Chapter 7: The Truth Behind the Tragedy of Wire Mesh Island
Mitsumura returned to the security room and led us all from the mansion. “Why are we going outside?” I asked. “It's more convenient this way,” was all she said as she continued down the paved road. We arrived at the coast. Sotodomari was there, making another bonfire.
She noticed us and came over.
“Is something happening? Everyone is moving as a group.”
“We know who the culprit is,” Mitsumura said. “So I'm going to solve the case. Would you like to come with us, Sotodomari?”
When she heard that, Sotodomari's lips formed a sly grin.
“Oh, how fascinating,” she said, turning to Mitsumura with eyes that held a challenge. “Then let's go see the answer you've come to.”
Thus, the six of us gathered on the beach: Mitsumura, myself, Yozuki, Ms. Chiyori, Ms. Hitsujiko, and Sotodomari. Everyone except Dr. Iori was there. Should we call her too? Just as I thought that, I looked over and just so happened to see her milling around. I beckoned her over, and after making a surprised expression, she came over. She joined us as well.
“Now that everybody is here,” Mitsumura said, “allow me to present my solution.”
“To begin with, let's talk about the identity of the murderer behind all the locked rooms that have occurred on Wire Mesh Island,” Mitsumura began. “Because that part is obvious. She culprit is Ms. Otomigawara. She killed Mr. Shitsugi, Mr. Otozaki, Mr. Poirotzaka, Mr. Gentleman, and Ms. Breakfast. In other words, the first five murders and the sixth murder, the one which claimed Ms. Otomigawara's own life, were not a single series of murders, but a killing spree brought to an end by the culprit's own death.”
Ms. Chiyori nodded and said “I see.”
“It does make sense, but what is your basis for saying so? Knowing you, I doubt you'd say that if you didn't have evidence.”
“Yes, I do have a good basis. There are two things.”
Mitsumura held up two fingers of her right hand like a peace sign. Then she lowered her middle finger, leaving, only the index finger raised.
“The first is the deduction I made earlier. The culprit attacked Kuzushiro and stole the key card from him. Therefore, the culprit is someone who knew that Kuzushiro had that key card. And the only other person there when the exchange was made... was Ms. Otomigawara.”
That was certainly strong evidence. It Otomigawara hadn't been murdered, there would be no problem in declaring that case closed. However, that wasn't the case, because Otomigawara had been killed. Considering that she'd died in the middle of an ongoing serial murder case, that would mean that someone other than her had committed the sixth murder right after she'd killed five people. It was hard to believe something so convenient had just happened.
In other words, in order to claim that the 1st through 5th murders were committed by Otomigawara, there needed to be solid evidence that they weren't committed by the same culprit as the 6th murder. And Mitsumura...
“Of course I have it,” she said. “That is the second basis I mentioned. It is a break in the pattern.”
“A break in the pattern?”
When I heard that, the first thing that came to mind was the toy rabbit. One of those had been left at the scene of each crime. It was true that this rabbit had had its head severed with a knife. But so what? I didn't think it meant anything. It was just set dressing by the culprit to make the case more puzzling.
When I expressed that thought, Mitsumura nodded at me.
“Yes, well, at a glance it doesn't appear to mean much. But it's more elaborate than that. Those toys have a deeper meaning than just mimicking the victims' deaths.”
“A deeper meaning?”
“Yes,” Mitsumura said. “It's exactly like And Then There Were None.”
It was?
“Oh, you mean-!” Yozuki exclaimed. “You mean this case is a take on Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None?”
Mitsumura nodded at her.
“Yes, it is. All the victims in this case parallel characters from And Then There Were None. Let me demonstrate.”
Mitsumura took her smart phone from her pocket and opened an e-book app. She pulled up the list of characters from And Then There Were None on the screen.
Dramatis Personae:
Lawrence Wargrave..... Former Judge
Vera Claythorne..... P.E. Teacher
Philip Lombard..... Former Army Captain
Emily Brent..... Old Lady
John MacArthur..... Retired General
Edward Armstrong..... Doctor
Anthony Marston..... Young Man
William Blore..... Former Police Inspector
Thomas Rogers..... Butler
Ethel Rogers..... Butler's Wife
Mitsumura showed us all her screen. “The characters of And Then There Were None all had different occupations, and their occupations and other attributes mach our victims – not just our victims, but everyone gathered on this island, both the guests and the regular inhabitants.”
