T he coffin is set on the floor near the entrance door. It’s basically black, but is painted in all kinds of playing cards. Wonderland style.
The first thing that comes to mind is Jack. But why would Jack be dead in a coffin? He is with Lorina now and hates my guts. This coffins seems to be trickier than I can interpret.
“You’re thinking what I’m thinking?” Tom says to me.
“I hate that phrase. How can I ever be thinking what you’re thinking?”
“You’ve got a point,” Tom crosses his arms and places a finger on his lower lip. “If I’m thinking this, how can you possibly think this as well?”
“Exactly. If you’re thinking this, then I must be thinking that. I could never think this.”
“But it’d be cool if you think that while also thinking this. That’s the point of the phrase.”
“It’s impossible. There is always one this and one that. We can’t be thinking the same this or that.”
“You’re right. It explains why only one man discovered electricity, not two.”
“Because he was thinking this, which in this case was electricity.”
“But how about lovers?” Tom says. “Who believe they know each other, thinking the same this or that?”
“STOP IT!” The guard bursts out all of a sudden, though I feel a bit of relief after talking nonsense with Truckle. “Do you want me to open the coffin?”
“I’m afraid we’ll see something we might not now want to see,” Tom says.
“Ah,” I say. “You think it’s Inspector Dormouse in the coffin.”
“Now you’re thinking what I’m thinking.” Tom grins.
“Why would you think it’s Dormouse?”
“I think Inspector Dormouse discovered something about the Pillar we shouldn’t know. So the Pillar killed him and decided to get rid of us all, including you.” Tom completes his theory. “He faked the phone messages and gathered us here while providing fake documents to the police and having them ambush us.”
“And the coffin with Inspector Dormouse’s corpse is like a joke, a big smug grin while the Pillar is smoking his hookah somewhere, laughing at how stupid I was.”
“Exactly.”
“I don’t think we have enough time to keep guessing,” I say. “Let’s open the coffin and see.”
The guard breathes impatiently, now that he finally gets to show us who is inside the coffin. The lid is lifted and slowly our new visitor is shown. He is lying on his back, like Dracula, in a deep sleep — or an eternal death.
But he is not Dormouse. In fact, he is someone whose appearance debunks every theory we’ve had about what’s going.
Inside the coffin lies Professor Carter Pillar.