And most importantly – don’t come alone!
When the handwritten note slipped under my front door that rain‑sodden Tuesday, I thought my neighbor’s cat had finally mastered the art of origami. It was an elegant scrap of ivory paper, the kind you might have seen in a 1940s spy thriller, and written in a looping hand that could have been a lover’s signature or a ransom note—hard to tell at a glance. Dear Mr. Hargreaves, You are cordially invited to the unveiling of the late Cornelius Thrift’s “Great Artful Heist” at the Whitby Estate this Saturday, 6 p.m. And most importantly – don’t come alone! I stared at the invitation until the ink seemed to smudge in the damp. Cornelius Thrift, the reclusive eccentric who had made a fortune in antique lock‑picking kits and, according to town gossip, a series of daring museum break‑ins (all of which were ostensibly “artistic performances”), had been dead for three months. The Whitby Estate was the solitary Victorian relic perched on the hill overlooking our town, a place where the wi...
