Disclaimer:
Let's just skip the giant disclaimer you can find in Chapter 1!
x.
FS
x.
x. ENCOUNTER in VENICE x.
(new version)
x.
Fate seemed to pull the strings
I turned and you were gone
While from the darkened wings
The music box played on
("Charade", lyrics by Johnny Mercer)
x.
To his relief…
(Saturday, November 3rd 20xx, from different points of view)
x.
To his relief, Saguru knows Chiba Mamoru isn't likely to be the culprit in the light of the facts Saguru's informants have dug out. Chiba doesn't belong to the narrow circle of suspects due to his perfect alibi—having been seen by all the ushers (first in front of the main entrance, then in front of the concert hall) while he was voice-chatting with his wife from the beginning of the second interval until half past eight when he returned to his seat. Among Tenoh Haruka's acquaintances at La Fenice, Chiba was the only one who wasn't in the backstage area at the time of Tenoh's death. And if all the details which Saguru has learned from his informants and Chiba Mamoru are true, no one else could have murdered Tenoh Haruka either.
First, Chiba insists that "Haruka-san didn't show any signs of having been poisoned". Someone who had died naturally in their sleep couldn't have passed away more peacefully. Second, Chiba doubts that anyone could have sedated her. Her instincts were powerful and her reactions were freakishly fast, earning her several snazzy nicknames like "The Wind", "Tornado-sama", and "Turbulent Hurricane". As far as Chiba can tell, she had never lost a fight. Usako has told Chiba that Haruka-san once tried to punch Seiya-kun for flirting with her girlfriend and that Seiya-kun luckily managed to catch her fist. But it's an open secret that Seiya-kun is a tactile prodigy as well (Professor Tomoe seemed to have collected them for unknown reasons); and this one episode was certainly the only time in Haruka-san's life that an attack of hers had failed. Forcefully feeding a poison to Haruka-san was impossible. If Seiya-kun—the only person who had a chance to fight her—had tried it, he wouldn't have been able to overwhelm her so easily. On the contrary, Chiba would have bet on Haruka-san winning in the case Seiya-kun had tried to attack Haruka-san in her own dressing room and she had had to defend herself.
"I didn't know that he attended Infinity. Was he there for a brief time before he went to Juuban Highschool?"
"No, Usako told me Professor Tomoe wanted Seiya-kun to be a 'guinea pig prodigy' but Seiya-kun declined. He said he didn't like their boring conservative school uniform."
"He has a certain sense of humour! Or did he mean it literally?" Seiya Kou did defiantly wear Three Light's black and midnight-blue suit at Juuban Highschool—a privilege he wouldn't have received at Infinity under Professor Tomoe's control.
"It's hard to guess when Seiya-kun is joking or when he is telling the truth. I think it's his way of keeping people at a distance. It's difficult to get to know him. I doubt that his own girlfriend knows who he really is."
Coming from a person who has also asserted that Seiya Kou would never poison an enemy, this statement refutes the previous claim so thoroughly that Saguru wonders whether Chiba is doing it intentionally or only contradicts himself because he is less rational than he looks. To be fair, few people in the world are as logical and consistent as Saguru and Kudo, who always stand out like well-defined, clear-cut figures among periodically changing, blurred shapes. In an insecure world, rational thinking and steadiness are much underrated, in Saguru's opinion.
Suspecting Rei-chan and Makoto-chan is absurd, as they both admired Haruka-san and had often been supported by her in the past, Chiba claims as Saguru urges him to proceed with his speculations. Although she feigned indifference and pulled herself together in order to focus on her performance and on her musical debut in The Phantom of the Opera, Rei-chan was very affected by Haruka-san's death (as Chiba, who knows her well enough to see through her tough facade, can tell). Apart from that, Haruka-san was so smart and attentive that she would surely have sensed a change in Rei-chan's or Makoto-chan's attitude if either of them had wanted her dead.
The portiere and Gentile respected and feared Haruka-san so much that they would jump whenever she raised her brow at them. Neither of them had a motive, and the scandal of Haruka-san's death has only caused them trouble. While Makoto-chan and Chiba were waiting for Rei-chan at Seiya-kun's motorboat last night, they witnessed how the portiere was admonished for reading romance novels on his shift and for letting his ex-girlfriend distract him. Nadia Gorowitz, who overheard the quarrel between Seiya-kun and Haruka-san yesterday evening, still visits her ex-boyfriend at work even after their breakup, as she is one of Seiya-kun's fanatical fans. Chiba almost spilled his champagne on her before the second act because she was blocking one of the two entrances to the hall and pelting her usher-friend with questions about Seiya-kun. Rei-chan also suspects that Gorowitz has only applied for a part-time job as an usher to stalk Seiya-kun at work.
