“…Ah…”
A few seconds went by before he regained consciousness. Ranpo stared up at the ceiling, blinking.
“Behold. The world is a new place,” Fukuzawa said, welcoming him.
“Huh…? What just happened…? These are keeping my skill in check…? I don’t feel any different, though… Do I…? Do I not…? My head feels kind of funny…”
“The glasses have accepted you,” claimed Fukuzawa with a profound note in his voice.
He wore the expression of an enlightened being living atop a sacred mountain. Deep down, however, he was taken aback by just how outlandish his claim was.
“Use these to control your skill. From now on, you are skilled detective Ranpo Edogawa. Use your skill to uncover the truth. Destroy evil hidden in darkness. You can do that, for you are the greatest detective in the world.”
“I, uh… ‘G-greatest detective in the world’?”
“Yes. The greatest detective in the world,” repeated Fukuzawa as if he were imprinting that thought on a newly born chick’s mind. “Isn’t it all clear now? The world isn’t a frightening place. Everyone else isn’t a monster. They’re just stupider than you.”
Ranpo caught his breath. He traced his finger around the glasses’ frames as he pondered. “But… No, could it be…? So back then, and then, and that time… Everyone was just stupid? They just didn’t know any better?”
“Exactly. Listen, Ranpo. The world is full of fools. They don’t know how to look at things. They’re babies who can’t even hold up their own heads yet. Nobody bears any ill will toward you. Do you think babies hate others? Do you think they would try to confuse someone to trick them?”
“…No,” muttered Ranpo with his head hanging low. “So that one time… And that other time… All the pain I’ve suffered… But when you put it that way… I see…” Hunched over with a downcast gaze, Ranpo slightly lifted up his head. It was as if he were slowly breaking out of his cocoon. “I see… So that’s why. Nobody hates me.”
“Nobody hates you.”
Ranpo suddenly hopped to his feet. His beaming smile stretched from ear to ear.
You could practically hear the light bulb go off in his head.
“Ha-ha-ha… Ha-ha-ha-ha! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! It all makes sense! So everyone is just a big baby! Well, of course they are! The world isn’t a disgusting place! Not at all! It’s just a simple, stupid place!”
Ranpo laughed in glee. He stood up straight, virtually radiating with a powerful glow like the morning sun. His expression was brighter than Fukuzawa had ever seen before. Ranpo was overjoyed with his rebirth. Then he declared, “Looks like I’ve gotta protect these stupid toddlers myself!” Ranpo swiftly turned around and looked at Fukuzawa. “Go back to the theater without me, old guy! I’ve got something I need to do. I can probably still prevent the murder from happening!”
“…What?”
“The killer is going to do what he said he would! That much is crystal clear! So I’m gonna use that to my advantage! Now go! I need you right next to the stage!”
Ranpo steadily pushed Fukuzawa forward from behind. Fukuzawa had no idea what was going on. His stream-of-consciousness fib somehow got Ranpo to understand he was gifted a moment ago, but now it felt as if he was far past that.
What was going on? The killer was about to strike?
“Wait. But if we do that—”
“Trust me! Just go!”
Ranpo was pushing Fukuzawa even harder now. Losing the initiative, Fukuzawa was slowly pushed into the hall, unable to even fight back.
But…if the killer really was about to make a move, wouldn’t it be dangerous to leave Ranpo alone?
Just then, the chime signaling the curtain’s rise rang.
“I can already see it—the enemy’s target, their plan! I can see it all! I’ll be just fine. Go on ahead. I want you to keep an eye on the audience!”
Fukuzawa hesitated. It was wonderful that Ranpo was motivated, but if what he said was true, then that would mean there was a killer lurking in the theater. There was no way trying to thwart the enemy’s plan wouldn’t be dangerous.
He looked at Ranpo’s expression. It was strong; it was the face of someone who overcame. He’d overcome colossal walls and broken through the chains that shackled him. That would make this his first job as a new man. Fukuzawa had to trust him. To do anything else would be disrespectful.
