The Red Locked Room Read online

  ‘You don’t comprehend? You really don’t comprehend?’

  Hoshikage grinned, as if he was having the time of his life because of the expression on Tadokoro’s face.

  It was as if he were hinting at the truth while laughing at the chief inspector. Yes, Hoshikage must mean that Mine was in fact the culprit. Mine had no alibi, but did have a motive. Didn’t it all fit if Mine was the murderer? Everything would be solved.

  Hoshikage, however, seemed to have guessed what was on the chief inspector’s mind and let out a cynical laugh. He then proceeded to add further to the chief inspector’s confusion.

  ‘My dear Tadokoro, the murderer simply left the Zama residence and walked across the snow. There was never any trick. Only you didn’t see those footprints. They were invisible to you!’

  ‘Invisible! Invisible footprints!?’

  The chief inspector muttered those same words over and over again. The murder simply walked across the snow. But his footprints weren’t visible. And Hoshikage had even declared the murderer used no tricks at all. Who was the murderer? And how they did manage to walk out of the house?’

  ‘Hahahaha.’ Hoshikage cackled joyfully as he observed the confusion on Tadokoro’s face. ‘Tadokoro, I have now solved the whole mystery, but further investigation is required before I can tell you whether my solution is correct. May I borrow your man Mizuhara, so he can conduct those investigations on my behalf?’

  ‘Of course. I’ll give him his orders at once.’ Mizuhara was one of the very few detectives who could get along with Hoshikage. They had worked together a couple of times before.

  ‘It’s nothing much. It should only take two or three days.’

  The trader grinned once more as he looked at the chief inspector, who could only blink his eyes in wonder.

  6

  Who is the murderer? How did they escape without leaving footprints? What are invisible footprints anyway? While it was unlikely he could ever solve those three questions no matter how long he thought about them, the chief inspector kept repeating them to himself from the moment he woke up until he went to bed. He even thought about them in his dreams. He saw Mizuhara in the mornings and evenings, but the latter only smiled and never said a word. Nevertheless, he imagined the investigation was going as expected.

  On the third evening, the chief inspector visited Hoshikage in his house in Meguro once again. The only difference from the previous visits was that a cheerful Mizuhara was sitting in the corner of the sofa with a gin fizz in his hands. Hoshikage was puffing smoke out of his virgin briar pipe. Tadokoro lit his American cigarette and waited for the discussion to start. The gas heater warmed the winter air inside the room to a pleasant temperature. Outside, the sky was starlit.

  ‘Well, where shall I begin?’

  Hoshikage, his eyes fixed on his beloved lustrous pipe, seemed not to have made up his mind how to start.

  ‘The keys to solving the mystery were all present in your account of the incident the other day.’

  ‘But what were they?’

  ‘For example, that Mine is an editor-in-chief who is willing to do anything for a story, or that the weapon was thrown into the garden.’

  That was still not enough to explain the case. The chief inspector frowned as he stared at Hoshikage’s splendid forehead. Was he imagining things, or was Mizuhara trying his best to suppress a laugh?

  ‘The first thing you need to understand is that not everything Mine told you or wrote in his article was the truth. To give an example, he did not arrive at the Zama residence at nine-thirty.’

  The chief inspector raised his eyebrows. So he was the one!

  ‘At what time did he arrive, then?’

  ‘While the snow was still falling. Around eight o’clock.’

  Tadokoro’s eyebrows shot up again. So his tale about having a drink at a food stall in Takadonobaba had been a lie. No wonder nobody at any of the food stalls remembered him.

  But then Hoshikage added another comment that flabbergasted Tadokoro.

  ‘I think you’re misunderstanding me. Mine is not the murderer.’

  ‘What! He isn’t?’

  ‘No. I told you the last time he wasn’t the culprit.’

  ‘Then who is?’

  ‘Who do you think it is?’

  Hoshikage grinned mischievously.

