4
‘Knowing you, I expected you’d have enough of playing detective after one day,’ said Morisu mockingly, as he poured hot water from the pot into cups with teabags. ‘But you don’t appear to have, to my surprise. Maybe it’s because you were accompanied by Mr. Shimada?’
‘How did you guess?’ Kawaminami laughed in embarrassment.
‘So, please give me the report on your investigations, Mr. Detective.’
Kawaminami briefed Morisu on the facts they had discovered that day.
‘So that’s what you’ve been up to.’
Morisu poured himself a second cup of tea and, without adding sugar, drank it in a single gulp.
‘And? What are your plans for tomorrow, Watson?’
‘I wonder.’
Kawaminami stretched out on the floor and sat up wearily with his head resting on his knees.
‘To be honest, I am feeling a bit down right now. Spring holiday is long, you know. And I’ve been spending every night playing mahjong. And then that letter from the dead came. I just couldn’t ignore it. And, as always, I got all fired up, but now....’
‘Spare us your boring self-analysis. Mr. Shimada is feeling shut out.’
But Shimada was just smiling as he stroked his pointed chin.
‘I think that staving off boredom is a good thing. It’s much more healthy than allowing your imagination to wither because of a much too hectic life. I’m like Conan. If I hadn’t had loads of time, a man of my age would never have become involved in something like this. But then again, I’m an inquisitive man at heart. By the way, Morisu—.’
‘Yes?’
‘I should like to know what our “armchair detective” is thinking.’
‘I thought you’d never ask.’
Morisu wet his dry lips with his tongue and smiled.
‘Actually, I’ve had a little idea ever since you told me everything last night. But this isn’t a deduction, just an unfounded guess, so don’t take it too seriously.’
‘As Conan said, you’re a careful man.’
‘For someone careful, this is a pretty impulsive idea, though. I even suspect that you, Mr. Shimada, might have been thinking the same.’
‘Possibly.’
‘Okay, this is it.’
Morisu looked from Shimada to Kawaminami.
‘I think it’s quite surprising you yourselves didn’t think of it. Basically, isn’t the case on Tsunojima the same as what Francis Nevins Jr. calls the “Birlstone Gambit”[ix]?’
Kawaminami yelled out. ‘You mean that Seiji is still alive?’
‘I don’t claim it’s true. I only point out the possibility.’
Morisu continued his explanation slowly, while he poured his third cup of tea.
‘The heads of the Kitamura couple had been smashed in with an axe, but even after their remains had been burnt, I don’t think it very likely that someone could have pulled off the famous “headless corpse” trick. There was nothing peculiar about Kazue’s remains either, except for her missing left hand. The only thing we need to reconsider is the body thought to be that of Seiji.
‘Think about it. It was a corpse that had been covered with kerosene and gone up in flames. The face was, of course, unrecognizable, but old wounds or traces of surgery wouldn’t have been easy to find either. I don’t know how the police determined the body to be that of Seiji, but there’s a possibility it was the body of someone else. And then we have the disappearance of the gardener who’d been on the island at the time… Mr. Shimada?’
‘Yes, detective?’
‘Did you happen to check whether Seiji and Yoshikawa Sei’ichi were similar in age and build?’
‘Haha. You’re sharp.’ Shimada laughed cheerfully. ‘Yoshikawa was the same age as Seiji, 46 years old. Both were of medium height and build. And both had blood type A. The burnt body naturally also had blood type A.’
‘How did you find all of that out?’ Kawaminami asked in surprise, to which Shimada scratched his cheek in embarrassment.
‘Ah, didn’t I tell you? I know some people in the police. Morisu, supposing Nakamura Seiji and Yoshikawa Sei’ichi really switched places, how do you explain the events of the case?’
Morisu placed his hand on his forehead and stared into space.
‘Kazue was the first to be murdered. Her estimated time of death was between the 17th and 18th. The gardener had arrived on the island and called his wife Masako in the afternoon of the 17th, so Kazue had probably already been killed by then. When the gardener thought it strange he hadn’t seen Kazue, Seiji told him his wife was sick and in bed. In truth, he’d already given her a sleeping draught and then strangled her.
‘So, fearing he might be found out, Seiji decided to murder the Kitamura couple and Yoshikawa too. He drugged all three of them with sleeping medicine and tied them up. He killed the couple with an axe on the 19th. He then moved Yoshikawa, who was still sleeping because of the drug, to the room where he had killed Kazue earlier. He untied Yoshikawa, dressed him in his own clothes and poured kerosene over him. And then he set fire to the mansion and fled the island.
‘And so the switch of the murderer Nakamura Seiji and the victim Yoshikawa Sei’ichi was complete. A textbook example of the “headless corpse” trick. But even with this theory, some questions remain unanswered. I can come up with four, just from the top of my head.’
‘Oh, and they would be…?’ Shimada urged him.
‘First of all, motive. What reason could Seiji have had to kill the woman who had been at his side for over twenty years? You could simply say he was mad, but even madmen have their own reasons.