Chapter 12: Hell or High Water

There was a short debate about what exactly 'escaping custody' consisted of. Conan and a few of the others had wanted to stage a scene which involved Alex taking Conan as hostage in front of Inspector Tazuka and other witnesses. They reasoned that there was less chance of them being suspected of colluding with him this way; Alex privately thought that the detectives simply had a taste for drama, and refused. Instead, Alex simply loaded up his pockets with a flashlight, bottle of water and some snacks, walked away into the forested part of the island, and found a nice tree to hide in.

He took out the Detective Boy's badge he'd kept even after that long night, pulled out the thin antenna on its tip, and waited. About half an hour later, the badge buzzed, and Masumi's voice whispered a single word: "Cleared."

The Inspector had bought it, then. Alex climbed back down the tree, walked down to the rocky shoreline near where they had found Spider's body, and started searching.

It took him nearly two hours to find what they were looking for: a hidden cove on the outside edge of the crescent-shaped island, slightly inland of the pagoda. Its entrance was positioned behind an outcropping of rock so that it would difficult to see even from passing boats.

Alex edged himself along the rocky walls of the entrance, trying to make as little noise as he could. Only when he was sure that there was no one else there did he stick his head out, looking into the calm pool formed by the tiny bay. A motor yacht was resting there at the edge of the pool, and the dark entrance to a small cave yawned at the back of the inlet.

Jackpot. Alex debated whether to risk heading into the cave. He didn't want to risk running into whoever brought that boat in, but he needed to know if the detectives' theory was right. Curiosity won out.

The cave itself was not much more than a scoop taken out of the surrounding basalt, but at the back there was a crevice between the rocks just large enough for a grown man to pass through. Alex crouched down with his flashlight; in the sandy soil on the ground he could make out the faint impression of footprints.

Alex left the cave and crevice for now, and watched the cove from behind a waist-high rock for what felt like hours. As the sun began to drop and his stomach started growling with still no sign of anyone coming from the boat or out of the back of the cave, he ate the onigiris he had stashed in his pockets, then made his decision and went to search the motor yacht.

It was a small yacht, around the same size as the one he and the others had taken to come to Kashikijima, and completely deserted. The keys were not in the ignition. Below deck he found traces of the people who had brought the boat here—a few spare changes of clothes, snack wrappers in the bin—but what really interested him was the waist-high locked strongbox he found in one corner. He made an attempt to lift it, then knocked on its sides; Alex wasn't sure, but it sounded like the chest was empty.

He turned his cell phone on and quickly snapped pictures of everything, then left and climbed back up to the grassy level of the island's plateau. Once he found a safe bush to hide in not far from the pagoda, he dialed Conan's number, letting it ring for a few seconds before quitting, shutting his phone off again, and taking out the toy badge.

He didn't have to wait long. Less than three minutes later there was the faint buzz of static, and Conan's voice came from the badge in a whisper: "Yes?"

"It's me," he whispered back. "Are you in a secure spot right now?"

A few moments of silence, and then the sound of the shower turning on in the background. "That'll have to do. What is it?"

"I've found the hidden cove." Alex gave a brief description of its location, and of the boat docked there. "You guys are right; there is a tunnel in the back. I didn't follow it through, but I'm guessing it leads to Kashikijima House."

"Yes, we may have found the entrance on this end as well. We think it's right under the shrine on the ground floor."

"I waited for hours, but there's no sign of anyone. That means…"

"Whoever they are, they're still inside the tunnel. Yes." There was a slight pause, then Conan said: "They will try to make a move tonight."

"Do you want me to come back to the house?"

"No, we have enough people covering the entrance on this end. Stay on that end in case any of them slips past us and makes a break for the boat."

"Got it."

"I'll ping you again once we start moving tonight. Be careful, Alex."

Alex wanted to tell the boy to stay behind and be safe, but he was nothing more than a tinny voice of disapproval on the other end of a badge right now. He wouldn't have listened in Conan's stead either. Instead he simple said: "Same to you guys."


