Hearing Kosuke’s stammer become more pronounced, Inspector Isokawa hurried over.
“Wh-what happened?”
Kosuke began to laugh.
“Inspector, you have quite a mean streak, don’t you? There’s no need to mimic my stammer.”
“I apologize. I didn’t mean to, it must be contagious. So, what did you find?”
“See here? This bridge? The other eleven are all alike, engraved with a depiction of a bird on a wave, but this one here is flat and smooth without any carving or decoration at all. In other words, this bridge doesn’t belong to the Lovebird koto.”
“Really? I hadn’t noticed.”
“By the way, what did the one you found in the pile of leaves look like? Like all the rest of these?”
“Yes, yes. There was a bird and wave pattern on it. But what do you think is the significance of a bridge from a different koto being mixed in with the others?”
“Well, I suppose it may be significant, but then again it might not. It might simply be that one of the original bridges got lost and they replaced it with whatever they happened to have… And now where is this closet? Behind the tokonoma here, right?”
Kosuke took a quick tour with Isokawa of the storage closet and lavatory area. Then he carefully examined the bloody fingerprints on the pillar in the larger tatami room and on the inside of the rain shutter. These had turned murky against the bright ochre red of the wood.
“I see. You didn’t discover these right away because of the red paint?”
“No, we didn’t, and as for the prints on the rain shutter, they’re on the one closest to the shutter box at the end. That’s the same shutter Ryosuke-san and the servant broke and slid open, so it ended up inside the shutter box, out of sight for most of our investigation. It wasn’t until we closed all the shutters again that we found the prints.”
By the fingerprints was the gaping hole that the servant, Genshichi, had made with his axe.
“I see. The people who were first on the scene would have had to slide this particular shutter across in order to get into the building, and therefore it would have been inside the box from the start.”
Kosuke undid the bolt and slid the shutter to the side. The evening light came flooding into the house, temporarily dazzling the two men and making them blink.
“Well, I think that’s about it for the interior of the house. Could you show me around the outside? Ah, just a moment… Is this the transom that Genshichi looked in through?”
With nothing but his tabi socks on his feet, Kosuke ran out to the decorative stone basin in the garden and climbed up on it. He stood on the tips of his toes and peered in, but at that moment Isokawa came out carrying their shoes.
The two men set off around the garden area. Isokawa pointed out the spot at the base of the stone lantern where the katana had been stuck upright into the snow, and the pile of leaves in which the missing koto bridge had been buried.
“Thank you. And you say there weren’t any footprints anywhere?”
“That’s correct. Of course, by the time I got here people had been trampling all over this part of the garden. But Kubosan swears that the snow was completely untouched when he discovered the murders.”
“I see. There weren’t any footprints to analyse, so the first detectives and policemen to arrive on the scene felt free to stomp around as they pleased. Ah, and this is the camphor tree that the sickle was stuck in…”
Kosuke was darting here and there, taking in the scene from every angle.
“Yes, yes. I can tell that a gardener has been here lately. It’s all perfectly tended to.”
The pine trees that stood by the fence at the west end of the compound were neatly pruned, their heavy lower branches supported here and there by crutches made of pieces of young bamboo—a horizontal piece laid on top of a vertical one, bound together and to the pine branches by rope. Isokawa couldn’t help laughing at the sight of Kosuke leaping from one ornamental rock to another to peer at each of the crutches.
“What’s up with you? Do you think the killer hid inside a piece of bamboo?”
Kosuke grinned and began to scratch his head.
“Right, right. The killer may well have slipped through this bamboo to escape. Someone has hollowed it out so that you can see right through.”
“What did you say?”
“When a gardener makes a support like this, he doesn’t normally bother to grate away the inside of the bamboo.”
He indicated the lowest branch of a large pine tree.
“And look—this particular branch has two bamboo crutches supporting it. You can tell by the way the rope has been tied that one of these has been put up by a professional gardener. But this crutch here was definitely done by an amateur.”
