That sounded like very plausible reasoning. It was natural to assume the victim wanted to write down the name of the murderer before he died and, as he wasn’t able to get out of the chair, the jigsaw puzzle in front of him would’ve been the first thing to have come to mind to write on. He couldn’t reach the walls and he couldn’t write on the Persian carpet on the floor. The table was made of glass plate and metal legs, so it was only logical he’d reach out to the cardboard jigsaw puzzle, even if he’d known the puzzle pieces had a vinyl coating. And even if the victim’s efforts had been in vain, the murderer must have been surprised when he saw him move and would certainly have reacted by throwing the puzzle on the floor. I had one question, however.
‘Having broken up the puzzle, why didn’t the murderer—to use a gruesome term—finish Mr. Hirakawa off? Was he simply content that there was nothing in the vicinity any more to write on, with the puzzle scattered on the floor?’ I asked.
‘Probably.’
Perhaps it did happen like that. The victim probably died right after the puzzle had been swept off the table. Then there would be no need for the murderer to finish him off.
‘Doctor,’ said Egami carefully as he raised the victim’s right hand, ‘I’m sorry to keep spoiling your theories, but I think that one is wrong as well. There’s no sign of any blood on Mr. Hirakawa’s right index finger.’
‘What? That’s odd. I’m sure he’s right-handed.’
‘I also checked, just to be sure, but there’s nothing on his left index finger either. Nothing on any of his fingers, in fact.’
‘So you mean Mr. Hirakawa didn’t try to write anything down in blood?’
‘Precisely.’
How frustrating. It was a very small problem, but we couldn’t find a convincing answer to it. All was very irritating, like when a piece of thread gets stuck between your teeth.
‘Let’s think about it later. What’s important now is to find out what happened to the murder weapon. I find it worrisome that it wasn’t left at the crime scene, once again.’
‘Mr. Egami is absolutely right,’ Toshiyuki emphasised. ‘Who cares about some broken puzzle? It probably just fell from the table due to some shock.’
We were already of the opinion that that wasn’t the case, but Toshiyuki continued:
‘Anyway, it’s the rifle we need to worry about. If the murderer is still in possession of it, I’m afraid there’s a good possibility they’ll strike again. We need to stop them somehow. Shouldn’t we think about that, rather than about some triviality?’
‘I agree with Mr. Inukai,’ added Kazuto. ‘At this rate, more of us will be killed. The murderer shot three people with one shot each. There should still be one or two cartridges left.’
‘How many have gone?’
Kazuto muttered something vague in answer to Egami’s question. He apparently didn’t remember in detail.
‘…One or two. Perhaps three, but definitely not more than that.’
‘That’s awfully vague,’ Junji said angrily as he glared at Kazuto. ‘It’s because of that dangerous toy of yours this has happened. That thing should have been kept in a safe place, and not tossed away carelessly somewhere. You hadn’t even noticed the rifle was gone until we discovered Sumako and her dad had been murdered, and now you say you can’t even remember how many cartridges you’re missing? When are you going to take responsibility for this?’
‘The—there…’ Kazuto seemed to become visibly smaller. ‘There’s no reason to blame me like that! I wasn’t the only person responsible for it, you know. With only upstanding adults who all knew each other in the house, who’d think of keeping that thing in a safe? I know a rifle is a dangerous weapon, but all of us allowed it to be kept like that, so don’t talk as though I’m the only person in the wrong here, just because all of this happened and I was the one who happened to bring the rifle here. Remember that when you arrived at the island, you also said it looked like fun and wanted to try it out and do some target practice yourself? You can’t have fun then and blame me for everything now. If the murder weapon had been a kitchen knife, would you’ve blamed Reiko as the one responsible?’
‘Are you saying a rifle and a knife are the same?’ Junji repeated Kazuto’s words with emphasis. ‘What country are you from, where they have rifles hanging in the kitchen!?’
Kazuto was upset, but still managed to put up a defence.
