The Robbery of the Blue Angel

 “Gentlemen!”

 “Harrumph!”

 “Oh, alright, then. Calm down, Mrs. Jostens. Lady and gentlemen, may I have your attention, please. Under this cloche is, wait for it- where is a drumroll when you need one- under this cloche is the great, the fabulous, the one-and-only…

 “Spit it out, Mr. Tidebottom! What’ve you got there?

 Mr. Tidebottom sighed deeply. “Yes, Mrs. Jostens. You’re quite right. He dramatically pulled the cover off the cloche, and inside, sparkling like blue fire, was a diamond. Not just any diamond; the most brilliant, flawless diamond mortal eyes were ever likely to feast upon. In certain angles, the blue fire resembled the wings of an angel, thus the nickname.

 Everyone gasped, even Mrs. Jostens.

 “The Blue Angel!” cried Mr. Malchives. Why, that was stolen from the Titmore Museum over eight months ago! The Museum had lost all hope of ever finding it again. Who solved the mystery and retrieved the precious gem?”

 “Must have been a relative of Holmes!” declared Conroy.

 “Must have been Hercule Poirot!” declared Mr. Swanson.

 “Must have been George Clooney,” said Mrs. Jostens. Everyone stared at the one woman in the Gentlemen’s Club.

 “Well, sue me; I like him.”

 “No, it was none of those people,” said Mr. Tidebottom. It was…The Cataplasma!”

 Everyone was dumbfounded for a few moments. Finally, Mr. Malfatti spoke. “The Cataplasma! I thought she was dead!”

 “Almost everyone did,” explained Mr. Tidebottom. “She very cleverly faked her own death about eight months ago, and has been working undercover ever since.

 “How did she do that?” asked Mr. Malchives.

 “Remember that boating accident this past October? The Cataplasma was rowing the lead rowboat when a motorboat sped by, causing the rowboat to capsize. In the confusion, The Cataplasma swam to the nearby boathouse unseen, where she disguised herself as a very elderly man, and disappeared into the forest. What the public didn’t know was that the captain of the motorboat was working in cahoots with The Cataplasma, allowing her to make a clean getaway. She has been staying at a cabin in the woods ever since, disguised of course, and that was how she was able to apprehend the robber of the ‘Blue Angel’, bring him to justice, and secure the precious gem. After six months of being “missing,” The Cataplasma was declared dead, giving her even more freedom to work uninhibited.”

 “How do you know all this?” asked Mrs. Jostens.

 Mr. Tidebottom blushed. “You see, I was the captain of the motorboat,” he confessed.

 Everyone gasped in shock. “Mr. Tidebottom!” Mr. Malfatti exclaimed. “You were working in cahoots with The Cataplasma?”

 “Why yes, Malfatti. Every Holmes needs a Watson.”

 “Every Poirot needs a Hastings,” chimed in Malchives.

 “Every Currier needs an Ives.” This, naturally, came from Mrs. Jostens.

 Mr. Tidebottom continued, ignoring the comments. “When the diamond went missing, The Cataplasma received an anonymous phone call. The caller, with an obviously disguised voice, said: “I stole the Blue Angel, but you’ll never guess who I am,” then hung up.” The Cataplasma, not one to pass up a good puzzle, wrote down what was said, word for word. She mixed up the letters, twisted them in every combination possible, but still couldn’t come up with the answer. Then, one day, she called me in for a visit. I hadn’t seen her for a while, since I had been travelling to France and Spain with a few buddies. I said ‘yes’ immediately. Frankly, I wanted to know what the old girl was up to. When I arrived at her flat, she greeted me with a hug and a sheet of paper. It had the original message on it, as well as all the combinations The Cataplasma had tried. She got me up to speed.”

 “Have you tried using only the initials?” I asked.

 “My God, Tidebotttom!” she exclaimed! “I think you have something there!”

 “I have to admit I was proud when she said that. In the past, whenever I had aided The Cataplasma, she figured everything out. I was, frankly, well, pretty dense.

 “Nothing ever really changes,” Mrs. Jostens mumbled, but Mr. Tidebottom chose to ignore her remark.

 “Ok, Tidebottom. Speed up your story. We haven’t got all day, you know,” said Mr. Conroy.

There were murmurs of agreement.

 “Yes, yes I understand. I’ll move the story along. We played with the string of initials for some time, The Cataplasma quieter than I had seen her in quite a while. Suddenly, she shot up with a start.

 “Tidebottom! Look!” She wrote the initials in capital letters, thusly:

 ISTBABYNGWIA

 “What’s this gibberish, Tidebottom?” Mr. Swanson asked.

