The Librarian's Ghost

Velma was annoyed, bored and frustrated, although she could not immediately decide on the order of priority of these feelings. The reason for feeling thus was simple; she was securely tied to a chair, gagged and utterly helpless.

Velma was also very surprised to find herself bound and gagged and had no idea why it had happened. She had agreed to undertake some ancestral research into the Griffin family for a friend and that research had brought her to England, where the family had its origins. It turned out that the library of Shrewsbury College in Oxford had an archive of the Griffin family papers and she had decided to begin the English phase of her research there.

Investigating a family history was not something Velma would ordinarily undertake, but it was for a friend and, as the techniques of carrying out research are much the same irrespective of the topic, it was a task she was well equipped to undertake. Besides, it gave her an excuse to visit England with Daphne and Fred while Shaggy and Scooby were away helping with a summer camp.

Elizabeth Wyvern, the college librarian had been wonderfully helpful when Velma made her initial approach by phone and set aside one of the small individual study rooms in the Victorian library building for her exclusive use. Velma had been impressed to discover that all the documents had at some time been microfilmed and indexed and that the images had subsequently been scanned onto computer. She was able to work in comfort, sitting in a leather swivel chair with everything she wanted available on the computer terminal in front of her. Most of the text was easily readable, with only a few documents for which Velma would wish to see the originals, either because the scans were indistinct or too small or because she needed to see them in color. She had her laptop computer with her to make some notes as she went and a reporter's notebook open to jot down odd references.

All had gone well for the first hour or so. Velma was already accumulating a wealth of interesting data to be followed up in the library and elsewhere when she was rudely interrupted by being hit hard on the back of the head. She did not lose consciousness but was too dazed and shocked to offer more than token resistance as her wrists were bound behind her back, her ankles and knees tied, her body lashed tightly to the chair and her humiliation completed with a thick cloth gag wedged between her teeth and knotted behind her head. She had a brief clear view of her assailant, but was not sure if she believed what she saw.

As her head cleared, Velma took stock of the situation. She struggled with the ropes securing her more as a matter of principle than with any real hope of escape. She had been tied up often enough in the past to know that her skills as a modern-day Houdini were negligible. Sure enough, she achieved nothing. The room she was in offered no help; convenient sharp edges that she might use to cut herself free were conspicuous by their absence. There was also no obvious way to attract attention. The door was a heavy Victorian affair, so any yells for help would be unlikely to be heard with her gag and an inch or so of oak to deaden the sound. The window was small and high and impossible to reach. There was a telephone line to the room. Velma could see the socket. Unfortunately, there was nothing plugged into it.

Velma knew that if she sat and waited long enough, she would be rescued by the librarian as she checked the building preparatory to the end of her shift, but that would not be until 8pm or later and it was now only about 11am. She resolved to find some way to escape or be rescued.

The way she had been tied, Velma was able to swivel the chair around with her feet, but it was far too heavy for her to be able to move it. She discovered that where she had dumped her purse on the floor, it was just within reach of her feet. It was also not zipped up, so she was able to spill the contents by kicking it over, in the hope that it might yield something useful. She was relieved to see that her passport and wallet were still there. It was not immediately obvious how much help the other items might be. Her hotel room keys and house keys had sharp edges, but even with free hands, it would be a thankless task sawing through rope with a key. The remainder of the contents were even less promising: a hairbrush, spare glasses, clean handkerchief, paperback novel, cellphone and a surprising number of pencils and ballpoint pens.

Velma turned the cellphone over with the toe of her shoe. There was a surprisingly good signal for the inside of a massively built Victorian college. Also, she noticed with growing hope, she had forgotten to lock the keypad before putting it in her purse. Help could be just a button press away.

Trying to contain her excitement, Velma scrubbed the heels of her shoes on the carpet until she was finally able to kick them off. Daphne's cellphone number was programmed into speed-dial location 5 on her phone, so all that she had to do was to press and hold down the middle button until the call connected. She maneuvered the phone into a position where she could reach it comfortably and carefully placed her right big toe on the keypad. It was difficult to feel accurately through the thickness of her sock, but when she was sure she had the right button, she pressed it and held it until she could hear the tiny sound of the ringing tone.

After a few seconds' wait, which seemed to stretch out for hours, Velma was relieved to hear Daphne's voice. "Hi, Velma!" Velma yelled urgently through her gag, hoping she would be understood or at least heard. After a few seconds, she heard Daphne's voice again, apparently speaking to someone else. "Nope, nobody there, I think she's just forgotten to lock her phone and it's gone off in her purse." Velma was furious with herself. She had to find some way to communicate with Daphne.

Velma forced herself to calm down and think clearly. If she could only get and hold Daphne's attention,she was sure they could work out some way to communicate effectively. After a few minutes' thought she selected one of the scattered ballpoint pens and attempted to pick it up with her toes. It took several tries, but eventually Velma had the pen in a secure grasp between the toes of her right foot. All this work with her feet was beginning to take its toll in abraded skin at her knees and even through her socks, her ankles were suffering too.

Using her left toe this time, Velma again dialed Daphne's number. Almost immediately, she heard her friend's voice. "Hi Velma! Are you really there this time?"

Velma was ready this time. Using the pen, she tapped out SOS in Morse code against the case of her phone: Taptaptap tap-tap-tap taptaptap.

Daphe understood instantly. "SOS? Ohmigosh, are you in trouble, Velma?"

Tap.

"Can't you speak?"

Tap.

"Hang on, Vel, one tap for 'no' and two for 'yes'."

Tap tap.

"You need help?"

Tap tap.

"You can't talk and you didn't send me a text. Are you tied up?"

Tap tap.

"Gagged?"

Tap tap.

"Anyone guarding you?"

Tap.

"Are you still in Oxford at that college library you were going to?"

Tap tap.

"Right. I don't have a number to phone, but I'll find you. I'm on my way; see you in an hour or so."

Velma was mightily relieved. Daphne sometimes had some odd priorities in life, in Velma's view, but she was a loyal and resourceful friend and an utterly reliable colleague. She settled herself down to wait.

Daphne's idea of a visit to England was less scholarly than Velma's. Anyone who had been at school and college with Daphne knew she was no slouch academically, but that didn't mean she wanted to spend her free time in libraries. Her vacation was still giving her plenty of thinking to do. That morning she was in Harvey Nichols' London store in Knightsbridge, weighing up the relative merits of a violet pantsuit and a deep purple skirt suit. Both were eminently suitable for a young journalist, with just the right combination of smartness and panache. Pants were practical but also very flattering to a long-legged woman, especially if worn with heels. On the other hand, there was a classic elegance to a skirt of almost any length that was hard to beat.

The sales assistant's idea of advice was to parrot back to the customer her own opinions, which Daphne was finding deeply unhelpful and increasingly irritating. Just then, the cellphone in her purse rang. "My friend Velma," she explained to the assistant as she pressed the green button on her phone. She had hoped Velma would be able to offer some advice, or at least suggest the basis for a decision, but the call was evidently the result of a button on Velma's phone being pressed accidentally.

With increasing despair, Daphne decided to try on the pantsuit again. She examined herself critically in the mirror. Something about the cut of the legs, she wondered. Experimentally, she elevated herself onto tiptoe just a touch and smiled. It just needed fractionally higher heels to do the trick. On the other hand, the coat for the skirt suit was just so perfect. The phone ringing again distracted Daphne from the morass of indecision she was rapidly sliding into.

The mounting horror on the sales assistant's face as she listened to Daphne's half of the conversation was probably a sight to behold, but Daphne's attention was focused entirely on her friend Velma bound and gagged in a library in Oxford.

"Decision made," Daphne announced briskly as she hung up, "I'll take them both." She thrust a credit card into the assistant's hand and ran back to the changing room to get her own clothes back on.

Commendably, seeing Daphne's urgency, the sales assistant had pushed one of her colleagues away from the till, had rung up both of Daphne's purchases and had the card slip and a pen ready for her by the time she emerged from the changing room. Daphne signed and took back the card while the assistant deftly folded the pantsuit and added it to the carrier bag already containing the skirt suit.

Shouting apologies as she went, Daphne elbowed other customers out of the way as took the steps of the escalator at a run and was on the sidewalk in Knightsbridge inside a minute. She looked left and right and almost immediately spotted a black taxi cab approaching from the right with the orange light indicating that it was unoccupied. Daphne strode imperiously out onto the road, raised her hand and yelled, "TAXI!" The cabbie ignored two other people making more tentative signals and stopped smartly in front of her. Being a tall redhead dressed in purple made a person rather conspicuous, Daphne reflected, but that was sometimes very useful.

Daphne instructed the driver to take her to Paddington train station as quickly as possible and closed her eyes briefly as he executed a hair-raising U-turn across three lanes of traffic. The cabbie sensed Daphne's urgency and rose to the occasion, jockeying expertly for position through the alarmingly busy intersections at Hyde Park Corner and Marble Arch as he circumnavigated the eastern end of Hyde Park. A final few hundred yards through a bewildering maze of back streets brought them to Paddington station where the driver expertly slotted his cab into a space between other taxis depositing passengers. Daphne handed over a 20 pound note and leaped out with her bags, thanking the driver profusely as she did so. As she went, Daphne calculated that her tip had probably exceeded the actual fare, but somehow paying in pounds rather than dollars, it didn't feel like real money.

Advice from a station official, who was surprised by her urgency, but nevertheless very helpful, led Daphne to a ticket machine. To her relief, the machine accepted her American credit card and issued her with a ticket to Oxford. Paddington station is not particularly large, but bustling and confusing to a newcomer. Daphne glanced around and spotted a woman in a railway uniform. "Oxford?" she demanded, wincing inwardly at the terrible impression of Americans she was leaving with everyone today.

"Platform 6," the woman replied, apparently quite unperturbed and pointing the way. Daphne thanked her as she rushed past. Entering the train through the first open door, she collapsed onto a seat with her luggage beside her.

After a few minutes, the train's doors closed and it pulled smoothly out of the station. With no more rushing to do until the train reached Oxford, Daphne had time to contact Fred and bring him up to date on events. She retrieved her cellphone from her purse and punched in the number.

Fred felt like an explorer in foreign territory. He was in Twickenham, where the English national rugby team play their international games. Fred had read somewhere that American football had been developed from the English game of rugby. He had heard of rugby and had even seen it played once, but that had been by a women's team at college. As he was in England, he had decided to find out more about the sport. It was summer, when English folks' thoughts turn to cricket, so there was no opportunity to see a game played, but he had discovered that there was a museum dedicated to the history of rugby at the stadium in Twickenham.