"Gentile is a terribly meek artistic director. He got the job through his many influential acquaintances and was successful enough to stay at La Fenice for so long because Seiya-kun came to Venice four years ago just when Gentile started out," Chiba tells Saguru. "Somehow Gentile has managed to convince the board of directors that he is the only person who can deal with Seiya-kun's temper and disorganized habits—a complete lie because Rei-chan has told me that Seiya-kun has always been calm and reliable during the rehearsals. I also think Gentile is having a crush on Shiho-san. You should take anything he says about Seiya-kun with a pinch of salt."
"Does Gentile always wear gloves?"
"I heard from Minako-chan—another of Usako's friends, who is going to sing Meg Giri in The Phantom of the Opera tonight—that he always does. He says he catches a bad case of influenza every season, so he needs to be as careful as possible in a theatre house where it's sheer impossible to evade the germs."
"You said he was afraid of Tenoh-san. I wonder why he dared to enter her dressing room at half-past eight when she didn't answer the door."
"I don't know, but I think he must have been standing in front of her door for a while before he dared to come in. I had been waiting in my seat for an eternity before he showed up and asked me for help."
Michiru-san, Haruka-san's long-suffering life partner, would have been the prime suspect apart from Makoto-chan if she had been present last night, Chiba continues. But she had been painting at home and only arrived at La Fenice after Haruka-san had died. And since Chiba knows that Michiru-san loved and accepted Haruka-san with all her faults, Michiru-san would be the last person he suspects.
Since Chiba has an excellent memory for facts, Saguru got an overview of the whole case in no time. Among the people who had been in the backstage area between a quarter and half past eight p.m. (the timespan between Gentile's last two attempts at asking Haruka-san to go onstage), only Seiya-kun (who passed Haruka-san's dressing room while Rei-chan was studying the scores and Makoto-chan was talking on the phone) had the chance to poison Haruka-san in secret. Anyone else who entered Haruka-san's dressing room would have been heard by Seiya-kun, who is very attentive and whose ears are as well-trained as any first-class musician's ears can be. Nevertheless, Chiba firmly believes in Seiya-kun's innocence. He is the type that fights open battles and can't harbour a grudge for long.
Saguru doesn't doubt that Seiya Kou could have heard anyone who entered Tenoh's dressing room. However, Saguru also doesn't believe for an instant that the singer would have informed on any of his acquaintances. Tenoh Haruka had already ruined one of his romantic relationships and was about to wreck the next. Even if he was innocent, Seiya Kou's sympathies were clearly on the side of the culprit and not on the side of the victim.
"My guess is that she suffered from an unknown disease." Chiba leans back in his chair and takes out his gold vintage pocket watch to compare the time on it with the time on the clock on the wall. "She had been complaining about her migraines for months, so Rei-chan told me, and had even given up on coffee because her body could no longer tolerate the caffeine. Last night she wasn't in good shape either because she played a pianissimo passage much too loudly, drowning out Rei-chan's part. She probably asked Makoto-chan for a cup of water to swallow some painkillers. It was unfortunate that she didn't get the water herself so that Makoto-chan has become the prime suspect of the case."
"I've noticed these vintage watches are very much in vogue these days," observes Saguru. "Does the artistic director have one as well?"
"I don't know," Chiba replies, eyeing Saguru with sudden mistrust. "He didn't interest me."
