It looked like an elaborate dance, but at root it was a simple sleight of hand.

They walked the streets in their black robes, and those who did not ignore them were happy to see them. They shared their prayers with a desperate people in a blighted city.

But sometimes, as they passed a bank, one of them would find something, perhaps a bit of trash to be picked up off the sidewalk. Behind this misdirection, there would be a faint swish of robes, and one of them had simply disappeared.

Inside the bank, the workers’ eyes went wide as they became the latest victims of the daring robber who appeared and vanished wearing nothing but a gun belt.

A minute later, when the robber disappeared, no one again noticed the rustle of robes.

Yes, it was a simple magic trick, but it worked every time. After all, who would ever suspect a kindly group of nuns of bank robbery, especially when they stopped to share prayers for all who asked, and the black of their robes was one of the bright spots of the dirty city.