So, you are the amazing and intelligent special recruit agents Mel has been going on and on about.  I suppose you seem alright.  Tony Flair here, master of the camera. Has Melisande told you about me or is she taking credit for everything?

That darling publicist sure left Paris in a hurry last Tuesday morning.  Thanks to your assistance a few weeks ago, we knew the name of Kovacs' yacht.  But Sarah Jessica refused to allow Melisande to leave her all alone in pursuit of a hunch, no matter how promising the lead seemed.  Last week when MikeyXero, Xsangel, katygmorris, Bmadsen, dqw5644helped, and all the rest of you interpreted Sarah Jessica's postcard, though, it became clear that Kovacs is our man.  He is no longer just a promising lead. We are in the end game my friends.

"Vacations on yacht" prompted still more memories for Sarah Jessica about the hours before the crime in the Place Vendome.  The man on the postcard is indeed Boldizsar Kovacs.  (He's becoming less elusive to the camera, it would seem.)  He spritzed SJP with the most amazing fragrance and then whispered that he'd have her Covet. 

He revealed his plans to use the special bottle and the Covet traces as middle and top notes to perfect his own base fragrance. He plans to release it as the first fragrance from the legendary "Keepers," leveraging all of Covet's distribution channels.  Popularity guarenteed by the heated anticipation, this would mark only the beginning of a culture beyond addicted to his perfumes.  A culture enslaved by his perfume.  An international group of fragrant followers willing to support his plans for total world domination with legal, financial, and fanatical support.

But Kovacs overestimated the power of his perfume, in grand keeping with his arrogant outlook on life.  Sarah Jessica remembered.  And Melisande has found The Queen Elizabeth.  She is on board now, spying on Kovacs and company - she left me a hushed and hurried voice mail only an hour ago.  Melisande will be in touch soon.  Stand by for more information.

In the meantime, I suspect that she has already used some of your pickup lines. I've enjoyed looking at them, and I think that I've even learned a little bit about how women think.  Check out these killer pick up lines:
andschluck     
emhamm
faeryqueen21
katygmorris
MelAnn2727
onyourscent
Palm
Paulette
sarahzombie

For more details and to submit an answer go to Case of the Coveted Bottle

My sleuths!  You'll never guess what showed up in today's mail: curious correspondence from none other than Sarah Jessica Parker herself. Parisian mail is slow, to be sure, but this may be a new record for delay.  The postcard is postmarked almost 2 months ago: August 5, 2007. 

In colored pencil, Sarah Jessica wrote me the most peculiar note.  It reads more like a poem, actually.  I showed it to her earlier today to help her reconnect with her muse. Indeed, some of the events from the evening of August 5th – hitherto lost to the ether of amnesia – returned to our starlet friend. 

It turns out that Sarah Jessica had been at a fashionable party that Sunday evening (seriously, though – what other kind of party would she attend!).  It was in a huge and opulent apartment near Place Vendome with a stellar view.  She mingled there with many other beautiful celebrities and entrepreneurs.  She also met a series of men and women from the European perfume industry who were eager to discuss her upcoming perfume and offer belated praise for Lovely.  According to Sarah Jessica, she had not had much previous interaction with "European perfume folk;" she generously dismissed their eccentricities as cultural differences resulting from an inspiring joie de'vivre.  Indeed, it seemed that most of them engaged in exotic hobbies such as boating or cricket and belonged to elite, exclusive professional clubs.  Everyone was starting some new and innovative venture. All the meanwhile, dressed to the nines and sporting an elegant flute of champagne.

One of the industry men at the party struck her as particularly odd, though he was an excellent dancer.  During an unnecessarily flirtatious merengue, he talked up his own new perfume to her, asserting that it was one she would not be able to resist.  Intrigued and in the spirit of a true fragrance pioneer, she accepted a spritz of the mysterious fragrance.  It was absolutely divine!  While recounting all of this to me, Sarah Jessica actually broke into a period of silent awe just from remembering the exquisite blend of smell from the spritz.  What happened next at the party?  The gentleman confided to Sarah Jessica that the scent would bring out her wild side. Moments later, she felt woozy and excused herself.

