— Which brings us to where we are now.
A whole day spend searching and stopping by every residence in Atelier House, for a third time, we returned to the basement room—we had spent around four hours walking without rest, and tired out, regardless of what was going on, I ill-manneredly sprawled myself out in an open floor space of the workroom.
Kyouko-san was unbelievably tough for her physique, and while she couldn't conceal the colors of fatigue, she of course didn't do something so unruly, nor did she rest. The first thing she did upon arriving at the basement space was wash off her hair in the sink fastened to the workroom wall.
I guess the brown hair was no longer needed with the questioning over—if speed along was stressed, perhaps it wouldn't matter if her hair color remained brown, but thinking about it normally, having your hair uniformly plastered in paint must be unbearably uncomfortable. Something that would throw off her concentration—and spending her break time washing her head should serve as a good change of pace.
That she used the sink meant she had determined there wasn't enough time for another shower—right, while the police had yet to arrive, more than five hours had already transpired since the investigation commenced.
By Kyouko-san's estimate, the time limit was at most half a day—even that 'at-most' wasn't long to go.
Additionally, the fact the police hadn't rushed into Atelier House yet wasn't simply something to rejoice in. It meant the hospital old Wakui was carted off to hadn't reported it to the police yet—perhaps that meant Wakui's emergency operation was still ongoing.
If anything happened to old Wakui, it would be hard to explain what Kyouko-san was even conducting detective work for—to add onto that, a detective by trade, if Kyouko-san lost Wakui, she'd lost a client, and wouldn't make a single yen… the investigation's progress none too favorable, the situation was reaching a dead end.
"… You don't have to change clothes?"
Unable to rest forever, I raised my upper body to ask Kyouko-san,
"Yes, well, even if I wanted to, when I was making these pants, I took apart the clothes I was wearing and used them as material."
Kyouko-san answered, having finished washing up her hair—I see. How should I put it, by that point, I wasn't going to be surprised, but she did something that couldn't be undone, or perhaps, acted without proper foresight.
That being the case, those handmade clothes suit her well, so that wasn't anything major—of course, I'm someone who for the longest time thought a cashmere muffler was just a muffler that cost a lot more cash, so even if I thought it fit her, that was no guarantee.
"Phew. Sorry to keep you waiting."
Wiping her head with a towel, Kyouko-san returned—her hair had splendidly returned to all white. While she said that wasn't an identity or her flagship, that look really was more Kyouko-san-esque—it made me think that was Okitegami Kyouko.
"I wasn't really waiting—I'm the one who should apologize for being of no use. Forget that, I've just been dragging your feet…"
I wasn't being humble, I spoke from my heart as I stood—even if there was nothing I could do upon standing, when Kyouko-san hadn't taken a seat, I couldn't just lie on the floor.
"Drag my feet? Oh, if you're talking about how Hakui-kun noticed the lie, don't worry about it—as a result, we managed to hear what he had to say. That was far better than if we hadn't heard him out."
"Hmm…"
I was happy to hear her so generous, but I felt guilty she was just being considerate. In the first place, I was the one who dragged Kyouko-san into Atelier House, somehow or another, I wanted to be useful in a more proper way…
But nothing begins with getting down. I forcefully shifted my mood that felt like it would keep sinking without end if I let it be.
"What are we going to do now?"
I asked Kyouko-san.
"Carrying out the questioning didn't really yield any progress, but… or did you figure something out? Any suspicious individuals among the ones you interviewed…"
"Unfortunately, I was unable to identify the culprit. Furthermore, I was unable to tell who painted the real painting he would decorate with his final frame—however."
Kyouko-san placed her towel to the side and spoke.
"For now, if we compare everyone's stories, while what's real, and what's a disguise is unclear, I think we've managed to identify every resident Wakui-san told to paint a picture."
"O-oh really."
I was generally supposed to be around listening to the same stories as Kyouko-san, but it was impossible for me to memorize the information we gained from every resident, and to compare them in my head on top of that was an even greater impossibility. I'd already pretty much forgotten the names Hakui-kun went to the trouble of naming.
"… Then that also means we've also identified the residents like Hakui-kun, who weren't even asked to produce a fake, doesn't it?"
"Yes. You could find them through subtraction. What about it?"
"Well, how should I put it…"
Even if I had forgotten the finer details, there were words in Hakui-kun's story I definitely couldn't forget—even if Kyouko-san provoked him, and those inflammatory words were likely a tit for tat.
I think I'd want to kill him—he admitted so.
"Oh, dear Oyagiri-san, don't tell me you're still bothered by what Hakui-kun said? Dear me, you shouldn't take those too heavily. They're the words of a child, you know."
And who's the one who provoked a child to that degree, I wanted to say, but I held it in—well, if Kyouko-san didn't suspect Hakui-kun for those words, then so be it. We were just slightly acquainted, and it wasn't as if we were friends, or that we got along, yet still, thinking over how a child like that could have caused such an incident wasn't a great feeling to have. Even if the fact he was a Resident of Atelier House meant he was one of the suspects…
"But Hakui-kun's 'I think I'd want to kill him' only holds true in the case that every Atelier House resident Wakui placed a request with is painting the real deal—there were a considerable number of people painting those 'real' pictures, weren't there?"