The museum evidently attracted most visitors on match days and was almost deserted on a warm summer morning. Fred welcomed this as it allowed him to browse at his own pace without feeling that he was impeding anyone else. The museum was well laid-out and presented; Fred found it fascinating. He had already known that the game began with a set of rules codified at Rugby School in the 19th century but was amused to learn that on the one hand a boy named William Webb Ellis was still revered for being the first to pick the ball up and run with it, while on the other hand, all historical sources dismissed that story as a myth. He found that while the origin of American football was noted as being the games between McGill University in Montreal and Harvard in the 1870s, there was frustratingly little information. He was just thinking of asking the museum curator when his cellphone rang.

"Hi Daphne!" he announced cheerfully. "I've found this really cool museum all about rugby. You know, the game they play here with a football-shaped football?"

"Not now, Fred," Daphne replied sharply, interrupting him. "This is important."

Daphne rapidly brought Fred up to date on Velma's call for help and told him that she was mounting a rescue mission.

"It's not like Velma to get in trouble like this," Fred commented, now worried for his friend's safety. "I'll be there as soon as I can, Daph. Call again if there's more news."

Fred went in search of the museum curator as he had been about to do before the phone call, but now the only question in his mind was how to get to Paddington train station as quickly as possible.

With nothing to do but sit and wait in increasing discomfort, Velma's annoyance and boredom had soared to levels she would not have believed possible. As far as she could estimate, about an hour had passed since she had spoken to Daphne, but with her hands tied behind her back, she could not see her watch. Both the computer terminal and her laptop had long ago switched to their screensavers, so she could not read the on-screen clocks either.

Occasionally, Velma had heard voices as people passed in the corridor outside her study room. She tried to attract attention by yelling the first few times but had now given up as quite clearly no one could hear her.

At last Velma heard the unmistakable sound of the door being unlocked. Miss Wyvern, the college librarian entered, a tall woman in her late thirties or perhaps a little older, soberly dressed in a black calf-length skirt with a high-necked crisp white silk blouse largely hidden by a black cardigan sweater buttoned to her neck. Her sensibly robust black shoes and opaque black stockings emphasized her no-nonsense demeanor. The trademark white cotton gloves identified her as a curator of old books and manuscripts. She froze in open-mouthed shock at the sight of Velma tied to the chair. Daphne gently pushed the librarian to one side and set about the task of freeing her friend.

"Thanks," Velma croaked hoarsely as soon as her mouth was free. "A lot of use I am getting jumped and tied up when I'm not even investigating a mystery!"

"Getting tied up just happens," Daphne reassured her. "It's what you do about it that counts and you were brilliant to phone me like that."

After the briefest of pauses to stretch cramped limbs, Velma turned her attention to her laptop. She busied herself for a few moments then turned to Daphne with a look of exasperation. "My notes have all gone," she remarked flatly.

"Your computer's been wiped?" Daphne asked, aghast.

"No, just the file I had been making my notes in as I was working this morning," Velma assured her. "I had some jottings in a notebook too and those are gone as well," she added.

"But you use weird software," Daphne objected. "How would anyone know how to do anything to your computer?"

"It's not that weird, it's just open source," Velma retorted. "Lots of academics use Linux and Oxford is full of academics."

"Who did this anyway?" Daphne asked.

"Well, somebody hit me hard on the head," Velma explained, tentatively fingering the back of her skull and wincing as she found a tender lump. "I wasn't knocked out, but I think I must have been real confused after that."

"Well, tell us what you remember, anyway," Daphne suggested. "It might still give us some clues."

"OK, I was very dizzy just after I was hit and really don't remember much about being tied up. I felt as weak as a kitten and couldn't do a thing to resist. It was only afterwards that I got a good view of my attacker." Velma paused, apparently uncertain as to whether to continue.

"And?" Daphne prompted.

"And," Velma continued, "I don't quite believe this myself. I saw a tall woman all dressed in gray doing something to my computer. And, get this, she was wearing a long Victorian dress. I didn't get a clear look at her face but I think she might have been wearing a veil."

The college librarian gasped. Daphne and Velma had been so intent on their own conversation they had almost forgotten she was there. They turned to her in mild surprise.

"It's the librarian's ghost," Miss Wyvern said, with a slight tremor in her voice. "Not me obviously, but the first college librarian when Shrewsbury was founded at the end of the 19th century. She died quite young with the task of setting the library up not quite finished. Not to her satisfaction anyway."

"Wouldn't a woman librarian have been unusual in Victorian times?" Velma queried.

"Ordinarily, yes," the librarian confirmed, "but Shrewsbury was founded as a women's college and only started accepting men in the 1970s."

"Any mystery about her death?" Daphne asked.

"No, I believe it was tuberculosis, although they probably called it phthisis or consumption then," the librarian assured her. "Anyway, because she left her work unfinished, some people believe that she is still keeping an eye on the place to make sure it's all running smoothly. A sort of guardian spirit."

"Any sightings?" Velma asked tentatively.

"Lots," Miss Wyvern confirmed, now warming to her subject. "Mainly she is seen late at night, often by students working hard on essays or assignments. Seeing her is generally thought to be a mark of her approval and something of a good luck indicator."

"Hmm, I would think that a stressed-out student, relying on caffeine rather than sleep to keep going, might very well be prone to see apparitions in the night," Velma remarked with a note of cynicism.

"True," the librarian conceded with a smile, "but we still like to think she's looking after us."

"This ghost is supposed to be a benevolent spirit?" Daphne queried.

"Oh, yes, she's definitely on our side."

"So she's never been known to hit someone over the head and tie them up?" Daphne persisted.

"No," Miss Wyvern declared emphatically. "I don't think anyone has even suggested that she might be solid."

"Whoever jumped me was definitely solid," Velma observed ruefully.

"I can show you her picture, if you like," the librarian offered. She logged Velma out of the terminal she had been using and entered her own ID and password. A few mouse clicks later, there was an image of a young Victorian lady on the screen, clearly reproduced from a painting. She stood proudly staring straight out of the canvas with the suggestion of a smile on her lips. Appropriately, she held a book in her hands, more books were stacked on a small writing desk beside her and the background was composed of tall library bookcases.

"That's her!" Velma exclaimed. "Or at least it's the same dress or one very like it."

"The original of the painting is in the entrance hall," the librarian added. "You will get a better view of it there."

The conversation fell silent for a moment as Velma and Daphne wondered what to do next.

"Would you like me to phone the police?" the librarian inquired.

"Not just yet," Velma replied, glancing at Daphne to check that she was of the same opinion. "I think we'll take a look here ourselves and see if there is anything here worth their following up."

"Very well, I'll be in in my office downstairs."

"We'll call in before we leave," Daphne assured her.

As the librarian left the room, Daphne remarked to Velma, "I know it's tough you getting tied up, but I'm kinda glad we have a mystery to solve."

"Me too," Velma replied with a grin.

Daphne opened her capacious purse and took out a tube of silver powder, a magnifying glass and a small but very bright penlight. "Let's see if this ghost leaves fingerprints," she suggested, offering the equipment to Velma.

Velma started with the keyboard of her laptop. "Nothing doing," she concluded. "It's not even worth dusting: see for yourself." She handed the magnifying glass to Daphne.

Daphne looked carefully. Most of the keys were smeared with the marks of her Velma's fingers, but the Delete key and the arrow keys were completely clean. "Very precise just to wipe the keys that she touched and none of the others," she remarked.

"If the keyboard is clean, then I don't think we will find any prints anywhere else," Velma concluded as she handed back the magnifying glass. "My notebook has a couple of pages missing, but that's about it for clues."

"Well, we have a lot of rope here," Daphne replied. "That might tell us something."

Velma knelt down to examine the tangle of rope on the floor. "It's something synthetic, probably polypropylene, it's about 3/8 inch diameter, maybe a little less, and it's blue. I'm not sure what else you can say about it, but I'll take a sample in case we think of something."

"Blue polypropylene rope seems like a very strange choice of tying-up material for a ghost," Daphne mused.

"You mean she ought to use ectoplasm or something like that?" Velma teased.

"No, but if you're going to take the trouble to dress up as a ghost, why not use old-fashioned hemp rope to keep in period? Or jute? Or cotton sash cord?" Daphne explained.

"I see what you mean," Velma conceded. "Maybe it was just handy? The gag looks like a cleaning cloth, so that was probably just chosen for convenience."

"Maybe, but that would suggest something done in a hurry without much forethought," Daphne pointed out, "while a costume suggests she has done lots of planning."

"Assuming, of course, 'she' really is a 'she'," Velma pointed out.

The two friends gathered up Velma's laptop and purse then headed down to the librarian's office where Velma thanked her and assured her that she would be back to finish her research.

In contrast to the austere Victorian gloom of Shrewsbury College, it was a pleasant summer's day outside. The bright sunshine showed off the mellow golden Cotswold stone and warm red brick of Oxford's city center to fine effect. The events of the morning somehow seemed unreal amid the bustle of the city.

About ten minutes walk brought the two women to Oxford's historic High Street, known to locals simply as 'The High'. Outside an inviting-looking old-fashioned tea shop, Velma stopped walking. "Lunch," she demanded, in a tone that brooked no disagreement.

A large plate of excellent sandwiches and a bowl of fresh crispy salad had been set down on the table and systematically demolished by the two friends before very much time passed. They agreed that if you chose the right one, there was nothing to beat the traditional English tea shop, but that the trick was to tell which of them were the right ones to choose. Velma happily scanned the range of desserts on the menu before deciding that tempting as they were, she simply didn't have room for anything more. She settled for coffee.

Velma and Daphne were enjoying their second cup of coffee each when Fred caught up with them. He had phoned from Oxford train station and had been given directions by Daphne.

"Are you OK, Velma?" Fred asked, clearly worried.

"A bit shaky but OK," Velma assured him. "I feel bad about messing up the day for you too though."

"Friends are much more important than shopping," Daphne declared.

"Or football," Fred agreed.

"Oh yeah, you were going to Twickenham," Velma recalled. "Any luck?"

"Pretty good," Fred answered. "They have this really cool museum all about the history of rugby. There's a bit there about how Canadian rugby started off American football and..."

"Fred," Daphne said sternly.

"Yes?" Fred replied meekly.

"Shut up about football. We have a mystery to solve."

Fred smiled sheepishly and acknowledged his error. "Sorry, Daph. Tell us what happened, Vel."