“All right. Be careful,” Fukuzawa said with a nod.
“I will!” exclaimed Ranpo, his voice projecting far and wide. “After all, I’m the one who protects the foolish! I’m the greatest detective in the world!”
Fukuzawa returned to the dark theater hall alone.
After doing something so out of character, he felt like his head was full of bricks. He wasn’t the least bit confident what he had done was right. After all, Fukuzawa hadn’t worked this hard to do something for another person these past few years. Maybe a few days from now, he would realize that he had actually made a grave mistake and that this lie had completely ruined Ranpo. Nothing could be said for sure just yet, though. Ranpo’s smile, however, was radiant. All he could do was accept that as proof to justify what he had done.
Fukuzawa walked down the aisle while looking around. The play had already started, so everyone had their eyes glued to the stage. There was a white screen at the back of the stage that projected the background scenery. This performance used real furniture as props, such as desks and shelves, but the supplemental background was a video being projected onto a screen instead of the usual painting. It was probably to cut down on costs; the screen itself would sometimes warp like quicksand, playing a role in stage effects. Standing before the screen now was the lead, Murakami, who was facing the void alone for his performance.
It was a scene of sorrow as he pleaded to the void, apparently crying out to the angel who continued to slaughter them. If Ranpo was right, then someone was going to be murdered at some time during the play. Ranpo told Fukuzawa to stand as close to the stage as possible; if Fukuzawa was going to trust him, then that would be here. The stage was right before him.
Regardless, was the killer really going to shamelessly commit a crime in front of hundreds of people? How would they even do that? Everyone had their possessions checked at the entrance before the show, so it would have been impossible to sneak in a gun. Did they smuggle in a blowgun and darts? Even then, there was quite a distance to the stage. They would have to be as skilled as a ninja from the Sengoku period to do that. Were they going to rush the stage and kill someone, then? That would work to Fukuzawa’s benefit, since he could jump in and prevent it.
Whatever the case, this was a crucial moment. Something was about to happen here. Fukuzawa couldn’t keep his eyes off the audience for even a second. He listened carefully, but not a single voice could be heard in the crowd. All he could hear were people adjusting themselves and clearing their throats. Obviously, the young man’s voice onstage was the loudest.
“Forgive us, Warrior Angel of the Aureola! Otherwise, show yourself before us!” Murakami yelled out from center stage. His character was exhausted after wandering for years, so he was wearing a raggedy, grubby sack. Nonetheless, his eyes were ablaze at the invisible sorrow as if they were balls of life. “I am not afraid to die! If someone must be judged, then pierce my heart! Unsheathe the Heavenly Blade, which was once mine!”
Fukuzawa walked toward the audience seating while watching the performance. Murakami was good. It was clear why he said he would kill someone to master the art of performance; he excelled in his craft. He cried out as if his soul were broken; his eyes welled with emotion that seemed ready to overflow as tears of blood. There was a charm to his voice, and the silence between his lines was almost more effective than the lines themselves as he pleaded with the audience. There was not even a hint of the haughty man from the dressing room. His expression was different. His subtle habits were different. Perhaps nobody would even doubt it if someone said that was Murakami’s twin
brother. Murakami lifted his hands into the air.
“I know why you won’t show yourself! You plan on killing everyone and leaving me here alone, yes? You wanted to show me the ugliness of man as my friends doubted and despised one another, yes? Then allow me to reveal your sin! I will find the key to the heavens and expose your sin of envy to—”
Murakami suddenly paused midsentence.
A blade was piercing his chest.
It was a white blade around the length of an arm, sticking out of his sternum. His costume was marred and torn open.
The blade withdrew. Fresh blood spewed from the wound as he grunted.
And just like that, he fell forward.
Nobody moved. Nobody could react. It didn’t feel real. Everyone believed that this was part of the play. Fukuzawa, on the other hand, could feel his brain turning numb and cold.
This wasn’t in the script.
