Disclaimer:

Let's just skip the giant disclaimer you can find in Chapter 1!


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FS

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x. ENCOUNTER in VENICE x.

(new version)

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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)

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After pondering…

(Saturday, November 3rd 20xx, from different points of view)

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After pondering the most plausible hypothesis, Saguru begins to focus on the incongruities that must be taken into account before one grows inordinately fond of a theory. In every case Saguru has solved there have been discrepancies in the witness accounts—discrepancies which were either the key to the solution or just annoying mistakes the witnesses made when their memories failed them. Most people are so unreliable that he had better not listen to their witness accounts at all and stick to the hard facts instead. In this case, however, the discrepancies are so glaring that it's impossible to ignore them.

First, seemingly reliable witnesses have mixed up the order of the most simple actions while, curiously enough, they had kept track of the exact time at which those actions happened. Accustomed to recording the exact time of events, Saguru knows that usually witnesses don't keep track of time at all. Alessandra DiGiorgio, the usher Seiya Kou flirted with, for example, happened to remember that he was chatting with her from six past eight to sixteen past eight. What sort of awestruck fan would memorize such a bureaucratic detail while talking to her much-admired star?

Luigi Gentile said he had been talking with Seiya Kou before he went to Tenoh Haruka the second time. But this was impossible (assuming Chiba Mamoru's witness account was true). According to Chiba, Seiya Kou talked to Gentile after flirting with the usher, meaning it must have happened after eight sixteen if Alessandra DiGiorgio's witness account can be trusted. Gentile visited Tenoh for the second time at eight fifteen. If Chiba was right, Seiya Kou must have talked to Gentile several minutes after eight sixteen, when Gentile had already visited Tenoh's dressing room for the second time and returned to the bar for another drink.

Seiya Kou asserted that he had talked with Gentile before talking to the usher, which would agree with Gentile's statement. Assuming Gentile and Seiya Kou were right and Chiba Mamoru was wrong, Gentile and Seiya Kou talked with each other between eight and six past eight. The artistic director knocked at Tenoh Haruka's door for the first time at eight o'clock and climbed the staircase to Hino's dressing room afterwards to inform her about the delay of the third act before he went to the bar. He must have needed a few minutes to do these things, meaning that Seiya Kou and he most probably talked with each other at five past eight o'clock. It was possible but ridiculous considering the map of the opera house, which Saguru studied last night when he couldn't sleep in his third-rate pension.

Before Saguru's eyes, Saguru can see the artistic director climb the stairs to Hino's dressing room, knock at her door, open the door only to throw a few sentences at her, slam her door shut, run downstairs, pass the corridor of the backstage area to walk to the stage, run down the stage, hurry through the hall, leave the hall, run through the corridors in front of the hall to the bar to order a drink. Everything in less than five minutes despite the crowd in the hall and in the corridors… One could believe Luigi Gentile was a runner of Tenoh Haruka's calibre!

Then Seiya Kou, who had entered the backstage area through the exit just when Gentile had left it, walked into his dressing room where he either didn't find Miyano Shiho or found her fast asleep (he must have checked his dressing room if he wasn't an absolute airhead), raced through the corridor into the hall, passed the usher with whom he would flirt one minute later (had he been following Gentile, whom he spotted when he entered the concert hall?), and finally approached Gentile at the bar where they only exchanged a few words before he returned to the hall to flirt with the usher for ten minutes even though he had seemed in such a hurry only a minute ago. Saguru, who had visited Alessandra DiGiorgio's blog before he departed for the Gritti, has studied DiGiorgio's photo and read a few entries. The girl was painfully vacuous and dull, and certainly not pretty enough to make a man like Seiya Kou overlook her weaknesses. In the ten minutes with her, the singer must have died of boredom.

The scene doesn't make sense at all. Why should Chiba Mamoru, who has an excellent memory for facts and figures, mix up the order of two simple actions?

"Did you see Seiya Kou talking to both the usher and the artistic director while you were chatting with your wife? With whom did he talk first?"

"He talked with the usher first, flirted with her, from the look of things, before he went to the bar and chatted with Gentile," Chiba claims while looking Saguru directly in the eye. He appears slightly defensive, either because he is lying (in a well-meant attempt to protect someone?) or because he is indignant at being questioned.

