Murder in the Crooked House

EPILOGUE

Standing in the exact same spot on the exact same hill it feels as if it happened yesterday.

Right now it’s late summer, or rather up here in the northern tip of Japan, it’s already more like autumn. The wind blows through the dry grass, which has not yet been hidden by the first snowfall of winter; the indigo-blue sea is not yet covered in ice.

That house of horrors that once had us in panic has now fallen into ruin; now home to nothing more than a few shed snakeskins and a whole lot of dust. Nobody visits, and nobody wants to live there.

No news ever reached us that Sasaki, or even Togai, was to be married to Eiko Hamamoto. Nor did we ever hear from Michio Kanai again. A note came in the mail addressed to Kiyoshi and myself to let us know that Kumi Aikura had opened a bar in Aoyama somewhere, but to this day neither one of us has dropped by.

In the end, Kiyoshi let on about a major aspect of the case. I feel it’s my duty to write it down here.

“Do you think it was purely to avenge his daughter’s death that Kohei Hayakawa hired Kazuya Ueda to kill Kikuoka?” he asked me one day out of the blue.

“Do you think there was some other reason?”

“I do.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Simple. If Kozaburo Hamamoto wanted to practise sliding icicles down the stairs, there’s no way he could have done it alone. For example, while he was in Room 3 adjusting the position of the noses on those Tengu masks, he’d have needed someone at the top of the stairs to let the icicle go. And who do you think used to help him?”

“Kohei Hayakawa?”

“Yes. There’s no one else it could have been. And so Hayakawa knew about his employer’s plan to kill Kikuoka. But he—”

“He wanted to stop him, so he hired Ueda to do it before Hamamoto could!”

“I think so.

“You mean that he tried to rescue the one person he believed to be honourable from the dishonour of being a murderer.”

“Right… But it went wrong. Hamamoto was too determined.”

“Mr Hamamoto probably went to prison without ever knowing just how loyal his trusted servant had been. But typically of him, he insisted to the end that he had carried out the whole operation entirely unassisted. And Hayakawa too, never told anyone what he’d done.”

“Why do you think that was? Why did Hayakawa never confess that he had helped his respected employer to practise sliding icicles?”

“I’m guessing because of Eiko. He knew how Hamamoto felt about her. He was guilty of aiding and abetting a murder, but the seriousness of the offence was much less than Hamamoto’s. I think he knew that a daughter who lost both parents would be in need of someone to watch over her.”

“Possibly so.”

As the Ice Floe Mansion slowly rots away, its tilted angle is even more symbolic. Having played its role, and living out its very short life, it is trying to return to the ground from whence it came. Or with the northern sea as its backdrop, it appears to be sinking slowly, like some giant ship.

I had this opportunity to travel up to the north, and I found myself drawn to this hill and the site I spent that unforgettable New Year.

The sun is setting, and somehow I feel uneasy. The grass rustles at my feet. It doesn’t have long to live free either, before being imprisoned itself under a dense layer of snow.