Bottom Man looked unhappy as he put down the phone after hearing the latest news from the Chief. The green car had been found abandoned a few miles from the Library. Naturally, it was stolen and there was nothing to lead them to the driver. Although the police had the man's description, they didn't hold out much hope of them finding him. It was easy to hide in a big city like Washington.
Bottom Man sat down at the computer and opened up the ransom e-mail again. He scrolled down to the attached photo of Mayor Fiddley tied up in a chair. Poor man, said BM, shaking his head. Then suddenly something in the photo caught his eye. In the wall behind the mayor was an open window, through which could be seen the letters "ITI" on a blue background.
"Looks like something written on a billboard," said Bottom Man to himself. "Come and look at this," he called down to the Countess.
"If it's a billboard, that means that the room is on an upper level," said the Countess. "OK, that's something," said BM, scratching his head, "but what on earth does 'ITI' mean?" "Well it looks like we can see the bottom right-hand corner of the billboard, so I'd say it's either an abbreviation or it's the end of a longer word," said the Countess.
"Let's see what the Bottom Brigade can turn up," said BM excitedly. The Bottom Brigade was BM's name for the thousands of fans all over the world who were connected to his web-site, always ready to help out in his investigations. He opened up the site and quickly posted an alert to everyone in the Washington area to keep an eye out for a blue billboard with the letters "ITI" in the bottom right-hand corner.
Half an hour later, the computer beeped. One of BM's loyal fans had sent a message that there was a billboard with the words "Visit Tahiti" in the lower right-hand corner on 14th St, near the corner of S St. "Paydirt," cried BM in triumph.