Alone in the Dark 2

Don’t ever be truly alone in the dark with this helpful walkthrough!

Walkthrough (from INTERPLAY)

SOLUTION TO ALONE IN THE DARK 2 
[PRESENTATION]

December 24th 1924. Hell’s Kitchen. California.
Night enveloped the sinister manor. A north wind howled and leaden clouds
rolled across the sky, chasing what little light was left. Sallow rays of
sun were swallowed in the choking blackness that embraced this unhappy
corner of the world. The yellow taxi with its bright chrome seemed an
insolent intrusion into this universe of gloom. The car came to a halt
some hundred yards from the gates to Hell’s Kitchen and, as soon as the
lone passenger had gotten out, hastened back towards the safety of the
city. Edward Carnby watched the taxi disappear round a bend. The branches
of some trees flickered briefly in the beams of its headlamps, like
doomed souls jerking in the eternal fires. Carnby walked to the gates,
happily unaware that he was embarking on a trip into terror. He did know
that he was all alone; were hell to break loose inside the house, he
would have to face it without help from outside. That night, in that
house, hell broke loose. Now, as this troubled century draws to a close,
many enigmas posed during the night of December 24th in a bleak manor
house somewhere in California remain unanswered. INFOGRAMES invites you
to listen to some extracts from that spine-chilling adventure, as told by
Edward Carnby himself in his memoirs. The memoirs of one man alone in the
dark Which chapter of Edward Carnby’s memoirs would you like to listen
to?
1) In the Garden of Hell’s Kitchen
2) The Demon’s Abode
3) The Forgotten Galleon

ACT 1: IN THE GARDENS AND UNDER THE GROUND THE ENTRY TO HELL’S KITCHEN 
======================================================================

(A loud explosion)

I entered Hell’s Kitchen with quite a bang. My bomb blasted open the gate
and blew the guard off his feet. Before he could gather his wits, I
squeezed off a couple of 44 slugs into his no-good carcass and rid the
world of a bad guy. That’s when I realized this night was going to be
kind of ghoulish: you see, his body sank under the ground all by itself.
I picked up his Tommy gun and a flask and wondered what the future held
for grave-diggers. Well, I was in! Going along the alley, I got as far as
a bench when two gangsters, who obviously heard my bomb, arrived to bid
me a warm welcome. The formalities did not take too long. We exchanged
season’s greetings and a lot of bullets. Then they lay down because they
were feeling dead.

THE GARDEN

Whoever took care of the gardens in that place would have been an
interesting person to meet. I did not get a chance to although I did run
into quite a few people. It seemed as if the Homicidal Maniacs Club had
just declared open season on Carnby. I remember a whole lot of
pump-action shotguns all eager to empty themselves into my guts! I am
afraid I was forced to terminate those folks. I have never felt
comfortable in a garden since that night. I found time to pick up a few
useful items: some ammunition for my Tommy gun, a rope, a few flasks and
a grappling-iron. I also came across a strange enigma: four giant playing
cards, each of them an ace! The only thing I could think of was that
diamonds were One Eyed Jack’s emblem. So I crossed my fingers and stepped
onto the ace of diamonds. The next thing I knew, I was lying on my back
in some kind of an underground tunnel.

IN THE GARDEN UNDERGROUND
–
I forgot all about being winded; after all, I had just discovered a
secret underground tunnel! Wasting no time, I walked along the gallery
and soon came face to face with a very weird character. Was he trying to
kiss me or what? He sure didn’t look like he wanted to kill me. In fact,
he was following me around like a puppy-dog. Now, I’m a broad-minded guy,
and I might have allowed this bozo to hang around except for one thing:
he smelled bad. Oh boy, did that guy stink! It was just so nauseating I
was forced to head-butt the creep into eternity. I sure hope they have
deodorant. I made a quick visit of the tunnel complex, finding only a
flask, an illegible fragment of a notebook and a chest with a wood-worm
problem. I thought I could make out something shiny under the chest, so I
tried pushing it. There was a scraping sound behind me. My hand flew to
my Tommy gun, but there wasn’t anybody to shoot: I had in fact activated
a mechanism of some kind. Before my eyes, an altar rose from the floor! I
pushed the chest some more and uncovered a metal jack of diamonds. That
didn’t seem like a whole lot of use, so I put it down on the altar.
Imagine my surprise when a ladder appeared on the wall opposite me! That
wasn’t the only thing that appeared. I also saw a shapeless
semitransparent creature. Not waiting to decide if I was scared, I ran
over and started punching it, whatever it was. Well, I guess that was the
right thing to d it quickly vanished, leaving me with a rusty pirate
cutlass. I’d had about all I wanted in those tunnels, so I climbed up the
mysterious la dder. To be honest, I thought I was going up into the house
through a secret passage in a chimney. However, I found myself back when
I had found the rope. Well, they do say being a private eye means taking
the tough breaks on the chin, whatever that means. All that greenery was
starting to get on my nerves, so I made my way towards the statue of One
Eyed Jack, whose top I could clearly see.