This is where Sarah Jessica's memory of the evening basically ends.  She remembers nothing between excusing herself from the dance floor and waking up in handcuffs while reaching for a giant bottle of her own perfume in the middle of a rainy Place Vendome.  Agents, friends, I've known Sarah Jessica for years.  She never loses her wits.  Even if she was under some spell from that fragrance, I am certain that she had the presence of mind and foresight to use this postcard to communicate some piece of information to us to help jog her memory even further about important events and information from the party. 

Challenge Title: Postcard from Paris
Challenge Question: What message was Sarah Jessica Parker trying to communicate that would further jog her memory about the party?

For more details and to submit an answer go to Case of the Coveted Bottle

I'm still waiting to hear back about Kovacs' port of call.  There is a some downtime, and so I will revive our earlier PR and damage control efforts surrounding this priceless missing bottle of Covet.  I originally explained the mini-campaign to you on 15 aout 2007.  To re-iterate, we must help explain Sarah Jessica's behavior to the world.  Our friend is afraid people will come to think her new perfume Covet too powerful, too seductive.

In the video footage of the attempted theft, Sarah Jessica earnestly declares, "I had to have it!"  But she was in a daze that only cleared when the steel handcuffs clamped down.  Not even she knows why she had to have it then and there in the Place Vendome.

We need a psychological alibi for Sarah Jessica.  Why DID she have to have it?  Sarah Jessica and I need you to help by coming up with a great reason why she would proclaim, "I had to have it!"  What would drive a woman like Sarah Jessica to smash in a window with a pair of pumps, risking it all for a bottle of her own perfume?

Record a short original video (around 20-30 seconds long) inspired by or explaining "I had to have it!"  Be creative, be funny, be truthful.  We need the best reasons you can think of.

Post your video on MySpace videos or YouTube with at least 4 tags: "covet" , "sjp" , "CaseOfTheCovetedBottle" , and the secret agent name you are using here.  Log in to CaseOfTheCovetedBottle.com and submit the link to your video below. I will take a look at it. You have until 15 octobre to submit video links.

Some agents have already prepared qualifying videos - maybe they will spark a muse in other agents. Watch these videos and vote on them.  Sarah Jessica's lawyers and I will be looking at how popular and frequently viewd these videos are to help in part determine the winning reason that Sarah Jessica "had to have it."       
Abby      
biffy
cosmiceye9
emhamm
katygmorris
msrdens
nelleeo
onyourscent
Paulette
weetiny

What's the URL to your original short MySpace or YouTube video explaining why SJP "had to have it"?

For more details and to submit an answer go to Case of the Coveted Bottle

Sarah Jessica and I are in such good hands with all of you!  Special thanks to top agents eyoste, Cam, prefume_agent, dqw5644, and unruli1 for helping us hone in on Boldizsar Kovacs with superior speed and stealth.  I've already put in calls to several maritime agencies to determine his most recent port of call. 

Also, as helpful as Tony's assistance has been thus far, he is falling a little short in the creative sleuthing department, depending too carelessly on all of you to pick up his slack. To get things done right, we'll just have to do them ourselves. Mark my words: I'm going to get on board Mr. Kovacs' boat and him to clarify more than a few things.

I'll need your help, of course. Many of you have already been tremendously successful in taking the heat off of Sarah Jessica by making videos to explain why she "Had to Have It" (see the post from 15 aout 2007). You're excellent performers and have a way with words.  I'd like your continued support.  I need to win over this Boldizsar Kovacs fellow. You catch more flies with honey, no?  And, albeit limited, the information we have thus far about Kovacs suggests that he's one fly guy who appreciates a darling honey like myself.  Do you know any foolproof pick-up lines?

Record a short original video (20-60-ish seconds long) of a killer pick-up line that I can use on Kovacs when I get aboard his yacht.  Be sexy, be charming, be coy.  We need the best pick-up lines you can think of. We'll make Kovacs covet ME and then he'll eat right out of our palms.