"Yes, you're right. I'm forced to say as things stand, the possibility isn't low by any means."
Kyouko-san ruffled up her white hair into a mess as she spoke—I thought that might be body language to show her distress, but it seems she was simply confirming how her hair was drying. With people able to think out more than two actions at once, it was difficult to probe out their thoughts from their actions. I wouldn't be surprised if I found out Kyouko-san purposely never concentrated her thoughts and actions on one thing, setting multitasking as a basis so no one could see through to her real intentions. Albeit, this time she seemed to just be worried about her drenched hair…
"So it's… not low."
"If the materials Wakui-san ordered are just to make a single frame, it is clearly excessive; that is a fact… something even an amateur could understand."
Kyouko-san said so, but an amateur probably couldn't tell. While I had a look at the same documents, I couldn't make heads or tails of it… this theory only came to be with Kyouko-san's intellect.
"If it was his last job, he would want to do his best possible job as a framer—however, it's art we're dealing with, a form of culture. Best is one word, but it takes on various forms. To equate it to paintings, the best landscape and the best abstract are completely different, aren't they?"
"Well yeah, that's right…"
To take that even further, landscapes could be broken down by technique, and in the first place, whether they considered it the best would depend on the values of the beholder—thinking about it like that, one might say there was an infinite supply of bests.
"To make frames of all sorts of bests, he ordered paintings of various types from the residents of Atelier House—as a matter of fact, the residents who were asked to paint pictures by Wakui-san all depicted different sizes and motifs."
Come to think of it, she was right.
Camouflage or real aside—unlike a school art period, it wasn't as if everyone was painting the same picture, the paintings old Wakui ordered were truly rich in variation.
Among the residents, those with whom Kyouko-san could make a case hard enough they would secretly show her their half-finished pictures were in no few numbers—they all looked completely different. Just because I worked at a museum a bit, I don't intend to brag that I have a good eye, but… even so, it would be a different story if they all looked the same, but with how different they looked, they really had to be different.
In that case, was Kyouko-san's theory gaining a layer of reality?
"Let's say Wakui-san planned something like that; that would mean the suspects would only be limited to a few."
"Eh? Just a few…? What do you mean by a few?"
"Oh, if all the residents ordered to make a painting were real, that would make the ones like Hakui-kun who didn't even receive a request the suspects—truth be told, there are only a few of them."
That was the logical result, and I'm sure she was right—even if we didn't take Hakui-kun too seriously, if an adult were placed in his position, their disgrace and rage would undoubtedly be intolerable.
Naturally, in order to embrace that rage, the condition would be that that unselected resident had to know what sort of plan old Wakui was advancing in secret… To be blunt, Kyouko-san, do you think the culprit is among those people?
I intended to muster quite a bit of courage, but once it had come out of my mouth, perhaps it was just a dishonest question. What I didn't want to think, I was making Kyouko-san think in my stead. However Kyouko-san didn't seem to feel burdened at all in answering, "Whether I think it or not aside, I'm sure it is very possible," she said.
"By the way, I must mention one more thing—of those few names, the only one who lives above the eighteenth floor is the resident of the thirtieth floor, Hakui-kun."
"Of course, that won't serve as any evidence. We don't have any evidence to indicate the identity of that slight trace of blood."
Kyouko-san took the lead. Thanks to that, the shock I received was suppressed at about half, but half was plenty impactful at that.
"On the contrary, one might conclude it was impossible for a child to carry out the crime, and that's precisely why that blood stain must have no relation to the incident; that's one way of thinking of it."
"… No,"
Said I—I wasn't there to console Kyouko-san.
"I don't plan on denying the real murderous intent everyone holds sometime as a child."
"I'd think not."
Kyouko-san turned her hand.
"The times one cannot control their wild murderous intent comes not with the ability to enact it, by the time they gain that ability, they are able to control those urges that stir them. Perhaps that is what it means to grow—if we see Hakui-kun as the culprit, the reason Wakui-san's life could be saved brings about a sort of inevitability, does it not?"
"? What inevitability would that be…"
Oh, so even if he stabbed him in a flight of rage, the one he stabbed was his landlord he called teacher, and he immediately returned to his senses—is that what she meant? In that case, it might be the same with any other resident. While they spoke spitefully of him, as long as they were artists, in some fundamental place, they all respected the legendary framer Wakui.
"Oh no, there's that as well, but—it's just, even if I won't go as far as to say we should doubt him, there is another reason we can't exclude Hakui-kun apart from him being a child."
"Another… specifically what?"
"To sum it up, he's too perceptive."
Kyouko-san said, pinching at her own hair.
"If it was just perceiving that my brown hair was paint, you could call that a pertinent observation… but deducing something had happened to Wakui-san just from our visit and passing by an ambulance was going a little too far."
"… Really…"
Are you one to talk—I felt like saying, but precisely because Kyouko-san was saying it, perhaps those instincts really couldn't be explained logically. Those weren't just deductions that put detectives to shame, it was precisely because he knew about the incident in the basement beforehand, that he could act like he perceived it—was that what she wanted to say?
