Chapter Seven - Part Three
“...This was all a trap, wasn't it?”
Amamiya sounded utterly defeated.
After a brief struggle, Kamo and Genji had pinned him to the floor. Other than a few bruises to Amamiya's face and the sacrifice of Kamo's glasses, no one was hurt.
Without answering him, Kamo tied his hands. The rope he'd used to tie the trailer's door shut came in handy once again. After checking that the rope was secure, Kamo picked up his glasses where they'd fallen to the floor. The frame was bent and one lens was cracked. He gave up on them and placed them on the table.
Amamiya seemed to realize there was no point in resisting and sat down on the bed. Ayaka, Tsukie, and even Genji, who only a moment ago had been called a murderer, stared at him with naked anger. Amamiya looked down at his bound wrists and just smiled.
“I thought it was strange... Hora's usually such a loudmouth, but he's been silent ever since we entered the trailer.”
“Oh, he was waiting in the lantern pretending to be D. Cassiopeia the whole time.”
As soon as Kamo answered, Hora, who was in his hands, spoke up.
“That's why I couldn't speak, no matter how much I wanted to.”
Kamo pulled the chain from his breast pocket. Of course, there was no hourglass on the end. He was just wearing the chain.
Amamiya sighed heavily.
“So where is she? Where is D. Cassiopeia?”
“...Last night, I announced that I'd subject you all to surprise checks, right?”
“You did.”
“It would have been foolish to actually announce that 'surprise' checks would be happening in advance... My real goal was to get you worried about physical examinations, so you'd leave D. Cassiopeia in the trailer. So I said that, then went to the trailer ahead of the others to search for your hourglass.”
As he explained, Kamo took out the wine bottle from the wardrobe drawer.
“I found this green bottle violently flickering with light. When I listened closely, I heard a high-pitched voice, barely audible through the water and the glass... D. Cassiopeia was in the bottle.”
Realizing this, Amamiya dropped his affable facade and glared at Kamo.
“So even she fell into your hands? It looks like we had no chance from the start.”
Genji stared at him for a moment, but then regained his usual composure and opened his mouth.
“...Kamo, did you know he was the culprit even before Ayaka started her reasoning?”
Without ever taking his eyes off Amamiya, Kamo nodded.
“Yes, I did.”
Ayaka's whole face turned red and she started stammering.
“If you knew that, why didn't you tell me?”
Kamo could only look at the floor in front of the girl who appeared to be on the verge of tears. He didn't have a good answer.
“I'm sorry. Ever since I heard about D. Cassiopeia from Hora in the trailer, a theory had been slowly taking shape in my mind. But I wasn't sure if I was right. Even though it made sense logically, I didn't have any evidence to support it. So as far back as that talk in the trailer, I decided to start preparing a trap.”
“A trap?”
“Yes. I thought that if I could get Amamiya to fall into the trap, it would prove my deduction was more than just a theory.”
A single tear fell from Ayaka's eye.
“You still should have told me. Since I didn't know the truth... I said something unforgivable to Uncle.”
Genji smiled at her.
“There's no need to worry about that. I'm sure Amamiya was planning to frame me, anyway.”
Amamiya also smiled at her.
“Didn't you realize? The reason you arrived at that false answer was because I guided you to it back in the storage room.”
After watching with satisfaction at the way his cruel words froze Ayaka's expression, Amamiya turned to Kamo.
“But it seems Mr. Kamo already realized I was luring her into that trap.”
“Oh, I thought you must have told her something.”
“I see. So even as Ayaka started her false deductions, you decided to just let my plan run its course. All because you'd already left a trap at the end.”
Tsukie shook her head and interrupted them.
“But I don't see any problems with Ayaka's deductions. They all seemed flawless.”
“...Then let's review the first incident again.”
Kamo paused for breath before explaining the case in earnest.
“Regarding the first incident, Ayaka's deductions and my own are basically the same. Kyuichi was murdered outside, and his arms and legs were brought to the baths. By swapping which head went with which torso, the culprit created the illusion of an impossible crime.”
Amamiya narrowed his eyes at him, then nodded.
“It's as you said... First, I summoned Kyuichi to the Netherwood. I lied that there was something I wanted to talk to him about in private, and Kyuichi, being the loyal man he is, went out right away. He quickly collapsed from the sleeping pills I'd slipped him at dinner. He never realized I was planning to kill him.”
