If this were simply a matter of Lupin trying to steal a diamond out from under the noses of a murderer’s row of Victorian fictional characters, it might be entertaining but it wouldn’t be Undead Girl Murder Farce.  It wouldn’t be Sherlock Holmes either of course – there’d have to be some twists in the tale there.  But here it’s all about the lunacy, because the word “Farce” is not in the title by coincidence.  The mysteries in this series are played a certain way, and this one with its storied cast was certainly not going to be any different.

In point of fact this episode focuses as much on Holmes as on the cage gang.   And it slows down somewhat from last week’s manic pace, which had an awful lot of heavy lifting to do.  The main event with the main trio is Aya being lost in London, her cage having been mixed up with that of an actual bird (a parrot).  Shizuku winds up enlisting Lupin and the Phantom to help – though neither has any idea of the identity of the other.   Aya winds up getting run over and then picked up by the idiot twins from the paddy wagon, but Tsugaru makes good a rescue and at this point, introductions are made all around.  A little skirmish between Lupin and Tsugaru follows, just for the workout.

Lupin has had a busy day, long before his appointment with the Penultimate Night and Phileas Fogg.  He’s already paid his respects at 221b Baker Street, his Holmes disguise being good enough to fool Watson but not Holmes’ brother Mycroft (Bandou Naoki).  Would a master thief like Lupin really make a clumsy mistake like getting the fingernails wrong?  It seems unlikely to me, though the reason for that is less obvious than the line he feeds Holmes about the function of locks.  If that was his main mission, based on later evidence you’d have to say it was accomplished.

Mycroft has a warning for for Sherlock – don’t trust the Royce representatives.  He figures they’re after the diamond as a means of leading them to werewolves (given their obsession with monsters and destroying them), and plan to secretly steal it from Lupin as soon as Lupin makes his escape.  That sounds feasible, and it’s worth remembering that Mycroft was reckoned by Doyle to be even smarter than his brother.  The Royce pair certainly act guilty when Sherlock suggests the possibility that evening in the dungeon below Fogg’s estate.

Once the party gets started there’s no sign of the cage trio, who’ve left a note stating that they’ll “stay out of the way” by keeping an eye on things at the surface.  Nor is there any further hint as to Aya’s Ishikawa Goemon plan.  Sherlock’s idea is to shoot out the locks in the door, depriving Lupin of anything to pick, in the process trapping himself and the others in the underground chamber with the safe.  It’s hard to escape the idea that Lupin goaded him into it – which in turn makes one suspicious that Holmes could be fooled by such a simple gambit.  But when water from the moat starts pouring in, Holmes certainly doesn’t act as if this is all part of the plan.

Lupin is no killer, so there’s more to this than simply drowning everyone in the chamber.  In fact Lupin himself may already be in there, given his mastery of disguise, and that the only one whose identity Holmes personally verifies is Lupin’s Parisian foil Inspector Ganimard (Hirota Kousei).  There are two wild cards still to be played here – Aya and her retinue most obviously.  But don’t forget about Moriarty, who’s promised to rain on Lupin’s parade in some capacity and has yet to make his presence felt.