Agatha stared silently at the tablets in her hand and finally nodded slowly.
“OK, great.”
A clumsy smile appeared on Poe’s bearded face and he swallowed the tablets in his hand.
“See, nothing wrong with me. Now you too, Agatha.”
“I just can’t sleep. I just can’t.”
“It’s natural—it’s because you’re all worked up now.”
“This morning I could still hear Carr’s cry in my mind. I had finally started to doze off, when I heard something strange from the room beside mine, from Carr’s room.”
“I know. Just take those tablets, you’ll have a good rest tonight.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really. You’ll fall asleep in no time.”
Agatha finally put the tablets in her mouth, closed her eyes and swallowed them.
“Thank you.”
Her lifeless eyes looked at Poe.
“Goodnight, Agatha. Don’t forget to lock your door and window.”
“Yes. Thanks, Poe.”
After Agatha had disappeared into her room, the remaining four collectively uttered something resembling a sigh of relief.
“Impressive bedside manner, Poe. You’ll make a great doctor.”
Ellery smiled, waving the hand which held a cigarette between his thin fingers.
“How surprising to see someone like our Dame Agatha act that way. Maybe one of us will become your patient, too, tomorrow.”
“Shut up, Ellery. You’re taking this too lightly.”
“I need to take this lightly.” Ellery shrugged. “If I take it too seriously, I might be the next to lose it. I was nearly killed today, remember?”
“What if that was all just a one-man performance?”
“What do you… Ah, I guess there’s no point getting all worked up over it. But of course, Agatha could be acting too.”
“If the murderer is among us, they could be anyone,” said Van, biting his nails.
“Only each one of us knows whether they’re guilty or not. So we need to look out for ourselves.”
“Yes, you’re right… Why did all this happen anyway?” Leroux threw his glasses on the table and held his head.
“Hey, you’re not going to get all hysterical on us as well, I hope?”
“I don’t have the energy for that, Ellery. But why did the murderer start this insanity? Whether the murderer is one of us or Nakamura Seiji, what in Heaven’s name could the motive be?”
Leroux’s face, with its small round eyes, was full of despair.
“The motive, eh?” Ellery muttered. “There has to be something.”
“I don’t believe the ‘Seiji equals murderer’ theory,” said Van irritably. “Nakamura Seiji is only alive inside Ellery’s imagination. Even if it were true, it’s like Leroux says, what motive could he have for killing us? This isn’t a game.”
“Seiji,” whispered Leroux. Every time he heard or spoke the name he could feel a strange sense of creeping uneasiness. It had been with him ever since Ellery told him yesterday that Seiji might still be alive.
The reflection of the lamp flame danced in his glasses, which were lying on the table. Staring at them, he tried to retrieve something from this feeling of uneasiness.
A memory.
But he couldn’t remember. And before long, another, more recent memory started to nag at him too, which perturbed him even more.
What was it? Leroux kept asking himself.
The newer memory had to be about something occurring after they had arrived on the island. He had seen something somewhere, subconsciously, something extremely important…
“Poe.”
The headache he had endured since waking up was still throbbing.
Let’s give up for today and go to sleep, Leroux thought.
“Could I have a sleeping tablet too?”
“Sure. It’s just seven—already going to bed?”
“Yes, I have a headache.”
“I should go too.”
Poe gave the whole bottle of tablets to Leroux and casually stood up with a cigarette in his mouth.
“I’m starting to feel the tablets I took just now, too.”
“Could I have one as well?” asked Van, slowly getting up from his chair.
“Sure. One’s enough. They’re quite strong. And you, Ellery?”
“Don’t need them. I can fall asleep all by myself.”
And after a little while the lamp on the table went out, and darkness descended upon the hall of the Decagon House.
EIGHT
The Fourth Day on the Mainland
1
“Is it really all right for me to come along?” asked Kawaminami again.
They were sitting in the car heading from O— City to Kamegawa. Shimada, who was holding the steering wheel, kept his eyes front as he nodded several times.
“Really. You knew Chiori and you’re also one of the ‘victims’ of those threat letters. Besides, having come this far, you wouldn’t want to be left out of the investigation, would you?”
“That’s true.”
He couldn’t forget about the warning Morisu Kyōichi had given them two nights earlier.
Was it all right for them to invade other people’s privacy just to satisfy their own curiosity?
Shimada said that he and Kōjirō were much closer than Kawaminami and Morisu seemed to think. He added that Morisu’s ideas and attitude might be a bit too stuffy.
Kawaminami knew what Shimada thought. To be honest, Kawaminami didn’t like Morisu’s sudden change of attitude either, despite the help he’d happily provided at the start of their deduction game. Nevertheless, Kawaminami felt reluctant and even guilty about making such an informal visit to Kōjirō once again, a mere three days after his first.
“If you’re really so against this, Conan, then just pretend we became best of friends these last three days. So now you’re doing this for your best friend, even though you don’t want to. Is that better?” said Shimada with a straight face. He’s really a strange person, thought Kawaminami.
