Need advice on investigation in 4e game

[ImmortalLiam]

In my 4e dnd game a npc character (Minotaur name Hagen) gets kidnapped after leaving word to the party that he wishes to meet them a X location at X time. His kidnapper does this trying to draw a PC out for revenge because the PC killed his wife. Ironically, the player is no longer using that character, but I wish for the kidnapper to make an appearance, so I am doing it like this. Anyhow, Hagen is taken from his cabin, on the outskirts of town. But when the party arrives, he is simply missing. Hagen is a bodyguard of the local nobility, but no one knows where he went. One of the players has expressed interest in a mystery, so any advice on how I could leave a trail for the party to follow?

[Evard]

Make sure to not make the key items always so "shiny" yes a bloody footprint should be shiny but maybe a book on a shelf is missing wont be so obvious. You could even have them accidentally stumble onto another crime scene and let them decide if they think that is part of the missing npc crime or not (and therefor they go off solving a different crime accidentally lol)

you could always pick up your favorite mystery book and use information from that to help make the pc's have a better time?

[742]

you noted the edition here, which implies that you think it should be a mechanics thing. sometimes mechanics can help this sort of thing, and a cloak-and-dagger wizard or telepath is really really cool but honestly mystery plots tend to be either very RP heavy or kinda boring.

[ImmortalLiam]

I mentioned the edition because I know 3.5 had ALOT more options with training. But I really dont care about the mechanics as much as the roleplaying. We had done away with rule we think just focus on mechanics too much, because wed rather have fun than get into wars over the rules. And I like the random sub murder idea... I think ill use it

[Drenn]

If you have the Eberron campaign setting, there's a number of nifty toys for solving a mystery in it. I have an NPC in my campaign I'm running right now who's basically a private investigator. She gets a lot of millage out of the ritual Inquisitive Eyes (pg 118). If you have the book, I recommend using that ritual, and some of their clockwork toys.