Nancy Drew: Mystery of the Six and a Half Keys
Chapter Two
Nancy couldn't afford to look bad, even if she was confused. "I'll solve this mystery!" she declared boldly. "I will determine which one of you is the real Adela Czerna, but I get to ask one question first."
"Okay," said the standing woman.
"Agreed," said the sitting woman.
Nancy closed her eyes, thinking heavily. What question could she ask, to identify Adela?
"I've got it!" Nancy said. "Which one of you is Adela?"
"Me!" said the sitting woman.
"I am!" said the standing woman, at the same time.
"Crap," Nancy said. "Uh, that was just a practice question. It doesn't count. The real question is...uh...which 1974—I mean, which year did your mother get the necklace?"
"1974," both women said.
"Oh jeez," Nancy said. "Fine! What's your favorite type of coffee? And please don't say the exact same thing this time, because that's not fair."
"I take my coffee black and bitter, the same as my soul," the standing woman said.
"To make my favorite coffee, take the americano, only replace the espresso with double the coffee found in the doppio and add the amount of cinnamon you'd have when subtracting the caffé latte from the flat white," said the sitting woman.
Nancy pointed her finger at the sitting woman. "Your answer was more confusing, so you must be the culprit!" she said.
Nancy was correct! The sitting woman was Patricie Vitkovci, the owner of the café.
"I apologize for the deception," Adela said. "That was the only way to make sure you were a capable detective."
"The only way?" Nancy asked. "My resume is forty pages long. You could have checked that."
"Well, it is getting late," Adela said. "I shall meet with you tomorrow morning. As we say in Prague—"
"WHOA!" Nancy said. "As we say in America, hold up there, cowboy! You brought me all the way here for a test, and you're not going to tell me about the mystery until tomorrow? That's super rude. Tell me about the mystery now!"
Adela was surprised, but she agreed. "Long story short, I tried to sell my mother's necklace through a friend, Vladena Zlaty," Adela said. "When she couldn't find a buyer quickly enough, I decided to sell the necklace through a website called SecondShine. Both of them had the necklace for about a week. When I got the necklace back, Vladena said the jewels were replaced with fakes."
"So, your two suspects are Vladena Zlaty and SecondShine," Nancy said, summarizing Adela's story.
"There is also Oskar Dvorak," Adela said. "He is the third person on my suspect list."
"What's Oskar Dvorak like?" Nancy asked.
"I do not know," Adela said. "I have never met the man."
"Oh," Nancy said. "Then how was he able to examine your necklace?"
"He did not," Adela said. "Vladena examined the necklace, as I explained earlier."
"Okay, then...how is he related to this crime, again?"
"This is not the first time Prague's gems have been stolen," Adela said. "Twenty years ago, someone stole jewels from the Pratzcha Historica Museum. Oskar was the assistant curator at the time."
"Let me see if I understand," Nancy said. "Oskar is a person you've never met, who never had access to your necklace, and whose only connection to a jewel theft is when he was victimized, before I was even born."
"Exactly," Adela said.
"He sounds guilty," Nancy said. "I am definitely putting him at the top of my suspect list."