"Well," Velma began, "I've already told Daphne the whole story, but I don't mind going through it again; I might remember something else important."

Velma repeated her story, much as she had told it to Daphne and the Librarian. "Did I miss anything?" she asked Daphne as she finished.

"I don't think so," Daphne assured her. "Any thoughts, Fred?"

Fred though for a moment then nodded his head. "Yes, one point, Vel. We know what happened to you after you got to the study room you were using, but what about before that? Did you notice anything suspicious? Was anyone watching you maybe?"

"Jinkies," Velma replied, her face lighting up. "There was someone. When I arrived at the library, I was a few minutes earlier than I had said I would be and I had to wait in the entrance foyer before the librarian could see me. I sat on a bench for a while and I got up and read some posters, just for something to do. There was a guy watching me the whole time, like he couldn't keep his eyes off me. He looked away every time I tried to make eye contact though."

"Creepy!" commented Daphne with an appreciative shudder.

"What was he doing," Fred asked.

"Nothing much, just sitting around. I think he may have been waiting for someone. The weird thing is, when he first saw me, he looked as though he recognized me and made as if to get up, then checked himself."

"What did he look like?" Daphne asked. "Would you know him again?"

"Fairly regular guy. Twenties, slim, neat brown hair, five-tennish, 150 pounds maybe. Might be a grad student. I think I'd know him again."

"Not much to go on when we don't know anything else about him," Fred commented. "Do we have anything else?"

"Rope," Velma said, producing her sample length.

"Gee, Velma," Fred remarked with a grin as he took the rope, "getting captured and tied up is Daphne's job."

"Fred, let me assure you that after this experience, I have nothing but respect towards Daphne for that," Velma replied with a perfectly straight face.

Velma leaned to one side and surreptitiously scratched the back of one knee, where the rope had abraded her skin as she worked to operate her phone with her feet.

"Itchy isn't it?" Daphne asked sympathetically. "You'll never catch me going around with bare legs except on the beach," she added.

Velma stared at Daphne open mouthed. It was true that Daphne always wore hose, but surely that wasn't the reason?

"So the only clue we have is a piece of rope?" Fred commented as the three friends stepped out of the tea shop into the sunshine again.

"We've cracked cases with less," Daphne replied, sounding as though she was trying to convince herself as much as anyone.

"Oxford isn't that big as cities go," Velma reasoned, "so there can't be that many places to buy rope."

"We need a ship's chandler!" Fred declared.

"Fred, Oxford is in the middle of England. It has to be sixty miles from the sea in any direction," Daphne objected.

"No, Fred's right," Velma replied. "Oxford is very popular for boating on the River Isis. You can get to London or up into the canal network and right up to Birminghan and beyond from here. There's bound to be at least one chandlery here."

"I thought Oxford was on the Thames," Daphne queried with a puzzled frown.

"And so it is," Velma agreed, but they call it the Isis here.

"Why?" Fred asked in bewilderment.

"Don't ask me," Velma answered with a shrug, "This is England; lots of things have strange names and Oxford is like England only more so."

"There's also a River Cherwell," Daphne pointed out, indicating a direction sign.

"Let me guess: they call that one the Mississippi!" Fred suggested. Both the women rolled their eyes heavenwards but said nothing.

Velma retrieved a street map of Oxford from her purse. After a brief review of the geography, the gang agreed the likely areas of the city to find boat equipment suppliers. The nearest was only a few minutes walk away, so they set out with Daphne reading the map and guiding them through the maze of streets. Oxford is an architectural stir-fry with little bits of everything from genuine medieval buildings, some of them grand colleges, but some quite ordinary houses, through Georgian and Victorian buildings in all shapes and sizes to the uncompromisingly modern, some of them latter-day gems of buildings, others just plain ugly.

"There's one!" exclaimed Velma, pointing to a small dark shop that looked as hough it might have been there since Nelson's time.

"D. Jones, Sailmaker and Chandler," Daphne read from the faded signboard above the entrance.

"Davy Jones's locker!" Fred said darkly, making the obvious connection.

"Now you sound like Shaggy," Velma teased, poking him in the ribs. "This is Oxford on a warm summer afternoon. It takes more than an old shop to make it spooky."

As they entered, Velma wasn't so sure. The shop interior was at least ten degrees cooler than the street outside, with no obvious sign of air conditioning to explain it. The stock looked to be ancient. There were obscure brass fittings that might be something to do with rigging a sailboat, pulleys in a bewildering range of shapes and sizes, signal rockets so old and dusty that Velma wondered if they were even safe to store. There didn't seem to be any modern stock at all: no engines or radar reflectors or any of the natty electronic gadgets that go with the nautical scene today.

"This definitely looks like a place where a ghost would buy rope," Daphne quipped.

"Can Oi 'elp yew?" a voice inquired, startlingly sudden and close. The three friends spun around to find a tall, thin, almost emaciated man standing right behind them. He wore a sailor's pea jacket over a collarless shirt and shapeless loose canvas pants. All his clothes seemed to be indeterminate shades of gray. His face was also long and thin with deep hollows at the cheeks and temples, emphasizing the shape of the skull under the skin. He regarded them with one bright blue eye, while the other, milky with cataract, looked somewhere over their heads.

"Yes, please," Velma replied, trying to control the squeak that had crept into her voice. "We're trying to find out if you sell rope like this." She handed him the sample of blue rope.

"Now, why would anyone want rope like this'un?" The proprietor snapped back at her angrily. The three friends huddled more closely together.

"This plastic stuff is no good," he continued, pronouncing 'plastic' as if it was a curse. "Yew kids want to take better care of this planet. Proper sustainable materials only 'ere." He indicated coils of jute, hemp and manila rope, all thick with dust.

"Do you know where we might get some like this?" Fred asked, standing his ground.

"Dutch bint round the corner," the shopkeeper conceded grudgingly. "Turn left out of the door then next left."

"Thank you," Velma replied in a very small voice.

Fred opened the door for Daphne and Velma then followed them onto the sidewalk outside. "An eco-friendly spooky sailor?" he said incredulously.

"Well, times change," Daphne pointed out.

"...and this is England," Velma added.

As promised by the shopkeeper, another chandlery was just around the corner. The décor for the last shop had been Victorian Grunge, but this one was unbridled Gothic Horror. The underlying building was probably genuinely centuries old, but some time in the 19th century, it had been turned into a fantasy of jutting gables and narrow mullioned windows. The retail part of the premises were confined to street level; it was anyone's guess what went on above. The sign above the door read Vandervecken Nautical Supplies neatly lettered in undertaker's gothic.

"If I was a ghost, this definitely where I would buy my rope!" Fred concluded after admiring the building for a few moments, echoing Daphne's words at the previous shop..

"Wasn't Vandervecken the name of the captain of the Flying Dutchman?" Daphne wondered.

Velma nodded. "I think you're right, Daph, but I expect this will be a Dutchwoman. The spooky sailor referred to a Dutch bint and I'm pretty sure bint is nautical slang for a woman. None too complementary slang, either."

The interior of Vandervecken's store was exactly as the outside promised. Tall shelves with narrow walkways between them zigzagged maze-like across uneven floors, filling several irregular-shaped rooms. There was no one immediately in sight so the gang looked around for rope. Encouragingly, the vast array of stock encompassed the old and the new, so this might be the source of the blue rope.

Apparently from nowhere a tough-looking woman suddenly confronted them. "Ja?" she demanded.

Velma couldn't believe her eyes. The woman was of unguessable age, although probably at least 40. She wore mid calf length flared navy blue pants with red and white striped socks showing underneath. Her figure was still very impressive for a lady of middle years and was accentuated by a white cotton blouse knotted below her ample bosom to expose a trim waistline and a pierced navel decorated by a large gold hoop. Similar hoops decorated her ears, which were just visible below a large red bandanna swathed around her hair and knotted at the nape of her neck.

The last time Velma had seen anyone dressed like that was in a high school production of The Pirates of Penzance. Her face reddened as she tried desperately not to laugh.

Daphne sensed her friend's predicament and rescued her by taking the sample of blue rope and showing it to the shopkeeper. "Goedemiddag, mevrouw. Kunt u me helpen? Ik zoek blauwe kabel als dit."

Velma's need to laugh vanish and was replaced by astonished admiration of Daphne's linguistic skill. Fred's open mouth betrayed exactly the same reaction.

The shopkeeper nodded an acknowledgment of Daphne's courtesy of addressing her in Dutch, but replied in lightly accented English, "Ja, I have blue rope. Come. Follow."

Leading the gang at a brisk trot, the Dutchwoman threaded her way through a bewildering maze of tall shelves. Several times they passed displays of rope, but did not stop. At last they reached a small area which seemed to be dedicated to pumps and marine plumbing. The shopkeeper bent down and opened a large cardboard carton clearly labeled GLASS: FRAGILE. She triumphantly withdrew a cardboard drum of blue rope and offered it to Daphne.

Velma excitedly compared the rope with her sample. The rope was polypropylene and blue but not quite the same shade of blue. The gage was similar but again, not exactly the same. Regretfully, she acknowledged that this could not be the source of the rope used to tie her up.

The gang thanked Ms Vandervecken profusely for her help and asked if there were any other sources of blue rope. The shopkeeper thought for a moment and then recommended a supplier named Silver about half a mile away.

Reference to Velma's map and ten minutes walk and brought the friends to a third supplier of boat fittings. The shop was smart, modern and brightly lit.

"No! Nononono!" Velma exclaimed as she read the name of the shop. Neat black lettering proclaimed John Silver: Sailing and Water Sports.

"I think this whole city is actually a big theme park," Daphne remarked dryly. "If the owner of this one has a wooden leg and a parrot, I'm getting the next plane home."

The store was spacious and well stocked with neat arrays of gadgets and fittings all invitingly set out on display. John Silver turned out to be a smart young man neatly turned out in jeans and a sweatshirt with the shop name printed on it.

Velma showed Mr Silver her sample of rope. He inspected it quizzically for a moment and then stated, "Yes I'm sure we have that kind." He led them to a display of drums of rope in all sizes from some little thicker than household string to massive cables as thick as a man's wrist. There were several thicknesses of blue rope. Mr Silver selected one and pulled a few feet of it from the drum so that he could hand the end to Velma to look at.

Velma looked closely at the rope and compared it carefully with her sample length. It seemed to match in all respects: color, gage and texture all seemed identical. Without saying anything, she handed both ropes to Mr Silver. He cast an expert eye over both and confirmed that they were the same type and very probably the same batch from the manufacturer.

