Prohibition – A Constitutional Flip Flop

 

The temperance movement in the United States began nearly as soon as the country was founded. Many citizens considered drinking beer, wine and liquor to be immoral. Many others believed that widespread imbibing of alcohol would threaten the young nation’s future.

From as early as 1800, these citizens wanted to prohibit their fellow citizens from making and/or drinking all forms of alcoholic beverages. Their efforts grew the movement, and in 1826 the American Christian Temperance Union was founded, initially with 222 local chapters. By 1835, there were approximately 8000 chapters.

Image via Wiki Media

According to historian Ken Burns, by 1930 the average American over the age of fifteen consumed nearly seven gallons of pure alcohol per year. This is about three times as much as Americans drink today. The abuse of alcohol, primarily by men, wreaked violence on women and children and created instability in families in a time when women had few legal rights. Most women were totally dependent on their husbands for support.

In America’s Protestant churches, many leaders and congregations, who wanted to rid America of evil, came to consider alcohol to be nearly as sinful as slavery. Thus, during the nineteenth century, efforts of the abolitionist and the temperance movements frequently overlapped. Many of the activists in both efforts were women, so it isn’t surprising that these movements became entwined with the fight for women’s rights, including women’s suffrage. The associations among these movements had both pros and cons for each of the individual endeavors. For example, the link between temperance and women’s suffrage threatened to sink ratification of the 19^th Amendment, which granted women the right to vote, in the Tennessee legislature since most members of that body were not fans of prohibition.

By the turn of the twentieth century, communities across the country had local temperance societies. One of these organizations was the Anti-Saloon League which was formed in 1893 to lobby all levels of government to prohibit the manufacture and sale of beverages containing alcohol. Although much public-facing support came from evangelical Protestantism which considered saloons to be wicked, many factory owners also backed these measures, believing that having sober workers would result in increased production and fewer accidents. Throughout the early years of the new century, the fight for prohibition continued to grow.

  

18th Amendment - National Archives

When the United States entered World War I, President Woodrow Wilson established an order for temporary wartime prohibition to preserve grain for food production. Subsequent public pressure induced Congress to pass the 18^th Amendment, banning manufacture, transportation and sale of intoxicating liquors by the end of that same year—1917. Within eleven months, the amendment received approval by the necessary three quarters of the states. It was ratified on January 16, 1919 and was set to go into effect a year later. In the meantime, Congress passed the Volstead Act which laid out guidelines for federal enforcement.

                                           

Image from Library of Congress

While temperance societies rejoiced, much of the rest of the country did not. The sizable portion of the population who wanted to keep drinking alcohol found a myriad of ways to do so, ranging from bootlegging to development of speakeasies, spawning the culture of the ‘roaring 20s,’ Many times, the ‘bathtub gin’ or moonshine was produced in personal homes or on private land. Consequently, enforcement of prohibition was difficult at all levels of government. Not surprisingly, the law was applied more stringently in geographical areas where the population was supportive of temperance than those where the residents were not.

Outside the Krazy Kat Speakeasy in Washington, D.C.-1921 
Image from Library of Congress

Organized crime sprang up around bootlegged production, the operation of speakeasies and the transportation of illegal alcoholic beverages across state lines. This also led to increased violence, especially in cities where there were competing organized crime families. Attempts to bring this rise in lawlessness under control led to the transfer of federal responsibility for enforcement of prohibition from agency to agency. Desperate to bring the situation under control, the U.S. government ordered the poisoning of industrial alcohols, which were routinely stolen by bootleggers. At least 10,000 people are estimated to have died as a result of this federal mandate.

21st Amendment - National Archives

In 1932, Franklin D. Roosevelt ran for president on a platform that included calling for the repeal of prohibition. The country was in the throes of the Great Depression, and legalizing the liquor industry promised to create numerous jobs and needed revenue. Roosevelt was elected in a landslide. In February 1933, Congress passed the resolution proposing a 21^st amendment to the constitution which would repeal the 18^th Amendment and end prohibition. By December of that same year, the required 36 states had voted for ratification and the federal prohibition of beer, wine and liquor officially ended. A few states initially continued to ban alcohol, but by 1966 all had abandoned prohibition.

