“There’s no boat. If it wasn’t carried off by the waves, then it was driven off.”
That was our only means of leaving this island. Looking far, we could see no sign of that luxurious speedboat within the vast sea.
And so, we’ve been isolated on this lone island.
We returned to the mansion at a turtle’s pace, by the time we made it inside, we were both soaked wet.
“Please use these.”
Expecting our return, Mori-san had been waiting for us and handed us towels she had prepared. She asked with concern,
“What did you find?”
“It seems you’re right.”
Haruhi wiped her hair with the towel, looking dissatisfied.
“The boat’s gone, but we don’t know when.”
I don’t know if she was born like that, but Mori-san’s face continued to smile softly like the light of a firefly. Though Tamaru Keiichi-san’s murder had shaken her a bit, yet her calm demeanor reflects her professionalism. Perhaps this reaction was quite normal for a for-hire maid.
I apologized with Haruhi for wetting the entrance corridor, then we decided to return to our rooms to get changed.
“Come to my room later.”
Haruhi said as she walked up the stairs.
“At this moment, it’s better to stick together. I just can’t relax if I can’t see everyone safe. If something were to happen……”
Haruhi stopped midway. I could understand what she was trying to say, so I didn’t make any witty comments this time.
We arrived on the second floor and found Koizumi standing at the corridor.
“Welcome back.”
Koizumi carried his usual smile and gestured to us with his eyes. He was standing just outside Haruhi’s room.
“What are you doing?”
Haruhi asked, and Koizumi’s smile became that of an embarassed one, he shrugged his shoulder and said,
“I had wanted to come to Suzumiya-san’s room to discuss what we should do next, but Nagato-san wouldn’t let me in.”
“Why?”
“Well……”
Haruhi knocked on the door.
“Yuki, it’s me, open the door!”
After a brief pause, Nagato’s voice came from behind the door.
“I was instructed not to open the door for anyone.”
Asahina-san still seems to be sleeping. Haruhi played with the towel on her head with her fingers.
“It’s alright now, Yuki. So open the door.”
“That would be a violation of my order to not open the door for anyone.”
Haruhi looked at me with a startled look, then turned back to face the door.
“Yuki, what I meant by anyone is people besides us! Myself, Kyon and Koizumi-kun are different. We’re all companions in the SOS Brigade, right?”
“No one said anything about that. What I heard was not to let anyone in; that is my interpretation.”
Nagato’s calm voice sounded like a female priest spreading the messages of the gods.
“Hey, Nagato!”
I decided to cut in,
“Haruhi has cancelled that order. If you don’t believe it, I’ll recite that order for her. So open the door! Please.”
Nagato seemed to consider that for a few seconds behind the door. The sound of the door unlocking can be heard and the door slowly opened.
“……”
Nagato’s eyes swept through our heads, and silently backed up inside.
“Really! Yuki, you ought to be more flexible! You’ve got to understand the meaning properly!”
Haruhi asked Koizumi to wait a bit while she changed and entered the room. I wanted to change into something dry as well, so I made my exit.
“See you later then, Koizumi.”
I walked and thought about something.
Was that all just a prank by Nagato? Yet it’s a very hard-to-comprehend prank that could cause misunderstandings.
Nagato, please. Nobody’s going to think of it as a joke if you always carry that face with you. You should at least make a smile when you’re pulling a prank. Or you could just smile meaninglessly like Koizumi, you’d look better like that.
Though now’s not the right time to pull any pranks.
I removed my wet clothes and changed into a new set of clothes along with my underwear, then returned to the corridor. Koizumi is no longer there. I knocked on Haruhi’s door.
“It’s me.”
Koizumi opened the door for me. As I stepped inside and closed the door,
“I heard the boat’s missing.”
Koizumi said leaning by the wall.
Haruhi squatted on the bed. Even Haruhi, who was normally brash, didn’t feel this was worth being glad over. She lifted her head looking troubled,
“It’s gone, right, Kyon?”
“Yeah.” I said.
Koizumi said,
“Someone must have driven it off. No, it’s already meaningless to say ‘someone.’ There’s no doubt the one who ran way is Yutaka-san.”
“How do you know that?” I asked.
“Because there’s no one else.”
Koizumi answered coolly.
“Besides us, there was no one else who was invited to this island. The only invited guest that has disappeared from the mansion is Yutaka-san. No matter how you put it, he has to be the suspect who has escaped by boat.”
Koizumi continued with his smooth speech,
“In other words, he is the killer. He must’ve escaped during the night.”
This matches with Yutaka-san’s unslept bedsheets, and Mori-san’s testimony.
Haruhi told Koizumi about our previous conversation with Mori-san.
“As expected from Suzumiya-san, so you’ve heard about it.”
I purposelessly made a “Hmph~.” sound at Koizumi’s blatant bootlicking.
“Yutaka-san seemed to have left in a hurry as if he was afraid of something, this matches with the testimony by the last witness to have seen him. I’ve also confirmed this with Arakawa-san.”
But isn’t it suicide to drive a speedboat at night into the middle of a storm?
