Red Herrings :
The Final Act
Act Five - The Pygmalion Ring
At 10:10 am the Phone rang on the Chief Inspectors desk. It was the sergeant, whom had gone to the town house with the director to search for clues. It appeared that a rather nosey older neighbor lady had been keeping a detailed track for the townhouse owner of all the comings and goings in a small notebook.
Including all of the license plate numbers with descriptions of all the vehicles that had been coming and going. Included in the lot was the red Mercedes of a rather nice looking lady with red hair who had been there the previous morning!
So it was that the first real tangible clue of the troupe of pickpockets/kidnappers, whom had run amuck like wolves amongst the easily distracted sheep that were the wealthy guests in attendance that fateful evening at St. Davids Chambre, was discovered.
It took less than 2 hours to trace the Mercedes to an airport rental. A group of officers swarmed the rental agency demanding to see its records. The Mercedes had been rented out late Thursday evening, by a visiting priest who gave the address and phone number of the Cathedral of Eastminster as his place of residence during his stay.
The auto had been dropped off Sunday afternoon. The office had been closed, the key dropped off in a box. No idea really by whom..
The Mercedes, was still parked out back, just now being cleaned for an afternoon pickup.
The detective dispatched men to locate and impound the rental, while he went into the airport.
All outgoing flights made on the previous Thursday and Sunday afternoon were noted, most of them had been to and from the states.
Names of the fight attendant’s were taken down, and perpetrations made to have them all interviewed.
The detectives who had been sent for the car, found it with all the doors open, as well as the trunk, while a man was bust vacuuming out the interior.
He was stopped and asked questions about the vehicle.
The condition of the interior had been pristine, the outside however had been caked with mud at one time, and the auto had been run through a wash before being returned.
There was no real garbage, inside, he answered a bit awkwardly. The detective pounced on him, what garbage was there then sir? He shrugged, and going to a waste bin, pulled out a small film canister.
The detective could not believe his eyes! You were going to toss this mate? He asked quite sharply.. the cleaner shrugged, less trouble ain’t it, than trying to find an owner, who probably was a thousand miles away now?
The detective clucked his tongue in disbelief. Called the tow yard to have the vehicle impounded, and took the film canister, now bagged as evidence, to the officer in charge.
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The film canister was handed over to the chief Inspector who carefully had the bomb disposal squad open it. It only contained a single reel of film.
The director and the cameramen were pulled into a conference room, where all three identified the canister as belonging to them, however the film spool inside was not!
Confused, the film was taken in and examined. It was old footage of a ballroom, but indeed not that of of St. Davids Chambre. Mysteriously it was the 3rd reel of an old b/w move, titled Pygmalion, the original movie version made from the Bernard Shaw play.
The reel depicted the ballroom scene, referring to a street girl being passed off as a member of royal society, fooling all the experts in such matters. What this actually had to do with the case was one of many mysteries never solved, but it gave the absconded gang their name.
The Pygmalion Ring
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So ends our tale.
At least for those of you who have seen through the Red Herrings and have discovered the clues pointing to what had happened to the 3 missing Ladies that fateful Saturday Evening. You already know the answer to the mystery and may not even have had to read this far…. SO HERES TO A JOB RATHER WELL DONE!
However, for those of us who have not possibly had the time to play detective, and wish to know what had happened… Please by all means read on below………………..
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As the Chief inspector, his detectives, and a quite exasperated Superior, were watching the contents of the Mysterious reel of film..
The Chief Inspector thought to himself, what could have happened to the thieves and their captives? He watched the movie for a few seconds… someone not as she seems, playing a role, fooling the experts, all by appearing to be one thing, and at the same time….! Oh my God he exclaimed, and all eyes turned upon him….. I know where they are being held, the girls who disappeared.
And he started to bark out orders, for the first time feeling he was in control of the situation.
Meanwhile, as the Chief Inspector was having his Epiphany, the afternoon post arrived.
And 30 minutes before that, the afternoon post had also arrived at the office of the Bishop of the Eastminster Diocese...
Now amongst the bundles of his excellency’s mail was a letter , an envelope with the Bishop’s name and address, but instead of handwriting or typing out the address, it had been pasted upon the envelope with cut out letters from a magazine.
The Bishops assistant opened the rather puzzling envelope and extracted an equally puzzling missive.
