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Dragon Priest : "Where are we heading, ma'am?"
Anna : "..."
Dragon Priest : "..."
Anna : "You're the time traveller. You can tell me about it."
Dragon Priest : "Indeed, I can see all of the past and the future holds. But, there are 2 souls that I couldn't see. One of them is yours, madam Valeriya."
Anna : "...Mindi Badweyn."
Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart.
Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language.
Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them.
It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the question.
Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day.
~Rainer Maria Rilke
HBW!
I took several photos of the very beautiful facade of this cast iron building on Prince Street in the Soho section of Manhattan. No sooner had I finished admiring how skillfully the cast iron had been painted to resemble a Renaissance stone palazzo than I rounded the corner onto Green Street and looked up at the side of the building. It was painted to look like the side or back of an old apartment building or factory with rows of bricked up windows on each story. But the pattern was broken by two white shuttered windows, one above the other on the top two floors. From a distance they appeared to be real. But were they? Or perhaps this was just a more artful illusion ? For now , i'm very content to leave this puzzle unsolved
Magic of Granite
Granites play a huge role in the structure of the crust of the continents of the Earth. But, unlike the igneous rocks of the main composition (gabbro, basalt, anorthosite, norit, troctolite), whose analogues are common on the Moon and the terrestrial planets, there are only indirect evidence of the existence of granites on other planets of the solar system. So, there are indirect signs of the existence of granites on Venus [5]. Among geologists, there is the expression "Granite - the calling card of the Earth" [6]. On the other hand, there is good reason to believe that the Earth originated from the same substance as other planets of the terrestrial group. The first composition of the Earth is reconstructed as being close to the composition of chondrites. Basalts can be smelted from such rocks, but not granites. These facts led petrologists to the formulation of the problem of the origin of granites, which had attracted the attention of geologists for many years, but it is still far from complete solution.
Currently, quite a lot is known about the origin of granites, but some fundamental problems remain unsolved. One of them is the formation of granites. In the partial melting of solid crustal matter, clearly detectable solid residues — restitic crystalline phases that have not passed into the melt — are relatively rare in them. A small amount of residual material can be seen in S-granites and I-granites. However, in the P and A granites, restite phases are usually not diagnosed. What is the reason - with complete separation of solid phases and melt in the process of lifting magmatic material, with subsequent transformation of solid residues, the lack of criteria for their diagnosis, or with a defect in the petrological model itself - is not yet clear. The problem of restit residues raises other questions. By partially melting amphibole-containing rocks of high acidity, only about 20% of low-potassium granite material can be obtained. In this case, 80% of the anhydrous solid residue consisting of pyroxene, plagioclase or garnet should remain. Although the rocks in the lower part of the continental crust have similar mineral composition, their fragments carried by volcanoes do not carry geochemical signs of the refractory residual material. There is an assumption that this material was somehow immersed in the upper mantle, but there is no direct evidence of the reality of this process. It is possible that in this case the petrological model needs to be corrected.
There are other ambiguities in the study of the process of the origin of granites. However, modern research methods have reached a level that allows us to hope that the right solutions will be found in the near future.
SOUTHERN CROSS # 12
END OF STORY ARC “ROMULUS,” Part Six. Hazel learns the hard way that some mysteries should be left unsolved. The search for the Southern Cross is over, but with its return comes a horror no one could have imagined.
MOTOR GIRL # 6
If there is one person on Earth that visiting aliens trust, it's Samantha Locklear. Now Sam is fighting to save the desert junkyard that has become a UFO safehaven from an industrial tycoon determined to seize the land and in-stall an anti-UFO weapon. Fortunately, Sam has a secret weapon of her own, her imaginary gorilla friend Mike! Don't miss the fun in this new action packed issue of Motor Girl!
MIGHTY MORPHIN POWER RANGERS 2017 ANNUAL # 1
The future of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers starts here as Tommy makes a choice that will have huge consequences for the team; Black Power Rangers from across parallel dimensions meet to face off against a deadly foe; and all-new secret origins revealed!
Letea forest is a natural reservation, covering an area of approximately 2,825 ha (6,980 acres). It is the oldest protected area in Romania. It was established in 1930, and not by accident: it is the northernmost subtropical forest in the world, and only of its kind in Europe, home of about 3,500 species of plants and animals.
It has a rich flora and fauna, described incompletly, but it is sure that rare and endangered species including endemic species (found only here) find their home here, such as Centaurea pontica. Visiting the forest is a unique experience as in a continental climate you will find a subtropical deciduous forest, interwoven with lianas. We can admire 4-700 years old oaks, poplars, elms, alders or lindens, but going in forest we can see sand dunes too. The sand dunes are home to many rare and endangered flora species as well.
The fauna of Letea forest is also rich, about 70% of the Danube Delta fauna can be found here: is the nesting site of over 150 species of birds such as the white-tailed eagle (Haliaeetus albicilla), short-toed snake eagle (Circaetus gallicus), tawny eagle (Aquila rapax), black kite (Milvus migrans), herpetological rarities such as the steppe racer (Eremias arguta), or meadow viper (Vipera renardi).
The forest is famous for its “wild horses” that are actually released by locals and become broncos (semi-feral horses). Approximately 2,000 broncos are found in the forest, unfortunately causing serious damage to the local biosphere. The capture and transportation of these horses is an unsolved problem.You can find a detailed descriptions of the species from Danube Delta here.
Access: we arrive to Letea from Tulcea by navigating on the Sulina branch, then the Magearu canal. Transport through the forest can be done with dray. Locals make available tractors for transportation, but keep in mind that tractors disturb the flora and fauna of the forest. Even outside the forest, we are passing by many canals and we can see nesting birds!
A wheel is a circular component that is intended to rotate on an axle bearing. The wheel is one of the main components of the wheel and axle which is one of the six simple machines. Wheels, in conjunction with axles, allow heavy objects to be moved easily facilitating movement or transportation while supporting a load, or performing labor in machines. Wheels are also used for other purposes, such as a ship's wheel, steering wheel, potter's wheel and flywheel.
Common examples are found in transport applications. A wheel greatly reduces friction by facilitating motion by rollingtogether with the use of axles. In order for wheels to rotate, a moment needs to be applied to the wheel about its axis, either by way of gravity, or by the application of another external force or torque.
The first evidence of wheeled vehicles appears in the second half of the 4th millennium BCE, near-simultaneously inMesopotamia (Sumerian civilization), the Northern Caucasus (Maykop culture) and Central Europe, so the question of which culture originally invented the wheeled vehicle is still unsolved.
The earliest well-dated depiction of a wheeled vehicle (here a wagon — four wheels, two axles) is on the Bronocice pot, a c. 3500 – 3350 BCE clay pot excavated in a Funnelbeaker culture settlement in southern Poland.
The oldest securely dated real wheel-axle combination, that from Stare Gmajne near Ljubljana in Slovenia (Ljubljana Marshes Wooden Wheel) is now dated in 2σ-limits to 3340-3030 BCE, the axle to 3360-3045 BCE.[4]
Two types of early Neolithic European wheel and axle are known; a circumAlpine type of wagon construction (the wheel and axle rotate together, as in Ljubljana Marshes Wheel), and that of the Baden culture in Hungary (axle does not rotate). They both are dated to c. 3200-3000 BCE.[5]
In China, the wheel was certainly present with the adoption of the chariot in c. 1200 BCE, although Barbieri-Low argues for earlier Chinese wheeled vehicles, c. 2000 BC.
Although they did not develop the wheel proper, the Olmec and certain other western hemisphere cultures seem to have approached it, as wheel-like worked stones have been found on objects identified as children's toys dating to about 1500 BC.It is thought that the primary obstacle to large-scale development of the wheel in the Western hemisphere was the absence of domesticated large animals which could be used to pull wheeled carriages.[citation needed] The closest relative of cattle present in Americas in pre-Columbian times, the American Bison, is difficult to domesticate and was never domesticated by Native Americans; several horse species existed until about 12,000 years ago, but ultimately went extinct.The only large animal that was domesticated in the Western hemisphere, the llama, did not spread far beyond the Andes by the time of the arrival of Columbus.
Nubians from after about 400 BCE used wheels for spinning pottery and as water wheels. It is thought that Nubian waterwheels may have been ox-driven.It is also known that Nubians used horse-drawn chariots imported from Egypt.
The wheel was barely used, with the exception of Ethiopia and Somalia, in Sub-Saharan Africa well into the 19th century but this changed with the arrival of the Europeans.
Early wheels were simple wooden disks with a hole for the axle. Because of the structure of wood, a horizontal slice of a tree trunk is not suitable, as it does not have the structural strength to support relevant stresses without failing; rounded pieces of longitudinal boards are required. The spoked wheel was invented more recently, and allowed the construction of lighter and swifter vehicles. In the Harappan civilization of the Indus Valley and Northwestern India, we find toy-cart wheels made of clay with lines which have been interpreted as spokes painted or in relief, and a symbol interpreted as a spoked wheel in the script of the seals, already in the second half of the 3rd millennium BCE. The earliest known examples of wooden spoked wheels are in the context of the Andronovo culture, dating to c. 2000 BCE. Soon after this, horse cultures of the Caucasus region used horse-drawn spoked-wheel war chariots for the greater part of three centuries. They moved deep into the Greek peninsula where they joined with the existing Mediterranean peoples to give rise, eventually, to classical Greece after the breaking of Minoan dominance and consolidations led by pre-classical Sparta and Athens. Celtic chariots introduced an iron rim around the wheel in the 1st millennium BCE. The spoked wheel was in continued use without major modification until the 1870s, when wire wheels and pneumatic tires were invented.
The invention of the wheel has also been important for technology in general, important applications including the water wheel, the cogwheel (see also antikythera mechanism), the spinning wheel, and the astrolabe or torquetum. More modern descendants of the wheel include the propeller, the jet engine, the flywheel (gyroscope) and the turbine.
The wheel is a device that enables efficient movement of an object across a surface where there is a force pressing the object to the surface. Common examples are a cart pulled by a horse, and the rollers on an aircraft flap mechanism.
Wheels are used in conjunction with axles; either the wheel turns on the axle, or the axle turns in the object body. The mechanics are the same in either case.
The low resistance to motion (compared to dragging) is explained as follows (refer to friction):
the normal force at the sliding interface is the same.
the sliding distance is reduced for a given distance of travel.
the coefficient of friction at the interface is usually lower.
Bearings are used to help reduce friction at the interface. In the simplest and oldest case the bearing is just a round hole through which the axle passes (a "plain bearing").
Example:
If a 100 kg object is dragged for 10 m along a surface with the coefficient of friction μ = 0.5, the normal force is 981 N and the work done (required energy) is (work=force x distance) 981 × 0.5 × 10 = 4905 joules.
Now give the object 4 wheels. The normal force between the 4 wheels and axles is the same (in total) 981 N. Assume, for wood, μ = 0.25, and say the wheeldiameter is 1000 mm and axle diameter is 50 mm. So while the object still moves 10 m the sliding frictional surfaces only slide over each other a distance of 0.5 m. The work done is 981 × 0.25 × 0.5 = 123 joules; the work done has reduced to 1/40 of that of dragging.
Additional energy is lost from the wheel-to-road interface. This is termed rolling resistance which is predominantly a deformation loss. This energy is also lowered by the use of a wheel (in comparison to dragging) because the net force on the contact point between the road and the wheel is almost perpendicular to the ground, and hence, generates an almost zero net work. This depends on the nature of the ground, of the material of the wheel, its inflation in the case of a tire, the net torque exerted by the eventual engine, and many other factors.
A wheel can also offer advantages in traversing irregular surfaces if the wheel radius is sufficiently large compared to the irregularities.
The wheel alone is not a machine, but when attached to an axle in conjunction with bearing, it forms the wheel and axle, one of the simple machines. A driven wheel is an example of a wheel and axle. Note that wheels pre-date driven wheels by about 6000 years, themselves an evolution of using round logs as rollers to move a heavy load—a practice going back in pre-history so far, it has not been dated.
More Crete here : www.flickr.com/photos/23502939@N02/albums/72157623607398252
Please do not fave my photos without commenting ( what do people do with thousands of faves, look at them every morning?)
Looking toward Brick Lane. In the far distance, there is a building with a triangular red sign. This is the former Frying Pan Pub where Mary Ann Nichols was drinking her doss money away hours before becoming a victim of Jack the Ripper on the 31st of August 1888.
It was also along this street where Emma Smith was heading trying to get away from a gang of youths that were following her from St. Mary's Church. They caught up with her around the corner of Osborn Street & Wentworth Street & viciously attacked her. She managed to make it back to her lodging house where she was then taken to the London Hospital on Whitechapel Road. She gave a description of her attackers before slipping into a coma & passing away due to her injuries. She was attacked in the early hours of the 3rd of April 1888, & died on the 4th. She is highly likely not a victim of Jack the Ripper, but is the first victim in the police files of unsolved murders in the East End collectively known as the "Whitechapel Murders."
I also wanted to take a shot of this street because the Bob sign made me think of Twin Peaks. I usually stay at the Arbor City Hotel when I am in London which is also on the right.
Nikon F4. AF Nikkor 24mm F2.8D lens. CineStill 50 35mm C41 film.
"A true gentleman leaves no puzzle unsolved!"
Professor Layton and the Curious Village is probably one of my favourite game ever and also the saga is one of the best Nintendo has ever produced!
In this pic you can see Layton and his left arm Luke Triton.
As always tell me what you think,
Nada
The Silken whisper of Flickering Desires
A Chronicle
Adapted from the Final Entry Entitled:
Their Regal Gambit
Subtitled:
While Sherlock Holmes vacationed
The first score had been made, now for the Coup de Grace! So far their little operation had gone as smooth as silk, or in this case, satin. Now just to make sure the husband of the silken gowned brunette displaying the jewels in question was still safely out of the picture! Then Mollie would let her husband know that with the coast clear, freeing him to stage his approach of the lady in the long swishing satin gown he had been keeping an eye on all evening. The one who was wearing the exquisite necklace of fiery flickering diamonds, just daring someone to expertly slip it away the throat of its unsuspecting owner.
And therein lay the rub, She happily thought….
As Mollie made her way down the quiet corridor to the gentlemen’s smoking lounge, she lovingly played through her mind the series of unfortunate ( or fortunate?) events that had led her and her husband to this place. It had all began with an innocent one named Tabitha…….
Mollies’ Flash back
They had first come across Tabitha at a resort casino deep in the Catskills. Mollie and her husband had been there about three days, scoping out the grounds, and its wealthy clientele. At the casino they both spotted Tabitha at the same time. She was seated at a baccarat table, really standing out in an elegant dress of gold and black striped silk and velvet Her well-toned body displayed numerous pieces of expensive jewelry. A fat little purse dangled, unheeded by her side. Tabitha had held Mollie’s attention mainly due to the strong resemblance she had to herself. Tabitha’s jewelry, a flashy diamond journey style necklace, matching earrings, wide diamond tennis bracelet, and multiple gem encrusted rings, had held Mollies pickpocket husbands’.
Mollie went on to the bar and watched as her husband waited for the seat next to Tabitha to become vacant. Then he sat, asking for chips, while unobtrusively eyeing Tabitha’s bracelet. He began striking up a conversation with Tabitha, finding her to be an easy mark. He soon learned from the chatty girl that she was a divorced, upper executive for a well-known digital arts company servicing the movie industry. It was during this conversation that Tabitha babbled about the upscale, invitation only(you know), black tie formal ball she would be attending in England the next month. Now, as her husband was keeping Tabitha occupied Mollie had walked by the pair, ‘tripping’ into her husband, who palmed off to her , the diamond bracelet which had been ever so subtly slipped from around the unwary Tabatha’s’ wrist. Walking away with the bracelet secured in her purse, Mollie made her way to their small bungalow. Her husband did not break in his conversation with Tabitha; a mark would seldom suspect a friendly person of stealing from her.
Later that evening, Mollie wore the pricy bracelet while mutually admiring it over a bottle of merlot with her husband. They discussed the high-class affair Tabitha had been bragging about. Wistfully, Mollie admitted it was a shame they had not received an invite. Her husband smiled, and pulled a thickly embossed and crested envelope from his pocket. Easily adopting a British accent, he said “The silly little twit was carrying this in her purse!” The envelope revealed a pair of invitations to the Princess’s Jubilee Royal Ball. As the pair continued to empty the bottle of fine merlot, what had started as speculation, turned towards reality, and soon plans had been laid.
As they lay in bed later that night, Mollie turned to her husband, just think about the jewels that will be worn at the English Ball, she shivered with the delightful thoughts. Do you remember the last time we were in England? Mollie looked at her husband slyly, you remember, the Wriggling Whelp Whispering Wisk! She stated teasingly. Mollie knew the quickest way to get her husband’s goat was coming up with silly phrases to describe his more outlandish endeavors. Such phrases like The Tingling Touch Ice Melt, The Slippery Slick Taffeta Pull, The Glossy Gowned Dangling Peel, or her personal favorite, The Ticklish Wedge Clam Dip, never failed to get a response. In this case the response was a brief pillow fight leading into a romantic interlude, ending up with them in bed as they reminisced about the last time they had “visited” England a few years back…..
It had proven a fairly profitable venture with the jewelry alone netting almost 100,000 pounds. It all had culminated quite nicely at one of the posh events they had crashed that final weekend. Their final score had come about from a rambunctious doe eyed Fourteen year old in a shiny dress who had been oblivious to the valuably delicious gold pendent studded with small rubies and emeralds that sparkled ever so invitingly as it swung from her throat. A pair of matching dangling earrings dripped from her ears as she has run around unminded by her elders. Mollie had indignantly stated to her husband that the antique trinkets were simply just too expensive for a child so squirminly young to be trusted with. Her husband then went about the task to prove his wife correct in her statement.
After talking a bit about the English Girls parents reaction to the unsolved disappearance of their daughters ultra-pricey pendent , Mollie came back to the present and asked if the lady in the maroon silk that her husband pointed out the previous evening would be wearing the same jewels to the dance tomorrow night? Or better her husband replied sleepily, good Mollie pronounced, I did like her emeralds.
In Merry Ole England
They had arrived in England several weeks before the Royal Ball and began the preparations.
In an irony of fate, the profit they had realized from poor Tabitha’s bracelet had paid for a large chunk of their little excursion. Keeping his accent, and adding a trim beard, Mollies husband looked radically different from the man Tabitha had encountered. During the weeks following their arrival, the pair had practiced like they always did before undertaking a new venture. But this time it was with a more daring edge, they quite simply could not afford being caught red handed in a foreign country. Mollie assumed her practice the role. That of the richly dressed, well jeweled quarry. Her husband would stalk and attempt to relieve her of a piece of her jewelry as she went about her business, shopping! The idea being that, If he was able to do so without being caught by an obviously aware Mollie, than he should have no problem at the Royal Ball. As it usually happened when they practiced in this manner, her husband did incredibly well. Mollie had had several pieces of jewelry vanish from her person during the week, without her noticing how or when.
The final night of practice Mollie decided to dress to kill. Looking quite devastating in a glossy gold halter and a long brown velvet skirt with gold stiletto heels clicking as she moved. A diamond heart pendant hung down from her neck, swaying provocatively out from between her breasts. A bracelet, similar to Tabitha’s purloined diamonds, was wrapped around her wrist.
She left their penthouse and made her way to the street outside. Some type of festival was going on as she waded through the crowded streets to the nightclub. Her rings sparkled as they kept rhythm with her swaying diamond waterfall earrings. Just daring her husband to make a move for any of them.
Mollie drank and danced the night away with no hide or hair of her husband until she returned late that evening to their apartment. She found him in the hot tub, smirking. She undressed and joined him. Okay, how did u do it she demanded? I felt nothing, no one bumped or brushed against me all evening that I was not aware of. He opened his fist, allowing her heart diamond pendant to dangle freely in front of her. A magician never reveals his tricks my little cat, he purred, as the pendant swayed in a sparkling arch.
Cat was short for “Cat Lady”, a moniker he had placed upon her when she had broken into a sleeping woman’s room and removed the jewels from her gold case, and even managed to slip off a ring she was wearing. The fact that she was passed out in a drunken stupor, still dressed in her long party gown, didn’t count , or so her husband teased.
You should have been a surgeon! , my dear, Mollie exclaimed with pride. Then she leaned towards him, her green eyes gleaming in earnest, time for a real practice run Mon Cherie, she said in dead seriousness. Then Her eyes opened wide, I got it she exclaimed, I’ll call it The Slinking Sneaky Shearing Snag she pronounced joyfully, getting a face full of water in reply to her effort. Okay Cat, let’s get down to business he retorted, I know just the affair. Mollie listened intensively as her Husband described their next plans, derived while eavesdropping on a couple of ladies shopping in a jewelers.
The next weekend (two weeks to the evening before the Royal Ball) Mollie found herself at a quaint upscale wedding reception held in the large gardens of a country church. She was attired in the same bewitching ensemble that she had been wearing on the final night of practice. Her only jewels were a recently acquired pair of sparkly cascading earrings set with emeralds and diamonds. The affair of the plump piqued peacock plucking she had mused while getting dressed. The only other exception was that the long fiery red hair she had inherited from her Irish namesake grandmother had been cut and dyed blond. Blue contacts had also been added to the disguise to hide her vivid green eyes.
