When they got into the village on Sunday morning they were surprised to see a police cruiser parked in front of the Podmores' diner. There was a surprisingly large number of curious bystanders on the sidewalk considering it was an early hour on a Sunday. Jesse and the girls pressed aggressively forward until they could see a uniformed policeman and Mr. Podmore standing just inside the front door of the diner. Jesse rapped loudly on the glass door. Those inside ignored him at first, then he rapped again and the police officer opened the door, clearly annoyed. "Look, kid, the diner's not open today."
"I don't want to eat, I have something to say, officer sir."
The officer held the door open reluctantly, challenging Jesse to say something that would justify his effort.
"I was the one who phoned about the money being dropped off at Bat Cave last night. It might have something to do with this, if you'd only tell me what this is about."
"Yeah, that's right. I heard about it this morning. I don't see what it has to do with this incident here, though."
"It might." Jesse stared hard at Mr. Podmore, who merely looked upset and puzzled. The officer waved Jesse in. Immediately, the girls followed.
"Hey, I didn't say anything about your entourage."
Ivy was not to be deterred. "We're nobody's entourage. We are working to solve this case."
"Case?" The policeman guffawed. "What do you know about it? It's a simple break and enter."
Nancy turned to Mr. Podmore. "Is that right?"
Mr. Podmore seemed relieved to have a familiar face to speak to. "It doesn't seem simple to me. There's nothing valuable here and nothing was taken. The alarm went off at 7:32. That's when the security company phoned me. I came here as soon as I could."
The group had followed Mr. Podmore from the dining area, through the kitchen doors, past the kitchen to a small back room. The room was clearly used for office functions. It was dominated by a large wooden desk on which lay files, letters, bills, pens, and an adding machine. On shelves were restaurant supplies. The window in the back room was broken. The latch had been undone and the window pulled up. Shards of glass were strewn over the desk.
Mr. Podmore continued. "I can't see any point to it. You couldn't get any of the equipment through that window, that's for sure. They couldn't have had ten minutes before I arrived."
"Nothing is missing?" Nancy asked.
Mr. Podmore made a wry grin and raised his hands in a gesture of incomprehension. "They could have taken a couple of bottles of ketchup. I guess we wouldn't notice that."
"You didn't have any important documents lying around?" Nancy stared at Mr. Podmore keenly. She had gone from curious bystander to interrogator.
Mr. Podmore felt the change immediately. He stiffened. "What are you going on about? This is a diner. What kind of important documents do you think I have? You can see for yourself. They're just letters about beer delivery."
"You won't mind if we have a look around, sir?" Nancy addressed this to the constable.
The constable was either secretly amused to let Nancy conduct the investigation or thought he might learn something from the proceedings. He shrugged. Nancy instructed her friends to spread out and inspect the premises.
Mr. Podmore turned to look at the officer in exasperation. "Constable Lewis, is this really necessary?" The officer merely flipped through his notebook blandly.
In a few minutes a shout came from Bess. "Nancy, come look at this!" Bess had lifted the lid on a garbage bin. Lying on top of potato peelings, lettuce leaves and other expected byproducts of food preparation was a folded newspaper. Bess lifted the folded sheets of newspaper to reveal blackened remnants of burnt paper. Nancy pulled out a multi-purpose tool from her handbag and flicked out a knife. She lifted up the burnt paper with the care of a museum curator.
"Almost all of the sheet has been reduced to ashes," Nancy pronounced shortly. "The ashes aren't here so the paper was burned elsewhere. There's just a fragment of paper that's still readable. I'm sure that it's a sheet of the same newspaper that's lying on top. And you can barely see something significant in the fragment. At least a couple of letters have been cut out of the newspaper text."
"Pardon? What's that?" Constable Lewis looked up from his notes.
"It's just what you might see in a blackmail note, letters cut from a newspaper."
Jesse hastened to recount the story he had told the police over the phone the night before.
Mr. Podmore was quick to object. "I've never seen this newspaper before. I don't know how it got there."
"So," said Constable Lewis,"there's more to this than it seems. It's a good thing you kids are here."
"Yeah, it was a clever move to let us in," Jesse remarked sarcastically. Ivy gave him a warning glance.
Constable Lewis exited the building and came back with evidence bags and envelopes, and a fingerprint dusting kit. While he carried out his duties everyone else found seats in the diner. Mrs. Podmore arrived with a look of great concern on her face. She quickly conferred with her husband in an anxious whisper. Then everyone sat silently, watching the policeman's investigations. As they seemed to be taking a long time, no one had objections to Mrs. Podmore making coffee and serving soft drinks.
"Well," the constable concluded at last, "if there's no more evidence to be gathered, maybe we should be clearing out and leaving Mr. Podmore to open his diner." He looked sternly at the business owner. "We'll be talking to Mr. Eberhart. I assume you'll be making yourself available in case we need to talk to you again."
"But the break-in is still unexplained," pointed out Ivy.
"Yes, you're right." Nancy said, frowning. Her friends thought she looked dissatisfied.