Would he not have accepted liberty without riches if it had been offered to him? Besides, were not those riches chimerical?
── Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo
That the family headed by the Viscount Kinukawa was a grand and distinguished one was known to all, but exactly what great achievements the man's ancestors had to their names were long since lost to history, a fact that the family itself could hardly find it within themselves to care for.
What was widely known was that their collection of artwork valued at over one million yen. It was this treasure that the Kinukawa viewed as the source of their honor. If one viewed the artwork as a crystallization of the Kinukawa family's achievements, then one would have no choice but to show the family respect. However, the treasure wasn't the sort of thing that was discussed by the masses.
It was during a span of 10-odd years from the end of the Meiji era into the Taishō era that several aristocratic families came into conflict over the Kinukawa family's treasure, resulting in a battle that was indeed quite strange. But stranger still was that this battle remained totally unknown to the public until it drew near its conclusion.
1 (1st October, 1911)
It was 10:00 P.M. and the sudden rain shower had stopped. The car was now far west of Tokyo. Turning off the Ōme Highway, it drove along a dark, deserted road at the foot of a mountain, close to the border with Saitama Prefecture, taking an unusual path.
In the car were two men. Both were dressed in all black, wearing what looked like carpenter's uniforms, but the clothes of the man in the driver's seat were brand new, contrasting the well-worn clothes of the man in the passenger's seat.
As they approached a bend in the road, the man in the driver's seat parked the car in the grass.
“Let's get out here. If there's a guard posted, he'll notice us.”
“Right.”
The man in the driver's seat was young, with a face that some would call “dignified” and others “haughty”. The other man was about twice his age, short, rugged, and covered in spots. At the younger man's command, he emerged from the car and stepped onto the wet grass.
In actuality, it was the middle-aged man who was more skilled at this type of work, but for today, he allowed the younger man take charge. The young man's name was Akihiro Orihara, and he was the eldest son of Count Orihara. And today, he would become a thief – or at least, a burglar. He was going to steal the treasure of the Kinukawa family.
They were heading to the villa where Viscount Kinukawa kept his treasure. They had determined that today every member of the Kinukawa family would be absent from the home on a visit to Tokyo.
In order to do the jobs that Akihiro could not, such as opening locks, he had hired a professional. The man in the passenger seat was Kashida, who had been a thief for twenty years, earning himself two criminal convictions for his efforts.
“It's just like I told you. There's a guardhouse up ahead. It likely won't even be manned.”
Akihiro pointed in the direction of the end of the bend, which still wasn't visible from their position, as he whispered to Kashida. Leaving the bend behind, they found a single road going left that led into the depths of the forest. At the end of the road, there stood a single house, the Kinukawa family villa.
The guardhouse was at the start of the road, manned by a single guard employed by Viscount Kinukawa. Sometimes the guard was absent, but he was there most of the time. Akihiro had prepared for the possibility that they would have to restrain him.
As they made their way down the road, they saw the guardhouse lit by the dim light of an oil lamp.
Akihiro put on his mask.
“There's no other way. Wait there.”
“Yeah, I'll wait. Well, be careful. Do your best.”
Kashida felt anxious. He'd been given a hefty advance payment and a promise he wouldn't be held responsible whether the plan succeeded or failed, so he'd agreed to go along with the young aristocrat's criminal plot, but he was still afraid. Akihiro seemed like the type who would likely be overwhelmed and lose his composure when the time came to act.
But Kashida also felt no desire to take responsibility for binding and gagging the guard himself. So he just watched as Akihiro crept from the darkness towards the guardhouse.
Akihiro managed to reach the door to the building without being noticed. After a moment's hesitation, he lunged for the door.
The guard screamed, “UWAAAAAH!” From within came the sound of a struggle, frustratingly faint. And then...
“Ah. He got away.”
The guard, having escaped the clutches of his attacker, jumped out the window and ran off into the forest. Akihiro followed him, only a few steps behind. The guard was an elderly man, and clearly not as fast as Akihiro.
Kashida put on his mask and carefully approached the guardhouse. He stood in the shadow of the guardhouse, waiting with bated breath for either Akihiro or the guard to return.