They soon targeted an older jewel laden snob at the reception. An older lady , well jeweled, of the arrogant know it all, obey me totally type whom everyone tries to avoid. While Mollie engaged the mark in a mostly one sided conversation(the older ladies) the lady had become so deeply engrossed about talking about herself and her ties with royalty, that she never detected being relieved of a heirloom antique gold chain and jeweled pendent by Mollies husband who had approached her unnoticed from behind.
It was all Mollie could do no to bring attention to it by looking at the wickedly expensive piece as it was slipped up and away from the Dowager’s ruffled heavy satin blouse.
This time it was mollies turn to keep chatting as her husband headed to the door. He had almost made it when two youths ran into him as they scurried away from a rather sullen looking tween girl they had been teasing, and now were in possession of her purse. Mollie stole a look as she saw her husband topple onto the chasing girl. He managed to extracted himself from the girls long slinky gown that she had probably been forced into by an overly conceited mother. He apologized, and left the girl to go after her antagonizes. Later, when Mollie had caught up to him she teased him about his clumsiness. He just smiled, and pulled out from his vest pocket the most exquisitely matched pearls that the youth had been openly displaying from around her throat and wrist at the reception!
They were, most definitely, ready. The fated evening could not come soon enough. But it finally did.
They had had no problem with using the fancy invitations to gain entrance. Security was heavy, as expected, but with a very lax atmosphere. Mollie was wearing the salmon coloured gown she had had especially made for such occasions, her new blond hair style and the blue contacts. In a coup foray of sorts, Mollie wore the pearls that had been taken by her husband during his run in with the sullen girl at the wedding reception. Her husband was wearing his usual tux with a hand tied bowtie. His ruffled sleeves easily moved up and down along his wrists.
Mollie and her husband split up, each spending the first few hours mingling solo, and taking it all in as they thoroughly enjoyed the Ball and all its many stimulating attractions. It had gone smooth as silk. Spending the first few hours prowling while the guests liquored up Mollie scoping out exactly the right candidates. Dangling jewels with easy clasps were everywhere!, it was surprising how the best of jewel makers skimped on the clasps required to keep the expensive pieces in place. Clothing also made a difference. Silks and satins were quiet and slipped easily. Taffeta could be whispery, more of a challenge. Velvet could easily snag as a piece was being lifted. But these were the costliest of materials, and the wearers would logically be wearing the costlier of jewelry.
Mollie and her husband regrouped several hours later, unobtrusively under the pretense of dancing. Gently discussing their plans. They settled on three likely prospects amongst the almost three hundred present. The first was an older spinster type wearing a luxurious dress of embroidered navy silk and displaying jewelry studded with diamonds and sapphires. The second was a middle aged snotty blonde wearing a shamelessly low cut green silk taffeta gown (which Mollie secretly liked)wearing a thick gold bracelet studded with vulgarly large rubies surrounded by a sea of small sparkly diamonds. She was alone, and a heavy drinker. The third was a longshot. A lanky , flighty brunette wearing immensely valuable jewels of blindingly sparkling Diamonds. Her necklace alone was in the upper hundred thousand range, with a clasp that was one of the easiest to coax open. The only problem was that she came with an obviously newlywed husband who doted on her every move. Both were heavy drinkers, and if he would only leave his wife’s side for, say about fifteen minutes, the necklace would be theirs!
They had decided that any one of the three would produce results worth a king’s ransom, appropriately enough, all things considered. The plan was for her husband to take his time selecting the easiest jewel to acquire from amongst the ones the three marks were displaying , make his move, and pass it off to Mollie who would leave forthwith, while her husband stayed a little while longer to make sure everything remained calm before making his exit stage right via the hallway.
As Mollie went to her station, she saw the Blue silken lady, along with her sapphires and diamonds, leaving with a rather unsavory looking male, eyeing her with a look Mollie knew all too well. Mollie decided to follow them, thinking to herself that some women are just prone to being victimized. Good luck with that one Mollie thought unkindly, as she stole one last look at the ladies glistening sapphires, hope he leaves her with something she sarcastically wished wickedly to the couple’s backside as they went out the exit at the end of the hall. One down and out she thought. Then she spied the husband of the newlywed pair heading down the hall towards her with an older, grey bearded man. Getting close she heard them talking about the Gentlemen’s smoking lounge. Mollie decided to give her husband a signal, but when she found him he was already in the arms of the blond. Molly immediately noticed the absence of the jeweled bracelet from his partners’ wrist. She went back to her table. Immediately she was set upon by some drunken snob asking her to dance. She allowed herself to be taken up into his arms. Spending a few unenchanting minutes with Mr. two left feet, before her husband tapped him on the shoulder cutting in. They danced, Mollie placing a hand into his pocket and feeling something cold and metal wrapped her hand around it. Looking him in the eyes she told him about the now unguarded bride, as she palmed the willowy blonde’s bracelet. They decided to go for it, and as the music ended, Mollie made her way to the hall, where she secreted the blondes bracelet safely away
One down, one more to go! An exquisite necklace of flickering diamonds waiting to be nimbly slipped away from the throat of its unsuspecting wearer. Now just to make sure the husband of the silken gowned brunette displaying the jewels in question was still safely out of the picture! Then to let her husband know that with the coast clear, he was free to stage his approach of the lady in the long swishing satin gown he had been keeping a drooling eye on all evening. The one wearing the exquisite necklace of flickering diamonds waiting to be so expertly slipped away from the throat of its unsuspecting wearer.
She was able to see the groom in windowed room, the husband and his friend were smoking a pair of long cigars and drinking brandy in large glass snifters. Mollie passed unnoticed as she mad e her way to the ladies powder room. He was still there, only halfway through a long stogie as she passed again on her way back. Neither time was she observed. Mollie mad her way back to the Ballroom. She sat down at one side of the room, once again allowing the sights of so many bejeweled women to soak in. Her husband was dancing with a lady in a flowing red ball gown, jewels sparkling in abundance, not aware of the danger so close at hand, nor that even with her husband and his particular skill set so close to them, that at that moment nothing could be safer from his fingertips. Finally she caught her husband’s eye. Mollie innocently rubbed a finger along the side of her nose, a subtle signal that it was safe for him to precede.
Mollie was now uncharacteristically having butterflies in her stomach; it was a huge gamble, trying to get away with a pair of thefts in this inhospitable atmosphere. She kept second guessing herself, Bird in hand she kept thinking. But the lure was too great, and it was with a heavy sigh of relief when Mollie saw her husband finally kiss the hand of the young bride after their dance. Mollie could see that she was no longer sporting the thin silver necklace and its row of at least two caret diamonds that had been encircling her throat with their rippling flashy brilliance all evening. Molly stayed put, not daring to leave until her husband had brushed by her in passing and made his way out the hallway to the exit. She waited for a long fifteen minutes, then curling her hand around the necklace that had been dropped into her lap as he had passed; she gained the safety of the hallway. Just in time. For coming down the hallway was none other than the lady in the long luxurious gown and now bare throats groom and his distinguished looking friend. She passed by them, feeling the men eyeing her with roving wolfish gazes. Then she passed them, and proceeded unhindered to once again enter the ladies’ powder room where the necklace soon joined with the Blondes bracelet in its hiding spot.. Than calmly Mollie left, walking past two security Bobbies, virtually unnoticed. The Groom had been absolutely ignorant to the fact that his young Bride’s ridiculously valuable necklace had walked right past him out the door.
Mollie did not let herself really breathe until she had gained the safety of the street. She allowed herself to imagine the commotion as the news of the missing jewels were circulated around the cavernous Ballroom. There would be a flurry of activity, flashes and sparkles as the women checked themselves reassuringly that they were still in possession of their trinkets. Mollie would have loved to have stayed and watched, but obviously could not do so. She rejoined her husband at their meeting place and they drove off. They made their way to Ireland where they spent a cautious week touring before leaving for the states.
Once the profit was realized from their haul that eventful evening, including obnoxious Dowagers the jeweled antique pendent, and was added in to the modest amount they had already accumulated from previous adventures, Mollie and her husband were able to retire to Ireland and live quite an unpretentious life together in a small stone manor in the woods.
Courtesy of Chatwick University Archives
Photo by Vicki Rogers
Lighthouse Field in Santa Cruz is a favorite winter home of monarch butterflies. Visitors can see thousands during the butterflies' peak season. The best time to see monarchs in the park is from October 15th to February 1st. This picture was taken December 16, 2005.
The migration of Monarch butterfies is unusual in that it takes four generations to complete a single round trip. It is an unsolved mystery how Monarchs find they way to the overwintering site each year. Some how they know the way to return each fall to Mexico or California even though the butterflies that make it home are the great-great-grandchildren of the ones that left the year before.
Part A
She had called near midnight to pick her and a friend up from a party that that I had no idea they were at.
I knew the place, and agreed to give them a ride. When I arrived there late that evening, I found them waiting on a corner a ways down from the house.
It was a bit of a shocker when I first saw them, I had had no idea what kind of party it had been.
It was something called an “Oscar” party, and the two girls for some reason were all dolled up in shiny dresses of colourful satin. Wearing dangling rhinestones that sparkled merrily as they played with the beams my car’s headlights
As they slipped into my car, me mind went to places I didn’t care for concerning the chances the young girls had risked. Thinking of the pair of them, standing alone on a deserted, secluded corner of the world. Quite unwary and unworldly: innocently vulnerable to those things that like to lurk in the shadows.
Then as they got in, they giggled about something that had happened whilst they were waiting.
Soon after that, one of those things did come a creeping out from the shadows:
To be Continued.
I have always been mesmerized and motivated by the landscape and wilderness photography of Guy Tal. The idea behind this photo is a direct influence from his photography.
Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge
Oak Harbor, Ohio
Multiple Exposure of the Pinchin Street sign, with one of the bricked up arches.
It was inside this arch on 10 September 1889 an unidentified torso was found by PC William Pennett. The identity was never discovered, & this murder is generally not considered to be a victim of Jack the Ripper, but is one of the 11 unsolved murders in the East End of London that are categorized as The Whitechapel Murders in the police file.
Taken in 2016 on a private Ripper tour with Richard Jones.
Nikon F65. Ilford HP5 Plus 400 35mm B&W film.
This is a house in the Village of Ashton, Northamptonshire. The village was created in 1900 by the Rothschild family, one of the wealthiest in the land. All the houses were created in a similar style, thatched and of the same stone, it is pretty much a model village.
Except..... to me it all feels a little wrong and a little Stepford, gardens are perfect they even have the same coloured doors and windows and wheeled garden sheds in the same pastel shades.
Other facts about Stepford (I mean Ashton).
1.The International Conker Championships are held here.
2.Clarke Gable was stationed at Polebrook, part of the same Estate
3. Most of the houses can still be rented from the Estate
4. Chas and Dave used to hang out in the Pub on the green here.
5. A gruesome Double Murder occured in this building in October 1950, a husband and wife were claw hammered to death, the crime was never solved
Letea forest is a natural reservation, covering an area of approximately 2,825 ha (6,980 acres). It is the oldest protected area in Romania. It was established in 1930, and not by accident: it is the northernmost subtropical forest in the world, and only of its kind in Europe, home of about 3,500 species of plants and animals.
It has a rich flora and fauna, described incompletly, but it is sure that rare and endangered species including endemic species (found only here) find their home here, such as Centaurea pontica. Visiting the forest is a unique experience as in a continental climate you will find a subtropical deciduous forest, interwoven with lianas. We can admire 4-700 years old oaks, poplars, elms, alders or lindens, but going in forest we can see sand dunes too. The sand dunes are home to many rare and endangered flora species as well.
The fauna of Letea forest is also rich, about 70% of the Danube Delta fauna can be found here: is the nesting site of over 150 species of birds such as the white-tailed eagle (Haliaeetus albicilla), short-toed snake eagle (Circaetus gallicus), tawny eagle (Aquila rapax), black kite (Milvus migrans), herpetological rarities such as the steppe racer (Eremias arguta), or meadow viper (Vipera renardi).
The forest is famous for its “wild horses” that are actually released by locals and become broncos (semi-feral horses). Approximately 2,000 broncos are found in the forest, unfortunately causing serious damage to the local biosphere. The capture and transportation of these horses is an unsolved problem.You can find a detailed descriptions of the species from Danube Delta here.
Access: we arrive to Letea from Tulcea by navigating on the Sulina branch, then the Magearu canal. Transport through the forest can be done with dray. Locals make available tractors for transportation, but keep in mind that tractors disturb the flora and fauna of the forest. Even outside the forest, we are passing by many canals and we can see nesting birds!
A warm and exuberant thank you to me partner in crime Khaliesi for her patience and willingness in offering to help cheerfully compose this rendering and inspiring the accompanying narrative story…
C'était un plaisir de s'amuser avec un ami
Chatwick
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Puppet on a String
Now, if we both agree, our newly minted Mrs.D…., Parden me! Lady D. Calabash,
Agree that pistols are just rude and unnecessary …… I will just put this away this objectionable bit of melodrama, and we can continue on with My requests like reasonable adults..
Now, just nod yes with your pretty tiaraed head……
Capital ! Now might I suggest that you keep that frog in your throat from escaping, and stay mute for a bit…There, that’s the girl….
Obviously, you Milady, received our missive, and was just curious enough to come alone see what it was all on about.
But first, please allow me to force upon you apologies for intruding like this upon you day of Matrimony… but now that you are securely wed, these matters needed to be discussed with the upmost urgency…
Ahhh…I saw you glancing away towards the door, but don’t worry about holding up your wedding party Milady… interesting use of a rather rude appellation that, hold-up I mean….., for you see, your entourage is currently being, let us say, “ entertained” by my fellow friends in a manner that your absence from them will not be dwelt upon for the time being….
Ah, did I just see a shiver along your pretty physique? But as a thief yourself, you should not be aghast by my words…
Now… don’t look at me like that, We really do know your little secret….! And No!, allow me to make our position quite clear Lady C… we are not blackmailers, just simple jewel thieves.. not unlike yourself…
Ah I can see by the look in your eyes that you know we are of the same mold, so it is of no use shaking your shimmering head like that, your crafty game is up, now is it not?,
But I must say that your diamond earrings and tiara really put on a jolly nice show whilst you were nodding no!
But let us put those pretty distractions aside for now, and I will make it quick and to the point…. As I know you would prefer it to be…
You’d admit.. That you are a dirt poor lass by heritage… having only been posing as a one of wealthy elite to snag your disgustingly wealthy Intendeds affections, and that all of the jewels you have been flaunting in his and the Lord’s family’s face actually were “shall we say…borrowed” from the rather obscenely rich, family less spinsterish old lady, whose bed-ridden condition you became nurse too , after of course, you were able to convince her to discharge the au pair she was at the current time employing!
Hush, I see you want to argue the point, but that photograph you are holding,, one of several I might add, tells you that the proof is in the pudding against any defense you might try to stage!
My dear just accept the fact you have been found out, and listen quietly without further attempts at interruption and I promise it will be less painful to you all around….
Actually I am doing you a favor my pretty miss… We have already made it appear that your charges safe has been burgled while she slept , and have taken the liberty to remove the rest of her jewels you had secreted away in your chambre , really, under a mattress? Which means that all blame will fall squarely upon my lot for their sad loss.
Don’t gasp like that My pretty Lady, you knew the charade would have to end, and we are presenting to you a way to gracefully exit without being found out…Consider it our wedding gift to you….!
Now attend please, as I have stated, we are not blackmailers, we want nothing more from you after this day than information. Oh come now miss, don’t look coy, you know full well the type of information we can use… Dates of balls, dances and the house guests who will be staying with you at the Manor will suffice…. and no tipping us off to anyone, we will have eyes upon you, the same unseen eyes that have been following you for quite some time now….
Quite fetching, the way you placed your hand to your open mouth just now, That ring really does sparkle a bit, showy little gem!
So…You really had no Idea someone was on to you?
Allow me to reiterate our position then…for one year of your cooperation, the picts and negatives are yours, and we will vanish totally out of your life and let you live happily ever after with your prince, er Lord!
Ahh, I can see it now in your pretty eyes, Game set and match in my court. But do not stress all too much over it, the unpleasantness of being our snitch should last only for a year from today, providing of course we are satisfactorily compensated by your disclosures….
For trust us, for even the dimmest of police inspectors will notice a pattern eventually, and we would prefer to leave you with no ideas of spilling your story to anyone by milking information from you to the point of desperation….
Now me fine lass, Since you are rather talented at telling stories, I harbor no doubts that you will be able to put on a good show for the next year…… also when when you soon rejoin your party today. Though actually I may suggest you remain here and have them find you huddled in a corner at the shock of your loss..
What Loss your eyes appear to be asking?
Well Lady C… It will be best if it appears that you have met the same unfortunate fate as your bridal party… Now don’t balk at this point now Me fine Lady… We have come much too far along this path too to dicker over minor facets of your indiscretions !…
As the preacher said a short while ago , do you take this lady for richer or poorer, and through your husband ‘s exuberance in agreeing to it, than you should not have any qualms about handing over to me the jewels you are wearing….
Now be a dear and do it quickly, it will be painless… then just begin a new , honest , life with your Lord…for I can tell you, after crashing his bachelors party, that the clueless whelp is actually quite a bit in love with you….
Balking a bit Luv. ? … Here allow me to direct….
Start with the necklace Lady D., good, now the rest..
There that’s the ticket…. you’ve got the idea now, quick and easy, that’s a good lass.
No Now, keep the wedding ring, but slip off the other My dear Lady C.!
Is that all of it, not holding out our we? Capital!
Thank you now, quite a lot actually, And see that did not hurt so much did it?
Look! Quite a lovely handful they do make, just admire their shimmer and shine. Well, I will put these twice stolen baubles away for now, not further taunting, quite rude of me I will admit!
And now, allow me take my leave of you.
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As he turned away, Lady D. Calabash felt as if she could no longer let the cat hold her tongue…
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“Tallie” she blurted out , her anxiety forcing her to say something, anything….
He stopped in his tracks, turned around quizzically, cocking his head in a questioning manner, but said nothing.
“Tallie” she said again without reason , lips now trembling, her whole demeanor shaking.
“The name of the au pair girl was Tallie”
But Lady C.’s words drifted off and died away as he smartly turned heel and walked off , but not before hunching his grey eyes up at her in a rather dismissive fashion at the wretched newly titled lass…..
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He left her standing there, dazed and confused…
Slipping down a set of stairs leading to a cellar he made his way through a maze of various objects before he reached a small wooden door. Opening it, he found himself in a seldom used back alleyway.
He stole away down the cobblestone path of the darkened alley, making his way by foot back to his gang’s hideout. Said gang, he figured, should be just now finishing up with trimming a bit of the fat from the wealthy guests.
Cause and effect he marveled wryly as he allowed various thoughts to roll about in his head while he strolled calmly away, making his escape…
Amazing the chain of events that had been set off by the simple discharging of a, seemingly insignificant, au pair girl!
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To see what the significance of the name Tallie may add to this narrative….
Visit the pict and story below…
“An Odyssey Less Taken “@
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Messier 13 (M13), also designated NGC 6205 and sometimes called the Great Globular Cluster in Hercules or the Hercules Globular Cluster, is a globular cluster of about 300,000 stars in the constellation of Hercules.
Got an unlucky night, my EQ6 mount stop guiding fine for more than 100 sec, so i'd tryed various settings on synsca, on lacerta, redo much times alignment, checked all the tightenings, with and without shorty barlow on guide telescope, but still unsolved. I was convinced that with the test at home months ago, I had good guide for 500 sec, but this last week not more than 280 sec .. and now 100, is in a free fall !!
hope to solve soon, for now I have to content myself :)
Celestron C11 XLT - mirror block mod.
Starizona SCT Corrector f/7.5
Date: 20 aprile 2015
9x100" ISO2500
Tot. Integr: 0.2 hours
Come take this hand at twilight's door
I'll meet you there we'll share the moonlit floor
Through the driving rain, colours run in veins
Ozone fills the air, two figures disappear
Come let's take flight, let's quit this scene tonight
Whilst they sleep on endless, in their wrecked designs
Sleep on endless in your wrecked designs
Moths touched by flame repeat their fatal game
Forever and eternally, the cliffs around the crashing sea
Unsolved and endless, wait for me
Undulating far below, where lucid waters flow
Their faces seem to know
Where the land falls to an end
This hidden tale begins
Take a walk with me, down by the sea
Take a walk with me
Down by the sea
Lands End
- Siouxsie and the Banshees-
Century Motors, Chippendale, Sydney, by Max Dupain, 1953
It may look like a still from an American film noir movie, but this beautifully composed shot shows a used car business in Broadway, Sydney. Taken at night-time by Max Dupain, it also captures the spire of St Benedict’s church, which is still standing today. Two years earlier, the showroom’s manager, Arthur Hacker, had been embroiled in an unsolved murder after his wife was strangled at their mansion in Northcote Avenue, Killara.
