“Of course the trick is to figure just when you came into this conversation with Ms. Smok’s blinking.  I mean after all, we have to have all the right words put together in the right way or it doesn’t make any sense.”

A hopeful Jayben stared at the old woman as she counted down the dashes and dots.

“Hmmmmm???” she moaned as she lowered the paper.

“A MURDER HAS JUST BEEN COMMITTED AT BARMOTH,” said Mrs. C, who suddenly stopped reading.  “Oh this isn’t good.”

“What? “What?” Jayben questioned as a flood of possible people still at Barmoth ran through his mind. Professor Beasley went back to San Francisco, Professor Shroud was in Edinburgh at the Presidium all summer, and obviously Ms. Smok was still alive, after all she sent this message.

“Just a minute dear …’ Mrs. C said as she walked across the room and stared at the still present image of Ms Smok, “something’s not right here.”

Jayben jumped to his feet and scurried across the floor until he stood at her side.

“Does it say who was killed?” he begged.

“No Jayben,” said Mrs. C, her face rather perplexed, “although it looks as though you got the entire message as she keeps blinking the same dashes and dots over and over again!”

Mrs. C then lifted the parchment and pulled a pair of reading glasses from her apron.

“It’s been a few years now since I had to do any of this, but let’s give it a good try shall we?”

Jayben nodded quickly and listened intently as she began again to read the message from the deciphered code. “T-H-E … S-U-S-P-E-C-T-E-D ... MUR-DER-ER WAS SEEN FLUING.…” Mrs. C stopped reading and a puzzled looked crossed over her face as she looked over the top of her glasses to Jayben.

“FLUING???” she asked.

“Don’t know,” said Jayben as he shrugged his shoulders.

Mrs. C sighed and turned her attention to the hologram and watched a second or two before returning her gaze to Jayben … “It’s not fluing … Jayben. You accidentally got the letter put down as a dot-dot-dash …which is the letter ‘U’... She clearly blinks … dash-dash-dot-dash-dash for the letter ‘Y’ … So this makes the word FLYING… not FLUING,” she said as she retuned her gaze to the paper and started to decipher again.

“THE … SUS-PEC-TED ... MURDERER WAS SEEN FLYING TOWARD ANTIENNA. HE WORE A LONG LEATHER ROBE WHICH REACHED NEARLY DOWN TO HIS FEET.  MEET ME BY SILOX TODAY. IT’S URGENT! JENNA!”

Mrs. C slowly lowered the paper.

“That’s some clever girl you know Jayben.”

“Yes ma’am,” Jayben nodded.

“Anyone else receiving that scarab message would have assumed that it was from that Ms. Smok,” Mrs. C continued, “That Jenna was clever to have hidden the message in Ms Smok’s eye movements.”

Jayben’s eyes narrowed.

“That’s probably what made the scarab get into a fit.” He said biting his lower lip in thought, “she tampered with the function of the scarab to get the image of Ms. Smok to change … and that sent the scarab’s tracking capabilities off just enough ...” he paused for a second and looked at the lifeless orb still on the floor next to Ms. Smok’s holographic image.”

“But I wonder who got killed and why she needs to see me now?”