Although his smile was tinged with sadness, he didn't show an ounce of regret.
“Then, you killed Kyuichi and dismembered his body.”
“Yeah, Ayaka got everything from here on right. Of course, I'd prepared chopped wood in the wood chopping shed ahead of time to create an alibi... But Koki was a shallow man, wasn't he? I knew he was desperate for money due to his gambling problems, so all I had to do was act as a thief, and he fell for it hook, line, and sinker.”
Ayaka 's eyes went wide.
“Were you the one who broke into the main house in Tokyo so many times?”
“As you can imagine, Koki was blackmailing me into stealing things for him. He sold off the stolen goods, and I never saw a cent of the profits.”
Looking at Ayaka's despairing face, Amamiya continued, sounding amused.
“That night, I approached Koki. 'I'm going to steal the key to the Monkey Room, so while Kyuichi's out, why don't you search his room for valuables...' When I told him I'd forge evidence that the culprit was an outsider, he didn't suspect a thing.”
Kamo couldn't stop from groaning.
“Is that how you lured him to the Monkey Room?”
“I told him to waited in the room until I was ready, and we went to the Monkey Room together. His guard was so low that even I was surprised how easy it was to kill him. Oh, by the way, I cut up Kyuichi's body with the axe, and Koki's with the machete I'd hidden in the building beforehand.”
“So the machete was hidden in the building that night?”
“Yeah, I threw it under some waterproof cloth in the upper level of the basement warehouse. I figured even if you found it, there's no way you'd be able to deduce the truth from just that... but luckily, no one found it in the first place. The next night, I retrieved it and hid it in a hole in a tree in the forest. Now, if the rest of your theory is correct, I promise to tell you all about the rest of the case. Sound good?”
He said that with a friendly smile.
Kamo couldn't stand the way he was treating all this like a game, but there was nothing he could do about it.
“There's one more thing I want to ask you. Your plan was to frame Genji. It probably wasn't a coincidence he went out for a walk in the garden. Was that your doing?”
Amamiya started giggling.
“Of course it was. But Genji couldn't ever tell anyone how I did it. And there's no way you could deduce it with the information you have now.”
Avoiding his gaze, Kamo asked Genji.
“Can you tell me why you went to Kojin Shrine that night?”
Genji gave the floor a worried look for a moment, but then he looked back up with a determined expression.
“About two weeks ago, I received a black envelope addressed to my company.”
“A black envelope?”
“Yes. It contained a letter and seven photographs. It was addressed to me, but... the photos weren't mine.”
Genji hesitated to say any more, so Amamiya took over.
“They were pictures of a girl. I filled the envelope with pictures of the girl with a boy, twisting her body into all sorts of untoward shapes.”
“Could it be they were photos of a woman you'd had an affair with?”
When Genji heard that, his expression grew even more pained. Amamiya seemed to be enjoying himself.
“That's not it. Genji's surprisingly bold. If it were his ass on the line, he probably wouldn't have bothered trying to cover it up once it happened.”
Kamo regretted having asked the question.
The reason why Genji had stubbornly refused to speak was because he was trying to protect the girl in the photos. They could even have been photos of Ayaka.
“In the enclosed letter, the sender identified himself as the boy and said if I didn't want the photographs distributed, I should prepare money. The boy's face was in the pictures, but since I'd been threatened not to tell anyone, let alone the police, there was nothing I could do to identify him. ...A week later, I received another letter, identifying the place the money was to be delivered as Kojin Shrine on the evening of the 21st. At that location, I was to exchange the money for the negatives of the photographs.”
“But that was just a lie to get you out of the building.”
“That's right. I waited at Kojin Shrine for almost an hour, but nobody showed up.”
After thinking for a moment, Kamo spoke again.
“...Come to think of it, in the Dragon Room, you were quite focused on the drawer. Could that be why?”
“Yes. The thing I was distracted by wasn't the pocket watch.”
“I'm starting to understand. When I first entered the Dragon Room, I saw a black envelope in the drawer. The next time I looked, the envelope was gone. At the time, the only ones with me were Ayaka and Genji. Ayaka was right at my side the whole time, so you were the only one who could have taken the envelope, Genji.”
