Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 150, Nos. 5 & 6. Whole Nos. 914 & 915, November/December 2017

“What's the matter?” Mitarai asked Namura, as Itoi and Asami also joined us.

“But...” The salesman was breathing heavily as he leant over the railing at the end of the corridor and looked down at the street below. His back was completely wet because of the rain. “There are no emergency stairs here...” he exclaimed in surprise. Mitarai and I looked down, following his gaze.

Because of the power failure everything was in darkness, making the street below almost impossible to see. I could just vaguely make out the roof of a white car parked down there.

“But I’m sure I saw Mr. Kubo run down here and climb over this railing...” said the salesman. “I think I saw him jump over, so I assumed there must be emergency stairs here. But there aren’t, so where did he go?” His face was pale.

Despite the power failure in the building, the far-off mercury-vapor streetlights were still on, and I could just make out the expression on Namura’s face.

“There aren’t any emergency stairs in this corridor,” said Itoi. The storm made it hard to understand what he was saying. “There aren’t any in front of my apartment either. There’s only one emergency stairwell, and it’s in the west corridor. You have to go back along this corridor and turn right. Maybe Mr. Kubo thought there was one here too when he jumped...”

“Which would suggest...?” prompted Mitarai.

“That he might’ve jumped to his death!”

We ran quickly back to the elevator at the intersection of the three corridors. I pushed the button to call the elevator, but it wouldn’t come up. Then we remembered there had been a power failure, so we ran down the stairs adjacent to the elevator.

It was a long way from the eleventh floor down to the first floor. When we finally got to the bottom, we ran out into the rain, not caring about getting soaked. We headed for the area we had looked down on from the eleventh floor several minutes earlier.

We turned the corner and looked anxiously about. Nothing except a white car.

Somewhere in the distance the streets lights were on, so we weren’t in complete darkness. There definitely wasn’t a body there or any sign of blood.

“This is weird...” Namura, shouting because of the storm, was white as a sheet. “What’s going on here!?” He wasn’t putting on a performance. He really was in a panic.

Mitarai was standing in the rain, looking up at the railing on the eleventh floor. I followed his example, but I couldn’t see any dead bodies hanging from anywhere. The rain was coming down furiously.

“Let’s get back to dry shelter.”

All of us except Namura followed Mitarai back to the side of the building, where we could shelter under the corridor above. But the salesman had stopped worrying about getting wet, and was crawling around on the asphalt, despite being lashed by the rain.

It was a mystifying sight. He peered under the white sedan that was parked there, then stood up to peer inside at the driver’s seat through the window.

“Is that your car?” yelled Mitarai.

“Yes!” shouted Namura.

Just at that moment we heard the sound of a train slamming on its brakes. It was on the elevated railway across the road. Namura got to his feet and looked up towards the noise.

Mitarai went out into the rain again and I did the same. The railway was very high above street level, so we could only see its roof. For some reason, the train had stopped away from the station with its lights on. A motionless target for the rain.

Mitarai went back to dry shelter and I followed. Namura, who had apparently also given up, joined us.

“Well anyway, it appears there are no dead bodies lying around here,” observed Mitarai.

“You’re right about that,” replied Namura.

“Let’s go back upstairs.”

“Yes. We’ll all catch cold like this!” cried Asami.

“There’s one thing I want to clear up first,” said Mitarai. Turning to Namura, he asked: “When we were up in the apartment, you shouted Mr. Kubo’s name from the balcony and he then ran into the room. What happened between the two of you?”

“I don’t want to talk about it. Why should I talk to you? You’re not the police,” replied the salesman coldly.

“Suit yourself. Let’s go back in then, before we catch cold.”

We ran back to the stairwell and slowly climbed the stairs back up to the eleventh floor. Initially, Namura wasn’t able to let things go and stayed out in the rain for a while. But he soon came running after us.

We went back into the living room, which was now full of candles, and dried ourselves in front of the heater.

“So...?” asked Mitarai’s friend Ishioka. Mitarai explained what had happened.

“Anyway, we need to call the police first,” Mr. Itoi interrupted, and his wife nodded. “Because, whatever else happened, Kubo did steal the pearl necklace.”

He picked up the receiver and called the police. I picked up the sheet of paper which had been used for the magic trick.

The watches and the ring had all been returned to their rightful owners. I put the flame of the candle close to the sheet of paper and saw that the surface was wet.

“That’s really strange,” said Ishioka after Mitarai had finished his story.

I put the paper back on the table and looked at my watch. It was twenty past ten.

Suddenly, the phone rang. I was still a bit dazed and was surprised that the telephone was working during the power failure. Mrs. Itoi quickly hurried to answer it.

“Hello. Itoi speaking.”

I saw, despite the dim light of the candles, that everyone was listening intently to Mrs. Itoi.

“Yes... yes... That’s right. He was here until a few minutes ago. What? Whaaat!? Yes... yes...”

The tone of Mrs. Itoi’s voice had changed completely. There was obviously something very wrong. Everyone grew tense and leant forward to hear better.

“Yes, I understand. We’ll do that. Yes. Until then.”

Itoi couldn’t wait for his wife to put down the receiver before he asked loudly: “What’s the matter?”

His wife put the receiver down slowly before answering: “Mr. Kubo... has committed suicide.”

“What!?” everyone cried out. “Where!?”

“On the railway. He jumped in front of a train.”

The only railway in the neighborhood was the elevated railway, so jumping in front of a train was not as easy as it sounded.

“Was it from Asakusabashi Station? From the platform?” asked her husband.

“No, they said it was on the rails closer to us here. Very close. Right across from us, in fact.”

“Was Kubo walking along the tracks?” asked Itoi, cocking his head.

“How did they know to call here?” asked Namura.

“He had a note in his pocket with our telephone number on it.”

Everyone seemed satisfied by that explanation.

“They want someone to identify the body. They say that anyone who can should come to Asakusabashi Station immediately,” said Mrs. Itoi. She turned pale at the thought of having to identify a body that had been run over by a train.

At that moment, the memory of a train slamming on the brakes in the rain came back to me. A train had stopped in the rain, all the way up above us on an elevated railway. Could it possibly have been...?!