"I'm just curious." Saguru gives Chiba an apologetic smile. "Old habits die hard! Even when I'm holidaying, I can't help solving cases when I encounter one. And this one is extremely intriguing, in my opinion."

"Is it really that intriguing? In my opinion, it's ridiculously simple! Haruka-san died of unknown causes while Makoto-chan, Shiho-san, Rei-chan, and Seiya-kun didn't have an alibi for less than fifteen minutes... less than ten minutes, in my opinion. I don't think the medical examiner is going to find a trace of poison in Haruka-san's body, and her dressing room was clean and orderly." Under these circumstances, the commissario can't arrest anyone—Chiba concludes—not even when the dressing room is full of Seiya-kun's fingerprints since he has stolen Haruka-san's sofa for Shiho-san, according to Makoto-chan.

Naturally, the dressing room should have been full of Seiya Kou's fingerprints—another clue which supports Saguru's theory that the singer is innocent, as he wouldn't have needed to clean the dressing room so thoroughly if he had been the culprit. Seiya Kou could have claimed to have left his fingerprints when he took the sofa from Tenoh's dressing room. Moreover, his behaviour suggests that Tenoh and he weren't sworn enemies despite her schemes and their heated quarrels. One usually doesn't nick an enemy's sofa for one's lover.

"I'm not looking at this from the point of view of a law enforcement officer," Saguru remarks, running his hand through his hair. From the corner of the room, the attractive blonde waitress is watching him with interest. Flattered, he winks at her, which she returns with a coy smile. "I don't need to arrest murderers—I want to know how their minds work. I'm interested in the reasons why a culprit would commit a murder. And if the murderer has a fascinating personality, I'll be extremely intrigued by their personal modus operandi." Sipping at his coffee, he lightly adds, "But I also have a strong sense of justice and like seeing the 'bad guys' get their just punishment, which doesn't mean I always want to see an arrest. Sometimes a suicide or divine punishment in form of an accident will suffice as well."

"You're much more cynical than you look!" exclaims Chiba, taken aback by Saguru's last sentence. "White is the colour of purity, but your name doesn't match your personality at all." Irritated, he stuffs his watch back into his pocket as though he were about to leave. But then he changes his mind and leans back into his chair with a frown.

"You think it doesn't?" Saguru smiles, amused at Chiba's outburst. The man has a hidden romantic side—a weakness for drama he revealed when he talked about Seiya Kou's doomed loves for his wife and for Kakyuu. "Maybe my name does match my character if you give it a second thought. Purity isn't always equivalent with kindness and compassion. Kindness and compassion require that one has the ability to sympathize with deeply flawed, irrational human beings. But I've always preferred justice and logic—in fact, this world would be a much better place if people were more rational—although I admit that even I do have an irrational, emotional side, which often interferes with the better part of my mind."

"So the 'better part' of your mind is intrigued by Haruka-san's death?" Chiba raises a brow. "What's so interesting about the case?"

"The question of space and time," Saguru explains, pulling out his pocket-sized notebook. "Look, maybe you'll understand what I mean if I draw you a timeline…"

With his favourite fountain pen (a Montblanc James Dean 1931 limited edition piece), Saguru gives Chiba an overview of the puzzle.

"In my timeline, I'm going to focus on Seiya Kou, Luigi Gentile, and you, since you three were walking around between eight and half past eight while everyone else remained at their place, according to their witness statements. Guido Moretti (GM) was reading romance novels at the exit. Kino Makoto (KM) was in the backstage café, talking on the phone. Hino Rei (HR) was studying her scores in her dressing room directly above Tenoh's, and Miyano Shiho (MS) was sleeping in Seiya Kou's dressing room."

8:00:00 p.m.:

CM is chatting with his wife in front of the concert hall.

LG knocks at TH's door. TH sends him away.

LG informs HR about the delay of the 3rd act.

LG leaves the backstage area for the bar near the main entrance.

SK enters the backstage area through the exit (according to GM).

SK asks LG about the whereabouts of MS (according to SK and LG; but CM claims SK talked with LG after flirting with AD).

8:06.00 p.m.:

SK flirts with AD and gives her an autograph on her arm.

08:15:00 p.m.:

LG returns to TH, who sends him away again, claiming she needs another 15 min.

