Nancy Drew: Mystery of the Six and a Half Keys
Chapter Twenty-Three
"Now that I have all the blueprints, I should make the keys," Nancy said. "Then I have to close my eyes and hope really, really hard that the culprit doesn't steal the keys to the treasure, like they did the last ten times I did something like this."
Nancy had no idea how to forget keys. She thought about looking it up, when her phone started playing "It's Gonna Be Me". Recognizing Ned's ringtone, she instantly answered.
"Nancy...I'm sorry," Ned said. "I wish...I wish I had better news."
"Oh my God, did my dad die from a heart attack?" Nancy asked.
"No," Ned said.
"Was it a stroke? An aneurysm? Did he get hit by a car, driven by the same terrorist who killed my mother?" Nancy asked. She knew she should have identified that terrorist during her case in Scotland, but she had gotten too distracted by bagpipes and playing cards.
"Your dad is still alive!" Ned said loudly.
"Then what's the bad news?" Nancy asked.
"Hans is no longer a suspect," Ned said. "Your dad and I cleared him off all suspicion. His business is definitely legitimate."
Nancy paused for a moment. "Who?" she asked.
"Hans Fersinger, of SecondShine," Ned said. "You...you wanted me to investigate him?"
"Oh right, right," Nancy said. "Sorry, the case has moved on a lot since then. Now I'm trying to stop thieves from stealing the Crown Jewels of Prague."
"That sounds...dangerous," Ned said.
"You don't know the half of it!" Nancy said. "I've travelled through creepy old tunnels, I've been forced to write a puppet show that didn't include Kermit the Frog, and I was chased by an evil ghost knight!"
"An evil ghost knight?" Ned gasped.
"He's chased me all over Prague!" Nancy exaggerated. "It's like he always knows where I am at every second of the day!"
"Did someone put a tracker on your phone, maybe?" Ned asked.
"Maybe," Nancy said. "My phone did get hacked yesterday. Maybe this is part of a leftover virus or something."
"You should send your phone to a repair shop," Ned said. "Or leave it in your hotel room, so the ghost can't follow you anymore."
"Or I can use it as bait in a trap!" Nancy said enthusiastically. "I put my phone in a secluded area, I wait until the villain shows up, then I bust out my fighting moves and kick some butt! It'll be dangerous because I can't call for backup, but I think it'll work! Thanks, Ned!"
"No, wait! At least ask Adela to help watch—" Ned started to say, but it was too late. Nancy hung up on him, so she could start Operation Culprit Capture.
But where could she do it? She considered using the secluded construction area on the far side of the square, but that didn't make sense. The culprit would have to walk all the way across a large square in full costume, to reach that area. No, she needed an indoor location, somewhere that no one would want to go...
"Zlaty Jewelers!" Nancy cried. "Vladena's such a jerk, she never gets customers!"
Conveniently, there was nobody inside the store that day, not even Vladena. Nancy wondered why Vladena left her store open and unattended, but she considered that Oskar, Radek, Patricie and Elka all did the same thing. Maybe it was a Prague thing.
Nancy set up a group of cardboard boxes around the door. "Empty boxes are an inescapable trap!" she said. She locked the door and propped it open in such a way that when the culprit entered, the locked door would close behind them, cutting off the exit.
It was nighttime before the culprit arrived. Nancy thought it was incredibly rude of the culprit to make her wait hours and hours. What, did the culprit have a day job or something? If Nancy had known the culprit would take so long, she would have spent the day having fun in Prague, doing tourist stuff on Adela's dime.
The doorknob rattled ominously as the skeleton knight slowly opened it. Nancy could hear his heavy breathing as he stepped into the store, clouds of smoke emanating from his body.
"Boo!" Nancy yelled.
The culprit jumped and accidentally fell backwards on the door. He quickly got up and panicked, seeing there were boxes on the floor in front of him, with a locked door behind him.
"You're trapped!" Nancy said confidently. "Now, take off the mask! It's time to see who this skeleton knight really is."
The knight slumped over in defeat. He lifted up his hands and pulled off the mask, revealing a familiar face.
"It's Radek, the creepy puppetmaster! Or should I say Radek the loutkari?" Nancy said. She was happy for a chance to show off that she know loutkari was Czech for puppetmaster, since this was almost certainly the only time in her life that information would ever come in handy.
"You know about Loutkari's blackmail, too?" Radek asked. "You really are the world's greatest detective, Nancy Drew!"
"Darn tooting!" Nancy said. She smiled in satisfaction, then paused. "Wait, what blackmail?"