Nine of Diamonds

Keywords - Upright: the answer found, the finding noticed  ·  Inverted: the watcher moves, hunted by your own question

Upright

You found what you were looking for. Someone noticed you looking. Professional interest is now aimed in your direction.

You found it - the fact, the name, the page that makes the rest make sense. And finding it made noise. Questions leave prints in the minds of everyone asked, and archives remember their visitors even when the clerks forget. The answer is yours. So is a new entry in someone else's file.

Inverted

Interest has become intention. Whoever noticed you looking has decided the looking matters, and their response is already moving: a description circulated, a door that was open yesterday now wanting a name and a reason. What you learned is still good. Use it fast - the window between learning and being learned about is closing.

In Play

Upright. Wynn finds the missing ledger page bound into the notary's copy-book; across the room, the notary's clerk adds a line to his day-log.

Inverted. By the time she reaches her lodgings, a boy has been paid to sit across the street - the notary's master wants to know who reads his dead partner's accounts.