  ‘But that means the murderer must have entered the house while the professor and Mine were together inside. Was Mine a witness to the murder?’

  ‘Surely even you can’t believe that. He might be an easy-going person, but even he wouldn’t just look on while someone was being killed in front of him. That tells us Mine wasn’t present when the murder was committed.’

  Tadokoro nodded silently. So Mine had gone out for some reason, and according to the footprints left in the garden, the snow had already stopped falling by the time he returned to the Zama residence. Or so he thought.

  But when he voiced his thoughts, they were once again greeted by a sneering laugh from the sofa. He turned around to glare at Mizuhara, then looked back at Hoshikage.

  ‘Wrong?’

  ‘Wrong. Mine was in the professor’s study all the time. He was enjoying himself with the books and the whisky offered to him by his host. The bathtub had also been prepared, so if he’d wanted he could have taken a nice warm bath as well.’

  ‘But that means…’

  ‘Exactly. It was the professor who went out. He probably told Mine that something had suddenly come up and he had to leave right away, but he would be back in forty or fifty minutes. He told his guest to help himself and even take a bath if he felt cold. Being on close terms with the professor, Mine agreed without giving it much thought, and waited for his friend’s return while having some biscuits. The reason the female student noticed the smell of alcohol on his breath was because he’d been drinking in the study.’

  Well, that would explain everything. But then where had the professor gone?

  ‘I’ll tell you his destination and his purpose later. First, I want to point out that the professor’s own footprints when he left the house would be covered by the snow, which was still falling and wouldn’t stop until thirty minutes later. And he did step into the packed snow in the garden when he returned around nine o’clock, leaving clear footprints.’

  Hoshikage had finally arrived at the core of the mystery. Tadokoro waited silently for him to continue, while Mizuhara sipped his gin fizz contentedly in the warmth afforded by the gas heater.

  ‘Professor, what happened?’

  ‘Urgh,’ came the answer. It wasn’t much of an answer, more like a groan. The professor staggered and tried to get his shoes off as he supported himself against a wall. Snow covered the shoulders and sleeves of his overcoat. His breathing was shallow and came in short bursts.

  Mine supported him by the shoulders and led him to the sofa in the study. It was only then that he noticed a blueish discolouration, cyanosis, on the lips of the professor, which gave him great concern.

  ‘Professor, what happened? Shall I call the doctor?’

  ‘No, there’s no need. Don’t bother,’ said the professor, obviously in extreme pain. His breathing was in shorter bursts than before. ‘I’m a medical man myself. I know it’s already too late.’

  ‘But professor!’

  ‘Listen to me. Look at my back.’

  Mine saw there was a bulge at the back of the overcoat.

  ‘What is that?’

  ‘Take my coat off and you’ll see.’

  Mine gently took the overcoat off. The professor’s shallow breathing was sounding more agonised by the minute.

  ‘But it’s a knife!’

  ‘Yes. We had a disagreement and I was stabbed. The knife is now acting as a sort of plug, which is why I managed to walk back here without dying, but I expect I’ll die immediately the knife is removed.’

  Mine was speechless.

  ‘But I don’t resent him. I forgive the man who stabbed me.’

  ‘But p
rofessor…’

  ‘Don’t talk. Let me speak while I still can. Mine, I’m going to forgive him. I want to make it seem as if I was attacked right here in the study. That will provide him… with an alibi…’

  Mine assumed the professor meant Donryū, but how could he forgive that man? But now was not the time to question anything.

  ‘Listen, you must pretend you arrived here after I died, and that you discovered my body. Do you understand?’

  ‘Ye—yes,’ Mine answered obediently. He was determined to fulfil the dying wishes of a man he respected so much.

  ‘You know nothing at all. Forget about coming here at eight, forget about me leaving the house.’

  ‘I’ve already forgotten.’