Fifteen minutes are too short a time to poison Tenoh Haruka, clean the dressing room, and scatter Tenoh's fingerprints randomly all over the place, Saguru calculates. On the other hand, it would have been possible if it had been a slightly longer timespan because Gentile's watch was slow or because Gentile dawdled on his way. Naturally, it would still take an unscrupulous culprit with extremely fast and efficient movements—someone who had planned or even practiced the whole procedure in advance and who didn't let the danger of being discovered at any time affect them. Even under these circumstances, it was almost impossible. The only logical explanation which comes to mind is the following scenario, as absurd as it sounds: The culprit was Miyano Shiho, who is supposed to have been sleeping in Seiya Kou's dressing room at the time of Tenoh's death. She could have left her room before Seiya Kou returned to the opera house, could have been visiting Tenoh Haruka and sitting in Tenoh's dressing room during Gentile's second visit so that she could poison the ex-racer immediately after Gentile left the backstage area…
The idea comes upon Saguru in a flash while he—multitasking with ease—is flirting with the petite emerald-eyed blonde, who keeps blushing at him whenever she passes their table. Like a film, a sped-up version of what could have transpired at La Fenice appears before his eyes. "I only need another fifteen minutes. Just let them wait!" Tenoh Haruka cried, taking an inconspicuous pill from the beautiful redhead, whom she—according to the press—had been trying to seduce for years, whereupon the artistic director in front of her closed door stalked away in frustration. Miyano Shiho, Seiya Kou's indispensable secretary, had just offered Tenoh a painkiller against Tenoh's persistent headaches, which Tenoh now swallowed without much thinking. It wasn't until her body heated up and the world around her began to spin that Tenoh realized that her charming companion, who was now nonchalantly flipping her hair, had given her something entirely different from the drug she craved. (During their few abrupt encounters, Saguru observed that Haibara Ai had the habit of flipping her hair whenever she felt superior to (or bored with) her surroundings.) The erstwhile scientist, who had provided the pianist with strong painkillers for months, must suddenly have changed the formula…
At the moment, Saguru can't think of a motive except for the scandal Tenoh-san was about to create—a motive which doesn't seem strong enough for a person like Miyano-san to commit a murder. However, he doesn't want to dismiss the possibility before he has followed this train of thought to the end.
After Tenoh's death, Miyano Shiho had fifteen minutes before the artistic director returned, which she put to use like a perfectly trained Black Organization member: eliminating the evidence that she had ever entered the dressing room, placing Tenoh's fingerprints on all the places where they were expected to be, exiting the room without leaving new fingerprints… She must have used a large handkerchief for that purpose, as gloves would have been too conspicuous if they had been found in her possession.
Afterwards, she hurried back to Seiya Kou's dressing room and pretended to sleep. But the singer, who heard her surreptitious steps, left the backstage café, where he had been chatting with Kino, and returned to his dressing room to meet her.
It would explain many details which seemed strange to Saguru when he read about the case, whose minutes Natalie sent him this morning. Seiya Kou must have walked past the backstage area and asked Luigi Gentile whether Gentile had seen his secretary anywhere since he couldn't find her, neither in the hall (where they agreed to meet) nor in his dressing room—a fact he wisely omitted during the interrogation.
It would also explain why the artistic director thought that Seiya Kou had returned through the main entrance near the bar while the portiere clearly stated that the singer had come back through the exit. More precisely, the portiere claimed that Seiya Kou must have returned through the main entrance during the second interval (as he didn't see him coming through the back entrance!) but had run out again and then returned through the back entrance at the end of the second interval (the portiere released the turnstile for him this time).
On the assumption that both the artistic director and the portiere were right, Seiya Kou might have come through the main entrance at the beginning of the second interval, walked through the hall to search for his secretary but couldn't find her (Gentile and she were on the way to the backstage area at this time), and left the opera house through the main entrance to search for her outside. He had been strolling about the place for a few minutes when he was suddenly struck by the idea that she must be waiting for him in his dressing room. Fearing that he might be discovered by an especially fearsome specimen of lovestruck fan if he passed the main entrance again, the singer walked around the opera house to enter it through the back entrance and returned to his dressing room only to discover that Miyano Shiho wasn't there either.
This is not the scene of a famous star searching for a friend and secretary, who is only playing the part of his girlfriend for a publicity stunt as Kudo claimed, Saguru thinks. The scene depicts an infatuated man combing the opera house for an indifferent love interest or—which is more likely considering the photo Saguru has seen—for a capricious lover.
"Did you touch the door when you entered Tenoh-san's dressing room to check her pulse?" Saguru asks Chiba.
"Of course I didn't. Gentile has left the door ajar, and Rei-chan, who was standing there alone before Seiya-kun and Makoto-chan joined us, was hugging herself and looked as if she was about to cry. I sensed that Haruka-san was dead even before I checked her pulse. Since I didn't have to touch the door to open it, I tried not to touch anything."