It wasn’t just that he was brimming with curiosity. Kawaminami was certain that this man had powers of observation and insight that far surpassed his own. When Morisu had advanced the theory that Nakamura Seiji was still alive, it appeared that Shimada had already thoroughly considered the possibility.
The decisive difference between Morisu and Shimada was that while Morisu was, in a way, a strangely conservative realist, Shimada was like a dream-gazing child, a sort of romantic. He would let his imagination run wild on any real case that interested him and if he found a possibility he thought interesting, he’d start to weave it into his dream. At least that was how it seemed to Kawaminami.
And perhaps that was why, to Shimada, the question of whether his “dream” corresponded to reality was of secondary, even tertiary, importance.
The car left the National Route and they drove through familiar city streets.
The characteristic smell of hot springs mingled with the wind flowing in through the half-open window of the passenger side. It was often described as “the smell of rotten eggs”, but Kawaminami didn’t mind the smell of hydrogen sulphide.
They arrived at Kōjirō’s house just after three o’clock in the afternoon.
“He should be here today,” Shimada muttered, standing in front of the gate. “The high school he works at is already on spring holiday and besides, it’s Saturday. He doesn’t go out much in his free time either.”
“Didn’t you call him to say we’re coming?” asked Kawaminami, to which Shimada shook his head.
“Kō, you know, he likes surprise visits.”
“Oh.”
“Odd, right? Depends on
who’s coming, of course. But as I’m a close friend…” Shimada winked and laughed.
The garden that Yoshikawa Sei’ichi had so often come from Ajimu to tend was still full of blooming flowers. Above the roof, branches with buds of cherry blossom were visible from behind the house. As they walked up the stone steps, the brittle petals of a spiraea sprinkled their shoulders.
This time, the doorbell was answered immediately.
“Oh, it’s you, Shimada. And you too… Kawaminami, if I remember correctly?”
Kōjirō was dressed sharply today as well. Black slacks, a shirt with black stripes and a light coffee-brown Aran cardigan.
Kōjirō led the two of them to the same sitting space in the back, with no sign of surprise at Kawaminami’s presence.
Shimada dropped down into the rattan chair on the veranda. Kawaminami waited for Kōjirō to offer him a seat, and let his body sink into one of the sofas.
“So what’s up today?” Kōjirō asked while he was preparing tea.
“There was something we wanted to ask you.”
Shimada leant forward in the rocking chair, his elbows on his knees.
“But before I do that, where were you two days ago?”
“Two days ago?” Kōjirō looked questioningly at Shimada. “I’ve been home every day the last few days. School’s on vacation.”
“Really? We stopped by two days ago, on the night of the 27th, but you didn’t answer the door.”
“Ah, I have to apologize for that. I have a deadline for a thesis and I’ve been pretending not to be at home to visitors and people who call on the phone alike these past two or three days.”
“Is that any way to treat a friend?”
“Sorry—if I had known it was you, I would have let you in.”
Kōjirō handed them the teacups and sat down on the sofa across from Kawaminami.
“And what did you have to ask me? Kawaminami is here too, so I assume it’s connected to those prank letters signed with my brother’s name?”
“Yes. But today we’re here on a slightly different matter.”
Shimada took a breath and continued.
“Actually, we want to ask something private about the late Chiori.”
The hand that held Kōjirō’s cup of tea stopped in mid-air.
“About Chiori?”
“I’m going to ask you a very weird question, Kō. You can punch me if you think it’s unforgivable.”
And then Shimada asked straight out.
“Was Chiori perhaps your daughter?”
“Nonsense. What kind of question is that?”
Kōjirō replied instantly, but Kawaminami had noticed that for one brief moment his face had turned pale.
“So I’m wrong.”
“Of course you are.”
“Hmm.”
Shimada stood up from the rattan chair and moved to a seat next to Kawaminami. Kōjirō, still angry, crossed his arms. Shimada’s eyes stayed fixed on him as he continued:
“I know it’s an insulting question. You’re angry, of course. But Kō, I need to know. Chiori was your and Kazue’s daughter, wasn’t she?”
“That’s enough of your nonsense. Where’s your evidence?”
“I don’t have any evidence. But all sort of facts are whispering it to me.”
“Stop it.”
“I went to Ajimu with Conan here two days ago. To meet with the wife of the missing Yoshikawa Sei’ichi.”
“Yoshikawa’s wife? What for?”
“Those threatening letters incited us to find out more about the incident that happened on Tsunojima last year. And the conclusion we finally arrived at is that Nakamura Seiji is still alive and the one behind it all.”
“Impossible. My brother is dead. I saw the body.”
“A completely burnt body, I think?”
“Yes.”
“That was Yoshikawa Sei’ichi’s body. Seiji was the real murderer and, after he had killed Kazue and the Kitamura couple, he burned Yoshikawa’s body in place of his own. Seiji’s still alive.”
“You’re as imaginative as always. And I guess it was this imagination of yours that linked me with my sister-in-law?”