"So, do you sell much of this kind?" Daphne asked.

"Not an enormous amount," Mr Silver replied. "It's about the right weight for securing fenders to boats, but most people seem to prefer white." He gestured towards another drum of rope.

"Have you sold any large quantities lately?" Daphne persisted.

"Well, yes, now you mention it."

"Could you tell me who the customer was?"

Mr Silver shook his head. "No, we make it a policy never to divulge customer details, even for trivial purchases."

Daphne changed her stance fractionally, moved a little closer to John Silver, tipped her head slightly to one side and broadened her smile. "We need to get in touch with the person you sold the rope to. It would be so much easier, if you could just tell us. After all, it is only rope."

Velma and Fred watched in admiration as Daphne put her charm offensive into action. Mr Silver blinked and swallowed. The last time Velma had seen an expression like that, it had been on the face of a rabbit caught in her headlights.

"Well, that's true, it's just rope," Mr Silver acknowledged. "I sold a whole drum last week to a houseboat owner. Young chap, probably university. The houseboat's called Hesperus, but I don't know his name."

"Hesperus?" Velma echoed incredulously. "As in The Wreck of the?"

John Silver very helpfully explained where Hesperus was moored on the Oxford Canal and showed the gang the quickest way to get there on Velma's map.

The stretch of canal indicated by John Silver boasted a line of dozen or more houseboats, all with the same long narrow proportions but otherwise very different in color and detail, all moored stem to stern alongside the canal towpath.

"Must be one of these," Fred commented rather obviously.

Velma suddenly stopped walking and grabbed her two friends by the elbow, forcing them to stop also. "It's him!" she hissed.

"Who's who?" Daphne asked, confused.

"That man over there." Velma pointed at a man standing on the roof of one of the houseboats, apparently doing maintenance work. "It's the man who was staring at me in the library."

"Well, we can't just stand here and stare at him," Fred pointed out.

"We still need to find Hesperus, so let's keep looking and just see how he reacts," Daphne suggested.

Velma walked slightly behind the other too, peeking out between them as they checked the name of each houseboat. They spotted the painted name on Hesperus several yards before they reached it. Sure enough it was the only boat that had blue rope to fasten its fenders and to secure the gangplank. It was also the boat that the man from the library was working on. As they reached the gangplank, he saw them coming and turned to face them. He appeared to be about to to wave a greeting with the paintbrush in his hand. Instead, he froze with his mouth open.

Eventually, the man managed to force some words out. "You're the woman in the library," he stammered.

Fred felt it was his duty as gallant male to reply for the gang. "That's what our friend said about you," he responded firmly, then added after a puzzled pause, "...except that you're a man of course."

Daphne came to the rescue. "Velma here saw you staring at her when she was in the library at Shrewsbury College and she was a little spooked by it."

"Yes, it's true," the man replied apologetically, "and I'm terribly sorry to cause offense, but I really couldn't help it."

Daphne snorted at the apparently lame excuse.

"No, it's true," the man protested. "She looks just like... No, let me show you." He swung himself down from the roof, landing lightly at the top of the gangplank. Leaning in through the open door, he called out, "Suzanne! We've got some visitors."

After a moment, a woman appeared at the door. "Hi..." she began, her voice immediately tailing off to nothing and her mouth dropping open.

The woman was quite short and a little plump with a round face partially masked by large round spectacles. She wore her reddish-brown hair in a practical pageboy cut. She was fractionally shorter than Velma and possibly a little lighter, but other than that, they could have been twins.

"See what I mean?" the man asked. Velma and Suzanne nodded wordlessly, unable to take their eyes off each other.

The silence stretched on until the man spoke again. "This is terribly rude of me," he said. "I'm Mike, and this is Suzanne." He rested his hand on her shoulder for a moment. "And this," he added turning to face the houseboat, "is Hesperus, our floating home."

"Why don't you all come in and I'll put the kettle on?" Suzanne invited, finding her voice at last.

While Suzanne busied herself in the kitchen, Mike showed off their home. It was built, he explained on the hull of a barge built in the 1920s to carry coal, its workaday heritage evidenced by the riveted steel plating visible in a few places. The upper part was a marvelously ad-hoc construction of wood and glass, more reminiscent of garden sheds and greenhouses than any conventional naval architecture. The interior seemed to have been furnished entirely from junk shops and garage sales and possibly the occasional dumpster. It was desperately untidy, but had a relaxed bohemian cosiness that was very inviting.

"Why Hesperus?" Velma asked.

"Well, it was a bit of a wreck when we bought it and the name stuck," Mike explained.

Suzanne emerged from Hesperus's tiny galley with a tray of tea and hot buttered toast. "I hope you all like tea," she remarked. Everyone nodded and murmured assent.

Mike and Suzanne invited the gang to sit down. Five people was close to the limit for the space in Hesperus's living room, but the assortment of old chairs and the padded bench at the table seated everyone in comfort. Velma studied Suzanne surreptitiously as she poured tea. Even Suzanne's choice of clothes was unnervingly similar to her own, although the skirt was blue denim and the sweater was red and with a round neck rather than Velma's favorite orange turtle-neck. Suzanne also shared Velma's habit of pushing the sleeves of her sweater up to the elbows. Her crisp English accent was, however, unmistakably her own.

It emerged in the course of the discussion that both Mike and Suzanne were graduate students working towards doctorates. Mike's subject was English history, while Suzanne's was biochemistry.

"That's why I was so surprised when I first saw you, Velma," explained Mike. "Shrewsbury library is mainly old documents, which is why I often hang out there, but I was astonished to see Suzanne there. Then, of course, I realized you weren't Suzanne, but I was fascinated just how much you were like her and I couldn't get my eyes away from you. Terribly rude of me, I know."

An idea occurred to Velma. "Suzanne, what topic are you researching for your doctorate?"

"The topic's a bit obscure, but the application is simple enough. It's to do with techniques of gene manipulation for genetic engineering," Suzanne replied.

"That's fairly controversial," Velma commented. "Is there any chance someone might want to sabotage your research?"

"Well, there are a few weirdos around," Suzanne admitted, "but I've never seen myself as a target for sabotage."

"I see where you're leading," Mike said. "You think that Suzanne might have been the real target and you were mistaken for her."

"Exactly. This was my first morning in Oxford and someone jumps me, ties me up and then trashes my notes," Velma replied with a touch of venom. "Why me?"

"I think Velma has a point," Daphne said, "It has to be something like mistaken identity. After all, Velma has never been in Oxford before."

"Even you thought Velma was Suzanne for a moment," Fred commented, "even though you know Suzanne really well."

"But what would I be doing at Shrewsbury?" Suzanne protested.

"Well, maybe this is a blind alley," Velma conceded, "but if anything occurs to either of you, do let us know." She took a business card out and wrote on the back of it. "That's my cellphone number."

Suzanne took the card and read it. "A mystery bookshop. Cool!" She took the card and pinned it to a small noticeboard above the telephone.

"I can export books too," Velma offered as she, Daphne and Fred stood up and thanked their hosts.

They made their way down the gangplank and retraced their steps along the towpath.

It was already early evening as the gang walked back towards Oxford city center. Most shops were now shut and the city was quieter, but there were still groups of people wandering around, obviously tourists from their behavior. Most were in twos and threes, but there were some guided tours going on, a few with costumed guides.

As they entered a narrow, now deserted, street, they were faced by a thin cadaverous-looking man. He was dressed incongruously in Edwardian frock coat and checked pants with a top hat. The skin of his face and hands was a decayed gray color and his grin exposed a row of pointed fangs.

The three friends instinctively stopped walking and stood closer together.

"It's always a man in a rubber mask," whispered Daphne in a very small voice. "Isn't it?" she added with just a trace of tremor.

The strange figure took off his top hat and bowed theatrically to the three of them. He then retrieved a small suitcase from a shop door way, where it had apparently been hidden. He laid it on the ground and opened it then reached up and pulled his head off.

Daphne's initial assessment had been wrong in only one respect: it was actually a woman in a rubber mask. Underneath the mask, she had pure white make-up shading almost to black around her eyes and black lipstick. She took off the frock coat and then flung a long dark Victorian-style dress over her head, wriggling into it and pulling it down to conceal the jaunty checked pants. She put a straggly black wig on her head and checked the effect with a small hand mirror. She roughly folded the frock coat and put it in the case, followed by the hat, which proved to be a collapsible opera hat, then returned the case to its hiding place.

The woman turned to face the gang briefly. The make-up really did make it look as if she had just been dug up. "Haunted Oxford tour," she explained as she gave them a cheery wave and ran off.

The gang stood and exchanged astonished glances. After a moment the sound of a tour party's delighted shrieks came to them from a neighboring street.

"I told you the whole place was just a big theme park," Daphne commented.

"So, what next?" Fred asked as they reached the High Street again.

"Back to the library?" Velma suggested.

"But you guys already looked for clues there," Fred protested.

"True, but another pair of eyes might spot something we missed," Daphne pointed out.

"What I still don't get is why you're busy looking up somebody's family tree," Fred remarked, as the trio headed back towards Shrewsbury College.

"Yeah, you've not really said what this project is about, Vel, and you're being awfully secretive about it," Daphne agreed.

"You're only secretive when it's something you think we might laugh at," Fred added. "Besides, this is Mystery, Inc business now, so 'fess up."

"I suppose you're both right," Velma responded with a resigned sigh. "You remember Hephzibah Griffin, my friend from college? Well, she has been trying to track down some of her family history to prove or disprove some mysterious family legends."

"But you do science, not genealogy!" Daphne objected.

"Mysterious family legends sounds right up our street though," Fred commented approvingly.

"Research is research, pretty much whatever the subject," Velma countered, "and this has a lot of science in it. It seems that they had some sort of family story that Hephzibah's great-grandfather was a fantastic inventor who came up with all sorts of things years and even decades ahead of their time but kept it all secret and never published his work."

Fred burst out laughing. "I've heard that one before." He put on an outraged wavering squeaky voice. "My great granddaddy invented lightbulbs in 1855 but that varmint Edison stole all his ideas!"

"That's right," Daphne agreed, laughing at Fred's performance. "I investigated tales like that when I was a cub reporter. All you ever find is outrageous claims and diaries full of lunatic ravings."

"See what I mean?" Velma burst out indignantly. "You're both laughing at me!"

"Sorry," Daphne said, trying to keep her face straight. "Do carry on."

Fred stopped laughing and nodded his head but said nothing for fear of setting himself off again.

