5
“Eh, me!?”
When I said her name, she pointed at her own face in confusion. I didn't want to believe such an innocent girl could have killed someone. But I couldn't help but share the theory I'd come up with.
“That's a bit too much for a joke, Keisuke.”
Unable to bare my gaze, Ohashi looked away.
“What do you mean, Keisuke?”
Yuto grabbed my shoulder and spoke in a low voice. It was clear he wasn't joking.
“Keisuke, explain yourself.”
Nozomu spoke quietly. I gave a modest nod and began to speak.
“Based on what we've discussed already, it's clear someone moved the tent pipes after Yoshida collapsed. That person must be the murderer, who used one of the pipes to climb to the skylight. They let go of the pipe after opening the skylight and climbing onto the roof, causing it to fall onto Yoshida's body. So far, so good.”
“Yeah. The problem is how they managed to escape without being seen by any passersby.”
“Exactly, there were almost no opportunities to leave without any witnesses present, and just getting down from the roof would have taken some time, so the risk of being seen was just too high. But the murderer cleverly took advantage of a momentary gap that only existed today and succeeded in escaping without being seen by anyone.”
I stopped talking and slowly looked around at the three of them, encouraging them to realize.
“Wait, you mean...”
“Yes, the peak of the partial solar eclipse. The skylight faced south. In other words, if there was any risk of being seen, it would be from people facing north. So the culprit waited for the moment when everyone's attention would be on the sun in the southwestern sky, and jumped off the roof at that moment. It wouldn't matter how many people were outside, as long as none of them were looking that way. In short, the culprit took advantage of the greatest celestial light show of the century, scheduled to the minute, to misdirect witnesses from their crime.”
Everyone let out noises of shock and understanding. But that didn't automatically mean by hypothesis was confirmed.
“Hold on, Keisuke,” Nozomu countered. “You're right that the method you just explained, theoretical though it may be, is possible. But the locked room was already complete before we went out to see the eclipse. You confirmed that yourself, didn't you? Both doors were already sealed at that time. If there was a true culprit, they must have already escaped by then.”
“That's right. Or was the culprit still in the storeroom at that time, and waited inside the locked room until the eclipse? In that case, there's no way Ohashi is the culprit. We all saw her eating in the cafeteria back then.”
“Yeah, that's true. If that were the case, the culprit would disappear. The only people left in the dorm at the time of the solar eclipse were Ohashi and Mr. Tanaka, the manager, but Mr. Tanaka has an alibi because he was on a video call at the time. The only person who could have used the method I just described is Ohashi, who claims she was alone in her room writing a report. After descending from the roof, all she'd have to do is return to her room through the window, which she would have left open beforehand. However, Ohashi was in the cafeteria before the eclipse began but after the room was locked, which means nobody could have used this escape trick.”
“But was the room actually sealed just after 1:00? At that time, it's true the doors didn't open, but we didn't check whether or not they were sealed from the inside. If the culprit somehow managed to temporarily hold both doors in place, then opened them after we left and created the proper seals afterwards, then the solar eclipse escape trick could be performed without any problems.”
“Hey, what the hell do you mean 'somehow managed to hold the doors in place'? Are you messing with me?”
“Sorry, but I'm completely serious. The important part here is the second pipe sticking out of the bag. The culprit must have used that pipe to create the temporary locked room. They used that one pipe to create the temporary seal, then after opening it, they carried the body into the storeroom and used the other pipe to climb to the skylight. The purpose of the two pipes and the times they were used were both different – that's why there was a discrepancy in where they were found relative to the body. And the reason the tent bag was left open near the body was because there was no way to prevent the pipe they used to climb from falling out, so they probably tried to camouflage it by making it look like the body had fallen on them and sent them into disarray. If a single pipe had fallen nowhere near the body, that would be extremely noticeable.”
“That's why I'm askin' what this temporary seal is!” Yuto raised his voice. He stood up, making me realize just how intimidating his large build was. “What could you do with just a stick?”
“Sorry, I'm just explaining things in order,” I said, hoping my calm voice would calm him down. “So, how did the culprit use that pipe? Certainly, it is just a stick, but there is one noteworthy thing about it: there are ropes attached to both ends. What the culprit did was create a simple, practical mechanism, taking advantage of the structure of the room and the properties of the pipe.”
I took out some scratch paper and a pencil and drew a rough diagram of the crime scene. Then, with a ruler, I draw a straight line connecting the handles of the two doors on opposite sides of the room.
Nozomu gasped, Yuto collapsed back into his seat, and Ohashi slowly closed her eyes.
“The culprit put a pipe across the room and tied the ropes on each end to the bases of the two levers. What would happen then? The two doors would be perfectly in sync. If you pushed the lever of the front door down, the door in back would act as a stopper via the pipe and wouldn't move. On the other hand, if you pulled down the lever of the back door, the front door would act as a stopper. However, if you turned both levers at the same time, by keeping the distance between the levers constant, both doors could be opened. In short, the culprit used that pipe to create a false locked room that could be entered or exited only by those who knew the trick.”
It was an amazing mechanism that made the whole room look like a giant puzzle box. As long as the person trying to enter the storeroom tried the doors one at a time, the lever would move without the door opening, resulting in it appearing exactly as though the doors were sealed from the inside. However, if one of the levers were lowered and secured in place with tape or something like that, then the other door could be opened easily, and the locked room would be “unlocked”.
Ohashi stroked her blonde hair nervously and didn't reply. Yuto looked back and forth from her to me, then stood up as though he couldn't take it any longer.
“Is that true, Ohashi? But why did you have to kill Yoshida? It's true we weren't close, but there was no reason to do something like this!”
But Ohashi just kept staring silently off into space. Yuto's eyes trembled, unwilling to accept it.
“Ohashi... Yoshida had probably been harassing you for a long time,” I replied on her behalf. “I think the thing Yoshida burned in the yard yesterday was your missing philosophy report. Everyone knows you two didn't get along, but it probably went beyond just not being friends. I think Yoshida found you so unpleasant that she had to hurt you somehow. This is just a guess on my part, but Yoshida, who has the polar opposite personality of Ohashi, must have been jealous of you, who is so cheerful and gets along with everyone, able to open a person's heart in an instant. From that envy grew harassment...”
Ohashi bowed her head at my words and her shoulders began to shake...
...With laughter.
“Ahahahaha, she never harassed me! Besides, I'm not even the culprit, and all of your deductions are wrong! Hahaha, this is so funny! Oh, I... I really shouldn't laugh, but... Ahahahahaha!” She took several deep breaths as though waiting for the waves of laughter to pass, then slowly raised her head. “I didn't kill Yoshida. And such a clever trick? There's no way I could have ever thought of something like that, right? I mean, it wouldn't even work!”
Then, Ohashi slowly brushed her curled hair with one hand and gave all three of us piercing looks in turn. The large amount of sparkling glitter around her eyes and the mischievous light within them made my heart tighten for some reason, and I even felt a bit of a chill.
“So, like, I tried to do a bit of deduction on my own, and, well, I figured it out. I'm kinda dumb so I'm not good at explaining stuff, but I'll tell you anyway. Why Keisuke's deduction is totally nonsense and who the real culprit is.”
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