Perhaps Seiya Kou didn't leave the backstage café because he had heard Miyano Shiho enter his dressing room but because he had heard her cleaning Tenoh Haruka's room out of all places, Saguru corrects the hypothetical scene in his head. Blessed or rather cursed with an extremely acute sense of hearing, the singer must have heard something which triggered his suspicion. Leaving the backstage café for Tenoh Haruka's room, he gingerly placed his hand on the doorknob to turn it but changed his mind at the last minute and quietly retreated into his own dressing room—all the while listening to the sounds which had become familiar to him after four years of cohabiting and shared household chores.
His suspicion was confirmed when the door opened a few minutes later and he found himself face to face with his lover, who—taken aback by his presence—looked anxious and slightly out of breath but who managed to meet his eyes as if nothing had happened. Perhaps Seiya Kou had been out of his mind with jealousy for a minute before he realized that it was unlikely that she would end a secret rendezvous with a rigorous cleaning session. As for Miyano Shiho, she didn't know that the doorknob which she had already wiped from the inside and from the outside had been touched by her own boyfriend, who carelessly left his fingerprints on the doorknob and unknowingly turned himself into a suspect in this way.
No, much too dramatic, Saguru thinks, dismissing the whole theory at once. Apart from being absolutely preposterous because it turns the one suspect Kudo trusts into the culprit and requires her to have superhuman cleaning skills, it would also insult Seiya Kou's intelligence. The man had enough time to wipe the doorknob after everyone walked onstage. After learning about Tenoh Haruka's death, he must have been a fool not to remember that he had placed his fingerprints on the doorknob of Tenoh's dressing room and that he would automatically belong to the main suspects after he had wished her to "go to hell"…
…Unless he did remember it and still left it there, fueling commissario Lele Carrara's suspicion against himself. Actually, the well-preserved handprint on the doorknob suggests that Seiya Kou has intentionally placed his hand on the doorknob after his friends had gone onstage, leaving him and Miyano Shiho alone in the backstage area.
Far-fetched as it is, this is the only theory which explains Tenoh Haruka's mysterious death. Kuroba once mentioned that Hattori had warned him that the Black Organization was in possession of an undetectable poison. Since Miyano Shiho has studied at Infinity with Tenoh Haruka (Peter, an informant who once worked for MI5, has sent Hakuba a photo of the Infinity prodigies) and Infinity seemed to have been funded by the Organization (Professor Tomoe is known for blabbering "nonsense about the dress code of cocktails"), Saguru is positive that Miyano Shiho, whose majors at Infinity were biology and chemistry (as Natalie has found out), possesses the skills to combine the characteristics of an undetectable poison with a powerful painkiller.
On the other hand, if Saguru had the formula to the Organization's undetectable drug, even Saguru could create a painless poison with the help of a bit of morphine. Chiba could have easily done it, as well as anyone else with brains and enough motivation to learn.
From an objective observer's point of view, however, Miyano Shiho should be the main suspect, Saguru thinks, wondering why commissario Carrara didn't suspect her at all. The commissario (and even Kudo?) had been focusing on Seiya Kou during the interrogations, overlooking the obvious as if both of them had been sidetracked by the singer's oddly flippant behaviour.
People do all sorts of insane stuff in the name of love, Saguru ponders—things which sensible human beings like Saguru would never do. But is he really so immune against irrational thinking when it comes to the one that matters most? Remembering how he was sick with rage and fear when he heard that Watson had been shot, Saguru wonders whether he would have directed the commissario's suspicion towards himself to protect his girlfriend even if he was sure that she had just committed a murder.
x.
A/N: I'm surprised that people are still reading this fic, but since there are still readers, I'll still be updating. :D
I've been writing on paper whenever I'm feeling like it, and the ending of this fic is pretty fixed now. (Same with Becoming Conan although it will take me a decade to work up the energy to type and edit it.) Writing with a fountain pen on paper is always bliss, but editing at the laptop requires so much time and energy. I swear the screen deactivates half of my brain cells and turns me into a different person. I've heard about screen fatigue, but I wonder whether "fatigue" really covers it (it's more like developing a dumber, louder, and slower personality that takes over). To me, screen time is like sugar. Both are addictive but need to be managed carefully lest I pay dearly for indulging.