"Actually," Velma continued soberly, "I hit hard evidence almost as soon as I started looking this morning."

"Evidence of what?" Fred asked. "Any important inventions?"

"The military tank in 1901, for one," Velma offered.

Fred and Daphne both wrinkled their brows.

"1916," Velma prompted, laughing at their puzzlement. "Tanks were developed first by the British during World War 1."

"And this 1901 tank?" Daphne queried. "Just an idea? Or something more?"

"Detailed drawings," Velma replied, "you could build one. Not only that, but a solid description of how they could be used in action. The notebooks predict static defensive warfare with opposing armies in trenches. This tank, or 'land-ship' as Griffin called it, was longer than actual World War 1 tanks, but worked the same way. It had guns on the sides to fire along the length of trenches as it crossed them, just like real 1916 tanks. Not only that, but the guns would be remotely controlled from inside the tank with joystick controls to protect the gunners."

"'Landship' sounds like something out of an SF story," Daphne commented.

"Oddly enough, that's exactly the term the British used before they adopted 'tank' as a cover name," Velma confirmed.

"That's a pretty startling find," Fred conceded, "but you said there were more?"

"Fighter airplanes and bombers in 1906," Velma replied.

"Now I do know the date for that," Fred said excitedly. "1903. The Wright brothers."

"So that one isn't a new invention, then," Daphne commented.

"I think the concept of the airplane as a fighting machine was new," Velma responded. "Even in 1914, military pilots were throwing bricks at each other and trying to tangle their propellers with ropes. Certainly, Griffin's drawings of rockets and bombs look very convincing and the descriptive notes in his journals are chilling. He foresaw defenseless cities razed by aerial bombardment."

All three friends fell silent while they considered this grim prophecy, so terribly realized in subsequent decades.

"That's fairly scary for one morning's reading," Fred remarked.

"I had just found one more before I was jumped."

"Not more death and destruction?" Daphne asked.

Velma nodded. "I think he also came up with a workable atom bomb. And that was in 1913 or thereabouts."

"What?!?" exclaimed Fred and Daphne together, stopping dead in their tracks.

"It certainly reads that way, although all the terminology is different from the words we would use today. The device he describes seems to be set off by removing an inhibitor of some kind rather than bringing together a critical mass as World War 2 style bombs did."

"Just a minute," Fred said, the light of recognition dawning in his eyes. "This sounds familiar; at least the tanks and planes do. Didn't H.G. Wells write science fiction stories with those things in them?"

"You're absolutely right," Velma confirmed. "I'm sure that Griffin and Wells knew each other. The tanks appear in The Land Ironclads, which appeared in 1903 and was mainly about devastating static warfare. Airplanes as weapons appear in The War in the Air in 1908 or so. Wells was mainly known as a socialist thinker and writer in his own time, so I wonder if Griffin was feeding him ideas to try to warn the world about the threat of technological warfare."

"What about the atomic bomb?" Daphne asked.

"In a book by Wells called The World Set Free, published about the beginning of World War 1, I think," Velma replied. "It's a while since I've read any of those, but I don't think the descriptions Wells's novels exactly match the ones in Griffin's notes."

"To keep the secrets safe?" postulated Daphne.

"Or maybe Wells just didn't completely understand the science," countered Velma.

"So what happened to this guy Griffin?" Fred asked.

"I'm not quite sure," Velma answered. "He was active in England up until the outbreak of World War 1, and we know he died in the United States in 1928, but he just disappears in between."

"Disappears!" Daphne exclaimed, startling her two friends. "The Invisible Man's name was Griffin: I knew it sounded familiar and I couldn't work out why."

"That's H.G Wells too, but surely you're not telling us that was true as well?" Fred demanded skeptically.

"I don't think so," Velma assured him, "but maybe Wells borrowed Griffin's name for the antihero of the book."

"What was Griffin's first name?" Daphne asked.

"I don't know," Velma admitted. "The library just catalogs him as 'Griffin' and that's the way he signed his drawings too. I think it may actually have been a pseudonym."

"But your friend's surname actually was Griffin," Fred objected.

"Maybe Griffin adopted his alias as his actual name when he moved to the States," Daphne speculated.

The gang continued their discussion until they reached Shrewsbury College library once again. Like most college libraries, it was open until late in the evening for students to pursue research or to work on essays. In the summer, during the university's long vacation, there were very few people in evidence, probably mainly academic staff and graduate students taking advantage of the peace and quiet.

Elizabeth Wyvern nwhere to be seen and an enigmatic note on her office door said Back Later, with no indication of when or even which day. Velma still had her reader's card from earlier in the day and hoped that would still unlock the study room she had used earlier.

As the trio ascended the grand marble staircase in the entrance hall, Velma pointed out the painting of the first librarian, which was an impressively large full-length portrait almost life-size.

"Miss Wyvern looks a lot like her," Daphne commented as he paused to study the painting.

"Well, she's tall and thin and has her hair in a bun," Velma conceded.

"No, there's something about the eyes and cheekbones too," Daphne persisted.

They continued up to the study that Velma had been using. She swiped her card through the slot on the door and it unlocked the door as she hoped. The room had been tidied since Velma and Daphne had last seen it earlier in the day and the tangle of blue rope had gone.

"I'll show you what I found," Velma announced. She logged herself into the computer terminal then performed a search for 'Griffin'. There were no results. Puzzled, she tried again with a fuzzy search instead. The results included 'Gribbin', 'Griffiths' and several other near misses, but no 'Griffin'.

"Odd," she commented, trying a different approach. 'Landship' produced several references to reports produced by the British government committee that invented tanks, but nothing else.

"Very odd," Velma concluded. She planted her elbows on the edge of the desk and rested her chin on her folded hands as she stared perplexed at the screen. The other two watched her silently, not wishing to disturb the train of thought.

"Jinkies!" Velma exclaimed after a moment's silence. "The answer's right under my nose!" She pointed to a number scribbled in ballpoint pen on the back of her left hand. "I jotted down one of the file references right here," she explained, "so I can still go straight to one of the documents even if the index isn't working."

Velma tapped the reference into the terminal. An error message appeared. "Something isn't right here," she complained.

"So you're stuck?" Fred asked sympathetically.

"Not quite!" Velma replied dramatically. "I..." Whatever she was about to say was interrupted by a buzzing sound from her purse as the vibrating ringtone on her cellphone resonated against the other contents.

Velma looked at the number showing on the display but didn't recognize it. She shrugged and pressed the green button anyway. "Velma Dinkley," she announced. She listened to the reply then hissed, "It's Mike!" to Fred and Daphne. She listened again and then gasped, "No!"

"What's up?" Fred asked in consternation.

"Just a moment Mike," Velma instructed, "I'm going to turn the volume up so Fred and Daphne can hear too." She thumbed the scroll button to push the volume to maximum while the other two huddled close to her. "Right, say it again, Mike; we're all listening."

"OK, Velma," the tinny caricature of Mike's voice replied. "I went out to get some groceries earlier on, maybe an hour ago. It was just after you left, anyway. I got back about about ten minutes ago and found Suzanne all tied up."

"Is she OK?" Velma asked in alarm.

"Yes, she's fine," Mike confirmed. "Really annoyed but not hurt or anything. She says she was at her desk working at the computer when she heard the door opening. She went to investigate and got jumped and tied to a chair. I found her like that and everything had obviously been turned over."

"How could he tell?" hissed Fred. "The place was a tip already."

"Shut up, Fred," Daphne hissed back.

"Did she see who jumped her?" Velma asked.

"Only that it was someone wearing black," Mike replied. "Her spectacles came off and she was blindfolded, so she didn't see much."

"What did they take?" Fred asked.

Mike sounded puzzled. "That's the funny thing. Hesperus has obviously been searched fairly thoroughly but, as far as I can tell, there's nothing missing."

"What do the police say?" Daphne asked him.

"I didn't report it. After all, nobody got hurt and nothing was nicked, so we're not going to bother. Besides, this has to be something to do with you lot. It's too much of a coincidence otherwise."

"I'm inclined to agree," Velma concurred. "Thanks for telling us and I hope Suzanne calms down soon." She bade Mike farewell and hung up.

The gang looked at each other in puzzlement. This development contributed far more questions than answers to the case.

Daphne broke the silence first. "Maybe Suzanne was the real target all along," she ventured.

"But in that case, why destroy Velma's notes?" Fred objected.

"And why not steal anything at the houseboat?" Velma added.

They fell into silence again.

"Whoever attacked me was very careful only to steal my notes from this morning," Velma pointed out. "They didn't take my computer or my notebook, just the notes."

"That must make you the real target," Fred agreed.

"But why should anyone attack Suzanne at all in that case?" Daphne complained.

"Mistaken identity?" Fred offered in desperation.

"That just doesn't make any kind of sense," Velma replied emphatically. "Somebody could just about mistake me for Suzanne, except that I was somewhere she would never go and it would be obvious to anyone that my notes weren't anything to do with genes."

Daphne nodded her head in agreement. "It makes even less sense the other way round. Suzanne was at home but Velma is a visitor so she doesn't have a home here."

Put that way, Fred had to agree. There was no way that the attacker could have been in any reasonable doubt that Velma and Suzanne were different people. The puzzled silence descended once more.

"OK, try this," Fred said at length. "Mike is the perpetrator. Velma saw him staring at her, after all. Suppose it was he who tied Suzanne up to divert attention away from himself."

"No," Daphne replied, shaking her head. "All that would do is to attract more attention onto Mike and Suzanne. Before this happened, all we had to connect Mike with the case was a chance resemblance between Velma and his girlfriend."

"That's true," agreed Fred. He thought for a moment then his face brightened. "Maybe Suzanne is the perpetrator and she tied herself up to divert suspicion."

"But there isn't any suspicion to divert!" Velma protested. "We didn't know Suzanne even existed until we visited Hesperus and there's nothing to connect her with the incident at the library."

"Of course," Fred persisted, "we only have Mike's word for it that Suzanne ever was attacked."

"Well, that's true," admitted Velma, "but there's no possible reason for him to make it up. Even if he was trying to hide something, this would only make him seem more suspicious."

"I don't think we actually know enough yet to make any sense of this incident," Daphne pointed out wisely.

"Just before her phone rang, Velma had a 'jinkies' moment," Fred reminded the others. "What were you going to tell us, Vel?"

Velma's face brightened. "Oh yes! This file number refers to the file reference on the computer system, but if you need to look at an original document, it's also the reference for the physical file down in the archives." She pointed at the floor dramatically.

