Chapter Four - Part Two

Kamo looked down at his phone and breathed a sigh of relief.

The long night had given way to the dawn, and the morning of the 23rd had arrived. The time was 6:40 A.M... the time Taiga had ordered everyone to arrive at the dining room was approaching.

In the end, the culprit never showed themself, and they didn't hear anyone walking in the upstairs hall. The most concerning thing they had to deal with now was that Kamo's phone only had 5% battery left.

Judging from the view through the hall window, it looked like it would rain today. Kamo stretched, trying to work the kinks from his back and shoulders. Ayaka quickly imitated him. It looked like she was planning to leave the white cushion she'd brought in the cleaning supplies room.

Then they looked at each other.

Kamo knew exactly what she was thinking. He stepped out and knocked on the door to the Tiger Room.

Soujirou should have been safe. Even though he knew that, his palms were covered in sweat. Ayaka stood next to him, clutching his left arm.

“...Ah, Mr. Kamo. Good morning.”

Soujirou opened the door and stepped into the hallway. Today's suit was a navy blue three-piece ensemble.

Kamo was so overcome with relief that he forgot to return the greeting, instantly turning to Ayaka.

He told Soujirou that he was just doing a round to check on everyone. Judging from the dark circles under his eyes, Soujirou hadn't slept last night, either. He said he was going back to his room, so Kamo and Ayaka decided to check up on the others on the second floor.

Just as he was about to approach the Snake Room, Tsukihiko stepped out.

In contrast to Kamo, who looked like a mess because he hadn't slept, Tsukihiko was freshly shaved and had his hair meticulously swept back. Today he wore jeans and a light blue polo shirt, both clean and without a single wrinkle.

Tsukihiko looked at Kamo and Ayaka with total disinterest.

“Well then... I'll be heading to the dining room ahead of you, Detective.”

Kamo felt better after seeing him off. Confirming that the two of them were both safe was a major victory. He excitedly knocked on Taiga's door.

However, no matter how long they waited, there was no response. He knocked again. He called Taiga's name. Nothing.

“Is Grandfather feeling sick?”

Ayaka's face was already pale with sleep deprivation. She immediately ran to her room and called him on the extension line, but there was no response. Kamo feared the worst and tried to break the door down, but it was so strong it didn't budge in the least, no matter how hard he kicked it.

Hearing the commotion, Genji poked his head out of the Ox Room. He wore a white open collar shirt and loose-fit black pants. Soujirou appeared soon after.

Kamo asked them to keep watch, then ran down to the first floor. Less than five minutes later, he was in front of the Dragon Room with a toolbox-wielding Amamiya.

Since there were no master keys to the villa, Amamiya set to work unscrewing the door's hinges. It took about ten minutes. Eventually, the door came off, and Amamiya picked it up and leaned it against the wall.

Kamo entered the room first, Genji and Ayaka following behind. Soujirou and Amamiya appeared to lack the courage to even step inside. They stood in the hall and whispered to each other.

The room's layout wasn't that different from the Dog and Monkey Rooms, the biggest difference being the wheelchair sitting collapsed next to the bed. Atop it lay the dark red lap blanket.

A brown jinbei sat neatly folded on the chair, and a key lay at the foot of the bed. On the bedside table sat a black telephone and a glass half full with water.

The drawer of the bedside table was open, and inside, they could see writing utensils and a black envelope poking out. However, the most important thing, Taiga himself, was nowhere to be found.

“...Where is Grandfather?”

Ayaka hadn't let go of Kamo's arm since they entered the room. Genji had also stopped near the entrance and looked around in confusion.

When he crouched down, Kamo saw a key lying at the foot of the bed.

The key was in a bad shape. Specifically, that shape was “dramatically bent”, and the string for the netsuke had also been cut. It was the same type of key as the others he'd seen, though it looked much older.

“For the time being... I'll hold on to this.”

Without waiting for permission, Kamo picked up the key and dropped it in his breast pocket. He wore the army gloves again, having borrowed them for the investigation.

Finally, he examined the toilet, bathroom, and closet. Ayaka, unable to sit still, followed him. The old man was still nowhere to be found. All of the windows were locked.

“I don't see him anywhere.”

When he looked back, he saw Genji with both hands on the bedside table with the open drawer. His face was stiff.

“...Where is Grandfather?”

Kamo was suddenly very interested in the drawer he was looking down at.

When he pulled it out further, he saw a pocket watch with a dragon engraved on it. In both color and shape, it was similar to Ayaka's, but this one was a size larger. When he picked it up and opened the lid, he saw it had stopped at 6:46.