Hearing Mitsumura's comment, we all looked at each
other. “Maybe...” Ms. Chiyori said, pointing to herself.
“Because I'm a former judge?”
“Yes, Ms. Kurokawa matches former judge Lawrence Wargrave. So it's likely you were planned to be killed at some point. You're lucky to be alive.”
“Seriously?”
Ms. Chiyori shuddered. And then she protested to Mitsumura.
“Don't say such scary things like that.”
“I'm sorry, but it's just the truth,” Mitsumura said calmly. “Next, Vera Claythorne, the P.E. teacher.”
“Come to think of it,” said Ms. Hitsujiko, “I hear Ms. Breakfast used to work as a gym teacher before opening a restaurant in her home village. Does that mean she's the one who corresponds to Ms. Claythorne?”
It made sense. Next was the former army captain Philip Lombard...
“Uh, um,” Dr. Iori said. “Was there a former army captain on this island?”
There definitely wasn't. Therefore, the theory that this crime was based on And Then There Were None was dead in the water.
“What are you doing?” Sotodomari protested. “It isn't like that book at all!”
“I'm sorry,” Mitsumura apologized. “But from here on out, we're going to have to be a bit more creative.”
“So it's contrived... Uuuuuuugh...”
Sotodomari groaned. But then, Ms. Chiyori exclaimed “Oh! Maybe,” as if she'd just noticed something.
Ms. Chiyori raised her index finger.
“Ms. Otomigawara's full name was Aoi Otomigawara.”
“Yes, that's correct,” Mitsumura nodded. “Aoi Otomigawara – with the 'Oi' written with the 'Taii' kanji. That's why she corresponds to Philip Lombard, the former army 'taii' (captain).”
That was another link between the cast of And Then There Were None and the victims. Next on the list was Emily Brent, the old woman.
“Uh, um,” Dr. Iori said again. “Who here is an old lady?”
We hit another wall.
“Well, you're the oldest person here,” I said, “aren't you, Ms. Chiyori?”
“Don't be ridiculous! I'm not some old lady.” Predictably, Ms. Chiyori got angry.
“Then, what about Dr. Iori?” asked Yozuki.
“Wha!? Me, an old woman?” Dr. Iori looked shocked. “I'm only 29.”
There was a heavy silence. It was finally broken by Ms. Hitsujiko.
“Well, is there anyone here older than Dr. Iori?”
No one raised their hand. Ms. Hitsujiko heartlessly declared:
“Then Dr. Iori is an old woman.”
“That isn't it,” Mitsumura said, shaking her head. “The one who matches the old woman isn't Dr. Iori, but Sotodomari.”
Everyone was stunned.
“Wh-What are you talking about!?” Sotodomari finally said, eyes darting about frantically. “W-Why me? Could it be... because I'm a vampire who has lived for a thousand years?”
...This was just dumb.
“Well, that's fine,” Mitsumura said with a shrug. “But there is a simpler explanation. Sotodomari's full name is Emiri Sotodomari. Emiri. Emily. In other words, her name matches that of the old woman, Emily Brent.”
Thus, the pattern was reestablished.
Sotodomari looked sad and lamented “But... I liked the name Emiri.” Mitsumura ignored her and pushed her way on to the next name. “Next is the retired general, John MacArthur.”
“This one is simple. Mr. Otozaki used to call himself 'General Otozaki'. Therefore, the role of General MacArthur was played by General Otozaki. Next is the doctor, Edward Armstrong...”
This was the easiest one yet. There was only one doctor on the island. Next was Anthony Marston...
“Just like with Sotodomari, the name 'Anthony' is more important than the attribute 'young man',” Mitsumura said. “And Anthony was the first name of Mr. Gentleman, correct? So that's that. It's ironic, he played the role of the young man, even though he was an old Gentleman.”
“Don't worry, sonnies, I'm still here,” said Sotodomari, having embraced the ways of the old lady. “Let's all go play, uh... jacks, down at the... soda fountain.”
Well, once we'd gotten that far, the rest was easy.
The former police inspector William Blore matched with the former Police Inspector Poirotzaka.
Of course, the butler, Thomas Rogers, was the butler Shitsugi.