Fukuzawa rushed over almost immediately the moment Murakami fell. He sprinted to the stage and swiftly hurdled up the stairs, landing on the spotlighted center stage before running over to Murakami. The young man was lying facedown. The back of his costume was stained as the blood spread across the floor. Fukuzawa touched the blood and checked how it felt; he knew exactly how it was supposed to feel and smell. This wasn’t theatrical blood. It was real.
Murakami was no longer breathing. His face was pale and slightly twitching. Fukuzawa checked his pulse, but it was faint. If the blade passed through his back from where he was hemorrhaging, then it would be safe to say it was a fatal wound.
But…
Where was the weapon?
“Call an ambulance!” Fukuzawa yelled out to a performer in the wing. “Tell the officers in the front to seal off the exits!”
The buzzing in the audience spread like wildfire.
What happened? What in the world happened to him?
Fukuzawa looked around. He had checked the stage front to back once already. There was no device that could have shot a blade. And yet, Murakami was impaled. Fukuzawa couldn’t possibly have overlooked a blade even if it had appeared for only a moment. However, there was no weapon anywhere in sight.
It was as if he were stabbed by an invisible angel.
“An angel shall bring death, in the truest sense of the word, to the performer.”
There was no weapon onstage. Fukuzawa checked underneath Murakami’s body, but…nothing. Maybe above? Fukuzawa swiftly looked up. A row of white lights hanging above the stage was making it hard to see the catwalk, but he caught a glimpse of a metal boxlike object reflecting the light. Was it some kind of device? It was positioned right above Murakami. Did a blade drop from there?
However, the device almost immediately vanished into the darkness. Was someone up there? No, if anyone was there, Fukuzawa would have seen them regardless of how dark it was in the rafters. Then where was the killer? Suddenly, Fukuzawa thought back to what Ranpo had told him.
“I want you to keep an eye on the audience!”
Fukuzawa promptly looked back. On the stage, he had a clear view of the entire audience. Most of them looked as if they had no idea what was going on. Half of them simply stared vacantly, while the other half scowled at Fukuzawa for disturbing the performance.
Was the killer among them?
“Nobody move!” roared Fukuzawa. “This isn’t part of the act! Do not get out of your chairs! Keep an eye on the person next to you! If anyone runs or hides, then inform me immediately!”
A stir abruptly rippled through the audience, and fear spread like ice.
“Is he with the police?”
“What is he talking about?”
“Wait… Is this…? But…”
It was a scream that changed everything.
“Nooo! Tokio!”
A woman came tumbling over from the wing with a maniacal shriek. It was a performer from the troupe—one of the women Fukuzawa and Ranpo had talked with. She rushed over to Murakami as she screamed.
“No! This can’t be happening! Nooo!!”
A piercing scream even louder than anything before shot through the theater hall. It was the first domino; the audience’s focus shifted from the play to reality and from the ordinary to the unusual. Several people began shouting all at once.
“Th-the actor was stabbed! Somebody killed him! He was murdered!”
“Wait! Don’t move!”
A few people made a dash for the exit; Fukuzawa’s voice didn’t reach them.
A man had been stabbed before their very eyes, and he didn’t know how. But more importantly, the audience’s safety wasn’t guaranteed. It wasn’t reason that told him this; it was Fukuzawa’s instincts.
Fukuzawa then rushed into the audience seating. The killer could have been using this opportunity to escape. In fact, this would be their only chance to escape, since the police were about to cordon off the area. Whoever tried to run would be a suspect. Fukuzawa started grabbing people crowding around the exit and throwing them to the ground, but after one person was taken down, another would come. The chaos only continued. As the crowd violently jostled him, Fukuzawa repeatedly yelled for them to calm down.
Nonetheless, the confusion spread throughout the theater, rendering everyone into wild animals.
Fukuzawa dispiritedly took a seat in the lobby. The theater’s atmosphere had completely transformed. Staff members and police busily came and went as they discussed matters gravely. The theater had already been cordoned off, and the uniformed officers had closed off the building itself. The staff had found people trying to escape, but they brought them back. Therefore, the killer would still have to be inside, no longer able to flee.