Alex kept his watch on the boat out in the bay, but after another an hour or so he got bored and finally decided to risk exploring the cave. It was fully night outside now. The crescent moon and stars shone brightly enough to illuminate the shallow cave, but as soon as he maneuvered himself into the crevice he had to turn on his flashlight.

Around ten or fifteen yards in the tunnel began to slope downward, and then suddenly there was a pool of knee-high water in front of him, stretching out as far as his flashlight beam could reach. Alex debated whether to continue or not, then sighed and carefully put a foot in.

He swore and leaped out again immediately; the water was cold. He brushed a hand along the surface of the walls. The rock was damp up to about a foot above the pool, and dry above that. The place lacked the smell of wet rot or the salty brine of the sea, and he couldn't see any algae or seaweed floating about—the water was clear, and quite fresh.

Alex stayed just outside the pool, and the splashes he'd made soon faded, leaving the surface of the water as smooth as a mirror. He turned off his flashlight to conserve its batteries, then grew increasingly jittery as time passed and nothing happened. The in and out of his breathing was the only sound in the darkness.

Static buzzed from his pocket, and Alex eagerly brought out the Detective Boy's badge. "Yes?"

This time it was Saguru. "We're going to open the tunnel entrance from the shrine in fifteen minutes. Are you ready?"

"Yes." Alex quickly told him about the pool of water he'd found, and the dampness of the walls. "I think this is around or just below sea level. It looks like the water covers a pretty long portion of the tunnel."

"Ah, that may explain why you haven't seen anyone on your end yet, Alex. The storm flooded the tunnel, so whoever's on our end is stuck there waiting for the water to drain out."

"Are you sure I shouldn't come back?"

"No, by the time you get back here over land this may all be over already. Stay there in case one of them gets desperate enough to swim out."

The badge went silent. Alex paced back and forth; their logic made sense, but he didn't like the idea of the others going on the offensive while he waited here for any stray fleeing rats. Masumi, Saguru and Heiji were pretty good fighters, and even little Conan had some surprisingly dangerous tricks up his sleeve. They would have the element of surprise on their side, and the yacht in the hidden bay could only have carried four or five people at most. But what if these culprits were armed?

Alex hid his electronics and the spare food in his pockets behind a loose stone, stepped once again into the water, and started heading deeper into the tunnel. He could guard this route just as effectively close to the house, after all, and this way he could also help the others in their fight if needed. And quite frankly, he was tired of waiting.

The tunnel kept on descending, and the cold water in it slowly rose, first to his waist, then to his chest, and finally only Alex's head and neck were above the water as he slowly felt his way along the tunnel in the darkness with his hands.

He shivered at first, before his body adjusted to his not-quite-swimming. It soon became a routine: take a step, reach for a grip against the walls, make sure there was enough space above for him to breath. As he repeated the motions again and again Alex went over the reason he was here in his mind.

The devil was in the details, as the saying went. The hints had been there since they first came to Kashikijima. Raina had told them Masako Hirokawa had inherited nothing but the island and the house. Yet that house soon had its entire second floor renovated, and that display case of weapons—antique trinkets, expensive trinkets, and not the kind of decoration one bought if they were at all worried about cash—had been acquired only a year or two after the hotel had opened. A hotel with ten guest rooms, even at five star prices, should not be able to generate that much revenue so soon after opening even if it ran at full occupancy the entire time, which Kashikijima didn't. So if one owned a private island a good distance away from the mainland, how could one give a nice boost to one's income?

The obvious answer was smuggling. Alex and Saguru had found additional proof of it, in one of the flower pots in the tsuboniwa garden. The clay pots where topped with what looked like ordinary rocks and gravel, but they had recognized one of the slightly greasy-looking pebbles as a raw, uncut diamond.

Masako Hirokawa was definitely involved in the smuggling, and so was Spider—that was why the assassin seemed to disappear on the ground floor after Alex and Masumi followed him after his attack, he'd hid in the tunnel under the shrine—but they didn't know who else among the Hirokawas were also complicit, which was why the Alex and the detectives had come up with this plan of waiting for the smugglers to move again and trying to catch them red-handed.

