, that's facing the right."
"It's… cute?" Eliot said. "It's got great round eyes."
"It took me a week to remember where I had seen it," I said. "Here."
"Dear god, you're enjoying this too much," Sayers said.
"It's a telescopefish," I told her. "Deep sea critter. Doesn't it look like one?"
"I suppose it could," Atwood said.
"And the other…" I trailed off.
"Sea star?" Eliot asked.
"A plant," Atwood said. "Or a face—"
"No," Sayers said.
"It does look like a fossil crinoid, doesn't it?" I said, grinning at her. "I wasn't going to say face-hugger."
"Nonsense. The Romans didn't know what they were," Sayers said. "Or will you say they're ghost crinoids, hn?"
"Not this time," I said. "And I'm sure the ancient Romans might have seen a fossil crinoid. And the jewels could be modern. There's just no telling."
"So why did they come to you, then?" Sayers asked.
"That's the funny part," I said. "So I have here someone's… journeyman art project, or perhaps a nineteen-twenties fusion that was tasteless at the time and simply reads as spooky now. But this didn't come from a customer, Sayers. I inherited it."
"Ohhh," Eliot said quietly, smiling. "The plot thickens."
"Some of you may recall my grandfather," I said. "He was a character; he spent some of his life in his parents' native Britain, but they never forgot their Scottish heritage. I think he'd never let us forget it, either, certainly not when it came to toll roads! But he loved sailing. And this, you understand, is something he found."
"Found," Sayers said.
"Oh yes," I said. "Found, out on the ocean."
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