Post your video on MySpace videos or YouTube with at least 4 tags: "covet" , "sjp" , "CaseOfTheCovetedBottle" , and the secret agent name you are using here.  Log in to CaseOfTheCovetedBottle.com and submit the link to your video below. I will take a look at it. You have until 15 octobre to submit video links.

I will announce the winning video after 15 octobre.  Don't procrastinate in making or submitting your video: more views and better ratings of your video online will make it (1) stand out from the crowd and (2) more likely to become the winning pick-up line.  Be sure to tag your video "CaseOfTheCovetedBottle" so other agents can find it.

I know without doubt that you are smart, sexy, and sneaky.  With your help, we should be able to come up with some killer pick-up lines to charm Kovacs and get him to lead us to the missing bottle.


What's the URL to your original short MySpace or YouTube video of a killer pick-up line for me to use on Boldizsar Kovacs?

For more details and to submit an answer go to Case of the Coveted Bottle

Hello again my agents! I am particularly glad to have your help tonight. I'm trying to find out where in the world we can find Boldizsar Kovacs so that Tony or I can go ask him a few questions.  But all that I have to go on is a most perplexing document about him.  Honestly, just between you and me, I am starting to feel as though I am a tad in over my head with all of this. I am a publicist not a detective!  I really need to spend more time with Sarah Jessica, her family, and the press. 

I visited our not-so-dear friend Captaine Badeau earlier today to see what she knew about Boldizsar Kovacs. I had to play "bad cop" when she played "dumb cop."  I reminded her that I am very well-connected and that I'd much prefer to vacation with her in Cannes than to see such a beautiful piece of property be auctioned off.  It still drives me mad whenever I think about that bribe she accepted from Madame Szaglas. Mumford's photos are certainly incriminating enough to threaten Badeau's job and her coveted retirement package, but alone they're not enough to pin the bottle's disappearance on her or Szaglas. And until we can do that, Sarah Jessica remains behind bars.

But I digress.  In response to my mild threat, Badeau agreed to look into obtaining the little information that she has access to regarding one Hungarian bazillionaire: Boldizsar Kovacs.  A photo of Kovac's French dossier came from Badeau as an email attachment just moments ago. She forwarded it to me from her former supervisor who now works on international white collar crime ring cases at the Ministère de l'Intérieur.  They have no active or closed cases involving Kovacs. The file on him exists only as a precautionary measure.

The Ministère's security program scrambled up part of the image.  I am certain that a tip about Kovac's potential whereabouts is in that jumble labeled MISC INTEL. Can you help?

Challenge Title: The Scent of a Bazillionaire
Challenge Question: Where should we look for Boldizsar Kovacs?

For more details and to submit an answer go to Case of the Coveted Bottle

Bonsoir, agents! Tony finally got back from London.

According to Tony, this Sir Julian Barnesworth fellow is intense but generally harmless. Over some drinks, Barnesworth actually endeared himself to our friend Tony Flair (no small feat!).  He also ranted on and on about this Kovacs chap.  He assured Tony that he had was nowhere near Paris during the night in question and directed him to his appointment book.  Eccentric man that he is, Barnesworth apparently keeps track of all of his appointments on blogspot. Barnesworth dates his entries according to the lunar calendar - that alone took Tony several hours to figure out(he says the images on the blog were the big tip).  Then, it took Tony several MORE hours to decode the mess of a "date book."  Of course, it took you agents no time at all, as you noticed that the actual dates were revealed upon mouseover.  Poor Tony - hehe. I don't mind keeping him busy - we need to keep that adorable paparazzi on his toes or he'll think the photo shoot with Sarah Jessica is in the bag.  And he kept himself still more busy, talking to folks to confirm Barnesworth's alibi - it's solid.  Does Captaine Badeau ever get concerned that we're out-agenting her?