“Yes,” Shimada continued without reservation. “Supposing Seiji was the murderer, what could it have been that drove him to commit those murders? You once told me, Kō, that your brother loved Kazue passionately, but his fixation on her was not normal. You said that the real reason he had withdrawn to the island at such a young age was that he wanted to keep Kazue all for himself, that he wanted to keep her on the island. For him to kill the wife he loved so much, there’s only one motive I can think of: jealousy.”
“But why jump to the conclusion that my sister-in-law and I had an affair?”
“Yoshikawa’s wife told us that Seiji didn’t love his daughter all that much. But it’s a fact he loved Kazue very passionately. So why didn’t he love Chiori, the fruit of his and Kazue’s marriage? It’s a contradiction. Isn’t that evidence that Seiji at least suspected he wasn’t Chiori’s father?”
“My brother could be a bit strange.”
“Even if he was strange, he was still a person who loved his wife. There had to be a reason for him not to love the daughter his wife bore him,” said Shimada decisively, before continuing: “And so, if we assume this hypothesis to be true, then who is Chiori’s real father? Several facts point to you, Kō. A young man who could come into contact with Kazue even though she was confined to the island. And there’s the fact that you and your brother had a falling out around the time of Chiori’s birth—”
“You’re completely wrong. I’ve had enough of you, Shimada. I deny everything. Nothing like that ever happened,” said Kōjirō angrily, as he removed his horn-rimmed glasses. “And I’ll say this again: my brother isn’t alive. He’s dead. And I have nothing to do with that case.”
Kōjirō said this resolutely, but his eyes avoided Shimada’s gaze and the hand on his knee was trembling slightly.
“Then I have one more thing to ask you, Kō,” said Shimada. “On the 19th of September of last year, the day before the Blue Mansion went up in flames—do you remember?—you called me to have a drink, even though you hardly ever touch alcohol. We went from one bar to another and you got dead drunk. To me, you seemed like a man trying to drink away his pain.”
“So? What are you trying to say?”
“You were completely drunk and, finally, you started to cry. You probably don’t remember any more. I got you back home, and we both fell asleep on these sofas here. Kō, you were muttering as you cried, ‘Kazue, forgive me, forgive me’ over and over.”
“No…”
The colour in Kōjirō’s face changed visibly. Shimada didn’t stop.
“I didn’t think too much of it at the time. I’d had quite a few drinks myself. And even after I learnt about what happened on Tsunojima, I didn’t immediately think back to that night because I was involved with something troublesome of my own at the time. But now that I do look back…”
Shimada sighed heavily once again.
“Kō, on the night of the 19th of September, you already knew that something had happened on Tsunojima.”
“But how…” Kōjirō turned away from Shimada’s gaze. “How could I have known something like that?”
“The murderer himself, Seiji, told you.”
Shimada’s intense gaze remained fixed on Kōjirō.
“Kazue’s body was missing the left hand. Seiji had cut it off. I think he sent it to you, Kō. You probably received it on the 19th. You couldn’t call the police because you were afraid of scandal, so you tried to drink everything away.”
“I, I—”
“I don’t know the details about how you and Kazue found each other. I don’t ne
ed to know. Even if you two were the reason Seiji went mad, I don’t think anyone has the right to blame you. But Kō, if you had called the police on the 19th, the lives of the Kitamuras and Yoshikawa might have been saved. Your silence that day was a crime.”
“A crime?” muttered Kōjirō, and he suddenly stood up.
“Kō.”
“It’s OK, Shimada. I’ve had enough.”
Kōjirō turned away from Shimada’s gaze and walked to the veranda with dull, lifeless steps.
“That over there,” he said and he pointed at the wisteria pavilion in the garden. “I planted that the year Chiori was born.”
2
Kawaminami didn’t appear to have returned home yet. The lights in his room were out.
Morisu Kyōichi looked at his watch. 10.10 p.m. His friend probably hadn’t gone to bed yet though.
He parked his motorbike near the entrance of the apartment building and went into the coffee house on the other side of the road.
The shop was open until 2.00 a.m. At this time of night it was usually full of students who lived nearby but, because of the spring holiday, there were only a few customers dotted about the place.
He took a seat near the window overlooking the road.
He sipped his black coffee and considered leaving once it was finished. After all, it wasn’t as if he had to see him. He could always make a call later.
He’s always quick to get all fired up, and then lose interest again. By now he’s probably had enough of playing detective.
Morisu put a cigarette in his mouth and started to reflect.
It had been the “letter from the dead” that had sparked Kawaminami’s interest. The letter was all it had taken to get him started. And, once he had found out that the members of the Mystery Club had gone to the island, he naturally couldn’t just sit still. Kawaminami had gone all the way to Beppu to visit Kōjirō and come to him, Morisu, to ask for advice. Usually, the Kawaminami he knew would have started to lose interest around this point. However, it was different this time.
Shimada Kiyoshi’s face appeared in his mind.
He wasn’t just some curiosity seeker. Shimada had a sharp mind—Morisu could admit that. But his insensitive inquisitiveness, which Shimada seemed to think was acceptable, was something Morisu just couldn’t stand.
The Decagon House Murders Page 15
