After stealing an El Greco from the Louvre the Rat Burglar was chased through the Tuileries on foot by French police. The gendarmes found the painting, cut from its frame and hanging from a branch in a small enclosure. They approached it, searching for signs of damage, and then, according to the report, “the tree came alive.” Three of the officers were knocked unconscious; a fourth, the victim of a debilitating kick to his leg, said that the tree became a hulking figure “well over two meters,” swathed in black, who rolled up the canvas and, swinging it playfully like a cricket bat, sauntered off through the garden “without even doing us the dignity of running.”

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Annual income from museum admission far outstrips ticket sales to all sporting arenas of all sports combined; of course museum boards have a vested interest in acquiring and retaining their works, she says, regardless of how they are attained.

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Often the thieves are diplomats or journalists or soldiers who have immunity or privilege or power by fiat. What is a country like Benin to do when British troops help themselves to their sacred gold? What could Egypt do to stop Napoleon from taking the Rosetta Stone? Has diplomacy helped the Greeks recover the Parthenon Marbles?

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She says it’s the most widespread looting since World War Two. She also says something about who is doing the looting, but I’m not really listening. I’m deafened by outrage.

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Although how this is to be accomplished in one’s own home is not clear.

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PJ, after all, cut the green wire.

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Jimmy the Hat is like the J. D. Salinger of muscle; no one has ever positively identified him and there are no existing photographs; his only ID is the image of a hat with a knife thrust through, Cupid-arrow style.

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So rapidly that she doesn’t bother to locate her bra in the shipwrecked bedding.

43

Tougher than it sounds. A lot of these toxins are engineered to avoid detection. Usually only the newest ones, ones that have yet to be refined, have any odor. Nix, for example, is instantly recognizable. It smells like a potpourri of sperm whale feces and hamster vomit. Even Schermer can get that one.

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Also no easy feat. Now that Azar has killed so many of his rivals there are a lot of underlings adrift and looking for freelance work. It’s tough to keep them all straight.

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Herk would be proud.

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Robert Mang, a retention engineer who famously used his knowledge of alarm systems to steal $65 million worth of Renaissance figures from a Vienna museum.

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