BACK NECKLACI 6' Detective and the case of the stolen necklace Since the old lady gave the world's most expensive necklace to the museum, the museum's owner had to spend thousands of dollars to repair holes in the floor and walls and doors made my robbers. So, he decided that it would be safer to send the necklace to his museum in Paris, France. He tried to keep it a secret, but when the time came for the armed guards to come and pick up the steel box containing the necklace, hundreds of cameras were there to watch the necklace come out of the museum and into the armored car on its way to the airport. When the airplane landed in Paris, hundreds of cameras were there to watch the necklace come out of the airplane and load into another armored car on its way to the new French museum. Because of all the robberies, the necklace was now so popular that hundreds of cars and cameras followed the armored car from the airport and into the museum. Inside the museum, there were hundreds more cameras watching the armed guards opening the steel box and putting the necklace into its new display. But when the guards opened the steel box... "It's gone!" shouted the guard, "The steel box is empty!" A few minutes later, the phone rang at Michaela's house. Michaela picked up the phone. "Hello." "Michaela we need you again!" exclaimed the policeman. "For what?" asked Michaela, "It can't be the necklace again. They sent it to Paris, France." "I thought so too," replied the policeman. "But the necklace never made it to France." "Where is it, then?" asked Michaela. "I was hoping you could tell us!" exclaimed the policeman. "Well," replied Michaela, "There were hundreds of cameras watching the necklace. I saw the pictures on television. Let's look at the videos." The policeman took Michaela to the television studios to watch the television videos of the armed guards coming out of the museum with the steel box, then following the armored car to the airplane. They also had the French videos showing the armed guards coming out of the airplane with the steel box, then following the armored car to the museum. "I don't see where the robbers stole the necklace, do you?" asked the policeman. "Did the French police search the airplane?" asked Michaela. "That's the first place they looked." replied the policeman. Michaela suggested "That means it had to be stolen after it was taken out of the display at our museum and before it left the museum." So, they went to the museum and looked at the videos from the cameras inside the show room. There were three cameras inside the show room. So, they watched them all. "There!" exclaimed Michaela pointing at the television screen. "One of the guards switched boxes on the way out the door." "I didn't see it." replied the policeman, "Play it again." Michaela pointed to the screen, as the armed guards carried the steel box out the door of the main show room, explaining, "There's three men involved in the robbery: the guard carrying the box, that man standing by the door with the fake box and that man who bumped up against the museum owner. See it?!" "Yes! I almost missed it!" exclaimed the policeman pointing at the television, "When that man bumped against the museum owner, the owner lost his balance and almost knocked over another display case. It made such a ruckus that everybody in the show room took their eyes off the steel box and watched to see if that display case would fall over. And while noone was watching, the guard switched boxes with the man by the door!" The policeman now had pictures of all the robbers involved with this robbery. He had them all arrested, including the armed guard who was now in Paris, France. "Now, let's see if the cameras saw where that man hid the steel box with the necklace inside." suggested Michaela. They looked at videos from other cameras in the museum until they saw the man disappear into the ladies restroom. When they looked under the plastic bag in the trash can, they found the kind of vault they had seen several times before. As before, each push button on the ten-key pad had a word instead of a number. Immediately, the policeman began examining the plastic bag for clues. "What are you looking for?" asked Michaela. "Whenever the push-buttons have words on them," explained the policeman, "there's usually a list of words telling us the sequence of words to push. But there's nothing here." Michaela explained, "Lucifer Snidely is very clever. He never does the same thing twice." She examined the words on the push-buttons: neighbor a beware boy submarine girl go where nowhere (can you see the sequence?) Michaela said, "I don't think there is another list of words." "What do you mean?" asked the policeman. "The words on those other push-buttons were usually the same kind of words." explained Michaela, "On one vault the words were all body parts and on another they were all spanish words. But none of these words are the same kind of words." But the policeman kept looking while Michaela studied the words on the push-buttons. "I've got it!" exclaimed Michaela after a few minutes. "You found the sequence?!" asked the policeman as he came running. "Yes," explained Michaela, "These words all have a different number of letters." The policeman examined the words himself, then replied, "By golly I think your right." (have you figured out the sequence now?) Michaela wrote down the words in order of the number of letters: a go boy girl where beware nowhere neighbor submarine (did you guess this same sequence?) Then she pushed the "a" button, then the "go" button, then all the other buttons in this sequence. Click, buzz, hum. The door of the vault opened, and there was the world's most expensive necklace. So, Michaela, the world's greatest detective solved another mystery. ©2008 Bob Snook. Conditions for use: This story is free. Pay no fees or royalties. Do not sell this story or rewrite it. You may reproduce and distribute this story freely, but all copies must contain this copyright statement. http://www.fea.net/bobsnook/kid email: bobsnook@fea.net BACK |