The Moai Island Puzzle

by Alice Arisugawa

  ‘Is that Reiko over there?’ asked Egami suddenly.

  Maria and I turned to look at the bay to the north, just as Egami was doing. The rowing boat was out there. There was a woman in it, heading towards Happy Fish Villa. It was Reiko.

  ‘Reiko’s probably taking something over to Mr. Hirakawa. Whenever he comes over, he always returns with a backpack full of fresh vegetables and other foodstuffs, but he didn’t just now. He even forgot his backpack.’

  Now that she mentioned it, I remembered Hirakawa’s home had no refrigerator.

  The waves were higher than yesterday. There was something heroic about the sight of the boat making its way forward while being rocked by the waves.

  I turned away and my eyes fell on the moai statue. As always, it stood at the highest point of the island, looking down at the world.

  ‘Guess now’s not the time to think about the moai puzzle,’ mumbled Egami, almost incoherently. I sighed. Yesterday, I’d almost felt sorry for leaving two of my seniors behind in Kyōto and coming to this leisure island. My feelings had changed dramatically.

  ‘It’s the moais’ fault,’ said Maria. ‘Nothing bad, nothing horrible had ever happened on this island until they came here. One summer, my grandfather had workers and engineers come here and had those statues built all over the island, as if he had foreseen his own death. He died the following spring. The year after, Sumako and Mr. Hirakawa had their affair, and the year after that, Hideto died in an accident while searching for the treasure. The last two years nothing happened, but this year another horrible incident occurred…. It’s as if those statues have cast a curse on the island.’

  ‘The day we arrived here, you called them the mascot figures of the island, but now you feel differently?’

  Maria looked at me and returned a weak smile.

  ‘How silly of me. Taking back all the things I said.’

  I looked at the moai again. Have you really placed a curse over this island? If so, was it Tetsunosuke Arima who had you built so you would curse the place?’

  The moai knew something.

  The thought suddenly took hold of me.

  4

  We remained on the hill until close to four o’clock.

  We avoided the topic of murder and chatted about things that happened at university and so on. Maria had some unique proposals for recruiting new club members next year, and even declared that from next spring on, the Eito University Mystery Club would become a woman’s paradise. One of her ideas was that we should let go of our too direct and rough-sounding organisation name, and consider a trendier one. But what kind of people would be attracted by names like Laughing Daedalus or Murder Land? Strange kid.

  When we returned to Panorama Villa we found the doctor in the hall. He was sitting facing the jigsaw puzzle in silence, his face wearing an expression of enlightenment. He was holding his briar pipe in his left hand, but he appeared to have forgotten about it, as only his right hand was busy moving around.

  Reiko appeared from the back. She’d probably returned long ago from Happy Fish Villa. She looked refreshed, having changed into denim shorts.

  ‘Welcome back.’

  ‘Thanks. The doctor is all immersed in his game, isn’t he?’ said Maria and Reiko shot a glance at Sonobe.

  ‘He certainly is. He’s been at it since lunch. He’s probably trying to get everything out of his mind, but even then, it’s amazing how focused he is.’

  ‘Mr. Egami, please come and help me.’

  In response to the request, our club president went over to the doctor.

  ‘How are the others doing?’ I asked.

  Reiko shrugged. ‘Everybody seems out of it. Both father and Junji are cooped up in their rooms, only coming out to use the bathroom. The Inukais have been trying to distract themselves by reading or listening to the radio. They’re in their room now. The doctor has been like that all day. The only one moving around…,’

  Reiko started to say something, but then stopped.

  ‘What’s the matter? So the only one moving around is Kazuto? What’s he been doing?’

  ‘Well...don’t think badly of him, but Kazuto has been searching the house. He says he’s going to find the murder weapon: his rifle.’

  ‘Searching the house? You don’t mean he’s gone into my room and has been going through my stuff, do you? Surely he hasn’t gone into Mr. Egami and Alice’s room either?’

  The expression on Maria’s face changed, like a transformation scene in a science-fiction film. Reiko looked embarrassed.

