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NECKLACV 4' Detective and the case of the stolen necklace

Once again, Lucifer Snidely's planning created what looked like
a perfect crime. The robbers left no clues at the museum. So,
again, Michaela and the policeman had to go to the prison and
see if there were any clues there. But, again, there were no
clues in Lucifer Snidely's cell. So, they looked at the records
of phone calls. No phone calls. So, they looked at the visitor
records to see who visited Lucifer Snidely on the day of the
robbery.

"Bingo!" exclaimed the policeman, "Two hours after the robbery,
Lucifer Snidely had one visitor. But it says here he only stayed
for less than a minute."

When they looked at the recordings from the cameras in the
visitor center at the time Lucifer Snidely had a visitor, they
saw that the visitor sat down, stayed for ten seconds, then got
up and left without saying anything.

"Wait." said Michaela as she pointed, "Play that again."

"See something?" asked the policeman.

"Yes," replied Michaela, "While he's sitting, he has both hands
on the table. But one of them is moving. Watch."

Sure enough, for the entire time the visitor was sitting, his
right hand was moving in small movements.

"What do you make of that?" asked the policeman.

Michaela replied, "I think he has a small pencil or pen between
his fingers and he's writing something on the table."

They took note of the table Lucifer Snidely was sitting at
during the visit, then they went to the visitors center and
inspected the table. Sure enough, the word "school" was written
in pencil on the visitor's side of the table.

"What do you think that means?" asked the policeman.

Michaela suggested, "I think we should look in the real estate
records to see if Lucifer Snidely bought one of those empty
schools that the city sold off."

Sure enough, the real estate records showed that just before
Lucifer Snidely went to prison, he bought an empty school,
intending to convert the school into a factory.

They went to the factory and inspected it carefully. Every one
of the classrooms had been cleaned out. There were no desks, no
tables, no chairs, no white boards, no telephones -- EXCEPT for
one classroom. It still had one white board and one telephone
hanging on the wall.

Michaela pointed to the telephone and said, "I think that
telephone is really a vault that looks like a telephone."

Sure enough, when the policeman pried the telephone off the
wall, he discovered that it weighed about ten times more than a
regular wall phone just as you would expect a vault to weigh.

The policeman asked, "I assume that you open it by pushing the
push buttons, but what's the combination?"

Michaela pointed to the white board and replied, "I think it's
on the back of that white board."

Sure enough, when they pried the white board off the wall, they
saw these numbers written on the back:

5 4 3 2 _ 0

2 4 _ 8 10

1 3 5 _ 9

8 6 4 _

3 6 _ 12

20 15 10 _ 0

11 22 3_ 44

1 41 2 42 3 _3 4 44

1 2 4 _

2 1 _ -1


The policeman replied, "That can't be it. That's too many
numbers for one combination."

(can you guess the combination from these numbers?)

Michaela replied, "I think this is just one of those
fill-in-the-blanks test."

Then she pointed at the first line and explained, "See, the next
number after 5 4 3 2 is 1."

"Yes! Yes, of course!" exclaimed the policeman. 

Then he pointed to the second line and explained, "The second
line is counting by twos: 2 4 6 8 10.

(can you guess the rest of the combination?)

Here is the whole combination they used:

1,6,7,2,9,5,3,4,8,0

There was a click, a buzz and a hum. The telephone vault opened
like a book. Inside was the world's most expensive necklace!

Michaela, the world's greatest detective solved yet another
mystery.

©2009 Bob Snook. Conditions for use:
This story is free. Pay no fees or royalties.
Do not sell this story or rewrite it.
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http://www.bobsnook.org/kid  email: bob@bobsnook.org

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