The story that Kashida had heard from Akihiro went as follows:
The reason this young aristocrat, who had no money troubles, had chosen to steal the treasure of the Kinukawa family was because his father, Count Hisago Orihara, had grown mentally unstable after falling ill. The Count, who suffered from cancer of the lungs, had begun to ramble deliriously on his sickbed, declaring that he coveted the fortune held by Viscount Kinukawa. Again and again, he declared his desire to hold in his hands the art pieces owned by the Viscount, whose value totaled at least one million yen.
The Kinukawa and the Orihara were aristocratic families hailing from the same hometown, with the Kinukawa being the lower ranked of the two. Count Orihara, as he lay near death, was convinced that the Kinukawa family treasure should belong to him.
No one in the Orihara family had the courage to act on these delirious ramblings, but the Count's madness grew until he was beyond control, and finally, Akihiro decided to carry out his crime.
Though Akihiro was the eldest son, he had been born to a mistress of his father's. Even worse, after his mother had been arrested for attacking her lover with a knife when Akihiro was just a child, he had been shunned by his own family. He wasn't allowed to go out in public, his existence hidden from the world.
Akihiro thought that if he managed to succeed in stealing the Kinukawa's property, he could be saved from his unfortunate situation. His family supported his efforts. No, it was more like they were pushing the burden onto him.
Kashida thought it a strange story. Still, it was clear Akihiro was serious, and the reward was proportional to his efforts, so he didn't pry any further into the affairs of the Orihara family. He wasn't particularly interested in the legitimacy of Count Orihara's claims.
That said, was it really okay for them to have driven all this way? The car they'd come in was an Austin they had borrowed without permission from a certain businessman's second home. It was certainly more convenient that traveling by horse and carriage, but there was the risk of drawing attention to themselves. Fortunately, the Kinukawa villa was the only house in the area, so thus far, no one had noticed them.
...Hadn't it been ten minutes already? There was still no sign of anyone coming.
The wind was picking up, smothering any quiet sounds that may have come from the distance.
Kashida decided to go check out what was going on. Without lighting his lantern, he passed the guardhouse and entered the forest, grimacing as the trees showered him with the aftermath of the heavy rain.
After he'd taken about a hundred steps, he saw a figure holding an oil lantern.
When his eyes adjusted, he realized it was the masked figure of Akihiro. For some reason, he just stood there, holding up the lantern, not moving an inch.
Had he lost sight of the guard?
But his gaze was fixed on the ground.
When Kashida approached, Akihiro flinched. Seeing what it was he stared at, Kashida finally realized what had happened.
At his feet lay the guard, his legs bent at unnatural angles.
“Did you do this? Well, you must have. Right...”
Kashida took off his mask and squatted down to examine the body. There were deep marks of strangulation on his neck, and when he touched the man's wrist, he felt no pulse.
“I can't believe this. This is the worst thing you possibly could have done. You shouldn't have done that.”
The ghastly pale Akihiro didn't respond. Either way, it was clear what had happened. Akihiro, trying to keep the guard from escaping, had used too much strength and ended up killing him.
Kashida had known he might make a mistake, but he wasn't prepared to deal with a corpse. The older man spat in disgust.
“I never expected this from you. I thought it would be fine to just sneak in while no one was there, or give them a little scare if there was someone. What are you going to do about this?”
Akihiro took off his mask, fully exposing his pale face.
“Let's put the body in the car for now. We'll figure out what to do with it later. We have to get to the Kinukawa family villa, quickly.”
Kashida panicked.
“You're kidding me. We've already failed. Let's just start over. There's no way we can do anything after this. I don't want to get involved in a murder.”
“I'll take care of this. You don't need to be involved. All you have to do is help me find the Kinukawa family treasure. Everything else is something I did on my own. You didn't know about the murder; we'll just say you were tricked into coming here and I forced you to help me.”
“Please, this might be my last chance! I have to do it today. Please. Please...”
Akihiro collapsed and began bowing in a most unsightly manner.
There was a reason he was so adamant. From what Kashida had heard, Viscount Kinukawa had been telling his relatives that he was planning to hide the art pieces which would soon be passed down through the family, hide them somewhere they would never be found. If he missed this chance, the treasures might disappear and never be seen again.
“Guess we have no other choice. Now that we've come this far...”
Kashida resigned himself to fate.
