Hint 5: Where am I?
✦ ✦ ✦
Does that mean…where Tsuruya is currently staying?
According to the e-mail, she was with her dad, running all over the place, and if ‘this case happened just a little itty bit ago’ (P170) was referring to this dying-message case, she probably wasn’t back home yet.
Was figuring out her travel itinerary our next problem?
“It is, but it’s also a hint.”
Koizumi opened the A4 printout of Episode Three to the second page.
“Where is Tsuruya’s location in Episode Three? One scene gives us a clue to that—and only that one. Look again at the pages describing her cab ride. She describes the view outside the taxi window.”
I focused my optical nerves on the relevant passage.
All I could find on the view outside the window was that she said, ‘It was a wide road, and the buildings on the side were pretty tall, so I wouldn’t exactly call it a picturesque view’ (P172). But that could be anywhere. How could we narrow that down?
While I was glaring at the printout, Haruhi started clicking her tongue and waggling a finger.
“No need to name the exact location. You can go bigger than that.”
She dropped her finger to the page.
“The key here is the direction the taxi is headed, the location of the sun, and the direction of oncoming traffic.”
This was getting complicated. Koizumi, take over.
“It’s extremely simple,” he said, with the confidence of the well-informed. “Tsuruya actually describes the scenery quite well. Suggesting its significance. If you reread it with that in mind, oh my! There’s several elements that don’t jibe with our common sense.”
He wasn’t making it any less complicated. But T and Asahina were still studying together, and Nagato was reading, so I had nowhere else to turn. I had a brief moment where I wished Yasumi was here, but I soon drove that horrifying idea from my mind.
Oblivious to my inner turmoil…
“First, note the direction of Tsuruya’s gaze. She is looking out the window at the nonpicturesque scenery. Then she says, ‘When I tried looking out the other window, the only noticeable difference was the oncoming traffic whizzing past’ (P172) and ‘there were a few gaps between the buildings that let me catch the odd glimpse of the setting sun. Each time this happened, the car interior lit up’ (P172).”
Koizumi went back to the whiteboard and drew a malformed rectangle that I assume was intended to be the car. He then drew two circles on either side.
“‘The taxi oughtta be taking me due north’ (P172), so…”
He drew an arrow pointing up.
“The sun sets in the west, so when that light was falling on her face, we can assume she was facing left.”
If you were headed north, then the only way to look at the sunset would be to turn left.
“And that’s where she saw something entirely outside the realm of our typical experiences.”
Leaving a bit of a gap, he drew a sunlike circle to the left of the rectangle and then drew two vertical lines, one on each side of the car—indicating the road, I think.
Here, he turned to me.
“Picture it in your mind. You are in a car. You turn to your left. What do you see?”
I pictured myself getting on a bus, sitting down, and looking left.
“Houses, vacant lots, stores…etc.”
If there was a passing lane, then cars driving alongside us.
“Wait…cars?”
Even I got it now.
“Oh. Oncoming traffic.”
“Precisely!”
Koizumi drew a third vertical line to the left of the line he’d drawn on the car’s left side.
“Tsuruya was in a moving taxi, facing left, but she saw ‘oncoming traffic whizzing past’ (P172). As you know full well, traffic in Japan flows on the left, so we are only familiar with oncoming traffic on our right. Which means…”
He drew a new rectangle between the lines left of the rectangle and four circles and put a down arrow next to it.
“Tsuruya was in a country where the traffic is on the right. This doctor-assault incident did not take place in Japan.”
“Get it now?” Haruhi said, rummaging in her bag. “This is why the first hint said ‘dictionary’ and not ‘encyclopedia.’ Here.”
She handed me an English-Japanese dictionary.
✦ ✦ ✦
It took me a good thirty seconds to parse the meaning of that, and then I turned the proffered tome down and woke up my laptop.
Haruhi didn’t seem particularly put out. Mouth like a sleeping cat, she put the dictionary back in her bag,
“Okay,” I said. That was all I could say. “I get that Episode Three takes place abroad. But what does that mean?”