  Ann Markim

 Website

Facebook

                        

 Buy Links: Paperback at Amazon                     Amazon print or digital

Amazon Kindle 

Music I Write By.

 Music I write by – Lindsay Townsend

I love music. I think to music and write to music, and have done so since my earliest days. My first published novel, my romantic suspense, "Voices in the Dark" was set in the world of Italian opera and the hero and heroine were opera singers. Remember the Puccini Tosca set on location in Rome, with Placido Domingo? That was shown during my research for that book, and I still have the video. In another of my earlier novels, the villain had an obsession with the arresting music of the tortured (and all-round weird) Gesualdo, renaissance madrigal composer. 

In my medieval historical romance "Master Cook and the Maiden", my hero Swein gifts the heroine Alfwen with a wooden pipe, as he noticed her liking of the music of bird-song - thus showing his own care for her and marking a growing closeness between them. I sometimes listen to the real medieval music of Guillaume de Machaut, to my classically-nurtured ear full of exotic, Eastern-sounding harmonies. I also enjoy Thomas Tallis, a slightly later composer, especially his Mass for Four Voices.

To me certain composers have certain associations. Beethoven with his energy and sublime slow movements makes me think of that state of shimmering, contented joy of those in love. Schubert makes me think of Gothic romance, dark romance – the knock at the door at midnight….but who is outside? Brahms and Schumann are passion and energy. I listen to them and think of heroes with dark, secret, wounded pasts. While I was writing "Master Cook and the Maiden" I listened to Dvorak's Stabat Mater over and over, as its large themes and urgency seemed to match what I was creating.

Gerald Finzi means the essence of ‘English’ landscape to me, that slightly fey element, even more so than my other favourite, Vaughan Williams. I listened to Finzi while writing "Unicorn Summer", one of the novellas in the anthology "One Midsummer's Knight." Finzi inspired me!

I can happily tap along to music – a bit of a rush and many mistakes in the quick movements, but I love it. Music somehow opens my mind and imagination, my emotions. It ‘sits’ firmly on my most niggling critic – my inner editor – and allows me to make music in my own way – on the page.

What music do you enjoy to read to or to write to?

To finish here is an excerpt from another of my Prairie Rose Publications titles, "Sir Conrad and the Christmas Treasure," where, in a dream, the hero Conrad admits to the heroine that he loves music and singing.

Excerpt.

Conrad dreamed he was floating above the long nave of York Minster, spotting the scaffolding beside the thick Norman pillars, watching the beams of light through the upper windows. Ahead was the great rood, the beam and screen marking the sacred spaces between the main church and the chancel, with its carved and painted figures of Christ on the cross, Mary the holy mother and Saint John the Baptist. Robed in blue and with her long golden hair loose to her hips, Maggie floated beside the statue of the blessed virgin, her arms wide in welcome.  

And why have I not understood before now, how very beautiful she is, more even than I first realised?

“See.” She nodded to the altar, adorned with bunches of mistletoe, their milky berries glistening in the candle-light. “The plant of peace and reconciliation.”

“Protection against lightning,” he replied, falling into their accustomed, easy rivalry.

“Mistletoe also guards against evil witches.”

“There are other kinds?”

She smiled like a brilliant summer. “My mother Florence was a wart-charmer in our village and a good hedge-witch. She would brush the cows with small branches of mistletoe to charm them, help to give them more calves in the next year.”

“My mother…” Even in the dream Conrad pummelled his mind, trying to think of a unique skill she had. It saddened him that his maternal parent, skilled in running a great house, had nothing that was simply hers.

“When did you begin to paint?” he asked.

She laughed. “Always! I would draw in the dirt with my finger if I had no brushes or ochre to hand.”

He nodded in understanding. “With me it was music. I would bellow out the old songs of the shepherds, until my voice broke.” And I was told by father that singing like a low-born troubadour brought shame to the family. 

“You sing well,” Maggie said.

