Содзи Симада - Murder in the Crooked House

Okuma groaned.

“Well, then, there’s no way our suspect is any of that lot there. They’re hiding something. Very cleverly. Let’s take apart the walls and ceilings. Especially the ones in Room 13 and 14. That’s all that’s left. Don’t you agree, Chief Inspector Ushikoshi?”

“I think so. Tomorrow’s New Year’s Day and I hesitate to do it, but I don’t think the suspect is going to take the day off just because of that. No, I think we’re going to have to do it.”

At that moment Kiyoshi happened to walk by. Okuma called out to him.

“So what went wrong, Mr Fortune Teller? Didn’t you say that now you were here there’d be no more dead bodies?”

Kiyoshi showed no reaction, but he was clearly out of sorts too.

The morning of the 1st of January 1984 saw Kiyoshi and myself holed up together in the library. Kiyoshi had completely lost face with Sasaki’s murder and had been in very low spirits ever since. He refused to answer whenever I spoke. He sat there pressing his fingers together in various triangular and square shapes, and muttering under his breath.

From my seat in the far corner of the library, I had a view of the jostling ice floes on the northern sea. I sat contemplating them for quite a while until the constant racket of hammers and chisels from the downstairs floor finally succeeded in disturbing my reverie.

“Omedeto!” I said to Kiyoshi.

“Yeah,” he replied, distracted.

“I’m congratulating you,” I said again.

He finally looked up at me.

“For what?” he said with obvious irritation.

“It’s what you say to one another on New Year’s Day. Today is the first day of 1984.”

He groaned.

“You seem very angry. I suppose it’s to be expected, after all that grandstanding you did… But why aren’t you down there checking how the police are getting on with ripping out the walls and ceilings of Room 13 and 14?”

Kiyoshi laughed scornfully.

“Do you think they’re going to find anything? Hidden passageways, secret rooms?” I asked.

“I think I can place a bet on it,” he responded finally. “Tonight the police’ll be sitting there on that sofa in the salon completely exhausted, and with nothing but blisters on their hands to show for it. Especially that young one—Ozaki—I’ll bet he’s putting the most effort into the search right now. Tonight he’ll actually be quiet for once. I can’t wait.”

“Room 13 and 14 don’t have any hidden tricks, then?”

“Of course not.”

I tried to work out how he could be so sure, but nothing came to mind. In the end I asked another question.

“You really know just about everything about everything, don’t you?”

To which my friend just stared up at the ceiling and reprised his mutterings. It was very strange.

“Are you saying you’ve solved the whole thing?”

“Far from it. I’m very confused right now.”

His voice sounded hoarse.

“Do you at least have an idea what direction you should be looking?”

Kiyoshi turned and looked very seriously into my eyes.

“Well, that’s the problem, isn’t it?”

I felt strangely uneasy, and then a little fearful. Eventually, I decided I should man up a little.

“Do you think I should go and talk to them? Perhaps I could be of help.”

“No point. Better solve it than talk about it… But that’s too difficult. There’s an up and down staircase… So which one would he be standing on?… That’s the problem. There may never be an answer. I’m going to be forced to gamble…”

“What are you talking about?”

Kiyoshi tended to ramble this way when he was close to solving a case. It often freaked people out. To me it always sounded as if he were just one step short of being completely off his rocker.

“Never mind,” I said. “Right, now I’ve got a question for you. Why do you think Kazuya Ueda’s body was arranged the way it was? Like he was dancing?”

“Ah, I think if we spend the whole day in this room, we’ll find the answer.”

“In this room?”

“Yes. The answer is in here.”

I looked around. The room was filled with bookshelves.

“Could you be a bit less vague? Okay, how about this? Sasaki’s murder yesterday—you’re feeling responsible and it’s made you depressed. The way I see it, you had no idea what’s going on and yet you promised that there would be no more deaths—”

“That couldn’t be helped!”

Kiyoshi sounded distraught.

“Besides him… but… well… I don’t think that can be… anyway now…”

My friend didn’t seem to have a grasp on reality at all. But whatever the case, I had never before heard him describe a murder as something that couldn’t be helped.

“I’ve been thinking,” I said. “And now, listening to what you’re saying, I’m confident I’m right. I think Sasaki committed suicide.”

To which Kiyoshi seemed to react with shock. He was dumbfounded for a moment, then slowly opened his mouth.

“Suicide… I see. I didn’t think of that. Well, that’s one way…”

His shoulders sagged.

Not to have thought of such a simple thing… I was worried about him. But then,

“That’s a great idea,” he continued. “If we tell them that it was suicide, it’ll confuse them even more.”

I suddenly felt angry.

“Kiyoshi! Have you been plotting this the whole time? Because you don’t really know what’s going on, you’ve been spending your whole time pretending to be some kind of famous detective? Wow. That’s low even for you. If you don’t know, then just say you don’t know. The professional detectives have been racking their brains over this case, but still don’t understand it. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. But because you’ve been faking it for so long, your shame is going to be all the greater.”

“I’m tired. I need to rest.”

“Then please just listen to my thoughts.”

He didn’t respond, so I began to speak. I’d also given this case plenty of thought, and I was trying to develop a theory of my own.

“Even if we decide that Sasaki killed himself, it’s still all wrong. There was that letter pinned to the wall. One which showed a definite lack of writing ability.”

“Meaning?”

“That message was really poorly written, right?”

“You think?”

“And you don’t?”

“I don’t think that it could have been written any other way.”

“For a dramatic letter that announces an intention of revenge, it was third rate. There are so many better ways it could have been said.”

“For example?”

“Well, how about a more literary flavour? Let’s see… ‘I vow to rob you of your life’, or ‘I will not rest until I’ve exacted my revenge upon you’, or ‘My blood runs like fire in my veins’ or something?”

“Well, that’s poetic.”

“There are so many other phrases like that the writer could have used, like—”

“Okay, I get it. What’s your point?”

“I mean regarding this whole revenge thing, if the killer wanted to get revenge on Kozaburo Hamamoto for something, the theory that Sasaki was the killer and then took his own life doesn’t work. He had no reason to take revenge on Hamamoto. He only met the man very recently and the two of them seem to have got on very well. And anyway, to kill himself before killing Hamamoto could hardly be counted as revenge… Or possibly he’s set up some trick that’s going to take Hamamoto’s life.”

“Well, the police are investigating all possibilities for that. They said they were going to thoroughly check the room in the tower as well.”

“And how are the deaths of Ueda and Kikuoka a form of revenge against Hamamoto?”