Author's note: I'm actually keeping this into a regular update basis. (A feat, to my mind.) There's been this HUGE writerblock for a few weeks, but I'm outta it now. I hope. Anyway, third chapter on. Hope you'll like it :)
Disclaimer: Noooo, I don't own DC. If I did, I wouldn't keep my readers on such a sadistic cliffhanger every damn week. (those files will be the death of me, I swear…)
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Chapter 3 – The Curious Incident
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"… the curious incident of the dog in the nighttime."
"The dog did nothing in the nighttime."
"That was the curious incident," remarked Sherlock Holmes.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
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As it had been planned, Sonoko and Makoto-kun departed on the following Sunday. A karate competition, which her friend's husband necessarily had to win, prevented them from staying any longer. A reunion was held the evening before, gathering wife and husband in the library along with Ran and the Araide couple, who to Ran's relief had been proven clear out of all suspicion, since they had been sitting with her in her room when a second letter had been slid under her door, and had both witnessed her opening it.
Nothing worth notice had happened during her half-week stay at the mansion but the irregular showing up of more letters, whose rhythm of appearance was now increasing every day. Eventually, though, it would have to burst on something of larger importance; trying to prevent it would be like trying to keep the tide down or the wind from blowing: in the end it would break onto a lightening storm or a tsunami.
Ran's best advice was to remove the guests from the villa and interrupt their gathering, but since Dr Araide had opposed himself to stopping the study, and when asked, couldn't give any explanation about the study itself, she had resolved to stay and keep watch. The two letters she had received, the second pretty much similar to the first, in more insulting, had not scared her off but compelled her to stay.
It was therefore decided that the house's fate should be left within her hands. Makoto-kun and Sonoko would be returning in about a month; until then, the menservants would follow her orders like they would have followed 'Suzuki-san's' (with a little more readiness, maybe, since Ran was much more sensible than Sonoko ever was). In what concerned the letters and their author, she could not do much. Keep watching, for one thing, and then, along with Dr Araide (Hikaru's state of pregnancy preventing her from helping them), she would be able to patrol at least some of the corridors at night, in the hope to come across anything suspicious. It was probably a lost cause from the start, but other than that they could do nothing but wait.
Sonoko and Makoto-kun left at 10 am on Sunday morning. Ran accompanied them to the station, and as she drove back from the village, through the mountains, the mansion appeared to her at the junction of two wooded valleys, at the far end of the long and winding road she was on. It grew bigger and more impressive as the distance reduced, and it suddenly swooped down on her how important and of what magnitude would be her task there.
There was no, or almost no signs of human civilisation surrounding it: the stone bridge, and the other villa not far-off, which ten year's abandon and nature had led to an advanced state of decay. This was the only road, and if there ever was a rockfall down this slope it ran along… no, for even without that extreme event they were already, completely, utterly cut from the rest of the world.
It was a terrifyingly heavy weight, and for a second her mind balanced on the thin edge between staying for good and the temptation to run back to Tokyo as fast as she could. But when she arrived to the steps everything was familiar and reassuring – Briggs opening the door, as always, before she had even rung the bell, the telephone and telephone stand in the black-and-white paved hall, two guests passing her as the foot of the grand staircase, talking in a scholarly way and nodding at her before disappearing on the first floor, voices echoing cheerfully out of the billiard room – so many circumstances that compelled her to remain firmly put.
Curiously enough, Sonoko and Makoto's departure changed the atmosphere of cordiality and carelessness that had ruled everybody's relationship with everybody until now. In the large drawing-room that gathered them after dinner, the groups they separated into were less mobile and less comfortable with themselves; they spoke more carefully and in lower voices.
In regard to Ran herself, they treated her with the same kind of defiance and forced affability which suspects of a crime use with the detective charged to discover the culprit among them. Of course her purpose in being there – though it had never been explicitly explained – was implicitly known and admitted by all: now that Sonoko was gone, it was the only reason for her to stay. Apart from the Araide couple, the only ones to be perfectly natural with her were the two lawyer; Sakagushi-san because she already knew what she was about, and Asama Taichi-san because he didn't seem to care a damn. He collected her after dinner, settled them both in armchairs by the fire, and engaged conversation about a trial she had taken part in some months earlier.
"—no, you see," Ran was saying, the whole purpose of her stay almost completely forgotten in her childish excitement at talking with a man she so admired and so respected, "—what that man meant in his defence was that he'd been impelled to do the murder because of his companion's influence—"
"—of course, but if their relationship was strictly platonic "
"—never lived together—"
"—could not have met otherwise?"