BEFORE ONE EYED JACK’S STATUE 
–
Getting to the statue wasn’t all that easy: there was a giant root in my
way. I had to use the sword I won underground to hack a way through. The
next thing I noticed was that the statue was very well guarded. A little
guy was gazing at it as if it was a bagful of hundred dollar bills. The
little character was the notorious Shorty Leg, so called because he was
short and had a wooden leg. I could not remember what else he was famous
for. Then he kindly demonstrated: that wooden leg was pumping a hail of
44 caliber slugs at me. Shorty had his technique down to a fine art, and
to eliminate him, I had to shoot at the precise moment he raised his leg.
Before sinking, like his buddies, beneath the ground, he left a scrap of
journal that made for fascinating reading. It was in fact the immortality
pact of a certain Music Man, also known as Sean O’Leary. This piece of
paper could turn out to be a weapon worth all the Tommy guns in the
world! I took a good look at the statue Shorty leg admired so much. I
even thought how nice it would be to turn into a pigeon for long enough
to express my feelings, but there wasn’t much time for dreaming. I turned
to walk away when I remembered a photo a dead hoodlum had left behind. It
showed One Eyed Jack and some of his henchmen standing in front of the
statue. The sculpture was a good likeness, which didn’t say much for
Jack. There was a detail, however, which caught my attention: the
statue’s arm wasn’t in the same position as in the photo! I breathed
slowly and got to work. I knotted the rope to the grappling-iron. Then I
threw the grappling-iron over the statue’s arm. I got lucky: my first
throw was good. The arm came down. I heard a click and Open Sesame! There
was a secret opening under the statue. Silently thanking whoever it was
for discovering photography, I went down the hole.

THE UNDERGROUND BENEATH THE STATUE OF ONE EYED JACK
–
The ladder that led down below the statue would have scared the pants off
a monkey. It looked like a well and felt bottomless. And the deeper I
went, the worse the smell got. A sickening stench of putrefaction! The
air was thick with it. The ladder was getting greasy and dangerous.
Suddenly, a rung broke! I scrabbled for a grip but it was no use. The
bottom came up fast and hard. Luckily, no bones felt broken. Somebody up
in the sky must have been on my side that night. But my weapons were lost
and there was no going back. I was on a stone platform in the middle of a
huge underground room. All around me there was thin air, so I couldn’t
afford to foul up. The only way forward was along a wooden plank which
acted as a bridge to another stone platform just visible in the darkness.
It didn’t look too promising but there wasn’t any choice. Before walking
the plank, I picked up a crank, a nickel and a paper bag that happened to
be sharing, the platform with me. I made it across to the other platform
and almost tripped over something soft. I took a closer look at this
latest obstacle. It was Ted, Ted Striker, my best, maybe my only friend.
A lousy place to die, buddy. After a couple of minutes, I was steady
enough to search him. All I found was a torn page from his investigation
notebook. By holding it against the other fragment I’d found, I was able
to read the following message: “Carnby, if you `re reading this, I `m
dead. The Sanders girl was kidnapped by One Eyed Jack In spite of what
one paper claimed. The man is a monster, obsessed with gambling and
death. Hell’s Kitchen is a warren of secret passages. I’m sure that for
one of them, the answer lies in the cards. Remember all those poker
nights we had. Something else: the gang makes hooch in the basement and
transports it by boat at high tide from a cave in the cliff-face. Carnby,
you’ve got to kill that monster and get the girl out of there. It’s time
for the pupil to show his teacher how it’s done!” Before leaving Ted for
the last time, r took his pipe-cleaner. Maybe his wife would like it as a
keepsake. The only way out was an armored door that seemed locked. I
tried the handle. It was locked all right! It was a shame to let a door
prevent me from saving the Saunders kid. So I used the old paper under
the door trick. You know the idea: you slide a sheet of paper under the
door. Then you stick something thin like a pipe-cleaner into the
key-hole. If you’re lucky like me, there’s a key on the other side; you
push it out with the pipe-cleaner and it falls onto your paper! You pull
the paper back out from under the door, grab the nice key and feel proud
of yourself. Well, that’s what I did. The door opened with a creak that
reminded me of Derceto.

