Read Online Checkmate (Insanity Book 6) by Cameron Jace - Free Book Online

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 to 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 insisted.
    “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 phone 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’ve ever imagined it would be.
     

Chapter 21
     
     
    Carroll’s Knight is so small I actually tuck it inside my pocket. “How is this thing in my pocket so important?” I ask The Pillar.
    “I think I have an idea,” he says. “But first we have to find a way out of here.”
    Through the slightly ajar door, I see the Reds winning outside.
    “Soon they’ll get in,” The Pillar says. “We need to think fast.”
    “I can use my None Fu,” I say.
    “I doubt a nonsensical martial art would help in this narrow space,” The Pillar says then turns to face Father Williams. He shoots him that look like earlier. I am starting to believe The Pillar and Father Williams know each other. “How about you show us your talents in fighting the Reds, Father Williams?”
    “Talents?” I wonder. Father Williams is a bit old for knowing how to fight the Reds. He has bushy white hair, and arched back and is pretty overweight with a balloon belly.
    “All right,” Father Williams says. “You got me.”
    “So you are who I think you are,” The Pillar says. “Just like in the Lewis Carroll’s poem.”
    “What poem?” I ask.
    “Later Alice,” The