The only other things in the drawer were a memo pad, a fountain pen, and a few stacks of paper that looked like business documents. No clues as to Taiga's whereabouts.

When he looked up, Kamo was more than a little confused.

He and Ayaka had been in the cleaning supplies room all night, keeping an eye on the second floor. However, they hadn't seen the old man leave his room.

The wheelchair lift had been moved to the second floor, and they'd heard the sound immediately after Taiga left the dining room after dinner, with everyone else still in the room. There didn't seem to be any doubt that he'd been the one to move it. If that were the case, the only conclusion was that he'd gone upstairs. So he should have been on the second floor.

So where was he?

When Kamo stepped back into the hall, Amamiya and Soujirou quickly moved out of his way. Ayaka quickly followed him. Genji also appeared a bit later.

Kamo decided to search the entire second floor with everyone, including Tsukihiko and Tsukie, who were in the dining room. In light of the current situation, nobody refused to have their room searched.

They went in the order of Tiger Room, Ox Room, Snake Room, and Rat Room, but even after searching all the bathrooms, toilets, and closets, Taiga remained elusive.

When Kamo asked to search the remaining room, everyone except Ayaka and Amamiya looked concerned. Soujirou was particularly opposed to the decision. But in the end, the room was opened over his objections.

The door and lock of the Rabbit Room were both identical to all the others, and it seemed Taiga was in charge of the key. However, since he was still missing, they had no choice but to take off the hinges.

Amamiya seemed to have learned from last time, and had the door down in five minutes. As soon as the door was removed, stagnant air hit them. Kamo stepped into the room while Amamiya was still putting the door aside.

The first thing he noticed was the smell of stale oil.

The room was so dark he couldn't make out the insides. He went to the back of the room and pulled open the curtains.

The smell came from a palette for oil painting and about 20 brushes of varying thickness left on the table. The palette was covered in dust, as though it had been unused for a long time, and the colors on the palette had mixed and hardened.

Tubes of oil paint and a palette knife protruded from a wooden toolbox next to it, and several bottles of oil were lined up as well. A blank canvas lay next to the bed. Their long years of neglect were shown in the oil stuck to the bottom of the bottles, the yellowing of the canvas, and the coating of dust it all bore .

Before he knew it, everyone except Amamiya had gathered in the room. Kamo once again searched the bathroom and toilet, and once again, Taiga was nowhere to be found.

Unlike the other rooms, the Rabbit Room showed no signs of having been renovated; the wallpaper and floorboards were both faded, and the interior of the bathroom and toilet were different, probably the same as they had been when the villa was first constructed.

Kamo looked at the newspaper the brushes were wrapped in and saw the date April 17th, Showa 23. By the Western calendar, that was 1948, 12 years ago.

...The room probably hadn't been opened for over a decade.

Kamo wanted to question Soujirou about the room, but didn't. The first thing they had to do was confirm Taiga's safety. There was no time to waste.

As he stepped back into the hallway, he almost bumped into Amamiya, who was looking into the room. The door had been propped against the wall to the right of the door frame as viewed from the hallway side.

Next, Kamo checked the baggage lift.

It was on the first floor, so he used the control panel to call it to the second. With a dull mechanical noise, a small cage rose before him.

It was quite an old-fashioned lift. Perhaps it was a relic from the days when Japanese electric elevators were in their infancy.

The floor of the cage stopped at the height of the floor of the... floor, probably for ease of loading and unloading.

When he opened the latticed metal bellows door, he could see inside the cage. However, the lift was unlit, so it was darker than he expected. Borrowing a flashlight from Amamiya, Kamo examined the cage. It was empty, and there were no dirt stains or any visible damage to the cage or its surroundings.

What Kamo found most disappointing was... the small size of the cage.

Measuring it with a tape measure, the cage was 110 cm wide, 70 cm deep, and 85 cm tall. Moreover, it had two shelves.

Kamo tried to move the shelves, but found they weren't movable. It appeared they had originally been designed to be, but they had completely rusted to the surface and were now fixed in place.

If the shelves could have been moved, that would have been different, but as things stood, each space between the shelves was only 110 cm x 70 cm x 27 cm, too small for an adult man to hide inside. It would be impossible unless the old man was secretly a yoga master.

According to Soujirou, Taiga was 170 cm tall, so it would be even more impossible.

Although Kamo was upset he'd wasted his time, he continued on to check the cleaning supplies room. Of course, Taiga wasn't there, either.