THE BASEMENT

The basement guard and I had something in common: a passion for opera! I
would have loved to discuss Puccini with him but he looked like he’d
rather fill me fill of front-row tickets to a Heavenly Choir recital. So
I took out my paper bag, blew into it, making a big balloon which I then
popped with an ear-splitting bang! The guard naturally raised his
pump-action shotgun in my direction. We looked into each other’s eyes for
an instant. What I saw in his encouraged me to pull down the nearby
lever. A keg helped him all the way to the cliff’s edge. He sang
something on his way down but it didn’t sound like Puccini. I took his
shotgun, flask and a manuscript he’d been considerate enough to leave for
me. After all, we music-lovers have to help each other out. As I took a
look around, a clock caught my attention. What was it doing there? On one
side there was a delightful little hole that exactly matched my crank! I
didn’t hesitate to join the two in wedlock and they were so grateful.
They showed me an attractive secret passage beneath the barrels! I’m not
one to look a gift-horse in the mouth, so I went through there like a
shot. In front of the service-elevator, I came across a box of cartridges
for my shotgun. I was just slipping some into my grateful weapon when the
door of the hoist closed and I heard the motor start up.

THE GROUND FLOOR HALLWAY

In the ground-floor hallway, I was greeted by an interesting individual.
He held a weapon that was as grotesque as it was deadly: an accordion.
Noticing that his left hand had been replaced by a hook, I had a clearer
idea of the kind of music he played. For the moment, he was interpreting
a very rhythmic piece that also managed to punch six-inch holes in the
wall behind me. This just had to be the one and only Sean O’Leary. How
privileged I was to have him play specially for me! His life story was
remarkable. Dublin-born, this son of Erin was destined for greatness as a
harpsichord player. But his hopes of a fine career were dashed when some
members of an audience suggested he should learn to play with more than
one finger. Naturally, he threw them out of a window. The authorities
were most unfeeling and young Sean was forced to flee over the water to
Scotland. where he joined the 3rd Highland Regiment. He lost his musical
hand at Gibraltar and deserted before he lost the other. O’Leary studied
accordion under the stern gaze of that fine teacher, Sancho Fernandez,
the mad weaponsmith! Saying low in the Leeward Islands, the talented Sean
was forced to undertake he most atrocious tasks to earn a meager crust.
The poor fellow was almost lynched on the Night of the Red Knives. He
sought refuge with One Eyed Jack and proved himself worthy of his
leader’s trust during the massacre at Cao Bang. In spite of he deep
respect his music inspired in my soul, I felt it was time for Sean to
retire and was about to blow his head off when an idea came to me:
instead of wasting my precious cartridges, I took out the Music Man’s
Immortality Pact and tore it in two before his horrified eyes. Good-bye
Sean and thanks again! I inherited his hook. Well, maybe I’d need curved
toothpick someday. All of a sudden, there was gunfire! Strange as it may
seem, no one was firing at me! I carefully opened the door, to find out
who was doing the shooting.

THE LAUNDRY ROOM

A wide staircase led from the laundry room up to the first story, but I
decided the basement was the place for me. The gunshots were getting
louder; they seemed to be coming from the next room. Before opening the
door, I grabbed a battledore (that’s a clothes beater, in case you didn’t
know).

THE SHOOTING GALLERY

I had no trouble walking into the Firing Range unnoticed. The two firers
were making enough noise to drown out a charging herd of drunk mammoths.
These two geeks had a view of the world that began and ended on the
firing range wall. Wondering if they could possibly be robots, I looked
for a switch but they didn’t have one. So it looked like I was going to
have to turn them off some other way. Now, these lads were armed to the
teeth and covered in very impressive muscles. That called for a sneaky
approach to the problem. I seized my chance when one of them stopped to
reload his weapon. I took out the other gangster with my only bullet and
used the first guy’s frozen surprise to empty all my cartridges into his
unattractive face. Can you believe, he didn’t want to go down! I had to
beat him to pulp with my trusty battledore. Never take a clothes beater
for granted, my friend! I picked up the package of cartridges for the
shotgun, and found myself taking potshots at the targets on the wall.
Well, you aren’t going to believe this, but the cards repositioned
themselves to form an ace of diamonds! Not only that, but a secret
passage opened up before me! And there was a guard pointing his gun at me
and pulling the trigger. Repeatedly! I treated him to a little battledore
therapy. Poor guy never stood a chance. The way ahead was clear.