Genji's eyes widened, but he quickly gave a self-deprecating smile.
“You noticed? I'm sorry I acted so selfishly... It was identical to the envelope that contained the threatening letters, so I was worried there might be more photographs in it. I put it in my pocket, but when I opened it when I was alone later, it was empty.”
Ayaka didn't appear to have any awareness of the photos, and she listened to the story curiously. Amamiya explained.
“I was the one to plant that envelope. Of course, my goal was to make Genji act suspiciously in the Dragon Room... I'd like to take this opportunity to reveal the identity of the girl in the photographs. It's not who Genji thinks it is.”
“What are you talking about?”
“For some reason, there exists a girl who looks exactly like that her. That's who was in the photo.
It was obvious who he was referring to... He was talking about Fumino, Ayaka's twin sister.
Even though he'd found out that Ayaka wasn't the girl in the pictures, he couldn't be happy with this result. Genji and Tsukie's faces looked dark as well. There was no doubt that a girl had been subjected to a deep misfortune.
Amamiya kept on talking as thought they were having a normal conversation.
“That girl was in a relationship with a certain student, but that student chose money over her. He took a few pictures of her while she was asleep. I bought them. And I used them.”
Kamo worried that if they spoke any further, Ayaka might realize the truth behind the pictures, so he forced himself to change the subject.
“Let's move on to the second incident. This is where my reasoning diverges sharply from Ayaka's.”
As expected, Ayaka had a strong reaction to that.
“What was wrong with my theory?”
“First of all, D. Cassiopeia wasn't used in the second case at all. The murderer killed Taiga without using time travel.”
Everyone except Amamiya gasped at that. The murderer sat back on the bed and spoke.
“Well that's interesting. I wonder how I did something like that.”
Kamo asked Amamiya a question.
“This case involves the special technology of time travel. However, did you think it would be boring to use it directly without any special twists?”
“Maybe.”
“Actually, there were parts of Ayaka's time paradox theory that didn't work out... For one, the body in the pizza oven seemed too intact.”
Genji quickly understood his meaning and nodded.
“Indeed. In this high temperature, a body will decompose quickly.”
“I checked the refrigerator when we were preparing the meal, so I can say that the body wasn't stored there. If a body was kept somewhere else for several days, it would have decomposed to some extent... But there was no scent of decomposition from any part of the burnt corpse. That means it wasn't brought in from outside. It really was Taiga's body.”
Ayaka looked confused.
“But the hands on the watch showed that it had been replaced.”
Kamo took out Ayaka's pocket watch and looked at the engraved dragon.
“Those stopped hands didn't prove that the watch had been replaced. They proved that Taiga didn't return to the Dragon Room after dinner.”
“Eh?”
“Taiga wasn't planning to return to the Dragon Room after dinner, and had made that plan a while ago. So he broke his usual habit and wound the watch before leaving the room... so that the hands of the clock would keep going for as long as possible.”
Amamiya's smile grew even wider, and Ayaka seemed to realize from it that Kamo's deduction was correct. But she still didn't understand.
“It's true that Grandfather arrived at the dining room at 7:00. If he wound the watch before then, it wouldn't be that strange if it stopped at 6:46...”
“That's not my only reason... Do you remember when the tie clip popped out of the wheelchair in the Dragon Room?”
“Yes, it must have fallen off the desk and gotten stuck without Grandfather noticing.”
“Taiga lost that pin days ago. If he'd been using that wheelchair on a daily basis, the pin would have been found when he unfolded it the morning after he lost it. It should have launched itself from the wheelchair and announced 'Here I am!' ...Since it didn't, that can only mean that Taiga hadn't used that wheelchair since he lost it.”
“Really?”
“Yes, he usually used the spare wheelchair, the one placed in the space next to the stairs. That means Taiga hadn't returned to the Dragon Room to begin with.”
Ayaka immediately objected.
“But the key to the Dragon Room was inside the room. That should have been proof that Grandfather returned to the room.”
“That crooked key wasn't the key to the Dragon Room.”
“But Mr. Kamo, you checked that yourself, right?”
