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:
“It took us about ten minutes to get down those stairs, so it would have taken Kubo at least five minutes. No matter how fast he was, the stairs alone would have taken five minutes,” said Aka.
“So subtract that and he had eight minutes left,” added Ishioka.
“Four minutes to go one way,” observed Mitarai coolly.
“Then it’s utterly impossible,” declared Itoi. “Even if Kubo had been an Olympic athlete, he wouldn’t have been able to run to the place where he died in time. That’s the only possible conclusion.”
“But what does that mean?” muttered Ishioka. Önuki remained silent.
“There’s another impossibility,” continued Mitarai. “Mr. Namura here says he saw Mr. Kubo run towards the northern corridor of the building. And he said that he saw him climb over the railing at the end of that corridor, and disappear. Am I right?”
“Yes, I’m fairly sure that’s what I saw.”
“So we thought that Mr. Kubo had mistakenly assumed there were emergency stairs there. But when we went down to look, there was no body there.”
“So Kubo jumped from the corridor on the eleventh floor and disappeared in midair,” said Ishioka.
“Precisely. It’s shaping up to be an excellent mystery, my dear Ishioka.”
So saying, Mitarai rubbed his hands in glee.
We discussed for a while whether it was possible to climb up to the elevated railway from the road. But we concluded that it was impossible. The elevated railway was high, probably three stories. And it wasn’t just a high wall; it had been built especially so people wouldn’t be able to climb it. Even a veteran mountain climber wouldn’t have been able to scale it.
Around midnight, the police called again, saying they would be there the next day and nobody was to leave. We were all forced to stay in the Itois’ apartment. Luckily, the next day was Sunday and the Itois had enough rooms to accommodate us.
“Why aren’t we allowed to go home? The case is over, isn’t it? We had nothing to do with Kubo’s suicide,” Namura said to Mr. Itoi, who had answered the call from the police. Itoi had been very pensive following the phone call. Now he chose his words carefully as he answered Namura’s nagging questions.
“Hmm, it appears it wasn’t exactly as you say. Up until now, I’d assumed Kubo had jumped in front of the train of his own free will...”
“You mean he didn’t!?” asked his wife.
“No, they told me it wasn’t like that.”
“What do you mean?” queried Önuki.
“There were strangulation marks around Kubo’s neck.”
“What!?” exclaimed Asami. “So you mean, he was...?”
“Yes, the police say he appears to have been murdered.”
“So Mr. Kubo ran desperately all the way to that place after he died?”
Aka’s strange joke made me shudder. But Mitarai, who was standing in a corner of the room, appeared to be trembling in sheer joy.
“Bah, that’s impossible!” retorted the critic, ever pragmatic. “There’s no way a dead man can run and jump in front of a train. He might have strangulation marks around his neck, but that doesn’t mean he was strangled to death. Someone attempted to strangle him, but Kubo wasn’t killed then. That’s all there is to it.”
“Do you really think so?”
Everyone fell silent.
“Anyway, there’s a possibility of murder, so I guess that makes all of us suspects. That’s why we can’t leave here.”
5
I spent the night rolled up on the carpet in Itoi’s study. The following morning, I awoke earlier than the others, and went into the living room. Mitarai was sleeping peacefully on the sofa. I peered at his unshaven face. It didn’t look as though he would be up soon.
After a while, everyone else was up. From the kitchen, I could hear Asami say the power was back on.
We sipped from the coffee she had made and it became breakfast time. Everyone was silent. I was sure the death of Kubo was on everybody’s mind.
We sat waiting expectantly for the police to arrive and then it became lunchtime. Again the Itois fed us. And after lunch we waited again, supplied with cups of coffee, all except Mitarai and Ishioka who preferred tea.
I went outside onto the balcony and saw it had started raining again. The wind was not as strong as during yesterday’s storm, so this time the rain did reach the balcony.
At three o’clock we were treated to tea and Japanese snacks. Eat and wait, eat and wait. When were these cops going to come? When would we be released? The guests were all starting to get jittery.
“How long are we supposed to stay like this?” squawked Önuki hysterically. “I have an article I need to work on back home. Who cares about those stupid cops? Can’t one of us be the great detective and solve the case? I guess nobody here is smart enough for that, eh?”
“Mr. Namura, can’t you use your supernatural powers?” asked Asami. Namura blinked and got up from the sofa.
“I can’t refuse you anything. Let me explain my ideas about the events. I’ve already demonstrated that I have some affinity with the supernatural. My powers allow me to tell you at least one thing with certainty. The number seven has a strange link with this case.”
Everyone was impressed. But as I listened to him, I started to get a bad feeling about it.
“Asami chose the number seven last night during our supernatural game. The necklace Kubo stole was given the number seven. And the song our guitarist played last night so stupidly loud was ‘Beyond the Seventh Galaxy.’ Sevens appearing everywhere.
“The supernatural often points to the answer through these repeated coincidences. The necklace Kubo had in his pocket was the seventh ringlike object. Don’t you agree this all appears to be pointing to someone involved in the crime, like in a dying message? So that means that...”
“Shut up!” shouted Puff. “There’s only so far you can stretch things. We were here playing our instruments, remember?”
Namura had been hinting at our band, The Seven Rings.
“Really? Near the end, I don’t think I could hear your drums anymore.”
I remembered the little fight on the balcony between Puff and Kubo. Could it be...?!
At that moment, the doorbell rang. Mrs. Itoi got up to answer it. She opened the door and I heard brief talk, after which a man in a raincoat entered, followed by two others in police uniform.
The man in the raincoat was obviously the detective, but he didn’t look the part. He wore a beret and black-rimmed glasses. He was short, with a middle-age spread. He looked like an artist.
He stood in front of us, with the two uniformed men beside him. We looked at him apprehensively.
“Sorry for making you wait. I’m Kato of the First Division,” said the detective, pulling the inevitable black police notebook from his pocket and showing us his identification. He didn’t take his hat off.
“I’ll have to ask each of you about the details of the case. There are some things that we don’t yet understand. We’re going to sit over there by the heater, so I’ll have to ask you to move somewhere else. It’d be a great help if you could tell me what we need to know one by one.”
He took off his coat as he spoke. He had a peculiar way of speaking for someone from Tokyo. Almost like a storyteller. We followed his instructions and the individual questionings took an hour in total.
“Hmmm.” The detective muttered after he’d taken down all the depositions. “So Kubo stepped into the room from the balcony and stole the necklace at precisely ten o’clock. You’re sure about that?”
We all nodded confidently. Kato bit his lip, put a large hand to his forehead, and started to think deeply. I could read from his lips: “This can’t be.” He’d discovered the same problem we’d discussed last night: the problem of the running corpse.