LG returns to the bar.

"Luigi Gentile didn't mention seeing Seiya Kou on the way. There are two entrances to the concert hall, so I suppose he had either seen Seiya Kou and only didn't mention it or he had taken the other entrance and really didn't see Seiya Kou. Did you see Luigi Gentile when he returned to the bar?"

"I'm sorry, I didn't pay attention. I remember chatting with my wife and describing to her how Seiya-kun was flirting with the usher. It was fascinating to watch how he turned the poor girl's head…"

8:16:00 p.m.:

SK returns to the backstage area. (According to CM, SK is now walking to the bar to LG, who must have gone to the backstage area to call TH and returned to the bar within only one minute if CM's claim is right.)

"The more I think about your witness account, the less I can trust it," Saguru calmly remarks. "Luigi Gentile couldn't have gone to Tenoh Haruka's room, talked to her, and returned to the bar within only one minute. But I'm going to check this later when I go to La Fenice to replay the scene and stop the time."

"And I once thought I'm overly pedantic," Chiba comments with a laugh.

"Just wait and see," Saguru sharply returns. "You'll understand what I'm talking about when I'm done with this."

08:16:00 p.m. (or 08:17:00 p.m. or 08:18.00 p.m., as KM is not sure of the exact time):

SK drinks sherry with KM in the backstage café and flirts with AM on the phone. (SK claims to have visited HR before visiting KM, which would be true according to HR's statement but impossible within this narrow timespan.)

A few minutes later, SK returns to his dressing room.

"It must have been at eight eighteen p.m. if the usher didn't overestimate the time Seiya Kou had spent with her. One needs at least two minutes to pass a concert hall, climb the stage, go to the backstage café, make small talk, and pour oneself a drink," Saguru remarks. "And this timespan would still be extremely narrow. Your acquaintances are all olympic runners! Still, I'll try to believe that Seiya Kou, a tactile prodigy, could have done this."

8:25:00 p.m.:

SK visits HR. (She claims it was at 08:15:00 p.m., but her clock was 10 min slow. She still insists in her statement that she has taken those ten minutes into account and automatically added them and that he came to her at 08:15:00 p.m. and stayed for a few minutes. If her statement was right, it would agree with SK's statement that he had visited her before visiting KM but would also imply that AD's witness account was wrong.)

"Hino Rei's or the usher's—whose witness account would you trust?" Saguru asks.

"Rei-chan's, of course. She is very smart and doesn't let her emotions colour her perception."

08:30:00 p.m.:

CM stops chatting with his wife, who has gone to bed at 03:30:00 a.m. in Tokyo, and returns to his seat.

LG visits TH for the third time and discovers her corpse. (LG must have been standing in front of the door "for an eternity", as CM claims to have been waiting "for an eternity" before LG asked him for help.)

LG runs to the concert hall to ask CM for help.

CM and LG return to TH's dressing room, where HR was already standing (according to CM during breakfast at the Gritti; LG claims he has been running upstairs with CM to HR to fetch her).

"Luigi Gentile says in his witness account that you two called Hino Rei after checking on Tenoh Haruka while you claim that Hino-san had been standing in front of the door, hugging herself," Saguru points out.

"He was hysterical," Chiba asserts. "I don't think he even saw her standing at the door. He was muttering to himself that it was a disaster, that his career was ruined if Haruka-san didn't wake up. Rei-chan must have come downstairs by herself. Gentile left the door to Haruka-san's dressing room ajar when he went to fetch me, so she saw Haruka-san's corpse before I did. She stayed until I checked Haruka-san's pulse and must have known that Haruka-san was dead before I even said a word. Afterwards she returned to her room—I suspect she cried, wiped her eyes, and reapplied her mascara—so we had to go upstairs to fetch her before the opera could continue. I was impressed that she could sing the third act as if nothing had happened."

"Seiya Kou joined you at Tenoh Haruka's door. Then he fetched Kino Makoto from the backstage café before he returned to Miyano Shiho while Kino-san, Luigi Gentile, and you went onstage. But when exactly did you continue the third act?"

"I don't know. I was too shocked by what happened to check the time. I'm sure the others don't know either. Gentile was having a nervous breakdown while Rei-chan, Makoto-chan, and Seiya-kun didn't wear a watch."