THE CLANDESTINE DISTILLERY

My target practice had just led me into a distillery! There was enough
illegal whisky there to last your lifetime and mine. I was thirsty but
this was no time for fun, so I grabbed a bottle and told myself I’d drink
it later on in honor of Ted. However, I did drink the contents of a flask
I found on the shelves, and felt a whole lot better. I also discovered a
book, which told me a lot about the activities of one of the residents, a
charming son of a gun called Tom Flaherty, better known as T-Bone. Having
set fire to the tavern of one Donovan, Tom sailed the China seas. At Yen
T’ai, he teamed up with a pair of sushi specialists with a lust for gold,
and called them his Cookies. This jolly group was held responsible for
the raid on Madam Jojo’s gaming house. Well, the three buckaroos broke
out of Macao jail and ended up signing on for One Eyed Jack. Being a wily
bird, T-Bone managed to liquidate the head cook and take his place. Old
Tom was a dab hand with blowpipe and used it to slaugh ter the crew’s
dinner. His two helpers did the rest. Was I going to meet these lunatics?
I found one more thing in there: a book by a senator called Grandt, all
about how to play pool. It didn’t teach me a whole lot, but since it
mentioned a “one-armed bandit”, I was tempted to spend my nickel. And I
won the jackpot! Well actually, I won two tokens. The alcohol fumes were
starting to get to me, so I decided to return to the Shooting Gallery.
There was a surprise waiting for me: something fat and wearing
undershorts tottering in front of the gallery door and drinking something
that looked lethal. His eyes had given up trying to work as a team, but
one of them looked like it saw me. That heaving sack of drunken stupor
couldn’t attack me, even with my help. And I wasn’t about to shoot him:
what if he exploded in my face! Offering him my bottle of whisky seemed
as sure a method as any. I don’t know what those boys put in their hooch,
but that guy went out like a light! I had a look in his bag. There was a
Santa-Claus outfit in there! Were kids going to sit on that beast’s knee?
How could Santy have fallen so low? Shaking my head more in sorrow than
in disgust, I put on the costume. My next objective was to get to the
ground floor.

THE GROUND FLOOR HALLWAY

Clearly. the gangsters were used to having Santa Claus in the building,
as the cookie I met outside the kitchen didn’t appear the least surprised
to see me. Something about the way he walked puzzled me for a few
moments. Then I figured it out: the cookie was being very careful to walk
only on the white floor-tiles. I did the same thing. Just as I was about
to enter the kitchen, my foot was clumsy enough to step on a black tile.
I knew I was in trouble when a loud click sounded in the corner of the
room; the statue of Neptune fired his trident at me! I jumped back, and
let the cookie take over my target duties. He was perfect: the trident
took him right in the belly; a painful end, but richly deserved, in the
opinion of many edible animals. Before going into the kitchen, I went up
to the statue of Neptune and usurped his crown.

THE KITCHEN
–
Hardly had I set foot in the kitchen, when the head cook, none other than
T-Bone, waved at me to sit down and eat the fried eggs that were on the
table. This warmed me to the fellow, but the eggs weren’t cooked. How can
anyone not fry eggs right? Still, not wishing to be an ungrateful Santa
Claus, I swallowed them. Maybe it was the way I didn’t sway drunkenly.
Maybe it was my pump-action shotgun. Whatever the reason, T-Bone soon
figured out that I wasn’t the Santa Claus he knew and loved. He grabbed
his blowpipe and was soon spraying me with poisoned darts. I fended them
off with a handy fry-pan, and soon he was out of ammo. Now it was an
straight-forward classic duel: fry-pan against fry-pan. I’ll admit that
my fencing skills were of limited value. I had played a little tennis
though, and soon managed to smash convincingly. At least T-Bone thought
so. Having cooked his goose, I turned to face the inevitable assault of
savage hordes attracted by the clang of cooking utensils. But no one had
come. As a matter of fact, somebody somewhere was laughing heartily,
oblivious to the havoc being wrought in the kitchen. I inspected the
place and found a vial of poison, which I promptly poured into a half
bottle of wine. Before leaving the kitchen, I noticed a dumbwaiter, an
elevator for food trays. It was activated by a little bell.
Unfortunately, I was too big to get in it. I left the kitchen and came to
a double door that I reckoned should open onto the guard-room.

