Master Thieves And Witchcraft

The following is a follow up to something I wrote awhile back. Should I happen to meet a bad and mysterious end, it'll probably be the ghost of P.L. Travers strangling me in my sleep.

Freak Accident Provides Closure On Century Old Case

London (Reuters) Over a century ago, strange things were seen in the fog around London. Chimney sweeps dancing on rooftops. Senile admirals firing off cannons from the top of his manor. A street entertainer and jack of all trades with a secret. A bank chairman who died laughing- while floating in the air. And a peculiar woman who spoke to animals, flew through the air by umbrella, and described herself as “practically perfect in every way.”

In the fall of 1910, these events came together on one tragic night when eight year old Michael Banks plunged to his death from a staircase of smoke that hung suspended over the London skyline. The son of a banker, Michael was in the company of his sister Jane and two adults- a nanny by the name of Mary Poppins and a street busker and chimney sweep named Bert- though his working identity turned out to be a façade.

Years later witnesses described the vision of a staircase made of smoke, ascending from the area around Cherry Tree Lane, a quiet, affluent neighbourhood at the time, and seeing a woman, a man, and two children walking up it- until one of the children fell through, falling over a hundred feet to the pavement below. Michael’s funeral was a sad and somber affair, with his parents, George and Winifred, seeming shell shocked, while ten year old Jane Banks was in hysterics.

“Gran never got over it,” Felicia Warwick, granddaughter of Jane Banks-Warwick, told reporters this week. “She would tell stories of Mary Poppins, the strange nanny who would take her and her brother on adventures in sidewalk drawings and tea on the ceiling and cleaning up a room with magic. You know, it might be tempting to have wondered if it was dementia, but in every single other way, she was perfectly rational to the end of her life, and she was telling stories like that long before she got old. So it wasn’t dementia.”

Miss Warwick shook her head before continuing. “One moment she had Michael’s hand in hers, the next she felt it slip away and heard him scream. She heard the sound of his impact. Can you imagine the effect that would have on a girl? It always stayed with her. She spent the rest of her life blaming herself, wondering if she had done something wrong, if she could have saved him. Her parents both drank their way into the grave by the time she was finished at Oxford. The family never got over it.”

Poppins, a tall and distinctive looking woman by any description, vanished in the aftermath, sought by police for questioning, but never found. For years afterwards there were occasional sightings and rumours of a Poppins incident, as they were called, but nothing positive. As for her chimney sweep consort, he was detained at the scene, but more strange events kept him from justice. Bert, as he was known to local residents, was more than he seemed. Albert Geoffrey Wentworth III, the heir to the Wentworth shipping fortune, had been long absent from the world of high society, adopting a Cockney accent and friendly demeanour- while carrying out a life of crime. His arrest that night revealed him to be the mastermind cat burglar behind the Autolycus robberies, and yet he escaped from holding the following day- and vanished into history, the only trace of him being the occasional heist of jewels and art across Europe for years after, bearing his signature.

Authorities for years sought both suspects- Poppins for her strange, unexplained abilities and role in the death of Michael Banks, Wentworth for his master skills as the world’s greatest cat burglar. Time faded for the families around Cherry Tree Lane. Admiral Thaddeus Boom was committed to a nursing home two months after the incident. George Banks lost interest in the world of banking and became a committed drinker. Winifred Banks turned her back on suffrage for women and joined her husband in an up close and personal examination of the drinking life. Jane Banks would go off to college, get married, and not pick up her family drinking habits, but something about her would always be marked by the absence of her brother. And Michael Banks would lie in his grave, joined in the years that followed by father, mother, and finally sister.

Experts had their own theories, some out there, others seemingly less so. Some suggested Poppins was an expert in sleight of hand and stage magic, making it appear as if she was doing something extraordinary while in fact she was doing things that could be explained. Others put forth the idea, strange in the early twentieth century, that Poppins was a practicing witch in the very real sense of the word.

“Not one of those current day Wiccans who hold hands and chant around Stonehenge, mind you,” Genevieve Richardson, a professor on the occult at Oxford told reporters. “The concept was that Poppins had to be the real thing- spell casting, communing with the forces of real magic. Some scholars wondered if she spent her time as a nanny to gather the spirit energy of young children for her spells. Others looked to unexplained incidents going back hundreds of years, and pored over old paintings and etchings of women who looked just like her. If you subscribe to the theory, Mary Poppins, or whatever her real name is, could have been hundreds of years old. I don’t subscribe to it myself, I mean come on, flying with umbrellas?”

