MOSAIC PIECE 3

The diary reports that Darren has no idea where the third piece is hidden. But you do by now, don’t you? If you tried the locked double doors in the lower left-hand corner of the main hall while the ladies were present, Victoria warned you off. And if questioned about them, Sally reports that Bates angrily told her off when he caught her listening at there. Twenty-four years after the fire, this all speaks more to a hidden secret than an actual danger. The diary pushes you toward Bates, who has retired to his room on Victoria’s instructions. You can question him and get a lot of good background info. But he’s loyal to a fault on the whole “fire damage” story and you’ll get only the party line. Instead, just decoy him out of his room. Head for the bathroom, take the head of the mop Sally left behind, stuff it in the bathtub drain and turn on the water. Then tell Bates and Sally (in either order; it doesn’t matter) the bathroom is flooding and enter Bates’s room. Left-click twice on the bedpost above the medical gear on the bed to extract a small key. Use it on the top drawer of the dresser in the corner. You’ll find a locked metal box that uses symbols in its combination lock, another photo of Darren’s mother outside Black Mirror’s gate (this one taken of a slim young woman in December 1969 — two months before Darren’s birth) and documents that include transfers matching the ones in Ms. Michaels’s bank book, Right-click on the documents to extract a four-part memory-aid for the combination to the box and again on the memory-aide to read it. It consists of four references that Bates used to remind himself of the correct symbols. “The nymphs’ numbers:” We’ll start here because it’s where Darren starts after his exit from Bates’s room. Voluptuous naked women make four appearances at Black Mirror and each is now numbered. The painting in the upstairs hallway is marked with the Roman numeral XVIII (18) while the three statues at the gate (from left to right) display numerals for 20, 19 and 1. Once you’ve left-clicked on all four locations, Darren weighs the possibilities and finally translates the numbers into the letters A, R, S and T which, rearranged, spell out “Star.” “On Sir Egmont’s portrait:” The “portrait” part is bound to confuse. The castle is full of pictures. But none of them have anything to do with an “Egmont.” Sally, now back in the kitchen, is  your contact on this one. But she won’t help you until “Inspector Falk” has helped her brother with his speeding tickets. Darren figures he can just pretend to help Rupert Wood and put one over on her. It’s a little tricky. At this stage, a call to directory assistance (only available via the upstairs hall phone) will establish that there are 18 Rupert Woods in England. Naturally, you’ll want to narrow that down and here Bates is your man. He’s now on the sofa at the upper side of the main hall and, at one remove from the original question about Sir Egmont, it’s fine to talk to him on this topic. Ask him about “Speeding ticket” and he says Sally’s family has a farm in Sussex. Armed with this info, use that upstairs phone to reach the Sussex Rupert directly. With a bit of deception, Darren establishes that his age is 34. Back for another chat with Sally. Darren’s knowing Rupert’s address and age convinces her “Falk” has done as she asked and she reveals that Sir Egmont’s is a a brand of breakfast cereal — its emblem a small cross. “The builder’s eldest sister:” Victoria can get you started on this.  Go see her in the library and ask about “Builder.” She’ll offer that the builder most responsible for Black Mirror’s current appearance was Frederic Arthur Gordon. Then check the family tree on the room’s right side and left-click on the centrally-located pairing of Frederic Arthur and Andrea to learn that the oldest of Fred’s four sisters was named Rose. “My Christian name:”  Tough one. No one seems to know it — not Victoria, not Eleanor, not Sally. (She loathes Bates and suggests “Lucifer.”) Asking isn’t an option with Louis and of course you can’t ask Bates himself. The diary suggests the name might be written down. Did you notice the mailbox between the two gates at the entrance? Empty before, it now contains a letter. The envelope is addressed simply to “Mr. Bates” but the contents — a bill for a gravestone (as the medical gear in his room suggests, Bates is dying) — reveal that his given name is “Edward Bartholomew.” Darren’s unclear how that will translate itself into a symbol, but Victoria knows the story of the apostle St. Bartholomew — a martyr who was skinned alive and whose symbol is thus a knife. With all four symbols now noted in the diary, get back up the Bates’s room, left-click on the box on the dresser and plug in the symbols — starting at the top with the cross and working clockwise with rose, knife and star. Inside, a key and half a locket containing a picture of Darren at 3 or 4. Only it’s marked “Adrian ” (of which “Darren” might be a glaringly imperfect anagram). The large key opens the double doors in the lower left corner of the castle’s main hall. (Bates has vanished from the hall and seemingly from the game.) Darren enters automatically and follows the corridor beyond to a large disused room with a spooky mirror frame at the far end.