The Moai Island Puzzle

by Alice Arisugawa

  ‘This hole here was without a doubt made when a bullet was shot from the pistol. Can you see the bullet buried in the wall deep inside the hole? Then look at that, there, to the upper-right of the hole. There’s blood there. It’s blood spatter which occurred when Kazuto shot himself through the head. It almost coincides with the bullet hole. Now look at the lower-left of that blood stain. Is the edge of the bloodstain going inside the round bullet hole? Is there blood inside the bullet hole? If not, then there’s something wrong.’

  The two didn’t answer for a while, then Sonobe raised his head and told Egami his observations.

  ‘No, it’s not like that. It’s the other way around. The edge of the bloodstain is missing a part because of the round bullet hole. A part of the bloodstain was blown away by the bullet. Only a little, but still….’

  ‘Mr. Makihara, your opinion?’

  Junji looked up at the question.

  ‘He’s right. The bloodstain is missing a little part on the lower-left.’

  ‘Can I take a look too?’

  Having realised the importance of this fact, Toshiyuki hurried to the painting. I followed. What the others had said was true.

  ‘You’re right. But it should be the other way around. The bullet shouldn’t have blown a part of the bloodstain away: blood should have gone inside the bullet hole instead! So it means that the bloodstain on the painting was made by the first shot, and a second bullet was fired at the painting afterwards. That’s bad.’

  ‘It isn’t a question of good or bad, Mr. Inukai,’ replied Egami. ‘It’s a decisive contradiction. The sequence of the bullet hole and the bloodstain occurred precisely as you just said. First a bullet was shot into Kazuto’s head. Blood spattered on the painting. Then there was a second shot at the painting after that. Which means that after Kazuto died, someone else shot at the painting. Who could that person have been? Who would’ve done that, and for what purpose? Even if we don’t know the identity of that person, one thing is clear: they are the one responsible for the murder of Kazuto and all the other murders on the island.’

  ‘Kazuto was murdered? You mean somebody killed him?’ asked Satomi in utter confusion. Nobody wanted to believe it, but Egami didn’t hold back from calmly pointing out the truth.

  ‘Is there any other way to look at these facts? Suppose that Kazuto did commit suicide. And suppose that at that time, someone else had been with him here in this room. Kazuto leans the rifle against the side of the table, puts his suicide note on the desk—or types it out then—pulls his pistol out and shoots himself. Then our witness picks up the pistol that’s fallen from Kazuto’s right hand and—without any reason, without any reason at all—they shoot at the painting, place the pistol down and leave the scene. I can’t believe such a thing happened.’

  ‘Hold it,’ said Junji. ‘I agree it’s hard to imagine such a person was here. But it still could’ve been suicide. Kazuto shot himself. And as he was dying, that cursed painting caught his eye. With his last ounce of strength, he might’ve shot the painting.’

  ‘Haven’t you been listening?’ said Sonobe ‘What did I say? Kazuto died instantly.’

  Junji realised his mistake and fell silent. But then Toshiyuki started to press Egami.

  ‘But there are still some strange parts in your theory. Okay, let’s suppose that Kazuto’s death was murder. The murderer shoots Kazuto. They then quickly set out the rifle, suicide note and diary and then, for no apparent reason, shoot the painting. Do you agree? The murderer would have no reason to shoot the painting.’

  Egami remained composed and started to explain:

  ‘I think that scenario is more convincing. The murderer had a reason, a justification for shooting at the painting on the wall. This is only conjecture, but I’ve thought of a very rational reason. But allow me to rephrase myself: it was necessary for the murderer to shoot a second time. The target itself didn’t matter. It could’ve been the painting on the wall, the floor, the ceiling, anywhere.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Toshiyuki:

  ‘It was necessary to pick Kazuto’s right hand up, make him hold the pistol and fire it once. If they didn’t, no gunshot residue would be left on Kazuto’s hand. The murderer figured that, once the police investigation started, they would check that out.’

  ‘Gunshot residue? What’s that?’