ON 558/Box 3/nos. 120–124
On display in State Library of New South Wales Exhibition 'Shot' www.sl.nsw.gov.au/exhibitions/shot
“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions”
-Rainer Maria Rilke
"Patience and Fortitude conquer all things.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Patience is bitter but it's fruit is sweet."
-Jean-Jacques Rousseau
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My friend Matt sent me a New Year message stating that he was not going to have any New Year's Resolutions this year, instead he would choose one word to help define his year. He chose "FOCUS" to be his word, and asked me to come up with one word myself. After being asked that, well...that took some real thought. I mean, what word could I come up with that truly would be something I need to focus in on for my year?
It was challenging because in general...I'm focused, driven, goal-oriented, kind, giving...I persevere, show fortitude, not a quitter. All things that I try to live my life out each day and pretty much do. So, when asked...I had to take three days to come up with one word and once I did, it made quite a lot of sense to me.
The word I came up with was PATIENCE.
It's defined as:
l. Marked by or exhibiting calm endurance of pain, difficulty, provocation, or annoyance
ll. Capable of calmly awaiting an outcome or result; not hasty or impulsive
What I tend to lack most in life right now is patience. I have a hard time with making it through the difficult times in life and awaiting for the better outcome. What weighs on my heart and mind the most is my inability to change where I'm at in life fast enough. I want changes NOW, not TOMORROW...but NOW. Change where I'm living; how I'm living; my financial state of being; whether I'm with someone or if I'm going to remain alone; whether I'll finally be happy with ALL things presented before me in life. All of this taxes on my mind repeatedly and somewhere I have to reach deep within to find a place where I'm at peace with where I'm at in life. Until I reach this peace, it's going to keep me up at night and keep me more worried than I need to be. Perhaps with patience...all things will fall into place. "All good things come to those who wait." ...right, right?
So, the word I'm going to use and work towards making my year go better is patience. I will need to find ways to really focus in on relaxing myself during difficult times or the times when I struggle with where I'm at. I'm not sure how to do this, but I will try to say each day that "I will be patient, I will show patience."...and see where life takes me.
PATIENCE.
Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions.
-- Rainer Maria Rilke
Bergen (Norwegian pronunciation: [ˈbæ̀rɡn̩]), historically Bjørgvin, is a city and municipality in Vestland county on the west coast of Norway. As of 2021, its population is roughly 285,900. Bergen is the second-largest city in Norway. The municipality covers 465 square kilometres (180 sq mi) and is on the peninsula of Bergenshalvøyen. The city centre and northern neighbourhoods are on Byfjorden, 'the city fjord', and the city is surrounded by mountains; Bergen is known as the "city of seven mountains". Many of the extra-municipal suburbs are on islands. Bergen is the administrative centre of Vestland county. The city consists of eight boroughs: Arna, Bergenhus, Fana, Fyllingsdalen, Laksevåg, Ytrebygda, Årstad, and Åsane.
Trading in Bergen may have started as early as the 1020s. According to tradition, the city was founded in 1070 by King Olav Kyrre and was named Bjørgvin, 'the green meadow among the mountains'. It served as Norway's capital in the 13th century, and from the end of the 13th century became a bureau city of the Hanseatic League. Until 1789, Bergen enjoyed exclusive rights to mediate trade between Northern Norway and abroad and it was the largest city in Norway until the 1830s when it was overtaken by the capital, Christiania (now known as Oslo). What remains of the quays, Bryggen, is a World Heritage Site. The city was hit by numerous fires over the years. The Bergen School of Meteorology was developed at the Geophysical Institute starting in 1917, the Norwegian School of Economics was founded in 1936, and the University of Bergen in 1946. From 1831 to 1972, Bergen was its own county. In 1972 the municipality absorbed four surrounding municipalities and became a part of Hordaland county.
The city is an international center for aquaculture, shipping, the offshore petroleum industry and subsea technology, and a national centre for higher education, media, tourism and finance. Bergen Port is Norway's busiest in terms of both freight and passengers, with over 300 cruise ship calls a year bringing nearly a half a million passengers to Bergen, a number that has doubled in 10 years. Almost half of the passengers are German or British. The city's main football team is SK Brann and a unique tradition of the city is the buekorps. Natives speak a distinct dialect, known as Bergensk. The city features Bergen Airport, Flesland and Bergen Light Rail, and is the terminus of the Bergen Line. Four large bridges connect Bergen to its suburban municipalities.
Bergen has a mild winter climate, though with a lot of precipitation. From December to March, Bergen can, in rare cases, be up to 20 °C warmer than Oslo, even though both cities are at about 60° North. The Gulf Stream keeps the sea relatively warm, considering the latitude, and the mountains protect the city from cold winds from the north, north-east and east.
History
The city of Bergen was traditionally thought to have been founded by king Olav Kyrre, son of Harald Hardråde in 1070 AD, four years after the Viking Age in England ended with the Battle of Stamford Bridge. Modern research has, however, discovered that a trading settlement had already been established in the 1020s or 1030s.
Bergen gradually assumed the function of capital of Norway in the early 13th century, as the first city where a rudimentary central administration was established. The city's cathedral was the site of the first royal coronation in Norway in the 1150s, and continued to host royal coronations throughout the 13th century. Bergenhus fortress dates from the 1240s and guards the entrance to the harbour in Bergen. The functions of the capital city were lost to Oslo during the reign of King Haakon V (1299–1319).
In the middle of the 14th century, North German merchants, who had already been present in substantial numbers since the 13th century, founded one of the four Kontore of the Hanseatic League at Bryggen in Bergen. The principal export traded from Bergen was dried cod from the northern Norwegian coast, which started around 1100. The city was granted a monopoly for trade from the north of Norway by King Håkon Håkonsson (1217–1263).[9] Stockfish was the main reason that the city became one of North Europe's largest centres for trade. By the late 14th century, Bergen had established itself as the centre of the trade in Norway. The Hanseatic merchants lived in their own separate quarter of the town, where Middle Low German was used, enjoying exclusive rights to trade with the northern fishermen who each summer sailed to Bergen. The Hansa community resented Scottish merchants who settled in Bergen, and on 9 November 1523 several Scottish households were targeted by German residents. Today, Bergen's old quayside, Bryggen, is on UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites.
In 1349, the Black Death was brought to Norway by an English ship arriving in Bergen. Later outbreaks occurred in 1618, 1629 and 1637, on each occasion taking about 3,000 lives. In the 15th century, the city was attacked several times by the Victual Brothers, and in 1429 they succeeded in burning the royal castle and much of the city. In 1665, the city's harbour was the site of the Battle of Vågen, when an English naval flotilla attacked a Dutch merchant and treasure fleet supported by the city's garrison. Accidental fires sometimes got out of control, and one in 1702 reduced most of the town to ashes.
Throughout the 15th and 16th centuries, Bergen remained one of the largest cities in Scandinavia, and it was Norway's biggest city until the 1830s, when the capital city of Oslo became the largest. From around 1600, the Hanseatic dominance of the city's trade gradually declined in favour of Norwegian merchants (often of Hanseatic ancestry), and in the 1750s, the Hanseatic Kontor finally closed. Bergen retained its monopoly of trade with northern Norway until 1789. The Bergen stock exchange, the Bergen børs, was established in 1813.
Modern history
Bergen was separated from Hordaland as a county of its own in 1831. It was established as a municipality on 1 January 1838 (see formannskapsdistrikt). The rural municipality of Bergen landdistrikt was merged with Bergen on 1 January 1877. The rural municipality of Årstad was merged with Bergen on 1 July 1915.
During World War II, Bergen was occupied on the first day of the German invasion on 9 April 1940, after a brief fight between German ships and the Norwegian coastal artillery. The Norwegian resistance movement groups in Bergen were Saborg, Milorg, "Theta-gruppen", Sivorg, Stein-organisasjonen and the Communist Party. On 20 April 1944, during the German occupation, the Dutch cargo ship Voorbode anchored off the Bergenhus Fortress, loaded with over 120 tons of explosives, and blew up, killing at least 150 people and damaging historic buildings. The city was subject to some Allied bombing raids, aimed at German naval installations in the harbour. Some of these caused Norwegian civilian casualties numbering about 100.
Bergen is also well known in Norway for the Isdal Woman (Norwegian: Isdalskvinnen), an unidentified person who was found dead at Isdalen ("Ice Valley") on 29 November 1970. The unsolved case encouraged international speculation over the years and it remains one of the most profound mysteries in recent Norwegian history.
The rural municipalities of Arna, Fana, Laksevåg, and Åsane were merged with Bergen on 1 January 1972. The city lost its status as a separate county on the same date, and Bergen is now a municipality, in the county of Vestland.
Geography
Bergen occupies most of the peninsula of Bergenshalvøyen in the district of Midthordland in mid-western Hordaland. The municipality covers an area of 465 square kilometres (180 square miles). Most of the urban area is on or close to a fjord or bay, although the urban area has several mountains. The city centre is surrounded by the Seven Mountains, although there is disagreement as to which of the nine mountains constitute these. Ulriken, Fløyen, Løvstakken and Damsgårdsfjellet are always included as well as three of Lyderhorn, Sandviksfjellet, Blåmanen, Rundemanen and Kolbeinsvarden. Gullfjellet is Bergen's highest mountain, at 987 metres (3,238 ft) above mean sea level.
Bergen is sheltered from the North Sea by the islands Askøy, Holsnøy (the municipality of Meland) and Sotra (the municipalities of Fjell and Sund). Bergen borders the municipalities Alver and Osterøy to the north, Vaksdal and Samnanger to the east, Os (Bjørnafjorden) and Austevoll to the south, and Øygarden and Askøy to the west.
Cityscape
The city centre of Bergen lies in the west of the municipality, facing the fjord of Byfjorden. It is among a group of mountains known as the Seven Mountains, although the number is a matter of definition. From here, the urban area of Bergen extends to the north, west and south, and to its east is a large mountain massif. Outside the city centre and the surrounding neighbourhoods (i.e. Årstad, inner Laksevåg and Sandviken), the majority of the population lives in relatively sparsely populated residential areas built after 1950. While some are dominated by apartment buildings and modern terraced houses (e.g. Fyllingsdalen), others are dominated by single-family homes.
The oldest part of Bergen is the area around the bay of Vågen in the city centre. Originally centred on the bay's eastern side, Bergen eventually expanded west and southwards. Few buildings from the oldest period remain, the most significant being St Mary's Church from the 12th century. For several hundred years, the extent of the city remained almost constant. The population was stagnant, and the city limits were narrow. In 1702, seven-eighths of the city burned. Most of the old buildings of Bergen, including Bryggen (which was rebuilt in a mediaeval style), were built after the fire. The fire marked a transition from tar covered houses, as well as the remaining log houses, to painted and some brick-covered wooden buildings.
The last half of the 19th century saw a period of rapid expansion and modernisation. The fire of 1855 west of Torgallmenningen led to the development of regularly sized city blocks in this area of the city centre. The city limits were expanded in 1876, and Nygård, Møhlenpris and Sandviken were urbanized with large-scale construction of city blocks housing both the poor and the wealthy. Their architecture is influenced by a variety of styles; historicism, classicism and Art Nouveau. The wealthy built villas between Møhlenpris and Nygård, and on the side of Mount Fløyen; these areas were also added to Bergen in 1876. Simultaneously, an urbanization process was taking place in Solheimsviken in Årstad, at that time outside the Bergen municipality, centred on the large industrial activity in the area. The workers' homes in this area were poorly built, and little remains after large-scale redevelopment in the 1960s–1980s.
After Årstad became a part of Bergen in 1916, a development plan was applied to the new area. Few city blocks akin to those in Nygård and Møhlenpris were planned. Many of the worker class built their own homes, and many small, detached apartment buildings were built. After World War II, Bergen had again run short of land to build on, and, contrary to the original plans, many large apartment buildings were built in Landås in the 1950s and 1960s. Bergen acquired Fyllingsdalen from Fana municipality in 1955. Like similar areas in Oslo (e.g. Lambertseter), Fyllingsdalen was developed into a modern suburb with large apartment buildings, mid-rises, and some single-family homes, in the 1960s and 1970s. Similar developments took place beyond Bergen's city limits, for example in Loddefjord.
At the same time as planned city expansion took place inside Bergen, its extra-municipal suburbs also grew rapidly. Wealthy citizens of Bergen had been living in Fana since the 19th century, but as the city expanded it became more convenient to settle in the municipality. Similar processes took place in Åsane and Laksevåg. Most of the homes in these areas are detached row houses, single family homes or small apartment buildings. After the surrounding municipalities were merged with Bergen in 1972, expansion has continued in largely the same manner, although the municipality encourages condensing near commercial centres, future Bergen Light Rail stations, and elsewhere.
As part of the modernisation wave of the 1950s and 1960s, and due to damage caused by World War II, the city government ambitiously planned redevelopment of many areas in central Bergen. The plans involved demolition of several neighbourhoods of wooden houses, namely Nordnes, Marken, and Stølen. None of the plans was carried out in its original form; the Marken and Stølen redevelopment plans were discarded and that of Nordnes only carried out in the area that had been most damaged by war. The city council of Bergen had in 1964 voted to demolish the entirety of Marken, however, the decision proved to be highly controversial and the decision was reversed in 1974. Bryggen was under threat of being wholly or partly demolished after the fire of 1955, when a large number of the buildings burned to the ground. Instead of being demolished, the remaining buildings were restored and accompanied by reconstructions of some of the burned buildings.
Demolition of old buildings and occasionally whole city blocks is still taking place, the most recent major example being the 2007 razing of Jonsvollskvartalet at Nøstet.[64]
Billboards are banned in the city.
(Wikpedia)
Bergen [ˈbærgən] ist mit 286.930 Einwohnern (Stand 1. Januar 2022) die zweitgrößte Stadt Norwegens, eine Kommune in der Provinz (Fylke) Vestland sowie deren Verwaltungssitz. Der Großraum von Bergen hat rund 440.000 Einwohner.
Der Hafen von Bergen (UN/LOCODE NO BGO) ist einer der geschäftigsten Seehäfen Europas, von dem aus die Schiffe der Hurtigruten starten. Die Stadt ist Ausgangspunkt der Bergensbane. Im Kulturbereich gibt es das bekannte Theater Den Nationale Scene sowie die Grieghalle.
Lage
Bergen ist eine Hafenstadt und liegt am inneren Byfjord an der Westküste Norwegens. Die Stadt wird auch als „Tor zu den Fjorden“ bezeichnet. Die höchste Erhebung auf dem Gebiet der Kommune ist der Gullfjellet (987 m). Die Stadt ist mit ca. 2548 mm Niederschlag an 248 Regentagen im Jahr (Stand: 2005) die „regenreichste Großstadt Europas“.
"De Syv Fjell"
Bergen ist in Norwegen auch als Syvfjellsbyen (Stadt der sieben Hügel) bekannt. Dieser Beiname soll auf den Dichter Ludvig Holberg, vermutlich in Anlehnung an die Sieben Hügel Roms, zurückgehen. Die eigentliche Anzahl Hügel, welche die Stadt umgeben, ist umstritten, unter anderem da fünf von ihnen (Ulriken, Fløyfjellet, Rundemanen, Blåmanen und Sandviksfjellet) alle Teil desselben Massivs sind. Auch der Storavarden auf der Nachbarinsel Askøy wird gelegentlich zu den sieben Hügeln gezählt.
Auf der jährlichen 7-fjellsturen (7-Hügel-Tour), die von der Ortsgruppe des norwegischen Wandervereins veranstaltet wird, werden seit 1981 die folgenden 7 Hügel, gegen den Uhrzeigersinn, bestiegen:
Lyderhorn (396 m), Damsgårdsfjellet (317 m), Løvstakken (477 m), Ulriken (643 m), Fløyfjellet (400 m), Rundemanen (568 m), Sandviksfjellet (417 m).
Stadtbild
Die Stadt ist geprägt durch die am Naturhafen Vågen verlaufende Bryggen oder früher Tyske Bryggen (norwegisch für Landungsbrücke/Kai bzw. Deutscher Kai), wobei es sich um alte Handelseinrichtungen der Hanse handelt. Ebenfalls aus dieser Zeit stammen die Marienkirche und weitere Bauten.
Nach mehreren verheerenden Stadtbränden (1702, 1855, 1916), die durch die typisch norwegische Holzbauweise begünstigt wurden, erließ die Stadt Verordnungen, die den Bau von Holzhäusern auf dem Stadtgebiet nicht mehr gestattete. Das Hafenviertel Bryggen, das bei den Stadtbränden mehrmals nicht verschont geblieben war, wurde nach jeder Zerstörung nach originalen Plänen wieder aufgebaut. Das Profil ist daher heute noch dasselbe wie im 12. Jahrhundert. Aus diesem Grund wurde Bryggen als Beispiel hanseatischer Baukunst in Norwegen durch die UNESCO 1979 zum Weltkulturerbe ernannt.
Geschichte
Auf eisenzeitliche Spuren weist der östlich gelegene Bautastein von Augastad.
Nach Angaben in den Königssagas wurde Bergen 1070 als Björgvin („Bergwiese“) von König Olav Kyrre gegründet. Ab dem 12. Jahrhundert war es norwegische Krönungsstadt; später wurde es in dieser Funktion von Trondheim abgelöst.
1360 eröffnete in Bergen ein Hansekontor „Tyske Bryggen“. Bergen wird zwar oft als „Hansestadt“ bezeichnet, war jedoch nicht gleichberechtigte Mitgliedsstadt, da es Städten, in denen Hansekontore lagen, verboten war, Hansestadt zu werden. Im Jahr 1665, während des Zweiten Englisch-Niederländischen Krieges, überfielen englische Kriegsschiffe eine niederländische Handelsflotte im Hafen von Bergen. Die Schlacht in der Bucht von Bergen endete mit einer Niederlage der Engländer. Dazu trug auch die Unterstützung der dänischen Festungsbesatzungen für die Niederländer mit bei.
Bis 1880 war Bergen wichtigster Hafen und größte Stadt Norwegens. Am 16. Januar 1916 wurde ein großer Teil der noch aus vielen Holzhäusern bestehenden Stadt von einem Großbrand vernichtet.
Im 19. Jahrhundert war die Lepra in Norwegen stark verbreitet und Bergen eines der Seuchenzentren. Zwischen 1850 und 1900 gab es in der Stadt drei Lepra-Krankenhäuser und die größte Dichte an Infizierten in ganz Europa. 1873 entdeckte der norwegische Arzt Gerhard Armauer Hansen in Bergen den Erreger Mycobacterium leprae. Das älteste Lepra-Spital, das im 15. Jahrhundert eröffnete St.-Jørgens-Hospital behandelte bis in die 1940er Jahre Leprakranke und beherbergt heute das Lepramuseum Bergen und das Lepra-Archiv, das zum UNESCO Memory-of-the-World-Programm gehört.
Im Zweiten Weltkrieg wurde Bergen schon am ersten Tag der deutschen Invasion, am 9. April 1940, von deutschen Truppen besetzt. Die Stadt wurde später durch alliiertes Bombardement beschädigt. Die deutsche Luftwaffe baute zur Verteidigung der Stadt und des U-Boot-Hafens die nahe gelegene Insel Herdla und die Festung Fjell festning aus. Am 20. April 1944 forderte die Explosion auf dem deutschen Munitionstransporter „Voorbode“, der am Kai vor der Festung Bergenhus lag, 150 Menschenleben und führte zu starken Schäden an hunderten von Gebäuden.
(Wikipedia)
[Scarpa Tra I Pali > 岗位之间的鞋 > Обувь между столбами > ポスト間の靴]
Location: Dresden (Germany).
Subject: Another contribution to the x-file of the abandoned shoes, one of the unsolved mysteries of our times. The depicted scene is genuine, shot as I have found it. My previous reportage on this issue: Roundabout Shoe.
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Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will find them gradually, without noticing it, and live along some distant day into the answer. -excerpts from Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke
Legend of Ruth Colbath is a NH legend based on New Hampshire's Kancamagus Highway in Carroll County NH.
Living along what is now called the Kancamagus Scenic Byway (Kancamagus Highway) in New Hampshire were the Colbath's. One night in 1891, Ruth Colbath's husband Thomas left the family farm to run errands. Thomas Colbath never returned that night. For 39 years, Ruth Colbath waited for her beloved husband. She missed him so much that she kept an oil lamp burning in the window, hoping for his return.
Ruth Colbath died in 1930, at the age of 80. Three years after Ruth died, Thomas returned. Thomas offered no explanation for where he had been for the past 39 years. Thomas Colbath claimed he wandered away and was too embarrassed to return and admit he was lost.
It is now thought by some that Thomas Colbath may have suffered from what we now know as Alzheimers.
Today, the Russell-Colbath House is a registered historic site and owned by the US Forestry Service. It is open to the public, tours are given daily in season by volunteers.
Night shot of Chamber Street, where, on the 13th of April 1891, the body Frances Coles was found in one of the railway arches on this street. The arch where it happened is just on the left, but obviously it is blocked off by this construction barrier. It is where the pole is just before the car.
She wasn't considered a victim of Jack the Ripper, & was the last unsolved murder in the East End of London in the police files collectively known as the Whitechapel Murders.