Akihiro carried the dead guard to the car. He put the body in a hemp sack for carrying grain he'd brought to carry the treasure in, then hid it in the back seat. He then returned to the scene, doggedly searching the forest for any evidence he'd left.
Unable to bear sitting back and watching, Kashida helped him search.
When they were satisfied with their search, they got back in the car and drove down the single road to the villa. The mountain road was still muddy from the rain, and the car left clear tire tracks behind it.
Soon, the villa's roof came into view ahead.
“Hey, you're getting a bit close.”
“Huh? Ah! No, I - sorry!”
Akihiro appeared to still be in a fugue state after the murder. They should have parked a safe distance away, but he'd started pulling into the villa's driveway.
There were no lights on in the windows, and it appeared no one had noticed them. The two got out of the car and walked down the brick path to the front door, where they stopped to listen.
“It doesn't seem like there's anyone inside, but we need to be careful.”
According to Akihiro's research, sometimes a second guard was placed inside the villa, in addition to the one in the guardhouse. At present, there was no sign of anyone in the main house, but he might have just been asleep. Kashida whispered to Akihiro.
“We should check the house's perimeter before going inside. I've had enough of accidentally running into people for one day.”
“Okay, I'll do it. Just... hold on.”
Akihiro picked up a twig from the ground at his feet and gently leaned it against the front door.
The area immediately in front of the door was brick, so it wouldn't take any footprints. But with the twig leaned against it, if the front door were opened, the twig would fall into the thin layer of dirt between the building and pavement, leaving a mark. That way, they wouldn't have to worry about missing anyone who came by while they were circling the building.
“Alright, let's go.”
They didn't split up. They circled the villa clockwise, peering in each window along the way.
They didn't use their lights. The ground was sloped and muddy, so each step demanded caution, as though they were prodding bushes with a cane.
The villa was two stories tall, and as mentioned previously, built on sloped ground. The entrance was on the second floor, as the ground sank further down the further back they went. The windows to the private rooms all had curtains hung. The windows into the hallways offered views to the inside, but all they could see was a perfectly normal aristocrat's villa.
However, the situation was different in a room at the very back, at the bottom of the slope on the first floor.
Instead of curtains, this room had heavy shutters affixed. Akihiro pressed his face to the window, narrowing his eyes to see between the gaps.
Something sparkled within the room. After taking a look around, he quietly lit his oil lantern and lit the room.
The room reflected the dull light as if returning a signal. What was reflected were exquisite works of porcelain and glasswork, swords, a gold Buddha, and what appeared to be the face of a clock. On all four walls, shelves of items flickered in the wavering light of the lamp.
There was no doubt that the items on the other side of the shutters were the works of art they were after.
“This is it, I'm sure of it! Thank goodness...” muttered Akihiro.
His knowledge of the villa was based on what he'd heard from a politician who'd been shown the treasure by Viscount Kinukawa two years ago, so he'd been worried the Viscount may have moved the treasure since then. The sight of their quarry finally began to rouse Kashida's professional spirit as well. He was getting excited.
There was a river behind the villa. The water level had risen due to the rain, but it wasn't flowing very fast.
Ignoring it, the two of them finished circling the villa and returned to the front door.
As far as they could tell from the outside, the house was deserted. The twig against the door hadn't fallen, either.
“Alright, let's go in.”
Akihiro directed Kashida to pick the lock on the front door. There was nothing special about it, and a few minutes later, they were inside. The two of them carefully checked each room as they made their way.
They confirmed that there was no one in the guest room, dining room, living room, or servants' room. Once they were sure they were alone, they made their way down to the first floor.
On the first floor were five bedrooms. Just as they had on the second, they confirmed each was empty one by one, and only then allowed themselves to relax. There was no doubt whatsoever that they were alone in the villa.
“This is the only room left. How tough will it be?”
“Well, it isn't gonna be easy. Let's see here...”
The two of them were facing a thick iron door that looked like it had come from a prison. It was the door to the room housing the art pieces, and it was designed for security. In addition to the keyhole, it also had a combination dial like a safe's. The door itself was also made to be impossible to break or remove with carpentry tools.
Facing the iron door, Kashida grabbed his own tools and went to work, wondering if his usual safecracking methods would be enough.
