Time flies by and up next are Asahina-san and Nagato. Asahina-san looks cute doing just about anything as she struggles to find the facial parts with her shaking hands and by the end has made a funny, but very cute portrait, while surprisingly Nagato also completes an ultra-modernist picture. Of course, judging from Nagato’s expression, she has no idea why it is that her own self-portrait tickles at people’s funny bone as she stares at her own seemingly ‘happy’ work.
Just as we are dueling to the bitter end with the Fukuwarai pictures…
“Everyone, it is almost three o’clock,”
Koizumi suddenly announces.
“I would like to give everyone a recess for now. Please stay here from three till four o’clock. If anyone needs to go to the washroom then please do so right now.”
Save Nagato, Yutaka-san, Koizumi and me, everyone else has left the raised floor. Nagato studies her own portrait while Yutaka-san stares at Nagato’s profile with interest.
I ask Koizumi:
“When will the murder occur?”
“Let’s not talk about that for now. Take a look outside the window ok?” He points to the window. ”You can see that it is snowing outside right? Please remember that. Even if it weren’t snowing, I would have liked you to treat it as such, but things are actually falling into exact place so there’s no need for that.
Just as I start to examine the reassuring smile of Koizumi, the gang of four girls have returned. Yutaka-san seems to be the most likely suspect. There is no one else that fits the profile better, although I have yet to discover anything odd in his behavior.
Haruhi steps right into the hearth.
“Koizumi-kun, let’s play that next. Would you get it for me?”
“Sure, is this it?”
Koizumi heads toward the bag and I follow him to see just what kind of hand-made game gadgets he is about to dig out. Just as I look from behind him as he digs around in the bag, he quickly turns back and looks at me and as if he is doing magic, takes out a large sheet of paper from the bag.
“Please give this to Suzumiya-san for me, thank you.”
That folded piece of paper fluttered with the hot winds from the electric heater. After expanding it, I suddenly get this odd feeling. It isn’t over this enormous piece of paper though. Before me is Koizumi who is putting the bag down and beside me is the heater. Shamisen is sleeping soundly on the cushion to my back.
This scene is not really bizarre, but I keep feeling that something is up with this. The oddest part would be that Koizumi seems to be anxious when I stick with him.
“Kyon, get over here! Stop standing like an idiot!”
I head back to the hearth rather unwillingly and Koizumi joins us soon after.
The hour hand is now exactly pointed at three o’clock.
“I made this with Koizumi-kun.”
Haruhi is so swollen with pride that she’s almost up in the air and is this close from having pride written all over her face.
“This the Sugoroku custom made for the SOS Brigade. I made it square by square personally, so be grateful as you play on it.”
By the way, the first square that I park on after the first dice toss has the following words written on it:
“Only to Kyon, thirty sit-ups.”
There are also ‘Play strip rock, paper, scissor with the next person that comes to a stop’, ‘say five different things to make the chief happy’, ‘honestly answer everyone’s question (things that put people on the spot)’ and so forth. This Haruhi-made version of the game has rules that spell out punishment game.
With the rules set out as such, the players have to oblige. Asahina-san and Yutaka-san stop at the rock, paper, scissor square, but Asahina-san has no idea what the name of the game is and totally freezes up, so I take over instead. As for the other events, they are almost like a parade made to torture me. An hour after the game had started with Tsuruya-san reaching the end point, I am about to drop dead.
I am sure that Koizumi is not intervening out of pity, but seeing him raising his hand to comment is an enormous relief to me.
“Everyone, it is now exactly four o’clock.”
Koizumi announces like a live show announcer.
“Free activity time now begins. Please return by four thirty. By the way, please refrain from going out. Of course, that applies to anyone who is not the murderer.”
“Well then, excuse me.”
Tamaru Yutaka-san gives a smile laced with hidden meanings as he leaves his seat.
“I am going to open up my luggage in my room. Hmm~ I should return in five minutes.”
Yutaka-san leaves the floor after having said that. “We’re off to the kitchen.” Haruhi and Tsuruya-san also take off. Within a few minutes they return with desserts and juice. None of us has left the hearth save for them, since no one wants to be wrongfully accused as the perpetrator of the crime, since that’s the worst thing to have happen to you.
Note that Yutaka-san has indeed returned in about five minutes.
The time is just past four thirty.
Mori-san has come to the public area and informs us that:
“Keiichi-sama is not answering my calls.”
She acts out an unsettled look.
“I’ve tried to wake him in the small hut, but there’s no answer and the door is locked from within.”
“The moment has finally arrived.”
Haruhi stands up full of spirit.
“Let us go see the situation at the scene.”
Haruhi marches over to the walkway like the guide of a tour group, with us trailing behind.
When we arrive at the courtyard and open the door, we find enough outdoor shoes for all of us. Arakawa is already at the door of the hut when we step onto the corridor leading to the hut.
“What’s the situation?”
“I see that Mori has informed you all. It is as she has said, the door is locked from inside. The key and Keiichi-san are both in the room. By the way, there is no spare key. That sums up the situation.”