‘I’m not the only one at fault here. Everyone knew it was kept like that and everyone allowed it to be so. All of us, including you, are to blame.’
‘What? What? We allowed it, so we’re all responsible? Are you going to blame the National Public Safety Commission if you run over someone with a car?’
‘Calm down, you two.’ Sonobe stepped in. ‘You can blame each other all you want later. Nothing good will come from a fight now.’
Junji didn’t look satisfied, but he kept silent and Kazuto looked relieved. I guess that Egami and I, who’d also done some practice shots, were also partially responsible, but even so, it was rather troublesome we didn’t even know how many cartridges were missing.
‘Finding out who the murderer is, is of the highest priority,’ said Toshiyuki and nodded gravely at his own words. His calmness was very reassuring in a situation like this. Perhaps he acted so rationally because it was not only him, but also his wife who was in danger.
‘Anyway, now is not the time to let the blood flow to your head.’ The doctor asked for a cigarette and Kazuto offered him one and lit it. ‘There are only a few people on this island and the murderer must be one of them. If we use our intelligence, we should be able to find out who it is. Right, Mr. Egami?’
The club president mumbled something positive-sounding.
‘Let’s search for anything the murderer might’ve left behind,’ suggested Toshiyuki. ‘Preserving the crime scene until the police come won’t do us any good if we’re all murdered in the meantime. We need to find material evidence ourselves and confine the murderer as soon as possible.’
‘You’re right.’ Kazuto appeared to have recovered some of his calm. ‘We’ll be lucky if they left any footprints around the house. Maybe it’s impossible to expect to find them now, with the arrival of Mr. Egami and the others before, and now us. But how did the murderer get here anyway? He couldn’t have possibly walked here, could he? Did he arrive by bicycle from the front, or by boat at the back?’
‘The boat’s out of the question.’ I stopped him. ‘Maria and I were out rowing it before ten o’clock last night. We turned it over at half past ten. The murder happened after eleven, so nobody could’ve used the boat for the murder.’
‘Ah, that’s true,’ acknowledged Kazuto. ‘So the murderer must have come by bicycle. We can just investigate the road up front. If we find tyre tracks and footprints other than those we made just now, then they’re those of the murderer.’
‘I don’t think there’ll be such clear prints out there. There was no rain last night,’ said Toshiyuki.
‘Let’s check, just to be sure,’ said the doctor as he threw his cigarette out of the window with some regret. ‘We’re starting from scratch anyway. We can only bet on whatever comes to mind.’
We six men swiftly started to do the work of police detectives.
8
We drew a blank. The murderer had fled from the crime scene without leaving any footprints, not even the smallest trace. Eventually, we agreed that it’d be better to preserve the crime scene for when the police did come, rather than disturb it even more, so we decided to go back to Panorama Villa for the time being. We couldn’t bear leaving the artist’s remains where they were, so just as with the Makiharas, we put him on his bed.
It was then that I noticed that you had a very good view of the portrait of Sumako from the bed. When Junji followed my eyes and noticed that fact too, he looked shocked. Was the angle just a coincidence? Or did the artist like the painting so much he’d hung it there on purpose? And there was one more thing I noticed.
As Junji was looking at Sumako’s portrait, I could sense from his eyes, not sadness from seeing a portrait of his late wife, but something closer to malevolent hatred. I became confused. Had this man really been in love with Sumako? I stood still, captured by the strong feeling of hatred I felt in the air.
We left Happy Fish Villa.
Several of us put our hands to our eyes because of the blinding sun.
‘Well then, how shall we get back?’ asked Toshiyuki, looking at everybody in turn. ‘The others back home are probably very curious to know what happened here. Shall we have Mr. Egami and the doctor return by boat first? They can probably explain the situation better than anyone. We’ll go back by bicycle. Alice, you don’t mind going back on Mr. Hirakawa’s bicycle, do you?’