As part of picking the lock, Kashida went back outside and pried open the window shutters. On the other side were thick iron bars, so they couldn't enter the treasure room that way, but he needed to see the lock from the inside.
With the shutters open, they could see the full extent of the treasure room. In addition to what they'd seen through the gaps earlier, there were cylindrical hanging scrolls and wooden boxes of various sizes on the shelves, and on the floor were an assortment of Buddhist sculptures, grandfather clocks, and vases that couldn't fit on the shelves.
After about 30 minutes of wrestling with the iron door, Kashida finally felt something in his fingertips.
Just when he thought he had it solved, he got carried away.
“Ah! Damn it, it broke.”
The tip of his lockpick had gotten caught in the keyhole and broken off. Akihiro stared at Kashida's hands in a panic.
“What do we do? Did you bring a spare?”
“No, I didn't.”
Akihiro glared at Kashida, looking clearly troubled.
Kashida couldn't say anything else.
“I know a few shopkeepers who deal in things like this on the side. One of them runs a place in Hachiōji. If I drove up there and woke him up, I could get another lockpick. It'd take two hours, though. Since you've also got that body to worry about, you probably won't have time–”
“That doesn't matter, there's no other way. We'll do it. Let's head back to town first.”
Akihiro headed back to the front door, waving for him to follow.
Before they pulled out of the driveway, Kashida checked how much gasoline was in the can in the back seat. The guard's corpse still lay in a heap next to it. It was in the way, so, reluctantly, Kashida moved it. The corpse's body heat still hadn't faded.
The job wasn't going well. Kashida could feel it. Unexpected things had happened one after another, and he suspected they weren't finished.
With Akihiro driving, they made their way along the road at the foot of the mountain towards the city center, heading for a certain hardware store in Hachiōji.
A little over two hours later, the two of them were once again headed up the mountain road to Viscount Kinukawa's villa. Fortunately, they'd had an easy time procuring a replacement lockpick. If they hurried, they might still be on track to finish everything before dawn.
The mountain path bore four ruts. There was no sign that anyone had come or gone but them. The anxiety in Kashida's heart was eased.
They parked back in the driveway, entered the villa, and went straight back to the iron door on the first floor.
“How much longer will this take?”
“Not that long, I think...”
With Akihiro hurrying him along, Kashida set his hands in motion. Since he'd come within a hair's breadth of opening it last time, he was able to work much quicker now.
“Okay, it's open.”
It had taken less than 15 minutes. All that was left was to bring the goods out to the car and drive off. Whatever came next, it would have nothing to do with Kashida.
In the end, his ominous feeling had been nothing but paranoia.
Thinking so, Kashida took a step back and allowed Akihiro to open the door.
When Akihiro stepped into the room and held up his lantern, Kashida realized his feeling had been more right than he possibly could have imagined.
Without doubt, it was the treasure room. It looked exactly the same as it had through the iron bars on the window a few hours ago, down to the placement of the shelves on the walls. But the treasure...
“It's gone! It's all gone! Everything that was here–”
“What? Gone?”
It was just as Akihiro's shout had said. All the display shelves were bare.
Not just the shelves. The heavy vases and Buddha statues that had been on the floor had also vanished. Every last scrap of treasure from the room was gone without a trace.
“What? Who? How!?”
Leaving the stunned Kashida behind in the room, Akihiro ran off to search the villa. Perhaps they had moved the treasure to another room – not that he had any idea who “they” were.
Kashida helped Akihiro carry out a thorough search of the villa, starting from the first floor bedrooms.
And they were forced to conclude that there wasn't a single piece of treasure anywhere in the villa.
“I'm sure I confirmed there was no one else here...”
“Then how on Earth did they get in? That's it!”
Akihiro ran out the front door. Kashida followed.
He searched the area around the villa. Perhaps someone had come from outside.
Checking by lamplight, they followed the footprints they'd left a few hours earlier, searching for signs that someone else had entered the villa after them.
They completed their second circuit of the house in the exact same way as the first, going clockwise.
When they returned to the entrance, Akihiro and Kashida stood there.
They'd found nothing out of place. There wasn't a single trace on the ground except those left by themselves.
“It's impossible. It just can't be...”
Kashida felt the same. Something that he could only call impossible had happened.