  But, even as he was answering the professor, Mine was doing some calculating of his own. He realised that if they featured the professor’s demise in the promotion campaign for the upcoming issue, it would be a tremendous boost for sales, especially if they insinuated that the murderer was Donryū Ōta… The last round-table talk with Professor Zama! A killer psychic! How wonderful, what a fantastic idea!

  ‘Mine, did you get all that? Now wipe the fingerprints off the handle of the knife.’

  As Mine wiped the handle clean with his handkerchief, the professor closed his eyes with a satisfied look.

  ‘Once you’re done, you can help me lie down on the floor.’

  The editor-in-chief did as the professor requested, but the simple action seemed to have quite an effect on the professor, who coughed painfully.

  ‘Mine,’ he called out between coughs, ‘this will be the last thing I ask of you. Please pull the knife out of my back and throw it away in the garden. Nobody must know I returned home with a knife in my back.’

  ‘Ye—yes…’

  ‘We can’t have any bloodstains on your clothes, so place my overcoat over the knife as you pull it out, to contain the blood. Don’t forget to leave the overcoat outside as well.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do it now!’

  Mine crouched down on the floor. He may have been known as a heartless editor, but even he hesitated to condemn a person he respected to an instant death.

  He called out to the professor, but the latter did not respond. Signs of discolouration were starting to show in his nails. Mine trembled as he grasped the handle of the knife.

  ‘I’m sorry!’

  As instructed, Mine covered the knife with the overcoat as he pulled it out in one go. There was a moment of resistance, but then the knife slid out easily. Fresh blood squirted from the wound. For a moment, the professor’s eyelids seem to quiver, but then the life drained visibly out of him.

  By the time Mine returned to his senses, the professor had become a corpse. Emotions of pain and sadness raged like a storm within him.

  When he finally got a grip on himself, he remembered he had to get rid of the murder weapon. But his own fingerprints were now on it, so he wiped the knife clean again. He switched off the study light and drew the curtains open. He opened the window and threw the knife into the middle of the garden. He made a bundle of the overcoat and threw it into the garden as well. Once he had finished, he could feel the tension ebbing from his body as he sat down in the swivel chair.

  He stared vacantly at the garden outside, illuminated by the porch light and the moon. As he sat there in his chair, he reflected on the tremendous willpower the professor had shown by walking back home while fatally wounded. What an impressive mind the professor had under the circumstances, to be able to think of what had to be done after his death. Mine took another look at the dark silhouette of the rolled-up overcoat beneath the moonlight. But as he stood up to close the window, he noticed the professor’s footprints leading from the front gate to the porch.

  He turned pale at the sight. Damn! The professor had left him a huge problem. With those footprints there, it would be obvious to anyone that the professor had gone out. What should he do, what should he do!? His flustered mind drew a blank.

  He stayed in a state of panic for a while, but eventually calmed down. In fact, he had thought of a great idea. That was it! He could just claim that the footprints in the garden were his.

  The editor inside him started to do a small victory dance. It was a murder where the culprit had left no footprints at the scene of the crime: an impossible murder! Didn’t such a situation fit perfectly with psychics and spirit mediums?

  Perhaps he should write a spectacular article himself for the next issue. He would follow the professor’s wishes, and make it a story about him being killed in his own study. What should the title be? A murder in a room inside a house surrounded by snow. That was it! The white locked room sounded good. The white locked room!

  Once the idea took hold, Mine became like a sleepwalker. With unsteady steps, he started cleaning up the biscuits and whisky he had consumed. He was only awakened from his trance-like state when Kimiko Satō rang the doorbell.

  7

  ‘I have to ask again, where had the professor gone, and for what reason?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I wouldn’t be asking if I had any ideas,’ snapped the chief inspector irritably. He was angry now he realised that the editor had played him for a fool. He’d get him the next time they met in person.

  ‘Let me put the question differently,’ said Hoshikage. ‘The professor said he would forgive the man who killed him, but would he really have felt like that if his killer had been Donryū Ōta?’