Nobody had any objections. Egami and Sonobe went to the stone steps at the back of the house, while the remaining four of us climbed onto the bicycles. I had a strange sensation as I pedalled on the red one. As Maria had suggested earlier, I was now going back riding Hirakawa’s bicycle. But it wouldn’t be necessary any more to go back to Happy Fish Villa to return the bicycle to its owner.
We four men said nothing and simply pedalled on. We didn’t enjoy talking to each other all that much anyway, and there was a very real possibility one of us was the murderer. It was obvious that any talk would turn into a probing of someone or other.
‘Even so....’ It was Kazuto who broke the silence. ‘I wonder why Mr. Hirakawa was murdered. Of course, it’s true for Uncle Kango and Sumako as well: you need a motive for murder. But I can’t think of one. That’s what makes this so terrifying.’
‘A motive, eh?’ replied Toshiyuki, who was riding in front next to Kazuto. ‘I wonder what it could be. What happened two nights ago still feels like something that could’ve happened by accident because we all drank too much. An accident conjured up by the storm. But this murder’s completely different. The killer has to be one of the people at Panorama Villa so, despite all the risks, they made a round trip to Happy Fish Villa. It takes at least thirty minutes each way so, if we include the time to commit the murder as well, all of it would’ve taken at least an hour and ten minutes. If it was me, I’d be afraid that somebody would notice I’d been gone for so long. But, despite that, the murderer did it anyway. So it must have been a premeditated attack. This was no crime without a motive.’
‘Hmm, I think you’re right.’ Kazuto nodded. ‘The murderer ran a big risk during the night. But I don’t think there would be that much danger of somebody noticing your absence if you left Panorama Villa for an hour or so. None of us had slept very well the night before, so many of us had gone to bed early and were sound asleep last night.’
‘Maybe, but there were also people like you-know-who who went out at sea in a boat at night and turned it over, so there was still quite some risk involved.’
I felt embarrassed. As if only the two of us had had any fun last night.
‘But perhaps,’ said Toshiyuki, ‘there might there be some special connection between the Makiharas and Mr. Hirakawa? Some fact that connects this series of murders? I don’t understand the motives for the individual murders either, but I think we should be looking for something that could connect the two cases.’
‘Mr. Hirakawa and Sumako were—’ Kazuto started, but then shut up. Perhaps he’d started to say that, three years ago, they’d been lovers. As for why he suddenly stopped, that was of course because he remembered that Sumako’s husband Junji was riding behind him.
‘Mr. Hirakawa had Sumako model for a painting of his. But that happened three years ago, and I don’t imagine it has anything to do with the murders.’
It was a pathetic attempt at correcting himself. But Toshiyuki didn’t seem to notice, and said: ‘Oh, yeah, there was a painting of Sumako hanging from the wall there. Beautiful painting.’
I stole a glance at Junji, who was next to me, but his face was expressionless. What did those bitter eyes aimed at Sumako’s portrait earlier on mean? Perhaps he’d known about the past liaison between his wife and the artist and he was hurt by it? To me, that seemed like the only possible interpretation of those furious emotions which lurked behind his eyes. I could also understand why he’d attacked Kazuto about the rifle. He probably felt even more on edge because he had no one standing by his side anymore. It was a painful sight.
Oh, perhaps that was it?
On the night of the storm, when father and daughter Makihara were murdered, a drunken Kazuto had told us about the past between Sumako and Hirakawa. After he’d finished, Junji, who’d gone up to his room, had suddenly appeared in the hall. He might’ve heard it all.
Kazuto started to speak again. ‘So the murderer pedalled a bicycle in the middle of the night, just as we’re doing now? What could’ve been going through their mind at the time? The ride must’ve been easy, with the calm sky and the bright moon and stars last night, but thirty minutes to go to murder someone, and another thirty minutes to come back afterwards is pretty long. I really wonder how they felt.’
I, too, tried imagining the scene. The stress and excitement before and after the deed would have their heart beating like crazy and, as they probably wanted to get it all over with and be back in bed as quickly as possible, they probably pedalled at high speed. I could see the image of a lonesome murderer in my mind, perspiring as they hurried through a night in which the wind had calmed down and moonlight was washing down through the sky. The image of the murderer was painted black, however, and I couldn’t make out whether it was male or female, let alone who it was.
