Art Thief's Final Caper LbNA #24658

Owner:	Adoptable
Plant date:	Aug 18, 2006
Location:
City:	Spokane
County:	Spokane
State:	Washington
Boxes:	3

Planted by:	The Fat Lady
Found by:	YetiGeorge (2)
Last found:	Sep 5, 2010
Status:	FFFFFFFFFFFFF
Last edited:	Aug 18, 2006

LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT

I, Hieronymus Houdini, being of sound mind but failing body, do hereby declare this to be my last will and testament, to supersede and invalidate all previous versions.

I. PERSONAL STATEMENT
For forty-five years, I have been rumored to be the world’s most prolific (and, I dare say, most tasteful) “art thief,” though I strongly prefer the term “acquisitions director for special collectors.” Each time a great artwork has gone missing, authorities have speculated that I, Hieronymus Houdini, was responsible.

Because this document shall be opened only upon my death, and because that death appears to be imminent, I hereby confirm that these rumors have been valid. I am proud to have liberated countless paintings, sculptures, rare manuscripts, and the like from the chilly, lifeless halls of museums. I am proud that, today, nearly every one of these works resides, rightfully, in the private, loving home of a true connoisseur, far from the uneducated, bovine stares of the masses.

One masterpiece, just one, I have saved for myself. My lifelong love affair with Edvard Munch’s The Scream was consummated the day I (and a hired helper, now deceased) retrieved and kept the version that had so tragically hung, within view of any ignorant washer-woman who cared to glance its way, upon a Norwegian museum’s unworthy walls. (http://www.fbi.gov/hq/cid/arttheft/topten/munch.htm) So well have I always understood that wailing figure, its lone placement on a bridge, apart from the shoving hoi polloi! Such brotherhood have I felt with its weeping mouth, its hands covering ears which scarcely tolerate the mundane world and its bestial, subhuman voice! I have worshipped this artwork all the days of my life, and my time in its company has been too short. Yet I have had time with it, and for this I congratulate myself thoroughly.

II. BEQUESTS
I have no heirs, and but one significant possession to bequeath. Surely, somewhere on earth, is another enlightened genius worthy of The Scream, but if so, I have not found that person. And now, as death sidles nearer, I have no further time for the search; I must trust that a suitable legatee will present him or herself after I depart, proving his or her worthiness through perseverance.

And perseverance it will require, this quest to obtain my dear Scream. The masterpiece’s whereabouts—in the form of GPS coordinates—shall lie with my body in its final resting place. I wish to face and, from the beyond, to congratulate the intrepid hunter who manages to find the coordinates; thus, in order to obtain them, he or she will have to exhume my physical remains.

My gravesite is, of course, a secret. I have chosen to reside near, but not in, a city of the dead which stands at the side of a river. As an innovator in my own right, I shall be proud to rest near Spokane pioneers such as John A. Finch and Louis Davenport. My rightful legatee shall drive through the gates of this memorial park, proceeding right at the stone wall and straight, not left, though another gate. The route then passes to the right of Tulip, then by Mr. Finch on the left. It continues, weaving right at the blue bell. With Smilax to the left, it threads its way between Saturnia and Latah and then, beyond Orchid, curves left at the Y. Just after Idlewild on the right, the route takes a right turn. It proceeds forward, ignoring side roads, past a verdant hedge. My legatee shall roll to a stop, just before the road bends right along a line of boulders, at a left-side gravelly spot fit for parking. Stony sentries lie across a wide trail ahead and to the left, but a person on foot can bypass them. Fifty steps along this path, a great boulder on the left, serenaded by river sounds to the seeker’s right, marks my final resting place.

III. FINAL REMARKS
The trusted associate who is making public this last will and testament is a person of discretion and loyalty. All the fine chocolates in the world would not, I am confident, constitute a bribe adequate to make her divulge the location of my grave. (She has, it is true, a weakness for See’s Candies, but to double-ensure her obedience I have given her a large gift of stock in the company.) The only means, therefore, of locating my greatest of treasures is to forego cheating, apply ingenuity equal to my own, and sally forth on an acquisitions excursion in the fine style of Hieronymus Houdini, the greatest-ever purveyor of fine art and antiquities!

*******
August 31, 2006
Note from H. Houdini’s Trusted Associate:
Norwegian police claim to have recovered the stolen Munch artwork (http://apnews.excite.com/article/20060831/D8JRICUO0.html), but I assure you the “recovered” piece is a forgery. The original work still lies where H. Houdini concealed it, and waits to be united with its True Heir!

September 12, 2008
Further note from Trusted Associate:
Earlier this year, rank thieves discovered and made off with Mr. Houdini’s The Scream. I have spent the months since then probing the art Underground for clues to its whereabouts, and am pleased to say I’ve recovered the painting. By necessity, I have hidden it in a different location from the first, and the new GPS coordinates now lie in Mr. Houdini’s tomb. Dear Heir, count it as a new “find” if you seek out and locate The Scream’s new vault.

[One other note from the placer: This series carries the "extreme" box icon only because you need specialized equipment--a GPS unit--to find the second box. Neither box actually requires extreme physical skills such as rapelling, scuba diving, or parachuting. The Fat Lady don't do that stuff.]