Then why did he know? When at that point, the fact Wakui was stabbed was something only Kyouko-san, I and the real culprit should know—
"If you're looking for suspicious behavior, the way he suddenly began drawing was suspect—when we had come to question it, don't you think he could have been focusing his mind to hide his unrest?"
I interpreted it as him drawing to hide his unrest at the fact Wakui was stabbed, but—you definitely could look at it that way. While it was a malicious outlook, it wasn't as if there was any necessity to purposely take a kind outlook with him… so this is what it means to be at a loss for words.
And yet—I thought.
If back then, the murderous rage he cried out with was the real article, then up to that point—that means until Kyouko-san provoked him, he had yet to reach the possibility that all the residents who received an order from Wakui-san were real.
"Perhaps we simply hit the nail on the head? With the core of his motive brushed against, maybe his rage was resuscitated—"
"Resuscitated—rage."
"I did save Wakui-san's life, after all—perhaps he held a rage that wouldn't be satisfied with killing him all over again. Well then, Oyagiri-san. How about it? In the case we supposed Hakui-kun was the culprit, does anything contradict? Why don't you try thinking about that?"
"Yes… I'll try thinking."
When Kyouko-san told me to think like that, it was when she was thinking about something else; I had learnt that through experience. Supposing Hakui-kun was the culprit made me feel something was off, and while it did pain my heart, it was a thought experiment there was some worth in carrying out.
If I simulate Hakui-kun as the culprit… right, I don't have to set the motive. While I can't determine the reason, whatever the case, let's say he stabbed the person he calls Teacher.
Old Wakui falls to the floor—his head clears, he gets scared, after that, Hakui-kun flees from the basement room.
To his own room… by the stairs.
That's right, it appears like he used the stairs—I mean, what singled him out was the bloodstain between the seventeenth and eighteenth floors, so if instead used the elevator, things start getting strange.
Yet his residence was on the thirtieth floor. I didn't have to say that was a considerably high one.
Climbing so many stairs was practically penance—it was the same even for an adult man like me, not to mention a common ten-year-old buy like Hakui-kun.
Why did he use the stairs instead of the elevator? Well of course, that's because the elevator was unusable. Under inspection—perhaps he was able to use it to come down, but at the very least, that would mean, he didn't use it to climb up.
Bathed in the blood spurt, he may have exercised the utmost caution, but only a single drop of that blood dripped onto the stairs—it was a small trace of evidence only Kyouko-san could notice, so perhaps he didn't notice either? If he did, he would've wiped it…
So, after that, in his room, he changed out of his blood-soaked clothes, and took a shower… perhaps?
We met him not long after we began going around, and even if I can't determine what sort of suspicious Kyouko-san held towards him at that point, if she suspected him for being 'too perceptive', then the reason she casually cleared up Hakui-kun's when no one asked might have been her searching for physical evidence. Though I doubt he'd just leave a bloody shirt or the towel he used to wipe off just lying there—I was amazed to see there really was meaning in all of Kyouko-san's actions.
What looked like a hit-or-miss method of just start moving and see what happens, actually held a strategy in each move—in any case, I was beat. I tried simulating it, but didn't see any contradictions—in that case, what was that off feeling of mine?
Was I simply displaying a selfish mindset of not wanting someone I know to be the culprit?
… Perhaps I also thought it would be a waste.
Those talents he showed me at the museum.
Able to depict such a picture with a single pencil, to think the news of him would turn to him being the culprit of a criminal case—but perhaps it was precisely because he felt the same way, that old Wakui didn't leave any blood letters, and took a step to cover for the culprit.
Covering for the culprit was an action others might find hard to understand, but if we say it could be possible for a talent he was supporting—and even among them, the culprit was a tender child with a future, so wasn't that surprisingly plausible.
"Realistically speaking, with Hakui-kun, stabbing someone won't have him tried under criminal law. The meaning behind the victim not leaving a dying message may have been a desire for the culprit not to be caught, and if someone who couldn't be punished anyways was the culprit, the point of leaving a message fades—therefore, he did not leave a message. You can look at it like that."
What Kyouko-san said was right on the money, but when it rationally went so far, I started feeling down. Despite her smiles and the gentle air around here, this person was a detective through and through.
In contrast, how emotional was I being?
In that regard, I'd like to think it wasn't a legal matter, Wakui didn't want that talent of Hakui-kun's to go wasted—but if there were no camouflage paintings in his orders to Atelier House's residents, and all of them were real, that would mean Hakui-kun's ranking was considerably low. Meaning old Wakui didn't evaluate Hakui-kun too highly—and while that might become Hakui-kun's motive to kill, at the same time, wouldn't that also mean old Wakui would have no reason to cover for him? No, wait a second. You don't even have to make it that complicated.
That's right, it totally slipped my mind, Hakui-kun just said it a moment ago—like when he met me today morning, Hakui-kun had gone out to draw pictures at a museum.
Saying alibis were the product of reading too many detective novels, Kyouko-san had let the evidence for that one slip by… however, if we managed to narrow down the time of the crime, then proving he wasn't there would hold a definite meaning. If Hakui-kun was the culprit, the basis behind that, the bloodstain would lead us to believe he used the stairs. He used the stairs because the elevator was under inspection and unusable.
