A REAL GEM,by Hal Charles
“You know, Sis,” said Krissy Taylor, “this might be a real-life, down-to-earth, genuine locked room mystery.”
“I hadn’t thought about it that way,” said State Police Detective Kelly Stone, “but you’re right. Now I want you to stand guard here at these locked double-doors, and don’t let anybody in or out of the ballroom, no matter what they plead.”
“Even if they have to go to the bathroom?”
“Even then,” responded the detective as she moved to the front of the room where her grandmother had just stood screaming over and over, “It’s gone!” Both sisters knew instantly what had happened in the midst of their grandmother’s “simple soiree.”
“I assume you’re talking about the Ice-Drop Diamond,” Kelly said, calming down her very wealthy grandmother, Vanessa, known to