The street still has an eerie feeling about it, especially at night.
Nikon F4. AF Nikkor 50mm F1.4D lens. CineStill 800T 35mm C41 film.
Blueberry Creek Irrigation District
Blueberry Creek, B.C. - corner card cover
The following article was written by historian Greg Nesteroff on Jun. 30, 2013 for the Nelson Star newspaper - BLUEBERRY - Blueberry, or BLUEBERRY CREEK, is one of three fruit-themed Castlegar suburbs. (The others are Raspberry and Strawberry, although the latter is no longer in common use.) The creek was so named by January 1, 1897 when it was mentioned in the Trail Creek News. The Blueberry railway siding was named on a Columbia and Western Railway schedule dated November 21, 1897 and published in the Slocan Pioneer of December 11, 1897. For a while around 1910-11, the community — or at least a portion of it — was known as Bruce Gardens, despite the fact the post office opened on May 1, 1910 as Blueberry Creek. Bruce Gardens is mentioned in the Nelson Daily News of December 15 and 22, 1910 and January 7, 1911. One headline read “Water system for Bruce Gardens,” yet the story itself said “All together Blueberry creek looks forward to a prosperous future.” Who was Bruce? It’s an unsolved mystery. No one by that name was listed there in the 1910 Henderson directory for BC, which included the notation “See also Blueberry Creek” and erroneously stated Bruce Gardens was on Okanagan Lake, eight miles south of Okanagan Landing. (The confusion was with Bruce’s Landing, which was in fact on Okanagan Lake.) The same directory also erroneously stated Blueberry Creek was “a settlement in Kootenay district situated two miles north of Moberly.” Bruce Gardens was never mentioned in the directories again. The Blueberry Creek post office closed on May 12, 1973. Blueberry, which is home to a community school, amalgamated with Castlegar in 2004. LINK to the complete article - www.nelsonstar.com/community/kootenay-river-waterfall-nam...
(from - Wrigley's 1918 British Columbia Directory) - BLUEBERRY CREEK - a post office and farming settlement 12 miles north of Trail at the junction of Blueberry Creek with Columbia River, in Trail Provincial Electoral District. Local resources: Farming.
LINK to a list of the Postmasters who served at the BLUEBERRY CREEK Post Office - recherche-collection-search.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/home/record...
- sent from - / BLUEBERRY CREEK / PM / 26 III / 65 / B.C. / - (C type / small letters) cds cancel
Addressed to - Provincial Assessor / Nelson, B.C.
You don't normally get to see the attic of the Russell-Colbath House when on a regular tour.
Legend of Ruth Colbath is a NH legend based on New Hampshire's Kancamagus Highway in Carroll County NH.
Living along what is now called the Kancamagus Scenic Byway (Kancamagus Highway) in New Hampshire were the Colbath's. One night in 1891, Ruth Colbath's husband Thomas left the family farm to run errands. Thomas Colbath never returned that night. For 39 years, Ruth Colbath waited for her beloved husband. She missed him so much that she kept an oil lamp burning in the window, hoping for his return.
Ruth Colbath died in 1930, at the age of 80. Three years after Ruth died, Thomas returned. Thomas offered no explanation for where he had been for the past 39 years. Thomas Colbath claimed he wandered away and was too embarrassed to return and admit he was lost.
It is now thought by some that Thomas Colbath may have suffered from what we now know as Alzheimers.
Today, the Russell-Colbath House is a registered historic site and owned by the US Forestry Service. It is open to the public, tours are given daily in season by volunteers.
If you imagine someone who is brave enough to withdraw all his projections,
then you get an individual who is conscious of a pretty thick shadow.
Such a man has saddled himself with new problems and conflicts.
He has become a serious problem to himself, as he is now unable to say that they do this or that, they are wrong, and they must be fought against. He lives in the "House of the Gathering."
Such a man knows that whatever is wrong in the world is in himself,
and if he only learns to deal with his own shadow he has done something real for the world.
He has succeeded in shouldering at least an infinitesimal part of the gigantic,
unsolved social problems of our day.
CG Jung 1938
Enlightenment is not imagining figures of light
but making the darkness conscious.
Touted as " America's most haunted homes", the plantation is supposedly the home of at least 12 ghosts. It is often reported that 10 murders occurred in the house. In 2002, Unsolved Mysteries filmed a segment about the alleged hauntings at the plantation. According to host Robert Stack, the production crew experienced technical difficulties during the production of the segment. The Myrtles was also featured on a 2005 episode of Ghost Hunters
Step past the tape, Detective, and find out what luck really ran out.🎲 Luck has left the building. 🍀This stylishly detailed Lucky 777 Casino Building by Vizarte sets the perfect stage for secrets, scandals, and unsolved crimes.🎰 Whether you're investigating or redecorating your own mystery scene, this location brings all the drama. Something went down here, and luck had nothing to do with it.
️There are still ranks to climb, keep hunting Detective.
🚕Taxi: maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/MadPea%20Adventures/128/10...
The Magpie Oculus
Part 2
Acte 1
In for a Pound
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Wales, UK
10 years later
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
A Midsummers Late afternoon ‘Formal wedding Reception’
Carmarthenshire, Aberglasney Manor House, and Gardens
Enter here to visit the charming place:
www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&s...
An attractive lady is seen swishing about as she demurely makes her way to and then inside, the deserted garden that is hidden from the olde stone manor by an ever-growing strip of woods and olde hedges.
She had heard tell of these gardens while conversing with a group of fellow guests that were gathered around the cheese and wine tables inside the manor’s reception hall with its glass ceilings.
Interest piqued, she had stolen off to sneak a peak around.
After all, as she had been snidely telling the same group, it was quite boring being here alone attending this function, without any escort! Her husband, Sir so and so was a very important man of course! And being so very vital to his business was currently away on one of his overseas business junkets.
She was wearing one of her usual thin, slinking gowns that said husband enjoyed having her wear.
This particular one was made of shimmery silk, dyed the deep blue of a sunny Bahamas ocean. As she moved, it almost resembled ocean waves as the pretty fabric whipped and swirled along her rather petite figure.
Her jewels, as could be expected, were sapphires. Quite the collection of overly expensive gems which royally sparkled like the same ocean that had inspired the matching colour of her evening gown! The Lady’s baubles, though shining with a royal radiance, were no match for those on display at the Tower of London, but could be considered a close cousin to them!
Which begs a question, should someone be flaunting jewels like that under every one's nose then be also telling tales about her husband being away? Can almost hear the thieves smiling wickedly, as well as feel the insurance agents’ shudder, can’t one?
But, totally believing she was out exploring alone, the pretty lady made her way along the cobblestones that made up the pathways amongst the roses, fountains, and ivy-covered statues that were displayed with an almost reverence aire in the interior of the hidden gardens.
As she wandered about, finding herself increasingly bewitched by the tranquillity of the magic garden terrace she had found, she remained blissfully unaware of the two pairs of eyes that had been, with piercing interest, following her every move since she had made her entrance!
From a hidden vantage point that extended out and above the high hedges that surrounded the garden proper, one set of those eyes was watching! They belonged to a large sassy magpie, perched with expectantly fluttering wings in the gnarled branches of an old wytch elm.
The bird penetratingly observes the young female human, especially eyeing the enticing glitters from her jewels. Most noticeably the pricy bracelet that from one wrist is rippling blazing pinpricks of blue and white fire as she moves about.
Enticingly those sparkles are, erupting from around her wrist as she lifts up a rose up to smell its sweet fragrance. Then again, the show is repeated, as she flicks, one by one rose petals into what had been the still water of a fountain.
Spying a bench, she swishes over, adjusting her gown before slipping upon the coolness of the mossy stone bench. Appearing to become immersed in the surroundings as she closed her eyes and leaned back in delight, her long hair spilling out behind her, exposing her longish, glittering earrings dripping down like identical twin blue waterfalls from her earlobes.
The magpie flies in for a closer look, alighting silently upon the sculpted head of a bow drawing cupid statue. The bird instinctively remains mute lest he is noticed.
He then suddenly cocks his head, as he observes a second figure, a human male, and he flies securely away to an even higher perch, letting out a soft caw at the intruder.
The dreaming beauty opens her eyes and catches movement as she spies the gentleman approaching.
Opening her eyes to their fullest she turns and smiles. He had been one of the groups inside, and had also coincidently, been the one to bring up the story of the secret gardens.
She turns to face him, eyes smiling impishly, for a truth to be admitted, she was not lying about being bit lonely, and a brief rendezvous with a charming mystery man may prove quite a pleasing interlude to spend an hour or so!
He comes up, and with a bow, gestures his permission to join. She nods smiling, granting consent, and he slips down upon the bench, keeping a discreet distance between them. He begins to speak, his deep Welsh accent again charming the London born and bred high society lass.
And as it turned out for them both, the rest of their afternoon encounter had indeed produced a quite pleasing interlude, within the isolated secret garden and its’ magic terraces. The whole area they ended up having all to themselves.
The gardens’ charm grew upon the couple, to the point of a dance being offered and accepted. They danced for a long time, with the melody of twittering jays, long tailed tits, and other gremlins like darting bird denizens of the secret garden being used to keep the dancing humans in rhythm.
After that magical afternoon, they made their way back and parted with a hug before going their separate ways. The warm feelings that had intertwined, intrigued and fulfilled the young female beauty, staying with her for quite some time afterward.
^^^^^^^^^^^
After the pair of humans leave, all is quiet for a few long, waiting minutes, before the wilder denizens deem it finally safe again to prowl about.
One of them being the inquisitively sassy magpie. He flutters down from his perch and lands upon the outer rim of a fountain by a bench. Curiously he pecks at the rose petals floating about in the fountain’s cool waters. The petals still carry a whiff of fragrance from the lilac perfume of the lady who had thrown the petals there.
Then the Magpie’s darting black eyes keenly pick up something else of interest. With a soft inquisitive caw, he leaves the fountain perch and darts down to the base of moss rose bush for a closer examination of the glittering object that lay amongst the roots.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
The girl wearing the swishy blue gown and magnificent sapphires was now indeed very happy.
The yearning pangs for her absent husband had been sated for now by her most excellent experiences encountered during her unplanned tryst in the gardens earlier. This happy, warm feeling lasted well into the late afternoon while she remained at the reception. Lasting right up until she realized, with a chilling cold dawning, that her quite expensively jewelled bracelet, the one that had been dangling from around her gloved wrist, was now gone, rudely vanishing without even giving any proper notice!
She had, at the time, been chatting with a white collar wearing priest who had approached her and began to inquisitively barrage her with questions. She put it down to him being bored because he was there alone, out of his normal realms, and did not really know anyone there. He had asked her a question concerning the unintentional cross-shaped decoration on her cocktail ring, and it was as she held it up for him to see that she made the dreadful discovery that her wrist was bare.
The bloody thing must have snagged on a rose bush and fallen off while she was out in the gardens!
She reasoned this, as she took polite leave of the overly friendly priest without really explaining her reasons why. Happy to be away from him, she anxiously made her way back to retrace her steps in the now moonlit garden.
None of the same eyes watched this time as she fruitlessly searched, alone in the now disenchanted secret garden for her missing jewels!
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
The scene fades away.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Well hello again!
Quite glad to see you have kept up with us for the continuation of our story.
It had now been 10 years since our group’s successful trial run in Monaco at that year’s Bal de l'Eté.
Since that time our team of three had worked hard at perfecting our craft with its employ of our rather unique team and work strategies. The team, whom you’ve met in the first story, still consisted of:
My wife, the charming Irish beauty and undoubtedly the brains behind the scenes. She is also the natural actress of the operation. Her smiling ways having more than once saved the game from being lost.
Myself, the Welsh born frontman, whose light fingers were used more than for lifting up a frothy pint. Though I am a male of course, and so do make my share of mistakes. But with my wife’s loving tutelage, have managed to hold up my own part of the venture.
Then, of course, there is Sammy, the runner of the group. His unmatched skills allowed us to successfully carry off the sparkling fruits of our operation. Sammy adores my wife, and she is the only one who can ever truly smooth out the ruffled feathers he gets whenever I fail to carry out my end of the played game to his satisfaction.
And the game we played?
Well, let us just say it involved the targeting, lifting and secreting away of certain pricy jewels in such a manner that, like a magician uses misdirection, no one knows for certain how or what exactly had happened to cause the loss! The jewels, always worn, were also always found by us exclusively at the various upper-class end functions we were attending at the time.
And admittedly it had been paying off fairly well!
We were careful to live modestly within our means. So we were able to afford the time to carefully select our potential avenues without undue haste and no worries if not one glittering opportunity failed to come within our grasp on those planned evenings out.
So, for 10 rather intriguing years my wife, cohort Sammy, and I were able to satisfy the playful urges whose enticing callings had led us to select this rather unique path to make a livelihood.
And we always had a good time of it, wine, dance and thrill of the hunt…even if we were successful or not! Many adventures over those years led us delving down avenues that created an abundance of daringly bold tales waiting someday to be intriguingly, innocuously told!
For 10 years we had managed to attend some rather glamourous functions, see my pretty wife attired in some rather eye-catching fancy dresses and adorned with the beckoning glittering array of colourful jewels that ever so divinely kept one’s interest! Also at a rather surprising percentage of these events, we had managed to ( with our cohort Sammy ’s unique assistance) guile'ly steal away with a few pieces of select, insured jewels from wealthy ladies who could certainly afford to weather through their loss.
For 10 years we had operated in this manner, throughout the kingdom’s wide realms, staying safely away from our own nesting grounds, as we sagely built up and grew our nest eggs.
And so far, we had apparently not come under any suspicion from any of the local constabularies in the areas where we had operated! Since the jewels had luckily been assumed lost, fallen away like warm pearls will sweat off a lady on a cool evening ( as the olde Victorian saying goes).
But it was to be the autumn of the 10th year when that charmed existence would finally be really put to the test! Although deep down we knew it would all have to come to an end sooner or later. We had always figured, and hoped, that it would be up to us to say when the games we played would be up.
Now, almost two years past that autumn, I have finally begun to write this second chapter, a yearning to tell the tale that has been with me since day one! In that space of time, I now have had quite a bit of freedom to, with a writer’s eye, reflect on those events that led up to and ended in that tenth and final year of our unique team’s operation.
It’s funny how sometimes one can do everything perfectly, not deriving from the pattern they have done hundreds of times before. But by a thin chance someone else with the seeing eyes of a hawk, a bloody nosey hawk at that, happens to put two and two together, and like a house of cards, ones whole life’s plans can start to slightly sway in the wind, precariously threatening to tumble…
Well, quite enough then with the building up of my story’s mystery and intrigue. Let's start the tale properly then, and let the facts speak for themselves, shall we?
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Chalfont St Guiles
It had been an early thaw that year, and several spring birds had already begun to plan parties to celebrate.
Through contact with a mutual friend of the family, we had been invited to their daughter's Debutante Ball.
The fact that we had to secure an invite left this event to be fair game in our books! For it had been our practice that any affair where my wife and I received a personal invitation to attend, were always off limits in our opinion. So, to those, we went with the intent just to enjoy ourselves, not to conduct business. Although a bit of practicing play between ourselves could be expected.
But this private Ball was not covered by that particular umbrella!
This debutant affair also promised to be a late party.
It was being held on the well-lit green that stretched out for a full 2 hectares, starting from the front of the quite large, definitely ugly, olde stone manor, and ending up to the main roadway.
When we arrived, there was a band was playing soft music on a raised stand next to a refreshments table just outside and below the manor’s stone terrace that was being used as the makeshift dance floor.
It was also announced on the invites that it was to be a dry party.
But, of course, was not! For the odd flask or twenty-two, that had naturally been smuggled in must have been fairly large ‘uns judging by the already rather tipsy posh guests that became more and more abundant as the night wore on.
Though I should talk, for my own silver flask of Brandy held enough to keep my wife and me cheerful enough also. Though I had to watch how much I was imbibing. For this venue was going to by no means be an easy walk in the park for us this evening!
We began by splitting up, starting with mingling in and about in order to get a quick lay of the land.
The young debutante, pretty in diamonds and frilly lace, had led her gangly group of sponger friends to hold court in the back gardens. So, in a sense, there were two parties in full swing.
My wife and I did not bother with the finely baubled fillies in the back gardens, concentrating our efforts on the magnificently jewelled thoroughbreds located in the front area.
My wife was the first to get a drift of some of the gossip swirling around, and soon, via a dance, drew me into it also.
It appears that the Elder Daughter (the debutante was her kid sister) had a boyfriend, a rather pointy nosed ner-do-well git from the other side of the tracks (attended Harrow, not Eaton! dontcha know!)
My wife observed that this bloke obviously was eyeing up all the young skirts present, his wandering attentions totally unnoticed by his pie-eyed, doting wealth-blinded girlfriend.
Said girlfriend had also apparently smuggled a flask of her own, probably stuck in her garter belt, hidden by the long swishy skirt of her costly party frock. Judging this by the way she was prancing about and giggling with silly recklessness with her own posse of leeching acquaintances.
This elder daughter was in her mid-twenties, adorably dressed (by one or two maids?) in a sheer silken gown of deep purple. Diamonds beautifully blazed from her gloved wrist, fingers, and necklaces. Two necklaces: one a diamond pendant swinging about on a silvery braided chain, the second one was a blazing collar style necklace of impressive diamonds, that sat just off the high neckline of her gown.
Either one worth the attempt, but the sparkling collar was obviously her mother’s jewels and thus the more intuitively attractive lure of the two.
As the long afternoon threatened to progress into the dusk, I was to be found nursing my drink from the flask, while watching from afar, my wife swishing her way about.
This evening my lady was wearing a newly bought, sleekly enchanting, gown of meadow green satin, embellished with flickering rhinestones. This posh frock had been slickly flowing and ebbing along her fine figure in a most mesmerizing manner all evening She was also wearing her party emeralds, the “good” set, and they sparkled most attractively as she flitted about! So, I found myself, as always, stealing looks upon her whenever the opportunity arose.
I was mulling over this when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I had been so lost in my lubricious thoughts that I had not even noticed her disappearing, nor heard her approach.
“Mon Cher, forget about me will ya, and get to work !” I heard the words softly spoken in my ear..…”Sammy boy is getting twitchy, close to his bewitchin hour ya know…”
I turned and looked into my wife’s smiling (yet stern) eyes.
“Yes commandantee,” I said, with a saluting nod.
Then I admitted sheepishly, “Not to muddle the issue darling, but, ahem, where is she, I sorta lost track?”
“No kidding my love, I don’t think you were on the track of anything but me, and my jewels are not on this evening’s menu, save play for later, but business now please…!”
I felt a brace of ringed fingers discreetly slap me on the tush, and with a flicker of her emerald earrings, my wife nodded her head sideways to where the elder daughter, along with that rippling fire still flaming from her brace of necklaces, was idling in a dark corner of the dance area. She was surprisingly alone, and I should have been the one to notice that!
So, it was to be her, the elder daughter that we decided, with the time remaining would be our victim!
Sammy was more than ready, watching, waiting as he bobbed his head about, which I knew was his habit while holding his lonely vigil. He was stationed high in the shadows of a tree just above a hedge on the west side of the house. There was a narrow cobblestone path meandered its way along the interior of the hedge, and it was pretty much deserted, all the action is behind, and on the opposite side of the stone-built manor that evening.
With the elder sisters leeching friends now apparently watching the elephant in the room, namely the Harrow-educated boyfriend’s antics with a toffy, giggling female, I was able to walk up and easily steal away the older daughter for a dance.
She took me up on the offer, especially after I lyingly mentioned that I had attended Harrow and I was suddenly “in like flint!” She chatted away amiably, if not also a bit slurred, as I led her off. Thick as thieves we had now become, as we went to the large stone patio that had been converted for use as a low lighted Ballroom.
I took her warm, decidedly inebriated figure, sanguinely into my arms and we elegantly waltzed around the stone-floored patio ballroom to the music. I kept her on the outer fringes, making small talk.
As I did, I studiously worked open the clasp, and easily lifted off the collar necklace of dazzling diamonds from around her throat in the process.
Leaving the pendant still intact, swinging ever so vexingly free along with her gown as we finished, I thought that the pendant appeared to sparkle a bit more brightly now that its competition around the lady’s throat had been removed from contention.
Edging close to the low wall of the patio, I dropped the purloined necklace over from behind my back. I could swear I heard it plop onto the grass. I twirled my pretty partner around, and from over her shoulder, I watched as my wife moved in from the shadows of the trees close by.
The dance ended and I walked the damsel back towards the refreshment table. Before reaching the tables, I touched my dance partner on the shoulder and she turned, smiling, to face me. I again apologized that I could not offer her a drink, and she giggled.
During our dance, I had mentioned how boring it was without a swig of any spirits in sight. She had giggled then also and then had confided in me of her secret stash.
Follow me she now said gaily and I did.
Together we ducked around the refreshment table and headed off to a far corner on the east side of the house. There she lifted the hem of her flowy gown, and from a garter, pulled out her small, thin, 14k plated gold flask and offered me a drink.
I calmly took a careful swig of what I found to be warm vodka and handed it back.
