Содзи Симада - Murder in the Crooked House

Kozaburo was about to climb the stairs from the salon, when he suddenly stopped at the first step. He seemed to have changed his mind.

“Chief Inspector, I’d forgotten. There’s something I need to say to Mr Kikuoka. I wonder if he’s already asleep. I’m sorry to bother you, but would you mind coming with me for a moment?”

“No problem.”

The two men crossed back through the salon, and this time headed down the stairs to the basement. They stopped at the door of Room 14.

“If he’s already sleeping I feel bad about waking him…” murmured Kozaburo, knocking gently on Room 14’s door. There was no reply.

“Mr Kikuoka? It’s me, Hamamoto. Are you asleep?” he called softly. The noise of the blizzard echoed faintly in the basement corridor.

“No answer. He must already be asleep.”

Kozaburo tried turning the doorknob, but the door was locked from the inside.

“Let’s go. He’s asleep.”

“Are you sure it’s okay?” asked Ushikoshi.

“It doesn’t matter. It can wait till tomorrow.”

The two men went back upstairs. Kozaburo went to speak to the Hayakawas.

“It’s going to get very cold tonight. Please turn the heat up.”

Then Kozaburo and Ushikoshi climbed the east wing staircase. After a while, the sound of feet crossing the drawbridge mingled with the noise of the blizzard.

Kumi Aikura was not at all happy that Eiko had joined the game of billiards. As soon as Kozaburo left the game, she decided it was time to head up to her own room.

Now the occupants of the salon were down to eight: at the dinner table were Togai, looking at the sketch he had made of the flower bed, and Sasaki, reading a medical textbook. At the billiard table were Eiko, Yoshihiko and Constable Anan; and near the door to the kitchen, Mr and Mrs Hayakawa and Haruo Kajiwara.

“This house is so strange and magnificent at the same time. This is another great room.” (See Fig. 6.)

“It’s just right for an old man like me to kill time. I can dabble in my sinful pleasures. I sit here asking myself why I built such a whimsical thing, and suddenly a whole day goes by… But you’re fed up with this place, aren’t you?”

“It’s one surprise after another. They’re never-ending. Hold on, is the floor of this circular room crooked too?”

“Yes, this tower is built to resemble the Leaning Tower of Pisa. My plan started out to build this tower on a slant. The Leaning Tower of Pisa leans at an angle of about 5.5 degrees. This tower was built to lean at the exact same angle.”

“Wow.”

“I’m going to prepare some snacks for us. Could you excuse me a minute?”

“Sure, sure. No problem. Is there a kitchen or something through there?”

“Well, it’s not quite what you’d call a kitchen. There’s a sink and a refrigerator and a stove. Take a look if you’d like.”

“Yes, I would. This is the first time I’ve visited such an unusual building. I’m sure it’ll be useful for reference purposes…”

Kozaburo opened the door to the kitchen area and turned on the light. Ushikoshi peered in.

“Wow. There are so many windows in here too! Do they go all the way around?”

“Yes, this room has nine windows and one door, covering its whole circumference. Four of them are in the kitchen.”

“I see. The view must be excellent.”

“It is a very good view. It’s dark so you can’t see anything right now, but in the morning you can see the sea on one side. You know, you’d be welcome to stay the night here. The early morning view is the best. You won’t miss it if you spend the night. How about it? I was going to admit it to you eventually after a few glasses of brandy but I’m a little scared. I’ve come all the way up here to Hokkaido but I’ve still managed to make an enemy. If there’s a killer hiding away here somewhere, it’d be safe to say he’s likely to have me in his sights next. It’d be reassuring to think that there was a police officer in the same room all night.”

“Fine with me. But is there anywhere for me to sleep? I can only see one bed.”

“Yes, right here, under this…”

Kozaburo reached down under his own bed and pulled something out.

“See, it’s a mini version of my bed. You pull it out like a drawer.”

He took the cushions off one of the sofas and arranged them on the bed.

“Because it needs to slide under the other bed, this one doesn’t have a mattress on it.”

“Ha, another surprise. It’s all very well thought out.”

The two men sat on the sofa and drank Louis XIII cognac. The wind seemed to grow louder, drowning out the sound of the ice clinking in their glasses.

“Couldn’t a strong wind like tonight’s blow over a tower that leans as far as this one?”

Kozaburo chuckled.

“It’ll be fine.”

“And the main building too?”

Kozaburo laughed a little harder.

“Fine, fine!”

“Okay, then, but if this mansion does collapse, at least the hidden killer’ll be trapped underneath it.”

This time Ushikoshi laughed at his own joke.

“And if the killer is out there in the snow, he’s probably frozen solid by now,” added Kozaburo.

“Yes, he would be. He’d probably need a drop of this brandy to warm him up. Is this Louis XIII? I’ve heard people talk about it, but I’ve never even seen it in real life, let alone drunk it. It’s really quite fine.”

“It doesn’t give you a hangover. Anyway, Chief Inspector, can you tell me whether you’ve got a possible suspect in mind for the murder?”

“Ah, so that’s what you want to know, is it? In mind… Someone in mind… Well, I guess I’ll have to confess to you that we don’t. We’re really quite stumped. It’s a bizarre case. I’ve never heard of another murder where a scream was heard a full thirty minutes after the victim was killed.”

“And the corpse appeared to be dancing.”

“That’s right. And the suspect seems to be a non-existent, bearded, swarthy sleepwalker with burn scars on his cheeks. It’s like something out of a horror movie. There’s nothing the police can do here.”

“After murdering a man, he flew through the air and peeped in through a young woman’s bedroom window… May I ask you some questions about that?”

“Yes. I’ll answer to the best of my ability.”

“Why did the murderer take my doll outside, break it into pieces and scatter it in the snow?”

“Um, well, I think that was a kind of smokescreen. At first sight, it seems to have some important meaning, but it was really done just to mislead us. I don’t believe it had any more significance than that.”

“And why was Ueda in that strange position?”

“That wasn’t at all significant. The dead bodies of murder victims often end up like that—in weird contortions from the agony of death.”

“What was that round mark on the floor by the small of Ueda’s back?”

“It got there by chance. While he was writhing in agony, his fingers just happened to touch the floor.”

“The stakes that Sasaki says he saw in the garden, stuck in the snow?”

“Ah, yes, about that… If those stakes had something to do with Mr Ueda’s death, then I’m sure that the killer suffers from some sort of psychosis. When it comes to criminals, especially murderers—and this is something difficult for lay people to understand—they often need to perform some kind of ritual before committing their crime. There are too many examples of this to count. There was once a burglar for whom wearing women’s stockings was some kind of good luck ritual for him. He said that if he left the house with women’s stockings on, then his next break-in would always go well. So that’s what we believe the stakes were about. Some kind of good luck ritual.”