I do think that Tony is quite good at sensing sincerity (even though or perhaps because he's anything but sincere). I'm tempted to trust his judgment.  But I can't shake this feeling that Barnesworth and The Keepers are somehow related to the disappearance of the bottle of Covet from the Evidence Room. But they really don't seem to have any motive.  Poor Sarah Jessica - it has been almost 7 weeks ago now.  We need to get cracking! We need to find that bottle.

Tony has convinced me and Sarah Jessica that we should try to find this Kovacs fellow. Sarah Jessica is starting to feel despondent over all the recent dead end leads, so I hope this one will go somewhere.  If nothing else, I suppose we can ask Kovacs what he thinks about the possibility that Barnesworth is behind all of this.  I'd also like to find out what he knows about The Keepers. 

Crack the case at Case of the Coveted Bottle

Good news tonight, agents!  Captain Badeau decided to make herself useful by contacting Madame Szaglas about The Keepers. She readily clarified the precise location of The Keepers' headquarters in London, assuming that we'd never know what to say to get past the guard.  Thanks to all of you, though, Tony now has the "secret" password that will get him through as nonchalantly as any actual Keeper. 

Your enthusiastic and investigative spirit has visibly rubbed off on the Captaine.  After getting the intelligence about the Keepers' London headquarters, she rambled to me for over an hour last night about her suspicions: she is certain Barnesworth is behind the missing bottle, The Keepers are protecting him, they've secreted the bottle away somewhere in a heart-shaped tomb of some sort, Szaglas has been doing Barnesworth's bidding all along and is now cooperating to hopefully earn a little clemency come judement day. 

But I am just not convinced that this case is quite so cut-and-dry.  Szaglas vehemently denied working for Barnesworth, for instance. I cannot imagine her "doing his bidding." Her exact words went something like "He may lead The Keepers, but under no circumstances do I take orders from that bumbling bloke."  What's her angle?

I rang Sir Julian Barnesworth this morning to make an appointment for Mr. Flair to come visit (that password also came in handy with Barnesworth's assistant!).  During our brief conversation, Barnesworth confirmed that he knew Madame Szaglas and had foolishly  employed her some years ago. He expressed annoyance that she remains a member of The Keepers despite some of her unethical inclinations. 

According to Mr. Barnesworth, he first came to know Szaglas when she worked for him and his former associate, Boldizsar Kovacs, at Kovacs B which was later rebranded as Barnes K for the fashion crowd.  When he and Kovacs severed ties to go their own ways, he gladly surrendered our pesky perfume hopeful to her fellow countryman.  She had given him chills and she never updated his appointment blog properly.  He bade them good riddance.  He never wanted to hear another Hungarian accent again in his life. But, alas, Madame Szaglas was by then a fixture within The Keepers, fairweather friend that she was to the perfume industry. 

The bylaws of The Keepers, written full generations before Barneworth's time, ensured and all but mandated a prominent role in the organization for all members of Szaglas' family line.  As the acting director of The Keepers, Barnesworth has no choice but to comply.  It is nearly a full time job keeping Madame Szaglas and her megalomaniac ambitions in check, according to Barnesworth.  (And The Keepers is supposed to be a hobby not a job!)

He rambled on and on about how we had it all wrong to suspect him. Szaglas would do and say anything to cut him down in front of his perfume peers.  Barnesworth swore that she is vying for his position within The Keepers. His voice ran shrill and wobbly with admonishment about our inability to appreciate the importance of preventing the rise of Szaglas within The Keepers.  He nearly suggested that we should abandon this investigation to instead protect him and The Keepers. Barensworth further asserted that Szaglas has neither human empathy nor interest in preserving the integrity of the industry.  "She will ruin everything!" he exclaimed as I terminated the call.

I must admit, I rather wanted to put him in a room with Badeau just to see what sorts of crazy suspicions and motives they'd concoct in collaboration.  Instead, I'm simply going to wait to see if Tony can find out anything else on Thursday.  In the meantime, Captaine Badeau has asked us to do some due diligence regarding Barnesworth's location on the night of the crime.  He's basically a prime suspect now. Was he by any chance in Paris?  If not, where was he?  If we can have this knowledge on hand by Thursday, perhaps Tony Flair can ask some better hard-hitting questions of our Brit.  After talking to Barnesworth for even a few minutes on the phone, I can only imagine that his desk is a mess and his traces are hard to follow.  