When they'd first arrived, they'd confirmed that there was no one at the villa. The surrounding area was muddy from the rain, making it impossible to approach without leaving tracks. The only traces left on the only road were the tracks of their car coming and going, and even after circling the entire villa, apart from their own footprints they'd left earlier, the ground was completely clean.
Kashida wondered if someone had rode a boat on that swollen river and taken the treasure, but of course, there were no traces of someone coming from or going to the riverbank, either.
To summarize, in the two hours they'd been away from the villa, no one could have entered the building, and no one could have taken the treasure. Despite that, the treasure was completely gone, with not even a single scroll left behind.
Kashida put a hand on Akihiro's shoulder.
“Hey. I don't know what happened here, but I do know what we have to do now.”
“What's that?”
“We have to run, obviously. I don't know how they did it, but whatever magician pulled this off must know what we're up to, right? There's no point in staying here. We have to leave as soon as possible.”
Akihiro still wasn't satisfied, but Kashida forced him into the car.
At that moment, the rain that had stopped resumed its fall. Kashida thought he heard, mixed in with the sound of the rain, a voice from the heavens, mocking him.
“You can't tell anyone what happened here today. Please, I beg you.”
When they'd descended to the foot of the mountain, Akihiro handed Kashida the money he'd promised with trembling hands. Kashida obligingly accepted it as though it were a cleaning rag he'd been ordered to use.
“Fine by me, but are you sure you're okay? You seem pretty overwhelmed.”
“I'm okay. And, if anything happens to me, I won't mention your name. I swear.”
“That's nice, but...”
Kashida brushed off the young nobleman's grandiose promise. He felt like there were more important things here. He still hadn't awoken from the daze he'd been in since encountering that mysterious event.
At any rate, the two of them parted ways before dawn's first light, and never saw one another again.
Akihiro dumped the guard's body in the mountains not far from the villa. He had to return to the car quickly, so he didn't have time to be careful with his murder. It wasn't until he'd returned home that he realized that, despite how carefully he'd searched, he'd dropped a button at the scene of the crime; a button that should have borne his fingerprints.
The guard's body was discovered a few days later, and the case was investigated as a murder.
However, Kashida and Akihiro were never caught.
The reason for this was that Viscount Kinukawa, who should have been considered the victim of a crime, refused to cooperate with the police. The murderer's purpose remained unknown. And so, the mysterious disappearance of the Viscount's treasure remained unknown to the outside world for a long time to come.
Ever since October of 1911, the Viscount Kinukawa had been spreading rumors among other aristocrats and business people.
“I was just in time! I hid all my family's treasures somewhere no one will find them! No one knows their location except me. I left the hiding place in a code. A code that can can only be deciphered by the Kinukawa family.”
Not knowing about Akihiro and his partner's encounter at the Kinukawa family villa, those who heard the story didn't know what “just in time” meant. However, what they did understand was that the Viscount had hidden treasure somewhere.
It was widely known that the Viscount was paranoid about having the Kinukawa family treasure stolen from him. All who heard him believed that his madness had finally reached a critical point, so they merely smiled in sympathy and paid him no further mind.
Of course, even if one was ambitious enough to try to take the treasure, it would be impossible to find. They would have had to outwit the Viscount and obtain the code, decipher that which only a member of the family could decipher, and then take the treasure without getting caught.
No one dared to accept that challenge while the Viscount Kinukawa still lived.
However, after about a dozen years, an unexpected event occurred that changed the situation considerably.
2 (2nd September, 1923)
It was almost midnight. Tokyo was still burning.
Stores, homes, schools, bridges, electrical poles, streetlights, everything man-made was destroyed. Horse-drawn carts and carriages loaded with people's belongings crowded streets filled with rubble.
The earthquake that struck at 11:58 A.M. on the 1st of September, the day before, threatened to destroy Tokyo. Vibrations that destroyed tens of thousands of buildings were followed by fires that had burned hundreds of thousands more, and still showed no signs of extinguishing.
No one knew how many had died. Corpses lay everywhere you looked. Not only those crushed in collapsing buildings or burned to death in the fires. Some had drowned in ponds and rivers, others were trampled under the running feet of the crowds, still more were beaten to death by those trapped in the grasp of rumors; none of them had been disposed of. Some of the survivors lay in improvised beds, seeking rest, others ignored the lateness of the night as they wandered in search of missing family.