And Kyouko-san had confirmed it with the two workers—the elevator was unusable from nine in the morning, up to around one in the afternoon, when we met them in the elevator hall.
Right, even if we couldn't identify the exact time old Wakui was stabbed, the time the elevator couldn't be used was clear—if Hakui-kun's claim he was at the museum in the morning was true, that would mean he had an alibi: an alibi that was easy enough to confirm. When he left and came back, he would have been captured on the ceiling security camera near the door, and unlike Atelier House, from a crime-prevention point of view, the museum would definitely have security cameras—if they captured him, that would be a tried and true alibi. Not even that, if he wasn't captured due to odd angles, he hadn't gone there to appreciate the pieces. A child copying like that in the middle of a museum would leave quite an impression. Just as I had, perhaps a guard singled him out—of course, while there was no alibi I nor Kyouko-san could confirm here and now, behind his violent attitude, Hakui-kun seemed smart enough, and it was hard to think he'd tell a lie that could be proved wrong so easily.
That was the contradiction.
I don't plan on saying a contradiction I had to think so hard to reach was my off-feeling, but—wait, don't panic. Perhaps Kyouko-san had a different outlook.
I cautiously sought the detectives verdict—indeed,
"Yes, generally speaking, I think that's exactly right."
Kyouko-san approved.
"That's why I told you. They're just the words of a child."
Rather than approved, it seems she had long since finished thinking over that one—come to think of it, when we were riding the elevator to the top floor, she seemed to be absentmindedly thinking over something.
Perhaps at that time, having found out the elevator was not working due to inspection, she was checking what influence that would bring to the crime—instead of using the elevator, we went down the stairs not only because it was faster, but because if the elevator was being worked on during the crime, and the culprit used the stairs, there might be some clue somewhere in the emergency stairwell—maybe?
In that case, no wonder she didn't take a second look at the elevator. Then perhaps finding that blood spot was by no means a coincidence, from the start, her she was consciously searching out those traces—she was constantly a step or two ahead of me.
… Anyhow, I was relieved. What was there to be relieved about? I just set up some suspicious on my own… but decreasing the suspects by one, small was it was, was undoubtedly progress.
"And Kyouko-san, there are similarly quite a few residents with alibis, aren't there?"
I didn't remember the details, but when she was asking around, she also questioned the residents on their lifestyles—while it sounded like meaningless gossip, wasn't she actually confirming their alibis? She said Hakui-kun was reading too many mystery novels, but she actually had a firm grasp on that side, I see.
But unfortunately, it seems the results were none too favorable.
"It was morning, after all. As none of them are salaried workers, they were generally sleeping until close to noon, apparently—those zealous in their studies like Hakui-kun were actually the small minority."
"I that so… it would be quicker if we could just ask Wakui-san what really happened."
I said—my tone naturally grew tired.
"At the very least, I hope his surgery is going well…"
"The way you're saying it, you make it sound like our reasoning isn't going well."
Kyouko-san said, a blank look on her face, "Let's leave that one to the doctor. We'll just do what we can," she continued. Do what we can—with all we have.
"And even if Wakui-san safely recovers, he won't tell you the culprit's name. Wakui-san is covering for the one who stabbed him, after all."
"Yeah… that's right."
If Kyouko-san's interpretation of his lack of message hit the mark, Wakui-san would probably continue his silence after recovery—he might even say he stabbed himself in a work-related accident.
"Yes, he might. But I doubt that one will pass. A look at the wound and they can at least figure out if he stabbed himself or not."
"… Even so, I think the culprit will still be on the edge. Wondering if Wakui-kun will spill the beans when he recovers."
"That depends on how the culprit recognizes the present situation. Do they think Wakui-san is alive, or that he's dead? Do they think the incident has been discovered, or has it yet to come to light—no one left the apartment complex when the ambulance arrived, but did they manage to connect the sound of sirens to the incident, or did they let the sirens pass as the sounds of daily life—there are various conceivable patterns."
"At the present time, the only resident Atelier House with a clear recognition of the crime is Hakui-kun, right?"
"Strictly speaking, the only one who managed to recognize that we recognized the crime was Hakui-kun."
Kyouko-san expressed it more strictly, or rather precisely.
"The culprit who stabbed Wakui-san, naturally, has to be aware of the incident, but they wouldn't mention that themselves—if I was able to dig in deeper with everyone's questioning, I might have been able to probe that out, but for that sake, we would have to divulge some information from our side, and there is a danger the situation would go out of control."
"Yeaaah."
I naturally found myself groaning.
My hands were full just simulating Hakui-kun alone; if on top of that, we began hypothesizing the culprit's current mental state, I was right about to burst. While she called it round-robin deduction and reductio ad absurdum, processing various forms of information simultaneously was a difficult task for me. Those logic puzzles that had one encompass every pattern at once were poison to my brain—I was even driven by an impulse to toss it all out.
"A logic puzzle… is it? Classic mystery novels are occasionally referred to as puzzlers."
