Mrs. Kaplan and the Matzoh Ball of Death Read Online Free

don’t even believe it, but he seemed to be convinced of it.”
    “That Pupik would believe the worst of anyone,” I replied. “Why someone who seems not to like people would take a job like his I cannot imagine. But did you ask him how Bertha Finkelstein could have an earring in her soup and not notice?”
    “Actually, I was going to ask just that question, but Menschyk, he beat me to it. He pointed out that being diamonds, and not very big ones at that, they would not necessarily show up if dropped into soup or concealed in a matzoh ball; and Pupik adds that poor Bertha had bad eyesight.”
    “Hmmm. I suppose…”
    “Anyway, at that point I asked them if that is all they want. Pupik looked at Menschyk and then says, ‘Yes, for the moment,’ whatever that means, and while I was standing up, Pupik asked me, very politely mind you, ‘By the way, Mrs. Kaplan, do you happen to know where the other earring is that matches this one?’ I was in no mood to play guessing games, so I replied, ‘No, where?’ Maybe he was going to tell me it was in the gefilte fish. But no, he just says, ‘Thank you, Mrs. Kaplan,’ and he holds the door for me. The interview, he clearly is saying, is over.”

6
    “So just between you and me and the teacup, Rose,” I said, “what
do
you think happened? I mean, if Daisy’s earring was really in the soup, how do you suppose it got there?”
    She stared into the cup for a while like she was reading the tea leaves, which maybe she was. Just then Mrs. Bissela, who is a real
yenta
and inserts herself into everyone’s business, wandered past. You can be sure that if what you say is overheard by Mrs. Bissela, it will be public knowledge before you can say
“Sha!”
It’s a lot like talking on a party line telephone in the old days, or maybe it’s like saying something on that Facebook thing everyone is talking on lately. (About the Facebook I wouldn’t know, as I am what my son Morty calls a “very low-tech” person, whatever that means.)
    Anyway, Mrs. K immediately changed the subject and inquired, “How is Morty?” As if she didn’t know. But I understood and I answered he was fine, and we went on in this manner until Mrs. Bissela, finding nothing interesting in our conversation, continued on her way.
    “Nu,”
I prompted Mrs. K, “so how do you think the earring got there already?”
    “Well,” she said, “I am trying to think like Sherlock Holmes, whom as you know I admire very much from his books.” And indeed Mrs. K has probably read every story there is about Mr. Sherlock Holmes, some more than once. “So let us look at what we know for certain, and the possibilities about what we do not know.”
    She consulted her little notepad and checked things off as she said them.
    “We know that I won the contest and made the matzoh ball soup,” she said, “and that no one else is allowed in the kitchen when I am making the soup, in order that my recipe will stay a secret.”
    I nod in agreement. “And so what are the possibilities for how the earring enters the soup?”
    “First, and the easiest answer, I could have been wearing it and it fell off my ear while I was making the matzoh balls or the soup.”
    “I suppose…”
    “Only I wasn’t wearing Daisy’s earring, or any other earring, as anyone who saw me knows, so we can eliminate possibility number one.”
    “No possibility number one,” I agreed.
    “The next possibility,” she continued, “is that Daisy’s earring was already in the matzoh meal or the eggs or the onions when I mixed them together. But while I did start with an open box of matzoh meal that I found in the cupboard, and I cannot say I looked inside the box for an earring, like it was a prize from Cracker Jake or whatever it is called, this seems to me unlikely, unless Daisy was using that box before me, and while wearing her earrings.”
    “And we both know,” I said, “that Daisy has not cooked anything more complicated than water for tea