The situation in the theater was quickly dealt with. Ms. Egawa must have informed everyone what to do in case of an emergency. Murakami was taken out in an ambulance, but a few other performers mentioned that he died on the way to the hospital. It was a fatal wound. Fukuzawa had witnessed the moment Murakami was killed. The width of the blade and the amount of blood—it was as if he had been stabbed by an invisible blade.
What in the world was going on?
Fukuzawa knitted his eyebrows.
Where was Ranpo? He disappeared before the curtains raised and hadn’t come back. The tragic event took place only minutes after he ran off, exclaiming he was going to stop the killer, but it appeared that not even Ranpo could make it in time. It made sense, though, given the short window he’d had.
But then why hadn’t Ranpo returned?
The bad feeling in Fukuzawa’s chest was like a weight dragging him down.
What if the murder didn’t occur because Ranpo didn’t find the killer in time?
What if Ranpo had used his inherent gift to find the killer, but then something happened?
What if Ranpo tried to stop the killer? If he tried to get in the killer’s way, then that would make him a threat.
Knives and bloodshed—a young boy who didn’t even know how to defend himself went to find the killer alone.
Fukuzawa couldn’t sit around and wait any longer. He’d thought he might run into Ranpo if he waited in the lobby, but now he needed to go search for him.
Fukuzawa stood up and began to walk. Ranpo didn’t have enough time to go too far, so asking around if anyone saw him would be his best bet. Fukuzawa visualized the theater’s layout in his head. There were three entrances: the front entrance used by the patrons, the dressing room entrance used by the actors and staff, and the service entrance used to transport stage equipment. The front entrance would take playgoers into the lobby, which would lead you to the theater hall and ticket counter. Then the dressing room entrance led to the dressing room, rehearsal room, office, and meeting room. Finally, the service entrance opened into the storage chamber and warehouse with a passageway to backstage. It wasn’t impossible to come and go through these entranceways, but they were essentially closed spaces. Namely, the theatergoers’ territory and the troupe’s territory were segregated.
If Ranpo disappeared near one
of these entranceways, the most suspicious place would be around the unoccupied storage chamber and warehouse. The front entrance was occasionally used by people other than patrons, and performers were waiting for their part around the dressing room, which meant there would be witnesses. Furthermore, the storage chamber and warehouse were closest to where that puzzling murder took place. If there was a place to set up a remote murdering device, then that would be the place, and that would be where Ranpo went to stop it.
Fukuzawa passed by the seats in the theater hall and headed for the stage. Anxious customers sat as they were told to and nervously waited for the situation to change. The panic was gone, but the unusual circumstances still left people in fear. A few theater workers were interviewing the sitting customers one by one, asking them what they had seen and if they noticed anyone gone.
Was the killer among them? Or were they a member of the troupe? Perhaps it was someone who worked at the theater? Fukuzawa suppressed the urge to grab each one of them by the collar and question them as he crossed over the scene of the crime toward backstage.
The backstage area was bare and wide. Wooden boxes and boards were lined up with lighting apparatuses. The two steel wires that ran across the floor must have been rails for swiftly transporting the set.
Fukuzawa looked up at the ceiling from the stage. Right after the murder, he had looked up and seen some sort of metal box past the lights. If that was some sort of remotely controlled device that dropped blades, then it would all make sense.
But there was nothing on the catwalk. He checked backstage just in case, but there was nothing there, either. Were his eyes playing tricks on him? Was there no metal box? Or did the killer get rid of it immediately after the murder? But a device that could drop knives and immediately pull them back up had to be large. If someone had carried such a big object, then Fukuzawa would have seen it. Right as he started to walk away, there was a sudden commotion coming from the lobby. A cop came rushing over before whispering something in a flurry to a worker near the stage.
The Untold Origins of the Detective Agency Page 13