Upon receiving my words, Kyouko-san started to motion. She began dragging a thin board of wood leaned against the side of the workplace—it was probably a drawing board for working outside: the aged paint stains spread out uniformly, transforming it in itself to a single abstract piece.
A marbled pattern perhaps… though you didn't have to be Hakui-kun to simply consider it 'filthy'. Could it be, since I said logic puzzle, she planned to use that as a backboard to map out our current state on paper?
Certainly, while it might be hard to make sense of thoughts in your head, if you write out the data on paper, something might come into sight—but that couldn't be so. The forgetful detective Kyouko-san would never write down information.
When she could do practically everything in her head, was there even any point in going to the troubles of writing it out—then what did she plan on doing with that board she salvaged?
Before I could ask, she had already acted—with what was stationed near the entrance of the basement room, that large-scale power saw.
Just as I noticed her push in the plug, Kyouko-san turned it on and began carving up the board. She didn't shy back in the slightest from the intense sound the machine let out, skillfully and nimbly moving the board, turning it into a jumbled pile of parts in no time—honestly, it looked so dangerous I couldn't stand to watch; yet, be that as it may, if I raised my voice or tried to stop her by fore, it would be even more dangerous— in the end, unable to get close, I had no choice but to watch over her work.
"This power saw is more precisely a jigsaw… instead of a logic puzzle, if we tried solving it as a jigsaw, where would that get us?"
With the twenty-odd parts of the disassembled board in hand, Kyouko-san returned to the center of the room—instead of parts, would that make them pieces?
Brushing off the sawdust on her clothes, "Are you aware of the rules behind solving a puzzle?" She asked me.
"Ymm… you start from the border, don't you?"
"Yes. From the, border—because one side of the piece will be a straight line, the border pieces are easy to pick out. First, you place the border's four corner pieces and put it together in sequence. That is the first stage."
As she said that, Kyouko-san divided the board pieces between the 'border' and 'other'.
"The second stage is to separate pieces by color. Of course, I won't say it's a rule, but generally, neighboring pieces tend to have similar colors. And the third stage is piece shape, you look at how each one is arranged—finally, it becomes round-robin, but the interesting part is that the further you go, the simpler it becomes to advance the puzzle."
The number of pieces goes down, see, she said, as in the order she mentioned, Kyouko-san completed the puzzle. It was a puzzle she made herself, and there weren't too many pieces, so perhaps it was obvious she completed it so easily, but admittedly, her hands still did quick work.
"Do you see? No matter how complicated a pule looks, if you properly go through the process, you'll be able to complete it eventually. Just because you get stuck, please don't turn back on your progress."
It did seem she was trying to console me again—that alone was pathetic, yet that my own inadequacies had Kyouko-san waste her time was even more pathetic.
"… But, if even so, the puzzle can't be completed, what are you supposed to do? With this many pieces, you might be able to work it out round-robin, but what if it were a more difficult puzzle?"
"There are three things that came make a puzzle difficult. Perhaps there are simply too many pieces—like a thousand, two thousand, ten thousand. Another possibility is a puzzle you can't separate by color—have you ever seen them before? Those puzzles where every piece is pure white. Astronauts do them in training."
"Hmm, I see… what's the final one?"
"A puzzle without enough pieces."
In that case, there's no way to complete it, she said, lifting one piece up from the improvised puzzle lining the ground.
"If you don't have enough pieces, the puzzle will never be complete—what makes it even more unpleasant, is the fact you can't notice an absence of pieces until the puzzle is considerably close to completion. If the final piece is missing, you'll taste a great sense of wasted effort."
I was familiar with that one. Sadly, the more pieces the puzzle had, the more prone it was to happening. When you boiled it down, I was at that moment working on a puzzle where I had no idea what the finished product looked like, with not nearly enough pieces—even the pieces I had were too much for me.
"But that's nothing to feel down about, Oyagiri-san. There was never any need for us to complete the puzzle—even when lacking in pieces, as long as we can build it far enough to predict the completed picture, that is enough."
That explanation was definitely one way to look at it.
Without any rights to investigate, Kyouko-san couldn't help but have restrictions placed on her, but taking it the other way, precisely because we didn't have investigations right, grasping solid evidence and the full details of the case weren't being asked of us. Even a deduction eighty percent filled in could let us speak directly with the suspect—and urge them to turn themself in.
"If you just want an idea of the full picture, then the proper method of making the border might just be a detour. Even if you make just the border, if the center is left empty, there's no way you could anticipate what it will look like—it might just be quicker to make it form the center."
All the way thinking I was saying some unreasonable things, I imitated Kyouko-san, picking up pieces, leaving only the outside border.
"Ahaha. I'm sure it'll be difficult to make a puzzle from the center. Difficult for me even. Be it a detour or not, you've still got to make the border—though if you're lacking the pieces to make the border, it's going to drop your motivation for the rest."
"Yeah. But to anticipate the completed picture in our current state would be like looking at just Wakui-san's frame, and predicting the painting it was meant to border, isn't it?"
A puzzle was like a painting, and when it was completed, it could go in a frame, so I tried equating it to old Wakui—that really was the only meaning I put into it, I wasn't thinking too deeply.
