Castle Superiore, Marostica, Italy
F ighting the Reds in such a claustrophobic corridor proved to be overly bloody. Father Williams’ men and the Chessmaster’s snipers were dropping like flies outside the tomb. Alice could barely see them. She and the Pillar preferred to stay inside the room and try to unlock the coffin.
“I don’t know how long before the Reds get into the tomb,” Father Williams said. “The Chessmaster sent his men to attack them from behind, but it’s turning into a massacre, and I’m not sure who is going to win.”
“We have very little time,” I say.
“You mean before we die or solve the puzzle?” Father Williams chuckles worriedly.
“I am assuming the word ‘her’ means you, Alice.” The Pillar is kneeling down to inspect the groove on the coffin again. “Lewis always referred to you as ‘her,’ let alone the fact that he always talked about you.”
“So what does it mean?” I ask.
“It means the coffin is locked with your lock .” The Pillar is only speculating. “I know it doesn’t make sense.”
“Or maybe it means that only I can unlock it,” I offer.
“It’s a probability, but how?” The Pillar grimaces at the sound of men dying outside.
“Hurry!” Father Williams says.
I stare at the coffin with no clue of how to unlock it.
“Who told you about this clue?” the Pillar asks Father Williams.
“My father.”
“How so? Did he write it down for you or just say it?”
“Never wrote it down. The keepers of the secret always keep the clues in their minds.”
“And I assume your father heard it from his father, and so on.”
“I assume so,” Father Williams says. “Why?”
“I am only trying to see if the clue is wrong, misinterpreted, or even misheard.”
“I am sure it says ‘her lock,’” Father Williams insists.
“What do you have in mind, Pillar?” I ask.
“I am not sure, but I have a feeling the word is alluding to something else, if not intentionally misheard. Lewis loved those kinds of misinterpretations.”
“How so?”
“Like a game of Chinese whispers, when you whisper a word in someone’s ears and it comes out something similar, but very different in meaning from the original.”
“Like the word ‘her’ being ‘hair,’ maybe?” I am just going along, shoving the killing sounds outside behind me.
The Pillar’s eyes widen as if I’ve just discovered a way out of here.
“What is it?”
“‘Hair’ seems to be the solution.” He stared at the groove in the coffin again. “The groove doesn’t resemble bending palm trees, but a few hairies in the wind.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Father Williams says.
“Even so, what does that mean?” I kneel beside the Pillar.
“It means that ‘lock’ doesn’t mean ‘lock’ as in ‘lock and key,’” he says.
“I’m not following.” But then I realize I actually do. My mouth hangs open wide for a moment. “Lock as in a lock of hair.”
“It’s also a double entendre,” he says. “A phrase or word open to two interpretations. ‘Her lock’ could mean her lock of hair. Or hair lock, which also means a lock of hair.” The Pillar looks a bit dizzy, phrasing this and thinking about it. “Damn you, Lewis, for messing with my head. In all cases, the groove opens with a lock of your hair, Alice.”
“My hair?” I ask. “How would you have come to this conclusion?”
“Because, my dear Alice,” the Pillar says, “Lewis, as weird as he sometimes was, kept a lock of your hair as a bookmark in one of his diaries. A strange action, but a fact which scholars can’t explain until today.”
I am not sure about Lewis keeping a lock of my hair, but I don’t sweat it. The Pillar, as resourceful as he always is, hands me a knife, and I cut a lock of my hair and set into the groove.
Instantly, we hear a click, and the coffin is ready to be opened.
“Hurry!” Father Williams urges us again. “The Reds are by the door.”
The Pillar and I push the heavy coffin’s lid open, and there it is, the thing that the Chessmaster calls Carroll’s Knight. But it definitely is like nothing I ever imagined it would be.