CAT Tracks for August 30, 2011 RAIDERS OF THE LOST VAULT

I may not be Indiana Jones...

...not even Illinois Smith, but I think I've really stumbled onto something.

In Sunday's "Downtown Demolition Update, I admittedly engaged in idle catty speculation; namely that with all the deep digging going on in Cairo...that just maybe a search was on for the missing treasure from Al Capone's much heralded vault.

My speculation grows...

Below you will find the latest pics of the razing of the building at 10th and Commercial (East)...just south of the CPU parking lot.

Before it all began, this is what the building looked like from the front. A couple of weeks ago, the building looked like this. After a long lull, demolition resumed and this is how the building looked on Sunday.

Today, came the bitter end...

In the 3-shot sequence below, the killer crane moves in on the last stand of bricks, makes contact, and the dust flies.

A little stubby bulldozer then finished up, cleaning the rubble off the street and sidewalk.

THE END

Or is it?

You may have noted a blocky structure standing off to the right in each of the pictures above...

Could this, indeed, be what they were looking for...hiding in plain sight? Could this be the reason for the lull in demolition...while they checked it out?? Could this be the long lost vault of Al Capone???

As a law-abiding citizen, I did not venture onto the construction site for a personal inspection. And, as I have indicated before, I am not smart enough to work the zoom feature of my smart phone. Once again, the grainy pictures fail to reveal what my eyes could clearly see.

There are two doors in the face of the little blocky structure. They have vault-like handles...and the doors are clearly ajar!

I figure one of two things:

• After being notified of "the possible find", Geraldo (learning from his earlier embarrassment) insisted that the vault be opened prior to his venturing forth for a FOX News Special Report (and, in fact, it was once more a false alarm), or

• Maybe, just maybe, the searchers found the long lost treasure...and said "Forget you, Geraldo!"