Содзи Симада - Murder in the Crooked House

Ushikoshi sighed. This man was quite a talker when cornered. That said, what Kanai claimed was most probably true. And therefore, yet again, there were no suspects. It was incredibly frustrating.

“Mr Hamamoto, would you mind letting us use your library again? We need to have another meeting.”

“Oh, of course. You’re most welcome to use it.”

“Thank you. Come on!”

Ushikoshi hurried his men out of the salon.

“Never known anything like this damned case!” said Inspector Okuma. “What the heck is going on? Has the cause of death been confirmed yet?”

“Yes, it has,” said Sergeant Ozaki. “Forensics says it was the knife in his back. They detected some sleep medication in his system too, but nothing like a lethal dose.”

“What is going on in this cursed house?”

“They’ve gone over Room 14 but they haven’t been able to find anything. No hidden doors, secret cabinets, nothing like that. Same as Room 10.”

“What about the ceiling?” asked Ushikoshi.

“Same goes for that too. Just an ordinary ceiling. If we looked inside the walls and above the ceiling, we might find something, but we don’t need to go that far just yet. There’s plenty else they need to do first.”

Okuma decided to throw in his two pence worth.

“I reckon they need to check that ceiling out more carefully. It’s that string. Why was it attached to the knife? Everyone in this house besides the Kanai couple has an alibi for around 11 p.m. But the Kanais have no motive. If the killer is one of the people who slept in this house last night, it’s starting to get a bit like a murder mystery novel. Someone planned this trick ahead of time, so that right around 11 o’clock a knife would plunge itself into Kikuoka’s back. That’s the only explanation. Don’t you agree?”

“Hmm. I suppose we have to agree that that is a possibility,” said Ushikoshi.

“Right, eh? And so if you think that, the ceiling’s gotta be fishy. Because of that string. What if they hung the knife from the ceiling so that it fell onto the bed at 11 o’clock?”

“But we’ve checked the ceiling,” said Ozaki. “It’s made of perfectly normal boards. We’ve knocked all over every inch of it, and there are no gaps, no places where it’s been disturbed. No sign of any kind of trick. And besides, as for that theory… Well, I can I think of at least two reasons why it would be impossible. The first is the height of the ceiling. That knife was buried in Kikuoka’s back right up to the hilt. If it had been hanging from the ceiling and then dropped, there is no way it would have gone in so deeply. In fact it’s not even clear that it would have inflicted a wound at all. A knife dropping from ceiling height might have been painful, but probably no more than a bee sting. It would have just barely touched him and then fallen sideways.

“Then could the killer have dropped it from a higher place? Well, you were sleeping in the room above, Inspector Okuma. To have a knife pierce so deeply, it would have to be dropped from at least one more storey up. But then we still don’t know whether it would have gone in so far. But at the very least the fact remains that the killer couldn’t have dropped it from inside Room 14. He would at least have to have dropped it from above the floor of Room 12.”

“Huh? Yes, I guess you’re right.”

“The other reason it wouldn’t work is the blanket,” Ozaki continued. “The knife would have had to pierce him through an electric blanket. And then it wouldn’t have been in his back. It would have been in his chest.”

“But what if he slept on his stomach?”

“Yes, he might.”

“I know that this is too simple, but it’s all I can come up with… Somewhere in this house there is one more person, someone that none of us has seen. That’s all it could be. No matter how you look at it, not one of those eleven people could be considered a suspect.”

“But is that possible?” asked Ushikoshi. “We’ve already searched that spare room where no one’s staying. Surely no one’s harbouring a killer in their room?”

“Well, we can’t really say.”

“Hmm. For now, while we have them all gathered here, we should perform a thorough search of all the rooms in the house. But I don’t—”

“No, I reckon you’re right,” said Okuma. “Likely a house like this has some secret space that a person could hide in. I say we should focus on that. That could be how it’s being done. In a weird messed-up place like this, I’ll wager you there’s some trick built in.”

“So what you’re saying,” Ozaki interjected, “is that we have to consider that the owners of this place—in other words, Kozaburo Hamamoto and his daughter, Eiko—must have been in on the plan. But when we consider motive, the Hamamotos, together with Sasaki and Togai, have to be excluded off the bat. They had no connection at all with Kazuya Ueda. And obviously Eikichi Kikuoka is counted out now.

“According to the data when we were researching Ueda, Kozaburo Hamamoto and Eikichi Kikuoka don’t go back all that far. They weren’t childhood buddies or anything like that. They met when they each became presidents of their respective companies. It was through work that their relationship began, specifically when Kikuoka Bearings had dealings with Hama Diesel.

“That all began fourteen or fifteen years ago, but it doesn’t seem that the two men were ever particularly close. Their companies didn’t seem to have any friction in their dealings either. Hamamoto and Kikuoka have met fewer than ten times in their lives. Kikuoka had only become Hamamoto’s house guest very recently—only since Hamamoto built this holiday home. It certainly doesn’t seem that they had the kind of relationship that might lead to murder.”

“And they’re not from the same part of Japan?”

“No, completely different. Hamamoto’s from Tokyo, Kikuoka from the Kansai region. All of their employees told the Tokyo police that until their companies became successful, the two men had never met.”

“Eiko had never met Kikuoka either, I assume?”

“Definitely not. Before this visit, Eiko had only ever met Kikuoka last summer when he came to stay.”

“Hmm.”

“Others have confirmed that Kikuoka only visited this house on those two occasions. Sasaki, Togai, Yoshihiko Hamamoto and Haruo Kajiwara—they all say the same thing, that this was the second time they had met Kikuoka. However you look at it, there really wasn’t enough time for any kind of feud to have developed between them and Eikichi Kikuoka.”

“Yes, common sense would suggest that all the people you’ve named should be excluded as suspects.”

“Yes, as far as motive is concerned.”

“And yet, in all the cases we’ve ever handled, there has never been such thing as a motiveless crime, except for those committed by some sort of pervert or psychopath,” Ushikoshi pointed out.

“That’s right.”

“Grudges, theft, jealousy, sudden rage, sexual urges, money… all kinds of petty reasons like these.”

“And of the names you didn’t mention, there’s the secretary and the protégé and his wife. But there’s also the housekeeper couple, the Hayakawas. How about them?” asked Ushikoshi hopefully.

“Until yesterday we knew nothing about them, but now we’ve found something. We received new information today. Tokyo HQ told us that Mr and Mrs Hayakawa had a daughter around twenty. That daughter met Kikuoka here when he was visiting last summer.”

“Aha!”

Immediately, Ushikoshi and Okuma’s eyes lit up.

“On the curvy side, fair-skinned and rather attractive according to reports. I don’t have access to a photo of her though. If you’d like one I think we can ask the Hayakawas.”