As they settled into chairs in Joyce's office, Nancy
asked the question uppermost in her mind. “How
exactly do you prevent contest fraud, Joyce?”
“Generally, that information is a closely guarded
secret,” Joyce said. “But since you are directly affected,
I'll tell you this much. In these days of color printers
and copiers, it's obviously not difficult to counterfeit a
winning wrapper. Therefore, we assign a special code
number to the genuine instant-win wrapper in order to
prevent forgeries. The number is printed beneath the
words Grand Prize. Obviously, we guard the winning
number with our lives. Only a handful of people at
Royal have access to this information, and it's locked in
a safe.”
Nancy leaned forward. “And did Bess's wrapper
have the correct code number?”
Joyce paused. “Yes. It certainly did. So far, your
claim appears to be completely valid, Bess.”
“But so does Diana's, I assume,” Nancy said.
Joyce nodded. “That's right. The code number on
her wrapper was also correct. And she's already been
awarded the prize. Needless to say, Mr. Tumey is ready
to have my head. The company can't afford to pay two
winners. And this promotion has already cost Royal a
lot of money. I'm afraid I'm going to lose my job.”
Bess cleared her throat. “We're sorry to hear that, of
course. But that can't be the reason you called us here
at this hour.”
“No. I talked to Mr. Tumey,” Joyce explained. “We
agreed that we can't afford the publicity that would be
caused by bringing in the police at this point. But we
need to get to the bottom of this mystery. We know
you're a detective, Nancy, and we were wondering if
you could help us.”
“This whole scenario is very interesting.” Nancy
tapped her fingers on the desk. “Frankly, I don't
understand why you'd come to me for help. I mean,
earlier this afternoon you said you thought Bess might
have cheated to win the contest. How do you know you
can trust us?”
“It's not much of a risk,” Joyce said with a smile. “I
checked you out online and found old newspaper
accounts of some of your cases. You're a bit of a
celebrity, Nancy Drew. The River Heights police chief
speaks highly of you—and your friends. So I think I can
trust you and Bess. I hope I can. You're going to be
investigating on your own regardless of what I say,
right?”
“You'd better believe it,” Bess replied.
Joyce fixed her eyes on Nancy. “I'm sure you can
understand why I'd rather have you on our side than
against us. And by working together, I'm sure we stand
a much better chance of uncovering the truth. That's
what we all want, isn't it?”
“Of course it is,” Nancy agreed.
“Then you'll do it?” Joyce asked.
Nancy nodded.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” Joyce shook
Nancy's hand. “I can't tell you how grateful I am. And,
Bess—your patience will be rewarded. You have my
word that this will all be straightened out very shortly.”
“If Nancy's on the case, I'm sure it will,” Bess said
simply.
Joyce smiled. “I'm glad you have such confidence in
your friend. Now, I know this is asking a lot, but if you
could avoid contacting the media until the controversy
is resolved, we would appreciate it. We're trying our
best to keep this under wraps. We haven't even told
Diana yet.”
Nancy took a moment to digest this. Diana's earlier
rudeness toward them would make a lot more sense if
she knew she was competing with Bess for the contest
money, but apparently she had no idea. “Why haven't
you told Diana?”
“If she has committed fraud, we see no need to tip
her off about the investigation. And the fewer people
who know about the prize mix-up, the better from our
point of view. If this contest turns into a public
relations disaster, Pleasant Candies is sure to take an
even bigger bite out of our business. Oh—” Joyce
turned to Nancy. “Speaking of disasters, I understand
that a crocodile nearly took a bite out of you.”
“I don't know how near it was,” Nancy said, “but it
wasn't exactly one of my trip highlights.”
“Obviously, Royal Chocolates will pay for your extra
night's motel stay. I also took the liberty of setting up a
meeting between Andrea and the president of our
company, Mr. Castle. You may not be aware that Royal
awards a number of educational grants each year.”
“I wasn't aware of that, but why would you assume
Andrea would want to apply for one?”
“Nonprofit organizations can always use money,
right? And Mr. Castle really likes to help worthy
organizations, so I thought it might be worth a shot.”
“It was kind of you to make arrangements for
Andrea,” Nancy said. “I'm sure she'll be grateful.”
“Also,” Joyce added, “I would imagine a tour of the
chocolate factory is on your agenda.”
Bess nodded. “Tomorrow morning.”
“How would you like a personal tour guide to give
you the inside scoop?”
“Free samples for everyone?” Bess asked.
Joyce laughed. “Definitely.”
“You're on.” Bess caught herself. “Wait a second. I'd
better not get carried away. Andrea's in charge. Can we
have her give you a call in the morning?”
