The Decagon House Murders (24 page)

After smoking it completely, he put a second one in his mouth and picked up the receiver again.

‘Kawaminami? It’s me, Morisu.’

‘Ah, hey. What’s up, so early?’ a drowsy Kawaminami Taka’aki answered from the other end of the line.

‘I’ve got bad news.’

Morisu told him. ‘The Decagon House burnt down.’

‘Wha—what!?’

‘I was told everyone died.’

‘Impossible... how could…You’re not joking? April Fool’s day isn’t until tomorrow.’

‘I wish I was joking. I was just told over the phone.’

‘But—.’

‘I’m heading for S—Town now, you’ll come too, I hope? Can you reach Mr. Shimada?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’ll meet you over there then. All concerned parties are to assemble in the fishing union’s meeting room near the harbour. Got it?’

‘Got it. I’ll find Mr. Shimada and bring him along.’

‘Okay. I’ll meet you there.’

*

Monday, March 31st. 11:30 a.m, Tsunojima.

A crowd was milling about in all directions.

The rubble of the Decagon House was still smouldering, resembling nothing so much as the burnt corpse of some grotesque monster.

The sky was clear. The blinding reflection of the surrounding sea was redolent of spring. The contrast between the peaceful background and the dark, tragic scene on the island itself was unbearably shocking to all and sundry.

‘Inspector. We got a message that most of family of the deceased are gathered now in S—Town,’ yelled a young police officer holding a transceiver in his hand.

The portly man in his forties who passed for an inspector yelled back with a handkerchief held to his nose: ‘Okay. Bring them over. Tell me as soon as they arrive. Make sure they don’t come here.’

He returned to his discussion with the medical examiner, who was inspecting a body burnt black beyond recognition.

‘And this one?’ he asked. Heat and a penetrating stench covered the area.

‘A male,’ answered the medical examiner from behind his large mask.

‘A male of small build. Some deep lacerations on the back of his head. Being hit with a blunt instrument would result in wounds similar to these.’

‘Hmm.’

The inspector nodded wearily and turned his eyes away from the body.

‘Hey, how are things over there?’ he yelled as he walked towards another investigator looking at a different body, lying among some bricks further away.

‘This was probably also a male. It also appears this was the source of the fire.’

‘Oh.’

‘Kerosene was probably poured all over here and then lit. Our corpse here seems to have poured kerosene over himself too.’

‘Oh, so it might be a suicide?’

‘Well, we would need to compare it with the other facts, but I think there’s a good possibility.’

The inspector scowled and walked away rapidly. A police officer ran after him with a question.

‘Shall we move the bodies?’

‘Wait until the family’s here,’ the inspector replied immediately. ‘If we’re not careful, we might get all the corpses and the stuff around them mixed up. We won’t be able to figure out who’s who.’

With speedy steps, he moved upwind.

‘I won’t be able to get lunch down my throat like this,’ he muttered to himself, as he removed the handkerchief from his nose and filled his lungs with the breeze from the sea.

*

The bright sea spread out on the other side of the grey, cold blinds. He was inside a large room, plain and bleak.

The meeting room of the fishing union in S—Town.

Chaotically arranged fold-up tables and chairs. Thinly scattered groups of people anxiously holding on to each other. Whispers being exchanged.

Sitting by himself by the window was Morisu, who had lost count of the number of cigarettes he had put out in the cheap ashtray.

The Decagon House on Tsunojima, gone up in flames
.

His heart beat furiously.

Everyone died
.

It was almost one o’clock in the afternoon when Kawaminami and Shimada finally appeared. They recognised Morisu as they looked across the room and walked straight up to him.

‘Any news about what happened on the island?’ Kawaminami asked, without any preliminaries. Morisu shook his head silently.

‘We’ve heard no details. Some members of the families have just gone to the island to identify the bodies.’

‘Is everybody really dead?’

‘Yes. The Decagon House burnt down completely. From the fire site, they found the bodies of everyone.’

Kawaminami’s shoulders drooped and he stood still for a while.

‘Was it arson? Or perhaps an accident?’

‘No idea.’

Shimada walked to the window and looked outside through the blinds. Kawaminami moved a nearby chair next to Morisu and sat down on it.

‘Did you tell them about the letters?’

‘No, not yet. But I plan to, I brought my letter with me.’

‘Okay.’

The two looked at each other with bewildered expressions.

‘We were tricked,’ Shimada muttered, his eyes still staring outside through the blinds. Kawaminami and Morisu turned around in surprise and Shimada continued in a grave voice:

‘This was no accident. It was murder. Revenge.’

Several people in the meeting room stole a glance at the trio. Shimada quickly lowered his voice to a whisper.

‘We can’t talk here. Let’s go outside.’

Morisu and Kawaminami nodded silently and got up slowly from their chairs. The heavy steel door opened into a hallway and the three happened to overhear some men standing there.

‘—I heard some of the bodies show signs of homicide.’

2

The trio walked out onto the seashore.

They climbed down to the breakwater and sat next to each other on one of the concrete tetrapods poking out of the water.

Beneath the bright sun the calm sea offered a stark contrast to the state of their minds.

‘So they all died.’

Kawaminami’s arms shivered as he sat down hugging his knees.

‘I’ve been an idiot.’

‘Conan,’ Shimada called out to him. Kawaminami shook his head several times.