No, if I wasn't thinking too deeply, Kyouko-san was the same—the way she suddenly used the jigsaw to make a puzzle didn't have any particular meaning, just by tying the word puzzle I happened to say, the board she saw at the side of the workspace, and the power saw with a clear presence in the basement, she thought she would be able to make a puzzle, so she tried making one. I had no doubt that's all there was to it.
Without fearing wasted efforts, she would do everything within her capabilities, it was nothing more than a part of her normal conduct—however.
"Yay!"
Kyouko-san suddenly latched onto me. It was quite a strong hug, a hugging method that made me feel like my entire body was being compressed in a fervent embrace. In my surprise, I reflexively dropped the puzzle pieces in my hand.
"K-Kyouko-san!? What's wrong!?"
"Nice work, Oyagiri-san."
She said, and when I thought she had separated from me, she gripped my hand—lacking any restraint, she shook it up and down.
"Thanks to you, I've got it."
"G-got it…? Got what?"
To that point, whatever happened, she had quite often taken erratic actions, so I had readied my heart to not be surprised no matter what she did next—so when she suddenly started making a puzzle with makeshift tools, I hid my confusion, and accepted it as collectedly as I could—but I never thought she would embrace me, so there was nothing I could do when I was thrown into a fluster.
"D-don't tell me the culprit?"
"No, I don't know anything about the culprit yet."
Kyouko-san easily denied it—then what?
"However, I understand why, when it came to his final job, Wakui-san didn't have Hakui-kun paint a picture."
"You were wondering, weren't you? In the midst of cleaning his room, I had a look here and there, and I do think Hakui-kun's artistic ability is considerably high, even from a layman's perspective—at a level where a fake painting of course, it wouldn't be strange if he was asked to paint the real one. At the very least, in Atelier House, it's very hard to believe you'd find him ranked closer to the bottom."
So she was putting the room in order while probing out Hakui-kun's artistic abilities; that's a stable concurrent throughput, but I did share that opinion. His didn't fall short of the paintings the residents showed us in our visits by any considerable margin—though it was because I was a layman, that I thought I was being led by surface-level traits.
"So you mean… not in regards to the culprit of this case, you've solved the mystery behind Wakui-san's final frame? The large order of materials you were worried about… it really wasn't a mistake?"
"Yes. Nor was it camouflage to conceal what he would really be using—he may have meant for some of it to be so, but that was only secondary. And the theory everyone was real was also wrong."
"! Really?"
In that case, the suspicions against Hakui-kun would run even thinner—it would mean the reaction he gave on Kyouko-san's provocation would have been build on a theory with a mistaken premise.
But in that case, that would put us back at the plate on who the real one was—and the meaning behind the mass order?
"And I'm saying I figured it out—all thanks to you."
"Thanks to me?"
"The idea of 'thinking just with the border' had never struck me. Right… The painting can't come to be with the frame alone—however, we can calculate back from it. Just by looking at the frame, it is possible to deduce what sort of painting would have gone in it. Yay!"
In her continuing high spirits, she demanded a high five, and I did oblige, but—our hands did make a nice hand slapping against one another, but—but was it really possible to deduce that?
Just by looking at the frame, hitting on the picture inside it felt like more of a psychic power than deductive reasoning—when I'm the one who became a hint, I didn't really want to say it, but I highly doubted she was capable of such a thing.
"Oh really? But sometimes, you decide whether or not to buy a book at the bookstore just by the cover, right? You can say the same for a CD album's cover art—it's one of those hopeful buys."
"I mean, it happens."
"We're not talking about a mass-produced frame, this is a frame provided by a framer—an appearance designed for the sake of its contents would inevitably point out its contents, wouldn't it?"
When she put it like that, I could somewhat see it—but in this case, the problem was that the frame in question wasn't even finished yet.
To estimate the sort of frame Wakui would make from the materials, and on top of that, picture what sort of painting would be worthy to contain in it. If she succeeded in picturing that, she just had to identify a resident Wakui placed an order with who had a similar picture—and he or she would be the real artist.
Logically, it made sense, but that was impossible to implement—a framer with a skill level equal to Wakui's, perhaps, but Kyouko-san was, to the end, a detective. Her artistic sense shouldn't exceed the realm of a spectator—
"Yes. You're right. I might not be able to definitively declare it—but I still have to verify, don't I?"
Kyouko-san looked at her wristwatch.
When her detective work had been a race against time, come to think of it, this was the first time she ever distinctly looked at a clock—yet now akin to measuring her lap time.
"Yes. It should be done around now; my identity."
"? What is… my identity?"
"Remember, the painting we had Hakui-kun draw up. I became a model, did I not?"
"Aah! That's right."
"No matter how scrupulous he was, it should be done by now—and while I go get it, there are a few things I'll have to go confirm with him."
"I see… understood, we should get going then."
I hadn't the slightest idea what inspiration the words I happened to say served as a trigger for, but it was certain that staying here wouldn't better the situation—if Kyouko-san's flash was on the mark, then at the very least, our current stalemate would end. If we were able to identify the resident painting the real picture…
And while I knew it wasn't the time, I was also curious how Hakui-kun drew Kyouko-san.