"But how long did it take to perform the third act?" Saguru insists. There must be a way to calculate the exact time when the third act started, which Carrara, who only cared about the time Gentile discovered Tenoh's corpse, didn't record in his minute.

"I don't know… It felt like an eternity because I was struggling with the technique. It was hard for me to focus after Haruka-san's death, and I tried to keep a steady rhythm, which irritated Rei-chan. Somehow we managed to finish it together because the third act is technically the easiest. But I don't think Rei-chan was very happy because she was in a terrible mood afterwards. I was sorry I couldn't support her onstage. At least this has shown me that I'm not cut out to be a musician."

Saguru is not at all interested in Chiba's stage experience but only in the time it took Chiba to finish the opera. The opera is officially scheduled to end at half past nine p.m., meaning the third act is supposed to last for an hour and thirty minutes unless they have taken Tenoh Haruka's usual thirty-minute delay into account and added it to the time on the flyer.

"How long is the piece you were supposed to play in the third act?" One can try to estimate the time in a different way. "Does it last for an hour or for ninety minutes?" Thirty minutes are such a huge timespan for a musician that Chiba must be able to tell the difference unless he is intentionally hiding something.

"About an hour if one doesn't play very fast but manages to keep the initial speed. It's extremely long for a piece for soprano and piano. But it's difficult for me to say it for sure since the whole accompaniment consisted of only a few patterns, which appeared in every possible permutation. Rei-chan's part was extremely demanding and difficult to memorize, so she had to study the scores whenever she could. My part wasn't hard to memorize but extremely difficult to play as well since it was impossible to stay focused for so long. The time also varies depending on the speed at which you play it. I always needed about an hour, I think, sometimes more, sometimes less. Haruka-san managed to get through it in less than forty minutes."

"That means they did take her thirty-minute delay into account," Saguru murmurs. "Those, and then a few minutes for the curtain calls…"

Chiba gives him a blank look, whereupon Saguru only sighs and puts the last words down:

10:05:00 p.m.:

Curtain falls. CM interrogation.

"Time is our biggest problem," Saguru explains. "According to the witness statements, Seiya Kou appeared at different places at the same time, or appeared at different places without anyone seeing him on the way. Before he returned to the opera house before the third act, he must have come through the main entrance and walked through the hall before he went out again. But you didn't see him. The same happened when he came back to the opera house after searching for Miyano Shiho's painkillers: When Tenoh asked Kino Makoto for the cup of water, Kino Makoto and Guido Moretti saw Seiya Kou leave the opera house through the exit. But neither of them could tell how he had come back during the second act. He couldn't have come through the hall since all the doors to the hall were closed during the second act. And where have all those minutes gone?"

"Maybe he came back just when the second act ended and the doors were opened. He's not that conspicuous. When he walks around and doesn't want to be recognized, he'll just tuck his ponytail into his jacket and change his gait. He is an extremely good actor. You wouldn't recognize him even without makeup just because he can change like a chameleon." However, Chiba can't understand Saguru's odd question where all those minutes have gone, as people aren't machines. A few minutes more or less are completely irrelevant to the average person. Vintage watches can also be slightly slow or fast, just as memory can be unreliable. Why should it matter?

"Because in this case, time is of primary importance. Why did Seiya Kou run in and out of the opera house like that after he couldn't find Miyano Shiho's painkillers at home? When I inquired about the case—just out of curiosity—my informants told me there hadn't been any fingerprints except for Tenoh-san's fingerprints in Tenoh-san's room." Saguru cautiously neglects to mention Kudo's fingerprints and an unknown handprint on the doorknob outside, which must belong to Seiya Kou if it doesn't belong to Chiba. "Someone has removed all the fingerprints and put Tenoh's fingerprints back afterwards. It's impossible to do it in less than fifteen minutes. But with a few minutes more, say, twenty or twenty five, it would be possible for someone who has planned it in advance. And where, do you think, have all those minutes between half past eight and the time the third act started gone?"

"I don't understand what you mean."

"The time of your interrogation," Saguru shows Chiba his timeline once again. Carrara wrote in his report that he interrogated Chiba Mamoru at five past ten, immediately after the curtain calls. Perhaps Gentile had been dawdling, perhaps Chiba couldn't keep the required speed, playing the piece much too slowly, and perhaps they had been fretting at Tenoh's door for a few minutes before going onstage. But it would still not explain the time difference of thirty-five minutes.