And Ethel, the butler's wife, corresponded to Ms. Hitsujiko, Shitsugi's ex-wife.
“Now we know the people on this island correspond to the cast of And Then There Were None,” Mitsumura said. “Of course, myself, Kuzushiro, and Yozuki don't fit under that umbrella, but that was unavoidable, seeing as how the culprit needed exactly ten victims. This isn't just a copy of And Then There Were None, but a series of locked room murders, right? And for there to be a locked room, there need to be witnesses to testify that the crime scene was actually locked. In other words, they needed a survivor role that didn't correspond to anyone from And Then There Were None. Kuzushiro and I were chosen for that role.”
I see, no matter how elaborate the locked room is, if everyone is killed, then there will be nobody to report it to the police. That meant there would be no point to creating the locked rooms in the first place, and apparently, the culprit couldn't have that.
“So, the pattern is complete,” Mitsumura declared. “Well, it isn't that hard to get to this point. The more intelligent among you probably got this far on your own. So, to the actual point: As I said earlier, the pattern is broken. Specifically, at the scene of Ms. Otomigawara's murder. A toy rabbit wearing a dress was left there. Don't you find that strange?”
“Strange? I don't see anything strange about that.”
I remembered the scene at the time. It was true that there had been a toy rabbit in a dress left at the scene of Otomigawara's murder. And like the actual corpse, it had had its head severed. But I didn't find that strange. There was no contradiction with the previous cases there.
“Yes, there is a contradiction,” Mitsumura said. “Try to remember the ten toy rabbits displayed in the mansion's dining room. I didn't see them with my own eyes, but I've been told there were seven wearing tuxedos and three wearing dresses, correct?”
She was. However, all those rabbits had been taken by the culprit. And with each murder, one of them was left at the scene. If the victim was a man, they left a rabbit in a tuxedo; if it was a woman, they left a rabbit in a dress. That pattern hadn't been broken. All six of the murders that had occurred on Wire Mesh Island...
“They all followed that pattern,” said Mitsumura, tracing her black hair with a her fingers. “And given that all ten rabbits were stolen, it's likely the culprit intended to kill ten people, and leave a rabbit at each crime scene. For male victims, a rabbit in a tuxedo, for female victims, a rabbit in a dress. But, that's strange. If the culprit planned to follow that pattern for ten victims, something would eventually go awry.”
“The plan would go awry?” Ms. Chiyori said. “Why would it do that?”
“I mean, it's obvious, isn't it?” Mitsumura said. Then, a small smile formed on her lips. “Because there are only five men on the island, including Kuzushiro. But there are seven rabbits with tuxedos. Even if they managed to complete And Then There Were None, there would still be at least two rabbits in tuxedos left over. Therefore, that assumption was never true, and yet, the culprit still left the rabbits at the crime scenes. So, where do we go from here? There's only one option. We have no choice but to conclude that our assumption that the rabbits corresponding to the genders of the victims was wrong.”
That was the bit we had wrong?
But there actually had been toy rabbits left at the crime scenes that matched the genders of the victims. I could only assume the culprit had done that intentionally. At the very least, the toy rabbits were gendered. It was unthinkable that the culprit had set that up and then just left them without any thought for it.
So what did it mean? And that's when it hit me. Earlier, Mitsumura had explained at length how all of the people involved in the case corresponded to the cast of And Then There Were None. So perhaps, the toy rabbits left at the crime scenes didn't correspond to the genders of the victims...
“Did they correspond to the genders of their counterparts from And Then There Were None?”
Mitsumura nodded at me.
“That's exactly right. The first victim, Mr. Shitsugi, corresponds to the butler Thomas Rogers, and as can be seen from his name, he is a man – so a rabbit in a tuxedo was left behind. The second victim, Mr. Otozaki, corresponds to the retired general John MacArthur, whose gender is also male – so another rabbit in a tuxedo was left behind.”
And the third victim, Poirotzaka, corresponded to ex-police investigator William Blore, another man. Therefore, another rabbit in a tuxedo was left at the scene of the crime.
The fourth victim, Gentleman, corresponded to the young man Anthony Marston – emphasis on the “man” once again, and another rabbit in a tuxedo was left behind.
The fifth victim, Ms. Breakfast, corresponded to the P.E. teacher Vera Claythorne, and although “Vera” was a fairly obscure name in Japan, I was pretty sure she was a woman. It was doubtful that anyone would think a name that sounded like that was male. And, as expected, a rabbit in a dress was left at the scene.