Challenge Title: Interview the Keepers
Challenge Question: Where was Sir Julian Barnesworth on the night of the crime?

Crack the case at Case of the Coveted Bottle

So it was not long at all before you all were able to see right through the Keeper's veil.  It seems the Keeper's are not as clever as they think.

Agent Paulette quickly sorted out this mess of addresses left behind by the Keepers and kindly pointed some of us in the right direction.  It turns out that if you plug all of the addresses from Monsieur LePan's stolen note into a service like Google Maps, leaving a marker for each address, it draws a picture.  Zoom out on the map far enough and you fill find the key to the Keeper's phrase.

Now it simply remains for me to send Tony back through these addresses armed with the right passphrase.  Thank the heavens he is such a willing fellow.  Of course he's just salivating over the exclusive photo story he will get at the end of all of this.

But then we all have our own motivations, do we not?

For more details and to submit an answer go to Case of the Coveted Bottle

Once again, Sarah Jessica and I are happy to name some of our most valuable agents and see them rewarded.  Life behind bars can be quite lonely, but Sarah Jessica takes comfort knowing she can count on all of you.

Here are the winners for our fourth challenge, "Learn More About Madame Szaglas."  This was quite a hard one.  You all wracked your brains, but as always cracked it.  And thank goodness: I was left dumbfounded.  It certainly revealed some insight into our prime suspects motivations.

Someone from Sarah Jessica's US-based team will be in touch with the following agents about delivering their rewards.  It may take a little bit, but they will find you.

Challenge 4 Prize Winner - receive a Green Apple iPod Shuffle, Covet Gift Bag, Covet Jewelery Box and Covet Deluxe Mini
chinami

Challenge 4 Drawing Winners - receive a Covet Gift Bag
Budgirl08
noellemarie
sesheppard
InToWin
rose33090
Amie
docarnaud
soccer_ref
jbadis
Detecive Chey
crandreww1999
lfosses
ambrosia
Enchtd1!
Becky
zipper
C_Belieu
masterssarahk
MissTara
Jammiesjp
joanne23
lyonsksl
cole
phyzix
bennettn
tredway
Kozi2005
VCHRZANOWSKI
mariect
Christine
dmore56698
trishden
ktwdg
Believer
tupik3702

For more details and to submit an answer go to Case of the Coveted Bottle.

Another round of awards is in order.  Sarah Jessica's lawyers are catching up to make sure her agents stay happy and motivated.  A bribe would be so uncouth, but a little fragrance among friends certainly never hurt anyone.

Here are the winners for our third challenge, Blackmail Morgaine.  This may have been my favorite, as the Captaine was being such a regular pain in my, well you know.  But now we are quite good friends.  She's even invited me down to her new summer home.  I understand it's quite lovely.  Let's hope Madame Szaglas does not get wind and drop in.

Someone from Sarah Jessica's US-based team will be in touch with the following agents about delivering their rewards.  It may take a little bit, but they will find you.

Challenge 3 Prize Winner - receive a Green Apple iPod Shuffle, Covet Gift Bag, Covet Jewelery Box and Covet Deluxe Mini
Bmadsen

Challenge 3 Drawing Winners - receive a Covet Gift Bag
stary
soccer_ref
rose33090
onyourscent
Elisa
Aprilpapril
Suesur
Palm
HeatherG
melissmatic
Sunore
cherylsword
biffy
kelmitch
sadiesaffron
mhwhetsell
Luhens
LeaD
Dvious
angelaho3
slyfox
ifbz342
Shoegal1980
tambo
Detecive Chey
aliendial
Christine
Globug47
123connie
autodafe20
oceanbreeze
mariect
gcm2225
Rusty23
tj2052

For more details and to submit an answer go to Case of the Coveted Bottle.