And yet this week saw a shocking mid-air event that may well have brought closure to the strange case. A passenger jet flying from London to New York had a collision in flight just out over the Irish Sea. Initially the thought of the flight crew suggested birdstrike that damaged one of the engines. Turning back, the pilots safely landed their aircraft on English soil. Ground crews discovered something very different upon beginning to examine the engine, and called in government investigators. Civil Aviation Authority investigators are just beginning to investigate the case.

Sources close to the case, however, suggest that blood samples found in the engine wreckage are human- and match DNA samples going back to 1910- and belonging to Mary Poppins. Shredded remnants of what are described as an umbrella and black women’s clothing have also been found. If this was indeed Mary Poppins, the peculiar nanny met a fast but horrible end… with a spoonful of supercalifragilisticexpialidocious terror. 

The Hunt For An Enigmatic Nanny

Boy Dies In Mishap; Enigmatic Woman Sought For Questioning

London (Reuters) Scotland Yard is investigating a bizarre case in the heart of London, after a child fell to his death under mysterious circumstances. Michael Banks, 8, son of banker George Banks and his wife Winifred, plunged to the street from a height of over a hundred feet last evening. His sister Jane, 10, was a witness, described as hysterical after the fact.

How it precisely happened is still a question mark. Witnesses at a distance described the appearance of a staircase in the smoke from chimneys over the scene in the moonlight. “Right as rain, guvnah!” butcher Charlie Collins told reporters. “It was right up there, it was, guvnah! Four people, walking up a staircase full of smoke, like it was solid, right against the moon, guvnah! And then one of them just fell right out the bottom side, guvnah!”

Raymond Tarleton, a physician on his way home for the evening, saw the same event from another perspective. “A peculiar thing if you ask me,” the doctor informed this reporter. “Certainly one can always expect a good deal of smoke and fog on a London evening- perhaps too much. From a doctor’s point of view, all this smog can’t be that healthy. But I digress. I just think it’s an odd thing to see smoke take the shape of a staircase. And then to see people walk up that staircase. I mean, that defies the laws of gravity and physics. My word... to see a child fall through that smoke... for the rest of my days I shall never forget the sound of his scream.”

The Banks household is in mourning. George Banks is a long term employee of the Dawes Tomes Mousley Grubbs Fidelity Fiduciary Bank, which suffered a public relations fiasco yesterday during a bank run by citizenry. His wife Winifred is associated with the Vote For Women movement. Their residence on Cherry Tree Lane is a quiet place that had, in recent weeks, been the scene of unexplained occurrences.

“An ill wind,” neighbour and retired Navy Admiral Thaddeus Boom yelled at this reporter from his rooftop, where a replica of a Navy ship, complete with cannons, has been built onto the manor. His assistant and retired sailor Mr. Binnicle was busy preparing the cannons for a reason this reporter didn’t quite understand until after the fact. “Strangest nanny I’ve ever seen started working there when the wind turned to the east. All prim and proper, but flying around- literally flying around- with an umbrella, talking to dogs, and those children following her around saying things about jumping into sidewalks. Very strange. Now, it’s just about time, so... Mr. Binnacle! Are the cannons prepared?”

This was followed shortly thereafter by one of the cannons being fired, right at the stroke of eight AM, creating a ghastly boom that resonated through the area. Another neighbour, speaking on condition of anonymity, was irritated. “My nerves are at a knife edge. Twice every single day, that senile old bastard is up on that roof, blasting away with those cannons. I’ve never met anyone whose death I would celebrate, but when Boom finally ceases to breathe, I assure you, sir, I will pour a glass of fine champagne and toast the end of his miserable existence.”

Local constable Arthur Jones, whose walking beat includes Cherry Tree Lane, was downcast. “Oh, I know those children well,” he told reporters in a nearby park. “Just as well as I know crazy old Admiral Boom. Who, by the way, should be put in a retirement home and banned from getting anywhere near field artillery. The Banks used to have all sorts of problems with keeping a nanny in the household. Those kids, bless them, well, they were just being kids, getting into the odd bit of mischief like kids do. I brought them home from the park the odd time when they managed to get away from whichever nanny was in the family’s employ, but you know, at heart they’re both good children. I mean, well, poor young Michael, in his case, he was a good child. Hard to think of him in the past tense. But anyway, there was a problem retaining nannies. The one before last, well, if I can use a colourful expression, was a real battleaxe. Katie Nanna, they called her. This last one, this Miss Poppins? A real odd duck, if you ask me. Still, she seemed to keep the kids well behaved. At least I always thought so. Didn’t figure she was doing anything like what people are now saying she was doing. I mean, who thinks of witchcraft in this day and age?”