Inside was a note made on the stationary paper with the heading of the Eastminster Catholic Diocese. Using the same letters cut from the same magazine, it said simply
Time to Aire out the basement of St Davids green door stone cottage
The Bishop’s sassistant rang the Chief Inspector, catching him just as he had entered his office to grab his jacket.
Already on our way there he said almost cheerfully ( pieces of the puzzle were starting to come together)
As the police arrived at the cottage, they met and elderly nun coming out, face an ashen white. She mumble something about knocking and scratching about on the basement door , rats methinks, or worse !?
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The good officers and constables of Eastminister CID quickly went inside.
The cottage had been used for small gatherings with tables and chairs stacked neatly up against the walls, a small kitchen was set up in one corner.
At the far end was a small, thick wooden door with old wrought iron hinges and a bolt that was thrown shut and locked with an ancient key padlock. The skeleton key dangled from a peg next to the door. Said door was the source of the rather weak knocking.
Upon opening the basement door, three rather disheveled, long hair loose and tangled, ladies tumbled out. All three wearing nothing but their thin silken underclothes.
The three ladies, of course, were the missing twin daughters of the Baroness and the multi- Millionaires young wife. The three were given jackets, and hot tea was made in the small kitchen.
The Chief Inspector, with the blessings of his superior, held off notifying their families so that proper statement could be gathered without interferences.
It appeared that the women had been rather keen upon meeting the handsome actor in person, along with probably a few dozen other ladies in attendance
Apparently the group of pickpockets, in addition to lifting their jewels, were also gathering information on those ladies with the desire to personally meet with the rather charming actor. These three had been weeded out for selection and approached, obviously not just because of their overwhelming interest in a private meeting, but also because they were wearing an overwhelmingly pricy collection of jewels.
The priest had been talking to the Millionaire’s wife at the back of the crowd, and had managed to steer the conversation to meeting the actor, whom, he implied, personally knew. The wife had seen him talking and coming in with the film crew and assumed he was quite right.
He had told her that he would arrange the meeting at the stone cottage just outside the gardens. The two went off together.
Meanwhile the dark skinned Romeo had come across one of the twins watching the autograph hounds in action ( red satin gown), and had found out she was also interested in meeting the actor. He had taken the pretty lady over to the cameraman to see if it could be arranged. A blind ruse to lure his victim ever closer into his confidence.
After being turned away by the cameraman, her friend in the fancy tux “happened” to spy the priest walking with a lady in green. He had led her over and asked the good father that since he knew the film crew, could a meeting of the actor be arranged.
The “good priest balked for a minute… than smiled cheerfully in the heavily made up eyes of the lovely twin…
As it so happened he was actually in the process of arranging a meeting. The Priest felt that one more would be okay, but not to say anything to anyone else. The twin asked if her sister could come along. The priest had given her a quite long, thoughtful look, and after much ponderonce , reluctantly said ok.
He had told the gentleman wearing the fancy tux to collect the girl’s sister, and take the 3 to the cottage while he collected the actor. And again advised them not to utter a single word to anyone.
The four arrived at the cottage and waited in the shadows off to one side.
They had heard a whistling, and the Romeo had told them to wait and went around the corner. The girls had heard a thunk, then something hitting the ground. The next thing they knew a pair of black clothed, figures wearing black cat masques , appeared on either side , surrounded them , and had told them to be quiet and no one else would be hurt. They then herded the 3 terrified ladies around to the front, where Romeo laid out cold upon the ground.
They were led past him, to the now open green door and told to get inside quick.
Once inside, the three ultra-wealthy victims were told to hand over their jeweled designer purses , their purses all together were worth nearly £100,000 alone !….
Then they were, in turn cordially, but sternly, asked to remove all their valuables. Each in turn places the extremely valuable jewels they had been wearing, into the purse held opened by one of the thieves…. The purses were then placed in a black travelling satchel, along with the diamond Tiara, which had been gently pulled from the wife’s head. ( the total of their jewels came to just shy of £550,000) !
The 3 now dejeweled Ladies were than instructed to strip off their, expensive personally tailored, designer gowns, and these also were stuffed inside the satchel, along with their pricey spiked heels ( these items totaled £85,000)
Then, stripped down to their knickers, they were told to march barefoot inside, then down to the dank, dirt floored basement below ground.
It hadn’t been a bad time imprisioned down there, nor good either, after the door had been shut and bolted home on them.
