The Decagon House Murders

by Yukito Ayatsuji

  He had called the home of Nakamura Chiori’s grandfather. A friendly middle-aged woman, probably the housekeeper, had answered the phone and Kawaminami had introduced himself as a friend of Chiori from university.

  It would have been awkward for him to call out of the blue and immediately start to grill the woman, but, with tact and patience, he had managed to get confirmation that Chiori’s father was indeed the Nakamura Seiji of the Tsunojima incident, and had also managed to obtain the address of Nakamura Kōjirō, Seiji’s younger brother. He’d learnt of the existence of Kōjirō while going through newspaper articles about the incident.

  Kōjirō was living in the Kannawa district in Beppu. He was a teacher at a high school there and, because it was the spring holiday, he would probably be at home.

  Kawaminami’s family home also used to be in Beppu. He could easily find his way there, he thought, as his curiosity grew.

  He didn’t even consider making a phone call first, but decided to head for Kōjirō’s house immediately.

  Kannawa is home to several of Beppu’s famous hot springs, known as “Hells”. In the wide clear sky he could see white plumes of steam rising from the rows of houses and the gutters of the sloping roads. To the left he could see the black foothills of Mount Tsurumi.

  Past a small shopping area, the streets quickly became silent. The neighbourhood was full of inns, hostels and rental villas for both short- and long-term visitors, who came to the hot springs for medical purposes. As he had been given the exact address on the phone, he managed to find his destination without any trouble.

  It was a nice one-storey house. On the other side of a low hedge, flowers like yellow broom, white meadowsweet and pink quince were already showing the colours of spring.

  Kawaminami went through the lattice-windowed gate and followed the stone steps through the front garden. He took a deep breath and pushed the doorbell. Moments later, a round baritone voice came from the other side of the door.

  “Who is it?”

  The man who appeared did not fit this traditional Japanese house at all. He wore a white open-necked shirt under a brown cardigan and charcoal-grey trousers. His hair had been brushed back casually and was streaked with grey.

  “Excuse me, are you Nakamura Kōjirō?”

  “Yes.”

  “Er… My name is Kawaminami. I was in the same college club as Nakamura Chiori. I’m sorry for coming here like this out of the blue.”

  Behind his horn-rimmed glasses, Kōjirō’s clean-cut face softened.

  “A member of K— University’s Mystery Club? And you’re here because?…”

  “I received this curious letter today.”

  Kōjirō took the letter. After scanning the orderly row of characters that spelt the sender’s name, his eyebrows shot up and he took another look at Kawaminami.

  “By all means come inside. A friend is here, but don’t mind him. I’m afraid, since I live here alone, I can’t offer you very much in the way of food.”

  Kawaminami was led to a traditional tatami mat room towards the rear of the house. The room was L-shaped, consisting of two six-tatami rooms joined together. The paper wall panels that had originally separated the rooms had been removed to form a twelve-tatami room. The part in front was used as a living room and reception area. On a dark-green carpet stood a sofa set of the same colour. The part in the back overlooked a garden to the right and was being used as a study. Kawaminami could see several bookcases reaching to the ceiling and a big desk. The rooms were so tidy it was hard to believe a single man lived there.

  “Shimada, we have a guest.”

  The friend Kōjirō addressed was sitting on a rattan rocking chair in the front room, facing out towards the garden.

  “This is Kawaminami from K— U.’s detective-fiction club. And this is my friend Shimada Kiyoshi.”

  “Detective fiction?” Shimada asked and he jumped up from his seat. In the process the rocking chair struck his legs and, groaning softly, he fell back into it.

  “Er, I actually quit the club last year.”

  “Hmm.”

  Shimada rubbed his legs with a grimace and said:

  “So what brings you here to dear old Kō?”

  “This,” said Kōjirō, and he passed Kawaminami’s letter to Shimada, who stopped rubbing his legs when he saw the name of the sender and took a hard look at Kawaminami.

  “Mind if I read it?”

  “Not at all.”

  “To tell you the truth,” Kōjirō said, “I’ve received a similar letter.”

  “What?!”

  Kōjirō walked to the study desk in the back, picked up a letter lying on top of a red-brown desk mat and passed it to Kawaminami.

  Kawaminami studied the front and back of the envelope. The same envelope, the same postmark, the same typed letters as appeared on the one he had received. And the sender was “Nakamura Seiji” as well.

  “May I look inside?”

  Kōjirō nodded in silence.

  Chiori was murdered.

  That was all. Although the text was different, it had also been typed using a word processor on the same high-grade B5-sized paper.

  Kawaminami, his eyes fixed on the letter, was at a loss for words. A mysterious letter from the dead. He had guessed that every member who had been present at last year’s after-party had been sent the same letter, but even this man, Nakamura Kōjirō, had received one.

  “What could it mean?”

  “I’ve no idea,” Kōjirō replied. “I’m as shocked as you are. I was just saying to Shimada that it must be a practical joke in very bad taste, and how some people have too much time on their hands. And then you turn up.”