“That’s it.” Koizumi starts to explain: “There is no need to break down the door. Everyone just has to think along the lines of there being no spare key. Arakawa-san, key please.”
Arakawa the butler extends his palm and a key is in his hand.
“Pay no heed to this key that shouldn’t have existed.”
Haruhi steps right in the moment that Koizumi has opened the door.
“Hi.”
Keiichi-san waved at us with one hand. The elder Tamaru who is lying on the bedsheets points to his chest and says:
“I have been stabbed again.”
On his chest was the handle of a dagger. It’s one of those common little toys that you can buy just about anywhere to scare people with.
“Who stabbed you?” Haruhi asks.
“That I can’t tell you. I am a corpse by now. Dead men don’t talk.”
With that, Keiichi spreads his arms and lies flat on the tatami.
“Everyone please listen to me.” Koizumi starts again: “Please observe the surrounding. The key to the hut is on the desk. It would be the one that Keiichi-san was given when he arrived. To put it another way, the killer did not leave through the door.”
Koizumi proceeds to the window by the engawa.
“This window is closed, but not locked. That is to say, the killer escaped through this window. In addition, notice the thick layer of snow outside.”
Koizumi opens the window and we all take a look at the courtyard.
“Let me explain the perpetrator’s escape path. The killer no doubt must have escaped through here if not through the door. To walk on snow must mean that there’s footprints, but there is no such mark on the snow. Please look above the window. This hut has an overhanging roof on all four corners. A thin layer of snow has accumulated beneath them. It looks to be that the killer must have gone along the field beneath the roof or along the outer wall of the hut and back to the corridor.”
I stare at th
e ground that Koizumi points to and then at the sky. Snowflakes are drifting down gradually.
“The footprints of the killer have been covered by the snowfall. From the rate of accumulation… yes, let me make the point that the footprints won’t disappear with less than thirty minutes of snowfall.”
Koizumi seems to seek everybody’s consensus on the matter.
“This is my scenario setting, so please forgive me. Dead men won’t talk and I, as the game planner, sure won’t lie about anything either.”
“Oh~”
Haruhi looks at the snow and then at Koizumi, her face sinks as she hugs her chest.
“That’s it?”
Koizumi gives no response and only merely points to the sheets. Within the soft quilt, something seems to moving about. Could it be…
Haruhi is the one that moves the quilt out of the way, and she says the following on the object:
“Shamisen?”
The thing that narrows its eyes from the sudden exposure to light is none other than my cat.
We take our place over the hearth once more.
Mori-san and Arakawa-san are standing perfectly still behind us. Only Keiichi-san the victim has done his duty and by now should be leisurely enjoying hot coffee over at some restaurant.
“Let me summarize the key points. Keiichi-san went into the hut for a nap at about two o’clock. The body was discovered only recently, at around four thirty. The perpetrator must have committed the crime within the last two and a half hours. The entrance of the hut is locked from inside and the key is in the room. Let me remind you that there is no spare key. The window to the side is unlocked, which means that the killer must have escaped through the window.”
The above is Koizumi’s explanation.
“It is impossible to head to the corridor through the window without a trace. Having no footprint indicates that the original footprints have been covered by snow.”
Koizumi looks at the calico that my sister is hugging.
“Lastly, Shamisen is present on the scene of the crime along with the victim. Please think back to when you have last seen the cat, before we have discovered the body and the cat.”
The last time that I saw him would be when Koizumi had announced that we could head to the washroom. He was sound asleep, curled up in a ball, when Koizumi took out Haruhi’s self-made sugoroku punishment game.
“Eh? Really?”
Haruhi pokes at her forehead with a finger.
“I didn’t notice Shamisen for the last three hours. Was he really there?”
“I did see…” Asahina-san shows reservation with her words. “Yes, I’d seen it when we were playing the Fukuwarai. It was lying on the cushion and sleeping.”
“He was asleep when I last saw him too!” Tsuruya-san says. “Just as I was heading to the washroom, I saw the kitty laying there, curled up in a ball, but I don’t remember if I saw him when we started with Fukuwarai.”
Based on everyone’s testimonies, I seem to be the last person to have seen Shamisen. Basically, Shamisen has no alibi from three till four thirty.
Could it have been that Shamisen woke up in the middle of our game and went for a leisurely walk? And after walking round and round he headed to Keiichi-san’s hut and dug into the bed in order to catch some sleep…
Hmm? No way.
“I do not think that the cat would leave on his own to go to the hut.” I propose. “He was freezing to death just by being outside for a little bit and he was freaked out by the snow. That and there’s no way that he could open the door to the courtyard by himself.”
“That is true.”
Koizumi nods.
“Therefore someone must have taken him there. It would either have been Keiichi-san or the killer.”
“It couldn’t have been Keiichi-san.”
Haruhi extends her neck.
“He mentioned before that he is allergic to cats, although it might have been too dead obvious, but it does answer that question, almost as if it were said intentionally.”
“Of course, for that is the setting to the drama. If such a setting is not present things will get problematic. That is to say, the one that had taken the cat into the hut must have been the culprit, which is a hint in itself.”
Haruhi raises her hand regarding Koizumi’s speech.