“In order to make it look like the false solution you came to was correct, the culprit needed to make it look like the key was in the Dragon Room. That would make it look like Taiga had returned to the Dragon Room. So the culprit devised a plan... In the first place, given everything else we know, there was no reason why that key should have been bent, right? The murderer bent it on purpose.”
“Why did he do that?”
“If I had picked up an unbent key, my first impulse would have been to immediately check if it was really the key to the Dragon Room. However, given that we were searching for the missing Taiga, there was no time to straighten out the bent key. That was the culprit's goal.”
Tsukie opened her mouth dubiously.
“I don't think buying himself time changed anything, though.”
“That's not true. The murderer anticipated we would also take the door of the next room, that is, the Rabbit Room, off its hinges. He predicted that I would force an investigation of the only room left unopened... and all the room doors are the same shade of mahogany. You can't tell them apart just by looking.”
Tsukie nodded in acknowledgment. Kamo continued.
“Amamiya took the doors of both the Dragon and Rabbit Rooms off their hinges and set them up in the hallways. He could have swapped the doors between the spots where he'd left them.”
“Then the bent key was the one to the Rabbit Room? And as a result, you inserted the key to the Rabbit Room into the Rabbit Room door and, as a result, saw a match?”
That was Hora, who it seemed couldn't keep his mouth shut anymore.
“That's it exactly. The bent key seemed much older than the others. Maybe he took the key to the Rabbit Room that Taiga had kept this whole time and used it in his plan.”
Even after all this, Ayaka still wasn't convinced.
“But if that's the case, then where did Grandfather disappear to after dinner?”
“It's safe to assume he really did go to the second floor, since the wheelchair lift had been moved up and both wheelchairs were on the second floor. In fact, before I went to the cleaning supplies room, the wheelchair was already in the space next to the stairs.”
“But then it doesn't matter! No matter where on the second floor we went, there's no way Mr. Amamiya could have snuck past our surveillance to kill Grandfather.”
“No, there was one place he wouldn't be found... the baggage lift.”
Ayaka's expression changed. Unsurprisingly, she was having a hard time understanding his meaning. Tsukie and Genji also looked at each other, confused. Genji opened his mouth and said what they were all thinking.
“But he couldn't have gotten into the lift. There was only about a space of 110cm x 70 cm x 27 cm in each section.”
“That's true, but that baggage lift is special. It's the only way Taiga could have gotten back downstairs without us seeing, and that makes it the only way he could have gotten outside without us seeing. As long as Taiga was genuinely removed from the second floor... we can only assume he fit into that small space.”
Genji frowned at the absurd logic.
“Even when Grandfather was young, he already stood 170 cm tall, right? He can only have gotten stiffer with age and illness. There's no way he could have fit into space like that.”
Kamo ignored his objection and kept going.
“I hear that Taiga was forced into his wheelchair by complications from his diabetes, is that correct? Diabetes is a terrible disease... if it isn't properly treated, it can impair blood flow to the extremities and even cause necrosis.”
Genji's cheeks twitched. It seemed he'd realized where Kamo was going with this.
“Are you saying... Grandfather's legs were amputated due to complications from diabetes?”
“Most likely. However, due to the memories of the battle between his father and uncle, Taiga couldn't show any weakness, even to his own family. That's why he had no choice but to hide from everyone that he had prosthetic legs.”
In the era Kamo came from, it would have been strange to consider losing your legs due to illness a “weakness”. However... in the era Taiga had lived through, discrimination against the disabled was doubtless much harsher than it was today.
He kept talking.
“The body found in the pizza oven hadn't had its legs severed at the time of the murder. Once you realize that, it makes sense that the severed parts were never found. And the reason the culprit burned the body was to hide the fact that the legs hadn't been there in the first place.”
“Was that another reason why they used the shape of the Nue? So nobody would think anything of Grandfather's lack of legs...”
Hearing Tsukie ask so sadly, Kamo could only nod.
“That's right. To make sure that nobody saw, the murderer moved the body to the pizza oven while we were all asleep... Genji returned to the Ox Room right after we entered the cleaning supplies room and didn't leave until morning. He didn't have a chance to move the body.”
Genji responded with a weak smile.
“Thanks for clearing that up... Come to think of it, we found a piece of varnished wood in the ashes of the pizza oven. I'd never heard of anyone varnishing firewood before, so I thought that was strange. Could that have been a piece of a prosthetic leg?”