“It casts suspicion on the language the doctor spoke.”
Koizumi scribbled Mr. Dr. on the board.
“Nowhere does it specify this man is Japanese. Now that we know the setting is international, odds are he is from that locale instead. Meanwhile, she says, ‘While I was gazing longingly at the receding summer evening’ (P173), so we can surmise the seasons match Japan’s, and this takes place in the northern hemisphere.”
“The name of country doesn’t matter, so no point thinking about it,” Haruhi jumped in. “Let’s just assume it’s America. That assumption won’t cause any issues. And that would mean the doctor was speaking English.”
How do we know that?
“That’s the only way the dying message makes sense.”
Really?
“Really. Everything he said before passing out? ‘Don’t swallow’ and ‘Do not ingest?’ He actually said that in English!”
Koizumi followed the same line of thought, adding, “He whispered a dying message in Tsuruya’s ear in English, and she translated that into Japanese for us. Hence her statement, ‘That’s what I thought I heard anyway’ (P181). Betraying her uncertainty! Anyone who regularly reads works in translation knows what a difference the translator’s interpretation can make. Even the choice of characters’ first-person pronouns—”
I held up a hand, cutting him off.
So we knew where the sleight of hand had taken place. But we didn’t know what kind of magic had been performed. I still didn’t see anything pointing to the culprit’s name.
Haruhi and Koizumi smiled in sync, like they’d rehearsed it.
“We actually lack sufficient clues to pinpoint what language he spoke. However, we have all been learning English for several years now, and with no clues to the contrary, that seems the most obvious assumption. It is the foreign language we are most familiar with.”
I thought you said reverse engineering was illegitimate?
“It is occasionally important to bend the rules. Rather than be stymied by calcified ideals, it is far more profitable to keep one’s perspective fluid.”
Sure, like, generally. But what about this long conversation the doctor had with Shouko and Tsuruya?
“Naturally, all in English. It’s certainly possible that the doctor was bilingual and spoke to them entirely in Japanese, but even if that’s true, it doesn’t matter here.”
I guess I wouldn’t be surprised to find out Tsuruya could speak several languages at a native level.
“Practically speaking, as long as we can confirm the doctor’s dying message was in English, the rest ceases to matter,” Koizumi concluded.
Cool. We’ll go with that, then. Can you just tell me the answer already? The problem Tsuruya posed for us says we’ve gotta “guess the culprit’s name.” You both look like you’ve figured it out, but you never know; this might be one of those you both have different answers things.
“Kyon, that’s a painful possibility,” Haruhi said, delighted. “Right, then I’ll give you a hint. Let me see…”
She tilted her head a couple of degrees sideways, like Nagato did on occasion, and thought for a few seconds.
“Ishikawa Prefecture,” she said. “Well, Koizumi? A little free association.”
“An excellent hint,” Koizumi said, blithely. “Allow me to provide half the answer. The card comedian’s given name is Takenao. See?”
Haruhi’s look made it clear she agreed. If I’d held a bar code reader up to her face, it would have told me, I leave the rest to you, Koizumi.
“The nao part is the kanji for ‘esteem’ again, but the take… Well, the character for ‘military’ is always a safe bet, but we can’t really say that for sure. Tsuruya’s third hint comes into play here; take could even be written in katakana.”
That’s enough preamble. What do you think that whiteboard’s for? And that dry-erase marker in your hand? If you remember how to use them, get on with it.
“You are but one step away from the answer! Are you sure you don’t want to work it out for yourself?”
If you and Haruhi beat Tsuruya’s challenge, then that’s a victory for the SOS Brigade. You can take the credit.
“If this were a mystery novel, this would be the perfect moment for a Challenge to the Reader…”
Who cares?
“Just tell me the culprit’s name.”
“Very well,” Koizumi said, looking slightly disappointed. He turned his back and started writing. “I can’t be one-hundred-percent sure, but I believe these are the right characters.”
You couldn’t possibly call his handwriting good, but there it was. The card comedian’s name.