Daphne Blake walked silently past the tall bookshelves of the University of Coolsville library. Students all around her sat at long tables, their heads down, backs bent over whatever subject they worked on. The occasional clicks of a distant typewriter could be heard echoing down a hallway, though the typist was far away.

She didn't want to be noticed given the work she was on her way to do, but she always felt like she was. Her bright purple dresses and black skin were still considered out of place at the small, conservative and very white college. It was 1969. Supposedly they were past all this. Daphne knew better.

Finally, after what felt like forever, she found the small study room hidden by shelves she sought. She slid in, closing the door carefulyl behind her and turned around.

A young man, with a chiseled jawline and bright blonde hair was waiting for her. His college sweater, white with bright blue pockets and a yellow "C" embroidered on the chest, pulled taught over his defined chest and shoulders.

With little hesitation, Daphne pulled him into a deep hug, which he reciprocated. His strong arms held her for at least five minutes. They said nothing, just allowing each other to be close to one another. In Daphne's opinion, it was her favorite spot in the world.

At last they broke apart.

"What did you find out?" Fred asked quietly as he and Daphne took a seat at the study table.

"Not very much," Daphne said. She set her bag on the table, and pulled out a textbook titled Public Speaking.

She opened the book and dumped out several pages worth of handwritten notes. There were scraps of papers with addresses and phone numbers, as well as several notecards printed with books and page numbers.

"We've got so much information but can't put anything together. There's... there's nothing to connect the suspects together and certainly nothing to connect them to the murder," Daphne explained, sifting through the papers. She picked up a small envelope and handed it to Fred. "This could be something, but it makes no sense. Clearly a code, but nothing I've seen before."

Fred pulled out a small faded letter from the envelope. The writing was written in cursive, and was clearly legible, but none of the words on the page made sense. It read as follows:

Bein Gyrid,

W fada pcev oc daz wkcy, jqh qowj wr wqhz ze wrsp. I xnckiaa mmu laop, I ewzj sma ss ibdfmuod. Rm nwp tmroaw rhip. W joda mmv ak ascp.

Owlcmnsjy,

Lwbly

"I mean, it's a letter," Fred said, scanning through the letter a second time. "That much is for certain. And from what I can tell, it's encoded English. See this? It has the same amount of letters as 'sincerely'. But none of the letters are repeated in a distingushiable pattern, so that's as much as I can say."

"What if we try to take it to a professor? Like in the math department? Maybe they can plug it into a formula and decode it for us," Daphne suggested.

"Nah. We're not supposed to let on what we're doing to anyone. And if this turns out to say anything, uh, uncouth, the last people we want to know is the administration," Fred replied.

"That's true," Daphne rested her chin in her hand. "If only we knew someone who could solve it but wouldn't snitch on us. But I have no idea of anyone who could solve a code like this that's not paid to teach here."

Fred shook his head. Daphne put a reassuring hand on his, and squeezed tight.

"We'll figure it out. Don't you worry. We'll figure out who killed him and they'll get what's coming to them," Daphne reassured him. Fred nodded solemnly. He grimaced, and she squeezed his hand again.

The doorknob turned silently, unnoticed by the couple who were deep in thought. The door squeaked open.

Before the young woman who entered could even look up, the pair had jumped up from their seats. Daphne snatched up all the notes and swept them into her bag.

"Oh, I-I'm sorry," the girl stammered as she noticed the couple. "I-I didn't know anyone was in here. I'll come back later-"

"No it's fine," Daphne said quickly. She looked to Fred, who nodded and began to make his way around the table. "We were just leaving anyway..."

"I don't...I don't want you to leave on my account," the girl said. She pushed her thick rimmed glasses up on her nose, and redoubled her grip on the books in her arms.

"No really. It's fine," Daphne said, slipping past her and out into the library. Fred followed just behind her.

"It's all yours," Fred muttered. He gave a nod to the girl and he and Daphne disappeared behind the shelves.

Velma turned away from the door to observe the empty room. A familiar feeling settled in her stomach as she set her books down on the polished wood. She pulled out a chair and sat down, letting out a small groan of relief as the weight lifted from her left leg.

She didn't want them to leave. She wanted them to have just stayed there and worked on whatever they were doing. She wasn't going to bother them. She just wanted company. She always just wanted company.

Alone now, she set her bag down on the floor beside her chair. Unconsciously, she pulled up her knee socks, a practice she had gotten into as she started to find scratch marks from the metal brace she wore that was now at least one size too small. Without even realizing it, she found herself staring at a small envelope on the floor under the table. She reached down and picked it up, figuring it must have belonged to the couple that had just left the room.

Probably a love letter, she thought to herself as she slid the letter out of the envelope.

It was encoded, that much was true. Velma counted the letters. No patterns of letters. No letter stood out a higher volume amongst the others.

She turned over the envelope. No name or address. A small pencil mark caught her eye. She turned the envelope over again, and peered inside. There, on the inside of the envelope, was the word "Casem" written in the same writing as the letter.

Casem Hall? she thought. No wait...C-A-S-E-M... Five letters... Maybe it's a...

She didn't even finish the thought before she dove into her bag to retrieve a book, hardbound in a green cover. Golden print on the cover read Ciphers and Cryptology for the 20th Century.

She flipped through it, coming to rest on a chapter labeled The Vigenère Cipher. She flipped a few more pages to a table full of letters. Pulling a scrap piece of paper out of a compsition book, she wrote down each letter on the paper, then matched the word Casem to each letter. Following the grid of the table she worked backwards to decrypt the code. Within a minute she had the first two words...

Dear Sarah

She smiled to herself, impressed with her own handiwork. As she set to work decrypting the rest of the message and trying to figure out how to find those two students again to show them, she almost forgot that she had come in the study room to get to work on an essay about the Dewey decimal system.

Almost, being the key word.