The windowless basement had a few wooden chairs, a small work bench ( no tools) with a small candle for light with a book of matches ( from St Davids). There was a jug of water, two bottles of wine and some liver pate with sour dough brea also placed upon that bench. A small service loo with rusty water was located at one end, with the basements lone, long ago bricked up, window.
Aside from being freaked out when hearing a scurry of mice now and then, the three were certainly no worse for wear… despite never in their lives ever coming close to such squalid living conditions!
They had had no way of telling time, and had thought it been about 4 days that they had been held down there. All three had been surprised that it had only been less than 2 days….
They was really , nothing more to their story.
The one twin who had been wearing the red gown, and the millionaire’s wife who had worn the luxurious green taffeta gown, both recalled dancing with the Romeo in the fancy tux, though neither could remember his name, there had been so many they had danced with after all. Nor did they recall, aside from him complementing them on their dresses, that he had taken any special interest in their jewels, nor anyone else for that matter.
The Detective Chief Inspector surmised that these lambs had been left alone from any trimming, instead saved as proper candidates to be lured away for a bit of wolfish shearing down to the silken flesh.
The three were then released, and returned to their grateful families, the constables dismissed from any further surveillance. There would of course, never be a ransom demand, for that was not in the Pygmalion Rings card deck…
Once a tally had been made of all the missing, and known stolen items, the rather staggering total came to over £ 1,350,000 pounds in jewels and other pricey valuables that had been lifted and acquired by the gang. Which made one think about what the grand total of all the jewels worn that evening would have been! And most of it ripe for the plucking by such nimble fingered thieves! Ones who had had such a bloody cheek to plan and pull of such a well-planned endeavor.
The producer, his camera crew and the actors were all cleared and released, the authorities soon realizing that they had been the patsy’s for a for more organized ring of thieves. It is believed the stolen gems never left the country, but whomever eventually fenced them was not amongst the ones known to the authorities.
The flight attendants days later were interviewed, none of them=m could clearly remember any passengers fitting the descriptions of the priest, the smarmy Romeo, or the two mysterious ladies…
Composite Pictures drawn from witness accounts had by now had been made and circulated, none ever coming close to being identified. Though one of the twins thought a lady looked a bit like one of their temporary parlor maids.. But no one could remember the lass’s name, or even how long or when the time she had been employed was.
Servants should be seen and not heard after all!
The police were at a standstill, a standoff with an unknown enemy. But in the Easminster’s CID’s defense, Thr Pygmilion ring’s heist had been at least 2 years in the making, considering that at least one of its suspected members had been in attendance the year before at the same function.
They area around the Stone Cottage was scoured far more thoroughly.
A small path that had been noted earlier , leading, but not walked, which led into the woods from the backside of the stone cottage.
It was now followed for some distance and at one point a branch path led off it and onto the road.
Crossing the road the searches found a driveway that led to a small rubbish area. Two sets of tyre tracks were found. One was never matched, but believed to belong to a small sports type car, possibly a jaguar coupe, about 20 years old. the other set matched the airport rental that had contained the film canister….the mud found on the rental auto also matched the area…..
Further investigation revealed that the magazine used was an Eastminster Diocesan magazine, and the article the letters were cut out from was one that told about the annual charity ball held at St . Davids? So they Pygmalion Ring had a bit of a sense of humour.
There was also discovered, a thumbprint on the letter. , which for a time greatly excited the local authorities… Until it was discovered that the thumbprint belonged to The Bishop of the Diocese of Eastminister!
Another unexplained mystery, or one last red herring ( The Bishop had never seen the letter, his secretary had called the police, his fingerprints were also found)
With their daughters and wife safely returned, the pressure was let off by the families. The insurance companies squawked a bit, but then there is no ever pleasing that lot!
It has now been three years since the heist, and Interpol feels that the time is quite ripe for the gang to strike again, somewhere in the world where large gatherings of the wealthy and privileged will be taking place. A formal event where copious displays of jewels will be worn by the female guests, like so many shimmering lures to attract the like of them !
But even though most of the leads in the original case proved to be so many red herrings left by the Pygmalion Ring , the police still maintain confidence that justice will prevail, even though the reality of the matter is that the original trail is growing ever colder…….like ice!
Quand on rencontre un mystère, on croit généralement être scélérats cachés
“When one encounters a mystery, one generally believes to be hidden scoundrels”
Author Unknown
The End (Fini)