Velma logged out of the computer terminal and the three friends headed for the staircase down to the main entrance. A small door off the entrance hall led to a more humble staircase with plain stone stairs worn smooth and slightly concave by a century of traffic. The basement was cool, dry and dimly lit with the distant rumble of air-conditioning machinery maintaining the perfect atmosphere to preserve old books. Bank after bank of shelves filled the space between the stone walls and stretched off into the distance.

Using the small flashlight she carried in her purse, Velma consulted the reference number still written on her hand, glanced at the numbers on the nearest shelves and then led the way into the depths of the archives. At last they reached a narrow aisle between two bank of shelves marked with numbers in the right range.

Some documents were simply books standing on the shelves in the ordinary way. Some were stored in box-files, others in cardboard archive cases while tubes and portfolios presumably stored maps and drawings. The Griffin archives proved to be in a surprisingly small archive case and a portfolio about three by two feet in size. It was on quite a high shelf, so Velma allowed Fred and Daphne to use their superior height to retrieve the items.

Velma laid the portfolio on the floor and knelt down to open it while Daphne found the switch for some additional light above the aisle where they had found the Griffin documents. Fred and Daphne gazed in wonder at the drawings which Velma had described to them but which she had only seen on screen herself. The reality was breathtaking. The draftsmanship was quite exquisite, executed with boldness and clarity and a superb level of artistry. The drawings were in black ink on white gesso-coated linen and had been subtly colored in a watercolor wash that gave them depth and solidity as if they could be lifted right off the page. The colors and line-work were so fresh they could have been done yesterday. The tank, the flying machines and many other inventions were all there, exactly as Velma had promised.

Abruptly, the light over the trio's head went out. They were not in complete darkness as the dim background lights were still on, but the contrast was dramatic and momentarily incapacitating. There was a flurry of unexplained activity during which Velma and Daphne were both pushed over onto the floor.

A few moments later, the lights came on again as Fred found the switch at the end of the shelves. Velma looked around in dismay as she realized that the drawings and the unopened archive case were all gone.

"Was that your ghost?" Daphne asked, still sitting on the floor, slightly stunned.

"Yes, I think so," Velma replied, equally stunned.

"I get the feeling she doesn't want you to read any of that stuff," Daphne commented ruefully.

"I had a glimpse of a woman in gray," Fred confirmed, "just the way you described her."

"But where did she go?" Daphne asked.

Fred looked around him then moved back to where he had been standing before. His shoulders almost touched the shelves on either side of the aisle where they had gathered.

"I'm sure Fred would have noticed if anyone had tried to squeeze past him," Velma concluded.

All three turned to look in the other direction. The two banks of shelves stopped where they abutted a wall with wooden paneling on it. Fred stepped past Daphne and Velma and began inspecting the wall. After a few moments, a narrow door swung open.

"A secret passage!" exclaimed Daphne delightedly as she got back to her feet and joined Fred to inspect the new discovery.

"Let me see too!" Velma demanded.

The passage ran parallel with the wall away from the door in either direction. It was brick-lined with a cement floor and was scrupulously clean. A galvanized steel duct near the ceiling indicated that part of its present function was to contain cabling. As Fred stepped into the passage, it was suddenly lit by a series of small lightbulbs spaced every few yards along its length. He looked up and noticed an infrared detector above his head.

"This has to be the least spooky secret passage I have ever seen," commented Fred, slightly disappointed.

"But why does a Victorian library have secret passages at all?" asked Daphne, now puzzled.

"Probably for the same reason that a big country house might have them:" Velma said, "so that servants could go about their duties largely unobserved and not disturb the household. I think the idea here is that library staff were regarded much like domestic servants and were to flit about invisibly, not distracting the daughters of gentlefolk who were students here."

"So there's going to be more passages like this?" Fred asked excitedly.

"I'm almost certain of it," Velma assured him.

"OK, gang, let's split up!" Fred announced confidently.

"Er, Fred, the passage only goes two ways," Daphne pointed out helpfully, " and there's three of us."

"That's OK," Velma responded. "I'll stay here. I'm sure there are more clues all around us if only I could spot them."

As Fred and Daphne set off to explore the secret passages, Velma began a methodical consideration of the archive basement. Other than the secret door Fred had discovered, there was only one door into the basement, the one by which they had entered. Given the dim lighting, it was not impossible that someone could enter that way and creep right up to them unobserved. However, getting past Fred where he had been standing was probably too unlikely to consider. They must have been attacked via the secret passage.

Velma inspected the secret door closely. It was extraordinarily well made, only betrayed by fractionally thicker gaps in the woodwork than the joints in the paneling elsewhere. Velma entered the secret passage and looked along it in either direction as the lights came on. More doors were visible, clearly leading into adjacent aisles between banks of shelves in the basement. Satisfied at her discovery, Velma returned to the basement with its bank after bank of shelving. She explored some adjacent shelves and confirmed that there were secret doors at regular intervals right around the basement. That implied that there was nothing particularly special about the location of the Griffin papers; the 'ghost' could have jumped out at them in the same way anywhere else in the basement.

Secret passages were beguiling but possibly not where the important clues were to be found. Velma sat down on the floor with her back to the paneled wall to consider the other features of the basement. She methodically itemized the contents to sift them for ideas. There were the shelves, which were sturdily constructed from wood, possibly oak, Velma thought, and were probably as old as the building itself. The contents of the shelves were varied, with books, various shapes and sizes of containers for documents, big folders full of drawings and a few small glass containers, which on closer inspection held preserved zoological specimens in varying degrees of grossness. Nothing remotely enlightening so far, Velma realized.

Then there were the modern additions to the basement. There were light switches, Velma noted, feeling that she was reaching the bottom of the barrel and trying desperately to think of something interesting about light switches. There were also the other modern fittings, such as the fire alarm points.

Jinkies! Velma almost said aloud as she remembered what else would be likely go with fire alarm points. There were smoke detectors and infrared heat and movement detectors inconspicuously fitted into the ceiling. They had been designed to blend with the largely original 19th century interior, but were clearly there once you started to look for them. After further searching, Velma found a very small discreet CCTV camera. Once she had found the first and knew what to look for, she discovered that it was one of many.

It was now obvious to Velma that although the trio had been alone in the basement, they had almost certainly not been unobserved. That implied that whoever had attacked them was probably a member of the library staff, both to have access to the monitors for the CCTV cameras which must exist somewhere in the building and to have a working knowledge of the secret passages.

Fred and Daphne found that the passage they had entered was part of an extensive network threaded through the entire building, just as Velma had suspected. Exploring the library in this way proved to be confusing. The way the secret passages and narrow hidden staircases were connected together was quite different to the way that the rooms they served were connected.

Despite having set off in different directions, Fred and Daphne kept meeting up with each other again. After the third encounter, they decided that they might as well join forces and continued their exploration together. After discovering many dead ends and several seemingly promising routes that actually appeared to double back on themselves, they eventually found themselves inside the study room that Velma had been using earlier.

"Well, we know how the ghost got to Velma now," Fred commented, pleased with their discovery.

"I had no idea this door was here," Daphne said as she examined it from inside the study room. "But it still doesn't help much if we don't know why the ghost was after Velma."

"If we catch the ghost, we can ask her," Fred pointed out reasonably.

After some trial and error, Fred and Daphne worked their way back to their starting point in the basement, where Velma was still studying the security and surveillance equipment."

As Fred and Daphne returned to the basement, Velma raised her finger to her lips and handed them a piece of paper. It read, "CCTV CAMERAS EVERYWHERE. DON'T KNOW IF MICROPHONES TOO. JUST TALK NORMALLY."

"So did the passages lead anywhere interesting?" Velma asked brightly.

"Not really," Fred replied disingenuously. "We just got lost a lot." He scribbled an addition to Velma's note and handed it back.

"PASSAGES GO EVERYWHERE. WE FOUND A WAY INTO YOUR STUDY," she read. "That's a pity," Velma said. "I was really hoping we'd found a clue." She added to the note again and passed it to Fred and Daphne.

Daphne studied it. "MUST BE MEMBER OF LIBRARY STAFF WATCHING VIA CCTV," she read. "Whoever took the drawings we were looking at got clean away," Daphne remarked aloud while adding her private comment to the note.

Velma read Daphne's reply. "ANY IDEA WHO?"

"Maybe we should just give up on this one," Fred suggested in reply to Daphne's spoken comment, while Velma scribbled a reply to her written question.

"WOMAN WITH BOOK TROLLEY? DATABASE TECH? LIBRARIAN? PROBABLY LOTS MORE POSSIBILITIES," Fred and Daphne read.

"I think you're right, Fred," Daphne replied. "Some cases just don't pan out." At the same time, she wrote, "FRED: WE NEED A TRAP!"

Fred indicated his agreement with a discreet thumbs up while Velma commented out loud, "I'd like to go back and try a little more research before we leave Oxford, but let's go and grab a quick coffee first."

The others murmured their assent and the three friends trooped back up to the entrance hall. Miss Wyvern was back in her office and seemed to be working with a manuscript. Velma looked in briefly to tell her of their plans.

All the promising-looking coffee shops had closed up for the day and restaurants were only interested in serving meals. After a few minute scouting the streets, the gang found an Internet café that was still open. The coffee was dubious in the extreme, but the trio's priority was to be able to sit around a table to discuss the details of Fred's plan.

"You know, there are times on this trip when I really miss Shaggy and Scooby," Velma commented.

"Me too," Fred agreed earnestly. "They would drink this horrible coffee for us if they were."

"I was thinking more about the role you've lined me up for in this plan, Fred," Velma continued.

"As bait you mean?" Fred asked, grinning.

"Think of it as demonstrating your versatility," Daphne encouraged.

Fred nodded in agreement. "Not just the brains of the gang today, but damsel in distress and live bait too!"

Daphne rummaged in her purse for a moment and retrieved a small piece of electronic equipment. "You'll need this, Velma."

"A bug?" Velma commented in surprise. "I'm not sure that's exactly legal here."

"That's all right," Daphne reassured her, "I'm not sure it's exactly legal back home either."

"Good idea, Daph," Fred said approvingly. "We'll need to be able to monitor what's going on while Velma's being bait."

"Excuse me," Daphne apologized as she lifted the hem of her friend's sweater. She found a mildly intimate location for the microphone to nestle then tucked the small box containing the transmitter into the waistband of Velma's skirt and smoothed the sweater back in place.

Daphne put the earpiece into her own ear and held her hair out of the way as she guided the wire behind her ear and down to the receiver which she had hidden in her jacket pocket.