“Thank you,” Conrad answered, recalling their duet with pleasure. After another moment he sighed. “Perhaps Mother had something. I forget.”

“I am certain she did.” Stepping close in the smoky air Maggie tucked a sprig of mistletoe into his tunic, her brief touch both comforting and promising more. “When she was a girl, Florence would gather sprays of mistletoe from apple orchards.”

“A good custom,” he replied, while the earthier part of him, present even in a dream, thought and a sign of kisses to come between us, a kiss for each berry. 

Content, he slumbered without stirring until daybreak.

Sir Conrad and the Christmas Treasure USA https://amazon.com/gp/product/B07KW6K5RL/

UK https://amazon.co.uk/dp/B07KW6K5RL/

What is the true treasure of Christmas?

Maggie’s younger brother, Michael, is kidnapped by outlaws, and it’s up to her to rescue him. Appealing to Sir Conrad, the grim steward of the northern English high lands, is the very last thing she wants to do. With the very real possibility that the outlaws know of Michael’s talent—the ability to open any lock, to reveal any treasure—Maggie races against time to find him before his usefulness to the outlaws is ended.

Sir Conrad desires Maggie from the minute he sees her—she makes him feel alive again—and that has not happened since the death of his wife. Though he hasn’t known Maggie before, a strange feeling of familiarity nags, and he agrees to aid the beautiful peasant girl in this quest of finding her brother.

Happy Summer!

Lindsay Townsend 

New Release -- The Barlow Wives Box Set by Agnes Alexander

Snuggle up with a hard working rancher and enjoy these great full length, heartwarming stories of love and laughter under the wide blue, Wyoming sky!

 MYRA’S ESCAPE 

Escape is her only choice…

Myra Felton’s grandfather has sold her to a banker to pay his debts. She plans her escape… A chance encounter with a marriage broker gives her the best plan, she agrees to travel to Wyoming, as far as she can get. 

He’s desperate for a cook…

Anson Barlow fears mutiny from his four younger brothers if he can’t come up with someone to cook a decent meal for them all once in a while. When he signs a contract for a housekeeper, he doesn’t realize that also means a wife.

 

JOSEPHINE’S CHALLENGE 

When a friend asks for help…

Josephine Kirkpatrick needs a brand-new start…a challenge. Losing her husband—and then her business—were two hard blows. When her old friend, Myra Barlow, invites her to come West and be with her during the birth of her first baby, Josephine knows that’s just the change she needs. 

Redheads and bullets do mix…

Ryder Barlow needs a redheaded woman around like he needs another hole in his head. He’s had enough of every redhead alive to last him a lifetime! But when his sister-in-law invites her beautiful friend to come for an extended visit, he finds he’s not done with dealing with flame-haired women yet—especially after he’s wounded, and Josephine must care for him… 

PATRICE’S SHAME 

Prostitution or ranching…

Beautiful Patrice Dickerson is all too happy to leave Philadelphia to claim half of a ranch in Wyoming—an unexpected windfall from an aunt. But the catch is, the other half has been left to a man that Patrice has never met. Patrice can think of nothing but the new start this gift means for her—to outrun the shame that has threatened her all her life. Her mother, a well-known prostitute, has been pressing Patrice to join her in “the business”. 

Half a ranch or more…

Gavin Barlow has suddenly found himself the owner of half of the Hopewell Ranch—a spread that adjoins the Barlow family land. When the new joint owner from back East arrives, Gavin plans to ask him to sell out. Surely, an Eastern dandy will be eager to sell… 

KENDRA’S SEARCH

 

A new journey…

When Kendra Fullerton’s father declares he’s moving the family from Philadelphia to England, she and her sister, Francine, rebel. Kendra knows her father has carried on a long-time affair with her best friend’s mother—could she and her best friend, Patrice, actually be half-sisters? Kendra and Francine head to Wyoming for a visit with Patrice to search for the truth. But nearing her destination, a train wreck introduces her—in a most embarrassing way—to a handsome, but confirmed, bachelor.