“The key point here is the sixth murder,” Mitsumura said. “The victim, Ms. Otomigawara, matches Philip Lombard, the former army captain. Since his name is Philip, of course he's a man. However, what was left at the crime scene was a rabbit in a dress. In short, the pattern was broken. What should have been left behind was a rabbit in a tuxedo, but that wasn't the case. The contradiction is obvious. So, the question is, why did this contradiction come about?”
Involuntarily, a smile formed on my lips. After all, we'd decided that from the beginning.
“The sixth case has a different culprit from the previous five.”
That was why this contradictory situation had arisen. The two culprits hadn't compared notes.
“That's right,” Mitsumura nodded at me. “This is the basis for my claim that the culprit of the 1st through 5th murders is different from the culprit of the 6th. Therefore, my logic of the key card pointing to the culprit of the first five murders still stands. The culprit was Ms. Otomigawara after all, and she was murdered by a separate culprit... That is the only conclusion.”
“By realizing that Ms. Otomigawara was herself a killer, we can already solve one of the mysteries about her own murder,” Mitsumura said. “That being why the culprit put her head into the helmet of the suit of armor.”
Indeed, that was one of the most mysterious elements of the locked room in the Tower of Heaven. We had no idea why the culprit put the helmet on the head.
“Why don't you try turning your thinking around?” Mitsumura said when she saw our confused looks. “Instead of asking why the culprit put the helmet on Ms. Otomigawara, ask yourself why Ms. Otomigawara would have put it on herself.”
She put the helmet on herself?
“But Mitsumura,” I said, “there's no reason why Ms. Otomigawara would have done that. There's no need for to do something like that, is there?”
“Under normal circumstances, you'd be right,” Mitsumura admitted. “But consider that she was the culprit of the first five murders. Don't you think that would perfectly explain why she put on the helmet?”
“That would require her to put on the helmet?”
“You really aren't intuitive at all,” Mitsumura said with a sigh. “There's only one reason a murderer would wear that helmet.”
At that moment, Yozuki exclaimed “Oh! I've got it!” And she said:
“She wore it to hide her face.”
Mitsumura smiled slightly and said “That's correct. As expected of you, Yozuki, you listen to your instincts.” I was didn't think that was a good thing, though.
Mitsumura ignored me and kept explaining.
“Yes, Ms. Otomigawara put on the helmet to commit the next murder, so no one would recognize her if she was seen committing the crime. That also explains the contradictory appearance of the rabbit. It was prepared by Ms. Otomigawara herself to kill the next victim. In other words, Ms. Otomigawara's next target corresponded to a female character from And Then There Were None – either Sotodomari, who corresponds to the old lady Emily Brent, or Ms. Hitsujiko, who corresponds to the butler's wife Ethel.”
“My stars!” Sotodomari panicked.
“It could have been me up there,” Ms. Hitsujiko said.
“But is that really the case?” asked Ms. Chiyori. “Did Otomigawara really prepare that rabbit in the dress? If that doll was prepared by Otomigawara, doesn't that contradict your theory that she was killed by someone else trying to make us think that she was killed as part of the same killing spree as the first five victims?”
“No, it doesn't,” Mitsumura snapped. “I hate the Late Queen Problems. Even though they're a load of nonsense, they always come up in discussions of mysteries. It's a structural flaw in genuine mysteries. No matter how beautiful the logic, it can be destroyed by unsupported alternatives and meaningless quibbles. It's sad, but things like this happen.”
A grin appeared on her lips.
“Fortunately for us, there is no chance of that happening here. It has already been determined that the only one who could have prepared that rabbit was Ms. Otomigawara herself, not the culprit.”
At that, Ms. Chiyori glared at Mitsumura.
“And what is your basis for saying that?”
“It's simple: because the crime scene was a locked room.”
Mitsumura responded with cool eyes.
“The only way in or out of the Tower of Heaven was monitored by a surveillance camera – and there was no way to climb the wall to reach one of the windows. In other words, nobody else could have set foot in the Tower of Heaven. In that case, we can only conclude that the victim, Ms. Otomigawara, herself prepared the rabbit.”
We all let out soft gasps.