THE GUARD ROOM

The double door near the kitchen had a serving hatch which I was able to
look through. In the room beyond, two guards were twiddling their thumbs
in boredom. Those boys were more than happy to play along. I placed the
bottle of poisoned wine in the serving hatch The hatch opened and the
bottle vanished. After a short while, the hatch opened again. Those guys
must have eaten something real bad, because they collapsed in a very
unhealthy way. I was just about to go in, when an old friend dropped by;
my boozing buddy from the Shooting Gallery was back in business. I was
afraid he was going to invite me for a drink, but I needn’t have worried.
He had other things on his mind. From his undershorts, he pulled out his
revolver and started waving it at me I couldn’t afford the scandal, so I
bopped him into never-never land with my y-pan. Furniture-wise, the Guard
Room was a fine example of the almost-nothing style, except for a barrel
organ and a foldaway bed. The door at the other end of the room was
locked. Being a music lover, I was curious enough to push tone of the
tokens I’d found into the organ’s coin-slot. The token, which was yellow,
triggered some loud music and a brief noise off to my left. I looked over
and saw a gold doubloon spinning on the floor. I picked it up, glad to be
making some money at last. I felt I should try my second token, a brown
one. No gold doubloon this time. But the Dormitory door opened, which was
a welcome surprise.

THE DORMITORY
–
Not being sick in that dormitory was about as easy as keeping your cigar
dry in the shower. The place was musty, dusty and damp. with paper
hanging off the walls. What kind of creepy nut would want to sleep there
My visit wasn’t wasted. though I can tell you! I found a bullet-proof
vest on the first bed. On the floor, I picked up a Tommy gun and an ammo
clip. Feeling ready for battle, I made for the second-story hallway.

SECOND STORY HALLWAY

I was received on the second story by a nut who was going to be tough to
crack: a deadly sharpshooter by the name of Alister Fein, alias Black
Hat. This charm-school graduate began his life of crime at age eight!
Little Alister missed his daddy, so he placed a teddy-bear stuffed with
gelignite at the gate of Killarney jail! He and I had similar methods.
Nine bodies were carried out from the smoking rubble. All that remained
of captain Dickson was a fine black hat. Alister kept it as a souvenir
and decorated it with very sharp blades. His exploits made an outlaw of
him and he was soon in Trinidad, where he studied hard and became an
acknowledged expert in firearms and manhunting. One Eyed Jack could
hardly pass over this kind of talent, now could he? Black Hat and I
didn’t get much of a chance to chew the fat, I’m sorry to say. My Tommy
gun just wouldn’t shut up, and then it jammed. But not before giving poor
old Alister his very last belly-ache! Having no one else to pass the time
of day with, I sauntered over to the pool room.

THE POOL ROOM
–
In the pool room, there was a pool table all right, but no balls. This
tall character was looking at me, his right arm stretched out in my
direction. An ally at last? Somehow, I didn’t think so; I mean, best
buddies don’t normally point derringers at each other. Then he threw it
down on the pool table. The man was challenging me to a duel! I didn’t
feel too happy about that, believe me. I’m a good shot with any weapon,
even dueling pistols, but give me machine guns and dynamite any day. Now,
according to dueling code, I was supposed to fire the first shot. He
didn’t hold with old-fashioned notions like dueling codes and emptied his
gun at me. So, when he stopped to reload, I played the same trick on him.
I lied about being a good shot: I aimed for his heart but could only
manage to drill him between the eyes. Oh well. He left me his sword
stick. A gentleman to the end. I had a look around and found only half of
a parchment, which meant I couldn’t read it. I kept it anyway. There was
also a book there, all about the criminal adventures of some of One Eyed
Jack’s gang. De Witt was heavily featured; he was the party I had just
exterminated. It also talked about Black Hat, and two others I hadn’t yet
had the pleasure of meeting. I closed the book and headed for the
bedroom.

