The Missing Millions - Backstory

Richardson, President of the Fourth & First National Bank of Nashville called for his Secretary Miss Deftly and asked who had authorised the payment of $100,000 from his personal account and where had the money been sent. Minutes later Miss Deftly was back and explained that the transfer had been authorised in Mr Richardson’s name by a Miss Marrot at the Federal Reserve Bank in Atlanta. The blood drained from Mr Richardson’s face as he asked his Secretary to place a call to Miss Marrot.

   

His colour didn’t improve at all once he learned from Miss Marrot's Secretary that she hadn’t appeared for work that morning and an employee of the Federal Reserve had been despatched to her house to ensure she was alright. It was so unusual for her to take time off work, especially without notifying her boss Bingley Brackenshaw.

Mr Brackenshaw was currently sat at his desk pondering the strange call from a Mr Calhoon Carter of the First Atlanta Bank demanding to know the whereabouts of Miss Marrot and refused to state his business when requested and then had abruptly closed the call. Mrs Brackenshaw was even more confused when Evangelica his PA reported that there was no one answering the door at Miss Marrot’s residence and that there was a sold sign in the front garden.

Now he was no longer confused he was distinctly worried because Miss Marrot was the person responsible for the series of cash transfers that were being made by the Federal Reserve to the various Banks in the 6th District based in Atlanta. These transfers were providing liquidity to help stave off the runs on the various banks in his District, runs caused by the collapse of Caldwell’s the largest Financial House in the South.

Unlike the 8th District in St Louis, Atlanta had been loaning money as fast as they could get it out of the door in an effort to stave off bank collapse and so far he was being successful. Or so he had thought.

Ruth Marrot leaned back in her chair and stretched to relieve the ache in her back and neck, looking around from her balcony, the view along the Grand Canal looked particularly nice at this time of year. She’d had a busy month moving large quantities of money around the country without anyone noticing, it had been strenuous, physically and mentally but the panic over the run on the banks had been a major help. That and the assistance of a few CEO’s and Bank Presidents, she grinned thinking how annoyed they would be that she had managed to get all the ‘bribe’ money back from them in the one day…….the day she left Atlanta.

Well they shouldn’t have given her access to their private accounts but then they only thought greedily of the money going in, and not that she could also take it out again. They wouldn’t be going to the Cops and admitting complicity in the biggest fraud the country had up until now experienced.

She fully expected the Federal Reserve Bank would make a few discrete enquiries before agreeing that loosing the money was bad but admitting to loosing it to the country in the current crisis was unthinkable.

Ruth was happy that she had probably gotten away with her crime but there was one thing she wasn’t aware of and that might be her undoing. Redmire Richardson, President of the Fourth & First National Bank of Nashville was in bed so to speak with Lian Su Smith, head of the Mabel Street Mob. Not literally, Lian had far better taste in men than Richardson but she was heavily committed to his bank where she laundered her income from protection, extortion, gambling and the Speakeasy’s. Prohibition was a great source of income for the modern criminal and she was a model modern criminal. Unfortunately the Bank’s liquidity wasn’t enough to meet the queues of punters who wanted their money back out of the bank and safely under their own beds and so the Bank had gone under, with a considerable chunk of Lian's cash. The liquidity should have been provided by the Federal Reserve but as this had been siphoned off by Ruth Marrot, Lian felt that she was owed and she intended to collect……with interest.

Lian made enquiries in the underworld, her network of associates stretched a long way, international debts were called in and money was spread to grease the greasy palms until she received a nibble at her bait. Venice was where the nibble came from, Venice Italy and from the local police department or Carabianieri. There was a man, Rudolph Valentino head of the Corrotto Carabianieri, that’s bent coppers to the rest of us, who had heard of a woman answering the description that was circulated through Italy’s underbelly of crooks, criminals and conmen. He knew that if there was some kind of reward for information on the whereabouts of the woman then she was valuable in her own right. He intended to acquire a stake in that commodity and see what could be squeezed out.

  

Interpol had been founded in 1923 and this was a constant source of valuable information to Valentino, not to imprison criminals as you should expect, but to find them and then extort money to support his own lavish lifestyle. He frowned with annoyance at the latest communiqué from them, The Mabel Street Mob had just boarded a plane, destination Rome, they could be in Venice the next day, he would have to start the search for the blonde woman with the scared face sooner than he expected.

The race is on, there is information hidden in the six central districts of Venice, Ruth Marrot is located on the Island of Giudecca but you will need to uncover all the pieces of the puzzle to find her address, and don’t expect her to come quietly if you do find her.


The day after tomorrow I'm headed south to Snapcase Hall in the wilds of Devon for 3 days of wargaming, drinking and telling tall stories. Snappers has spent a good part of the year building Venice and the first game will be something called Carnivalle maybe not spelt like that. I've no idea what to expect apart from the fact that it will be fun. I'm putting on this game, set in Venice because it would be rude not to after he's spent so long building it. I'm really bereft of ideas but I want to try for a detecting type game, I'm still not sure if I'm going to build it around the Sherlock Holmes221B Baker Street or create my own puzzle.  I have a whole day to decide :(. I also thought I'd try and use the Pulp Alley Rules because I envision going into buildings and searching for clues, the Perils and Challenges would play into that but I'm still undecided. I hate playing a game and having to leaf through rules to find what I want so I might just go with the ones I always use.

So 1 day to go and I have a back story, hummm.

Thanks for reading, if you did and any thoughts you might have will probably be too late but I'd appreciate reading them.

Cheers