Instantly, Sasaki spoke up.
“We were still in the salon. That police officer was with us.”
“Who is ‘we’?”
“Togai and me. And Yoshihiko. And then Mr and Mrs Hayakawa and Mr Kajiwara. Six of us.”
“I see. Until what time?”
“Past 2 in the morning. I looked at the clock and saw it was already 2 a.m., so we all hurried off to bed.”
“All six of you?”
“No.”
It was Chikako Hayakawa who spoke.
“Actually, we went to bed around 11.30.”
“‘We’ being you and your husband?”
“And me too,” said Kajiwara.
“So you are saying that all three of you passed by the door of Room 14 around 11.30 last night?”
“No. We don’t go that way. After you go down the stairs, you turn the opposite way to get to our rooms.”
“Hmm. And you didn’t notice any strange noises or figures in the vicinity of Room 14?”
“Well, the wind was so loud.”
“True…”
Ushikoshi decided that it was a close call, but timewise, he could probably exclude the three staff members from the list of suspects. However, it was very significant that three people had passed close by the door of Room 14 around 11.30. The killer must have already done the deed and left by then.
“So the other three of you were in the salon until 2 a.m.?”
“That’s correct. With Constable Anan.”
“Anan, is that right?”
“Yes, it is.”
So Sasaki, Togai and Yoshihiko could safely be excluded too. Kozaburo Hamamoto had spent the evening with Ushikoshi himself, so he could be counted out completely.
“Mr Hayakawa, did you lock up completely last night?”
“I did it around 5 yesterday evening. After the first murder, figured we couldn’t be too careful.”
“Hmm.”
That confirmed that somewhere in this house was a homicidal maniac. In other words, the killer was sitting there right before his eyes, one of these eleven people. He’d already ruled out seven of them. That left Eiko Hamamoto, Kumi Aikura, and Michio and Hatsue Kanai. Four suspects, and most of them women!
“Ms Eiko Hamamoto and Ms Kumi Aikura, where were you?”
“I was in my room.”
“Me too.”
“In other words, neither of you has an alibi?”
The two women turned a little pale.
“But…”
Kumi seemed to be working something out in her head.
“To get from Room 1 to Room 14, you’d have to go through the salon. The police constable and the others were all in there.”
“That’s right. That goes for me too. There’s absolutely no way to get to Room 14. That room is in the basement, and has no windows. Even if we’d taken an outdoor route, there’s no way in.”
“I see.”
“Just a… Hang on there!”
Michio Kanai was in a state of panic.
“Does that mean that we’re suspects? I was in Room 9 the whole time. My wife can attest to it!”
“Well, in the case of a husband and wife—”
“No, no… Listen! I’m the one most affected by this murder. And therefore my wife too. Mr Kikuoka’s death is the severest blow to us both. I hate to put it this way, but I’m going to have to say it. At the company, I’ve always been a Kikuoka supporter, among all the company factions. I’ve been his follower, if you like, for fifteen years or so. It’s been thanks to Mr Kikuoka that I’ve got where I am. You can investigate me all you like. Go ahead! But my future without the president is bleak. I can’t even imagine what it’ll be like for me tomorrow now. There was no reason for me to kill him. I have no motive whatsoever. In fact if anyone had tried to kill Mr Kikuoka, I would have had to do everything I could to protect him. For my own sake. There’s no way I could have killed him. Apart from anything, look at me! I’m a wimp. Do you see this feeble body winning a face-off against that man? It wasn’t me. No way. And for all the exact same reasons, it wasn’t my wife either.”
Ushikoshi sighed. This man was quite a talker when cornered. That said, what Kanai claimed was most probably true. And therefore, yet again, there were no suspects. It was incredibly frustrating.
“Mr Hamamoto, would you mind letting us use your library again? We need to have another meeting.”
“Oh, of course. You’re most welcome to use it.”
“Thank you. Come on!”
Ushikoshi hurried his men out of the salon.
SCENE 7
The Library
“Never known anything like this damned case!” said Inspector Okuma. “What the heck is going on? Has the cause of death been confirmed yet?”
“Yes, it has,” said Sergeant Ozaki. “Forensics says it was the knife in his back. They detected some sleep medication in his system too, but nothing like a lethal dose.”
“What is going on in this cursed house?”
“They’ve gone over Room 14 but they haven’t been able to find anything. No hidden doors, secret cabinets, nothing like that. Same as Room 10.”
“What about the ceiling?” asked Ushikoshi.
“Same goes for that too. Just an ordinary ceiling. If we looked inside the walls and above the ceiling, we might find something, but we don’t need to go that far just yet. There’s plenty else they need to do first.”
Okuma decided to throw in his two pence worth.
“I reckon they need to check that ceiling out more carefully. It’s that string. Why was it attached to the knife? Everyone in this house besides the Kanai couple has an alibi for around 11 p.m. But the Kanais have no motive. If the killer is one of the people who slept in this house last night, it’s starting to get a bit like a murder mystery novel. Someone planned this trick ahead of time, so that right around 11 o’clock a knife would plunge itself into Kikuoka’s back. That’s the only explanation. Don’t you agree?”
“Hmm. I suppose we have to agree that that is a possibility,” said Ushikoshi.
“Right, eh? And so if you think that, the ceiling’s gotta be fishy. Because of that string. What if they hung the knife from the ceiling so that it fell onto the bed at 11 o’clock?”
“But we’ve checked the ceiling,” said Ozaki. “It’s made of perfectly normal boards. We’ve knocked all over every inch of it, and there are no gaps, no places where it’s been disturbed. No sign of any kind of trick. And besides, as for that theory… Well, I can I think of at least two reasons why it would be impossible. The first is the height of the ceiling. That knife was buried in Kikuoka’s back right up to the hilt. If it had been hanging from the ceiling and then dropped, there is no way it would have gone in so deeply. In fact it’s not even clear that it would have inflicted a wound at all. A knife dropping from ceiling height might have been painful, but probably no more than a bee sting. It would have just barely touched him and then fallen sideways.
“Then could the killer have dropped it from a higher place? Well, you were sleeping in the room above, Inspector Okuma. To have a knife pierce so deeply, it would have to be dropped from at least one more storey up. But then we still don’t know whether it would have gone in so far. But at the very least the fact remains that the killer couldn’t have dropped it from inside Room 14. He would at least have to have dropped it from above the floor of Room 12.”
“Huh? Yes, I guess you’re right.”
“The other reason it wouldn’t work is the blanket,” Ozaki continued. “The knife would have had to pierce him through an electric blanket. And then it wouldn’t have been in his back. It would have been in his chest.”
“But what if he slept on his stomach?”
“Yes, he might.”
“I know that this is too simple, but it’s all I can come up with… Somewhere in this house there is one more person, someone that none of us has seen. That’s all it could be. No matter how you look at it, not one of those eleven people could be considered a suspect.”