For what thief in his right mind would casually hang around drinking with his victim after lifting the darling’s jewels? Not many I dare say!
But soon, right on a hoped-for queue, we were joined by her jealous boyfriend, himself two sheets to the wind. I was introduced and spotting my opening, tactfully made my excuses.
So sloshed was this young man, that he failed to yet notice anything amiss with his lady, and I was not going to give him any length of time to do so.
I left the sniggering couple to their devices. A sojourn into the woods I believe was on their agenda. The idea quite possibly suggestively guided into their lovely drunken minds by me!
I re-joined my wife, we then daringly did one last casual turn on the ballroom dance floor.
“Mission accomplished, Luv?” I pointlessly asked for I could see the answer in my pretty wife’s eyes.
“The package was dropped off onto the cobblestone path as prearranged!” she stated cheerfully, hugging me in turn.
“Bye the bye love, remember Benny C?” she asked me, as I raised her hand and twirled her around me in a circle.
I had to think for a minute, then came the dawn.
“Yeah, the snotty whelp a couple of years behind me at the seminary, always had a thing for you, didn’t he now!” I teasingly answered.
“Me and anyone else in a skirt!” she snorted. “Well its 'Father Benny' now, and he is, or was here at the ball. I couldn’t get away without dancing with him, sends his regards of course!” she informed me with a rather wry look in her now fully green eyes.
“I'm sure he does, suppose I should track him down and say hello. I said a bit wearily, not bothering to hide the snideness from my own voice!
“Well, he said he tried to find you, but told me that you were obviously enamoured off somewhere with another pretty young thing! I think he was trying to make me jealous laddie!”
“What do ya suppose he meant by ‘again’ I wonder? Told you that he always was a bothering one! Becoming a priest hasn’t changed him one bit. Wonder how his congregation finds the git?” I thoughtfully said out loud.
“Well let us not try tracking him down, to find out luv! I don’t think I could handle more of his sweaty palms again dontcha know!” my wife said sweetly enough, though irony was dripping off each well-chosen word.
So instead we sought out our hostess, giving our regards and congrats. She was magnificently attired in a taffeta ball gown that must have cost her husband a mint. Her jewels were sparse though. A pair of glittering earrings, a pair of thin diamond bracelets and her wedding rings. I found myself wondering why her throat was barren of jewels?
Taking leave, we casually strolled out the front gate to claim our coupe.
My wife leaned against me and said to me as we drove off into the night,
“Cette jeune peste d'un beu sera que les dames tombent, mark mes mots !”
She sighed then said
“Loved her pendant also, but that sparkling necklace will be a nice final trick before starting our Holiday, now will it not my love?”
I smiled meaningfully as I placed my foot on the accelerator and started the beast of a car out onto the main road.
We arrived back home to find an excitedly pert Sammy Boy eagerly waiting to receive his worthy praise. For the glittering collar of diamonds that he had gathered for us were now laid out in magnificent sparkling splendour at his feet.
So it was that two quiet weeks later, on a pelting rainful blustery Saturday, we were to be found flying out of the country on a fortnight’s holiday, for a visit to our dear friend Tatiana.
Totally unaware that there were dark clouds of a quite different storm gathering and brewing in from a new, but not entirely unexpected, quarter!
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Chiltern CID
(Covering the Chalfont St Guiles area under its umbrella of protection)
A fortnight after the Debutante’s coming out ball held in the Chalfont St Guiles area.
Inside the old brown brick building that houses the police station.
Scene entirely played out in the Chief Inspector's office.
^^^^
The Chief Inspector looks up as his summoned detective strides, a bit reluctantly, into his superior's office.
The Detective is wearing a slightly abashed expression on his handsomely chiselled face, for he knows that there are questions to be answered, and he wishes that what thin answers he has to give are going to be enough to shield him from probably being properly chewed out by the Chief!
“Drawn and quartered” was the phrase used at the station for some unfortunate Bobby who came under the Chief’s irate wrath for not properly following procedures! Or in the detective's case, tardiness in producing results in an investigation.
The poor sod did not even have time to shut the door when the question, like a stinging bullet, spit out of his superior's mouth!
“Now, what progress on that diamond collar necklace that took a bender at that Lord’s young daughter’s debutante thing last month in Chalfont, Detective Inspector !? Starting to take some heat from the City Super on a seeming lack of any progress! Has the bloody thing even been found yet!”
“N-N-No sir, it appears to have vanished…” the D.I. stammered, wilting under the harsh grey eyes of the Chief Inspector.
“Vanished eh..well tell me this lad how does a £25,000 (insured) necklace of diamonds simply vanish!?“ the Chief shouted, then continued on without waiting for an answer.
“Well Detective Inspector, it decidedly does not! There has to be a quite logical reason, and that reason must be found!! At least according to the Super, and Her Ladyship, the girl’s mother! She insists her daughter's boyfriend played a part in its disappearance… apparently, she also expects results along those lines!”
The Chief paused to catch a breath after decisively snapping all this out at his poor Detective.
The beleaguered detective answered, rushing his words before the Chief was able to yell some more mainly because he knew his answers would be anything but a satisfactory one!
“Yes sir, well the facts are that her Ladyship’s eldest daughter was wearing her mums necklace without permission. But then the lass, her ladyship’s daughter I mean, appears to be a bit vague about any events what went on that evening, even at what time the necklace was actually missed.”
He took a quick breath himself before continuing.
"Apparently 'someone' had smuggled in drinks, and the lot attending in her age bracket was pretty much plastered by the party's’ end.
No one at the party recalls seeing it missing from around her throat and several actually could not say what jewels she had been wearing atoll to begin with! The daughter herself supposedly did not discover it had disappeared until her mother asked about it the next morning!”
The Chief Inspector arches an eye, a habit that was not a good omen, to anyone!
“I know those facts, Detective. I need something new to report to the Super, now don’t I? Didn’t this lass notice it missing as she went to undress for bed, sounds like a bit of tosh if not!?”
The detective answered smartly.
“Well there is some confusion also along those lines: she says she passed out, still dressed for the evening, on the bed in her room. Says that there must have been an Hors de orve which she ate didn’t agree with her. But from what I got, she was fair lit with drink and no one of the servants can recall when she had gone up to bed. Apparently, there was some horseplay going on deep in the woods late that evening if you know my drift, sir!”
“Do go on Detective, this is all so very interesting!” the C.I. said smoothly, not trying to hide the dissatisfaction of his ever disapproving mood.
The D.I. went one, choosing his words like one would carefully choose their steps walking blindfolded amongst a yard full of rotting eggs.
“Well I investigated the boyfriend and he is certainly a gigolo from a toff family of foreigners. Any of whom would probably have no problem lifting the family silver! But there has been no record of any jewels disappearing in his vicinity before this accusation, and he is rather educated, Harrow, (the Chief Inspector snorted rudely at that information,) so not just street, so really nothing definite there in his history, er, to implicate the bloke?
The servants also, most have been with the family for ages, doubtful any of ‘em would have lifted jewels the daughter was wearing while passed out, if indeed she had still been actually wearing it at that point!”
“but…”
Questioned the Detective, rather hopefully, as he ended his statement and saw the fire again flaring up in his Chiefs hard grey eyes.
“But what detective!?” He snarled, sounding ever like a short-tempered feral mutt who someone had the audacity to have chained.
“Well sir, my cousin, the priest, was attending a reception up Carmarthenshire way, at the Aberglasney Manor House earlier this year.”
He paused, cagily watching his superior’s eyes before deeming it safe to continue on.
“Well, he mentioned a lady in attendance there, lost her jewelled bracelet, 22,000 worth! It was reported as being lost in the gardens. That is what she believed happened, that it had simply fallen off in the gardens.
But my cousin, Ben is his name, remembers seeing that she was coming out of the gardens with someone he recognized from seminarian university, a fellow student two years ahead.”
The Chief Detective cut callously in!
“Carmarthenshire is not our jurisdiction lad, ‘AND’ just pray to tell! Why are you discussing a case with your cousin!” The chief exploded, taking a step forward, daring the Detective to satisfactorily explain his reasoning.
The Detective bravely weathered the storm of his chiefs words.
“He is a priest, sir, so he can keep a tongue in check. But he is a bit of a snooper, and when him and his mother, my auntie, were over, he happened to see an envelope I had received from her ladyships jeweller. He asked about what it was all on about. And then, when I stayed mum, my Auntie started inquiring for Ben,and one thing led to another, you see, um, that’s how it went ?”
“Ok, not really interested in yer family tree detective am I! So this bloke fancies himself a Father Brown chap, knows someone? What evidence is that of anything I ask you!? The Chief Inspector snorted in ridicule.
“Well, er, no, not evidence, at least not in and of itself ...”
“Explain yourself quickly Detective, I am running out of both patience and time here!”
“But, so you see.” The detective stammered, visibly afraid that he was not going to be able to sell the Chief on his detecting and make him “see”.
“Make me see, please DI, quickly, I do not ‘ave all night here! And I also may need a new patrolman for the graveyard shift!” The chief said with an evil promise.
The Detective bravely sallied on.
“Well my cousin Ben, as it so happens, was also in attendance at this debutante ball affair. Apparently he is performing deacon duties at His lordship’s, the Girls fathers, parish. And that same man was there, at the ball also.
Saw him with the daughter then, well that...”
But the chief was cut off in correction,
“No sir, he did not see that this boke atoll this time actually, but rather ran into his wife, who told him her husband was somewhere about. But it got me thinking to check back over some of my papers.”
“Papers DI, what papers?”
DI: “well I urm, you see, I had been taking the liberty of checking past occasions in the realm where expensive jewels were reported to have become mysteriously missing to insurance companies. Went back 20 years or so I did.”
“Most of em, the missing jewels that are, were eventually written off by the insurance as simply haven fallen away and somehow being lost, so no information gathered was not bothered with to have been kept on file.. so, no information on guests was collected on that angle.”
“But there have been a few reports over the past years that stated that there was believed to have been shenanigans afoot, and robbery was mildly hinted at, and sharp concerns were filed with local police through the insistence of the insurance companies. Those cases were left open, and still on file at some stations.”
“I was able to collect around 30 files of those unsolved case files that had looked into for signs of robbery going back 20 some years. Well, 18 of those files came with complete guest lists.”
The detective was cut off in his report by the impatient Chief!
“Yes, detective, let us finally cut to the chase, shall we now?!”
“Er yes sir, well you see, on 12 of those lists the some of the same names came up multiple times.”
“So I had been checking those names against the Yards police records, but none had been convicted for thievery, though a few had some minor dalliances against the rules. So, I figured it was all a dead end down that alley. But, after talking with my cousin, I double checked that list and... this blokes name popped up on two of the more recent ones as being a guest. The same bloke that was recognized by twice my cousin at the two other posh functions, from both of which jewels had been reported lost!”
The Detective then triumphantly points to a name on the list.
“Let me see that list constable… right, That’s the name then?”
“Well, a nice bit of detecting here,( this was said with reluctance), But this cousin, I see he was charged with breaking the peace, but that was almost 15 years ago, he and a lady were making noise at a pub, getting the locals stirred up over a price increase on the beer! Hardly a thief's mannerism, eh detective!”
“He’s not my cousin sir, rather a bloke my cousin went to seminary with, and that lady is now this Gents wife”
“But he seems to be the only one connected with these jewel thefts, ours and that one up in Carmarthenshire?
The Detective stammered as the chief inspector shoots him a look!
“Point being detective, where does this all get us to then, are you bringing this chap in for questioning?”
“We will sir, the bloke my cousin saw, that may be a bit of a sticky wicket, bringing him in.”
“Sticky wicket! Haven’t heard that one used in a ripe old age Detective, what make this wicket so sticky concerning this chap?”
“Well sir, he is the fourth son of a sitting parliamentary official, a titled vice-lord no less, and his wife, well, er, her father is a high crown court judge.”
The detective said all this quite sadly, knowing what was coming.
“Good lord Detective inspector! You can bloody well pick em! Do you really think we should stir up a hornets nest like that without solid evidence implicating this bloke!!” The chief inspector blew up at his subordinate incredulously!
The Detective quickly spoke, hoping to quell his Chiefs temper before it continued to grow any worse!
“Well not really, above suspicion, this gent.”
“He is the Earl's 4th son, with no title, no support from the father's house. He appeared to have been studying for the RC seminary, but left before his last year.”
“Since then, for the past 15 years, he and his wife show no real income, he has held no steady jobs outside teaching part-time at university, the criminology department no less.”
He sees his superior arch an eye at that. “I know sir, suspicious that, but apparently one of his ancestors help found the ‘Yard’, so he is teaching a history course based on that subject.”
“He also calls himself an investor, but where is his investment capital coming from?”
“The wife?” asked the Chief Inspector, calming down a bit as his mind began to mull things over.
“No, ‘er parents are still alive and spending it! She receives a small bit as a stipend, but not nearly enough to support their lifestyle of attending parties. Nor is it enough to explain the backing for his investments. Plus, She has also never worked atoll after her university studies!”
“ Money has to come from somewhere I would say, but it is not apparent as to exactly where?”
The Chief Inspector looks over the report carefully.
“Are they living above their means? How much went missing on the other two affaires this bloke was at?”
“The jewels? Two pieces, together valued at around £2.”
“Two Thousand detective?”
“No sir, two hundred thousand.”
Whew, the chief whistled, there is your investment money if it was this gent. So, they are living well above their means.
“Not really. They live on a small cottage on 5 acres, kinda pricey, but not overly extravagant. Bought from a sister of the wife’s father, her Auntie. They don’t throw many parties themselves, but obviously, appear to be able to attend a lot.”
Then he looks up at his chief as if to ask to ask for an opinion.
“But, just saying if, if he is involved, how is the gent getting away with it? The chief's voice had now lowered to a thoughtful grumble.
“Well sir, that lot is known for being, well rather snooty and not believing one of their own would be a thief. And they do like to party, like their drink ya’ know. Not really all that concerned bout their valuables. For to them the value is nothing, not to someone who spends a bloody fortune on their toys and vices. And you know how these rich young things are, they lose a bloody toy, just gives them an excuse to buy a newer, better version.”
“Still detective, a crime is a crime, and if one has been committed in my jurisdiction I’ll be damned to let them get away with it, no matter if the victim doesn't show any worries over it’s loss. Not sure we have enough really to go on here?”
“Either it’s this gent or the gigolo boyfriend, have to be suspected if the necklace was stolen.”
“But then, the necklace could actually have been lost, lord knows what that randy couple could have been up to? If he was pawing her rudely enough, it’s a wonder she wouldn’t have lost all her jewels in that manner!”
“We checked the grounds sir”
“Well, I want them rechecked detective , and then recheck the bloody house, tooth and nail, all of it you see!”
“I will tell the super that we are awaiting further developments on our leads. If nothing turns up, and you are sure about that lover's late-night tryst, then it will have to be written off as being lost somewhere in the woods. And I will not, mark my words detective, be happy about reporting that as an outcome!”
“So, keep an eye out. Keep the shadow on that Harrow-educated foreigner boyfriend!”
“And as for this smarmy professional party guest?”
“All to a bit A.J. Raffles’ish for my liking, just keep out an ear. If he’s our bird, perhaps we can get some salt on his tux tails!”
“Find out also, just what other experience he has acquired that gives him a bloody right to teach criminal history... one never knows what that privileged lot can really get up into and away with!”
“Yes sir, smartly said the detective, relieved at finally being dismissed.
He half salutes and heads gratefully out the door hearing his Chief muttering behind his back.
“A Harrow lad? Really !”
Fini
Part 2
End Acte 1
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The study below was derived from facts uncovered while doing research for the following Doctorial dissertation:
Light to the shadows of their mind:
Criminal tactics and strategies
Criminology Department Dept.
Chatwick University
Storyline:
The idiot had fallen for the ruse, hook line and sinker. Believing Sara had been kidnapped by a loan shark, he had willingly come to rescue his damsel in distress, bringing the $40,000 he believed she owed her life for. Seeing Sara handcuffed and bound to a chair had been too much for him, and he tried to attack Shane in a vain attempt to rescue her. Shane had unwisely hit him with his pistol, forcing Sara to wait until he regained consciousness to implement the second phase of her plan. Shane had unbound Sara until that time arrived, and she busied herself with counting her money with a lovingly caressing hand, hoping the lovesick twit had not been dumb enough to pawn the family jewels to raise it.
As she was contemplating these facts, she stole an uncaring eye on her would be love- sick suitor, whom she thought of, indifferently, as a clueless naive Romeo. Then she looked up at the blank faced Shane, who still held the rod lamely in his grasp. She hissed at Shane to tie the young man up securely. He did so, roughly tying him up, and then hand cuffing him to the chair he moved next to Sara’s vacated one.
Shane was not very bright, but he listened. He also liked to drink, and Sara had dangled a whiskey bottle as added incentive, not allowing him to drink until after the house job had been carried out. For, once Romeo started stirring, Shane would again tie up Sara and handcuff her to her chair. Then he would slap awake the lovelorn Romeo, coercing him to give him the combination to his parent’s house safe, threatening with a knife, to torture the squirming Sara if necessary. Sara’s Romeo should give the combination up fairly easily, for the dolt actually believed that Sara was as madly in love with him as he was with her. While she waited, Sara allowed her mind to relieve the events that had brought the rich young fly into her web.
Sara had literally bumped into Romeo a couple of months ago while at the horse track. But, as it so happened, it was a young lady who had garnered Sara’s attention first. The pretty Miss had stood out in a black satin blouse, glossy lime green skirt, and wide floppy hat. As she moved she sent flickering with rich sparkles, the stunning collection of emerald jewelry that adorned her shapely figure. This obviously wealthy girl was making her way timidly through the crowd while stuffing a wallet she had pulled from a lime green purse with a thick wad of track winnings.
Sara had trailed her through the crowd, waiting for opportunity to present its self. It did when the purse was set down, leaving it temporarily unattended. But, as her long slender fingers had reached for it, a young suited man dropped his race form and backed into Sara cutting her off. Sara apologized, employing the British accent she had been using that day, and picked up his race form, handing it to him with a sweet mousey smile. Thwarted, she then turned and immediately retreated back into the throng, but not before noticing that she had caught his eye. Sara had not found this surprising, given how fetching she must have looked in one of the customary long silky dresses that she habitually would pour herself into when on the prow! Sara wore them mainly because the slick material of the dress usually allowed her to slip in and out of tight situations, both physically and persuasively.
It was later that evening, still at the track and with no luck outside of bad, that Sarah saw Romeo, alone and looking vulnerable . She went up and slipped up against him, starting to feel for his wallet, but for some indiscernible reason, aborted the attempt. Apologizing instead, she engaged him into conversation, more out of curiosity than anything else. She even allowed him to invite her out for a bite to eat. It was then that she learned enough about his background to stir her felonious senses. Especially once she learned that the richly jeweled young lady whose fat wallet she had attempted to acquire was the Romeos twin sister.
Sara had then turned on her not inconsiderable charm. Using the British accent and faking the role of a ragamuffin vulnerable foreigner, Sara (who had been born in the Bronx) started seeing the rich kid for a couple of months. Making Romeo keep their clandestine affair a secret from his parents and sister, Sara carefully wove her silken web until the innocently gullible horsefly was wrapped up beyond his ability to fly. She had successfully gotten him to fall head over heels in love with her. Like a prowling cat, she waited, plotting meticulously, a way to part a small fortune away from him. When she had learned his parents would be in Europe for a month, she put her plan into action. She let Romeo in on her terrible secret, a racetrack gambling addiction. This had led to her “troubles” with a loan shark. After accepting her suitor’s offer to help her in any way possible, she suddenly vanished from his life. Taking the time to hire Shane to case the isolated country house where Romeo, his parents, twin sister and two older servants lived. She also convinced Shane, for a piece of the pie, to act the part of the loan shark heavy. Sara also bought a one way Cunard White Star Liner ticket to England to make her permanent escape. Once all the pieces of her scam were in place, she then sent Romeo the note pleading for him to bring the money, and rescue her from the Loan Shark.
Sara‘s scam had gone like a Rolex’s clockwork, and she now was forty thousand dollars richer. Now all she needed was that combination to set her up for life. She licked her lips, savoring the thoughts about what would conspire a once the combination was hers. Shane would again render Romeo unconsciousness, unbind Sara, and the pair would leave their victim incapacitated in the apartment, a living insurance policy, while they paid a nighttime visit to his parent’s isolated country manor.
********************** Postscript **********
It was early afternoon the next day when an ocean liner set sail from Boston Harbor, bound for a British Port. The majestic ships’ railed deck was lined with passengers watching the departure. Many more were lined up on the dock waving to the departing ocean bound liner. Several of those on the docks, mainly men, may have noticed a lady, with loose long raven hair, clad in a black satin blouse and a lime green skirt, with jewelry set with opulent emeralds sparkling merrily in the bright sun. No one would believe what the pretty faced girl with the satisfied look on her face had been up to the last 24 hours.
Sara was very satisfied and pleased with herself as her liner left the port towards its destination: a port in merry olde England. She put a hand down to hold onto her flapping lime green skirt as it caught in the breeze. Her eyes once again admiring the emerald bracelet and rings she was so brazenly wearing.