She was right. Since the scene was a locked room, there was no way anyone other than Otomigawara could have left the rabbit in the room. For a moment, I contemplated arguing that the culprit might have used a drone to deliver the rabbit to the crime scene, but I realized that wasn't possible. The rabbit's head had been severed with a knife, and there were marks from the knife right there on the table. That meant the rabbit hadn't been decapitated and then placed on the table, but decapitated right there in the room. In other words, it was definitely placed there by a human and not a drone. And the only one who could have done that was Otomigawara.
Not only that, but next to the rabbit, there had been a vase of dandelions. There were five dandelions in total, but none of their fluff had been blown off by wind. If a drone had gotten close to the table, the wind from it would have blown off some fluff. That was also evidence that a drone hadn't been used.
The toy rabbit and the knife with the inscription “The Living Locked Room Library” were left by the culprit of the first five murders. The fact that Otomigawara had left it there meant she'd had it meant that she was the culprit of the first five murders. As long as nobody else could enter the Tower of Heaven, that chain of logic was unbreakable.
Ms. Chiyori frowned as she admitted “That's certainly true.” But then she asked Mitsumura “But...”
“How did the culprit of the sixth murder kill Otomigawara? After all, her head was ripped clean off. How could you do that without entering the locked room?”
She had a point.
I had thought that the culprit had somehow snuck past the surveillance camera or through the window and ripped off Otomigawara's head. That just made more sense. However, Mitsumura said that the culprit killed Otomigawara without taking a single step into the Tower of Heaven. Was something like that really possible for a human being?
“Of course it's possible,” said Mitsumura. “If you use a special weapon.”
“A special weapon?”
Mitsumura nodded at me. Then she named the murder weapon.
“An anti-materiel rifle,” she said. “Ms. Otomigawara was shot from outside the window while wearing the helmet. The bullet hit the helmet on her head, and its kinetic energy ripped her head off and sent in flying out the window.”
“Her head was ripped off by a shot from an anti-materiel rifle?”
We were all stunned by her answer. Except Yozuki, who tilted her head and said “Anti-materiel rifle?”
“I feel like I've heard of that before...”
Of course she had.
“It was in the movie you were watching before, right? On the boat on our way to Wire Mesh Island.”
“Ah, now that you mention it,” Yozuki said, looking like she had just remembered. “It's some sort of ultra powerful gun, right? If you shoot someone with it, they'll fall apart like cheese.”
Yes, anti-materiel rifles are extremely powerful guns. After all, they can penetrate through 20 mm thick steel plates. But when Otomigawara was killed, she was wearing the helmet of that suit of armor. And that armor was made of a special alloy five times stronger than iron. Therefore, it could have withstood a direct hit from the bullet. But the same couldn't be said for Otomigawara herself. Unable to withstand the bullet's kinetic energy, her head was torn off at the base, went flying out the south window of the Tower of Heaven, and sailed clean over to the other side of the fence surrounding Wire Mesh Island.
The footage of its journey was captured by one of the surveillance cameras installed on the fence. The killer hadn't intentionally thrown the head over the fence, but they had used such a powerful gun that it had just happened.
Otomigawara's head flew over the fence and must have landed in the sea right next to Wire Mesh Island. If it was recovered and examined, there would surely be evidence it was shot with an anti-materiel rifle.
“And once we know that the murder weapon is an anti-materiel rifle, we can naturally deduce the identity of the culprit,” Mitsumura said. “Because Ms. Otomigawara's corpse was lying in the exact center of the Tower of Heaven's study. That study was a circular room with a diameter of ten meters, right? So, the center of the room... Looking up from beneath the tower, it's a complete blind spot, and the culprit would have had no line of sight when shooting. The only way the culprit could have landed a shot on the Tower of Heaven is if they were shooting from the same height.”
That was a valid theory. That meant the culprit shot Otomigawara from a building the same height as the Tower of Heaven. That meant... Huh?
I had a question.
“Was there a building on this island as tall as the Tower of Heaven?”
When I asked, Ms. Hitsujiko shook her head.
“No, there isn't. The Tower of Heaven is the tallest building on Wire Mesh Island.”
That was right, the Tower of Heaven was 40 meters tall. It was the only thing on the island taller than the 30 meter fence surrounding us.
“Eh, but, then...” Yozuki looked troubled. “Where on Earth did the culprit shoot Ms. Otomigawara from?”