"Testing," Velma said self-consciously.

"Loud and clear," Daphne confirmed.

"OK," Fred announced with enthusiasm, "let's catch us a ghost!"

The three friends trooped out into the street and walked the short distance back to Shrewsbury College.

As she re-entered the Library, apparently alone, Velma visited the librarian's office briefly. "I'm just going to do a last half hour's research, Miss Wyvern," she explained.

Fred and Daphne waited outside for a discreet couple of minutes, then walked into the entrance hall, taking care not to be seen by Miss Wyvern. They made their way upstairs to a room that they had previously identified. It appeared to be a small meeting room and contained nothing but a table and six chairs. It was conveniently located right next to the study Velma was once more occupying and seemed never to be locked.

The meeting room had a single CCTV camera mounted high up in one corner. Daphne and Fred sat on the floor, huddled together in the corner with their backs against the wall. They hoped the camera's field of view was not wide enough to show their feet, but in any case, they had not switched the room's light on. English summer evenings are long, but even so, the amount of daylight entering through the high window was diminishing rapidly.

Through her earpiece, Daphne could hear the rattle of the keyboard as Velma worked away at the computer terminal. If she listened carefully, she could hear Velma breathing and there were occasional rough sounds from the fabric of Velma's sweater touching the microphone as she moved.

After what she judged to be ten minutes, Velma made the first move to activate Fred's plan. She made a small inarticulate exclamation of delight, apparently at what she saw on her computer screen. Her cellphone was lying ready on the desk in front of her. She picked it up, selected Daphne's number from its phonebook and pressed the green button.

There was an almost inaudible buzzing as Daphne's cellphone rang in vibration mode. As previously arranged, Daphne pressed the green button on her phone but said nothing.

Velma hoped that her acting skills would be convincing enough to give the impression of a real conversation. "Hi Daphne!" she announced excitedly after hearing the ringing tone stop. "Yes, I'm still in the library... Yes I have... No it's not the same stuff I saw this morning and lost, it's all new... Yes, I'm sure it's important... Can you give me another hour to note all this down? I'll pack up and meet you and Fred after that... You're sure that's OK?... Thanks, Daphne. See you later." She thumbed the red button on the phone and put it down on the desk again.

The tension was almost unbearable, wondering if the bait would provoke the ghost into action again, wondering even if their hypothesis was right that it was her research that had been the trigger before. Velma could feel her heart pounding and was sure it must be deafening Daphne.

Velma forced herself to unfreeze and at least to go through the motions of having made a significant discovery. She scribbled notes to herself that were indeed just scribble and typed gibberish into her laptop all the while bracing herself for the attack that might not come.

Just as Velma was beginning to think the plan had failed, the secret door in the wall burst open. As before, the figure that entered was a tall veiled woman in a gray Victorian dress. As the ghost pounced on her and bore her down to the floor, Velma was forcibly reminded of how small she was herself; at least a six-footer like Shaggy or a 140 lb Great Dane like Scooby could put up more of a fight.

Daphne heard a sharp click that might have been the secret door opening in Velma's study. She raised a warning finger to Fred to be ready, but hesitated. She wanted to be sure that the ghost had actually appeared. There was a rasping thud as Velma's sweater brushed the microphone again, then the background noises in Velma's room seemed oddly muted. Daphne was puzzled and hesitated a second or two longer before realizing that the sound was probably muffled by Velma's own body lying on top of the microphone. She grabbed Fred's hand. "Now!" she urged, leaping to her feet.

Daphne and Fred raced out into the corridor and into Velma's study. Daphne's assessment of the situation proved right. Velma was lying face down on the floor while the ghost was holding her down and tying her ankles together with the inevitable blue polypropylene rope. The ghost leaped up as soon as Fred and Daphne entered the now very crowded study room and, after hesitating for a fraction of a second, fled back through the hidden door.

Daphne was astonished to see that the ghost had already had time to tie Velma's hands behind her back and to gag her. "We'll come back for you," she promised as she pursued the ghost into the secret passage.

"Don't go away!" Fred advised as he followed Daphne.

"Gnrrph!" Velma commented angrily.

Fred and Daphne split up immediately as they set off after the ghost. Fred glimpsed the ghost ahead of him twice as he ran through the maze of secret passages, the realized that he had lost her. There were dozens of doors out into the public parts of the library and she could have taken any of those and by now could be in any part of the building. He chose one at random and found himself near the top of the main staircase. If Velma's theory was right, then Fred knew exactly where the ghost would be going. He ran down the stairs three at a time, risking disaster on the smooth stone steps.

As Fred reached the bottom of the stairs, there was a flash of movement in his peripheral vision. He span around in time to see the ghost retreating down the main corridor towards the big public reading room. He gave chase and the ghost immediately dodged into a doorway. Now hot on her heels, Fred followed. He found himself in a tiled room with doors down one side and a line of wash basins down the other. A startled and very indignant-looking woman was washing her hands at one of the.

"Pardon me, ma'am," Fred apologized as he worked out where he was. Sheepishly, he backed into the corridor, wondering where to look next.

Daphne was acutely aware that she had not seen the ghost since she entered the labyrinth of secret passages and also that she now had no idea of where she was. She had just concluded that the only sensible course of action was to choose a door at random and go back to Velma's study room when the ghost abruptly burst into the passage in front of her through one of the doors leading out into the library. She faced Daphne for an instant and then turned and fled.

AS the ghost hesitated, Daphne had time to take in the Victorian dress, which as Velma had already observed, closely resembled the one worn by the first librarian in the painting on the main stairs, and the strangely veiled face. Daphne prided herself in her expert knowledge of fashion of any period and she was sure that the veil was incorrect. It seemed to be simply a piece of gray muslin, possibly a muslin shawl she thought, wrapped around the head. A real Victorian veil, even one as concealing as the one worn by the ghost, would have been worn as an adornment to a hat. As she set off in pursuit, Daphne concluded that the costume was not as carefully planned as perhaps they had first thought; there was a definite lack of attention to detail.

After turning two corners, Daphne realized with dismay that the ghost was no longer in sight in front of here. More from instinct than anything else, Daphne turned. She was rewarded by the ghost emerging from a door and running off in the direction they had just come. Although Daphne's long legs easily kept up with the ghost along the straight passageways, her unfamiliarity with the network of secret corridors and consequent hesitation at every corner was giving the ghost the overall advantage and she was steadily leaving Daphne behind.

Velma was annoyed. Being trussed up once was bad enough, but twice in the same day was irritating and, she felt, rather unprofessional. Although her wrists, and ankles were bound, Velma was not actually tied to anything. She wondered if she might therefore still join in the hunt, as she felt certain she knew where it would end up. Daphne had been known to hop quite long distances while tied up, so Velma was sure that with a little determination, she could so the same.

Although she was the only person in the study room, Velma found that it was oddly lacking in space as she tried to get into a position where she could maneuver herself to her feet. The furniture seemed to keep getting in the way however she moved. Eventually, however, she managed to roll onto her side in a clear area of floor and to push herself up into a sitting position with her tied hands. She shuffled carefully backwards until her back contacted a wall. Drawing her knees up and digging her heels into the carpet, Velma laboriously started to force herself upright.

It was with relief that Velma at last reached a standing position. She pushed against the wall to transfer her weight forwards onto her feet. Too late she realized that she had given slightly too vigorous a push and had overbalanced. With her hands tied, Velma was powerless to break the fall as the floor rushed up and knocked the breath out of her.

Fred scouted around the ground floor of the library in the hope of any sighting of the ghost. There were still a few students and staff at work in the reading room, despite the lateness of the hour. He wondered about asking one of them, "Excuse me, but did a ghost just pass this way?" but concluded it would be rude and might invite ridicule.

Plan B: time to meet Daphne, Fred decided, glancing at his watch.

Daphne stopped for breath in her headlong chase through the maze of secret passages. She admitted to herself that she had been outrun and left behind, which was a little humiliating given that she prided herself in her fitness and had been outrun by a woman encumbered by a heavy Victorian dress. Then again, chasing someone while wearing high-heeled shoes put her at a disadvantage, Daphne persuaded herself.

Shoes, thought Daphne. The ghost's shoes weren't in period either. As she had been giving chase, Daphne had a clear view of sturdy laced black brogues.

Smiling to herself as the evidence clicked into place, Daphne chose a door at random and emerged into the library to regain her bearings. She noted where she was and returned to the secret passages, confident that she could navigate herself to the destination she had agreed with Fred.

Velma's second attempt to get to her feet had been more successful than the first and she was able to move around the study room with the tiny shuffling steps her ankle ropes permitted. She carefully reversed herself up against the door and bent her knees to bring the doorknob within reach of her fingers. She turned the knob and shuffled forwards a few steps to pull the door open and flushed with success, maneuvered herself around it and out into the wide corridor.

Forward progress proved not to be too difficult so long as she moved hopped carefully, with her weight on the balls of her feet, and leaned slightly forwards to compensate for the weight of her arms behind her. Overconfidence led to an ignominious tumble followed by a repeat performance of getting to her feet by sliding her back up the wall. Velma proceeded more cautiously after that.

At the end of the corridor was the main staircase, all smooth surfaces and unforgivingly hard stone. It stretched away before Velma like an abyss. The floor of the entrance hall looked to be about a mile below her. Experimentally she hopped down to the first step and teetered precariously on the treacherously glassy surface. Velma decided that this was a really bad idea and sat down on the top step. After some thought, she hooked her heels under one of the lower steps. Her bottom slid smoothly forward on the step then dropped to the next one with a tremendous jolt. Velma was glad that the gag at least prevented her teeth from clashing together when she did that. Steeling herself for the bump, she hooked her heels under the next step and pulled.

Fred reached the librarian's office at the time he had agreed with Daphne, although she was nowhere in sight. He turned the doorknob and entered without ceremony. As he did so. A hidden door, much like many others in the library, sprang open and Daphne emerged into the room. The librarian was immersed in the examination of a manuscript and making longhand notes in a jotter. Startled by the sudden intrusion, she raised her head from her work and looked in some consternation first at Fred then at Daphne, both of whom were staring back at her stony faced.

"Can I help you?" the librarian asked at length, regaining some of her poise and composure.

After bouncing down several dozen spine-jarring steps, Velma rocked herself unsteadily onto her feet in the library's big entrance hall. She resumed her determined hopping towards the librarian's office.