  ‘I’m sorry. I tried to stop him, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer. If you’re going to get angry, please be angry at me too. Kazuto said that if he went in alone, it’d seem suspicious to the others, so he forced me to come along with him. But I didn’t let him take one step inside your room. I had him stand at the entrance while I searched myself. I’m sorry, Alice.’

  ‘When did you search the rooms?’ I asked, and she hesitated for a moment.

  ‘Right after you left with Mr. Hirakawa.’

  ‘Unbelievable!’ Maria raised her voice in protest. ‘So he waited until we were gone to search the house? That’s low! Does Kazuto think one of us is the murderer? Or did he do it simply because there was nobody to stop him? I’m going to give him a piece of my mind.’

  ‘Please don’t, Maria.’

  ‘No, this is something I won’t let slide this easily. Is he in his room?’

  Maria walked determinedly down the corridor to the annex as we followed her, telling her to hold it. Maria went out of the back door and stormed into Kazuto’s room.

  ‘What’s this, without knocking?’

  Kazuto was lying on his bed, face up. He had his arms crossed behind his head and only his eyes made any movement towards our party in the doorway.

  ‘We heard you went through our rooms searching for the rifle after we left. What an absolutely self-righteous and horrible thing to do!’ Maria’s tone was intense. ‘I understand that you want to find the rifle, but why didn’t you get everyone’s permission first? What were you thinking, waiting until we were gone!?’

  Kazuto jumped up from the bed.

  ‘Don’t get all angry with me. I wasn’t really expecting to find the rifle in anybody’s room, which would’ve been an obvious admission of guilt, but we had to search the rooms eventually. Reiko watched me, so there was nothing unfair about it. You just don’t like that I skipped some of the paperwork.’

  ‘You’ve quite a nerve, getting on your high horse.’ Maria was appalled. ‘You didn’t answer my question. I asked why you waited until we’d gone to do it. Didn’t you feel bad about that?’

  ‘Not in the least. I am starting to have a little bit of regret now. But I think you’re overreacting.’

  ‘Why are you trying to make me feel bad? Here I was thinking you might perhaps offer an apology.’

  Maria, drained of energy, let her shoulders sag.

  ‘Okay okay, I’ll apologise.’

  One “Okay” would’ve been enough.

  ‘If Alice here is upset too, I apologise. Please forgive me.’

  I just mumbled something. Maria had already vented her anger at Kazuto, so I’d already lost my own chance to do so.

  ‘Is it really impossible to fix this?’ asked Reiko, indicating the broken wireless transceiver on the desk. Ryūichi and Egami had both come here to try to repair it, but the moment they’d seen the horrible state of the machine, both of them had given up immediately. It was impossible to repair.

  ‘Nothing to be done about it.’ Kazuto spat it out, but then smiled maliciously.

  ‘I apologised, so that means we’re good. Now please leave me alone.’

  ‘Still in shock? Or are you giving yourself a headache over some deduction or other?’

  ‘I have no ideas at all. I’m expecting something from our Alice here. I’d like to see him expose the truth behind all this, showing off the kinds of deduction you see from great detectives in fiction.’


  He grinned. He was making fun of me.

  ‘Let’s go.’

  Maria poked me with her elbow. She left the annex as swiftly as she’d entered, with Reiko and me in tow.

  ‘Maria, we forgot something important.’ I said as I chased her.

  ‘What?’

  ‘We forgot about the wireless transceiver. If it truly was a double suicide last night, who destroyed the machine and for what reason?’

  ‘Ah, you’re right.’ Maria looked surprised. ‘You’re absolutely right. The fact it was destroyed blows the double suicide theory away. Oh, what’s becoming of my brain? Mr. Egami and you too, how come you didn’t notice it either?’

  ‘Yeah, my brain’s stopped as well. But perhaps not Mr. Egami’s. When you were babbling on about the forced suicide idea up on the hill, Mr. Egami was deep in thought about something, and he didn’t hear a single word of our conversation.’