He pictured how it must have happened from their end. On the evening of the day Alex and the others had arrived, the smugglers had landed in the cove before the storm began and traveled by tunnel to underneath the house. There they'd waited for night to fall, for everyone to go to bed, and for their contact in Kashikijima House to come and make the trade of money for the smuggled goods.

Then they'd tried to go back the way they'd come and found that during their wait, the storm had flooded the tunnel with rainwater, blocking their way back. Masako Hirokawa had brought them food taken from the kitchen. She may have allowed them to sneak out through the house, but then Spider had appeared, warning them that there were a group of detective brats watching the house for anyone wandering about. Lacking any other alternatives, they had no choice but to stay in their hiding spot, waiting for either the tunnel to drain of water or for the next night, when hopefully the detectives would no longer be keeping such a close watch.


By now the water was high enough that Alex had to keep his nose tilted up in order to breath. He was afraid it would completely fill the tunnel, forcing him to turn back, but then the water gradually receded again down to a relatively manageable neck level, and he could see moving lights up ahead where the tunnel expanded to a small underground cave. Several people were fighting on its rocky shore.

He counted five smugglers, one of whom got knocked unconscious by Masumi with a side-and-hook kick combo as he watched and waded closer. Masako Hirokawa lied on the ground, gently snoring—Conan must have managed to dart her. Heiji had borrowed the bokken again; he and Saguru were fighting together against three other men wielding knives. Alex mentally nicknamed them Tall, Tattoos and Skunk-stripe (for the third man's bleached hair) for convenience.

The last smuggler had simply decided to flee; the man dove into the pool and was very surprised to meet Alex. Or rather, the smuggler was wading along the pool, carefully keeping his head above water when cool hands grabbed his ankles and dragged him to the bottom. As his screams of surprise turned into wet burbles, the man forgot any martial instincts and flailed in panic instead. Alex winced as one of the smuggler's wild thrashings of the arm caught him on the jaw, but he knocked the man out a moment later, then leaned the unconscious smuggler against the cavern wall.

The sound of a soccer ball smacking against flesh resounded in the rocky chamber. The tall smuggler clutched his hand where the knife had been knocked out of it, and Skunk-stripe was also disarmed by a quick twist of the bokken from Heiji. As Masumi joined Heiji and Saguru, Skunk-stripe must have decided that the odds were not in his favour and dove into the pool as well. Tall and Tattoos, either sacrificial or optimistic, remained and faced down all three teens at once.

Alex tried to hide in the water once again, but he saw Skunk-stripe's head swivel in his direction and knew that the element of surprise was lost. The lean man approached warily, and from the easy grace of his movements Alex could tell that he would be a much tougher opponent than the previous smuggler he had knocked out.

They circled each other, ripples refracting and intermingling in the dark water between them as the two grew closer and closer.

Alex made the first move. A kick would have been slowed down by drag, so he lashed out with a karate strike above the surface instead. His opponent stepped back, then slipped down into the water with barely a splash. Alex hurriedly looked for the man, but the inconstant light fractured on the moving surface of the pool and made it difficult to see. A second later the matter was settled when something hit Alex in the back of his knees, knocking him down into the water.

He resisted the urge to breathe in or flail, and curled into a ball to make himself a smaller target to hit. Cold hands reaching for his neck found his forearms instead, and Alex swung himself forward, headbutting what he guessed was Skunk-stripe's chest.

The man was pushed back but converted the movement to a kick, which Alex just barely avoided. Then the need for air became too great. Alex shot to the surface, gasping. He tensed to see the smuggler standing still a few paces away from him, but Skunk-stripe was no longer paying attention to him. Alex glanced to where the man was looking, and froze.

The tall smuggler was lying unconscious on the water's edge, while Tattoos had backed into the pool. Saguru, Heiji and Masumi followed at a distance of several yards, dread and caution in the lines of their bodies, and Alex soon saw why: the man held a struggling Conan by the shoulders, pulling him down into the pool's depth as he backed away until only the boy's hair and the tip of his nose was visible. His threat was clear. The water here was high enough for an adult or a teenager to stand with no problems. But of course, Conan was a child.