“Then it must be very bad for him not to leave the island, like trying to leave the scene of crime.”
“Can Yutaka-san drive the speedboat?”
“We haven’t been able to confirm that, but we should be able to deduce that from the results. Since the boat’s now missing.”
“Wait!”
Haruhi raised her hand and won her right to speak.
“What about Keiichi-san’s door? Who locked it? Did Yutaka-san do that as well?”
“Doesn’t seem like it.”
Koizumi gently made a denial gesture.
“According to Arakawa-san, both the master key and the backup key for that room are kept by Keiichi-san. After some searching, we found both keys inside the room.”
“Maybe someone made another duplicate key.”
I raised the question that came out of my mind, Koizumi shook his head.
“This is the first time Yutaka-san has come to this mansion, I don’t think he would have enough time to prepare a duplicate.”
Koizumi waved his hands in a surrendering gesture.
The room fell silent, the unharmonious sound of the heavy wind and rain shook the air, becoming an insignificant distant memory.
Haruhi and I were both speechless and remained quiet. Koizumi broke off this depressing silence,
“But it would be strange if Yutaka-san were to have committed this crime last night.”
“What do you mean?” Haruhi asked.
“When I touched Keiichi-san, he was still warm, as if he was still alive recently.”
Koizumi gave a smile, then turned and faced the silent fairy sitting patiently like a maid by Asahina-san’s side.
“Nagato-san, what was Keiichi-san’s body temperature when we found him lying on the ground?”
“36.3 degrees Celsius.”
Wait a moment, Nagato, h
ow do you even know Keiichi-san’s body temperature without even touching him? And the way she answered the question so swiftly was as though she was expecting it…… I didn’t express my doubts loudly.
The only person with doubts would be Haruhi, but she seemed to be thinking of other stuff, as her head didn’t turn towards this way.
“Isn’t that near the normal body temperature? When was the crime committed?”
“When a person stops all living activity, the body temperature would drop by one degree Celsius per hour. From this we can estimate the time of death for Keiichi-san to be within one hour before he was found.”
“Wait, Koizumi.”
Time for me to cut in.
“Didn’t Yutaka-san escape during the night?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“But you said the time of death was within one hour?”
“That’s correct.”
I pressed hard on my temple.
“So does this mean Yutaka-san left the mansion at night and hid somewhere, then returned in the morning to kill Keiichi-san, and then escaped by boat?”
“No, that’s not the case.”
Koizumi casually rejected my theory.
“Assuming a small margin of error for the time of death, it should be around one hour before we discovered him. But we were already gathered in the dining hall then. Not only did we see Yutaka-san, we didn’t even hear any strange noise. Even in this storm, it would be too unnatural not to hear anything.”
“Just what’s going on here?”
Haruhi said frustratingly. She crossed her arms and glared at me and Koizumi. It’s useless glaring at me! If you have any questions, ask the smiling hunk over there!
Koizumi spoke softly again as though it were a normal conversation,
“This isn’t some mystery, just a tragedy.”
I sure didn’t see anything tragic from the looks of your eyes.
“I believe it is a fact that Yutaka-san has killed Keiichi-san, or there would be no reason for him to escape.”
Well, yeah?
“I don’t know what argument they had or what the motive is, the thing is Yutaka-san has attacked Keiichi-san with a knife. He must’ve hidden the knife behind his back, then suddenly revealed it and stabbed with all his force. Keiichi-san must’ve been almost defenceless as he was taken by surprise.”
It’s as though you’ve witnessed the whole thing.
“But the edge of the blade probably hasn’t reached the heart. It probably didn’t even scratched his skin. The knife merely penetrated the notebook on Keiichi-san’s chest pocket.”
“Huh? What’s that supposed to mean?”
Haruhi frowned and asked,
“Then why did Keiichi-san die? Did someone else kill him?”
“No one killed him. There is no murderer in this case, Keiichi-san’s death was a pure accident.”
“Then what about Yutaka-san? Why did he run?”
“Because he thought he had killed someone.”
Koizumi replied casually and lifted his forefinger. Which super sleuth does he intend to turn into?
“Let me tell you what I think what has happened. Last night, Yutaka-san went to Keiichi-san with the intent of killing him. He stabbed Keiichi-san with his knife, but the knife was stuck in the notebook, so no fatal wound was made.”
I really had no idea what he was trying to say, I decided to just let him continue.
“But the trouble begins here. Keiichi-san truly believed he has been stabbed. Though the knife only penetrated the notebook, he could still feel the impact of the knife thrusting in. He must’ve been shocked after seeing the edge of the knife standing on his chest.”
I think I’m beginning to get where Koizumi was going. Hey, could it be……
“Being fooled by this illusion, Keiichi-san fainted. In this situation, a person would either fall sideways or backwards.”
Koizumi continued,
“Seeing all this, Yutaka-san also believed he has killed him. The rest is simple, he can only escape. This murder probably isn’t premeditated, but rather a killing motive that is borne of passion. That’s why he has to escape by speedboat in the middle of a heavy storm.”