  ‘But you should know about that. I explained this in front of all of you.’

  Egami went over the explanation he’d given after Kango and Sumako had been murdered.

  ‘I told all of you this earlier, so everybody here should be aware of what gunshot residue is. So to make Kazuto’s murder look like suicide, the killer had needed to leave gunshot residue on his hand. That’s why there was a second shot. It didn’t matter what was shot. Mr. Hirakawa’s painting was probably chosen because they hoped we’d come up with some story that, in his last moments, Kazuto shot at the painting he hated so much.’

  Ryūichi’s hoarse voice overlapped with the last of Egami’s words.

  ‘So, who…killed Kazuto?’

  7

  I shall omit the unnecessary details of what happened next. By which I mean I’ll just provide a simple summary of the investigation into each of our alibis which we started after we had all moved back to the hall.

  To start with the conclusion: nobody was in possession of an ironclad alibi at the time the shot that took Kazuto Arima’s life rang out. That was odd. Unlike the previous murders, this crime had been committed in the afternoon, around twenty past five. It wasn’t strange that at that time, some of us were resting in our rooms or out on a stroll. What was odd was the coincidence that all of us had happened to have been alone then. I was at the beach. Egami was in our room. Maria was doing her laundry. Ryūichi was—.

  Nobody had an alibi.

  Nobody even saw anyone leaving the crime scene.

  Perhaps that wasn’t such a coincidence. That time period, late afternoon, was when we would scatter most. Also, because the window of the annex had not been locked, the murderer could’ve escaped the crime scene through the window and easily hidden themselves in the back of Panorama Villa or behind the trees nearby. Perhaps the plan had been to come out from their hiding place during the chaos when everybody came running there because of the sound of gunshots.

  Whether they were meditating or climbing trees, it was all the same. I repeat: nobody had an alibi.

  ‘This has become rather unpleasant,’ said Toshiyuki, distressed after everyone had finished competing over how little of an alibi they had. Actually, it had been unpleasant for several days now. The pose of his index and middle finger indicated subconsciously that he wanted a cigarette, having failed to give up smoking. Perhaps it had only just registered that Kazuto, who’d shared his cigarettes several times before, was no longer there.

  ‘How about these?’

  Junji held out his late wife’s menthol cigarettes. Toshiyuki declined with ‘Oh, no, I’m all right,’ so Junji put one in his own mouth and lit it.

  Sonobe had a pipe in his hand and was seated deep in a rattan chair when he started to speak:

  ‘We know the rough outline of what happened on this island three years ago. A horrible murder and blackmail. By way of proof, we found the diary and more. The problem is how these events connect to the murders that have happened now. Is it revenge for Hideto’s murder? Or is it about the money that flowed between Mr. Hirakawa and Kazuto? Or is there something else beyond that? We don’t know.

  ‘And there’s another problem. The murderer knew about Mr. Hirakawa’s diary and therefore about the truth of what happened three years ago. How did the murderer sniff out the secret these three were desperate to keep hidden? That’s what I want to know.’

  The doctor stopped rocking his pipe left and right, and looked at Egami who was sitting far away.

  ‘Mr. Egami. Why have you been so silent all this time? Don’t leave me to lead the discussion. You’re so much better at it.’

  Egami showed
no reaction at all. Sonobe’s expression hardened. Perhaps he wasn’t pleased at being ignored. Egami was looking out through the window in silence with a distressed expression, lost in deep thought.

  ‘Mr. Egami…?’ Maria weakly called out to him.

  Egami gave a slight nod.

  Beyond the windows facing east, I could see that night had already arrived on the island. If this hall had also had windows to the west, we perhaps could have caught a glimpse of light showing just above the horizon.

  ‘You’re tired.’ Sonobe interpreted Egami’s mood as such. ‘How about taking a rest in your room?’

  ‘I will,’ replied Egami, but then he turned to Reiko and Satomi.