Scotland Yard is looking for the nanny in the wake of the tragedy. While Jane Banks is seeking solace in the company of her parents, and while funeral preparations are underway for Michael Banks, who met something of a gruesome end, the nanny, one Mary Poppins, vanished in the wake of the child’s fall. How she created a staircase out of smoke is a mystery. As is the question of how Michael fell out of it. She is described as slender, five foot eight, with black hair, a bewitching smile she rarely shows, a stern but fair demeanour, impeccably dressed, and carrying an umbrella and valise bag that contains more than it appears. She is also self-described as “practically perfect in every way.”

On a related matter, her accomplice, a Cockney chimney sweep and street entertainer answering to the name Bert, has been arrested. Bert, it turns out, is an alias for his true identity, Albert Geoffrey Wentworth III, the long missing heir of the Wentworth shipping industry. He is being held as the prime suspect in the so called Autolycus case, the infamous series of robberies of priceless jewels and art over a ten year period in which an estimated forty seven million pounds sterling valued items were stolen from galleries, museums, and private residences across Britain and Europe. Found stewing in a holding cell at the Yard by reporters, Wentworth simply shrugged, lacking the exaggerated Cockney accent he has been known for in recent years in the vicinity of Cherry Tree Lane, instead speaking in a refined tone. “Would any of you gentlemen care to wager how long before I can escape from here?”

A Spoonful Of Vodka Helps The Spam Go Down

Every once in awhile they show themselves. Yes, the awful spammers. Either they're lurking in your junk file in your email, where you might expect to see pharmacy spam, real estate scams, pills for enlargements, and messages from the elusive Adriana who insists she show you nude pictures of herself. And then they turn up in your spam folders for your blog, where most of them go to die, never to be posted in an actual blog, caught for the spam that they are. Some of them are unintelligible. Others insult my regular readers (how many times have I seen the "is it just me, or do some of the comments seem to come from brain dead people" comment?). And others seek to let me take them on as apprentices or guest blogs, an act that I would only do if I weren't in my right mind, since it would result in a mass exodus of my readers.

So it is that a few days ago the following message, with a link spamming Prada handbags, ended up in my notifications for my blog. For obvious reasons, I did not add it into published comments.

Dear Mr Banks, I first came across your works about 15 years ago and since then I have eagerly awaited each new publication. Whatever the genre your works have been impeccably written and superbly imagined; never failing to excite and stimulate; never failing to amuse (and at times confuse); never failing to lift the imagination to a higher plane. I can only wish you well in these difficult times and my heartfelt thanks and appreciation for all your works to date.

Me again. Well, apparently our spamming friend seems to think my name is Mr. Banks. So sorry, but no, I can't say I'm an English banker who likes things in his life to be just so and hires nannies who are practically perfect in every way. In fact, I can't even pull off an English accent. Any time I make the attempt, I inevitably slide into an Australian or Irish accent. So no, I'm not Mr. Banks. Besides, I'm pretty sure I have no need of nannies, since I don't have children (at least that I know of). And I prefer a beard to just the plain mustache. Besides, I avoid at all costs the wearing of a noose... I mean, a tie. Yes, I do think my work amuses and confuses people (admit it, dear readers, you're wondering where my lunacy comes from, aren't you?), but that's hardly the point! And I'm pretty sure that what I was writing fifteen years ago has never seen the light of day, so what on Earth has this spammer been reading, and who's this Banks fellow he, she, or it seems to have me mistaken with?

I'm sorry, Not So Dear Spammer, but I don't know any nannies who look suspiciously like Julie Andrews and like to fly with umbrellas, defy the laws of gravity, and hang out with Dick Van Dyke, a couple of kids, and every chimney sweep in London on rooftops and in cartoon chalk drawings that feature dancing penguins and marijuana brownies during high tea. Nor do I know any nannies who break into song for no reason at all while telling children that there's fun to be had even in chores. I have never met people who have tea parties at the ceilings of their home. I would not knowingly hire someone clearly making use of the dark arts of witchcraft and who seems to know everything I think before I do. Let's face it, that's a bit creepy. I have never had the Bride of Frankenstein in my employ (look it up, we'll wait for you).  And I'm pretty sure that none of my neighbours are retired admirals who like firing their cannons (and violating the noise bylaws) from their rooftops twice a day. In short, I'm not Mr. Banks.

To the spammers: do you honestly think I'll publish your comments? Do you really believe I'm that foolish? I know, they'll never give up trying. And every once in awhile, they'll write something that I just have to comment on. Well, I leave you to it with these pics of the dark arts using nanny with the umbrella and a fondness for soot covered chimney sweeps turned jacks of all trades.

Just watch yourself around Mary Poppins, people. Never let your guard down. She knows what you're thinking. Yes. Every single thought that would shock the Sisters Of Little Or No Mercy.