THE PRESENT: THE DEPARTMENT OF INSANITY, HA HA STREET, LONDON
I nspector Dormouse drank his fifth coffee in the last hour. Never had he felt the urge to stay awake like today. Since last week’s incidents with the mad Carolus, he’d begun to realize that sleeping wasn’t going to help him at his job. He needed to stay alert. Something was going on in this world. Something he needed to figure out.
He’d been tracing Alice and Pillar’s past through the documents on his desk. Never mind they had fooled him into thinking she was a girl called Amy Watson, and he was an animal rights activist called Petmaster. He’d figured out they were frauds last week. He’d also figured out they were mad and connected to some mysterious Wonderland War. Whatever that meant.
After dozing off again, Inspector Dormouse snapped awake and walked to the coffee machine, gulping himself another shot of caffeine. Staying awake was hard work. A pillow and a cushiony bed would be heaven right now.
But he had to get a grip of himself. He was about to discover something.
And there it was, right in front of him, in the Pillar’s profile.
The controversial professor had killed twelve people. Why twelve? Who were they?
Inspector Dormouse sat sipping his coffee, flipping pages in the Pillar’s profile. It mentioned the professor pleading insanity and ending up in Radcliffe Asylum. Inspector Dormouse wondered if that was what it was all about. The Pillar had killed those people to plead insanity in court and end up near this girl Alice for some reason.
But why kill? Weren’t there easier ways to sneak into an asylum?
Flipping pages, he couldn’t get the answer. Not right away. Not until he came about the victims’ names and the locations of death. That was when the inspector had his suspicions. Could it be?
Inspector Dormouse tapped the file and said, “So that’s why you killed them, professor.” And before he could follow up with a conclusion, the inspector fell asleep again. Coffee definitely wasn’t the answer for consciousness.