Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 150, Nos. 5 & 6. Whole Nos. 914 & 915, November/December 2017
- Автор: Фузилли Джим, Харрис Шарлин
- Год: 2017
- Язык: английский
- Год: Dell Magazines
- ISBN: 0013-6328
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 150, Nos. 5 & 6. Whole Nos. 914 & 915, November/December 2017». Краткое содержание книги:
4
Not all of us went to Asakusabashi Station. The women stayed behind, as did Puff, Ishioka, the critic Önuki, and I, just in case.
After a long wait, I heard the turn of the lock and the front door opened. The door had been locked from the inside. It appeared that Itoi had left the apartment with his key. Because of the storm, we had hardly noticed him putting the key in the lock. Those who had gone to see the body barged in, illuminated by the candlelight. Itoi and Namura didn’t look very well.
“It was like a nightmare,” said Itoi to his wife in a somber voice. “A body that’s been run over is a horrible thing to see.”
“Was it in bad shape? I suppose there were wounds everywhere,” said Önuki.
“It was falling apart, and completely drenched in mud. It was really terrible,” answered Itoi, and he looked at everyone who had stayed behind.
“And you’re sure it was Mr. Kubo?” queried Önuki, accompanied by nods from the others.
“It was definitely Mr. Kubo,” replied Mitarai. He seemed to be the only one unshaken. Was he used to seeing dead bodies? What a mysterious man.
“And the necklace?” asked Mrs. Itoi immediately.
“It was in his pocket. They say they’ll return it tomorrow. It was completely intact,” said Itoi, and his wife looked relieved.
Aka turned to me and whispered: “Mr. Kubo was bald. That’s why he was always wearing that woollen hat.”
“Really?”
“Yes, but he wasn’t wearing it just now. His body looked really awful, though. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen someone who’s been run over. It really makes you feel sick to your stomach.”
“Uuurgh.” I was glad I hadn’t seen it.
“Did Mr. Kubo jump in front of the train of his own free will?” asked Puff.
“It seems as though it didn’t quite happen like that. It happened at a spot where the water had built up, and he was lying there. So they didn’t see him in time. The engineer himself thought it was just a puddle of water, so he was going straight at it and, by the time he put on the brakes, it was already too late. It happened at thirteen minutes past ten.”
The critic started to talk loudly then, so we kept silent.
“Well then, I assume that’s the end of it? It’s a damn shame what happened to Kubo, but he was a thief. There’s no need for us to be sad for him. And the necklace is also safe. So everything is okay now.”
“Actually, it’s not,” said Mitarai suddenly He was sitting on a sofa. “A very peculiar problem has now arisen.”
“A peculiar problem? What kind of problem?” asked Aka, turning to Mitarai. Itoi and the salesman followed suit. Soon everyone was looking at Mitarai.
It was Mitarai’s turn to look surprised: “What? Doesn’t anyone think it’s odd?”
Nobody said anything. What was supposed to be odd?
“Kubo jumped into the room here, grabbed the necklace and went out of the door at the same time that the wall clock over there struck ten o’clock,” said Mitarai.
I remembered it in detail now he mentioned it. Just as the clock started to strike, I’d heard Namura shout, “Hey, Mr. Kubo!” from the balcony at our backs. And, before the clock had finished striking ten times, the glass balcony doors had opened fully and Kubo had entered the room.
“It was during our performance and I was the only one playing an electric instrument, so I went silent the moment the power failure occurred. That’s why I remembered the time. The power failure happened at exactly three minutes to ten.
“And at thirteen minutes past ten, Kubo was run over by the train, according to the engineer. He’s confident about the time because he testified that the train left Asakusabashi Station at eleven minutes past the hour.
“Besides which, we were all outside at ten thirteen and we heard the sudden braking ourselves. The body was run over high above us, on the elevated railway. There’s no way to climb up to there from the road. Which means that after Kubo stormed out of this room, he must have gone to Asakusabashi Station, past the ticket gates, and onto the platform. From there, he must have jumped down onto the rails and walked back along the tracks all the way to where he was run over.”
Everyone nodded. That’s what must have happened.
“Kubo was here with us until ten o’clock. He was run over at thirteen minutes past. That means he must have covered the route I explained just now in thirteen minutes. But a moment ago it took us ten minutes just to get to Asakusabashi Station from here.”
Everyone opened their mouths in surprise.
“All kinds of things are flying around now in the storm, so he wouldn’t have gone by car,” added Mitarai.
He was right. I remembered it had taken me about fifteen minutes to get to the Itois’ apartment. It had seemed quite far at the time.
“Couldn’t he have used a car anyway?” asked Aka.
“No. Kubo came here by train and I once heard him say at Zig-Zag that he didn’t have a license.”
“By taxi, perhaps?” suggested Asami.
“They don’t go out in storms like this,” replied Ishioka.
“What if he ran as fast as he could? Couldn’t he have reached the station in half the time, say six minutes and thirty seconds?” suggested Itoi.
“Impossible,” said Aka. “Maybe an Olympic champion might do it, but Mr. Kubo was over forty. He’d need to get through the ticket gates and run up the stairs to the platform. No way he could have done that.”
“So it’s impossible?”
“I actually did once run from here all the way to the station. I was trying to catch a train which was due to leave in seven minutes. I ran as hard as I could from the elevator downstairs to the station,” explained Aka.
“And did you make it?”
“I barely managed to get on the train.”
“Well then!”
“But that was a one-way trip. I was all out of breath when I got on the train. Mr. Kubo would’ve needed to run the same distance back in this direction, right? I wouldn’t have been able to do that. I only managed to reach the train because I knew the station was my final destination.”
“You’re twenty-three, so I guess there’s no way that Mr. Kubo, who’s over forty, could have done it in time.”
“But Mr. Kubo was planning to commit suicide anyway, so he might have pushed himself beyond what was good for his heart.” It was Önuki who had come up with that crazy idea.
“But why did he bother to run all the way back along the railway in this direction?” muttered Mrs. Itoi.
“You’re absolutely right!” said her husband. “He could’ve just jumped in front of any train from the platform.”
“Yes, why would he have needed to get back here?” added Asami.
“But the fact is he did die like that, so that has to be what actually happened. You can’t ignore the facts,” said the critic. “In his last moments, Kubo desperately ran to the place he wished to die and was hit by the train. That’s just something we need to accept.”
“It’s nonsense trying to dream up anything else. I’ve no idea why we even need to discuss it further. The facts are the facts. That’s all there is to it.”
Mitarai looked as though he’d had enough. “You all seem to be forgetting one thing,” he said in exasperation. “The elevator. There was a power failure, so the elevator wasn’t working.”
Everyone opened their mouths in surprise again.
“Oh! You’re right!” said Itoi. “How could we have forgotten? We went down the stairs ourselves. We’re on the eleventh floor here, so by the time we reached the bottom we were already out of breath.”