Free 032 High Marks for Malice by Carolyn Keene Page A

print out all the rest of the program’s commands on paper. Invisible or not, the program knows it’s been told to do its job—whatever that is—and it does it.”
    Reading over Marty’s shoulder, Ned said, “I think I’m beginning to understand. If you typed in the wrong thing, the program would stop right there. It wouldn’t even print out the two line numbers. So Doc must have found the key.”
    “And was killed for it,” Nancy said.
    “Could this be one of the commands?” Ned pointed to the paper he’d found in the taffy.
    “Might be, but we need the second. One without the other won’t work,” Marty explained.
    “So now what?” Cass demanded. She sat on the edge of her chair, nervously rolling a piece of paper into a tube.
    “What’s that?” Nancy asked her.
    She shrugged. “Just an invitation to a reception. It was in the folds of one of the printouts I picked up outside.”
    “May I see it?” Nancy asked. Cass gave it to her. “ ‘Appreciation Night,’ ” Nancy read aloud. “ ‘Friday, November 25, Penn Pride Hotel, Philadelphia.’ ” She tapped the paper in thought. “Marty, didn’t you say Doc went to Philly for Thanksgiving?”
    “Yes. That must have been Doc’s. He mentioned going to a fancy dinner with his sister.”
    Nancy and Ned scanned the invitation. “ ‘To extend appreciation to those special few who’ve made extraordinary contributions to the community,’ ” Nancy read. There were notes in red in the margins. “Marty, is this Doc’s writing?” she asked.
    Pain streaked across his features. “That’s his, all right. The worst handwriting on campus.”
    “There’s a big asterisk beside the name of one of the men who received an award,” Nancy noted. “Andrew Bladinsburg. Can you make out the other things Doc wrote?”
    Marty held the invitation at arm’s length and read it with his eyes almost closed. “That’s a number, a seventy with a big question mark behind it. I can’t make out the rest.”
    Nancy flipped to the short biography of Bladinsburg on the back. “Hey, he was a graduate of Basson!”
    “Maybe the number is the year he graduated,” Marty suggested.
    “But why did Doc keep this?” Nancy asked, her excitement rising. “And why stick it in the computer printouts which were so important to him, unless this was important, too? I think we’re on to something here.”
    Marty looked at his watch. “I hate to break this up, guys, but I have to go. I’ve got to pick up some software from a professor,” he said. “What about these printouts? Do you want me to keep them and try to figure them out?”
    Nancy hesitated, uncomfortable at the thought of letting them out of her hands. “I’d rather have copies made for you.”
    Marty’s expression said clearly that he understood. “Fine. I’ll be on campus all day tomorrow. Look for me in the comp sei complex.”
    Ned, Cass, and Nancy left, the printouts and invitation tucked safely in an old briefcase Marty lent them. Nancy smuggled the briefcase into the dorm under her coat. Considering how interested the thug in black had been to get his hands on it,she decided she would sleep with it under her pillow.
    • • •
    A brainstorming session over breakfast the next morning moved Maria into first place as their prime suspect.
    She was a computer science major with, Cass informed them, a straight-A average. She had been known to repair a computer, so she knew her way around its internal works. And she’d told Ned she knew several different programming languages.
    But several nagging questions remained for Nancy. “Why would Maria become involved in the murder of a favorite professor? For money?”
    “She admitted she needed it,” Ned said. “That’s why she gave up her Christmas vacation—to earn overtime pay.”
    “But there would have to be a lot more money involved than whatever she makes working in the computer lab,” Nancy mused. “Money for doing what? We’ll