I'll let you in on a journalistic secret. Oh sure, reporters can develop inside sources, file Freedom of Information Act requests and sift through page after page of legal documents. You know, actual work. But sometimes getting the blockbuster story is all luck. It's asking the right question at the right time in the right place. That's how I got this column that blows the lid off a story that will have other journalists doing the Forehead Smack.

As you know, they are remodeling the second floor of Lincoln Library. And for the past nine years, whenever we refer to Lincoln Library, it must be followed by this phrase: “The public library, not the presidential library.” This requirement is in the city's municipal code now.

I was at the library and noticed that the carpet on the second floor had been taken up. Some walls had been pulled out for replacement. And so I asked this question, as any columnist desperate for an idea would, “Did they find anything weird up there?”

I was thinking along the lines of, oh, a library book that had been missing for 20 years or perhaps Gracie Gold's old library card. I never anticipated the answer I received, which was, “They found three bottles of booze behind a wall.”

Hot on the trail of this scoop, I relentlessly grilled library director Nancy Huntley.

“They were taking down the wall in the second-floor men's room,” she admitted under intense questioning, “when these bottles appeared. Someone suggested that maybe they pulled the soap dispenser or paper towel thing off the wall just enough to put them behind there.”

Using archaeological skills I picked up by watching reruns of “The Mummy” movies, I examined the evidence. I concluded that these Canadian Club whiskey bottles are old. One might call them historic artifacts. I just did.

I know they are old because they still had the store stickers on them. The stickers revealed that they were purchased from Thrifty Drug. The last Thrifty in Springfield closed about 20 years ago. These bottles, half-pints, still had the original price stickers on them: $2.15, $2.15 and $2.25. The going price for a half-pint of CC today is $5.

Two of the bottles are empty, and one contains an unknown liquid substance. I suggested they be dusted for prints.

But here's the real stunner. Each bottle still has its federal tax sticker on the cap. The dates are 1969, 1969 and 1970. HOWEVER, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I submit to you that the Lincoln Library building construction was not completed until (pause here for dramatic effect) 1977!

Cue the theme from “Twilight Zone.” Nee noo nee noo. Nee noo nee noo.

“At first,” Huntley says, “we thought they were put here when the building was built. But the bathrooms were tiled in 1976 or 1977. We don't know who did it or when it happened. We just know they were hidden there by somebody at some point.”

Yes. That much is obvious. But who did it? And why did they hold onto the liquor for what appears to be at least seven or eight years before hiding it behind the library wall? What is the mysterious substance remaining in one of the bottles? And how do I get myself moved to the front of the library's long waiting list to check out “Orange Is the New Black”?

We do not know the answers to these and other important questions such as, Will the liquor bottles be donated to the Sangamon Valley Collection?

I have been disappointed ever since it was announced that the library's second-floor remodeling will no longer include the proposed coffee shop. It would have been so nice to relax up there with a cup of mud, reading the new issue of Texas Monthly while I am supposed to be working.

But it never crossed my mind that I could have a toddy while browsing through the public library. I need to get out more.

Know of something quirky? Emotional? Funny? Inspiring? Dave Bakke is your man and his deadline is always near. Pitch your idea to him at dave.bakke@sj-r.com or (217) 788-1541. His column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. To read more, visit www.sj-r.com/bakke.