  ‘Babbling? I’ve had quite enough of you.’

  Maria wasn’t in a good mood today. Note to self: I need to be nice to girls at a time like this. But playing the nice guy started to feel foolish after a while, and my mouth started to open once again.

  Back in the hall we saw the two puzzlers putting their heads together over their game.

  5

  Maria and I passed the time in the attic admiring the shell collection and solving maze puzzles. That was all we could do. I could never have imagined I’d be looking forward so much to the boat coming to fetch us back.

  ‘Look, it’s the sunset,’ Maria said. She was leaning on the window sill.

  I looked outside. It was the exact moment the huge setting sun was touching the horizon. It was a very rare moment of the day, where you could clearly see the sun moving. It shone brightly as if it was burning up its very last bit of life, and slowly “the day” disappeared. The room itself was bathed in orange in the afterglow and the light drew clear shadows on the walls.

  Was the artist also looking at this sunset?

  ‘It’s so beautiful, and yet….’ Maria muttered as she watched the sun be swallowed up by the sea.

  It was the most beautiful and at the same time the most heartrendingly sorrowful sunset I had ever witnessed.

  After dinner, Egami and the doctor started working on the puzzle again. Maria and I took a peek, and we saw clear signs of progress. The bewitching snake charmer was already there. I could follow the seductive lines of her waist.

  ‘I love this painting. When I look at it, it feels as if I’m being pulled into the depths of a forest at night.’

  I agreed. I couldn’t get enough of the painting either. I also liked imagining the melody the snake charmer was sending into the forest with her flute.

  ‘It’s really rewarding when you finally have some recognisable parts completed,’ said Sonobe, still puffing at his pipe. ‘Putting the eyes into this snake charmer in particular was a delight.’

  People concentrating on jigsaw puzzles are already a textbook example of people with too much time on their hands, so there can’t be anything more foolish than other people who are doing nothing but watching them. That’s why Maria and I decided to go upstairs and go back to our own rooms. It wasn’t even nine o’clock yet, but Maria disappeared into her room saying ‘Good night.’ Was she already tired, or was she just not planning to see any more of me that night?

  The first thing I did after entering my own room was lock the door. I was still a little bit scared.

  I thought about what I’d do next, and I decided to take out the Patricia McGerr I’d placed on the bookshelf near the head of the bed. I was already at the climax of the story, but I still couldn’t really get into it. I put the book back and lay down on the bed face up, as Kazuto had done earlier, and let my thoughts wander as I watched the ceiling.

  Occasionally, the image of Kango and Sumako Makihara lying on top of each other in a pool of blood flashed through my mind.

  What had happened to the rifle? Had it been thrown into the sea?

  I got up and went over to the window. The sea had swallowed the sun about two hours earlier, and now it was dark outside, like an open mouth into the void, accompanied by the sound of the waves. But in the night sky, the stars were shining brightly. They flickered as if they were busy with some celebration, singing and calling out to us down here. Whatever they were doing, the world beyond the window didn’t belong to us human beings. Our world had been cut off and ended right in front of me.

  There was a knock on the door.

  ‘Who is it?’ I asked and Maria’s voice answered.

  ‘It’s me. You’ve locked your door.’

  ‘’Cause I’m scared,’ I said as I unlocked it. ‘What’s the matter? You just said good night. Are you taking that back too?’

  ‘Yep. It’s too early to sleep and I start imagining things when I’m alone. It’s the same for you, isn’t it?’ Maria spoke in a soft voice, still standing in the doorway. I came out of the room.

  ‘Let’s go out for a walk.’

  Maria nodded.

  We greeted Egami and the doctor, who were still busy with the puzzle, and left the house. Kazuto was lying absentmindedly in the rattan chair by the side of the window.

  A gentle breeze caressed my cheek. We walked side by side for a while in silence, listening only to the sound of our own footsteps.

  ‘Let’s go down to the beach.’

  If we continued along the path we were on, all we would do was to follow the road and then turn back again, so I agreed with Maria’s idea.

