After Nancy opens the evidence locker --

-- she'll find a set of lockpicks, and since she can't use them she'll hand them off to one of her friends. (It doesn't matter which one.)

If you haven't run across a place to use them yet, just hang on to them. Eventually you'll run across --

-- a locked filing cabinet in a locked storeroom in Scoop.

You now have lockpicks and lock; all you need is instructions on using them. Nancy told you there was a guide to using them in her room. You'll find it --

-- in a worn blue notebook in the lower left drawer of her desk, which is upstairs. And it's --

-- not that helpful, blast it. Read to the end of this hint for the exact steps you need to crack the lock.

The guide isn't helpful at first sight, that is. It just needs a little translation. First, we need to figure out which of the five patterns we should be looking at.

The caption under each picture tells you what kind of lock that pattern opens, but Nancy has replaced the vowels with stars. The first one says "LGGG* L*CK," which most likely translates to "luggage lock." Can you see which one works for a file cabinet?

That's right, it's the bottom one on the left page. Now what else can we learn here?

The rules on top say you first place all four picks. If you tried this back at the store, you found that the four picks each have a different color, and they go into the lock in the order you pick them up. That is, the first one you pick up goes in the lower right corner, the second in the lower left corner, and so on around.

The colors around the pattern we want show the order you should place the keys. Yellow goes in the lower right corner, so place the yellow lockpick first, then the red, then blue, then green. You can now start manipulating the lockpicks, once you know the order.

The guide says to start with the shaded letter. That's the R at the top of the pattern. The caption under the pattern translates to --

-- "Every second one." The letters in the pattern obviously stand for the colors of the picks -- R for red, B for blue, Y for yellow, and G for green. And the arrow in the middle of the pattern shows that you need to go clockwise, and you'll need to go around more than once.

So click on the red pick, and then the yellow one, and then the blue one, and so on until you've clicked on every circle in the pattern. If the drawer doesn't pop open, back away from the cabinet to reset the puzzle and start again.

Lost? Okay, here's the whole process (which will work once you've looked at the lockpick guide in Nancy's desk):