Attempts to resolve the Quandary:
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And so, Lo! and Behold! almost simultaneously, indeed you could hardly put a cigarette paper between them, two people attempted to make telephone calls to each other and both met with the beep-beep tone signifying an engaged line; then those same two people hurried out from the respective places where they were working – Ludmilla Lermontova from the little office in the Health Board premises right at the Eastern end of Newstead – originally inhabited by the booboisie or lumpen proletariat of ancient times, the Master Masons and hod carriers who built the Abbey for which Melrose is justly famed – where it rubs shoulders with the ghosts of the former inhabitants of the great Roman Camp of Trimontium, and Jasmine Juniper-Green came rattling down the stairs of the Corn Exchange in Melrose's Square from her broom cupboard/office and dashed out into the chill May sunshine, and they began making their separate ways towards each other, but – and don't you hate that there is always a but? especially where an and would lead to a far more satisfying conclusion? - there are two almost parallel and equally direct routes for a running girl between those starting points and isn't it obvious that those two girls should take different routes which means that they slide by almost en passant, certainly within hailing distance, but quite out of sight of one another and – oh yes, the and comes in, too late, almost an afterthought – arrive almost simultaneously at the opposite ends of the cat's cradle, each gasping for breath, each declaring – silently, just in case anyone overhears and holds them to it – that she'll definitely stop smoking after this, and after the beaucoup each still has in her packet, but they definitely mean it, this time, again, both of these altivolant investigators working at opposite ends of the story of Lady Griselda of Longformacus and each by some miracle of serendipity having stumbled on the definitive clues which tell them exactly where the missing Lady is (was or is, it's up to you, depending on whether you believe time is Linear or Non-Linear) in 1868, almost exactly 150 years ago, or just through that invisible membrane which is all that keeps each of is our own Here and Now!
(by MissTeriWoman)
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