Содзи Симада - Murder in the Crooked House

Including the four police officers, all of the surviving occupants of the house were in attendance. But then a small puff of white smoke floated into the room from the direction of the staircase. Kiyoshi was the first to notice it.

“There’s a fire!” he shouted.

The police all dropped their forks and rushed up the stairs. Kozaburo, fearing for his precious collection, followed right behind.

In the end, the fire was extinguished before it could develop into anything serious. The source was Eiko’s bed in Room 2 which had been sprinkled with paraffin and set alight. But as always, no one had any idea why or by whom this fire had been set. I have already said it, but absolutely everybody had been sitting at the dining table when it happened.

At this point, everyone was convinced that besides the regular occupants there was someone else in the mansion. Some person or some other mysterious entity with homicidal intentions was clearly lurking. But no matter how many times they searched, the police continued to come up with nothing.

On this particular occasion, however, Room 2 hadn’t been locked, nor had the window on the east staircase landing, so for once this strange case of arson wasn’t in the realm of the impossible. But the who and the why still required a great deal of thought.

The storm grabbed hold of the window frames and shook them with all its might and the noise resounded through the mansion. The dozen or so helpless humans cowered in fear inside.

Everything was in place for the final act.

Before we get to that final act, there is one more thing I should write down. Perhaps the reader is already familiar with it, but those of you who are hearing this phrase for the first time might be confused. However, this writer cannot resist including these famous words.

Yoshihiko Hamamoto came down the stairs from Room 8, his bedroom.

Chief Inspector Ushikoshi was with Kiyoshi in Room 13 discussing something or other, but everyone else was in the salon. The wind was howling outside, and just like the night that Kikuoka was murdered, no one was in a hurry to go to their own room. If Yoshihiko looked straight ahead of him as he descended the stairs from Room 3 on the middle floor, all there was before him was a huge towering wall like a barricade. This was in fact the walls of Room 10 and Room 12, one above the other.

Because there were no windows or other openings in the wall besides the door to Room 12 down at the bottom, the wall was sheer and felt oppressive. There were of course the two ventilation holes, one for each room, and lined up vertically, but that was all. The lighting on the staircase was rather dim.

Yoshihiko had almost reached the ground floor when for some reason he glanced up. The vent to Room 10, the room in which Kazuya Ueda had been murdered, was way above him in the wall, facing the open space above the staircase.

Yoshihiko had no idea why he had happened to look up at the hole at this moment, but at the same time, he hadn’t just glanced up for no particular reason. He was standing right alongside this great cliff of a wall, and turned his gaze upwards. He caught his breath. Way above his head, a small square-shaped light had just gone out. The after-image stayed imprinted in Yoshihiko’s retinas.

He found himself frozen to the spot. For a moment it felt as if the wind, which had an eerie way of echoing in his head, had come blowing into the interior of the house and was now dancing wildly around the high ceiling space above.

He had the illusion that he was standing alone in the wilderness. The howls and screams of the wind became the moaning of the ghosts of all the people who had died in this house. Well, not only those three, but a whole multitude of spirits. All the souls who had been here in this northern land forever.

He came back to himself. And now he realized what he had seen. It was a reality that was hard to fathom. He knew that he ought to call someone right away, because as nobody was using Room 10 any more, there was no reason for anyone to be in there. Mitarai and Chief Inspector Ushikoshi were in Room 13 and everyone else in the salon. So why had there been a light shining from the vent in Room 10? He had definitely seen it. There was something or someone in there.

He ran to the salon and flung open the door.

“Could somebody come?” he shouted.

Everyone turned to look, and most jumped to their feet. Kozaburo, Eiko, Mr and Mrs Kanai, Togai, Kumi Aikura, Mr and Mrs Hayakawa, Kajiwara; also Inspector Okuma, Sergeant Ozaki and Constable Anan and myself—all of us moved towards Yoshihiko. He checked quickly—yes, everyone was there besides Mitarai and Ushikoshi.

“What’s up?” asked Ozaki.

“This way!”

Yoshihiko led everyone to the foot of the stairs and pointed up at the wall.

“I could see light coming from that vent in Room 10.”

There was general commotion.

“No way!” said Okuma.

“What’s going on?”

Ushikoshi and Kiyoshi had heard the commotion and came out into the corridor.

“Chief, were either of you in Room 10 just now?” asked Ozaki.

“Room 10?”

Ushikoshi was clearly surprised by the question.

“Why? No. We were both in Room 13 the whole time.”

It was clear from his tone and facial expression that he was telling the truth.

“Seems there was light coming from that ventilation hole just now.”

“Impossible! All sixteen of us are standing here right now,” said Ushikoshi.

“It was just for a moment. I’m sure I saw it—a light going out.”

“Has some sort of animal got in this damned house?” said Okuma. “An orang-utan or something?”

“You mean like ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’?” said Kozaburo.

Everyone looked dubious. But then the normally taciturn Kajiwara spoke up.

“Er, actually…”

“What? Go on.”

“The refrigerator… well, it seems there’s some ham missing.”

“Ham?”

More than a few people repeated the word.

“Yes. Some ham and a little bit of bread—”

“Has this happened before?” asked Okuma.

“Um, I don’t think so… Well, I don’t think it has…”

“You don’t think?”

“I’m not really sure. I’m sorry.”

There were a few moments of heavy silence.

“Anyway, let’s go and check it out, Room 10,” said Ozaki. “There’s no point in just standing around here.”

“No point in checking either,” said Kiyoshi, without enthusiasm. “There’ll be nothing there.”

Nevertheless, the police set out into the snow. Kiyoshi and I, the women, Kozaburo, as well as Kanai and Yoshihiko stayed where we were. After a while, a light came on behind the ventilation hole.

“Yes, that’s it! That’s the light I saw!” cried Yoshihiko.

But of course, the search was fruitless yet again. According to Ozaki’s report, the padlock was still on the door; in fact there was even fresh snow covering it, and the room itself was freezing cold inside with no signs of life. He concluded that Yoshihiko had seen some sort of illusion.

“How about the spare key to the padlock?” asked Ozaki.

“I’ve got it,” said Hayakawa. “I haven’t lent it to anyone else. But I did leave the padlock itself by the entrance to the kitchen for a while.”