Surprised, Isokawa moved closer to examine the bamboo.
“You’re right. This horizontal piece is completely hollow. But what’s its significance?”
“Well, first, the bizarre placement of the sickle in the tree trunk, and now, the hollowed-out bamboo, I can’t think it’s all just a coincidence. But I’m not quite sure yet what it could mean… Oh! Good evening!”
Inspector Isokawa looked around to see who Kosuke was calling to. Ryuji and Saburo were standing at the garden gate, and right behind them was Ginzo.
“May we come through?”
“Of course, of course. Hey, Inspector, you don’t mind, do you?”
Isokawa turned back to look at Kosuke, who immediately lowered his voice.
“I think it’s best not to mention the hollow bamboo for now,” he said quickly, before heading towards the garden gate to welcome the three men. Ryuji and Saburo looked around with curiosity as they came into the garden. Ginzo followed behind with a perplexed look on his face.
“Have none of you been here since that day?”
“No,” said Ryuji. “I didn’t want to get in the way of the police. Saburo, you haven’t been here either, have you?”
Saburo shook his head.
“We heard the story of what happened from Ryosuke. How’s it going? Have you found out anything new?”
“Well, it’s rather a baffling case. Inspector, would it be all right to open the shutters?”
Kosuke went back into the house the way he’d come out—through the open rain shutter and the west-side engawa—and slid open three of the shutters on the south side.
“Let’s sit down here. Uncle, why don’t you join us?”
Ryuji and Ginzo sat down with Kosuke on the opened-up engawa veranda, but Saburo remained standing, stealthily peering into the house. Inspector Isokawa stood a short distance away, keeping an eye on the assembled group.
Kosuke smiled broadly.
“So how about it, Saburo-san? Do you have a theory?”
“Me?”
Flustered, Saburo turned away from the house, and looked at the young detective.
“Do I have a?… Why do you ask?”
“Well, you seem to be an avid fan of detective novels. I’m sure with all your knowledge of mysteries you’ll be able to solve the puzzle of this murder.”
Saburo blushed, but at the same time there was a hint of contempt in his eyes.
“There’s a big difference between mystery novels and reality,” he began. “In mystery novels, the criminal always turns out to be one of the characters in the story. There’s a limited pool of suspects. But in real life it’s never that simple.”
“You make a good point. But in this particular case, isn’t the three-fingered man the only suspect?”
“I-I have no idea.”
At this point, Ryuji decided to cut in.
“Are you also a reader of detective fiction?” he asked Kosuke politely, his face betraying no emotion.
“Yes, I do like to read mysteries. They’re very helpful in my line of work. Of course, real life and fiction are very different, but the way of thinking—the logical thought process—is useful practice for anything life throws at you. What’s more, what we
have here is a locked room mystery. Right now, I’m having to enlist all my brain cells, trying to recall if there hasn’t been a detective story similar to this case.”
“What do you mean by a ‘locked room mystery’?” Ryuji asked.
“It’s what you call a murder that has happened in a room where all the doors and windows are locked from the inside. The killer had no possible escape route. Mystery writers call it ‘an impossible crime’. It appeals to authors to devise a method where a seemingly impossible crime can be carried out. The majority of mystery writers have written at least one in their lifetime.”
“I see. That sounds fascinating. And what kinds of solutions do they come up with? Tell us about a few of them.”
“Yes, of course. But I think we’d better ask Saburo here. Saburo-san, of all the locked room mysteries you’ve read, which did you find the most interesting?”
Saburo gave him a disdainful half-smile, then with his eyes on his brother’s face, he replied somewhat lamely:
“Well, I kind of like Leroux’s Mystery of the Yellow Room.”
“Yes, of course it’s a real classic. I’d call it a masterpiece of the ages, wouldn’t you?”
“What’s this Mystery of the Yellow Room about?” asked Ryuji.