  We turned around and went to the rear of Panorama Villa. I descended first down the steps, hidden by the lady palms, which led to the beach.

  The pounding of the waves came closer, mixed with the melancholy sound of the foam dispersing on the beach.

  When we reached the beach, it was so dark I couldn’t believe it was the same place where we’d bathed yesterday afternoon. It was like the shore of the river Styx. I walked along by the sea, enjoying the crunching noise of the sand under my feet.

  I suddenly realised I couldn’t hear Maria behind me, so I turned round. She was crouching far away at the water’s edge, scooping water up in both hands. Her russet hair was bathed in moonlight and shone dark scarlet. I walked slowly over, not taking my eyes off her. Water was running through her fingers, and back down to the sea.

  ‘The sea at night is scary,’ I said to her, but she remained crouched, gazing into the distance. As if she was looking for the horizon, which had disappeared into the darkness.

  ‘Dying at sea would be scary.’ The words that had slipped from her mouth had a heavy feel to them. ‘Could Hideto have found his way into heaven, having drowned in such a lonely sea? I hope that people who die at sea in the night can also reach heaven….’

  I didn’t say anything. Maria was talking to herself. She just wanted me to listen to her talking to herself.

  I noticed a small piece of wood near my feet being washed by the sea. It was half buried in the sand and seemed to be fighting to avoid being taken by the waves. I crouched down and picked it up. It had a pentagon shape, like a shōgi playing piece, and was about as big as my hand. A rectangle had been hollowed out in the centre.

  ‘That’s a Funadama charm.’ I was just wondering what it was when Maria looked at it and made the observation.

  ‘Funadama?’

  ‘Yes, Hideto explained it to me. He loved walking around here, checking out the things that wash up on the beach. Funadama is a deity who protects boats and ships. Sailors place this charm in the middle of a ship whenever they go out, praying for safety. You see it’s been hollowed out here in the middle? You put objects inside it. Figures of a man and a woman, or a one yen coin, the hair of a woman…. There’s more, but I forget. You found something rare, Alice. This is only the second time I’ve seen one. Hideto said they were probably thrown away from a boat in a scrapyard, but to me they look as though they might’ve come from some sunken ship and washed up here….’

  I dipped th
e piece of wood in the waves to wash the sand off. I wanted to keep it, I told Maria.

  ‘Chūya wrote a poem which talks about it. Something about picking up a button on a moonlit beach and feeling so sympathetic towards it he can’t bring himself to throw it away?’

  Maria slowly got up and finally looked into my eyes.

  ‘Alice. Take me out on the boat.’

  Her request was rather sudden, but I decided I should just do as she wanted. ‘Okay. Let’s do that.’

  The pier was like a long, narrow stage, sticking out into the sea. We left footprints in the sand as we walked over to it.

  The rowing boat had been fastened by a rope. First I had Maria sit in the boat, then I undid the rope and got in myself.

  ‘Here we go.’

  I pushed us away from the pier and the boat moved. I picked up the oars and rowed slowly. We went into the raven black sea I had thought so scary.

  The moon was above us and the moonlight it threw on the sea swayed in the waves. I looked over the edge of the boat at the water surface and saw sea sparkles floating on the waves like silver sand. I felt as if I didn’t mind wherever we went and simply continued rowing the boat without any thought.

  Suddenly, a poem came into my mind. It’s one of my favourites, but it was almost uncanny how I managed to recite the complete poem.

  When the moon shines radiantly in the sky,

  Let’s go out in this boat.

  The waves will lap,

  As the wind breezes gently.

  Out in the darkness of the bay,

  The sound of water dripping from the oars—

  Between the pauses of your voice—

  Will be a sign of our intimacy.

  The “You” in question remained silent.

  The moon will listen in at us,

  Even descend a bit,

  And be right above our heads,

  When we kiss.

  Maria finally showed a smile. ‘Trying to seduce me?’ her face said. Both of us knew quite well that was not the case, and I too had to grin.