"—tried to reject the crime on her shoulders at first, until he was proved outLater that evening, after the faithful Briggs had supplied her with a comfortable mug of coffee, she retreated to the windowseat—" etc.
Asama-san was a strict man, rather resembling Hattori Heizo – Osaka's prefect of police – in appearance and in manner, but as a lawyer he had a capacity of deduction and persuasion much superior to her own. In a true poker-face fashion, he could take his adversary's argument, turn it inside out, and toss it back to him with such an impassive face, as though he'd done nothing extraordinary, that disconcerted his opponent and led him to make mistakes. All of this with a few well-chosen words and a bit of bluff… It was incredible to witness. It was perfect.
Of course it was useless to question him about the what, where and how of the study; he would treat her question with the contempt it deserved, and would send her off on a totally other track while giving her the impression that she'd done it all by herself. She kept, therefore, on the more solid grounds of that trial and then another, enjoyed the conversation as it was worth, and finally allowed Araide to interrupt them and start up on another subject, feeling like she had had her brains turned inside out.
Later that evening, after the faithful Briggs had supplied her with a comfortable mug of coffee, she retreated to the windowseat from whence she could supervise the whole room; and wondered which of the six, maybe seven people gathered there (excepting Dr Araide and Hikaru-san) hid the twisted mind that wrote such sordid notes. Though rather tense, none of them presented any lunatic aspect: they all mastered the art of draping themselves in their reputation and innocence.
Asama-san look much too just and incorruptible to come up with such extremities, but then again so did Sakagushi-san, and both of them had more than enough brain to be able of it. Who else? Akira-san, with all his affected nonchalance and manners like he came right out of a P. G. Wodehouse novel? Ikenami-san, behind the covers of the book she clasped between her hands and her square-shaped glasses? Kenjin-san, despite his beaming composure and readiness to make himself useful? Ebihara Toshiaki-san, the stout, caricature-like industrialist, who out of the lot was the one she had never talked to, but for an occasional 'Good morning'? Which?
And then, of course, there was the matter of the domestics. She had asked Sonoko before her friend had gone, and the answer had been, that all their menservants, cooks, chambermaids, etc., had been at their service for many years, without ever showing any loony tendencies; second, that the only person who was known to have the brains for such a thing was the irreproachable Briggs. That would have to be checked, though…
"Emily," she asked the maid who'd come to tell her the answer to a message she'd sent to the kitchen about tomorrow's lunch, "how long have you been at Sonoko's service exactly?"
The young red-haired girl who was stooping by the hearth stopped piling up logs and stood up, rubbing her hands on her apron. She spoke pleasantly – it wasn't everyday that she was asked after her life, and that young woman, not so much older than herself, with the understanding smile and the beautiful, silky black hair, was already a favourite among the staff. "It will be six years in three weeks, miss. I was nineteen when Suzuki-san took me in – I was only a cookmaid at the time."
"And do you like it here? Isn't there anything that repels you?"
"I like it very much, miss. Suzuki-san is a very kind of woman; Everything is very easy and agreeable."
"Even the matter of anonymous letters showing up unexpectedly?" Ran asked, and watched carefully for a reaction.
There wasn't much of it. Emily's face lit up at the sight of possible gossip, and she began to talk much faster. "Oh! That, miss? Of course we know all about it – it's us who finds them most of the time, you know, when we comes up to clean the bedrooms – it really is a serious business, isn't it? Who do you think writes those letters, miss?" She caught a deep breath.
"That's what I'm trying to figure out," said Ran, who at the moment rather wanted to check the flow of words before Emily started up again. "You haven't happened to notice anything out of the extraordinary recently, have you?"
"Why, no, miss." Emily's tone clearly indicated that she wished she had. "Of course it's always different then usual when there are so many guests in the house and Suzuki-san and Kyogoku-san gone away for a month, there's always more work to do in the bedrooms and then some of those ladies and gentlemen guests may have such curious requests, it's quite puzzling sometimes, miss—" Second pause for breath.
"What kind of requests?" Ran asked, rapidly.
"Oh, well – things they want carried to their rooms at night, and phone calls they want through, miss—"
The lights went out.
Hardly a second of confusion had gone past, and an enormous crash and clatter of glass and wood exploded with a thundering noise in the depths of the building. Emily began to shriek – and everything was dark and hectic, sounds of running fast in the corridor, a cry of pain—
"Be quiet!" Ran's voice shouted, and then as nothing changed, "Shut up! I have a torch here."