“I think so.”
Ayaka looked down with tears in her eyes.
“Poor Grandfather... But how did Mr. Amamiya get him to enter the baggage lift?”
“Considering Taiga's height without prosthetic legs, he would have been able to fit into a space of only 110 centimeters... In addition, he had very strong arm muscles. Am I correct in my understanding that he took care of his own needs on a daily basis?”
“Yes, he was always very proud of that.”
“In that case, he could have gotten out of the wheelchair on his own, collapsed it and placed it in its space near the stairs, then used his arms to pull himself into the baggage lift.”
Nobody disagreed.
“But no matter how badly he wanted to, there was no way Taiga could have kept his prosthetic legs a secret from the people who cared for him every day... So at the very least, Tonegawa and Amamiya should have known about them. Am I right?”
Amamiya gave a low laugh and looked up at the ceiling, lips curled.
“That's correct. Tonegawa and I knew about the old man's legs.”
“Then it's simple. You pretended to notice the pattern of the Nue and told him that the most likely targets were the Tiger Room's Soujirou, the Snake Room's Tsukihiko, and the Rooster Room's Tonegawa. Then you recommended he stake out from a special spot. A spot only he could go, where the murderer wouldn't suspect a thing: the baggage lift.”
Amamiya gave as slow, heavy nod.
“That night, while I was preparing dinner, I went up to the Dragon Room. While we were talking about the Nue, I secretly dropped the bent key at the foot of the bed. ...The old man placed a lot of trust in me, and he listened to my whole story without suspecting a thing. Finally, he said he'd get in the baggage lift on his own and that I didn't have to help him. I lied and said that I'd monitor the Rooster Room from my room.”
Then he smiled.
“It's so interesting, the way people who love detective novels are so eager to throw themselves into danger. It's like he thought he was the protagonist of this story. He was so enthusiastic about catching the murderer with his own two hands.”
“...But I'm sure Taiga wasn't so foolish as to ambush the murderer unarmed. He probably had the hunting rifle with him in the baggage lift, right?”
“Got it in one. I recommended he bring the rifle with him for self defense. He gave me the keys to the lockers where the gun and bullets were stored because he was too old to get them himself, and I took them out and put them in the lift.”
“Is that so Taiga wouldn't get suspicious as he entered the lift?”
Amamiya nodded.
“Without a weapon, even a reckless old man like him might be a bit scared to get in a cramped elevator. I helped him change into his jinbei, which was easier to move around in, and I put a similarly colored one on his chair. I did that because I hoped someone would falsely conclude that a time paradox had occurred... After dinner, the old man snuck off into the baggage lift. All I had to do then was wait for the sleeping pills I'd put in everyone's after-dinner coffee to kick in. But I still had one problem. That was you, Mr. Kamo.”
“Me?”
“We knew you'd probably read Ayaka's diary, so we had no choice but to change the order of our crimes... To be honest, both D. Cassiopeia and I were scared as hell. We had no idea how much Hora, who was a total unknown to us, had told you about D. Cassiopeia. But when you arrived 'here', we immediately saw that you weren't hiding your hourglass, and you showed no signs of checking to see if any of us were hiding anything.”
Amamiya kept going when he saw that Kamo had nothing to say in response.
“That's when we realized: Hora was so intent on keeping Malice's story a secret that he hadn't even told you about D. Cassiopeia. You didn't know there was another hourglass. In that case, we predicted that you would stake out in the cleaning supplies room in response to the contents of the diary... And as expected, you followed the old man out of the dining room, right? So I talked to you to give him time.”
“...And that was why you talked to me for 20 minutes?”
“20 minutes gave the old man plenty of time to safely get in the lift. After that, I waited for the right time and brought the lift down to the ground floor.”
“Thinking back, I heard the motor noise while I was hiding out in the cleaning supplies room. At the time, Ayaka and I wrote it off as a minor earth tremor, but now that I think back, it makes sense.”
Amamiya seemed only minimally surprised before continuing.
“Then, I strangled the old man in his sleep and took the key to the Dragon Room. I couldn't leave that behind. Then, I put the body and its wooden legs in the pizza oven, lit it up, dropped the dragon netsuke in front of the kiln, and that was the day's work done... The next day, I swapped the doors to the Dragon and Rabbit Rooms when I saw a chance.”