Daphne glanced at Fred, who gave her an almost imperceptible nod. "Miss Wyvern," she began, breaking the icy silence, "our friend Velma came here in good faith and with your permission to study some of the papers in your archive. So far today, she has been set upon twice and left trussed up as if this was a Victorian melodrama rather than a respected seat of learning in the 21st century."

As if on cue, Velma burst through the door, hopped into the middle of the room, overbalanced and sprawled inelegantly on the librarian's carpet. "Mmgrwlm," she apologized through her gag.

"And we think you know exactly what's going on," Fred finished for Daphne as she rushed to Velma's aid.

"Well the description Miss Dinkley gave me earlier sounded exactly like the first librarian's ghost," Miss Wyvern replied rather stiffly. "I explained to you that we are rather fond of her and regard her as a benign and friendly spirit. I very much regret what has happened to Miss Dinkley today, but if she has angered the ghost in some way, I can only assume that it is because the ghost believes her research to be detrimental to the library in some way."

Daphne quickly freed Velma while the librarian was speaking and helped her to a chair. Miss Wyvern poured a glass of water from the jug on a small side table in one corner of her office and offered it to Velma.

Instead of gratefully accepting the water, Velma astonished Miss Wyvern by grabbing and holding her wrist with one hand. With her other hand, Velma reached into her skirt pocket and withdrew a small flashlight. She thumbed it on and pointed it at the librarian's gloved hand. The fingertips all lit up with an eerie purple glow.

Miss Wyvern gasped and involuntarily let go of the glass. Fred's reactions were superb; he caught the glass cleanly before so much as a drop of water could spill. With a small bow, he then offered it to Velma.

"Thank you, Fred," Velma acknowledged with a formal nod of her head. She released the librarian's wrist and took the proffered glass gratefully.

Miss Wyvern stared at her gloved hands, which had now lost their purple glow.

After a sip of water, Velma explained, "The flashlight is ultraviolet, Miss Wyvern. There was ultraviolet marker dye on the keyboard of my laptop and also on my notepad. It's quite invisible in ordinary light, of course. Fred, Daphne and I all saw the ghost touch my computer with her gloved hands." Velma placed deliberate emphasis on the last four words. "And now you seem to have picked up just the same dye on your own gloves."

"It's pretty obvious that you and the ghost are one and the same, Miss Wyvern," Daphne said with an angry edge to her voice. "Perhaps you could explain to us why a professional librarian hits an American visitor over the head and ties her up."

"Yes, that should be a good story," Fred agreed.

"It's the Griffin papers, "Miss Wyvern explained. "It's a very special archive and needs to be protected especially well."

As she spoke, the librarian absent-mindedly peeled her gloves off and deposited them in the waste basket. She opened a desk drawer and brought out another pair, still wrapped in cellophane, tore the wrapper off and put them on.

"If the Griffin papers need to be looked after that carefully, why invite me over from the States to study them?" Velma protested.

"Well, I thought you were who you said you were," Miss Wyvern explained. She surveyed the gang's baffled faces. "I mean, I know now you really are who you said you were but I didn't this morning."

"Miss Wyvern, this isn't making a lot of sense," Daphne pointed out. "Perhaps you should just explain from the beginning and we'll try to keep quiet."

"Well, I'm always very careful about requests to view the Griffin papers," Miss Wyvern began. "I don't forbid it, but I'm careful. Your phone call to me sounded like a perfectly ordinary piece of research, which you told me was on behalf of Griffin's descendants. When you confirmed the arrangements by e-mail, you had the web address of your bookshop in the sig block and I followed that up too. Perfectly legitimate and a very nice shop too by the look of it."

"Thank you," Velma acknowledged.

"Usually I am very careful about verifying visitors' identities if I haven't met them before and I like to interview them before they do research and sometimes I get them to sign an non-disclosure agreement," the librarian continued.

"But you didn't do that with me!" Velma objected. "You didn't even ask to see my passport."

"But that's because I was sure I knew who you were and I was furious," Miss Wyvern replied. "I didn't think I could go through the charade of an interview and keep my temper."

"Huh?" Fred commented.

"I was expecting an American I hadn't seen before and instead I was faced with Suzanne putting on a fake accent. She hadn't even made any attempt to change her appearance. I thought it was some kind of a a practical joke at first but she was perfectly serious, so I decided to go along with it and see what she did," Miss Wyvern explained. "Only, I know now that you weren't Suzanne this morning."

"I never am," Velma pointed out dryly.

"Anyway," the librarian continued, "I kept an eye on what you were doing with CCTV and by watching the transaction log on the computer system. It was pretty obvious which bits of the Griffin archive you were interested in and they are precisely the parts that I wanted to keep confidential."

"So you decided that an appropriate course of action as a professional librarian was to dress up as a ghost and to tie me up to keep me out of the way?" Velma asked incredulously.

"I felt that some of the traditions of Shrewsbury College Library were at stake. I felt that my great grandmother would not have approved, so I decided to act in her name as her ghost."

"In a costume you just happened to have handy, I suppose?" Fred demanded sarcastically.

"Well, yes, as it happens," Miss Wyvern replied. She crossed her office to a closet set into one wall and opened it. Hanging on the back of the door was a gray late Victorian-style dress, complete with bustle. "We sometimes put on Victorian dinners here as a tourist thing and I do a guided tour of some of our more interesting items, dressed up as the first librarian."

"And the blue rope?" Daphne asked.

"I live on a houseboat on the canal and I refitted it with new white rope last year, so I have miles of that blue stuff lying around. It has all kinds of uses."

"Like tying me up," Velma commented bitterly, then continued, "If you live on the canal, you must know Mike and Suzanne."

They're my next-but-one neighbors," the librarian confirmed.

"So, you had tied me to my chair in the study," Velma reminded the librarian. "What was supposed to happen next?"

"Well, I would have 'discovered' you eventually. I thought that spending half a day or so like that was a suitable response to Suzanne coming here pretending to be an American, only you managed to phone your friend for help somehow."

"Mystery Inc at its finest, ma'am," Fred explained proudly.

"When Daphne turned up here, I thought she must be Velma at first, because I was expecting an American to visit," the librarian continued, "but it says Daphne Blake in her passport."

"Because that's my name," Daphne pointed out reasonably.

Miss Wyvern continued her story. "We freed you and you were still insisting that you were Velma, so I left it at that, because I knew you hadn't got away with any information. Besides, I took the opportunity to lock you out of the Griffin papers on the computer system.

"I went home for a short break later this afternoon, and while I was riding my bike along the towpath, I could see the three of you talking to Mike. Of course, I thought Velma was Suzanne and I recognized Daphne as the woman who had freed her earlier. I didn't know what was going on, but it looked like a conspiracy. I decided to wait and watch. I saw you three leave and then Mike a bit later. I decided to see if Suzanne (as I thought) had got away with anything from the library and left it in their houseboat."

"So you let yourself into Hesperus, expecting it to be empty, only to find the real Suzanne still there?" Velma offered, seeing where the story was going.

Miss Wyvern nodded in confirmation. "Yes, and I panicked and tied her up to keep her quiet."

"Your ghost dress was back here, so all Suzanne saw was someone in black," Daphne commented, recalling the information Mike had reported.

"That was me in my work clothes, and I put on a black balaclava too, because I was being a burglar," the librarian admitted, sheepishly.

"I think you owe Suzanne an apology," Fred advised.

"I owe her a few pairs of pantyhose too. That's what I tied her up with."

"I assume you found nothing on Hesperus, then you came back here," Velma prompted.

"That's right. When I got back, I did a quick scan through the CCTV cameras to see how many people were still in the library and where they were and I found you three in the basement. I recognized where you were and that you must have found some way to go straight to the originals of the Griffin papers."

"You must have worked out at that point that there was more than one Suzanne," Fred suggested.

"I did later, but I was annoyed that all my precautions with the computer system had been sidestepped."

"So it was time for the ghost to walk again?" Daphne asked.

"Yes, and I really thought you had all been put off until Velma came back wanting to do more research this evening. I was sure there was nothing left for you to find until I heard her tell you that she'd discovered more."

"Well, that wasn't entirely true," Velma admitted. "After all, it was a trap to catch a ghost, and we had to bait it with something."

"Well, I have to admit that you caught me," the librarian conceded contritely.

"I still don't understand what you were trying to protect. It's all just old inventions," Fred objected.

"When this college was founded, right at the end of Queen Victoria's reign, Griffin was a major benefactor, under his real name of course. He believed that if women were well educated, their influence on society would bring peace in the twentieth century, which was then just about to begin. He left all his papers to the college library on the condition that they were well guarded, so that his military ideas should never fall into the wrong hands."

"The British government for instance," Daphne suggested.

"For instance," Miss Wyvern agreed. "He allowed his friend Mr Wells to use some of his ideas in his books to show how terrible a modern war could be. He foresaw the risk of a century dominated by a technological arms race with the threat of utter annihilation."

"That's pretty much what we got," Fred commented soberly.

"Surely, a century later the risk is past?" Velma ventured.

"A promise is a promise," the librarian retorted primly.

"A few minutes ago, you referred to the first librarian as your great-grandmother," Daphne reminded her.

"It's true," Miss Wyvern admitted. "And both my mother and grandmother were librarians here too."

"I was wondering about your surname," Velma remarked. "Wyverns and Griffins are quite different, but they are both heraldic beasts and make very unusual surnames."

"Wyvern is a sort of professional alias we have all used," the librarian explained. "My real surname is actually Jones."

"Nothing wrong with that!" Fred declared.

"And the connection with Griffins?" Velma persisted.

"Griffin was my great-grandfather, not legitimately but acknowledged. Mary Wyvern died before they could marry, and Griffin left the country after reluctantly agreeing to doing secret government work during the Great War."

"And must have adopted his pen name of Griffin as his surname when he became an American citizen," Daphne added.

Velma was excited. "I'm doing this research for my friend Hephzibah Griffin, who is also a great-granddaughter of Griffin. That makes her some kind of cousin of yours."

"I can only apologize," Miss Wyvern offered contritely. "I jumped to all sorts of wrong conclusions and looked for plots and conspiracies that weren't really there, when all the time you were really doing work for my family. I'm really sorry."

"Apology accepted," Velma acknowledged, offering her hand to Elizabeth Wyvern.

The librarian accepted the offer and shook hands warmly. "If you come back tomorrow, I'll show you everything you want and let you take copies for your friend."

Velma thanked her.

Fred looked a little disappointed. "So the library isn't really haunted by your great-grandmother's ghost then?"

"Oh, yes it is," Miss Wyvern replied with a fond smile, "and she's a real sweetie."