‘We went around, poking here and there, but what did we accomplish? Absolutely nothing. We even came to this very harbour just three days ago. We should have at least warned them on the island then.’

‘It’s not your fault.’ Shimada stroked his chin and said, as if to himself:

‘How many people would have taken those letters seriously and gone running around as we did? Even if we had gone to the police, they would have simply said we shouldn’t take such things seriously and kicked us out.’

‘I wonder.’

‘I kept saying Nakamura Seiji was still alive and, in all seriousness, everybody on the island was in danger, but that was all I did. I couldn’t cross the sea and go to the island just because of a guess, not without some decisive evidence that showed that everybody on the island was indeed in danger of being murdered.’

‘Mr. Shimada,’ Morisu interrupted. ‘If everybody on the island has been murdered, does that mean that Nakamura Seiji is indeed alive?’

‘Well, I wonder,’ Shimada said evasively.

‘But who else could the murderer be?’

‘Who knows?’

‘Mr. Shimada, what’s your opinion of those letters signed by Seiji? Were they related to what happened on the island?’ Kawaminami asked.

Shimada grimaced:

‘We can only assume they were, considering what has happened since.’

‘Is the same person behind the fire and the letters?’

‘Yes, I believe so.’

‘Were the letters a warning?’

‘I don’t think they were a warning, exactly, and it was curious they were delivered right after everyone had left for Tsunojima. I think the murderer had some other purpose in mind.’

‘Such as?’

‘Conan, on the first day we met, you made an analysis of your letter and came up with three different meanings. Do you remember?’

‘Yes. Accusation. Threat. Look into the Tsunojima accident of last year again.’

‘Yes.’

Shimada gazed sombrely at the sea.

‘Following that suggestion, we started a second enquiry into the incident that happened last year and managed to uncover the truth behind that. But I don’t believe the culprit had foreseen that. The sender could not have guessed that we would actually be so meddlesome. So I think the culprit’s real intentions with the letters was to accuse you of murder and
to suggest the idea of Nakamura Seiji to us
.’

‘Nakamura Seiji?’

‘By signing as Nakamura Seiji, he planted the idea in our minds that the dead architect was actually still alive. The goal of that was, of course, to turn Seiji into a scapegoat.’

‘So Mr. Shimada, the person you are suspecting is….’

‘Nakamura Kōjirō?’ Morisu asked carefully. ‘You mean that now we know that Nakamura Chiori is Mr. Kōjirō’s daughter, the person with the motive to kill everyone is not Seiji, but Mr. Kōjirō.’

‘Going by motive, I agree that Mr. Kōjirō is the prime suspect. But—.’ Kawaminami glanced at Shimada. ‘—But he was in Beppu all the time.’

‘Conan, do you remember what that young man said?’

‘Eh?’

‘The son of the fisherman who took your Mystery Club friends to the island.’

‘Ah, yes.’

‘He told us that it wasn’t difficult to go up and down the island in a motorboat. Can you be sure Kō didn’t do just that?’

‘Oh.’

‘Kō said he had been cooped up in his house the last few days to write a thesis, and shut out all visitors and phone calls. But was he telling the truth?’

Shimada nodded slightly, still staring at the sea.

‘Yes. I find it hard to say this as his friend, but I have to suspect Kō. He lost his daughter, the only bridge between him and his unreachable love, and in such an awful way. And because of her death—remember what he told us?—his love was murdered by his own brother. He has more than enough of a motive.

‘And Kō was also the previous owner of the Decagon House. It’s not too farfetched to imagine he somehow managed to hear that the people responsible for his daughter’s death were going to the island. He wrote those letters to you to suggest Seiji was still alive, divert suspicion to Seiji and to vent his own pent-up rage. He sent one of those letters to himself, too. To make him appear to be one of the victims as well.’

Now all three of them were looking silently at the sea.

‘I agree,’ said Morisu finally, in a dull voice. ‘He’s the only one I can think of with a motive to kill all of them, on that island of all places. Mr. Kōjirō is the most likely suspect. But Mr. Shimada, this is nothing more than conjecture.’

‘I know, Morisu,’ Shimada answered ironically. ‘It’s nothing more than conjecture. And, rest assured, I have no intention of looking for evidence. Neither do I plan to tell any of it to the police.’

Noticing two boats appearing from beyond J—Cape, Shimada stood up.

‘Police boats. They’re coming back. Let’s go back in.’

3

‘Who are those three?’ asked the inspector of a nearby police officer. He had just returned from investigating the crime scene over on Tsunojima.

He had been told by a local real estate agent, Tatsumi Masa’aki, the person currently in charge of the building on the island, that students from K—University had been staying in the burnt-down Decagon House. They were friends of his nephew and he had given them permission to stay there a week starting last Wednesday.

Tatsumi had a list of names of the club members who had gone to the island and the police used that list to inquire of the university and to contact family. Some of them were living far away from their parental homes in boarding rooms, so not all families were present. But thanks to the identification process they had just held, they had managed to get a good idea of which body belonged to whom. The inspector had started to question the families of the deceased, but had obtained little information from any of them.

‘Eh? Which three?’ The officer returned the question and the portly inspector pointed towards the window.

‘Those three over there.’

‘Oh, they’re friends of the deceased from the same university club. They’ve been here all afternoon to ask about the case.’

‘I see.’

The inspector cocked his large head. The two young men leaning against the window were talking with each other. Next to them stood a lanky man in his thirties looking out of the window, his back to the police.