  “It’s not just me. Other club members also got the letter.”

  “Well, well.”

  “Is it possible that this Nakamura Seiji—excuse me, your brother—is still alive?”

  “Impossible.” Kōjirō shook his head decisively. “As you know, my brother died last autumn. I was the one who had to identify the body. It was horrible—sorry, but I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “So does that mean that this letter is really just a prank?”

  “I can’t think of any other explanation. My brother died six months ago. That’s the honest truth. And I’m afraid I don’t believe in ghosts.”

  “What do you think about the contents of the letter?”

  “Well, I…”

  A worried look came over Kōjirō’s face.

  “I know what happened to Chiori, but as far as I’m concerned it was just an unfortunate accident. She was my little niece, so of course it feels as though she was taken from us unfairly, but I don’t hate you for what happened. What I really can’t forgive, though, is that someone is using the name of my brother and sending these letters around as some sort of sick joke.”

  “Is it really just a joke?” muttered Kawaminami. He wasn’t convinced of that. He nodded half-heartedly and stole a glance at Shimada, who was sitting in the rattan chair with one elbow on his crossed legs and, for some reason, looking at him with amusement.

  “By the way,” Kawaminami said as he returned the letter to Kōjirō, “did you know that some members of the Mystery Club are on Tsunojima right now?”

  “No,” replied Kōjirō, uninterested. “I inherited the island and the mansion after my brother’s death, but I sold it to an estate agent in S— Town last month. He beat down the price a lot, but I had no intention of ever going to that place again anyway. Don’t know what they did with it after that.”

  3

  Kōjirō still had work to do that day, so Kawaminami felt obliged to leave.

  Just before he left the room, Kawaminami asked about the full bookcases in the back that had caught his attention. Kōjirō explained that, beside his work as soc
ial studies teacher at a nearby high school, he was also doing research on Buddhism. With a shy smile, he explained he was researching the “emptiness of the heart” in early Mahayana Buddhism.

  “‘Emptiness of the heart’?” asked Kawaminami, puzzled.

  Shimada got up from the rocking chair to explain.

  “You’ve heard of the Heart Sutra, no doubt? The one that goes ‘Form is Emptiness and Emptiness is Form’? Kō here is researching the meaning of that ‘emptiness’.” He approached Kawaminami with a bouncy step and handed back the letter he had been scrutinizing.

  “How do you write your family name with kanji, Kawaminami?” he asked.

  “The character for ‘river’, as when you write ‘the Yellow River’, combined with the character for ‘south’.”

  “Aha, so kawa and minami—that’s a wonderful name. Kō, I’m going to leave you alone, too. Let’s leave together, Kawaminami.”

  The two left Kōjirō’s house and walked down the empty street. Shimada clasped his fingers together and stretched his arms. He wore a black sweater and jeans, which made his lean body look even taller and slimmer.

  “Conan. Yes, that is really a wonderful name,” Shimada said as he raised his arms behind his head. He was using the alternative readings for the characters kawa and minami to read the name Kawaminami as Conan.

  “Why did you quit the Mystery Club? At a guess, I’d say the culture didn’t suit you.”

  “You’re right. Good guess.”

  “I could read it in your face.” Shimada grinned. “So it wasn’t because you lost interest in mystery fiction, then?”

  “No, I still enjoy reading detective novels.”

  “That’s good. I like a good mystery too, more than I do Buddhist texts. Nothing as clear-cut as a detective story. Well, Conan, what about having have a coffee with me somewhere?”

  “All right,” replied Kawaminami, and laughed.

  The road sloped gently downwards. The light breeze blowing from the seafront was filled with the spirit of spring.

  “You’re an interesting man, Conan.”

  “I am?”

  “You came all the way here just because of a letter that might well have been nothing more than a prank.”

  “It wasn’t that far.”

  “Hm. Actually, I would have done the same if I’d been in your shoes. I have a lot of spare time, you see.”

  Shimada put both hands in the pockets of his black jeans and grinned.

  “And you? Do you think it’s all just an elaborate joke?”

  “Kōjirō seems to think it is, but it doesn’t add up,” Kawaminami replied. “Of course, I’m not saying that a ghost wrote those letters. Someone is using the name of the dead man. But there’s been just too much effort put into all of this for it to be a simple hoax.”

  “Like what, for example?”

  “For example, all the letters were typed on a word processor. Getting hold of a word processor just for a joke seems a bit—”

  “But the writer might simply have their own word processor. They have become popular in the last couple of years. Kō also has one at his place. He only bought the machine this year, but he’s become quite skilled at it.”

  “It’s true they’ve become popular. Quite a few of my friends have them too. And there’s one in every office room at the university for students to use freely. But I still don’t think it’s all that common to use a word processor to write letters.”

  “That’s true.”