"They already took the thirty-minute delay into account when they wrote the flyer," Saguru explains. "Hence, even with the thirty-minute delay and a few minutes of the aftermath before you all went onstage, the third act ended much too late. I'd have accepted a delay of fifteen minutes but not thirty-five. Hino-san's room was directly above Tenoh-san's dressing room. It couldn't have taken you so long to ask her to go onstage. Gentile also said that you all rushed there because it was already so late."

"You're the most pedantic man I've ever met!" Chiba laughs in disbelief. "Maybe I played the piece much too slowly…"

"Maybe," Saguru murmurs. "I can accept it if it happens once or twice—but when a few minutes seem to be missing everywhere so that the witnesses can't agree with each other, I get the feeling that it has been stolen by someone." After making Kuroba's acquaintance, Saguru is prone to suspect a magic trick behind the slightest incongruity. Uncertain about the validity of his own deductions, he frowns at the deep green water of the Canal, where the sunlight is refracted in the rising waves.

"Haruka-san once said that if you 'steal time' by accelerating, you need to give it back later when you slow down," Chiba distractedly remarks. "She also said that a great musician must possess a strong internal beat. I suppose I took her too literally when I performed her piece as if I had been playing with a metronome and aggravated Rei-chan, who said it was a stiff performance."

"Tenoh-san must have been a great musician," remarks Saguru generously and immediately straightens himself on his chair as he is hit by an epiphany. In his mind, Saguru can see Seiya Kou hiding onstage behind the curtain, closing his eyes to count the beat. For a gifted musician and dancer who can calculate the exact amount of beats he is going to need for his steps in advance, keeping track of time without a watch is not impossible.

"Metronome!" Saguru groans, thinking aloud as he always does when he can't believe his own stupidity. "You can measure one second accurately with the help of a metronome, can't you?"

"Of course. Even I know you only need to set it sixty beats per minute, and I'm just an amateur." As if he has finally realized that he has just endangered a friend with his careless remark, Chiba makes an effort to distract Saguru by asking, "Who's AD? Your use of initials is confusing! I can tell AM is Aino Minako, but AD? Is it the name of the usher?"

"'AD' is Alessandra DiGiorgio, the usher at the entrance where you were standing—the usher Seiya Kou flirted with."

"Where did you get that information?" Chiba asks Saguru with audible admiration. However, Saguru isn't vain enough not to recognize the hint of despair in his voice.

"Her blog." Saguru continues the charade nonetheless, partly out of pity, partly because he needs time to think. "She claims she is the first fan whom Seiya Kou has ever given an autograph on the arm, which is why she isn't going to wash her right hand, which he has shaken, and her left arm, on which he has written, for a whole week or even longer."

"I don't know he does it," Chiba chuckles. "The women can't stop chasing him although he is always fleeing from them. His flirting is usually harmless. But they'd obsess over him afterwards and stay in love for years…"

Her left arm! The left wrist is the wrist where a woman would usually wear her vintage watch, Saguru realizes, no longer paying attention to Chiba's forced chatter. For an outstanding actor who also worked as an artist and magician in a circus when he was only fifteen, putting such a watch back or forward while the poor lovestruck woman was distracted by his pretty face is a walk in the park! Seiya Kou has stolen a few minutes during his seemingly random visits and flirts. However, since he could only have stolen time in tiny trickles which don't seem to make a difference, Saguru admits in astonishment that he can't explain the singer's odd behaviour.

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A/N: Since I'm in editing mood, I'm trying to take advantage of it before my laziness takes over.

In other news, Pandora_sama on AO3 (and P D Macmillan on Twitter at Esmerodo), a fanfic writer whose Sailor Moon fics I enjoyed, passed away earlier this year. (Maybe you know her bad-fic parody "A Chibi Chibi Lemon". It's a fun read for jaded fanfic readers.) Sadly, I only learned about her death a few days ago when I clicked on her Twitter profile and discovered who she was (she had followed me but I didn't associate her Twitter name with her penname and also checked her profile too late because I don't consistently use social media). She seems to have lived a very full life. I wish I could have talked to her.