Mitsumura laughed a bit. She pointed and said:
“Well, it must have been from there, no?”
We all turned in the direction Mitsumura was pointing. And I was struck speechless. There was a solitary island in the distant sea.
I remembered its name as Crescent Island. It was an uninhabited island north of Wire Mesh Island.
On Crescent Island was a small hill, about 40 meters high, and on that hill stood a mansion. The distance between the mansion and Wire Mesh Island was about 500 meters, and the distance between it and the Tower of Heaven where the murder took place was about 1 kilometer.
My eyes shot open.
Ms. Chiyori looked stunned.
“N-No way.”
“Yes,” Mitsumura said with a nod. “This incident was committed by an outsider.”
The assassin sat by the window, looking through the scope of their rifle. The target's face appeared in the view of the magnification lens. The killer took a breath and waited for their heartbeat to steady. They pulled the trigger. The shot hit the target square in the head, killing them.
The assassin took a deep breath. Setting down their rifle, they took a cigarette from their pocket and lit it with a lighter. Just as they inhaled the purple smoke into their lungs, their cell phone rang. The caller was an agent who brokered contract killings.
“Hey, how are you?” the agent said when they answered the phone. With no further preamble, he immediately said “There's a job I need done right away.”
“A job? Ah, that's fine,” the assassin replied. The agent told them “Thanks, you're being a huge help.” and then added a somewhat cryptic follow-up:
“By the way, the client did give me one particular condition.”
The assassin frowned. Ah, so this was a troublesome case. Realizing what they'd gotten themself into, their reply was reluctant.
“What is the condition?”
“They want you to kill all the targets in locked rooms.”
A bitter smile formed on their lips. Ah, so that was it... It was certainly a troublesome condition.
The assassin replied with a sigh.
“I've already retired from being an agent. Now I'm just your normal, everyday assassin.”
From the other end of the phone, there came a voice of genuine amusement.
“What, you're saying that now? You, the one who used to call yourself the 'Living Locked Room Library'?”
That was a name they hadn't heard in a long time. One who knew every locked room trick in the world and could use them to their advantage – that's why they'd been dubbed the Living Locked Room Library. People had started calling them that, and eventually, they'd started calling themself that. Even though it had only been a few years ago, it felt like another life. They'd been much younger then... They'd been that sort of assassin... the Living Locked Room Library remembered.
As they were standing immersed in those old emotions, the agent starting pleading.
“Come on, do me a solid? We're old buddies, right?”
Indeed, they had known him since they'd started work as a locked room agent. However, the career of locked room agent had only existed for three years, so it wasn't like they'd known each other that long.
But the Living Locked Room Library had already made up their mind to accept the job. There was nothing left to it. It had been a long time since they'd received a request for a locked room murder, and they were getting excited. They hated themself for being so easily manipulated. In the end, they couldn't escape the siren song of a locked room.
“Okay. I'll take the job.”
When the Living Locked Room Library said that, the agent let out a happy noise. Then, as if to cover up his embarrassment, he very formally announced “Thank you for your assistance.”
The Living Locked Room Library asked the honest man a question.
“So, who are the targets?”
“Ah, um...” They heard the sound of papers ruffling on the other end of the line. “There are quite a few targets. I'll send you a list later. But, one of them is pretty big.”
“Who is it?”
“Do you know the name Aoi Otomigawara?”
The Living Locked Room Library nodded. Of course they did. That was how they could respond like this.
“That's one of the richest people in Japan.”
If they remembered correctly, she had assets approaching one trillion yen, if you included stocks and real estate.
“This job has multiple targets – including the tycoon, Aoi Otomigawara,” the agent said. “Otomigawara lives on a private island she owns by the name of Wire Mesh Island. It's a lone island in the Pacific Ocean.”
The Living Locked Room Library wore a dissonant smile.
“It's a perfect stage. Like something out of a mystery novel,” they said. “So, the curtain will rise on a series of locked room murders on a solitary island in the distant sea...”
However, with that said, there was a minor problem. The Living Locked Room Library told the agent,
“But unfortunately, I can't accept this job.”
They heard the agent's voice break over the phone. They guessed he hadn't expected to be turned down at the last minute. But they couldn't help it. What was impossible was impossible. Because...
