• Leroy Brown is an eighth grader in Idaville who is popularly known by his nickname, Encyclopedia.

  • Encyclopedia Brown possesses immense knowledge and remembers every fact from the large number of books he reads.

  • Chief Brown secretly relies on his young son to solve difficult criminal cases during family dinner discussions.

  • Encyclopedia keeps his detective work private because he wants to fit in and be like other normal boys.

  • Five years ago, two masked robbers stole one million dollars worth of jewellery from the Diamond Mart.

  • Tim Nolan and Daniel Davenport first met and became friends while serving time in a South Carolina prison.

  • After his release from prison, Tim Nolan settled in Idaville and operated a small palm-tree nursery.

  • The police suspected Nolan of the robbery, but a clerk refused to testify and no loot was found.

  • Daniel Davenport disappeared immediately after the robbery to allow time for the crime investigation to cool down.

  • Police officers thoroughly searched Nolan's house under a court order but failed to find any stolen jewellery.

  • Tim Nolan suffered a sudden fatal stroke and left his palm-tree nursery to Davenport in his will.

  • A desk calendar sheet clipped to Nolan's will contained Davenport's address and a strange four-word coded message.

  • The four puzzling words written on the calendar sheet were Nom, Utes, Sweden, and Hurts.

  • Mrs. Brown tried to explain the literal definitions of the four words but could not decipher the code.

  • Encyclopedia realized that the calendar sheet provided the key clue needed to solve the hidden code.

  • Nolan created the code by removing the letters d-a-y from the names of weekdays.

  • The four written words were anagrams representing Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.

  • The unwritten fifth word in the sequence was Friday, which formed the anagram word fir.

  • Encyclopedia correctly deduced that the stolen jewellery was hidden beneath the only fir tree in the nursery.

  • The missing jewellery was discovered inside a twenty-gallon jug of earth beneath the young fir tree.