She allowed her mind to travel back to the early hours of that very morning, as her and Shane had entered the mansion, wearing Halloween masks and carrying small black satchels.
Romeo had accurately given Shane the combination to the mansions house safe located in the den. It had contained a bonanza of old bundled bills and several cases of amazingly bright sets of jewelry. Then came the part Sara had been waiting for, the girl’s room! Romeo’s twin sister’s boudoir where she insisted on keeping her jewels, rather than locking the expensive things in the house safe.
Sara could see that Shane became aroused as he had slapped a hand to the mouth of the sleeping Girl, jarring her awake. The look of terror in the girl’s eyes had made him drool with excitement. He made her get up, helpless and vulnerable in a long loose fitting purple satin night gown. Shane than tied her squirming figure securely to a chair, gagged her, and let her watch as Sara began to rob her blind. Shane, standing by the wide-eyed girl holding his knife to her heaving chest, did not understand why Sara was taking some of the captive’s long gowns and shiny clothes, but then he wasn’t meant too.
Sara saved the jewel case for last. Making sure their captive was watching, She pulled opened and meticulously picked clean the drawers of the massive oak jewel chest on a bedside stand next to their captive’s chair. The last drawer seemed to contain nothing but sets of satin gloves, which Sara happily added to the pile in the small black satchel. Underneath she found hidden a set of diamonds (ring, bracelet, cascading earrings and matching necklace) that put anything they had taken of her Mothers jewels to shame! Sara picked up the sets necklace and placed it around the frightened girl’s throat, admiring its fiery radiance. Sara went back to the bottom drawer and scooped up the rest of the set. After she placed it inside the now bulging satchel she turned and looked Romeos’ twin dead in the eye, commanding Shane to search her. He did, removing the necklace, and sucking off a solid gold pinky ring. He handed the loot to Sara, who had come over to take it; she looked at the struggling girl and said in a sultry voice, you will never wear these pretty toys again! They had then left her room; the girl forlornly slumped down, a sad little portrait in a limp purple satin bundle.
Sara had left Shane off at the apartment to deal with Romeo. She had previously doctored Shane’s promised bottle of whiskey with knock out drops. Whatever the pair’s fate would be, she did not possess the slightest worry or care.
After leaving Shane off, the rest of her plan had gone smooth as silk. Sara had gone to her recently rented hotel suit, placed the satchels in a steam trunk, changed into one of her newly acquired outfits and jewelry, then left the hotel in a rented (under an assumed name) chauffeured Limo for Boston, all before the sun rose. She boarded the liner as soon as it began to admit its passengers.
Sara’s mind came back to the present as the ocean line’s steam horn gave an explosively loud whoop as it sailed from the harbor. Watching the docks filled with spectators grow ever smaller, Sarah envisioned herself arriving in a similar set of London docks on the other side of the ocean. There, she would assume the life of a wealthy debutante, living the good life from the riches of her ill-gotten gains. She may even adopt the first name of Romeos twin sister for a self-amusing ruse; after all, she would be wearing the poor wretches’ gowns and jewels to all the best affairs!
Thief On a String
Cover Story
He slowly sipped his champagne, feeling for ever in the world like a young lad in a candy shop, left unattended by a distracted Mother.
Except in this case, the distracted ones were the supposed Security coppers who were too busy drinking free champagne to worry about the guests in attendance, or the expensive jewels the prettily made up Ladies in attendance were so obligingly displaying.
For some reason his eyes kept catching the set of diamonds worn by a vivacious lady in white, her long soft raven hair handsomely held up, fully showing off a pair of delicious dangling earrings’, held onto her now sweat glistened earlobes by the flimsiest of clasps…. .
She also appeared to be vulnerably alone, unescorted, and on the prowl for something, or someone?
He had watched her on the dance floor, her choices in partners had not been all too light on their ( her) feet. About time someone sowed her how a proper gentleman dances he decided.
In for a pence, in for a pound he thought, setting his drink down and darting a quick glance around, began circling around his chosen lady…
A Bow and thank you to my partner in crime, the ever enchanting Khaliesi.
Envisioned at Franks Place S.L.
The Publishers of True Mystery ( Chatwick University Press) would like to truly thank the following artists who have contributed to this Magazine.
If anyone would like to be considered to be published in future editions, please by all means drop us a line and a shortcut to what you would have us publish…
True Mystery Trail Publication 1
Contents :
Cover Story
Thief on a String
Stories
The unprotected flic.kr/p/PtgLLD
One a star swept Night flic.kr/p/TLhBRX
Ballroom Blitzed flic.kr/p/KoEvPa
I sit here crying for the parents in Uvalde that lost their children today. When will it stop? What number of people, of children, will it take before something is done?
This photo was taken in April at my beach and shows a memorial for a young man that was killed in 2018. The day after a senior gentleman in my neighbourhood was killed walking his dog on a Sunday morning. Both these are still unsolved and probably related. Both involve a gun.
This has got to end. Please vote for people that take this seriously and will do something about it and who aren’t in the NRA’s pocket.
Vivitar V3800N
Fujifilm Superia 200, expired
Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will find them gradually, without noticing it, and live along some distant day into the answer. ~Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
It's crazy how slow it goes, when you're waiting for something more To warm you up when you feel cold, to calm you down and bring peace to your soul It's funny how fast it goes, love comes right when you don't wait anymore Its power takes over all, and you surrender you let go… Oh this frailty makes us so strong Oh.. this fire will melt all the ice And it's all I want, all I need A prayer of freedom, a prayer of love. A prayer of freedom, a prayer of love. A prayer of freedom, a prayer of love. Precious gifts, given in silence, look like the pieces of an unsolved puzzle All to learn, all to know, so unexplained but so beautiful And yeah, this frailty makes us so strong And yeah, this fire will melt all the ice And it's all I want, all I need A prayer of freedom, a prayer of love. A prayer of freedom, a prayer of love. A prayer of freedom, a prayer of love. So no matter how long I'll wait. Pain is nothing, but a scale for my will And there comes a time when truth survives All kinds of fear, all kinds of lies. In a prayer of freedom, a prayer of love... A prayer for freedom, a prayer for love... A prayer of freedom, a prayer of love... A prayer of freedom, a prayer of love... A prayer of freedom, a prayer of love...
Staghurst Noir
For Actes 5 and 6, we go back in time a bit before the ending of ACTE 4 with its startled Constable.
Acte 5: Devilishness
About 15 minutes before Reginald’s head meets a tyre iron, The Lord Edmund and The Mistress met with a bit of mis-adventure each of their own:
The wealthy couple from Staghurst slowly make their way down the long, dank, dark, fog filled alley way. Garbage bins, mostly full and foul smelling, line the cobblestone path. Occasionally rats are disturbed from their scavenging, scampering out of sight down holes. They had gone in about 50 feet in when The Mistress spies a movement in the shadows ahead!
Come along Edmund, The Mistress directs as she carefully makes her way along the littered path, I can see the tarts shadow just up ahead. She yells out( her voice echoes down the narrow alley), Don’t think I cannot see you cowering there by those cans you filthy thief, come out and give me back my bracelet! Sure enough, a shadow stirs and detaches itself from behind a trash bin, then a second shadow materializes from behind the first. The Lord and The Mistress are by this time close enough to discern that neither of the two shadowy figures are female.
Well, well Josey, looks like sum’un is out for a bit of trick an treating now, are they?, the first shadow states to his companion. Both step out fully from the shadows, and in the dim pool of light from the now visible full moon, their features now can be discerned. A pair of young men, both having the same slightly slanted eyes of the Gypsy girl. The first, slightly older lad of about 22, has a thin beard, dark brown eyes, and the frame of a person who has done some rather hard labor, with the tough expression on his face seeming to back up that assertion. He is wearing a brown turtleneck, black leather vest, and black canvas military style trousers. He pushes back a brown drivers cap that covers his longish, raggled black hair, and speaks directly to The Mistress, sorry mum, aint got nothing like treats, may have to do a trick on you instead. Aintint that right Josey, he looks back at the second youth.
The second youth, about 18 years, is dressed in the same type of clothes as the other, except he is wearing a black beret on his head, his hair hanging down in back in a long ponetail. He is shorter than the other, by a good head, which placed him at eye level with Edmund and The Mistress. Josey says nothing, but just stares up at The Mistress, her sparkling jewelry reflected in his dark eyes.
The Mistress finally finds her tongue, and begins to wield it in the only fashion she knows how. Look here you young scoundrels, I have no business with the likes of you, it’s the girl I want, and I want her in front of me right now! she stamps her foot in emphasis, so go get her, and be quick about it!
Weel now mum, the older one says, what you be wanting with this girl, then? She has me bracelet, The Mistress screeches, and I aim to have it back now! Is it really worth you bothering this girl over a bit of costume jewelry Mum, he asks, leering at The Mistress, and moves a good foot closer? That bracelet is valuable and worth a great deal young man, I’ll have you know! And know this also, I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing anything rhinestone, she spits out the words in triumph tipping up her chin as she does so, her earrings swinging around expensively in sparkling arcs.
Well now mum, why dinja just say so, here, let me take you to her, she is just hiding her terrified little self-down here aways . He turns and begins to walk down deeper into the alley. Both The Mistress and Edmund start to follow. Josey, who has until now stood pat, holds up Edmund as he passes. Unhand me sir, Edmund sputters, and both The Mistress and the tall gypsy turn around to face them. Now Guvner, the older gypsy says, you had better wait her with Josey, if all off use come up on this girl you says has yer mums bracelet, she may be frightened off.
Stay Edmund, The mistress commands, sounding like she is ordering about one of the Manor’s dogs. We will be right back, she adds, never for a second thinking that she wasn’t going to have her way as usual. The Mistress and the older Gypsy in the brown cap turn and make their way up the alley. The Mistress, breathing heavily as she imagines what she will say and do to that young female tramp when she finds her, fails to hear the noises that come from where Edmund an Josey are standing, noises sound very much like someone’s voice being cut off and muffled.
Edmund watches the two disappear into the shadows, then turning to the one called Josey, he jumps, the youth had vanished. Say, where did he go , Edmund asks himself slowly, then, thinking he is free, Hesitates, it doesn’t feel right disobeying his wife’s order, then he shakes his head, balderdash he mumbles, and starts off after her.
But no sooner does her start off then a hand clamps an oily rag around his mouth. He struggles, trying to protest, but the youthful Josey is no match for Edmund, and he drags the Lord of Stag Hurst unceremoniously behind a dumpster.
Shoving the rag deeper into Edmunds mouth, Josey covers the gag with a strip of smelly cloth. Then, producing a long knife, holds it to his Lordships chin, while his other hand searches the tuxedos coat and pants pockets, removing their contents. Trying to protest through his gag, Josey whips off Edmund’s scarf, then the youth dart around him. And Edmund feels his tuxedo’s jacket being peeled off. The youth reappears, and using his knife, plucks off each of the onyx buttons off of Edmunds silken shirt, and removes his matching cufflinks, then, after removing the satin cummerbund, he takes his thin, extremely sharp knife, and cuts the suspenders Edmund is wearing, and lets the tux’s trousers fall to his Lordships’ feet.
Josey looks over his handwork, he grins up into the bulging eyes of the enraged Lord, and grins, then darts around back and Edmund feels his shirt pulled off, and the cool breeze against his bare chest. Suddenly he is grabbed from behind, Edmund is thrown onto a pile of old rags, smelling of rotten fish. Three rats scurry from the pile, running over his Lordships stomach. Thrashing about, Edmund feels his shoes and pants pulled off the rest of the way, as two more rats appear and run up his legs, over his stomach and landing on top of his face, finally scurry off.
At this, poor Edmund, who’s constitution is already fragile due to a week heart, faints dead away. His last, irrational thought, as he falls off into unconsciousness, is that he hopes his wife won’t be too hard on the Gypsy girl when she finds her…..
End of Acte 5, Watch for Acte 6 ( Retribution) coming soon
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This is a link to a You Tube Video of a thief not unlike our Angie.
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Case Study 113 : Warning, these are the raw, bare unusual occurrences as originally chronicled. Some names, times, places and some facts have been, of course, altered.
Name: Angelica D circa 192__
Subject: an unscrupulous light-fingered body thief
Event: Posh Wedding Reception
Place: Upstate New York
Time: Warm early Autumn Saturday
Angie Being Receptive
Story line:
Angie had heard about the affair, a wedding, from a list of prospective functions provided by a discreetly paid contact. It was being given for the only daughter of a wealthy politician (as if there were any non-wealthy ones!) Angie had happily invited herself to the affair, carefully dressing up in her best for the special occasion!
**
Wedding receptions were by far Angie’s favorite hunting grounds. During the season there could be anywhere from upwards of 20 high end affaires every weekend in the bigger cities, and always 2 or 3 in even the smallest of towns.
Wedding s were usually easy pickings: free food, drink and entertainment, and seldom worn jewelry made for a ready-made mix for Angie to ply her trade. For Angelica D. was a uniquely skilled pickpocket, specializing in the removal for profit of the expensive jewelry worn by the (usually be -gowned) women and young ladies’ who hauntingly dwelt in societies upper crust!
So Weddings, by their nature, were the desirable choice for Angie. One only had to avoid the Bride, her Bridesmaids, and their court, which were usually the major focus of any security present. However, there were plenty of opportunities to be had by employing her special bag of tricks on the outlaying fringe.
Angie had arrived early at the mammoth facility, to scout out the establishment and to scope out who was wearing what. Used to these affairs either being feast or famine, she could quickly tell that in this one there was cooking up a devouring banquet.
**
After Angie had entered the massive reception room it did not take her long to spy her first plump prospect, nicely loaded with possibilities. It was a lady, bearing a haughty look, who had been making a b-line through the crowd as way was parted for her. She was wearing a luxuriously long rusty coloured sable fur coat that hid most of her long crimson -red satin gown. What Jewels were visible, ears, fingers and wrist, were all flashing with pricy fire. In tow she held the hand of a young girl, obviously her daughter, wearing actual makeup, which, along with her fetching gown and brite jewelry, made her appear far older than she was. A handsome man , looking like the actor William Powell in a tux, followed behind the pair, husband and father, Angie presumed. She shadowed the little family as they swished their way to a corner table, conveniently located by a rear exit, for a better look over. Her fingers had started with an all too familiar tingle as she took it all in.
**
The husband helped his wife out of the sable, laying it carefully along a bench against the wall. Angie was not disappointed. A silver necklace of large matched diamonds gracefully encircled her throat. A dazzling blood ruby and diamond brooch held up the center of her gown, positioned just below the bust line. Brooches, like this one, were worth a lot once fenced, but its placement required a little more dexterity and skill than she was willing to risk. In actuality, Angie had only attempted twice before to take a brooch pinned to a gown in this fashion. She had only been successful one of those times, only to find out it was a pretty piece of paste.( Years later, as Angie’s talents became more polished, relieving ladies of their dangling brooches, like this blood ruby, became her specialty.. the Eds.) Angie’s eyes moved on. The rest of the snooty lady’s jewels matched her necklace. Long earrings, free clipped, dangling brightly from her earlobe s. A pair of wide ruby bracelets clasped tightly home around elegant red elbow length satin gloves, sparkled devastatingly, matching her brooch. Her long fingers were home to a pair of ruby and diamond rings and a third ring set with a gold band and a vulgarly large solitaire diamond.
**
Angie’s attention turned to the daughter, whom had been helped by her Father , squirming, from the chocolate coloured satin cape that she had been wearing. The youngster, all of about 10, was wearing a cream coloured long puffy sleeved dress with a brown satin sash encircling her waist that matched her Cape. The young lady possessed impossible large bright eyes. The only thing that held more shine than those doe like eyes had been the antique rhinestone diamond necklace that fell dripping ever so invitingly down the front of the precious little imp’s rich glossy gown. The rest of her matching rhinestones (obviously belonging to the child’s mother) consisted of an engaging display of a bracelet, pair of dangling, screwed on clasp earrings, and matching rings encircling a chubby finger one on each hand. It all gleamed brightly, invitingly from her svelte girlish figure. A large round pin held her sash up in place; it sparkled with what looked like a ring consisting of one caret diamonds, as unlikely as it was they could be real.
**
The two females of the family presented a pretty package indeed. Not one to pass up an invite that alluring, Angie walked by , with the pretext of heading to a back exit behind the table the little family had staked, just so she could get a closer peek.
**
Angie’s practiced eye took in a wealth of information during the few seconds it took her to walk up and pass the group, so involved with themselves they never even looked her way. Her attention focused upon the young mother first scoping head to toe.
**
Angie scrutinized the brooch; it was definitely worth the effort. In her mind’s eye, Angie envisioned the mother as a stumbling drunk “bumping into” Angie. Fingers whisking along the slippery lustrously softness of the gown, as the lady was steadied. Angie would accept the women apologies and the pair would part their ways, Angie from the young mother, and the magnificent brooch from the rich satiny red gown. But then the mother raised her head, looking up past Angie, towards a commotion being made behind her. Typical Angie thought, she doesn’t recognize me, so I don’t exist, like some sort of servant. But it was as she caught the young mother in full profile that she realized this lady looked strikingly similar to another woman who had been wearing an expensive dress of teal charmeuse that Angie had had been having a long conversation with, while relieving the woman’s finger of a costly diamond sapphire ring. It had happened only just last weekend at a formal function, and Angie figured she may have not recognized her in passing, but may if Angie were to use one of her approaches again with the intent of taking some of her jewelry, he memory may be jarred, and she may remember her missing ring. This was why Angie only allowed herself to ply her trade for no more than a month in any given place per year. This was from a lesson she had learned early on in her career. And so, for that reason alone, Angie decided to, at least temporarily, abandon any designs she had on the young mother’s brooch, allowing her devious intentions to evaporate from her mind like smoke on the wind. There were plenty more fish in the sea she told herself.
**
Angie still allowed herself a quick appraisal of the squirming 10 year old. She admired the glossy dress of slippery satin that her mother had conveniently dressed her daughter up in, as it fell spilling down to her black open toed shoes. Angie’s fingers started to tingle; this was a perfect tickling gown. Angie liked to think of any long dress or gown that swept down to a females heels as a” tickling gown”. All it took was a strategically placed foot timed with a well place nudge to send the chosen victim tumbling. During the ensuing diversion, Angie would use her long subtle fingers to swiftly probe along the gowned figure, tickling she like to call it due to the tingling sensation of the usually rich material of the victim’s attire. In this fashion, a pre-targeted piece of valuable jewelry could then be easily acquired, no matter what its placement had been on the unfortunate female. If only the chatty youngster had something on better than rhinestones. It was a crying shame to have a child that young dolled up like an adult, but not wearing adult jewels.
**
Angie continued to walk past, unseen, and went out the door. She found herself in a large serenity garden of roses and shrubs, surrounded by a 10 foot high well-trimmed hedge. The sort of garden one usually found in those days around upscale Churches. The only exit was a gate leading onto the parking lot on the side of the church. Here was positioned a solitary, lonely guard in a neat little guard hut. In the opposite, far corner was a statue of Cupid, arrow drawn, standing above a display of blooming moss roses at the end opposite to the gate. There was always potential in places like these.
**
Angie had started to walk over to the Cupid statue when she heard the exit door open. Turning, she saw the young girl, whose mother’s brooch Angie had been scoping out, looking out the door. She snuck through, running out alone, silky tickling gown swishing out behind her. Her heart leapt to her throat as she watched the girls rhinestones sparkle radiantly. She actually turned to head towards the path the unsuspecting child was running up, flexing her fingers as she contemplating a little warm up practice. Angie watched as the dolled up imps necklace flashed with pinpricks of coloure as it bounced to and fro as she ran happily up the path .Angie turned her back to the girl, waiting to hear the telltale click of her heels come up just behind her. She would then move, bumping into the girl as she passed, tripping her to the ground. After which Angie would help her up, removing the girl’s fancy necklace in the process. Come to Mama Angie whispered under her breath, waiting to make her move as the skipping heels grew ever louder.
**
But then Angie froze, hearing the clicking of the exit door again opening behind her. She checked her stride letting the daughter slither past without a glance. She headed again towards the statue, watching her prize move on ahead. Then she heard the father in the background calling out to his little princess. The youngster turned, and ran back, beaming at Angie as she passed. Angie smiled back, her eyes again traveling to the girls neckline, and the sparkling jewelry the outlined her throat. It had been a silly thought she chided herself, as the girl passed from view. If only the necklace had been real, and the father about ten minutes later in discovering his daughter absence. It would have been an unbelievably easy pluck and she could be out the gate before anyone was the wiser. And the best part was that they would probably believe the scampering girl had just lost it in the garden. And, while the parents were looking about, Angie would have been free to renter to ply her trade again. As it was, it was silly of Angie, risking her opportunity on a child’s bauble worth a mere pittance compared to some of the other offerings so readily being flaunted this evening by her adult counterparts.