 “Do you see a word near the center?” asked Mr. Tidebottom.

“‘Baby’ What does that have to do with anything?”

 “What sculpture was recently erected in the garden of the Titmore Museum?”

 “A toddler opening The Book of Knowledge!” they all said in unison.

 “The culprit wanted to somehow show that he had a connection to the sculpture. From there, The Cataplasma figured the other words were: ‘I stood in the new garden of the Museum when I arrived.’”

 “So what?” Thousands of people come to see that garden,” remarked Mr. Swanson.

 “Yes, but I’ll get back to that shortly. The Cataplasma figured she was too well known. That’s when we hatched the plan I already told you about. The day after I had visited The Cataplasma would be the boat race. I own a motorboat, so it made it pretty easy for me to wait at a designated point until The Cataplasma reached the halfway mark, which was close to the boathouse. You know the rest. Witnesses spoke freely to her, never suspecting that they might be really speaking to The Cataplasma in disguise, because they thought she was dead. She came to realize that the culprit was proud of the sculpture. Why? Perhaps because he had helped to erect it. He wasn’t the sculptor himself, of course, Aleksander Andersen. Andersen was too famous, and therefore the robbery would have been very risky for him to have committed. Besides, he had flown back to Denmark well before the heist. However, Andersen had helpers, handing him tools and so forth. These people knew about the ‘Blue Angel‘, and some may have even joked about robbing it. To at least one person, though, the idea wasn’t a joke.”

  “That’s pretty amazing, but there’s something I still don’t understand,” said Mr. Malchives. “Why is the diamond here, instead of back at the Museum?”

 Suddenly, a very elderly man in a wheelchair, who hadn’t spoken a word this whole time, wheeled himself to the front of the room. “Because Tidebottom hasn’t told the whole story, and part of what he told isn’t true.”

 “What do you mean?”

 “The robber isn’t in prison, not yet. He or she is in this very room!”

 Malchives spoke. “So, the robber is here, is he? Or is it a ‘she’”? He glared at Mrs. Jostens.

 “Well, I never!” “How about Malfatti? He’s a foreigner,” asked Mrs. Jostens.

 “Hey! I’ve lived here ten years!”

 Soon, everyone was arguing with one another, everyone, that is, except Mr. Tidebottom and the man in the wheelchair, who shocked the group by peeling off his rubber mask and letting down his hair. Everyone knew that iconic face: it was The Cataplasma! The arguing ceased, for they were too shocked to speak.

 “Don’t quibble, children,” she said. “I know who committed the crime now. Without a doubt.”

 They all gathered around The Cataplasma. She continued to speak. “When Tidebottom mentioned the ‘Blue Angel’, and revealed the beautiful stone, somebody’s eyes lit up more than the others’. Someone who had assisted Andersen, and who is, in fact, a member of this Club. This person is none other than Mr. Conroy.”

 “That’s ridiculous!” exclaimed Mr. Conroy. You can’t convict a person based on how their eyes light up!”

 “No, you can’t, Mr. Conroy. But you can make deductions. You assisted Andersen in erecting the statue. You were the only one local to this area, which is not far from the Museum. And you had a helper, who didn’t work on the statue, but who does have a criminal past. He is also a member of the Club: Mr. Malchives!”

 Mr. Malchives began blubbering incoherently.

 The Cataplasma went on. “Malchives joined the Club the same year Mrs. Jostens did, the first year the Club admitted women. But his name is not really Malchives, is it, sir. He is really Clive Scrapworthy, who spent four years in jail a decade ago for attempted bank robbery. I found this in his coat pocket, by the way.” She whipped out a piece of paper as if by magic. On it was a map of the Titmore Museum with the Blue Angel circled in red.

 “You fool!” exclaimed Mr. Conroy, glaring at Malchives. Why did you keep that paper?”

 Malchives continued to blubber incoherently. Tidebottom called the police, and before you know it, both men were escorted out of the Gentlemen’s Club. They were definitely not gentlemen. The Cataplasma informed the Museum that the ‘Blue Angel‘ had been recovered. They were extremely grateful, and said that someone from the Museum would come to pick it up ASAP.

 “I guess that means they’ll be a couple of openings for membership in this Club,” said Mrs. Jostens. “I think that my Aunt Mabel would love to join.”

 Mr. Tidebottom , Mr. Malfatti and Mr. Swanson groaned, but The Cataplasma smiled.

 “Way to go, Mrs. Jostens! We need new blood in the Gentlemen’s Club. Female blood!”

 Mrs. Jostens laughed, and the three men did, too, despite themselves. The Cataplasma had triumphed once again.