  ‘There’s something I want to ask you. On the night Mr. Hirakawa was murdered, you met in the kitchen at five o’clock in the morning. Did you perhaps look outside through the windows in the hall then? If you did, I’d like to know if all three bicycles were there or not.’

  While they didn’t understand the meaning of the question, the two confirmed that all three bicycles had been there. Another of Egami’s impenetrable questions was addressed at Reiko and Sonobe. Whether they had looked outside through the hall at six o’clock in the morning, and if so, how many bicycles had there been standing there then? Both of them answered all three bicycles had been there.

  ‘So they were all there.’

  ‘Oh, but how about dinner? I’ll start on it now. How about going to sleep after dinner?’ Reiko said to Egami, who was getting up.

  ‘Thank you, but I don’t feel like eating now. I’ll eat later. I’m terribly sorry, but if you could leave a little for me….’

  From that point Egami’s words became indistinct and I couldn’t hear the end of his sentence. To me, it seemed his mind wasn’t with us anymore.

  ‘I see. Well then, please come down later for your dinner.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Egami thanked her again and bowed his head slightly. I felt I needed to say something to him, but I didn’t manage to get the words out of my mouth. I didn’t know what to say. As I was looking at the back of his silent figure about to disappear up the stairs, Egami turned round to me.

  ‘Alice.’

  I looked up.

  ‘Come to our room later.’

  CHALLENGE TO THE READER

  Perhaps you thought you knew who the murderer was soon after the story started? There might also be people who made up their minds a third of the way into the story, or perhaps right at the midpoint. Others might only have succeeded in identifying the murderer a little while ago, or maybe only moments ago.

  It is most likely that the latter arrived at the correct answer.

  I, the author, inform you that Jirō Egami has only just now realised who the murderer is, based on the same facts made known to you, the reader. But I hereby also challenge you. Can you identify the murderer, not based on instinct, but on logical reasoning? Even if you don’t manage to find the answers to all of the mysterious events that have occurred, you should be able to work out who the murderer is.

  This is my puzzle.

  Please bring order to this cosmos by your own hands.

  CHAPTER SIX: JIGSAW PUZZLE

  1

  ‘Alice, come to our room later.’

  I returned to our room at nine o’clock as Egami had requested. The rest remained downstairs.

  He was sitting on his bed, leaning against the wall. As I entered the room he turned to me and said slowly:

  ‘Alice, I’ve something I want you to listen to. About what happened on this island, of course…. If there’s anything you think is wrong with what I tell you, I want you to ask me questions about that then. I think I’ve at last worked out the identity of the person behind the murders. I’ve been going over my reasoning in my head and I think I’m satisfied. Now I want you to check it. Will you do that for me?’

  ‘Of course, you don’t need to make a formal request.’ I wasn’t sure what to think, being asked something that serious at such short notice. ‘My mind is at your disposal. Don’t have much confidence in its usefulness though.’

  ‘Sit down.’

  I sat down on the opposite bed, but not before locking the door. Not because I was afraid that the murderer would suddenly barge in, but more as a sort of charm to cut us off from the outer world. That was all there was to it.

  ‘Where shall I start?’ Egami’s way of talking was strangely calming. I felt the tension ebb away from my shoulders.

  ‘After reading Mr. Hirakawa’s diary, something became clear to me. And when I followed a line of reasoning based on what I’d read, I realised that only one person fulfilled all the conditions to be the murderer. The diary entry which got me thinking was the one he wrote on the night he was murdered, the fourth of August. He wrote about “living well” and that was indeed something we’d talked about with him in Happy Fish Villa that afternoon. There was also a part about a boat floating in the bay that night. Because of those facts, we know that the date of the entry was correct and that the writer was indeed Mr. Hirakawa himself. Nothing much had happened to him during the day and, as usual, he wrote the entry at night. He’d started to think about what had happened three years ago, and reread and reflected on what he’d written that fateful day. As he did that, he had the three maps of the moai statues in front of him on the table. The hands of the clock were showing past midnight. Are you with me so far?’