Kosuke was quick to jump in:
“Well, in a room that is bolted shut from the inside, a young woman is seriously injured. Hearing her cry out, the young woman’s father and servant come running, smash down the door and rush into the room, only to find signs of a struggle, blood everywhere and the victim on the verge of death. However, the attacker is nowhere to be seen. That’s the gist of it. The reason this novel is considered a masterpiece is that there is no kind of machine or mechanism involved in the solution. There are all kinds of locked room mystery novels, but most of them include the use of a mechanical trick, which often turns out to be rather a disappointment in the end.”
“What sort of mechanical trick?”
“Well, you know, the murder has been committed behind a locked door, but the killer used some sort of device—like a piece of wire or string—to turn the latch or slide the bolt closed again as he leaves. I’m totally unimpressed by that kind of thing. What about you, Saburo-san?”
“Yes, I agree with you. There’s nothing quite like the Mystery of the Yellow Room’s trick. But then again, there are some sort of mechanical tricks that I find impressive.”
“Like what?”
“Take the writer John Dickson Carr for example. Almost all of his novels are either locked room murder mysteries or some variation on a locked room, and they include some pretty good tricks. The Mad Hatter Mystery, for example, features a marvellously original one. By the strict rules of locked room mysteries, it would be considered mechanical, but of course, this being John Dickson Carr, the master, he didn’t just use some cheap wire or string gimmick. The Plague Court Murders and some of his other mysteries involved mechanical tricks too, but he took great pains to camouflage them all. I am very sympathetic to authors in this regard. Personally, I don’t feel such contempt for the mechanical genre of trick.”
Saburo had got carried away with his own theories, but now he suddenly seemed to remember where he was.
“Oh dear, while we’ve been chatting away it’s gone dark. Apologies. Whenever I start talking about detective stories, I get completely carried away and lose track of time.”
Saburo shivered, but in the semi-darkness he shot Kosuke a sly glance.
Later that night the Ichiyanagi residence would be filled once again with the sounds of a koto…
CHAPTER 11
Two Letters
“Ko-san, Ko-san!”
Kosuke Kindaichi was rudely awakened from sleep, to see that it was still long before daybreak. The light was on in the room that he was sharing with Ginzo, and Ginzo himself was leaning over him, a grim expression on his face. Startled, Kosuke sat up in his futon.
“Wh-what is it, Uncle?”
“I thought I heard that strange noise again. Someone wildly playing a koto… I think it might have been a nightmare…”
The two men stayed perfectly still, listening, but there was nothing unusual to be heard. In a silence deep enough to count their own heartbeats, there was just one regular, rhythmic sound—the waterwheel up at the rice mill.
“U-uncle?”
Kosuke suddenly spoke in an urgent whisper. His teeth had begun to chatter.
“Two nights ago—the night of the murders—did you hear that waterwheel then?”
“The waterwheel?”
Ginzo was surprised by the question. He stared at Kosuke.
“Now that you ask me, I think I did hear it… Yes, yes, I definitely heard it. It’s such a common sound that I didn’t pay it any attention. But—Ah!”
Simultaneously, both men leapt to their feet and grabbed their clothes.
The koto had started up again. Ping ping ping as if someone was plucking at the strings. Then came a loud twang that seemed to split the air.
“D-drat, drat, drat… dammit, dammit, dammit,” yelled Kosuke, getting all tangled up in his shirt.
The night before, Kosuke had gone to bed very late. As promised, Inspector Isokawa had brought the photo from Kenzo’s album for him to look at, and he had stayed up until well after midnight examining it, along with the burnt remains of the diary pages, and the rest of the albums and diaries from the study. After that, he’d spent a couple of hours going through the detective novels that he’d picked out of Saburo’s collection. It had been after 2 a.m. by the time he’d gone to bed. He was slower than usual to react.
“Uncle, what time is it?”
“Exactly half past four. The same as last time.”
Hastily dressing, they slid open the rain shutters to find a heavy fog hanging in the air. They could just make out two figures apparently jostling each other. They seemed to be near the garden gate that led to the annexe house. Two voices could be heard: one was deep, that of a man, and it sounded as if he was scolding a sobbing woman. Peering through the fog, they saw that it was Ryosuke and Suzuko.
