The tombs are not like anything I have expected. Its walls and floors are covered in black and white tiles, and there is a coffin in the middle. One side surprises me with two dead men, now skeletons, leaning onto a chessboard.
“Thieves,” Father Williams explains. “Some claim they’re Tweedledum and Tweedledee but I doubt it.”
“Then who are they?” The Pillar asks.
“They tried to steal Carroll’s Knight.” Says Father Williams.
“Why are they dead on the chessboard then?” I wonder.
“The tomb has a locking system. They were locked in and, by a Wonderlastic spell, they were forced to play chess, not until one wins, but until both died.”
“You people have really misunderstood that chess thing,” The Pillar says. “Anyone told you it’s just a game?”
“It’s not a game,” Father Williams insists. “Chess is life. Move one piece, take a step in life. Move another, yet another step. Make a bad move, spend a couple of moves correcting it and paying the price. And by move, I mean a year of your life.”
“I dropped out of elementary school, so don’t go poetic on me.” The Pillar chews on the words.
“I take it you can’t play chess,” Father Williams says.
“If you mean pulling hair for hours to make one move in a game so slow it’d make a turtle bored out of its mind, then the answer is no, I can’t play chess.”
“You have a lot to learn, Mr. Pillar,” Father Williams says. “And you, Alice?”
“Me?” I shrug. “I’m fresh out of an asylum. Doctors advised me I stay away from too much thinking.”
The Pillar looks like he wants to crack a laugh, but he goes inspecting the coffin instead.
“Now that you’re here, I’ll leave you to open it,” Father Williams says.
“Wait,” I wave a hand. “Open it? I thought you knew how to open it.”
“I don’t. I am just the keeper of the secret.”
The Pillar and I sigh. Not again.
“It’s shut and locked, so don’t try to push anything, it won’t work. I’ve tried,” Father Williams says. “The key to unlock it is in the groove in the middle of the coffin’s lid.”
I locate what he is talking about. The coffin is made of stone, and it’s fixed to the floor. It doesn’t seem to have a ledge or the slightest of openings. In the upper middle, probably upon the corpse’s chest, is a small groove. It’s neither circular nor diagonal. In fact, it’s shapeless. It looks like three curving strokes that remind me of a palm tree with three branches, waving sideways in the wind.
“It’s too small for someone’s palm,” The Pillar says. “Or we could have tried fitting one’s fingers in the groove.”
“We tried that too, even water, but it didn’t work,” Father Williams says.
“So there is not even a clue?” I ask.
“My parents left me a clue, but I believe it’s as useless.”
“Tell me about it,” I say.
“Two words that hardly mean anything.” Father Williams says.
“Hi Ho?” The Pillar pursed his lips. “Or hocus pocus?”
“None,” Father Williams says. “It’s ‘Her lock’.”
“Her Lock?” The Pillar tilts his head. “What kind of clue is that? It’s not even proper English.”
I give it a thought, but it’s getting harder to concentrate with the noise that suddenly erupts outside.
“What’s going on?” Father Williams asks the men escorting us.
“Someone burst through the door,” one of his assistants says. “It’s the Reds.”
“If I had a smoke each time I bump into them.” The Pillar says.
“Don’t worry,” Father Williams says. “I’m sure the Chessmaster will stop them from harming us.”
“No, he won’t,” I say. “He can’t.”
“Why so sure, Alice?” The Pillar says.
“Because the Reds don’t work for the Chessmaster at the moment, but Mr. Jay. He had sent a limo to drive me to his castle earlier and I escaped. They’re here to finish what they started.”
“So we’re looking for a bloodbath in here,” The Pillar says. “You have another way out of here, Father Williams?”
“None. We’ll have to fight them.”
“I’m not leaving this place,” I tell The Pillar. “Not before I open the coffin.”
A loud thud sounds outside. The Reds have already broken into the castle.
Chapter 19
The Inklings, Oxford
“Her Lock?” The March Hare said, staring at the message Alice managed to send to him by phone from Italy. He had stopped cleaning the bar’s floor and no matter how his ears erected, he couldn’t solve it. Sometimes the March didn’t want to think too hard in case those who control the light bulb in his head read into his thoughts.