Sentence The Fivehundredandninetyfifth

At which moment, albeit seven hundred miles and some 78 years and three months apart in space/time, Jasmine Juniper-Green carefully replaced her telephone headset and grinned across the desk at Samuel Smiles: "I think we may just have something, sir," she said, trying to keep the excitement out of her voice; Smiles looked up: to an hors de combat like himself, he always enjoyed the enthusiasm of tyros like Jasmine, they brought vigour and enthusiasm and he sometimes felt like an ageing horse which has been given a fizz by the insertion of a feague, "think, or know?" he asked softly; "well, sir, I've had The Economic Migrant monitoring a dozen or so lines of communication running in and out of Albany Palace . . . . ." and Smiles interrupted, "above or below?" and she replied with a wink, "far, far below, sir," and he nodded for her to continue: "well, apart from the usual stuff, by which I mean the ordering of enough food and drink to bring an army to it's knees, he's also been in contact with several suppliers of specialist commodities, sir, above and beyond his regular purchases," and she paused, but he did not interrupt: "and there was one mention of The Ring of Gold and, I quote, 'our Founding Father' which I take to refer to . . . .^ this time he did: "Sir Parlane MacFarlane!" "indeed, sir!" "delivery date?" "tomorrow, sir!" "quantity?" "eight male and eight female, sir!" "ages?" "the males, between 5 and 10, sir, the females, 9 and 13!" at which Smiles rose and walked across to the maps and plans on the wall: "do we know how many are in the Palace?" and Jasmine looked at her notes: "the Duke, his valet and seven resident staff, eight outliers, who generally come in between 8am and 5pm, and our watchers have counted six visitors enter over the past three days, and none have left," at which Smiles pointed at the schematics of Albany Palace: "can we get infra-reds to pinpoint each body in the Palace?" and Jasmine took out a pad with notes:
"Technical are setting up a ring and a couple of drones so we should have 3D images streaming from midnight tonight, sir!" Smiles clapped his hands together and beamed at Jasmine: "I have waited so long to comminute this Ring, I'm only sorry that Tavish isn't around to witness it; my God, we had them in our grasp – or rather The Plods did – and what happened, a two-penny-halfpenny solicitor from Edinburgh no-one but his wife knew of walks into Hawick Cop Shop and lets that bastard Ranulph Ochan'toshan walk out scot-free and the Bogies in Embra weren't so smart when they let MacFarlane and Doubleday walk out of their cells," and he put on a funny voice: "'oh, sorry, sur, it wisnae us, sur, it wis private security, sur, oor consultants, sur, they wis scratching their arses ootside on a fag-break, sur and forgot they'd left the keys in the locks, sur, jist wan o they things, sur, coulda happned tae emdy, sur, it'll no happn agen, sur!' Fucking right it won't, the sooner that other Doubleday gets locked up and the key thrown in the Forth the better. which reminds me, he's not in the Palace is he?" and Jasmine checked her pad, "no sir, he's been invited but not arrived yet, we
think he'll be going tomorrow, in time for the goods arriving, sir!" and Smiles gave the universal hand gesture for a drink, "join me Jasmine, you deserve it – I know you and your family have your own worries, about Gertie, Tammy and Tavish, how are your friends from the Library getting on with Tavish's coded journal?" he handed Jasmine a glass of House of Lords and she took a sip: "the pages after the explosion in Albany Palace which killed – well, obliterated, the Duke and his friends – seem to have got stuck together with some kind of adhesive, whether by accident or design, and we're taking it cautiously, for fear of losing vital information," and Smiles looked intently at her: "it was no accident, Jasmine, it's straight out of the Tradecraft Manual, page 227 if my memory serves me aright, it was Tavish's own doing, classic misdirection; stick some pages sufficiently well and your reader will get so bogged down in trying to carefully prise them apart without destroying what is written on them, which the sticking together has convinced him are crucial, that he won't pay enough attention to what follows – that's where you should look next!"