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That night, Sherlock’s welcome party in the Falstaff is a
smashing success, and you succeed in making friends among certain of the manor
staff.
You also gather valuable information about the manor and how alienated
the staff is from management, and you take note of budding romances among
several servants, especially Reddy and Sherlock. But after hours of non-stop drinking, darts, karaoke
and boisterous conversation, it ends very badly when you discover your
briefcase containing your passport, airline tickets and travelers checks has
been stolen.
An all-out search ensues but to no
avail. The pub was packed with servants, so it could have been anyone.
Doubtless, though, your adversaries were behind this, a hunch you confirm by
spying on their late-night conversations. To your surprise they indicate that
something went terribly awry and they’re not in possession of it either. Near
dawn, you learn of the surprising chain of events that led to Christopher
recovering your briefcase intact.
His act of valor causes you to
fully confide in the boy.
You show him your uncle’s correspondence and the messages you’ve received from others.
Demonstrate the controller, and tell him
about Lord Hanover’s magical appearances. In return, he shows you how to
revolve your fireplace to slip into nearby rooms, and promises he’ll soon take
you via a secret passageway to the laboratory where your uncle carried out his
research.
As you get to know Christopher, you
find there’s a lot more to this young man than meets the eye. It’s not
surprising that he’s well traveled and computer savvy, but he also freely
discusses matters like Jungian synchronicity and intelligence in plants. His
guiding principles seem to be: 1) There’s no such thing as coincidence because
everything’s connected; and 2) Always talk to strangers.
Jeez, is this what they teach 12-year-olds in France?
Together you make a concerted
effort to recover the missing documents. Further surveillance reveals that
copies reside on a computer in the butler’s office, which is protected by a
secure entry device.
Farnsworth and Le Clercq plan to edit your name out of the
documents but have not yet been able to open the password-protected files; they
don’t have the originals either. Then
you and Christopher start reinterpreting those silly stories in The Village
Journal, and connecting “clues” found therein to further surveillance of
staff and odd things you find—like scone recipes embedded with computer
passwords; a deliberately mislabeled wine bottle; a telling time on the
swimming pool’s timer; and a list of manor vehicles with telling plate numbers.
By clever interpretation, you
and the boy manage to discover and decipher a number of critical puzzles.
It becomes evident that Uncle Arthur has set up a real-life scenario-game for
you and the boy to play. Even in death, this man has taken eccentric to a new level.
It gets stranger. Sometimes you
hear a voice in your head that translates the French you occasionally hear
Christopher and Le Clercq speak. It even works when you recite a written
passage of French. You begin to seriously wonder if you’re being drugged or
poisoned by the meals the chef regularly sends to your room. Eventually you and the boy figure
out all the passwords you’ll need. When Farnsworth’s away, you break into his
office and the protected computer files. All goes well until Christopher risks
exploring other intriguing files neither of you expected to find. Thus the
inevitable: Farnsworth returns and catches you in the act.
An ugly scene
erupts. The butler orders you confined to your quarters until the constables
arrive.
He tells Christopher he intends to fire his grandmother and expel them
both from the manor.
At least it happened well after you’d printed the will and
the deed and secured them in your briefcase.
Later, ignoring Farnsworth’s order, you go
upstairs to McCabe’s party to which you were earlier invited. En route, a woodcarving
revolves and Uncle Artie appears urging you to get the documents to the
attorneys tomorrow. Arriving
at the whisky bar, another wild night is in full swing as evidenced by
heavily-wagered billiards matches, followed by Irish jigs being danced
riotously atop the tables themselves as manor romances continue to heat up.
Later comes a rousing game of “Dreams & Schemes,” apparently a pub
favorite, which you win your first time out, thanks to that voice in your head
that dictates your game-winning harangue. But again your evening ends badly.
Shortly after returning
to your room, you discover your voice mail has been cut off and your door
bolted from the outside. Worse, tonight’s revelry distracted you from arranging
transportation to the village tomorrow.
Your all-night search for that secret
passageway in your room that Christopher mentioned proves unsuccessful. But you
do make a couple of important discoveries. Behind the bathroom mirror you find
a rear-projection system, thus confirming your theory of how your uncle
appears. And there’s a boxed game entitled “Three Families” that contains
materials and instructions for an elaborate parlor game. An accompanying note
from your uncle urges you to reverse the roles—“from game player to game
master”—by playing the game with the manor staff at your earliest opportunity.
The next afternoon Christopher
arrives with all the jeweled keys and rescues you. Savannah Reddy secretly makes contact,
instructing you to slip your documents to the doorman, who will later pass them
to her. Reddy says she’ll brave the storm on her motorcycle to courier them
down to the village. Neither you nor Christopher is entirely sure she can be
trusted but you have no other choice. While trying to find McCabe, you are
hotly pursued by Farnsworth, Van Scoy and Le Clercq and only barely able to
transfer the documents to the doorman before another confrontation.
While awaiting developments,
another brainstorming session with Christopher results in solving more puzzles
that will enable you to open the files you couldn’t last time. Throwing caution
to the wind, the two of you again burglarize the butler’s office. You unlock a
protected folder and discover that a complete virtual recreation of Manor House
resides on the computer.
Once again Farnsworth suddenly appears.
However, this
time he’s not angry; in fact, the butler is apologetic, even conciliatory, as
he hands over a remote controller (identical to yours except its orb is red)
that revolves bookcases enabling one to move quickly and surreptitiously about
the manor.
It seems as though the struggle to prevent your laying claim is
over—and that you’ve won. A fax arrives, confirming that the documents were all
in order and accepted by the probate court.
Reddy returns and hands you a
DVD she got from the barristers entitled “The Diary of Arthur Hanover.”
Later, Uncle appears as a floating face in the pool to offer congratulations.
He urges you to befriend your former foes and discover the secret of your
relationship to him, and in so doing, uncover “something important … something
the world must know.”