The road went around the hill with the observation platform, making a curve to the right. Past the hill, the road made another turn and then it was a long straight stretch.
It was there that my eye fell on something. A white object was lying by the side of the road. ‘Hold it.’ I put on the brakes. ‘Hold it! Stop.’ As I stopped at where the white object was, I called out to the other three who were moving ahead. They finally stopped about twenty metres farther on and turned around to look.
‘What’s the matter?’ yelled Toshiyuki. I hopped off my bicycle and picked up the white object from the roadside. It was a piece of paper.
‘There’s something lying here,’ I said, as I looked at it. There were cryptic, incomprehensible symbols written on it. Or perhaps it was a pattern. What could it be? I stood next to my bicycle and pondered on its meaning.
‘What was it? Did you pick it up?’ asked Toshiyuki, still sitting on his bicycle with his head turned my way. They didn’t seem to feel like turning back, so I had to go over to them. But there was something I did first. I picked up a stone and marked the tree in front of me with an X at eye-level, so I could find the location again later. I also looked around to memorise the area. Then I stepped on my bicycle and went over to the three who were waiting for me.
‘What did you pick up?’
Toshiyuki leaned forward, and Kazuto and Junji tried to steal a glance as well. I handed them the piece of paper.
‘Oh, but this is—!’ Junji said, and the other two also made similar reactions.
‘You mean you’ve seen this before? Please tell me, what are these strange markings?’ I asked. The three looked at each other, and then Toshiyuki started to explain.
‘I too have no idea what they mean. But all three of us have seen this piece of paper before. We noticed it just now, on our way to Happy Fish Villa.’
‘You noticed this piece of paper? You mean you saw it, but just passed by without giving it any more thought?’
‘Think about it. We had just heard about the murder and were desperately hurrying on the bicycles, because we all wanted to know what had happened as fast as possible. Would you suddenly stop simply because you noticed a piece of paper lying around? Impossible.’
‘Ah, you’re right.’ That made sense. ‘But you did actually notice this piece of paper lying around?’
‘Yes. When we passed by it, I said: “There was something lying there.” Kazuto and Mr. M
akihara said something like “Looks like a scrap of paper.” All three of us saw something lying there.’
‘Wait. Mr. Inukai, you just said you passed by it, but there’s a bicycle tyre mark on the paper. So to be more exact, you rode over it?’
On the back of the piece of paper was undeniable proof that a bicycle had run over it diagonally. ‘No. It was lying here next to the road and we passed by it…. But oh, you’re right, there’s a tyre mark on it. That’s odd. None of us ran over it just now, either.’
This bothered me, but I changed the subject.
‘I understand you passed by it on the way as you were in a hurry, but why ignore it now on the way back too? Ah, sorry if that sounded rude. What I meant was: did you have any reason to do so?’
‘No.’ Toshiyuki looked at Kazuto. ‘We simply forgot it was lying there. I guess if we had noticed it again we’d have stopped, but the road’s been a straight stretch for a while now and I was facing Kazuto as we were talking, so I didn’t notice.’
Kazuto nodded too. Junji, who had been silent, simply answered: ‘I’m just not as inquisitive as you.’
That was understandable. Only someone with a curious mind would stop their bicycle because they saw a piece of paper lying by the roadside. But even someone as curious as I wouldn’t normally stop their bicycle to pick up something from the ground. It was because at that very moment, I was imagining the scene of the murderer hurrying back on this very same road last night. I’d assumed that the murderer must’ve left something on the road and immediately put on the brakes. And there was a reason why I’d thought it belonged to the murderer.
‘I think this was dropped by the murderer last night. Because yesterday afternoon, the only people who used the bikes were Mr. Egami, Maria and myself. We were on the observation platform until four and we passed by here on the way back. This wasn’t lying here at that time.’
The Moai Island Puzzle Page 16