 

Puzzing through a web of deceit…

Though Garrison Barlow tries to remain steadfastly uninvolved emotionally, he is determined to protect Kendra. A sordid and dangerous past poses a deadly threat to Kendra’s entire family, especially her father, who is being held prisoner. Can Garrison protect the woman he’s fallen for? 

YOLANDA’S HOPE

Can young love endure…

When the Stinson ranch is attacked and Yolanda’s father is severely injured, Paxton Barlow steps in to help—and to protect the Stinson family and holdings.

 

Fighting to hold on to a legacy…

Paxton is shocked to realize that Yolanda is all grown up—not the little girl he remembers from their growing-up days. And his beautiful neighbor has the power to make Paxton see red when she looks at another man. A confirmed bachelor, now the youngest Barlow brother is confronted with a decision he never thought he’d have to make.

The Pearl Button Capital of the World--In Iowa

On a recent trip to visit my in-laws, I noticed a brown historical marker just outside Muscatine, Iowa: "Pearl Button Capital of the World." Such an unlikely designation for a landlocked town. However, research shows it's not as unlikely as I first thought.

For much of the 1800s, people harvested freshwater pearl mussels mostly for their pearls. The shells were used on the roads and the meat--which was not fit to consume--was dumped.  Turns out, this section of the Mississippi, where there is a northerly swing which slows the water, is prime for freshwater mussels. Hence, it was perfect for mussel harvesting.

In 1887, German button maker John Frederick Boepple (that's him on the right), arrived in the United States and settled in the Mississippi River town of Muscatine, Iowa. New tariffs on his buttons in Germany had cut drastically into his profit and he decided to relocated to the United States. Armed with maps of the rivers of America, he began to search for new supplies of mussel shells. He found what he was looking for in Muscatine when he waded into the muddy waters and pulled up a mussel the size of a baby elephant’s ear.

Boepple opened a mother-of-pearl button factory in 1891, supplied by an abundance of thick-shelled American pearl mussels from nearby rivers and streams. By 1900, this small Iowa town had earned the right to call itself the "Pearl Button Capital of the World," out-producing more established button-making centers in Europe. By 1905 button makers in Muscatine produced 1.5 billion buttons—almost 40 percent of the buttons produced in the entire world.

They held their distinction in the world until the plastic button industry undercut them. With the decline of the button business, most of Muscatine’s mussel fishers began sending their shell to factories in Japan and other foreign shores where bits of the shells were turned into nuclei used to seed marine pearl oysters for cultured pearls. At its height in 1993, the industry exported nearly 7,000 tons of shells. This region remains the major source of nuclei for use in pearl culturing worldwide.

On a rather sad side-note, Boepple died of a blood infection after cutting his heel on a mussel shell while wading in the Mississippi. He was working with the Fairport Federal Hatchery biological station in Muscatine to re-seed the rivers and help salvage the marine creatures and the local shell industry that had long supported this small Iowa river town.

Want to see how a pearl button is made? Check it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DI_eyCNj-M0

 

Tracy

First Woman Doctor in the U.S.?

 

Post by Doris McCraw aka Angela Raines

I'm currently working on a book about the women doctors who are buried in Evergreen Cemetery in Colorado Springs. In the course of looking into the background of women doctors, the name of Dr. Harriot Kezia Hunt has come up more than once. While not necessarily from the west, her practice in Boston, MA. help make possible the women who traveled west to the new frontier. 

Below is a brief biography of this amazing woman.

While Elizabeth Blackwell may have been the first woman to graduate from medical school in the United States, she was not the first woman doctor. Many believe that Dr. Harriot Kezia Hunt, who practiced in Boston Massachusetts in the 1830s, was the first woman doctor in the United States.

She was the first woman to apply to Harvard Medical School, and although initially, she was to be allowed to audit the medical classes, the student body rose in protest so that avenue was denied her. That did not stop Dr. Hunt. After her initial work with another doctor, she continued her studies.

Dr. Hunt began to pursue her studies when her sister Sarah became ill. After many different doctors and diagnoses, Harriet turned her sister's treatment over to an English couple, Drs. Richard and Elizabeth Mott. Elizabeth Mott specialized in treating women and children. As Harriot said in her autobiography, "the doubt, uncertainty, and inefficacy of medical practice had been our portion; and the best positions had given up and only sister!"