“Huh? But if that’s the case……”
Koizumi interrupted Haruhi before she could continue,
“Please let me continue. The key is the actions Keiichi-san took after he fainted. He stayed unconscious till dawn, all the way till we came to knock on his door when we were wondering why he hasn’t got up.”
He was still alive then?
“Keiichi-san was startled by the knock and got up and walked near the door. But as he would usually feel ill after waking up, he must’ve felt drowsy then. As he walked towards the door under this state, he suddenly remembered.”
“Remembered what?” Haruhi asked. Koizumi replied to her with a smile,
“He remembered that he was killed by his brother. In a flash, the image of Yutaka-san wielding a knife reappeared in his mind, and Keiichi-san frantically locked the door.”
I couldn’t stand this any longer, so I cut in,
“Are you saying that’s the whole truth behind this sealed room?”
“Unfortunately, that’s what I believe. Keiichi-san had lost all sense of time after fainting, he probably thought Yutaka-san had returned to finish him off. I think it was only a few seconds from him locking the door to us holding the door knob.”
“If the killer had wanted to return to give him the finishing blow, why would he knock on the door intentionally?”
“Keiichi-san’s mind was very blurry then, so this was the swift conclusion he made with his half-conscious mind.”
“After locking the door, Keiichi-san tried to back off from the door, thinking what a dire situation he was in. That was when the tragedy happened.”
Koizumi shook his head, as if telling a sad story.
“Keiichi-san tripped and tumbled over like this.”
Koizumi bent his body and made a pose of tumbling forwards.
“As a result, the knife which had only penetrated into the notebook in his chest pocket was now thrust into his chest with the force of the floor, leaving only the hilt outside. The knife had gone straight into Keiichi-san’s heart, thereby killing him……”
Koizumi looked at me and Haruhi, whose jaws were opened like idiots, and said firmly,
“That is the truth.”
What did you say?
Keiichi-san died in such a ridiculous way? Is it really that simple? It was already strange enough for the knife to land right on top of the notebook, and it’s also puzzling for Yutaka-san to not know he actually didn’t kill anyone.
I tried to organize my thoughts, preparing to argue.
“AH!”
Haruhi suddenly shouted, that gave me a fright. Why’d you shout all of a sudden like that?
“But, Koizumi-kun……”
Haruhi said half way then stiffened up. Her face seems shocked, what was it that made her shout so loud? Was it something Koizumi said that she couldn’t accept?
Haruhi looked at me. Once our eyes met, she looked away and was about to look at Koizumi, but then changed her mind and decided to look at the ceiling for some reason.
“Um……nothing. That’s got to be the case. Hmm, how should I put it?”
She muttered incomprehensibly, then fell silent.
Asahina-san remained sleeping, while Nagato looked at Koizumi with a blank stare.
The meeting was adjourned for now. We decided to return to our rooms. According to Koizumi, once the storm’s subsided, the police would come over at once. So we began to pack up and prepared to leave before the police arrived.
After spending some time in the room, I carried a lot of questions and went inside one of the rooms.
“Yes?”
Koizumi lifted his head as he was folding his clothes and smiled at me.
“We need to talk.”
There was only one reason I visited Koizumi.
“I cannot understand.”
That was natural, as some of Koizumi’s deductions were full of holes that couldn’t explain itself.
“Based on your deductions, the body should be lying face down, but Keiichi-san was found lying face up. How do you explain that?”
Koizumi stood up and faced me smiling.
This smiling idiot answered as a matter-of-factly,
“That’s simple, that’s because the deduction I told everyone wasn’t the truth.”
I wasn’t surprised by that.
“I guess you’re right. The only one who would believe your deduction would be the unconscious Asahina-san. If I had asked Nagato, she would probably tell me the whole truth, but that’s cheating and I don’t like doing things that way. So why don’t you tell me your real thoughts on this?”
The smile which has distorted Koizumi’s face now made a low and irritating laughter.
“Then let me tell you! The truth that I told everyone was correct up to the middle, only the last part was wrong.”
I kept quiet.
“It was correct up to when Keiichi-san walked towards the door with the knife on his chest. He then instinctively locked the door. I then made up the rest.”
Koizumi gestured me to sit down, I ignored that request.
“Looks like you’ve noticed, I must’ve underestimated you.”
“Cut the crap and continue.”
Koizumi shrugged his shoulders,
“We rammed the door with our bodies and burst it open. To be precise, that would have been me, you and Arakawa-san. Then when the door burst opened, we fell hard inwards.”
I remained silent and urged him to go on.
“You must’ve realized what that would result in. Keiichi-san, who was standing in front of the door, was hit face on by the door, and the knife as well.”
I tried to visualize such a scene.
“From this collision, the knife then killed Keiichi-san.”
Koizumi sat on the bed again and looked at me as though challenging me.
“In other words, the killers would be……”
Koizumi smiled and said as though talking to himself,
“Me, you and Arakawa-san.”
I looked down at Koizumi. If there was a mirror, I bet I could see myself with cold eyes. Koizumi ignored my reaction and went on,
Volume 3 - The Boredom of Suzumiya Haruhi Page 18