After finishing their search of the second floor, the group wordlessly decided to check the rest of the house. Kamo, who had been put in charge of monitoring the others, followed the crowd from behind and silently watched everyone's backs as they went down the stairs. Soujirou and his children, Genji, Ayaka, and Amamiya... they totaled six people.

“...Where's Tonegawa?”

Come to think of it, he hadn't seen Tonegawa that morning. At his question, everyone stopped and exchanged confused looks.

“Come to think of it, I didn't see her in the kitchen, either,” said Tsukie.

Today she was dressed in a slim, monochrome one-piece dress with short sleeves. Amamiya nodded in agreement.

“It was unusual for her to sleep in so late, so Tsukie and I made breakfast together. ...After all that had happened, we thought she deserved a rest.”

There must have been others who noticed her absence, but in the commotion of Taiga's disappearance, they had all forgotten.

Naturally, Kamo led everyone to Tonegawa's room.

The Rooster Room was locked, and no matter how many times they called out, there was no response. Calling her on the phone got nothing, either. Amamiya once again went to work on the hinges. While he waited, Kamo checked his smartphone. It was already ten minutes past eight.

When Kamo looked through the space where the door had once been, he gasped.

Tonegawa lay on her back, still wearing her uniform. There was foam on her lips and scratches on her throat. Drying blood seeped from the wounds.

Kamo had been outwitted again.

...Tonegawa Tsugumi was murdered in the Rooster Room with wounds on her throat. The Nue's thrush cry had been silenced.

“Ms. Tonegawa?”

Kamo heard Amamiya mumbling in despair as he held the door. Kamo ran into the room and checked her pulse, but it had run out long ago, her body cold. He shook his head.

With a harsh cry, Ayaka ran to Tonegawa's side and knelt down.

“Why did this happen...?”

Kamo was as stunned as anyone as he looked down at the corpse.

According to Ayaka's diary, the next victim should have been Soujirou... why had the culprit changed their target? Had they found out that he was staking out from the cleaning supplies room? Or had the criminal's behavior changed simply because of his presence?

He looked at Ayaka shivering at his side. Come to think of it, she was the only one who knew he was in the cleaning supplies room. Had she leaked it to someone? Or was she the killer, and everything written in her diary was nonsense?

“...Poison, huh?”

Kamo was forced back to reality by Soujirou's tired voice.

“Yes, it's very likely.”

Kamo looked back to the body and saw that Tonegawa's fingertips were covered in dried blood. She must have died clawing at her throat. Examining the body further, he found a key with a netsuke of a chicken in the pocket of her maid uniform. He decided to keep it next to the key he'd found in Taiga's room.

Then he examined the bedside table.

On a tray beside the black telephone was an empty glass and several packets of medicine labeled “Si Jun Zi Tang”. He'd seen them yesterday when he checked the lattice on her window. Today, one of them was open and empty.

“Did Ms. Tonegawa have any chronic illnesses?”

Ayaka wiped her tears and answered.

“She said she has a weak stomach. It could be for that.”

Amamiya gave a small nod.

“I'm sure of it. She took a similar packet of medicine every day at the main house.”

Soujirou suddenly let out a noise of disgust.

“What's the point of investigating that? We aren't doctors or medical examiners, so there's no way we can tell if that herbal medicine was poisoned.”

“You don't need to be a doctor to find out.”

It was Tsukihiko, who was looking down at Tonegawa's body.

“If we set a trap in the forest, we can probably catch a mouse. Why not make it drink some water with the herbal medicine dissolved in it? If it dies, then we'll know it was poisoned.”

Tsukihiko had a terrifying shine in his eyes. Earlier, Kamo had called Hora a psychopath, but now he thought this young man might fit the bill much better.

“...That wouldn't prove much, would it?”

Tsukihiko looked more than a little upset with Genji's interruption.

“What do you mean?”

“Even if we do determine that the medicine was poisoned, there would be no way to determine when it was poisoned. It could have been there since before we arrived at the villa, or it could have been added after. People might not have locked their rooms before Koki's body was found. Anyone could have done this.”

Kamo noticed how clean the glass was and spoke up.

“It seems that Ms. Tonegawa was in the habit of rinsing her glass after use, so it might be difficult to detect any traces of poison as well.”

Defeated, Tsukihiko kicked the wall in frustration. Ayaka and Tsukie both jumped. However, the man in question suddenly spoke very quietly.

“More importantly... shouldn't we be looking for Grandfather? At this point, we still don't know what's happened to him.”