“Wait a second. How about this? Shamisen was here at three, and he’s gone right after that. The killer must have left the house before four-thirty, at the latest. Given that you need thirty minutes to cover up the tracks, the time of the crime has to be pushed back to around four. That would mean that the killer must have taken Shamisen somewhere between three to four, which would also be the time that Keiichi-san was killed.”
“True, definitely quite logical.”
“As if that was logical. This doesn’t add up. Only Tsuruya-san and I left here at four, but I was with her at all times, so I couldn’t have been the culprit. Although Yutaka-san is suspicious, he couldn’t have done it with that thirty minutes of time required to cover the tracks.”
“That’s true.”
“True my ass! That would mean that everyone’s got an alibi since we’ve all been staying put over here for that one hour.”
There are eight of us that were playing the Fukuwarai at three, being myself, Haruhi, Asahina-san, Nagato, Koizumi, my sister, Tsuruya-san, and Yutaka-san. Since the break before three until the start of free time at four, none of us had left. The only thing that had mysteriously vanished would be the cat.
“Could the killer have been Arakawa-san or Mori-san?”
We decide to call the two attendants over for interrogation. Haruhi asks as if she is a prosecutor:
“Well then, Arakawa-san, what were you doing at three o’clock?”
Butler Arakawa returns with a polite bow.
“I have been at the kitchen since two o’clock, cleaning up the dishes from lunch and preparing for tonight’s dinner as well as making snacks and preparing the ingredients for tomorrow’s breakfast.”
“Were there any witnesses?”
“If I may.” Mori-san in maid attire shows a smile on her beautiful face. “I was alongside Arakawa as we prepared the meals. He did not leave my sight until four-thirty when I went to wake Keiichi-sama.”
“Likewise.” Arakawa-san says. “At least from three to four-thirty, I am positive that Mori did not leave the kitchen at all, if you would accept my testimony.”
“That is to say that you two are providing alibis for each other.”
Haruhi nods her head.
“But that leaves the possibility that you two share the crime. It is entirely possible that one of you is covering for the other.”
Haruhi’s glimmering eyes turn to Koizumi as if she is demanding another explanation.
The premise of this murder case is that it has a sole assailant and that both Arakawa-san and Mori-san will not make any false statements.
“That would be impossible. The premise of this murder case is that it has a sole assailant and that both Arakawa-san and Mori-san will not make any false statements. By the way, the two of them did not commit the crime. The guarantee is that my word, as the scenario designer, is right.” Says Koizumi.
“If so, who can the killer be?” Haruhi seems happy. “Everyone has a flawless alibi, so wouldn’t that mean that nobody killed Keiichi-san?”
Koizumi seems to be a little bit pleased. Haruhi has really scratched where he itches. He shows a smile:
“That is why I would like to ask everyone to think about it and solve the mystery, or this would not be a detective mystery game.”
“The first step is to think of the reason behind the culprit using Shamisen.”
Haruhi, who has risen to chair the deduction meeting pokes at the nose of the lazy calico that my sister is embracing.
“Otherwise there’s no meaning then. Just what could the killer have been up to that makes him ask for help from a cat?”
If the cat could speak once more, he’d hav
e the best testimony, for he is a witness.
“Definitely. I feel as if that there must be a reason for Shamisen to be present on the scene of the crime.”
I know that much without having you spelling it out. The real headache is the rationale behind all of this.
“Kitty, kitty, umm~” Asahina talks to herself in such a cute way, as she puts a hand over the head of the cat. “Kitty, calico, mew. Umm~ umm, little kitty, eat cat food.”
There’s not much sense to that.
Tsuruya-san, who seems to have a very keen sense of observation, sticks out her tongue and her eyes slants upward just like the mascot of a brand of candy. (note: That would be Peko-chan of Fujiya) Maybe that’s just how she looks when she is in thinking mode. She shows this most interesting look and hugs her chest in silence.
Nagato is almost synonymous to silence. Although I’d say that she should keep quiet given the current state of affairs, I dare say that Nagato has already seen through Koizumi’s stupid plot. Let’s hope that she will jump in when everyone else gives up on the deduction game.
“The real key here is Shamisen’s disappearance. If we assume that he wasn’t there in the beginning… that’d be a sealed room mystery? A temporarily sealed room made possible by the snowfall… hmm?”
Haruhi who was thinking aloud suddenly lifts her head and stares at Koizumi’s smile and then gives a glance over towards Yutaka-san’s collected expression, then at Shamisen’s sleepy face.
“Temporary sealed room… alibi… ahh, I get it.”
Haruhi sudden turns my way.
“Kyon, what do you think of when we’re talking about alibis?”
“Police drama.” I start to regret it the moment I utter that out. “Ur… two hour detective mystery theater.” The comment that comes right after only makes me all the more embarrassed. As I think of what to say next, the clock ticks by a second at a time.
“It’s a conspiracy!”
Haruhi answers her own question.
“What else could it have been other than a conspiracy to provide an alibi? Shamisen is a setup to give the culprit an alibi.”
Volume 6 - The Wavering of Suzumiya Haruhi Page 14