With their satellite phone in hand, the Living Locked Room Library looked at Wire Mesh Island out the window of the mansion on Crescent Island.
“Aoi Otomigawara is already dead. I just blew her head off with an anti-materiel rifle. By the way, what were the names of the other targets? Shitsugi, Otozaki, and Gentleman? They're all dead, too. That's why I can't take on this job. No matter how good an assassin I am, I can't kill someone who's already dead.”
Two days after the incident was resolved, a ship arrived to Wire Mesh Island to take us home, and we were finally reunited with the outside world. The police arrived after we contacted them using the ship's radio. From there, we were detained for another day as they questioned us. We were released the day after, and, finally, we were allowed to board the boat for the return trip.
Otomigawara's head, still in the helmet, was found in the sea around Wire Mesh Island. As Mitsumura had suspected, a bullet from an anti-materiel rifle was embedded in the alloy helmet.
“But why did Ms. Otomigawara kill everyone?”
I asked Mitsumura that on the boat on our way home. We were on the deck, just me and Mitsumura. Yozuki and Ms. Chiyori were asleep below decks, probably exhausted from their long week. The end of Golden Week sea breeze caressed Mitsumura's long black hair.
“There was no motive,” Mitsumura said, touched the black hair that blew in the wind. “Honestly, I don't really care about that kind of thing. I'm the sort of person who doesn't bother reading the motivation scenes in mystery novels.”
“I'm pretty sure you're the only person like that.”
She looked surprised. She pouted her lips and said “I don't think that's the case.” Then she leaned over the railing on the deck and looked out at the deep blue sea. She stayed like that as if in a daze for a while, then suddenly announced “I can tell you one thing.”
“Ms. Otomigawara was not the real Living Locked Room Library. The real one is probably still out there somewhere. At least, that's what I think.”
“Ah, I actually agree with that.”
However, until recently, I had believed that Otomigawara was the real Living Locked Room Library. But when I thought further, I realized that didn't make sense.
After all, Otomigawara was the one who'd gathered all the victims to Wire Mesh Island.
If she was the real Living Locked Room Library, that would mean a notorious assassin deliberately gathered a bunch of targets on their private island to carry out a job. It was a bit hard to imagine an assassin deliberately inviting people to their own home for work.
However, if Otomigawara wasn't the real Living Locked Room Library, the motive for the crime was totally unknown. Mitsumura prefaced her next statement with “This is just a guess,” then said:
“I think she killed them because she wanted to kill them. She came up with locked room tricks, and she wanted to use them. That's all.”
“What makes you say that?”
“It's because the crimes were like a game,” she said. “As I said before, this murder was patterned after And Then There Were None. In that case, it's either that, or Ms. Otomigawara somehow developed grudges against all ten of her intended victims, and... It's hard to believe that it was just a coincidence they were all linked to characters from And Then There Were None, even if some of them only fit due to their jobs, like the doctor or the judge. It seems more likely that Ms. Otomigawara didn't have anything against the individual targets, but just gathered people who fit the criteria.
“I see.”
Thinking about it that way, the list of participants of the Locked Room Trick Game was rather strange. Even though there was a billion yen on the line, I felt like, aside from Mitsumura and Ms. Chiyori, Poirotzaka, Otozaki, and Gentleman weren't up to the level of the game. I think it would have made more sense to invite more locked room detectives who'd ranked highly on the This Locked Room Detective Is Amazing! or Locked Room Detective Best 10 lists, but it made sense if you assumed she'd actually chosen them specifically because they fit the pattern. In addition, Poirotzaka may have been invited as a priority guest because he wanted to stay in the cottage of the Decapitation Chamber.
“However, Ms. Otomigawara may not have simply selected people just for fitting the criteria of And Then There Were None. She may have deliberately selected people among them.”
Mitsumura said that, her hair fluttering in the sea breeze.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“They chose targets who were socially considered villains it would be okay to kill. Well, that's just a guess, I have no basis for saying so.”
“You mean it might not have been a completely indiscriminate murder?”
For example, even though she hadn't been killed, Ms. Chiyori was one of the targets. She was responsible for the dawn of the Golden Age of Locked Rooms, probably one of the most hated judges in all Japan. Sadly, there were probably many who considered her “an evil person it would be okay to kill.”
