“The stepladder!” shouted Kozaburo. “Kajiwara, isn’t there a ladder in the outside shed? Run and get it!”
Time crawled by as they waited for Kajiwara to get back with the ladder. When he did, he set it up and climbed to the top.
“What the…”
“Is he dead?”
“Has he been killed?”
The police officers were anxious for news.
“No. Mr Kikuoka isn’t in his bed. But there’s something on the bed that looks like blood.”
“What? Where is he?”
“I can’t see. Not from here. I can only see the area around the bed.”
“Let’s break it down.”
Ushikoshi was not going to wait for permission this time. He and Okuma threw themselves against the door.
“I don’t mind, but this door is particularly sturdy. And the lock is custom-made. It’s not going to break that easily. And I’m afraid there isn’t a duplicate key.”
What Kozaburo said seemed to be true. Even with Constable Anan joining the other two, the weight of three men slamming against it, the door didn’t budge.
“The axe!” shouted Kozaburo. “Kajiwara, go back to the shed. There’s an axe in there, right?”
Kajiwara shot off.
When he returned with the axe, Anan told everyone to get out of the way, and held them back with outstretched arms. Okuma lifted the axe. It was clear to everyone that this was not the first time this man had chopped wood. Soon woodchips and splinters were flying, and a crack opened in the door.
“No, not that spot. It won’t work.”
Kozaburo stepped forward from the group of onlookers.
“Here, here and here. Hit it in those three spots.”
Kozaburo indicated spots at the top, bottom and the very middle of the door. Okuma looked dubious.
“You’ll see when you break it.”
Okuma managed to make three holes, then tried to stick his hand inside. Ushikoshi pulled out a white handkerchief and offered it to Okuma, who wrapped it around his hand.
“Near the top and the bottom of the door are two bolts that you have to turn to lock or release. Reach in and turn them. The upper bolt will swing downwards. The lower one will lift upwards.”
Because it was so hard to picture, the instructions were difficult to follow, and it took Okuma a long time.
When the bolts were finally undone, the police officers all tried to rush in at once, but the door hit something and got stuck. Ozaki pushed on it with all his strength, and it opened far enough to reveal something that looked like a sofa stuck behind the door. Weirdly, it was the base of the sofa that was visible from the outside—in other words, it had been tipped over on its back. Ozaki stuck a leg through the gap and tried to kick it away.
“Don’t be so rough!” said Ushikoshi. “You’ll disturb the crime scene. Just get the door open.”
When the door finally opened, the semicircle of onlookers gasped. It wasn’t only the sofa; the coffee table was overturned too. Beyond that lay the bulky, pyjama-clad form of Eikichi Kikuoka. There were clear signs that he’d fought, but now he lay face down, a knife protruding from the right side of his back.
“Mr Kikuoka!” cried Kozaburo.
“Mr President!” This from Kanai.
“Daddy!” blurted Kumi.
The police officers all hurried in.
“Damn it!”
The voice came from directly behind them. As Ozaki turned to look there was a smashing noise, and the flower vase was suddenly in pieces on the floor.
“Damn, damn! I’m sorry.”
Kozaburo had attempted to follow the police into the room and had tripped on the upturned sofa.
The irises lay scattered over Kikuoka’s ample body.
“I’m really terribly sorry. Shall I pick them up?”
“Never mind. It’s fine. We’ll do it. Please stay back. Ozaki, pick up the flowers.”
Ushikoshi surveyed the crime scene. (See Fig. 7.) There was a lot of blood—a little on the bed sheets, some more on the electric blanket that had slipped off and was now on the floor, and much more on the Persian rug that decorated the parquet floor.
The bed was bolted to the floor so it hadn’t moved from its original spot. The only furniture that had been moved was the sofa and the coffee table, and both of these had been tipped on their side. At first glance there didn’t seem to be anything else out of place or broken. There was a gas fire in the fireplace, but it wasn’t on, and the stopcock was closed.
Ushikoshi examined the knife in Kikuoka’s back. Two things surprised him; first, that the knife was stuck very deeply in, right up to the handle. It must have been plunged in there with all the killer’s might. But more surprising was that the knife was identical to the one that had killed Ueda—a hunting knife with a piece of white string tied to the handle. The victim’s pyjamas were soaked in blood, but the string was completely clean.
The knife was in the right side of Kikuoka’s back so it had missed his heart.
“He’s dead,” said Ozaki.
This meant that he must have died of blood loss. Ushikoshi looked back at the door.
“That’s impossible!”
The words had slipped out. But how could it be?…
It was the most solid door he had ever seen. Looking at it now from the inside, he realized that it had been made as sturdy as anyone could wish. The door itself was made of thick oak, and its lock was completely different from the simple one on Ueda’s door. There were three separate locking systems. It was as well constructed as a vault.
The first lock was a button in the centre of the doorknob that you pushed in, the same type as on all the doors in the mansion. The other two were quite a tour de force. On the upper section and lower sections of the door, there were two bolts installed, with metal cylinders that were at least three centimetres in diameter. Each one required turning 180 degrees until they dropped into place. No matter how adept somebody might be, there was no way the locks could be manipulated from outside the room. And the door frame was just as sturdily constructed—there was not a millimetre of space on any side.
Ushikoshi couldn’t comprehend how the room had got in such disorder and a knife had been plunged into the victim’s back. However, he decided to feign complete calm.
“Ozaki, please escort everyone to the salon. Anan, call the station.”
“What to do about these pieces of vase?” asked Okuma.
“Just pick them up and chuck ’em away.”
Along with my own reputation, thought Ushikoshi morosely.
Another team of around a dozen police officers swarmed up the hill, and the mansion became a hive of activity again. Ushikoshi felt steadily more defeated by the moment. What kind of bloodthirsty monster was responsible for this? Four police officers had spent the night in the house. Could the killer not have shown some restraint? Why did he have to escalate to serial murder? And why the locked-room scenario? It wasn’t as if either of the deaths could have been suicide. You’d have to be crazy to think it. In Kikuoka’s case the knife was in his back, no less!
He’d been publicly humiliated. And this wasn’t going to be easily forgiven. He’d completely miscalculated, made wrong assumptions. As a police officer he shouldn’t have dismissed the possibility that it would turn into a serial murder. He was going to have to start over from the beginning.
That evening he got the time of death from forensics—11 p.m. or within thirty minutes either side.
“Let’s get on with the questioning.”
Ushikoshi addressed the surviving guests, hosts and house staff in the salon.
“Last night between 10.30 and 11.30, what was each of you doing, and where?”