  He was asking me if it was okay to proceed and I told him there was nothing I could see which required reconsideration.

  ‘Mr. Hirakawa was murdered in Happy Fish Villa. That was the conclusion of Dr. Sonobe’s medical examination and it was obvious even to amateurs like you and me. And that night, Mr. Hirakawa’s diary and the three maps were also present at Happy Fish Villa. If you agree with me on those two points, I can proceed with my story. What I mean is, can we agree that the murderer had not come into possession of the diary and the maps before that night?

  ‘Moving forward... At some time during the night, the murderer appeared in front of Mr. Hirakawa with the rifle and shot him. After that, the killer took the diary and the maps and left the villa. They appear to have been kept in the locked desk drawer, but the murderer somehow got their hands on them, probably by threatening Mr. Hirakawa with the rifle. No objections so far?’

  I had nothing of importance to note, so I shook my head.

  ‘The killer then got on a bicycle and headed back to Panorama Villa. They probably put the maps inside the diary and tied it and the rifle to the carrier rack with string, because none of the bicycles on the island have baskets. They hurried back here because they couldn’t risk having anyone notice they’d been away for any length of time.’

  Once again the scene of the murderer riding a bicycle in the moonlight came to mind. I somehow felt touched by it and thought that a real painting like that would be nice to have. If there was one, I could make it into a jigsaw puzzle.

  ‘The killer pedalled furiously along the uneven road, slowed to go around the foot of the hill, and when they reached the spot where the road goes straight for a while, they sped up again, not noticing that halfway along that straight stretch one of the maps had slipped out of the diary and fallen to the ground. Humans don’t have eyes in the back of their heads, so it’s only natural that the loss wasn’t noticed. Once back here, they took the diary and the rifle from the carrier, sneaked back to their room and went to sleep. There’s something wrong with this story, isn’t there?’

  Of course there was something wrong. ‘It contradicts the fact there were tyre marks on the map I picked up.’

  ‘Precisely.’

  Egami looked up at the ceiling.

  ‘Precisely. If it had happened like that, then there would have been no opportunity for the bicycle to run over the fallen map. So that version of the story must be wrong. When I realised that that map had been in Happy Fish Villa on the night of the murder, I became utterly confused. If the map had been here at Panorama Villa, thin
gs would’ve made at least some sense. The murderer might’ve had some reason to take it along with them to Happy Fish Villa and had accidentally dropped it on the way. Then, after committing the murder, they headed back here, carelessly running over the map they’d dropped earlier. That I would have understood. But instead, the map had been in Happy Fish Villa that night.’

  ‘That’s certainly strange,’ I agreed. Egami looked me straight in the eye.

  ‘It isn’t strange at all. It proves that only one person on this island could have killed Mr. Hirakawa and I now know who that person is.’

  ‘Just because of that…?’

  I didn’t follow him at all. The artist’s diary might have suddenly appeared on stage, but it wasn’t as if it contained passages hinting at who the murderer might be. So what, if the diary had told Egami that the piece of paper with the tyre mark had been in Happy Fish Villa on the night of the murder? Could he identify one specific person as the murderer based on that one single fact? I had no clue as to how that could be the case.

  ‘I just don’t see it. Please explain to me how.’

  ‘That’s why I called you, so listen to what I have to say.’

  I leant forward as Egami started his chain of deduction....

  ‘The map was at Happy Fish Villa. How could a bicycle have run over it and left a tyre mark on it? I imagine under the following circumstances: the murderer left Happy Fish Villa with the map. And then dropped it on their way back to Panorama Villa. Then went out again, back to Happy Fish Villa, didn’t notice the map on the ground and ran over it….’

  ‘Eh? Wha—what? The murderer returned to Panorama Villa, but then cycled back to Happy Fish Villa a second time? Why would they do that? That doesn’t make any sense. You just said it yourself: they had to return here as soon as possible. Having pedalled so desperately to get here, what reason could they possibly have to go back again to Happy Fish Villa? Did they forget something else besides the map?’