Tattoos had his back to Alex; he didn't seem to have noticed the fight between Alex and his colleague. Alex slipped underwater as quietly as he could and began swimming towards the pair. In his peripheral vision he saw Skunk-stripe drop below the surface as well and tensed, waiting for an attack.

It didn't come. Instead from his dim view below the water Alex saw Tattoos suddenly stagger, then collapse forward, pinning Conan beneath him as he fell. The next few minutes were rather confused— Alex gave up his stealthy approach and simply ran through the water. He reached Conan at the same time Saguru and the others did, and four pairs of hands pulled the boy out of the water and dragged him onto dry land.

Conan lay there coughing up water while Heiji yelled at him in Japanese—Alex caught a few ahos. Saguru waited until the boy was breathing clearly again before saying in a severe voice: "Why did you stay in the fight after using up both your footballs?"

"Had…dart…left," Conan responded in between heavy breaths. "But the man…dodged." He looked at Alex. "Thanks for…throwing that rock."

"What?" said Alex, surprised. "I didn't do that."

"This wasn't you?" Masumi pointed to the unconscious body of Tattoos one of them had dumped on the ground besides them. The back of the man's head was bleeding from a nasty looking cut.

"No…" Alex stared at the wound in confusion, until he realized what must have happened. "The other smuggler! The man with a skunk-stripe in his hair. He must have been the one who threw it."

They all looked out at the pool, but the water was still and empty. Skunk-stripe had disappeared.


They all gathered in the library bright and early the next morning: Ines Suarez and Ling Gengxin and Marie Semple, Raina, Yukiho, Haruko and even Mrs. Scialdone, who had come over from the mainland upon hearing that the will case had been resolved. Inspector Tazuka was there, his clothes and moustache neat and precise, with two uniformed officers besides him, but it was Alex and the four detectives that everyone looked to.

The tension in the air was palpable. By now everyone knew about the smuggling operation, and the fight that had happened the previous night. Masako Hirokawa and the other four smugglers had been arrested and brought to the mainland, and Kazuya Hirokawa being detained for questioning. The police had gone over the hidden bay with the smuggler's yacht and the tunnel and were now canvassing the island, looking for the still-missing Skunk-stripe. Alex was officially still under suspicion for Edmund Kett's murder, but his help in apprehending the smugglers had allowed him to be present for this summation gathering.

Saguru spoke first, in a clear, precise voice: "To begin with, I would like to say that this case was a gigantic mess from the very beginning. Not only was it a minor miracle that it was solved; it was a miracle that it occurred in the first place. If the circumstances or the players were even slightly different—if the potential heirs of the Delacey fortune decided not to resolve their problem by hiring us detectives, if they had chosen different detectives, if we had not decided to come to this hotel on Kashikijima or came on a different date, or any of half a dozen other minute details were changed—that stormy night would not have resulted in two dead bodies."

"You're taking way too long at this, Hakuba," Heiji interrupted. "To summarize, we have three main mysteries here. One, who killed Geoffrey Geskel aka Spider. Second, who killed Edmund Kett. And last but not least, where Terence Delacey's will is hidden."

"That should probably be in another order, to make the most sense," Masumi commented.

Inspector Tazuka looked impatient at the long-winded explanation. "Please get to the point, detectives."

"We will," Saguru said, and smiled. "Actually, we have set up a demonstration in the attic which should be most illuminating. Come upstairs, Inspector, and all your questions will be answered."


A/N: Here, as in Viper's Den, I offer a modified Challenge to the Reader. I wouldn't call this perfectly fair play (some parts of the solution are kinda out there), but I think there are enough clues to guess: 1) who killed Spider, 2) who framed Alex for Kett's murder, and 3) what Delacey's riddle means.

(Hints: the tunnel was completely blocked by water the night of the storm, but look at the layout of the island and of the house. And of course, keep in mind any cryptic remarks made by any of the detectives.)

As always, thank you for reading, and happy deducting!