But, "No, Oyagiri-san, you stay where you are, I have something else I need you to do," Kyouko-san held up one hand to stop me as I was to naturally accompany her Naturally, that hand wasn't asking for a high five anymore— huh?
"The deadline is approaching, after all. Let's split up—I want you to check the books on that bookshelf one by one."
Kyouko-san pointed out what wasn't on the level of a bookshelf, a two-row rack placed in the corner of the workplace. It was line with large books, presumably art-related references.
"You can just do it roughly, try and see if there's anything strange stuck between any of the pages."
"What sort of thing…?"
"I can't say yet. If you'll just perform a check with your own senses, no preconceptions—I'll help out as soon as I'm back from Hakui-kun's room, but please get as far as you can."
When she told me to use my own senses, I felt like I was being tested, but Kyouko-san who could do anything on her own was leaving it to me, so it had to be something even I could do—rather, what was I supposed to do if I couldn't even check if something was sandwiched between book pages?
I was more worried whether it was alright for Kyouko-san and Hakui-kun to meet alone—last time they were together, I felt an explosive presence a number of times. There's no telling what chemical reaction would occur when genius and genius meets… though, Kyouko-san was right in saying there was barely any time remaining.
"… How long will you be?"
I asked Kyouko-san—I wanted a standard so I could race over in the million to one chance some trouble broke out.
"Since I'm at it, I think I'll be climbing the stairs up to the thirtieth floor, so it might take a bit—but I'll definitely be back within thirty minutes."
The stairs to the thirtieth floor? Since she's at what? I thought, but I immediately hit on it—Kyouko-san was trying to trace the culprit's moves.
If the blood on the stairs had some relation to the case, that would mean the culprit climbed the stairs to their room—she was testing to see if there was anything to be gained in tracing those actions.
When the mystery behind Wakui's final job was on the verge of being solved, she didn't forget investigation the crime, Kyouko-san was a woman of action brimming with endless vitality…
"Well then, see you later. Best regards."
Before I could dispute it, Kyouko-san had already moved—in no time at all, she was gone from the basement. I was about to tell her going with that white hair would surprise Hakui-kun, but I didn't make it in time. She was definitely quick to move, but she was also simply quick on her feet.
Well, she didn't have the time to dye it again, and her false identity was already exposed to Hakui-kun, so it probably wouldn't become a problem.
With the pure-white Kyouko-san, and Hakui-kun who only painted in black—they seemed so contrastive, but there had to be some common ground. Perhaps having geniuses meet wouldn't result in the sort of trouble I was worried about—more importantly, I needed to solemnly prioritize the job I was tasked with.
As instructed, I went over to the two-shelf rack, and started by taking out all the books in it.
If it was just a book, I probably didn't have to worry about fingerprints… come to think of it, I recalled Kyouko-san had properly looked through that rack in her noon inspection of the crime scene—but was there 'something' she overlooked?
I didn't know if I could find 'something' that Kyouko-san overlooked, but I had to give it a try—Putting the books on their side, I got to flipping pages starting at the top.
Like that, I worked myself up for the challenge, but reading through every book—no, I didn't have to read them, for most, I was just flipping the pages—it didn't take that much time. It's just, it didn't come with any sense of achievement that I was accomplishing a job I'd been entrusted—because in the end, there wasn't any 'strange' looking 'something' stuck between any of the pages.
I was told to look without any preconceptions, but I couldn't bring myself to believe Kyouko-san was looking for normal bookmarks or pamphlets—just in case, I removed the covers, and checked if there was anything stuck there, but to no avail.
I felt disappointed—I thought I might be able to lessen Kyouko-san burden if only in the slightest, but the way things were going, it looked like Kyouko-san would have to do another check once she was back. At the very least, to make it easy for her, I thought I'd arrange the books by size.
My hands stopped on a single magazine.
It wasn't as if anything peculiar about it—when I was flipping through the magazine pages not too long ago, there had been a special feature that had caught my eye.
It was a special on Atelier House, none other than where I was, and it contained interviews with old Wakui, and a few of the residents—rather than Wakui preserving a back issue, it felt more like the article just coincidentally happened to be in it. I only had limited information on it, but as expected, this Atelier House was a relatively famous facility in the industry.
To a layman such as myself, it looked even odd and abnormal, but in a place it was naturally supposed to exist, it was considered only natural—for those in the know.
Strangely, when I looked at what was written in the article, that shady feeling I'd been getting seemed to clear away—of course, it wasn't as if s feature in this sort of magazine would detail it down to its true nature.
It's just, while I didn't properly read it, I inputted it in my head as new information, the idea behind old Wakui building Atelier House was introduced in the article, and I found it intriguing.
To repay the world of painting, like service—he had told me, but even if that was his first objective, it seems he had some personal circumstance as well.
Perhaps I should call it the troubles of his youth… according to the article, there was a time Wakui set out to be a painter, but something led him to give up on that path, and he became a frame maker. As a result, he achieved greatness as a framer, and I think that was for the best, but, he didn't want any youngsters to taste the same setbacks—he didn't want them to give up on their dreams just because the 'environment wasn't in order'.
With that in mind, old Wakui built Atelier House.