“Sure,” Joyce said. “I'll be here at seven.”
“Yikes,” Bess murmured to Nancy as they left
Joyce's office. “I always thought working in a chocolate
factory would be fun until I heard about Joyce's job.”
Nancy nodded. “And I thought being a detective was
stressful.”
The next morning Nancy was pulling on a sweatshirt
when Bess opened her eyes. “Please tell me it isn't
morning already.”
“Eight A.M. Rise and shine,” Nancy said cheerfully.
Bess buried her face in her pillow. “Go away.”
“I am,” Nancy said. “But you'd better get up. Andrea
arranged the factory tour for ten o'clock. And you've
got a breakfast date with ten Sleuths.”
Bess squinted at Nancy. “Where are you going?”
“The computer lab here at the Royal Museum. I
spoke to Joyce this morning, and she says they have
Internet access. I'm going to see what I can find out
about Diana and Phil online.”
“Aren't you going to eat breakfast?”
“I'll grab something later,” Nancy said. “And George
will be back. She just went for a jog. I'll see you guys at
the chocolate factory.”
Nancy glanced at her Kings Commons map as she
walked along the beautifully landscaped path called El
Camino Real. She remembered from her Spanish
classes that that meant “The Royal Way.” The air was
clear and crisp after the previous day's rain. E
mpty cars
ran on Royal Pain's purple tracks, and the warm smell
of chocolate hung over Kings Commons.
George jogged past Nancy. “Great day, isn't it?”
Nancy grinned. “I hope so.”
The computer proctor stood up quickly when Nancy
entered. He seemed surprised to see her. “Hi, I'm
Stan. Can I help you?”
Nancy shook his hand. “My name's Nancy Drew. I
was just hoping to get online.”
“No problem.” Stan led her to the nearest terminal.
“Let me show you how to maneuver our Internet
browser.” He used the mouse to open the Royal
Chocolates home page as an example. “If you want to
perform a search, you click here.” He demonstrated.
“And if you want to go back to a recent search, you can
click on the history button, like so. That way you can
see—”
“Wait!” Nancy cried. She put a hand on the mouse.
“When you clicked the history button, I thought I saw.
. .” She repeated Stan's motions and took a close look
at the name that had flashed on the screen a moment
earlier. “Does this mean what I think it means?” she
asked Stan.
Stan's brow furrowed as he read the screen. “This is
strange. It looks like the last person who used this
computer to search for information was looking for
information about you!”
6. Jelly Rogers
Nancy looked at the keywords for the last several
computer searches. “Nancy Drew,” “Andrea Cassella,”
“Bess Marvin,” “Science Sleuths.” What could this
mean? she asked herself. Who was searching for
information about her and her friends?
“Do you have any idea who used this computer
last?” Nancy asked Stan.
Stan shook his head. “Sorry. I just got in this
morning, so this must have happened yesterday. Patsy
was working then.” He glanced at the schedule taped
to the wall behind his desk. “You'll have to come back
Wednesday—oh, that's tomorrow. Come back
tomorrow and talk to her. But I'm afraid we get about
three hundred users a day, and we don't have any sort
of sign-up system for the users. I wouldn't bet that
she'd remember.”
“Okay. Thanks, Stan. You've been very helpful.”
Nancy gripped the mouse. “I think I can take it from
here.”
“Yell if you need anything,” Stan said. He returned
to his own work.
Nancy stared at the blue screen for a moment. She
remembered Joyce's saying she'd performed an online
search for information about Nancy and her cases.
Surely she'd used the computer in her own office, and
she hadn't mentioned looking up Andrea or the
Sleuths. If someone else was investigating them, who
could it be? She sighed as she looked at her watch—it
was getting late. She'd better get on with her original
plan.
She typed in Diana's name as the keyword for a new
search. “Twenty-four hits,” she read as the computer
returned the results. That meant there were twenty-
four mentions of Diana Nugent on the World Wide
Web.
She pulled up the first match, which listed finish
times for a recent California 5K race. The Diana
Nugent mentioned had placed second in the eighteen-
and-under category. “Definitely not our Diana,” Nancy
murmured. She bit her lip as, one by one, she
discarded the entries returned by the search engine.
“Is everything going okay over there?” Stan asked.
“Mmm,” Nancy murmured. She clicked on the
seventeenth link. “I think . . .” She straightened up in
her seat. “It might be going better now.”
Finally she appeared to have uncovered something
useful. Here was a web page for Gold Nugget
Publishing, which listed Diana Nugent as its president
and Phil Nugent as vice-president. Based on the
conversation she'd heard earlier between Diana and
Phil, Nancy realized this had to be their company.