THE SECOND STORY BEDROOM

An oppressive atmosphere hung in the air of the witch’s bedroom. My skin
crawled. It even tried to get the heck out of there, but the rest of me
was braver and so my skin stayed, under protest. Sticking out of the wall
were two arms, and they were waving a sword. Well, I had my swordstick,
so we were soon locked in mortal combat. Guess who won. And I won a new
half-parchment. Illegible, of course. I was nearly going to say something
shocking like Dag blast it!” when a bright idea pushed a button somewhere
inside my slow-moving brain. Feverishly, I superposed the parchment on
the one I found in the pool room. Hey presto! The message read: “If the
white queen seeks the throne, the king must empower her. May the amulet
laid in the center of the sign open the doorway to space. That is the key
to the royal gambit.” At first, that meant about as much to me as the Old
Testament in medieval Mongolian. But as I gazed about the room, my eye
was attracted to an ivory bust facing me. The young woman’s milky eyes
seemed to wink at me. was she the one I was supposed to “empower”? How do
you give power to a queen? I didn’t know too much about royalty, but how
about if you crown her? I tried it. with the crown I took from the
Neptune guarding the kitchen door. Immediately, I heard a tinkling sound
from the next room. I went in there. That chamber of sorcery was even
scarier than the bedroom. It was narrow and dark. On the floor, in the
middle of a big flat stone, lay a beautiful amulet, shimmering with a
thousand lights. I couldn’t help myself: I snatched it up and was struck
by what felt like a lightning bolt. I wasn’t able to move a muscle! To my
horror. my feet rose from the floor, and I began to float up towards the
ceiling. My chest was being crushed by some invisible force. I couldn’t
breathe! So this was the end of the road for E. Carnby! I hadn’t done
much better than Ted, after all. What really made me mad was failing the
Saunders girl death stole over me like a black shroud. Then, all of a
sudden, the pressure lessened. 1 could breathe again, even flex my
muscles. I was suspended horizontally in mid-air two yards above the
floor. Then I was released. “Ouch” is a nice way of putting it.

THE LOFT TELEPORT ROOM

The room I was “transported to after I took the amulet had no furniture.
The only things I found were a flask and a message addressed to One Eyed
Jack from Christmas Acme Limited. They were sorry they couldn’t deliver a
red pool ball, but hoped he would accept a case of champagne as a mark of
their esteem. How did those guys stay in business? The door wasn’t
locked, so there was nothing stopping me from looking for more trouble.

THE ATTIC HALLWAY
–
The hallway in the attic was empty of people. An old wooden pirate’s
chest caught my eye. What I found inside it was better than any treasure:
a cute little Tommy gun and a clip of ammo. I hardly had time to stroke
it lovingly before a crazed acrobat jumped in from someplace and started
twirling all around me. This weirdo would have been great in a circus,
but I wasn’t in the mood and he was making me dizzy, so I weighted him
down with some lead. Meanwhile a huge blob of a guy had waded into the
act. Now, this clown was in no shape to try acrobatics, so he just fired
a lot of bullets at me. I got into the spirit of the thing, and fired
back. For a while there, we were really communicating. Then he got cut
off, leaving only a key for me to remember him by. The twirling dancer
was the next to pass away, and he left a grenade behind. That was
considerate, because I love explosions. My next move was to inspect the
junk closet the blob person had come from.

THE ATTIC JUNK ROOM
–
The attic junk room contained quite a lot of piled up junk. One
brightly-colored object stood out: a jack-in-the-box. There was nothing
unusual about it, and yet I couldn’t help feeling it was watching me!
Don’t ask me why, but I had a sudden urge to insert the gold doubloon I
found near the dormitory into the jack-in-the-box. Naturally, its head
sprang out on a spring. Something struck my face! I searched for my
aggressor, but it was only a little pompom from the clown’s hat. I put it
in my pocket and went over to the only closed door in the attic.

THE ATTIC BEDROOM
–
The room I entered contained nothing but a child’s bed. Slouched against
a wall lay a puppet. It was the only note of joy in this depressing
place. I turned to leave the room when a noise caused me to look back.
The puppet was standing up, observing me! There was something specially
chilling about that puppet. It didn’t attack me, it just danced around,
doing a disjointed jig. I have a relational problem with that particular
kind of puppet, so I felt it would be better for both of us to separate
while we were still good friends. Next door was a charming little
interior garden, sadly neglected. The resident snakes made it clear they
didn’t appreciate being disturbed. So I went to the door very gently,
followed by my puppet pal. I threw the pompom in among the snakes, and as
I had hoped, the puppet ran in to fetch it. What a dope he was! With the
snakes being so busy, I turned my attention to an idea I’d been playing
with for some time. My sense of direction told me the garden was above
the ground-floor dining room. The two rooms shared the same chimney! With
a jolly “Ho ho”, Santa Claus dropped his grenade down that chimney. I
think the boys below got quite a kick out of it! Having announced my
arrival, it only remained for me to go down the chimney myself.