Dr. Hunt continued studying with and working beside the Motts until Richard's death and Elizabeth removed to New York. From that point on Harriet continue to build her practice, focusing on women and children.

Hygeia, the Greek goddess of health,
carved by Edmonia Lewis c. 1871-1872 for Harriot Hunt's grave

Dr. Hunt was also involved in social reform, specifically abolition of slavery and women's rights, attending the 1850 women's rights convention in Massachusetts.

Dr. Hunt also corresponded with Dr. Blackwell on at least one occasion. Quoting again from her biography Dr. Hunt states, "after my experience with Harvard College, first the professors, then the students who played the same game with different men, it was truly encouraging to hear that Elizabeth Blackwell had graduated at another college, had been to Europe to refer to perfect herself in her profession, and returned to New York to commence her practice. My soul rejoiced — I poured out my feelings in a letter, and gave her the right hand of fellowship; it was acknowledged in an answer worthy of the writer."

In 1853, Dr. Hunt was awarded an honorary degree from the female medical College of Philadelphia.

Dr. Hunt was born on November 9, 1805, and died on January 2, 1875. In recent years more and more information has become available about this dedicated woman. For more information, here are some additional links:

National Park Service - Boston National Historic Park

Center for the History of Medicine - Harvard

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Harriot-Kezia-Hunt

Doris McCraw

Things Discovered by mistake in the Nineteenth Century

 Things Discovered by mistake in the Nineteenth Century

By C. A. Asbrey

There have been many great scientific discoveries that have made our lives longer, easier, more pleasant, but more of them were stumbled upon than aimed for than you'd think. I thought it might be fun to have a look at some of the inventions that changed our lives for the better while the scientists were looking elsewhere for something else entirely.

Artificial Sweetener  

In 1878 the Russian scientists, Constantin Fahlberg and Ira Remsen, were working on the coal tar derivative benzoic sulphimide, when Fahlberg noticed that something on his hand was sweet. In another version of the story, Fahlberg laid down his cigarette, and found that was tainted. Now, I'd never recommend going around laboratories licking at random chemical reactions sticking to your hands, or tasting things the chemicals adhere to, but I'm sure he knew what he was doing. At least, he knew it wouldn't kill him. What did surprise him was the taste. It was sweet. Remsen and Fahlberg developed a synthesis of saccharin from o-sulfamoylbenzoic acid. Despite the slightly metallic aftertaste, it became hugely popular as an aid to weight loss. Its reputation was enhanced when it was endorsed by Theodore Roosevelt in 1906, before it sank in public health warnings in the twentieth century.

Corn Flakes

John Harvey Kellogg built on an invention by his brother, Will, who worked at Battle Creek Sanatorium. It was originally made with wheat, and was popular with inmates there. There is dispute about who did what with the product, with Will's wife, Ella, reputed to be the one who suggested rolling the flakes flat before toasting them. John is said to have designed rollers to do this at an industrial level. What is agreed is that John was testing wheat-berry dough, and left a batch there overnight. Rather than throw it out, they sent it through the rollers and baked it—and it was perfect. Cornflakes were born.

What is less well-known is that the Kelloggs were Seventh-day Adventists who promoted an austere diet as part of their strict moral principles. They saw a link between a teetotal vegetarian diet, restraint from sex and masturbation, and a long healthy life. Their strict moral principles never stopped John, Will, and Ella from each giving a version of the story that favoured their own efforts, and reduced the input of the other two, though. John even claimed to have discovered the secret in a dream.

Worcestershire Sauce

First of all, the pronunciation. It's 'woo-ster' sauce. Not 'wor-chestershire'. Place and proper names in the UK are frequently not phonetic. There are hundreds of them, and this is one. Secondly, etiquette dictates that the 'shire' part is only pronounced when applied to the place - and Worcestershire is a real place. When applied to the sauce, it's 'woo-ster' only. Those are the rules set by the British upper classes to sift the wheat from the chaff hundreds of years ago, and are part of the series of landmines set to catch the unwary. Names like Featherstonehaugh are pronounced Fanshaw, Marjoriebanks turns into Marchbanks, Powell becomes Pole, and Belvoir Castle becomes Beever Castle. Worcestershire Sauce is 'Wooster sauce'. That's how the queen says it, and she's the one to argue to the contrary with, as I'll have moved on and will be writing a different blog post by then. However, she'd probably be too polite to correct you.