**
Angie continued her casual stroll through the Garden, happily playing over in her mind some of the jewels that she would like to see adorning the female guests inside, and the scenarios she may be using to acquire them
**
Finding herself approaching the guard hut, she allowed herself a glance back. Jealously she watched the father, who had caught and was carrying his slippery attired daughter, heading back inside. How Angie wished she had been the one carrying the squirming little imp, it would have been like a smorgasbord, with jewels instead of food. Pity her mother had not put the good stuff on the daughter, she sighed to herself. Tonight she would have to work for her butter. She walked past the bored guard, nodding at him, receiving a rather lecherous look in return. A smile was forming across her cunning face, for now it was time to get down to the real business at hand.
**
The affair turned out to be quite a showcase for the very rich. Who were indiscreetly flaunting their riches, trying to outdo one another, probably for the benefit of the politicians’ attention? Certainly not for the attention of the designer satin gowned and flashy diamonded daughter, whom most of the guests hardly knew, or had ever met.
**
Angie always felt like a little kid in a candy shoppe at these lavish affairs.
She spent the first part of the reception mingling and thoroughly enjoying the show her the reception’s guests were u wittingly putting on. Angie, wearing no jewels herself, was something of an anomaly compared to her fellow guests.
**
There were over a thousand luxuriously coloured, squawking female birds and their young chicks pompously displaying valuable finery, oblivious of the cat amongst them waiting to pounce. Angie patently mingled, watching as the adult guests had their fill of food and drink.
Once their guard began to relax, Angie raised hers’, her probingly skillful fingers now more than prepared to begin and ply her trade. For the more they imbibed, the less guarded they were, both about themselves and their female offspring. Angie would start with the adults, 2 or 3 of the right pieces of jewelry, once acquired, and would mean she could call it a night and have enough to support her for a solid month. If she came up empty in that department, her back up would then center on the female off-spring, daughters and nieces.
Most of said offspring would be by then scattered about, aware that their parents were no longer paying them any heed, exploring and playing, sporting their fancy satin gowns, silken dresses, and their dainty jewelry, ripe for the picking. Giving pickpockets like Angie endless opportunity to ply their trade on them, once they had finished working through the adults. Or if the thieves were beginners, plenty of easy practice while “learning the ropes!”
**
Now, when Angie herself was just starting out as a young pickpocket, she stumbled across a treatise written by a man using the pseudonym “Gaston Monescu”. Written around 1826, entitled the Cutpurse: skilles, artes and Secretes of the Dip, it covered the various tactics and moves used by master pickpockets.
Angie had studied it religiously, especially a ploy called the “Necklace Flimp.” This tactic was primarily used for body thieves working alone. Angie had been surprised to learn that a pickpocket could raise his/her skill level above just acquiring wallets. Having the ability to lift a woman’s necklace amazed her, not to mention the profit that could be realized. With practice, Angie had found that not only was it a good technique for acquiring necklaces, but it worked for other pieces of worn jewelry as well.
It was relatively simple process, but took a long time to master.
First part was to employ psychology and watch the potential victim for the unique movements and quirks in their personality and actions that could provide an opportunity for her skills. Then observe the selected piece the victim wore, for value, type of clasp, make, and accessibility. The second part was to employ a bump, slip, or grasp, and in one motion, flick open the studied clasp and send the piece away from the body by either pulling and palming, or dropping it to the floor or ground for retrieval later. If she was noticed, it was “sorry, miss, very clumsy of me” “here let me get if for you, no harm done?” Then walk away and let the waters settle before trying yet again (sometimes even on the same person!)
Angie had practiced the jewelry flimp until she had the technique totally mastered. Starting out first on specially dressed up mannequins in her apartment, than trying it on small pieces of cheap baubles worn by real women in crowded streets and stores. Then on younger, less guarded, better jewelry wearing young girls attending proms and social dances. Young looking for her age at the time, Angie had fit right in amongst them. Then, finally, she graduated to lifting the better jewels of the older, wealthy women attending society’s finer parties and receptions. And it was this path that led her here today, and would also lead several unlucky females to report missing jewelry to their respective insurance companies.
**
See Album “Angie having a Ball” for additional background on our master thief with the light fingers.
**
Angie now eagerly employed those useful talents learned from monsieur Monescu’s little pamphlet at the wedding reception. She mingled freely, carrying around a drink that never touched her lips. She watched and learned, her trained eyes missing very little. Soon, like that hypothetical kid in a candy shoppe, Angie’s head was spinning from so much to choose from that she really could not make any easy choice. So, she waited and watched patiently, knowing opportunity would knock.
**
Then, like it usually happened with Angie, the first genuine opportunity unexpectedly presented herself. Angie literally was run into a rather awkward, spindly lady in thick glasses clad in a fetchingly expensive costume consisting of a thick silver satin blouse with hanging ruffles down its front, combined with a long rustling tiered skirt that swept down to the top of her open toed silver high heels. Her diamond jewelry shone with exuberant flames as they caught the light from the many chandeliers that hung from the vaulted ceiling. The lady expressed frantically her apologies, placing a hand with well ringed fingers on Angie’s shoulder, where they sparkled merrily. No worries Angie said smiling, her eyes taking it all in without appearing to move. She let the frazzled lady leave, allowing her a head start, it was only sporting to do so.
**
Angie shadowed her quarry for a while, seemingly rewarded for her efforts when the lady managed to spill a bit of her drink down on her skirt. In a show of flashing silvery satin and diamonds ,she retreated and disappeared into a nearby powder room, with Angie following eagerly, opportunity knocking.
**
As Angie grabbed onto the closing powder room door, a mid- twenty something girl in a deep green velvet gown came out. Her only jewelry was a wide diamond bracelet wrapped around a wrist of the matching long green gloves she wore. Angie caught it out of the corner of her eye, realizing that it was as expensive as it was bright. But it was her friend, a willowy short haired pretty young thing in a glamorous Chocolate Satin gown that made Angie’s jaw drop. Her jewels, like her friends, were also sparse, but enormously pricy. The long white satin gloves that graced her hands and arms also held matching bracelets, thin, but each one worth the effort. But her real eye catcher was the row of authentic, one caret white diamonds that were rippling exquisite fire along her throat. Angie held the door for them, nodding to as they passed. Noses in the air, they did not appear to notice Angie. Then, with the ladies backs to her, Angie abandoned Miss silver satin and turned to follow. Angie got in behind the two with the intention of getting a closure examination of the clasp of the fiery diamond necklace Miss Chocolate satin was wearing.
**
However, Angie never got her closer look. For at that moment the tossing of the bride’s boutique was announced and Angie was overwhelmed by a mad dash of single ladies heading for the bride. On a lark she allowed herself to be swept along, losing sight of Miss Chocolate satin, but found herself right smack behind Miss Green velvet and her cheerfully sparkling diamond bracelet, a beautifully expensive piece that would have cost someone a king’s ransom. Angie’s fingers began their all too familiar tingling, eager for a chance to acquire jewelry that valuable, but not for any king, just for herself!
**
Though the night was still relatively early, and Angie still had visions of those exquisite rippling diamonds of the pretty Miss in chocolate satin on her mind, she simply could not pass up this opportunity. Angie wedged herself close behind her chosen victim as the multitude of hopeful young women pressed forward to try their luck. As the Bride teased her guests before getting ready to toss her bouquet of white and red roses, Angie expertly scrutinized the bracelet as it dangled from the green velvet glove. When the bride finally turned her back and raised her arms every one of the richly clad single women’s eyes was focused on the bride’s bouquet, Angie’s eyes were fixated on the bracelet. With the music playing loud, the crowd giggling and laughing, and all eyes focused on the gorgeously outfitted young long haired bride, Angie again felt opportunity knocking. Her pulse beating in rhythm with the music, she made ready to seize the chance when it presented itself. The roses flew through the air and all the women raised their hands high, looking all for the world like being involved in a stick-up. Angie timed it perfectly, snapping the clasp, and snatching the bracelet easily away from the gloved wrist of its owner as she raised her arms high to grab at the boutique. In her excitement, shared by everyone, Miss Green velvet ( who did not catch the bouget of roses) never felt a thing. Angie had smirked as she left the giggling group, stowing securely the purloined diamonds, as she imagined what it would have been like to watch that group robbed in a mass stick-up. The money that some enterprising soul could have made from that haul would have been astronomical.
**
She went to the open bar, lighting her first cigarette; she ordered her first real drink of the night. She could feel the coolness of the weighty bracelet in its hiding spot, and Angie, pleased with herself, calmly sipped her drink as she relished in the moment. The toss of the Brides Boutique was, in Angie’s experienced opinion, one of the three common events occurring during a wedding reception that were fertilely prime times for pickpocketing. (Editor’s note.. Miss D. mysteriously never divulged what she considered the other two prime events to be….)
**
She looked about without a worry in the world, coolly watching the antics of some of the younger women on the dance floor. She spied the young miss in the green velvet gown over in a corner talking in an animated fashion with several other women. Green velvet gown’s now bare velvet glove, apparently not noticed by anyone but Angie. One of her group was displaying some bright emeralds peeking through the long silver fur she was wearing, obviously she was leaving, and she was talking excitedly about something to the group formed around her! Nowhere in sight was Miss chocolate satin, too bad, Angie would have loved another peek before leaving.
Angie watched around the room causally, as the cold bracelet pressed expensively against her figure from its hiding spot. She eventually lost track of green velvet and her friends while finishing her drink. Setting down the empty glass, she decided it was time to call it a night. The bracelet now in her possession was easily worth as much as the 2 or 3 separate pieces she usually acquired at functions like these, added together! And, she needed her rest, Angie had a couple of plans the next day, one revolving around the female guests who would be attending an upscale afternoon prom fashion show a, the other, an evening opera performance (invited guests only, and her contact had managed to supply a ticket, at a hefty price!) No rest for the wicked, Angie told herself.
**
On her way out of the main lobby, she found herself leaving behind the very lady in green velvet whose bracelet was now in Angie’s possession. She was with the same gaggle of her similarly dressed friends, including the one exhibiting the emeralds. However, miss chocolate satin was still not visible. They were laughing and joking as they collected their assorted pretty wraps, obviously heading for a nightclub. If she had not already relieved one of them of a bauble, Angie might have invited herself along, if only to have a go at some emeralds. Angie hesitated about leaving withy them, then shrugged, followed the group out the door past the pair of bored rent a cops.
**
She remembered thinking, as she followed the elegant young princesses ,their fluid gowns peeking from under their various furs and wraps, how shallow the very rich could be. She wondered if Miss Green velvets friends had even noticed that she had had diamonds around the wrist of her glove, let alone that they were now missing. She wondered how long it would be before the bracelets loss was discovered. She figured it would be several hours, long enough for its owner not to be sure what place they had been lost. As young Miss Green velvet fancy gown and her friends turned right outside the exit, Angie turned left, heading towards the guard hut at the entrance to the garden.
She decided not to follow them but rather circle around the outside of the garden to give her victim time to leave.
**
That simple decision to make a left turn proved to be a major turning point in Angie’s fortunes that evening.
**
As Angie passed the hut guarding the entrance to the serenity garden, she noticed it was deserted.
It was as she was looking it over, that she heard the sounds of clicking heels moving fast, followed by the sounds of a young girl giggling. On the alert she stole to the backside of the hut, soon spying a splash of something blue and silky between the gaps of a couple of large bushes. Her senses on their highest peak, she began to move cautiously in, hoping the female making the noise would be in need of aid and comfort perhaps.
**
She soon spotted a young lady of about 14 bending over, hands on her knees as she panted heavily. Her back was to Angie, and what pretty back it was. She was nicely attired in a long gown of shiny material dyed deep blue like an afternoon, cloudless summer sky. The gown cascaded down along her petite figure, spilling out on the ground around her feet. Her hair was pulled back, easily displaying a pair of small diamond and sapphire earrings, not rhinestones for this one, but the real McCoy. Around one finger was a gold ring with sapphires, and from her left wrist dangled a thin silver bracelet with a row of diamond chips, both pretty, both valuably real. But it was her last piece of visible jewelry that stole the show. It hung, swinging to and from her neck on a thick braided chain of solid silver. On its end, like a hypnotists prism, was a silver pendent in the shape of a flower, with 1 inch long, pear shaped real diamonds as petals and a fully 2 inch in circumference center stone of deep sea blue. Angie watched it, her eyes following it for a full minute, its expensive fire sealing its own fate as Angie began flexing her fingers. Angie took her eyes off of it and looked around to see why the princess had been running. But all was still as the girl continued to peek through the branches towards the back door leading into the hall. Angie silently approached, and walking up to the pretty miss she bent down and in a friendly tone, asked who she was running from.
**
I played a joke on my sister, and now I’m hiding from her, piped the girl breathlessly, as Angie placed a hand upon the girls shoulder in a conspiratorial fashion, said shoulder made silky soft by the gowns half sleeve.
**
I know a better place where you can hide from her, Angie whispered in the girl’s ear, the dangling earring ever so close to her lips. The girl looked up, smiling, and Angie pointed towards the guard hut, and as the girl looked, Angie’s fingers glided up along the silky shoulder and lifted the thick silver chain up from the back of the gowns’ scooped collar. Come Angie said, and as the girl rose Angie’s fingers nimbly flicked open the chains’ lobster clasp, holding onto the clasp as the other end of the chain slipped down, allowing the pendent to slide free and fall onto the grass at the girls feet, where it lay shimmering. Angie moved her hand to the girls shoulder, squeezing it, while slipping off the braided silver chain with her other hand, whisking it back and away from the guileless young girl. Angie led her princess away from the spot and walked with her to the guard’s hut, still empty, where she had her hide neath the counter.
**
Angie turned and went back to claim the pendent, there still was no sign of any sister. She secured the pendent, joining it with the chain and bracelet, and headed deeper into garden. Her plan was to watch the hut and see which way the girl went after getting bored waiting. But as she skirted the perimeter her plans were changed when, upon rounding a corner of the path at the far end, she saw yet another back belonging to a solitary lady in her late thirties, clad in a long slinky yellow coloured gown of expensively shiny taffeta, bending over to smell the yellow roses on a bush. Instinctively Angie knew two things about her. One was that whatever jewels this lady would be wearing, they would be expensive, and the other was that with an expensive gown like that; the lady would undoubtedly be wearing her jewels. Angie suddenly became aware that her fingers were tingling, as an all too familiar whelming feeling again delightfully washed over her.
**
Angie found herself automatically turning back onto the garden path. She headed around the women and went down to the cupid’s statue, where now out of sight, she carefully hid the purloined bracelet, and still warm fiery pendent and its ‘fancy silvery braided chain..
**
She then headed towards the unsuspecting flower admirer. The ladies’ long brunette hair had fallen, flowing down the backside of her shiny taffeta gown. Angie could see rings and a bracelet gleaming as she was holding up the rose to her face. A long double rope of pearls hung swaying deliciously from her throat. Coming up behind her Angie stood watching; calculating until the lady rose and with a start realized she was not alone.
**
Pretty Angie said, her eyes on the pearls now draping down the front of her marks yellow gown. They are lovely, are they not? The damsel responded thinking Angie was referring to the roses. Just like the ones in the park, my husband and I walked through on our way to catch a cab today. Actually, I meant your dress Angie said complimentary. Thank you the lady practically squealed, I love the way it flows, and she swirled it about to show Angie, who got an eyeful of sparkly jewelry for her efforts. As she continued engaging the women in conversation, Angie decided upon attempting for the woman’s necklace of pearl. Seeing opportunity knocking when Yellow Taffeta pulled her long hair forward so it hang down the front of her gorgeous gown, laying silkily over one shoulder, nicely exposing the pricy necklaces clasp. Angie looked around, they were alone, out of site of the opposite end of the garden where the inside door was, and the guards hut with it’s pretty occupant.
**
Angie, using the marks interest in roses to her advantage, managed to steer the capricious damsel in shiny yellow over to the cupid’s statue. There, she placed a hand upon a silky taffeta covered shoulder, and pointed down to the shrub of moss roses growing at the foot of the statue . When she stooped down to get a closer look, Angie’s fingers whisked from her marks shoulder to the clasp, in a single effort with two fingers, lifted it by the clasp, and snapped it open. At that moment the mark cried “spider” and jumped up, backing into Angie, who watched helplessly as the pearls fell down from the damsel’s throat and slipped along the front of the yellow taffeta gown. They fell with a soft plop unto the ground at their mistress’s feet. Angie tried to lead her away, hoping to come back and reclaim the necklace. But as Angie pointed to another rose bush some distance away, the lady took a step forward, instead of back, planting her feet right onto the pearl necklace. Hey she exclaiming, what’s that, looking down to her high heeled foot? Oh, my pearls the lady squealed again, a glittering hand shooting to feel around her throat. Angie reached down, and reluctantly retrieved them from the base of the rose bush for the squealing lady in yellow . My husband would not have been pleased if I had lost these, she said as Angie held them, feeling their pricey smoothness.
**
She asked if Angie could help her put them on, my maid usually does this sort of thing, you know. Angie reluctantly complied, re- hanging the pearls as the pretty damsel held up her hair, and reluctantly redid the clasp. The Damsel thanked Angie by embracing her in a full hug, her diamond and pearl earring hitting Angie’s cheek. But Angie’s arms were being held by the hugging woman, so Angie was able to only watch the tantalizingly close earring sway free. Angie left yellow-gowned damsel in the garden, getting nothing for her efforts other than the feel of an expensive gown of the likes she could probably never afford to own.
**
With the pretty damsel hovering around the cupid statue, Angie decided to go back into the reception hall until the coast was clear. She carefully looked towards the Guards hut, and seeing that the guard had returned, figured the girl, so fetchingly clad in blue, had been rousted out, so that loose end was probably tied up. She just had to keep a careful eye out. The quite valuable bracelet and pricy necklace with its pendent were well hidden; there was absolutely no danger of someone stumbling over it.
**
Truth was, Angie had found her appetite wetted and once again visions of a lady in chocolate brown satin exhibiting a row of flashy diamonds, teased her thoughts. An accomplished pickpocket like herself had a couple of well-practiced ploys she could utilize to obtain a tight fitting necklace from its mistress. In addition, Angie was now determined to find her and to risk a try. She had really nothing to lose.
**
It took almost an hour of hunting amongst the now well liquored, gaily mingling crowd before Angie could admit to herself that there was absolutely no sign of the willowy lady in the stunning chocolate satin gown. Damn she thought to herself, those diamonds were something special. She shrugged it off, reciting in her mind a wicked little mantra of hers, “Another one who got away, a chance to lose her jewels to Angie on another day!” She strolled about pondering on what her next course of action could be. There had been no sign of the pretty girl in blue whose necklace Angie now had hidden away, and Miss Green Velvet was definitely out of the picture, so she felt that it was still safe to try to pluck one last bird or chick. In her hunt for the brown, Angie had seen several inviting prospects; one lady(purple satin, diamonds), two girls( ivory silk, pearled pin; red satin, gold necklace set with chips of precious stones), and now was weighing the risks.
It was at that point she once again espied the thickly bespectacled awkwardly introverted young lady invitingly wearing the thick silver satin ruffled blouse, which she had been tailing much earlier. And as Angie watched here, she again accepted the invitation. Her prey had appeared on the dance floor, being led around by a rather charming young man. That would make a dandy consolation prize Angie drooled to herself happily as she took in the sparkling show put on by the dancers jewels.
**
Angie looked her over, reacquainting herself with the jewels she so nicely was displaying. A pair of long earrings cascaded down from her earlobes where they precariously held on by antique silver claps. Angie relished the opportunity to “flimp” pairs of earrings like these. Heavily jeweled, each one was worth a tidy sum. Angie mulled this as she continued to study the jewels of her appealingly dressed new target.
**
The girl’s only ring was a solitaire diamond of at least 3 carets on a thick solid gold band worn vulnerably loose on her un-gloved, bare ring finger. A wide silver cuff bracelet with what appeared to be at least seven rows of matching, shimmering diamonds was dangling around her left wrist (she was right handed Angie observed) . The bracelet had a habit of lying over her sleeve, and Angie could see that it was a costly tiffany piece, whose clasp was exceptionally easy to flick open. A diamond pendent hung swinging from her satiny ruffles, held by an extravagantly thick silver chain with a simple , small eye in hook clasp. The Diamonds in the pendent were as shimmery as stars plucked from the night’s sky.
Angie remembered reading that in a poem from a book she had picked up years earlier in a library, while stalking a young mother in a satin dress, wearing an authentic Gruen Watch on one wrist, and a bracelet of diamonds on the other, that had gone into the library in pursuit of her young son running inside. Like that young mother, It was obvious that this lady in silver satin was not accustomed to wearing jewels, and that set probably spent most of their days lying in a safe. Angie licked her lips as she imagined what the other contents of that safe might look like
**
Angie moved in to allow herself a much closer appraisal of her potential victim’s jewels.
The young lady was totally oblivious to anything but the rather surprisingly strikingly handsome man who to all appearances was her Fiancée, who was holding her ever so close. But Angie was able to see enough of what she wanted to. The young Ladies’ thick satin blouse shone richly in the lights, moving like glistening wet liquid silver, while from her waist spilled the long black skirt with satiny tiers that swished and swayed nicely along her figure as she uneasily danced. Her jewels were bursting with colour as they played hide and seek with Angie’s watchful eyes. From all appearances, they were a mismatched couple. He seemed to know everyone and moved with a confident air, she was just the opposite. It made an enticingly intriguing package indeed for someone with Angie’s skills.
