Fog cleared from the hills of California. In the warm morning sun, beneath the deed to the unknown purchaser that Sido found hidden in the music box were -- folded and well-worn as if kept in Pete's wallet -- a receipt for purchase of the book of hours by the soldier, who had bought it in a shop near their base, and a receipt for that soldier's transfer of the book of hours to Pete Lafitte. For Sido, who was accustomed to her musician Father's environment of card game wins and losses, the emerging narrative -- that on the Italian Front, one soldier had no use for a manuscript, but another soldier won it in a card game and sent it to a Land Girl he met at a train station -- was a romantic story.

"To research the provenance of the book of hours, on the spur of the moment, Anne Merry and Nico went to Italy,” Caydance related. "The shop was gone, but they found the retired owner and his daughter, Maria. Giuseppe's memory was hazy. It was Maria who remembered the day that a peasant came down from the hills with an antique book that he wanted to exchange for money for food. These were hard times in war-torn Italy. Although, the shop ledgers were discarded long ago, Maria had been helping her Father in the shop. It was, she remembered, the winter of 1944, a month or so before the handsome American soldiers from Colorado came to town".