Gentleman was an executive of a notorious cult, and the other targets may have had their own circumstances that earned them the hatred of many.
I responded,
“What kind of crimes did they commit?”
“Well, with Ms. Otomigawara dead, there's no way to find out.”
With that, she turned her gaze from the ocean to me. And, jokingly, she spoke.
“It's possible that, just like in that famous mystery novel, a note with the motive written down all neat and orderly is floating on the sea in a sealed bottle.”
During the subsequent investigation of Wire Mesh Island, three hours after Kuzushiro and Mitsumura left the island, a police officer saw a message in a bottle. The bottle was being battered by the waves and bumped against the concrete embankment holding up the titular fence of Wire Mesh Island. It must have been washed outside the fence and then brought back by the tide.
The police officer went outside the fence to pick up the bottle. Then he opened the bottle and read the message inside. It consisted of over a dozen sheets of stationery paper, and it began like this:
“I am sure no one will ever read this message. I've calculated the flow of the tides, and I am sure it will be banished to the vast, unexplored reaches of the ocean. But in the unlikely event that someone does find this letter, that would be quite fortunate for the Japanese police. For this message will reveal the truth behind the Wire Mesh Island incident which has remained unsolved for years, perhaps even decades.”
The police officer cocked his head to the side. Apparently, this message was meant to be found years, perhaps even decades from now. But due to the author's miscalculation of the tide, it was picked up after just a few days.
The message continued.
“My name is Aoi Otomigawara. I am the owner of Wire Mesh Island, and the culprit behind the serial locked room murders that occurred there. You must be surprised. The reason I leave this note is because I cannot bear to let the case go unsolved forever. I am sure it will be solved someday. I don't know how many years or decades it will be, but I believe it should be solved by the person who finds this message. For that is the most beautiful ending this case could have. However, I don't want to just tell you the answer to the locked rooms. How far have you gotten on your own? My favorites are the Decapitation Chamber where Mr. Poirotzaka was killed and the locked Tower of the Cross where Mr. Gentleman was killed, but I think the locked room with no footprints where Sotodomari was killed and the quintuple padlocked locked room where Hitsujiko was killed are hard to deny, as well. The view of a dead body lying on a beach with no footprints is beautiful, and I am sure a dead body being found in a cottage with five padlocks will be of interest to everyone.”
Of course, Sotodomari and Hitsujiko weren't actually killed. It was likely the plan to kill them was thwarted when Otomigawara herself was killed before she could commit the crime.
“So, I would like everyone to continue trying to solve the locked room tricks on their own, but I will at least write down my motive for the crimes. As the culprit of the incident, it is only right. I mean, if the motive for the crime were revealed decades after the incident, wouldn't the whole world be excited?”
The policeman turned the page.
“I am suffering from an incurable disease. I don't have long to live. So, at the end of my life, I have decide to commit a series of flashy locked room murders. At the end, I will commit suicide and make it look like a murder. However, that alone is not interesting enough, so I will end my life in a locked room, with my murder weapon nowhere to be found – ending my life with a disappearing weapon trick.”
In actuality, Otomigawara was shot and killed by an assassin before she could commit suicide. That's why the disappearing weapon trick she mentioned was never used.
“However, I was worried about who I should choose for my targets for the serial murder case. As you'd expect, I feel bad about killing innocent people. Therefore, I've decided to only kill people who are guilty in the eyes of the world. But make no mistake. This is by no means a case of righteous murder. Think of it more like me alleviating my own guilt.”
The policeman turned the page. It briefly described the pasts of the people killed – or at least, supposed to be killed – in the incident.
“First, Chiyori Kurokawa. Ms. Kurokawa is, so to speak, the culprit behind this Golden Age of Locked Rooms. Of course, I love the world that had been created by her ruling, but in the eyes of the world, she is a criminal. So, I'm sorry, but I've decided to kill her.”
He turned the page.
“Next, Leticia Breakfast, the chef of Wire Mesh Island. She was once a gym teacher in an American village, but she has a history of abusing and even killing children. So, I'm sorry, but she has to die.”
He turned the page.
“Next, Shitsugi, the butler of Wire Mesh Island.”
At that, the policeman clicked his tongue. He turned over the next page and confirmed what he suspected.
The seal on the bottle had come loose, and seawater had gotten in.
The remaining pages beyond that point were smudged to the point of illegibility.
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