  ‘Given they had that big row, I doubt it.’

  ‘I agree. Which means that the professor wasn’t being honest when he said that. I concluded that his real purpose in making that statement was to divert suspicion from the real culprit.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The very first thought that occurred to me was that the killer was someone of the opposite sex. Envision if you will a man who is respected by all as a gentleman, and who prides himself on such a reputation, being stabbed by a woman. I can readily imagine such a man chivalrously concealing the truth. Mizuhara, present your results.’

  The detective gulped down his drink and pulled a small notebook from his pocket.

  ‘Following Mr. Hoshikage’s instructions, I visited the boarding house in Tozuka where the student Kimiko Satō lives. There I learned that the relationship between her and the professor was not only that of student and teacher, but was also financial. As you know, Ms. Satō is quite attractive and, to put it bluntly, the professor became infatuated with her. The gossips there didn’t know that the gentleman with greying hair who visited her was Professor Zama. Kimiko claimed he was her uncle. But recently Kimiko found herself a younger boyfriend and they found themselves in a love triangle. Even a grand professor of medicine is just like one of us when it comes to such matters, and the two had fights about it.’

  ‘So that evening, the professor went to her room in Tozuka?’ the chief inspector asked.

  ‘The professor must have had enough, so he’d stopped making payments to her. I checked with the bank. I believe that Kimiko threatened to go public unless the professor continued to pay. That’s why the professor went out while it was still snowing. But their discussion went badly and, in the heat of the moment, Kimiko must have stabbed the professor in the back with her fruit knife. It was one of a set of six, and the remaining five were in her cupboard.’

  Mizuhara had waited for Kimiko to leave before taking a look. The professor had been intensely fearful of his relationship going public, so the chief inspector could understand why he had chosen to go out on a cold night while the snow was still falling.

  ‘The incident only occurred because the professor insisted on guarding his bachelorhood. Everything in the universe consists of connections between positive and negative phenomena. To go against the will of nature and remain single is like defying the gods,’ said Ryūzō Hoshikage, who was single himself. He seemed to be serious and joking at the same time. The chief inspector didn’t know how to react, s
o he smiled back vaguely.

  ‘When you told me the professor had bled internally, it occurred to me that he might have walked home himself. That was my first step towards the solution.’

  ‘So I was on the wrong trail entirely,’ said the policeman, rubbing his nose. ‘But could you explain about the cat being incinerated?’

  ‘Isn’t that obvious now all the rest has been explained? If Mine’s shoes were found at the entrance, the whole game would be up. So he had to get rid of them. And the most effective way to get rid of something is to incinerate it. When you mentioned that a warm bath had been prepared, it should have been obvious that he’d burnt his shoes in the furnace.’

  It all made sense. The chief inspector rubbed his nose again.

  ‘But one has to remember that the smell of burnt leather will go up the chimney and irritate the noses of people outside. That is why it was necessary to point the finger at something else before other rumours spread. Which was the purpose of the anonymous letter sent to the Animal Protection League. Mine confessed he thought of it after he finally returned home that night.’

  ‘With hindsight it all seems so logical. But how did you deduce that Mine had sprained his ankle?’

  Tadokoro recalled the proverb “Better to ask the way than go astray.” He was sure the explanation would be simple, but he himself couldn’t think of it. Hoshikage had previously said it was just a hunch, with one chance in three of success. But how?

  ‘From what you told me I realised that Mine must have switched shoes, in which case there were only three possibilities: the professor’s shoes would fit him perfectly, they’d be too big, or they’d be too small for him. In the first two instances, there wouldn’t be a problem, but if they were too small, he’d get blisters on his feet. But he couldn’t take the professor’s shoes off, as that would attract your attention, so he had to cope with the pain. He could hardly confess that he got blisters because the shoes were too small for him, so what better excuse for his limping than to say he sprained his ankle?’