… It was an interview, it was unknown how much of it was true, but it was easier to understand than just simple repayment. The reason the support was specialized only for painting—the sort of stoicism that filled Atelier House as a whole was based in Wakui's past setbacks.
To entrust youngsters with a dream—when you described it like that, the nuance did change, and I couldn't unconditionally say that was a good thing—even more so than before, I didn't know what to think of Wakui's personality. Was he a good person or bad person?
Perhaps those expressions were nothing more than a label—a label, or maybe—the outside border.
Nothing more than a frame to decorate a person. Just as the same action can make a good or bad person of someone, depending on the nuance—
Even so.
I noticed Kyouko-san was late to return—while I was running through some worthless thoughts, thirty minutes had gone by long ago.
While I certainly had some panic in me from wasting our already scarce time, but through that, I was still worried that Kyouko-san hadn't returned from her journey to Hakui-kun's place. She may have used the stairs, but if she just received the piece, and confirmed a few details, it wouldn't be strange if she was back long ago—she said she would definitely be back in thirty minutes… just as I thought, did some trouble break out?
Kyouko-san was an easygoing person, but Hakui-kun did seem to have a short fuse.
It wasn't long before I made my resolve to make for the thirtieth floor. It was far to belated to call the fastest, but come so far, perhaps I was finally learning from Kyouko-san's line of flow.
But I learned a bit too much. When I thought about it calmly, if I wanted to go get her, I could have just used the elevator, but tugged at by what Kyouko-san said, I ended up choosing the route of reaching the thirtieth floor by stairs. I may have just been being stubborn. When Kyouko-san climbed thirty flights, I felt a competitiveness that wouldn't let me take the easy way out—Kyouko-san said she'd go up on the stairs, but she never said she was taking them down (we'd already gone down them once anyway), so if I headed to the stairs, I might miss Kyouko-san coming down by elevators.
Along the way, I thought I might at least leave a message in the basement in case we missed one another, but if I purposely returned to the basement for that, I would lose sight of what I was doing in the first place—I was fine simply climbing.
No matter how my competitive spirit blazed on that point, while I fell short of Kyouko-san, if I were to find a clue towards resolving the case on my climb, it would be indubitably rosy—I thought over such things as I tapped my feet against every other step, but unfortunately, I couldn't spot anything so conveniently.
There was no way someone as simple as me could multitask, climbing stairs in a hurry, while simultaneously looking for clues—then like in trail running, should I just make a run for the thirtieth floor all at once? That was definitely something Kyouko-san couldn't do, and only I was capable of—it happened when I made my resolve.
Floor-wise, I guess I had reached around the tenth.
From right above me—came a large sound.
I reflexively looked in the direction of the sound, but all that entered my eyes was the bottom of the stairway leading to the eleventh floor, and it wasn't as if anything had happened to it—an emergency stairwell was, in a sense, an irregular atrium, and even if it was right above me, there was no way of knowing what floor it happened on.
The sound didn't come once, it repeated a few times, a short gap between each. A consecutive banging—my intuition told me it was the sound of 'something falling down stairs'. The sort of sound you hear when you carelessly drop a somewhat large parcel you're carrying.
Thinking normally, it was reasonable to assume a resident using the emergency stairwell carrying a canvas or modal statue's hand slipped—then I should change my plan.
During the visits, I had met face to face with a majority of Atelier House's residents—the one who spoke with them directly was Kyouko-san, so perhaps I left a light impression, but for the 'investigator from city hall' letting off pressure from behind Kyouko-san to still be loitering around the complex's emergency stairs might come off as unnatural. Kyouko-san might be able to pull it off with an innocent look, but I was the sort who shoed it on his face, so there was nothing better than avoiding a meeting
But… thought I. While it was the sound of 'something falling down the stairs,' it could simultaneously be the sound of 'someone falling down the stairs', I instinctively thought. It wasn't a hand that slipped but a foot.
"Kuh…!"
I couldn't confirm which from where I was, but if it was the latter, they may require assistance. I was definitely reading too far into a flashy sound, and even If someone had slipped, there was no guarantee they were injured—there were other things I had to do, and really no need for me to surge in.
Before the logic had settled, my body had moved—I reflexively raced up the stairs, fast as I could.
There was nothing else I could do, once the worst possible scenario crossed my mind. Good grief, I was completely taking after Kyouko-san. I ended up hoping I could take action like that person. Not that imitating her today would suddenly make me like her.
But as I ran up, those chilled feelings disappeared—that's right, I was just running up some stairs. There was nothing to be lost. If that alone could eliminate the worst possible scenario, it was a cheap buy. And if mothering happened, I could be relieved that nothing happened, couldn't I? It wasn't as if I was trying to do anything I was incapable of—I was just doing what I could. What I could, to the best I could do it.
What awaited me around ten floors up, as I picked up speed and climbed, was something greater than the worst possible situation—not greater, should I say worse?
Whatever the case, the scene hadn't crossed my imagination—that sort of scenario.
"K—Kyouko-san!?"
In the landing between the seventeenth and eighteenth floor of Atelier House—the forgetful detective, Okitegami Kyouko had collapsed.