Spies. Masons. Cats...

One day in the basement of our house, I came across an old chest with a copper lock blackened by time. Exotic, junk, I thought. I should throw it away. Inside was a tattered notebook, as old as the chest but well-preserved. And there was nothing else. Who would want this junk that belongs in a landfill? How had it ended up here? I had no answers. But when I picked up the notebook, accounts of even...