The shrieking stopped. A second's wait, and Ran's face appeared in a ray of yellow light, pale and hollow within the surrounding darkness. She averted it from her eyes and directed it on the walls, Emily's tense figure, her hands twisting her apron, and finally the window, a rectangle of black. All the lights in the opposite wing had gone out as well.
"Oh, miss! What was that?"
"I don't know. I'll go find out. You can stay here," she added, seeing that Emily looked terrified at the idea of wandering off in the corridors, but the maid firmly expressed her refusal at staying all alone in the dark, and together they got out of the bedroom and galloped down the passages towards the source of the noise. There were voices echoing through the panels and somebody running behind them as well; the ray from the torch swayed jerkily on the walls. Turn left, turn right, turn left and left again, and then the lights were switched back on, in a gradual succession all along the corridor, and they very nearly collided with a small gathering of people crammed together in front of a door.
Ran broke off, breathless, and tossed the torch in Emily's hands. Behind them arrived Ebihara Toshiaki-san, ill-draped in a Scottish red-and-green dressing gown, and demanding to know what the bloody hell was happening.
"We'd all like to know," said Sakagushi-san, from the doorstep. Ran elbowed her way past Kenjin-san and Akira-san and joined her on the threshold of the open door.
This was Makoto-kun's bureau, a medium-sized room usually tidy and clean. Tonight, however, it was a battlefield.
Most of the furniture had been crashed down to the floor, so that there were wood splinters everywhere, and the numerous piles of folders and files and papers that used to stand on the desk had been shred to bits and lay scattered around. The curtains had been torn down. One of the windows was shattered to pieces of glass; a chair, which now stood triumphantly near it, had very likely been thrown against it and crushed it. To complete the sight, threats had been thrown on the walls, in red paint: the pot and brush had been put neatly down in the middle of the room in insolent mockery. It had run down at some places, and pools of red liquid shone dimly on the floor, like traces of just-shed blood.
Ran took in all of this in one glance – there was probably more, less visible – and turned back to the assembled guests, all of them craning their heads to see inside and strangely dampened, almost ridiculous in their pyjamas and bedclothes. It was impossible to decide which of them looked more suspicious, less surprised maybe. She thought she'd take care of that later.
"Has anybody gone in?"
They all had, of course. They had wanted to check what was going on, before Briggs had arrived and made them stand back to prevent further damage. It was already done, though. Ran entrusted them all to the butler's competent hands with the orders to take them all to one room and keep them there, then she closed the door behind her and began investigating.
It would be difficult not to step on anything: the floor was strewn with random items, sheets of paper, pieces of glass and traces of blood – sorry, of paint. It was a morbid sight. She checked, out of nervousness – no, it was paint all right. It would be useless looking for fingerprints on all this, of course – he or she would have worn gloves – but she nonetheless wrapped a tissue around her hand before she picked up anything.
The wreckage had been well done. All of this – the smashed furniture, the broken window, the torn curtains, the red-painted threats – it all combined to create a striking effect of confusion and general chaos. They couldn't have been painted in the dark, though – but the circuit breaker was situated in the corridor just outside the door, and the culprit had probably painted on the walls, then gone out and switched the current out, then gone back inside and thrown everything upside down by the light coming in through the windows, or, better, with the aid of a torch. Where was it, then? He, or she, had probably hid it somewhere…
She found it laying half under the carpet, its black surface void of any fingerprints. Nothing to be got in that direction. She could try and find who owned it; but then they would claim it had been stolen, and anyway she rather suspected it had been taken out of the house's stock at disposal downstairs. Thoughtful, she crossed the room carefully and opened the intact window, drawing the pane towards her: it looked directly into a small, grassy quad, flanked on all four sides by the buildings. Out of all the windows, only two were lit; if she had memorized the house's plan well enough, the one on the ground floor was Kenjin-san; two rows above, Ikenami-san's.
She closed the window and crossed the room again, this time looking closely for anything out of the ordinary. Everything was out of the ordinary. Great. But even a small detail… the small detail that didn't fit…
She was hit full force by a wave of memories, sudden and unwanted, that roamed overwhelmingly in her mind before leaving as abruptly as it had come. She felt a fool all of a sudden, very still like she was in the middle of the room, kneeling and looking for clues like an amateur Sherlock Holmes. It was useless – there was nothing there that might be considered as a clue, that might lead her even to the beginning of a deduction.
Who was she trying to fool, anyway? She wasn't so much of a detective…
She locked the door carefully behind her and went off in search of the other guests, only to discover them in an adjacent room, where the indispensable Briggs was supplying them with cushions and hot coffee. When Ran came in they all looked up at her in expectation, hoping maybe that she had uncovered the culprit; she could not help thinking that they all relied on her now, considered her no longer as an infiltrated sleuth but as one of them.