“What’s the matter?” asked Ginzo, running to their side. “Suzuko-san, what happened?”
“It seems Suzu-chan had another sleepwalking episode,” said Ryosuke.
“No, that’s a lie! It’s a lie! I came to visit Tama’s grave. I’m not sleepwalking. You’re lying! You’re a liar!”
Suzuko began to sob again.
“Ryosuke-san, did you hear the noise just now?” asked Ginzo.
“I heard it. And when I came running out, I found Suzuchan wandering about again.”
Ryuji and Itoko materialized out of the mist.
“Is that you, Ryo-san? And Suzuko too? And what about Saburo? Have you seen him anywhere?” asked Itoko.
“Sabu-chan? He’s bound to be asleep still.”
“No, his bedroom was empty. Saburo was the first person I went to wake when I heard that noise.”
“What’s happened to Kindaichi-san?”
Just as Ginzo was looking around in the fog for his protégé, there was a piercing yell from the direction of the annexe house. It was Kosuke.
“Somebody call a doctor! Saburo’s…”
The rest of his words were lost in the fog, but the effect was to turn everyone to stone.
“Saburo’s been murdered!” cried Itoko, burying her face in the sleeve of her nightgown.
“Mother, go and sit down,” said Ryuji. “Hey, Aki-san, will you look after Mother and Suzuko? And call the doctor?”
Akiko had appeared right at that moment. As she accompanied the other two women back to the main house, Ryuji, Ryosuke and Ginzo rushed together through the garden gate towards the annexe. Just as before, all the amado shutters were tightly closed. Light was filtering out through the ranma transoms and reflecting off the white of the mist.
“Th-there. Over there. You can get in through the west-side engawa.”
Conversely, Kosuke’s voice seemed to come from just insi
de the entrance of the building, at the east end. The three men made their way around to the other end and found the broken rain shutter open. They hurried in and found both the shoji and fusuma sliding doors that divided the two tatami rooms wide open. They crossed through both of the tatami-mat rooms, to see the figure of Kosuke crouched down in the genkan entrance area. They rushed towards him but came to a halt at the sight before them.
On the earthen floor of the genkan lay Saburo curled up in a ball. His back was completely drenched in blood and he was scratching feebly at the door with his right hand.
For a moment Ryuji looked as if he’d been nailed to the spot, but then he pushed up his sleeves and, brushing Kosuke out of the way, squatted down next to his brother. He looked up at his cousin.
“Ryosuke-san, could you go to the main house and fetch my bag? And make sure the village doctor gets here as fast as he can.”
“Is Sabu-chan going to… er?…”
“I think he’s going to be all right. It’s a pretty deep wound but… Just take care not to alarm Mother any more than necessary.”
Ryosuke set off for the main house.
“Is there anything we can do to help?” asked Kosuke.
“No, best to move him as little as possible. Ryosuke’ll be right back with my doctor’s bag.”
There was something brusque about Ryuji’s tone, and it made Ginzo raise an eyebrow in Kosuke’s direction.
“What do you think happened here?” he asked his young friend.
“Can’t say… it’s really not clear. But from first glance it seems that he was wounded over by the folding screen, and managed to escape as far as this genkan. Then he collapsed as he was trying to get the front door open. Did you see the screen?”
Ginzo and Kosuke returned to the larger tatami room. The screen was lying in the same position as it had been the night before, but now it had a vertical cut running from the top end about twelve inches down. The shiny gold leaf had more blood splashed on it, and in between spray marks that resembled a sprinkling of flower petals, there were partially dried fingerprints. Yet again, there were only three fingers, only this time as there were no traces of koto picks over the fingers, the swirls and whorl pattern of the prints were visible, albeit faintly. Ginzo grimaced, and then turned his attention to the koto which was lying by the screen. It had another broken string and missing bridge, but this time the bridge was lying next to the instrument.
The Honjin Murders Page 9