For a while, nobody said anything. Hora finally broke the silence.
“Regarding the third murder, your primary motive was to keep Ms. Tonegawa's mouth shut, correct?”
“Yeah, in order to make the second case work, I needed to silence the only other person who knew about the prosthetic limbs. Fortunately, Mr. Kamo said that he'd check the bars on her window, so Tonegawa invited us into the room herself. When nobody was looking, I poured some poison in her cup.”
He talked about his crime as though it were a quick trip to the store. Kamo was speechless to hear someone talk about a human's death that way.
Amamiya stared defiantly into his eyes.
“So, how about the fourth case?”
Kamo glared back at him and responded.
“Ayaka's deduction was mostly correct. Certainly, this was a case involving time travel.”
When Genji heard that, he looked at Kamo with an unreadable expression.
“Didn't you say that actually using time travel for a trick would be boring?”
“I said it would be boring to do so without any special twists. However, the fourth case was quite twisted indeed.”
“Well, I suppose it was unexpected that everyone except the culprit and the victims time traveled...”
Even though he said that, Genji didn't seem fully convinced. Kamo kept explaining.
“First, lets consider what Ayaka got wrong. First off, the amount of time we experienced before 6:00 A.M. Normally, the time between 9:00 P.M. and 6:00 A.M. is nine hours.”
He took out Ayaka's note and added more information with a ballpoint pen.
––Assuming time travel at 9:00 P.M. and destination set as 12:00 A.M. the next day.
––Departure time Arrival time Experienced time
––9:00 P.M. → 10:00 P.M. (Error -2 hours) 8 hours
––9:00 P.M. → 12:00 A.M. (Error 0 hours) 6 hours
––9:00 P.M. → 2:00 A.M. (Error +2 hours) 4 hours
“As you can see, the intended time of nine hours could have been shortened to as low as four. Even the most oblivious person would have noticed that, so D. Cassiopeia would have been a fool to risk the possibility. She wouldn't have made this plan.”
“You're right...”
Ayaka seemed ashamed of herself as she stammered.
“The other thing of note is our stubble... I haven't shaved once since I arrived 'here', so mine's gotten pretty bad, and Genji's also grown a lot since we entered the trailer.”
Genji put a hand on his cheek self-consciously.
“I haven't shaved in over a day, either.”
“On the other hand, Amamiya's beard hasn't grown much at all, especially not during the time he was in the trailer. Soujirou and Tsukihiko looked similarly clean shaven when we found them dead...”
Tsukie narrowed her eyes as she traced her memories, then nodded.
“That's right. Father's mustache was well-groomed, and my Brother didn't have any beard.”
“Specifically regarding Tsukihiko, I remember he had grown a bit of stubble by the time we barricaded the back door. That would mean he'd shaved before we found the body. Isn't that strange? There was still dirt on his head, but he shaved before taking a bath or washing his face. The answer is simple: the culprit was the one to shave the two victims.”
“Why did he do that?” asked Ayaka.
Kamo pointed to his chin and answered.
“It depends on the person, but in general, a beard's thickness is a good indicator of how many days have passed... A question: We know there will be a landslide at noon on the 25th. If the culprit wanted to kill us all with that landslide, what would they do?”
Hora screamed in a way an AI shouldn't have been able to.
“No! Do you mean to say that D. Cassiopeia sent us not several hours into the future, but an entire day?”
“That's it. We think today is the 24th, but it's actually the 25th.”
“I see... that explains the major discrepancy in the gravitational wave measurements I detected. If today is the 25th, those numbers are actually perfectly accurate.”
Ayaka, who seemed to have finally caught up with the discussion, covered her mouth with both hands.
“I understand. Even if we all know the date and time when the landslide will fall, it wouldn't matter if we misjudged the current date... Was that the final trap set by Mr. Amamiya to ensure our deaths?”
“The real purpose of the fourth case was to increase the number of victims by leading us all to our deaths. The reason he shaved their beards was to obfuscate the discrepancy between the number of days we'd spent in the trailer and how long Soujirou and Tsukihiko had been there.”
Before anyone had realized, a look of resignation had appeared on Amamiya's face. That, more than anything, was proof that Kamo's theory was correct.
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