"You've seen the damage done to this room," she said, feeling somewhat ill-at-ease, after she'd grabbed some coffee for herself. "There isn't much of a doubt that it was committed by the same person who sent us all those anonymous letters." And she included herself in them, too, she realized then. "And I'm afraid there isn't much of a doubt that this person is among us right now."
Of course it wasn't a novelty, of course she was only putting words on what they'd known all along, but the change in the atmosphere was sensible. Tension was draping itself all around them like heavy velvet, and the first raindrops that began to drip softly on the windowpane did nothing to ease it off.
"The Poison Pen has wanted to show us what he – or she – was able of. I'm afraid if we do nothing something drastic may happen next time – if there is a next time. I should advocate calling for the police," Ran went on mercilessly. "It would be the surest and safest way out of this "
A concert of protestations covered the end of her sentence. Calling for the police was out of the question. It might endanger the consequences of their study. They could not allow that risk. What could the police do anyway?
"It's your decision," Ran finally said to calm the growing din, "if you had rather endanger your lives but not your study. What is it all about, anyway?"
If she had hoped to surprise them into answering, she was disappointed. There was no answer.
She finally sent them all back to their rooms, insisting upon their remaining there until morning; and before following her own advice she caught hold of Briggs and asked him to lock ("not only the key, turn the deadbolts as well") all doors and windows giving onto the quad. He assured her very professionally that he should this very night, and she was resuming her walk towards her room, when seized by an afterthought she ran back up to him and asked whether one or the whole bunch of his keys had not mysteriously vanished then appeared again sometime lately. The answer was, No, miss, it never had. Yes, he should know it immediately if it ever did: he always carried them himself, and locked them in the drawer of his bedside table at night. No, there wasn't any double of the key to Kyogoku-san's office, except the one Kyogoku-san himself used, and he had taken it away with him.
Of course it didn't mean much, Ran thought after she'd thanked him and walked away, any amateur burglar would know how to use pick-locks. But then again the lock on the door of Makoto-kun's office had a peculiar shape, twisted and long, with sharp angles. She didn't think any common pick-locks could make the most of it. But if the culprit hadn't entered through the door, how had he gone in?
She went back to bed and slept.
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The next morning brought new instalments. It had stopped raining sometime around dawn, and the sky was now a clear, pale blue accentuated by the cotton-like white clouds which a pre-autumnal sweat from east to west. The grass in the quad was still wet with shining pearls of dripping water, and the windowpanes on the upper floor reflected sunlight from one to the other.
Crouching by the flowerbeds below the broken window, Ran inspected with some surprise the trampled-on plants and the beautiful set of footprints visible in the damp soil; above, traces of the same dark-brown mud that had attached to the shoes, then stuck to the white-painted wood. It looked very much like somebody had stood there then spanned over the windowframe to get in. She had checked all the doors and windows that Briggs had duly closed and locked the night before, but of course they hadn't be so before the incident…
She turned back inside and directed her steps towards the library, with the vague idea in mind to put a call through to Tokyo and warn some of clients of her momentaneous absence. When she reached the wooden doors, one of them being slightly ajar, a man's voice wandered out of it through the slit, and the words struck her so forcibly she stopped cold, her hand frozen on the doorknob.
"I've done as you told me," the voice was saying, "but nothing came out. No, nothing… You mean to say ? … Oh, yes. Rather!"
Pause.
"No – no, I'll give the money – I will. If you could only tell me who – I did, and nothing happened!" Silence. "But – here, listen, man – the business isn't what I was told. There's a 'tec among us now – a lawyer – Mouri Ran—" The man swore loudly. "NO, I don't know anything about it! If I did I wouldn't tell her, would I? Look here, maybe we can work this out otherwise – wait—"
A third pause, longer then the two first, and hastily interrupted by a hearty, "Good Lord! No, don't! I'll do everything you want, but don't—" here the voice dropped to a whisper, and lowered gradually so much Ran soon lost all track of it. After a few minutes she pushed the panel gently forward and peered inside. The library was deserted.
On the left wall stood an open door, through which the man had visibly gone through. If she ran now she'd probably be able to catch up with him; but she didn't need to. She'd recognised the voice right away – it had been Akira-san's.
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I'm aware that some of you requested the presence of – wait, I quote – 'a certain raven-haired detective' in this story. Before you definitely get to lynching me, next chapter should have more of him. I guess. I hope. Err…
Many thanks, by the way, to the awesome reviewers who brightened my rather homework-enslaved days T.T (gives out cyber-cookies to everyone)