Publishing, she thought to herself. If Diana had high-
quality printing equipment and the expertise, she
would have the ability to forge a winning chocolate
wrapper. That still left the problem of the code
number. Diana's wrapper had had the correct instant-
win code. How could she have gotten that information?
Nancy wondered.
She skimmed through the various areas of the
company's website—history, services offered, clients.
Suddenly Nancy drew in her breath.
One of Gold Nugget's clients was Pleasant Candies!
There was even a quote from Pleasants president,
Maggie Fitzwilliam, praising Diana's work. Could the
fact that Pleasant Candies was their client possibly be a
coincidence? Nancy asked herself. Could Diana be a
link to the corporate spy?
A group of noisy students entered the lab at that
moment, and Nancy realized someone would want to
use her terminal. I'll just take five more minutes, she
thought to herself, glancing at the clock on the
computer screen.
“Oh, no,” she whispered. It was already ten o'clock.
She was late.
“Thanks for everything,” she told Stan as she stuffed
her pen and notebook into her bag and slung it over
her shoulder. “I'll be back.”
The chocolate factory was a short walk from the
computer lab. Nancy found she didn't even need to
check her map to orient herself; she could follow her
nose.
She caught up with the Sleuths as Joyce was handing
out cacao beans.
“Besides making chocolate, the ancient Aztecs used
the cacao bean as a unit of currency,” Joyce was
explaining.
“Great. I hope they don't try to pay me my prize
money in beans,” Bess whispered to George.
Kenny bit into his and immediately made a face. “It
tastes terrible.” He spat it into a tissue Andrea handed
him.
Joyce laughed. “I was about to tell you that you
might not want to taste it. It's bitter because sugar
hasn't been added to it.”
Laura nodded. “I tasted my mother's baking
chocolate once. It was gross.”
“Let's go see what happens to the cacao beans after
they've been roasted and blended.” Joyce led the
Sleuths into the next room. “We'll have better-tasting
samples soon. I promise.”
“Did I miss anything?” Nancy asked.
“Not really. I called to check on the van,” Andrea
said. “They still have no idea when it will be ready.”
Nancy shook her head. “That's too bad.” She nodded
toward the Sleuths. “The kids seem to be enjoying the
tour.”
Andrea smiled. “Yes. Joyce is wonderful with them.”
“I'm sorry I was late.” Nancy glanced at the clear
tubes, running from ceiling to floor, filled with a
stream of melted chocolate that had been poured into
them from huge vats on the second floor. She ha
d
never seen so much chocolate.
“You're never late without a good reason,” Bess said
to Nancy. “So spill the beans.” She giggled. “No pun
intended.”
“I did learn something interesting,” Nancy said.
“Diana and Phil own a publishing company. And one of
their clients happens to be Pleasant Candies.”
“Wow,” George said. “That would make it easy for
them to print a fake wrapper.”
“That's true,” Andrea said. “But lots of people could
probably do that. The question is, how would they get
the right instant-win code?”
Bess nodded. “And what about Pleasant Candies? I
don't understand why it's important.”
“It's not as though anyone at Pleasant would know
anything about Royal's contest,” Andrea observed.
“Not necessarily,” Nancy said quietly. She explained
what she and Bess had overheard in Joyce's office
about the possibility of a corporate spy at Royal.
“So,” George said, “if somebody who worked for
Pleasant came to Royal and nosed around looking for
company secrets . . .”
“And found some—like the instant-win code, for
instance,” Bess said, getting the connection now. “If
Diana has connections to Pleasant, maybe she was
working with that employee and maybe he or she gave
her the code number.”
“Don't get too excited,” Nancy cautioned Bess. “We
don't have any proof. It's just an idea. In fact, I'm not
even going to mention it to Joyce yet. I want to learn
more about Diana's ties to Pleasant first.”
Nancy stopped talking as she realized Joyce was
asking the Sleuths a question.
“And who can guess why he decided to name the
company Royal Chocolates?”
Katie's hand shot in the air. “Because his last name
was Castle.”
“Very good. Of course, that wasn't his real last name.
He changed it when he came over from Italy, so that it
would sound more American. In the 1920s, people
were not so tolerant of immigrants.”
“Did he change his name back once he got rich and
famous and successful?” Emma asked.
“That's a good question.” Joyce paused. “No, Mr.
Castle didn't change his name back, but he never
forgot what it was like to be poor or to struggle. That's
why it was so important to him that Royal Chocolates
do things to help the community. He built a museum
and an amusement park to provide safe and wholesome