Tsukihiko's attitude was creepy, but Kamo was more concerned about how Tsukie had reacted. While Ayaka just looked surprised at his sudden action, Tsukie's eyes reflected a genuine fear of her brother.

After confirming that Taiga wasn't in the Rooster Room, everyone decided to split up and search the building. The groups were Soujirou and his children, Kamo and Ayaka, and Genji and Amamiya.

Every private room on the first floor, the kitchen, the dining room, rec room, the warehouse, storage room, and machine room... they were all searched, but Taiga was nowhere to be found. They didn't find anything that had changed since yesterday, either. The basement of the villa also yielded no new information.

If it could be said that they found anything new, it was from the baggage lift on the first floor.

When he checked it again, Kamo found that the bellows door connected an inner door on the cage and an outer door on the hallway side, and that the outer door was locked when the cage wasn't on that floor.

As a test, Kamo tried hitting the lift's emergency stop button. He thought about forcing the doors open, but as soon as he tried, a jingling bell made him jump.

Ayaka explained that the system was designed to sound a warning bell whenever the emergency stop button was pressed and the cage was left in an abnormal position. Although Kamo quickly returned the lift to normal operations, he'd still caused a commotion that caused all the other groups to come running... Whatever the case, if the alarm was this loud, they could be sure no one had pressed the emergency stop last night.

The search ended with no other major disturbances, but Taiga still hadn't been found.

They decided the next step was to expand their investigation to the space outside the building. The rain had stopped for the moment, but the heavy clouds looked like they could break again at any time.

The moment they stepped outside, they were assailed by a sickening burning smell. It got stronger as they went around to the back of the building. ...The only equipment for baking things outside was the pizza oven.

A netsuke had fallen in front of the two meter brick kiln. The dragon holding the blue jewel wasn't attached to a key, and the string had clearly been cut.

Kamo picked it up and put it in his pocket, then he gently opened the door... The light shining in from outside vaguely exposed the burnt human corpse.

The culprit had probably used the firewood to burn the body. Ash and cinder had accumulated inside the oven. The fire seemed to have gone out quite a while ago, and the temperature inside was only warm.

Borrowing a flashlight to look inside, Kamo inspected the body in detail.

The face had been burnt particularly badly, to the point where they could no longer make out its original shape.

Of course, the rest of the body was burnt as well, but probably because of the high humidity, it wasn't as bad. The body hadn't fallen apart or anything.

However... the two legs were an exception. Horrifyingly, the flashlight exposed that the burned corpse was missing everything about seven centimeters below the groin.

The moment Kamo saw, the paining “Chimera” came to mind.

When they'd searched the building earlier, they'd confirmed that the bodies of Kyuichi and Koki were still in the underground warehouse, and the burned body's head was still attached to its neck... they could be certain that this burnt corpse didn't belong to Kyuichi or Koki.

If this was Taiga's body, it meant that the person whose name was similar to “tiger” had been killed. If they had stolen the legs, perhaps that was also part of the killer's plan. Perhaps from the beginning, the killer had been targeting both Taiga and Soujirou. Of course. A tiger had both front and hind legs, so they'd need two people.

...Ayaka was the murderer. The contents of her diary were a hoax. The doubt still lingered in Kamo's mind.

However, Ayaka had been by his side since last night, so she had a perfect alibi. There's no way she could have brought Taiga's body out to the pizza oven.

Even if he assumed she had an accomplice, he ran into the same problem. ...That night, Taiga had been the first person to leave the dining room, and Kamo had been the second. There was no way someone in the dining room could have gone upstairs, killed Taiga, and brought his body outside without Kamo seeing them.

Suddenly, he noticed Ayaka staring at him.

Her eyes were full of suspicion. Kamo immediately understood her doubts.

One was that Kamo himself was the murderer and the story about being a time traveler was all a lie. The second was that, since Kamo had been the first person to go after Taiga, he could have killed the old man.

The latter could be resolved easily enough. Ayaka should have gone upstairs a minute after Kamo, and she'd immediately joined him in the cleaning supplies room. She herself could prove that Kamo hadn't had enough time to commit the crime.

“Where are Grandfather's legs?”

Tsukie asked in a soft voice that made Kamo look back as though he were being lured by a siren. They weren't anywhere they could see from here. Of course, they hadn't found them in their search of the building, either.

Tsukihiko looked at Kamo with a revolting grin.

“Well, Detective, two new bodies have turned up... Have you uncovered anything new?”

Kamo thought for a moment, then opened his mouth.

“I have uncovered some new information that may help solve the case. I'd like to ask you all about it, so let's all gather in the recreation room.”

 

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