  “A word processor avoids leaving handwriting samples, but why would you need to avoid handwriting if it was just a prank? And the text. It was just that one line. Don’t you think it’s too short? If you were out to scare people, you’d come up with more alarming things to say. Kōjirō’s letter was like that too. So I can’t help but feel there’s a deeper meaning behind it all.”

  “A deeper meaning, eh?”

  Reaching the end of the slope, they arrived at a promenade. Boats of all sizes were making their way across the sea, which glistened in the sunlight.

  “Over there,” Shimada pointed. “Let’s go there. It’s a nice place.”

  Across the road was a red roof with a weathervane. “Mother Goose” was written on the cafe’s signboard in fancy lettering. Kawaminami couldn’t help smiling at the sight.

  4

  After they sat down opposite each other at a table near the window, Kawaminami took another good look at the man he had just met.

  He looked over thirty—quite a bit more than that, probably.

  His cheeks appeared even hollower than they actually were because of his soft, shoulder-length hair. Kawaminami was tall and thin himself, but Shimada towered over him. A hooked nose decorated his swarthy face and his eyes drooped a little.

  He was the sort of man who seemed strange on first meeting. He looked dark and bad-tempered, but the peculiar mismatch between his appearance and his way of talking was something Kawaminami found quite agreeable. He even thought it felt familiar in some way.

  It was already past four in the afternoon. Kawaminami remembered he had not eaten anything since the morning, so he ordered pizza toast with coffee.

  He took a look through the large window at the blue sea, which formed a giant arc on the other side of National Route 10. It was Beppu Bay. The shop was the kind of cosy little place you’d expect to find on the outskirts of a town filled with students. The Mother Goose-inspired paintings and dolls spread around the shop were probably a hobby of the owner.

  “So, Conan, let’s continue our conversation,” Shimada said casually as he poured a cup of Earl Grey from the pot that had just arrived.

  “You mean about the letters?”

  “Of course.”

  “But I’ve already told you all my thoughts—mind if I smoke?”

  “Not at all.”

  “Thanks.”

  He lit a cigarette and the smoke stung his eyes.

  “As I just said, I don’t think it’s all just a prank. But if you ask me what it’s about, I don’t have any answers. To be honest, I can’t think of any reason why anyone would do it. But…”

  “But?”

  “I might take a guess.”

  “Pray do.”

  “Well, if I look at the letter sent to me, for example, and try to read the sender’s intention from it, I think can detect about three different messages.

  “First, the letter is above all an accusation: ‘Chiori was murdered.’ The second message follows from the first: I hate you, I’ll take revenge on you because you killed Chiori. So therefore a threat. The name ‘Nakamura Seiji’ was used to sign the accusation-cum-threat because he would have the best reason for doing so.”

  “I see. And the third message?”

  “For the third message, we have to look at the letter from a different angle: the hidden meaning behind sending the letters, so to speak.”

  “The hidden meaning?”

  “Yes. Why is the sender using the name of Nakamura Seiji, a deceased man, now? It might seem terrifying at first, but nobody in this day and age would really believe it. Can you imagine a ghost using a word processor? So I think it might be telling us in a roundabout way to take a good look at the incident that happened a year ago on Tsunojima. Or could I be overthinking this?”

  “No, it’s very interesting.”

  Shimada’s eyes shone in amusement and he reached for his cup.

  “Truly interesting. Another look at the Tsunojima incident. I do think that case needs more consideration. What do you know about it, Conan?”

  “Only what I read in the newspapers.”

  “So I’d better tell you what I know first.”

  “Please do.”

  “You remember the outline of the case, I assume? It happened in
September of last year. Location: the house known as the Blue Mansion on Tsunojima. The four victims were Nakamura Seiji, his wife Kazue and the servant couple. The gardener disappeared. The fire that broke out after the murders destroyed the mansion. The murderer has not been caught.”

  “I believe the police had the gardener as their prime suspect?”

  “Yes, but there was no conclusive evidence. I think he was considered suspicious simply because he’d disappeared. And now for the details of the case…”

  Shimada spoke in a low voice.

  “First, I have to tell you more about the master of the mansion, Nakamura Seiji. He was three years older than Kō, so he was forty-six at the time. He’d retired by then, but before that he was a genius architect, highly regarded by those in the know.

  “Nakamura Seiji was the first child of the Nakamuras, a family of considerable means living in Usa in the Ōita Prefecture. After graduating from high school, Seiji moved on his own to Tokyo. He won a prize at a national-level contest while he was studying architecture at T— University and drew the attention of everyone in his field. After he graduated, his supervising professor strongly advised him to enter graduate school, but the sudden death of his father forced him to return home.

  “His father had left the Nakamura family a great fortune. Having inherited the money together with his brother Kōjirō, Seiji proceeded to build a mansion of his own design on Tsunojima and basically retired there.

  “His wife Kazue—her maiden name was Hanabusa—had been his childhood friend during his time in Usa. They say their parents had arranged for the two to be married early on. They married around the time Seiji left for Tsunojima.”

  “Did he do any architectural work after that?”