**
Silver Satin was the perfect “Gaston Monescu” type of mark, a perfect combination of classic mannerisms, clothing and Jewels worth anyone’s efforts to take. This was the only fly in the ointment that Angie observed. For by the bar she could see that two other sets of eyes were watching the same young lady in shiny satin and blazing diamonds. Angie intuitively knew they were drooling over acquiring jewels she was wearing.
**
She had noticed the pair of young men in loose fitting suits when they had entered a little earlier about the same time as Angie’s reappearance. They were obviously casing the jewels of any woman, young, or old, who walked past them. Angie knew their type, simple thieves, with no real skills outside of holding a knife in a dark alley to the throat of their victim while they unceremoniously searched and stripped them of their treasures. Angie saw that they were whispering amongst themselves and instinctively knew they were watching and waiting for the fetchingly clumsy silver clad lady clad loaded with diamonds, to leave the “establishment”.
**
She is mine Angie whispered, possessively snarling the words under her breath. She looked around as she thought about how best to handle the situation. Her eyes opened wide as she saw a familiar woman waiting by the coat checkroom. Perfect she purred, placing an unlit a cigarette in her mouth and heading over the bar.
**
She sauntered up next to them and ordered a drink, catching their eyes she asked for a light. As they obliged she took a pull and puffed out smoke, asking in a casual tone, “how about my jewels? Boys!” They could see perfectly well that she was not wearing any, and one snarled, “What’s your game, sister?” Angie snarled back in her best cop like manner, “We know what you boys are up to, and we suggest you both call it a night!” “Yer no cop sister”, they challenged, calling her bluff,” what’s your angle!” Angie calmly looked towards the entrance, perfect she mused as she saw their eyes follow hers, “Maybe not” she stated, “but see that lady being helped into the black mink?” “The shiny yellow dame?” one of em asked? “ “yes”, Angie replied taking a puff on her cigarette before going on, “ well that man’s she’s with used to be mine .” “ Now, I aint one to hold a grudge, but, those pearls she’s waltzing around with are worth plenty. And her rings, they are an easy two grand alone.”
**
Angie could tell she had captured their interest, and that they were now paying rapt attention to the lady in the thick yellow taffeta gown whose necklace Angie had almost acquired in the serenity garden. One of them looked at Angie, a suspicious look crossing his mug, “What’s innit for you sister?!” He demanded. Angie looked at him, dripping with sarcastic innocence. “Nothing brother, other than to make sure the jewels of the dame who stole my husband get home safely .” “I just worry,’ Angie went on, “there is a park in front of their residence and that dame in yellow likes to stroll through it to smell the roses after their cab drops them off.” They watched the couple leave, her expensive yellow gown sweeping provocatively at her gold high- heeled shoed feet. Angie looked them in the eyes and said smoothly, “ Gentlemen such as yourselves may want to do a good deed and follow them home to make sure some miscreant doesn’t spot her in those valuable jewels and mink. Not to mention her man’s gold watch and three hundred sawbucks in his wallet!” Angie winked at the pair, “If you catch my drift.” She added.
**
Still not totally convinced about what Angie was selling them, but equally unsure over who Angie was, both men got up and quickly headed towards the main exit as the last slip of an expensive yellow taffeta gown disappeared through the door. Smugly, Angie puffed on her cigarette as she watched them leave.
**
It was then that a hand was placed on Angie’s shoulder from behind.
**
She froze for a split second, before becoming aware of the soft mummer of satin, and of a slender finger was home to a sparkling sapphire ring. Angie smiled and turned around, facing the girl. Pardon me ma’am, she says politely, but do you remember me? Of course dear, Angie gushes while beaming at the forlorn looking miss in the fetching blue gown; I met you in the garden. Yes she confirms, but I lost my necklace somewhere and I was wondering if you remember if I had it on when we met? Angie’s heart leapt, bless this babe in the woods, thinking her necklace had merely been lost, never suspecting that someone like, say, Angie could have been the cause. She absolutely adored the trusting nature of rich girls this age. For that aspect of their purity had allowed Angie, far too easily sometimes, to lift many a jewel from well attired unsuspecting young princesses like this one. Who was now standing before her, miserable, her desirable diamond and sapphire earrings dangling ever so beckoningly, her sad puppy eyes pleading ever so sweetly, and her missing necklace closer than she could ever imagine.
**
No dear, I did not see you with a necklace, Angie lied coolly, as she reached out and stroked the girl tenderly alongside her face, her fingers touching one of the earrings. Angie was looking her fully in the eye, you didn’t lose anything else, and did you dear she asked with a concerned tone. The girl checked her earrings, bracelet and ring (Angie smiled to herself, silently thinking thanks for the info kid!) But when she spoke, it was with hopeful words laced with honey, If you want, I can help you look, my dear. The girl’s eyes lit up for a second, thank you ma’am, I wanted to, but papa said to wait until tomorrow when the light is better.
Angie smiled winningly, don’t worry dear, I’m sure its somewhere in the garden. Someone will find it, she promised, thinking to herself maliciously, and keep it for their own profit!
**
Thank you Ma’am she chirped, at the encouraging words that had been spoken, luckily she could not hear the ones Angie was thinking to herself, and turning moved off, her scrumptious gown swishing pleasantly around her silver heels. Angie watched, as the girl disappeared in the crowd Angie marked her direction.
**
Angie Imagined if the girl had accepted her offer, and she had left with the vulnerable, unguarded princess to search in the garden, and in the process help relieve her of her remaining jewels. There would be enough light with the gas lamps that lined the paths in the garden. Enough light, so that as Angie helped the princess look, her fingers could slip ever so delicately slip in and search along her shiny sky blue gown.
**
Angie licked her lips slowly as she fantasied about the search. The girl bending down to look under a bush, Angie placing her knee sharply in a certain spot below the girl’s armpit, temporarily numbing her upper body. Allowing Angie enough time to pull off both her earrings without feeling it,( this also worked well on working off broaches placed in upper parts of gowns and dresses, not to mention necklaces!) The bracelet would be no problem; it would be the easiest and probably the first, snatched off while the rich girl’s attention was easily diverted away. Since she was not wearing silky gloves, her ring would be the trickiest, but manageable, by either having her walk too close to a water fountain and hopefully having her get her fingers wet, or by simple holding onto her hand and tripping her by stepping on her gowns hem. And just like that, Angie would become that much richer, the rich girl that much poorer. And it all would be done without giving the girl any additional stress, like say she had run into the two muggers Angie had chased off. They may not have been content with just the jewels of a girl dressed as she was that they had found wandering alone in the gardens at night.
**
As Angie excitedly thought about these things, she had trained her focus back upon her original meal ticket, whom for the second time that evening had almost been allowed to slip through Angie’s light fingers. Watching with half lidded eyes, the still dancing couple not unlike a wolf watches lambs, waiting for one to make an ill-fated move away from the flock. The lamb’s fate was sealed, when a vivacious blonde in a long wispy silken dress cut in on the dancing couple. Asking miss silver satin’s fiancé for a dance. He obliged, leaving his shimmering fiancée unaccompanied, nakedly exposed to the wolf that was Angie.
**
More than one way to skin a cat Angie thought, tingling from the thrill of the hunt her prey, now in a reachable situation. She happily headed towards the spot where Miss silver satin had moved off to. A small table, located conveniently by a powder room. One the way she grabbed a half full glass of red wine off a table. Angie circled around young miss silver satin, taking a position up about two table lengths behind her. She casually scoured the area; most of the nearby tables were deserted.
Knowing the band would stop playing soon for the evening; most of the couples were out on the dance floor. All in all, the situation presented the perfect opportunity for some one of Angie’s persuasion.
**
Angie watched as the young lady picked up a glittery silver clutch and opening it, started to search inside. Angie moved swiftly, catching up behind her , tripping intentionally into her, splashing some wine onto the front of the silver satin blouse as the unfortunate lady dropped her purse in surprise. Oh my gosh, I did not see you, miss silver satin pleaded apologetically to Angie, more concerned over Angie’s feelings than her soiled satin blouse. Angie accepted her apology and, producing a lacey silk handkerchief, began to wipe themselves both down.
Angie’s practiced eyes swiftly took it all in. Miss silver satin’s pretty earrings swaying out vulnerably from her long straggly hair as it fell into her face. The clasp of her necklace was also exposed and within easy grasp. A s she reached out for the floor to steady herself, Angie’s eyes took in the sparkling ring on her now wetted finger and then watched the wide bracelet with its’ easily open able clasp slip up glitteringly over her sleeve.
The girl, now thoroughly flustered, started to rise, tripping over her slippery long skirt( with no help from Angie) Angie caught her, taking advantage of the split second opening she had been waiting for and Angie took it, making her selection as she steadied the poor thing with one hand, as the other caressed along a slick silver satin back. Angie’s long supple fingers darted in and deftly did their trick, this time with no spiders interfering. She quickly removed her chosen glittery prize from the distracted lady, who never noticed so much as a prick as Angie removed the expensive piece from her person in the confusion.
**
Angie secreted he shiny jewel as she helped miss silver satin collect herself. Than they rose, and Angie happily accepted miss silver satin profuse and obviously well used, apology. Then, as she fumbled nervously with her thick glasses, Angie laid a calming hand upon her shoulder, her fingers relishing in the richness of her victims sleek ruffled blouse. Miss silver satin was by now so distracted and embarrassed that Angie was all but assured of a clean get away.
However, as an extra measure of caution Angie intentionally jarred silver satin’s elbow of the hand steadying her eye glasses. Thus sending her glasses falling from her face to the floor with a small clatter, then Angie kicked them under a table before the startled lady could react. Angie offered to help, but the lady implored that she was okay, just needed to find her glasses. Angie left as Miss silver satin started to frantically grope around for her glasses, her silver blouse and remaining jewels shimmering brightly along their miserable mistress..
Angie took her leave, knowing that once she found her glasses, Miss silver satin would flee for sanctuary into the ladies powder room, buying her more than enough time for Angie to make her escape. Taking one last look over the dance floor, she blithely saw that miss silver satins fiancé was still in the clutches of the vivacious blonde-haired girl, still safely out of the picture. Angie made her way with purpose to the rear exit leading to the garden that she had used earlier, intending to head out into the serenity garden to collect the hidden bracelet and pendent, adding them to her purloined plunder.
**
As she walked amongst the mostly deserted tables, her mind went to the woman in yellow taffeta and imagined that right about now she would be standing with raised arms and a forlorn look. Ruefully wincing as the man who was holding her mink busily stripped those luscious pearls from the neckline of her tight gown, as the shiny yellow material gleamed in the moonlight! Serves her right for being afraid of spiders, Angie thought unforgivingly.
***
Angie’s mind also went to the poor young princess in blue with the missing necklace. She looked towards the area she had headed, opposite of the back exit to the garden. She reluctantly decided not to push her luck, there was a sister and parents to contend with, and she really had no time left. So she decided to call it a day, a rather successful day, and made her way to retrieve her loot.
**
Angie had now reached the now deserted table by the back exit where the lady in the crimson gown and blood red rubies had been earlier, along with her rhinestone encumbered 10 year old daughter and handsome husband.
**
She paused between the table and the bench, something was not quite right, She eyed the area around the dance floor for any signs of trouble that may be centered on the quite valuable jewels now in her possession. All was quiet, except for a little murmur behind her. Turning she looked at the bench and was shocked to discover the soundly asleep ten year old, using the long rusty sable fur as a blanket. What have we here, Angie thought, licking her lips wickedly?
**
Angie pursed her lips, checking the coast; spotting the young girl’s parents, still on the dance floor, a safe distance away the other side of the room. No sign of miss silver satin. No one else was nearby. Perfect. She went over, bending down so the table hid her. The child looked so vulnerably innocent, sound asleep as she lay on her side, facing Angie. She was clutching an arm of the sable like a warm fuzzy teddy bear, her ring sparkling. Angie gently tugged the mink from the girl’s clasp, and gradually pulled until the fur swished away from along the inert silken figure on the bench, where it fell into a pile on the floor. The child looked very innocent, very vulnerable, like a sleeping princess. An earring lay exposed over one shoulder, her necklace dangled down slightly askew from her slender throat, the pin holding her sash, all of which shone brightly now that it was exposed to the low lights of the ballroom, still called out. Too bad, Angie thought to herself, too bad the mother had not dressed her little doll in real diamonds.
**
Angie again looked to the dance floor; she could see the mother’s jewelry twinkling brightly as the child’s parents danced close, very unaware of anything else but themselves. She looked back over the girl, contemplating. But the song was winding down, Angie stooped to pick up the sable, bird in hand she thought, and placing the rich fur over her arm, stood just as the song ended. Looking at the exit door, so near and yet so far, she started to hasten to it, but checked herself as the band immediately started another, rather slow song that Angie knew quite well.
**
She hesitated, incredibly, everyone was staying on the floor for the final dance, she looked back at the bench, and the sleeping imps exposed jewels still shined, tempting her to come for them. Angie knew that she would only have about four minutes. Always open to new challenges, Angie chose to answer that sweet little invite that the necklace was extending out to her. Checking once again to make sure the parents was still obliviously dancing; she laid the mink down by the door and eased back to the bench. Kneeling down, Angie began to perform the delicate operation.
**
Lifting up the necklace she gently tugged it loose from around the sleeping child’s neck until the clasp appeared. She subtly flicked open the clasp, then shamelessly slipped the necklace from around its perch on the little whelp’s throat. It flickered like some slithering shiny snake, glittering as it came away. Like taking candy from a baby, Angie drooled happily, as she let the necklace run along her fingertips while watching the sleeping princess for a few seconds.
**
Her fitted cream coloured dress shimmered with expensive richness in the shadowy light. The poor thing was so soundly asleep after her long exhausting day that Angie figured she could have peeled the dress off her without causing a stir. This for a pickpocket would be the ultimate test, the pinnacle of her criminal class. But, Angie thought; if she ever had the opportunity to do so, it would have to be worth her while, like a shiny gown, an appealing sky blue gown with half sleeves and scooped collar. And the jewels would be sapphire drop earrings, bracelet and ring, not plain rhinestones. She licked her lips at the enticing thought of such a perfect “coup fera”, than told herself to get back to work, time was money.
**
She slipped her hand along the satin cape being used as a pillow and felt under the girls head until she felt the cold earring she was laying upon. Deftly undoing the screw she pulled it free, watching with delight as it came out from underneath.
**
Angie than, gently lifted, and nimbly stroked back the girl’s ultra-soft hair, exposing her long silvery earring. She pulled the jewel out and laid it out upon the child’s shoulder, where it lay, shimmering vibrantly. Then she reached in with her fingers and began unscrewed its clasp. Pulling it free she added it to her growing collection. She next lifted the hand that had held the warm sable, gently prying open her clenched fingers. The sleeping child never stirred. Angie gently slipped off the glittering ring. She then peeled back a silky sleeve, checking for the bracelet, finding her wrist was bare. The rest of the jewels were hiding securely on the side she was laying upon. Smiling wickedly to herself, an idea popped into Angie’s head.
**
The music was now almost to the halfway point, and Angie thought for a brief second that she should leave . Another quick scan assured her the coast was still clear, and Angie decided to press her luck, eagerly going back to work, putting her idea into motion.
Angie fingers felt along the sleeping child’s waist until she located the brooch. Quickly unfastening the brooch from the chocolate satin sash, she pulled it out. Watching as the diamonds caught fire and burst into vibrant life, unusually vivid for plain rhinestones she thought contemplatively. Angie plopping it in with the growing pile of the sleeping girls purloined baubles. Again reaching in along the warm waist, Angie gradually tugged at the now undone sash. The sleeping girl, unconsciously obliged by turning over on her other side, as the sash was pulled away.
**
Her arm with the ring and bracelet was now exposed. Lifting the arm , and peeling back the puffy sleeve, Angie found and unclasped the bracelet, slipping it away, then allowing it to dangle in triumph before letting it join its purloined mates. Then lifting the child’s hand she pulled at the ring, it was a little tight. Angie licked her fingers, and moistened the girls finger, than began slipping the ring off ever so gently from the along her finger. Almost there, Angie thought, as the ring joined its abducted companions in her pocket.
**
As Angie finished pocketing the last of the girls jewels, her victim whimpers something discernible in her sleep, her small hand feeling to pull up the missing warm sable she had been using as a blanket. Angie quickly looked around, spying a cheap linen coat hanging on a nearby hook, she grasped it and laid it over the stirring girl, stroking her for a precious few seconds. Then rising, calmly Angie snatched a shiny purse from the table, and moved off, unbelieving of her luck. She reclaimed the sable fur, and strolled out the door without looking back.
**
As Angie closed the door she heard the last notes of the song waning from inside. She licked her lip, that was close, but her luck had held. Now all that remained was to visit the Cupid Statue In the garden to reclaim her other prizes. As she reached the statue, Angie realized that she still had the child’s satin sash in her hand.
She smiled as she tied it, blindfolding the cupid statues eyes. Retrieving and pocketing the now stone cold diamond bracelet, and the young Princess in blue’s necklace with its shimmering pendent, she slowly looked around, the cost was clear. Angie coolly made her way to the gate, the bored guard offering to help her with the mink she was carrying. , Angie stopped, and handed it to him. Then turning, allowed him to help her on with it. He puffed out his chest as Angie gave him a sweet smile; she thanked him, then turned and disappeared into the darkness of the night.
**
Angie disappeared from view into the foggy evening, relishing the warmth of the sensuous sable. Happily contemplating the small fortune in jewels it had been in contact with earlier that evening, and also the small fortune she had walked out of the reception with in her possession.
**
The guard watched the spot for some time where the pretty lady in the expensive fur had vanished in the mists. He fantasized for a good few minutes, wondered what had been behind the enchantingly secret smile she had given to him.
Excuse me, sir?, a female voice coming from the garden startles him, he had never heard anyone coming.
He turns, catching an eyeful of a long glamourous, brown satin gown, worn fetchingly by a willowy short haired pretty young thing. Diamonds blazed from around her throat, caught by the gas lights, and from around her white satin gloved wrists as she raised her hands in a pleading fashion.
She continues, pointing to a young girl in a smashing blue satin gown, bending over looking for something in the bushes. My sister lost her necklace and pendent while playing around here earlier, did you or anyone find it? She asked in a rather seductive tone of voice9 not a common, it was her regular voice)
No lady, no one turned in a necklace. Thank you sir, and she turns away, her gown flowing out behind her.
He watches for a minute as she and her sister both move elegantly down the path, continuing their search.
He sighed, and turns away, babysitting rich dames he mutters under his breath, what a dismal way to make a living. Why won’t this affair ever end he asked himself, as he reached for his silver pocket watch to check the time. Damnations he said, not finding it nor its chain and fob, must have dropped it in the alley earlier where I had gone for a nipper from his flask. He sauntered off quickly to the alley located in the direction Angie had disappeared, abandoning his post.
Soon after, a pair of dark figures who had been walking on the opposite side of the street, and had stopped to loiter when they spied the guard talking to some posh broad in a shiny brown dress, saw the guard leaving his post. They quickly stole with sinister intent across the road and entered into the gardens, disappearing into the darkness.
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This ended up being Angie’s first big score, She got more for the rhinestone set then she had imagined, the small brooch taken off the brown satin sash had proved to have real diamonds in its center! Also the princess in silky sky blue’s pendent and chain had fetched a nice tidy sum. The jewels lifted from the ladies in Green and Silver also realized quite a handsome profit, as did the sable and purse.
if one includes the real diamond ring slipped off the finger of a silky dressed debutante from the prom show and her rather nice haul of a slim pearl necklace and diamond pin from the Opera, the whole weekend was unimaginably successful.
**
From the profit realized, she had been able to spend a pleasant month away in Monte Carlo, even indulging in the purchase of a rich red wine coloured taffeta gown to wear.
Which she pleasantly found that, when paired with her deftly acquired collection of dripping rhinestone diamond jewelry, she attracted wealthy young males with expensive gold watches and fat wallets like honey bee drones to a bright moss rose.
**
She also enticed a long raven haired, Miss, richly clad in emerald silk, to enter into her snare.
But Angie did not make an entirely clean get away. For the last jewel to be taken was the girl’s brooch , and before Angie could hide it with the rest, the girl spotted its’ glitter in Angie’s hand, and with a gasp had looked down on her dress at the now vacant spot where it had been dangling ever so provocatively for Angie all evening.. Angie smiled at the girl as she had looked up in confusion. The girl had placed a hand to her throat, startled when feeling it bare of her necklace. She looked at Angie in hurt confusion, her eyes wide with fright. Angie placed a finger to the girl’s lips, hushing any fuss she may have been thinking of making over her missing jewelry, and turning her back to the forlorn miss, Angie left, not looking back….
**
But that was a story for another day, so we were promised by Angie, giving us an all too familiar look of devious satisfaction at making us wait.
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Editor’s Notes:
Our Thanks to Mr. J. Gardner for pointing out the existence of Mr. Monescu’s 1826 guide
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