 But to the sauce.

The story goes that Lord Sandy had returned from Bengal, India in 1835, and desperately missed his favourite sauce. He commissioned local pharmacists, John Lea and William Perrins, to reproduce it. They mixed spices, tamari, soy, vinegar, anchovies, and numerous other ingredients to come up with a product that was so potent it was soundly rejected not only by Lord Sandy, but by all their customers too.

They put the stock down in the cellar and forgot about it for a couple of years, until it was discovered during a clean-out. The sauce had fermented and changed completely, and they couldn't sell enough of it. Before long they encouraged the transatlantic liners to put it on the tables. That took it to America, recorded as first selling there in 1839.

The fermented fish-based sauce is often compared to the omnipresent Ancient Roman sauce garum. However, garum was based on sauces made throughout the ancient world, and had various names including liquamen. These fish-based, fermented sauces also gave a strong umami flavour based on the presence of glutamates, and perform a similar function to soy sauce in the Far East.

In 2013 the original recipe was discovered and reproduced, giving people a chance to taste the original product. The ingredients were; Barley malt vinegar, Spirit vinegar, Molasses, Sugar, Salt, Anchovies, Tamarind extract, Shallots (later replaced by onions), Garlic, Spices & Flavourings.

Dynamite and Nitroglycerine

Nitroglycerine was discovered in 1847 by the Italian, Ascanio Sobrero, in Turin. He had studied in Paris, a leading centre of scientific discoveries in the nineteenth century, and he initially found no use for it. He called it pyroglycerine, and thought it was far too volatile and destructive to be of any use. nitroglycerine was more powerful than the black powder used at the time. It was over to Alfred Nobel to take the work further. One day he was working in the lab and he dropped a vial of nitroglycerine, but it failed to explode—it had landed on a pile of sawdust, and the absorbent qualities had made the compound more unpredictable. Nobel ran with this discovery, producing sticks of explosives made by mixing nitroglycerin with wood chips, and the rest is history.   

But that wasn't the end of the story. There were numerous medicines discovered by accident, and most of them will be well-known. Cases such as penicillin spores killing off bacteria in a sample left nearby, or Jenner noticing that those who worked with cattle rarely caught smallpox, leading to the advent of vaccinations. There are less well-known ones though, and lithium is a case in point, originally being used for a treatment for gout until other uses were found in the twentieth century.

When Sobrero was working with nitroglycerine, he noted that ingesting just a small amount from his fingers gave him a raging headache. I'll pause once more to reflect how often scientists of the past found themselves licking and tasting their discoveries, before moving on.

Two years later, in 1849, Constantin Hering was working with nitroglycerine, and experimented on healthy volunteers. He found that the headaches were caused with 'such precision' that it merited further investigation. He was originally working on the homeopathic principle of 'curing like with like', and thought that he might have found a cure for headaches, but reached a dead end in his trials.

It was Alfred Nobel who gave a clue to the medicinal application. He had angina, and found that his symptoms were relieved by handling it. Lauder Brunton was working with amyl nitrite, and experimenting on its use as a vasodilator. He picked up on nitroglycerine in 1876, and found it to be a powerful remedy. William Murrel was the first man treated with the compound for angina. It was also used to treat hypertension. Bizarrely, Nobel refused it as a treatment.

Nitroglycerine also contributed to an industrial health scandal known as the Sunday Heart Attack. The production exposed workers to high levels of organic nitrates, and withdrawal over the weekend impacted the health of those working with it.

