Though cigarettes got started in
Great Britain post the Crimean War, there were moral objections (imagine that)
to their use. But nicotine outdid and outdoes morality so they got into the best
clubs and onto railway cars. Conan Doyle's Sherlock did smoke cigs though he
did have pipes and an occasional cigar. The Sherlock Holmes I directly know has
no use for cigs. Good for him.
Mr. Holmes had not been gone long.
(See the last diary entry if need be.) He started into my bedroom positively
beaming - most uncharacteristic of him. But he felt in fine feather. I was soon
to know why.
So something is up, as I can see. So
what is it?
Said Mr. Holmes - The warehouse is
small and dusty and dark. Six lorries or trucks operate from there. The trucks
carry candy, cigarettes, shotgun shells, shaving kits, and a bit of whatnot for
one and all, it would seem. Most of the inventory is on pallets on the
warehouse floor. Some are on shelves. There is a special cigarette room where
the cigarette cases are opened so that the revenue tax can be stamped onto the
packs.
Said I - I once worked doing this
sort of thing. I was a stock boy in a smallish warehouse. The cases have thin
lines on them so that the now infamous box cutters can cut along these lines
and spilt the cases into halves. Then the cartons are taken out of the cases. Then
it is to the cigarette stamp machine. The cartons are then pushed along a
grooved channel of the machine until the machine grabs them, slits the carton
open, passes the carton under a stamping machine, a Pitney-Bowes it was, stamps
the packs, and records on a counter the number of stamps applied. The stamper
and counter is one unit. It has an ink reservoir that must be kept filled so
that the stamp can be seen. That is, to have enough ink to record the stamp's
impression on the pack. Then the carton goes on in the channel to a zone were
the carton encounters a warmed glue to re-seal the carton.
Hm, odd then, said Mr. Holmes. Why would
a Zeegler inject green gas into three cigarette cases?
A Zeegler!
To be sure, they are challenging us
again. That was most refreshing - to have encountered that Zeegler. He had a
pack on his back. From the pack came a tube that finished in a clear nozzle
with a needle at the very end. He inserted the needle into the cases and the
nozzle showed a green gas being dispensed.
I asked -Whatever could they be up
to? Why inject a gas before they are stamped?
Mr. Holmes - Actually, the missing
cigarettes go missing before they are stamped.
And the Zeeglers are involved with
only three or four cases? They could intercept a railroad car full of them. Why
let them get into the warehouse and steal them before stamping?
Mr. Holmes - Ah, a good puzzle, no
doubt of that. Rest assured, many other Zeeglers are at work in other
warehouses. No doubt they want to operate in a quiet manner, in low quantities,
to poison the cigarettes. But we are on to them.
But why avoid the stamping?
Retailers can't accept them without the stamps. If this is a worldwide effort,
the black market of unstamped cigs probably wouldn't be enough for Their plans.
Yes, indeed, something unknown is in
play here. I must return to the warehouse to examine the stamping machine.
Say I - Poisoned cigs give them the
world? There are a lot of cig smokers. Then there is secondhand smoke. But that
would still leave a lot of people unaffected.
Mr. Holmes - We may have encountered
the first of Their two-stage plans. The smokers are one part. Once it, stage
one, is sent onward then they will perhaps initiate stage two.
Could be, we need to only stop stage
one.
Correct, as I also surmise.
So it was back to the warehouse for
Mr. Holmes. And back he came to my house.
Well?
I have borrowed some of the ink used
for stamping. If it is not consumed by my chemical tests, I can return it. I do
know a good deal about tobacco but not about the stamping as done here. I am
convinced that the only interference to the gas-treated cigarettes could come
from the ink. I also have some of the gas. The Zeegler hid the backpack to
return to do another case, once more arrived from the rail depot.
Something about the ink counteracts
the gas?
Perhaps. Chemical analysis will
tell.
It did speak. The ink had a chemical
as part of it that could nullify a significant portion of the gas. The force of
the stamper extruded some of the gas and the ink's chemical component reacted
with the gas.
The cigs, once lit, and if coming
from a pack with a fake stamp courtesy of Them, had the heat of the burning
tobacco stirring the gas to expand and becoming mostly all that could enter the
lungs. The smoker then had enormous trouble breathing- right up until their
swift demise. Secondhand smoke took longer to act, but the results were the same.
Mr. Holmes was getting into disguise
for a trip to the Air Base. I asked - why do they inject the cigs in the
warehouse?
Perhaps they wish them to remain in
inventory a longer time.
Upon his return from the Air Base,
knowledgeable in that we (he) had stopped them yet again, he was in an
expansive mood and for at least an hour he regaled me with accounts of his
cases. None of them ever got written up by Dr. Watson/Conan Doyle. Most of his
cases were local, even close to Baker Street, in fact, or at least bound to
London. I asked him jokingly if ever there was the Case of the Missing
Cupcakes.
He didn't see the humor (maybe I
oversold myself) and said no such like case had ever come up.
But he and I had yet to be visited
by first-grader Stephanie.
So far,
and it has been some days since Mr. Holmes visited the Air Base, our klaxon has
remained silent. All the authorities needed to do was establish security at a
sufficient number of warehouses. Our Opponents were doing a slow, unobtrusive
buildup. Suddenly They could have flooded the market with Their cigs. The
nicotine habit would kick in.
I suppose the gas really had no color. Why make
it green? It smacked of science fiction.
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