Mauvine

William Henry Perkin was a British chemist who was working hard on the admirable task of trying to create a synthetic quinine to treat malaria. He didn't find it. What he did find was that aniline could be partially transformed into a crude mixture that when extracted with alcohol, produced an intense purple. It was the first synthetic dye for a colour previously produced from the glands of predatory sea snails. It was so expensive to produce it was largely the preserve of royalty and the very rich. He called the new dye mauvine.

It was a game-changer in the world of fashion, ultimately opening the world up to easier access to a range of inexpensive colours through aniline dyes. However, the first one made an impact, helped by Queen Victoria and the wife of Napoleon III, Empress Eugenie, embracing the new colour. In the late 1850s, mauve was so popular that the press reported an outbreak of what they called mauve measles  

Nikola Tesla

It'd be hard to close a piece on accidental discoveries without mentioning Nikola Tesla. He made two distinct discoveries before anyone else, but—it was only later that the implications became clear—in one case much later. Tesla had the famous writer Mark Twain pose for a photograph using a new device called a Crookes tube. Tesla decided the splotchy photograph was ruined, but weeks later, Wilhelm Röntigen released his discovery of 'x-radiation' using Crookes tubes. Tesla checked again, and found that he had also produced an x-ray picture of Twain, but also that the picture had been ruined by the metal screws in the camera.

The second discovery took much longer to be understood. In 1899, Tesla set up a laboratory in Colorado to investigate the possibility of transmitting information and electrical power over long distances. One day, monitoring lightning storms, he detected a series of bleeps. After ruling out other factors, he concluded the signals must be coming from another space—but he couldn't prove it. It took until 1996 for scientists to replicate the experiment, and far more modern equipment established that the signal had been caused by the moon passing through Jupiter's magnetic field. The man was a genius.   

Excerpt

“She hasn’t got the combination to the safe,” said the manager. “You can scare her as much as you want. We all know you’re not gonna use that gun on us.”

Rebecca’s breath halted as she felt a careless arm drape around her shoulder.

“I don’t need a gun to hurt someone. Give us the combination.” The manager remained mute and turned his face away. “Your call, sir.” He pulled Rebecca around to face him as she gasped in alarm. “Just remember who you’ve got to thank for this, ma’am.”

He pointed over at the manager, who refused to meet her eyes. “That man right there.”

“Anything that happens to her is down to you. Not me,” said the manager.

Rebecca felt herself dragged from the room by one arm. She was pulled into the office next door and pushed against the wall. The man walked over and pulled down the blind before returning to her. Her breath came in ragged pants of fear. “Please, no. Don’t.”

He leaned on the wall, a hand on either side of her head, and pressed his face close. “You were gonna hold this place up. Are you some kind of idiot?”

She blinked in confusion. “Huh?”

The man pulled down his mask, revealing the face of the fair man who had walked into her office looking for Fernsby. “Don’t lie to me, honey. You had the same idea as we did— look at Meagher’s bank account to see where he gets his money. We’ve watched you march up and down outside this place all day, like you were on sentry duty, while you built up your courage. You even got in the way of us doin’ it. What the hell is goin’ on in your head? How dumb can a woman get?”

“You? Here?” She couldn’t quite decide whether to stop being scared or not.

“Yeah. Me.” He indicated with his head. “Now, Nat’s in there, and he needs the combination of the safe. It’s too new and sophisticated for him to crack the combination. You and me need to put on a bit of a show to make sure the manager gives it up.”

“You’re not robbing the bank?”

Jake huffed in irritation. “Try to keep up, Becky. I need you to scream for help so the manager gives Nat the combination to the vault. We want Meagher’s records too.”

She shook her head. “Me? I can’t scream.”

“What do you mean you can’t scream? All women can scream.”

“I can’t. I’m just not made that way.”

He frowned. “Look, Becky. If you won’t scream, I’m gonna have to make you. Let’s do this the easy way, huh?”

“Please, help! Noooo.”

Jake frowned. “You call that screamin’? That’s useless.”

“I told you. I can’t.”

Jake flicked up an eyebrow. “Last chance, Becky.”

“Aaargh—”

“Nope.” A gloved hand reached up to her hat as his eyes glittered with mischief. “Don’t say you weren’t warned, sweetheart.”