On that night of horrors, Enokida, family retainer to the Minoshima household, ran to Akasaka.
He was moving on orders from Count Minoshima. With news of the deaths emerging from the chaos, the Count had given him a task that took priority over assisting in the aftermath of this disaster.
The disaster had struck without regard for social status. Samurai, the nobility, and even members of the Imperial Family had been injured and killed.
News of two particular families had quickly reached Count Minoshima's ears. Both the Orihara and Kinukawa families had been wiped out entirely.
Whether those reports were true was still unknown. However, Count Minoshima felt that he had to do something that could only be done in the midst of this chaos.
He would discover the location of the treasure hidden by Viscount Kinukawa. And he would take that treasure for himself.
Enokida's assignment was to go to the Kinukawa family's main house in Akasaka. There, he was to search the house, likely reduced to rubble, and find any clues to the treasure's hiding place, ideally the code itself.
Nothing man-made still worked: no railroad, no communications, no electricity, no water, no gas. Enokida made the over ten kilometer journey from Count Minoshima's residence in Hongo on foot.
Facing east from Iidabashi, the night was still lit by the eerie lights of the fires. All around was the roar of the blaze and the shouts of firefighters.
The streets of Tokyo were completely changed, and Enokida lost his way several times. As he hurried through the streets, he passed many victims of the disaster: a woman desperately trying to reattach her baby's severed head, a naked, soot covered girl rolling over the corpse of another girl her age, trying to borrow her kimono, an old man waving a fistful of bills, begging for someone to help him dig up his family's bodies.
When he finally reached Akasaka Ward, he found that, though many buildings had collapsed, the flames had not yet reached it.
Enokida searched for the Kinukawa family mansion, knowing it must look completely different.
When he finally found it, he saw it had crumbled and scattered as though it were a child's block sculpture someone had kicked over. The Kinukawa mansion was once a fine two-story brick building of over 100 square meters, but now the plants in its garden all lay broken and its pond was full of rubble.
Enokida immediately saw a maid at the entrance, crushed to death under the fallen roof. He'd heard that the Kinukawa family were caught up at a disaster at a banquet hall in Tokyo, so there were no members of the family inside the mansion.
It was here that he'd need to search for any clues the Viscount left behind.
It was just as Enokida shuddered at the thought that he noticed that he wasn't alone. There was someone else in the mansion.
A man was rummaging through the rubble.
A thief?
Opportunistic thieves ran rampant whenever a noble family or a jewelry store was destroyed.
However, this man wasn't acting like a common thief. He wasn't aimlessly searching for anything valuable. Like Enokida, he moved with a clear purpose.
Staring at the man by lantern light, Enokida realized his identity. It was Ryuichiro Hasebe, the eldest son of Viscount Hasebe.
Ryuichiro also recognized the man who'd arrived after him as Enokida, a servant of the Minoshima family. The Minoshima and Hasebe families knew each other through Viscount Kinukawa, so they'd met several times in the past.
Ryuichiro realized that Enokida was there for the same reason as himself. He was also taking advantage of the chaos to search for the Kinukawa family's million yen treasure. They were careful not to approach one another as they searched, and of course, they didn't say hello. Each was worried the other would find an important clue first.
By the time Ryuichiro arrived, thieves had already finished picking the mansion's bones. However, there was no way the thieves could have known about the Kinukawa family's hidden treasure, so they wouldn't have been interested in the code.
It wasn't clear what form the code would take. When he saw Enokida looking through the desk in Viscount Kinukawa's study, which he'd already searched, Ryuichiro worried that he may have overlooked something crucial.
But it was Ryuichiro who found it.
He found Viscount Kinukawa's secretary, crushed to death by a door near the stairs. Searching the chest pockets of his suit, he found a notebook. Tucked into the last page was a piece of paper which was, undoubtedly, the code left behind by Viscount Kinukawa.
とじらちわゐなへゐだをむよゑたとえさせちゐむゑてゑたこゐたゑゑりいふるとにたてのひたさけゐゆわへたへやふへほあかろさごまるりあすめるくき寳ちきけなきたゑりのふとけふちこりなへゑむひゐだなよひもえよよな
He had no idea what it meant. Reading it conventionally, it was just a series of nonsense syllables. The Viscount had boasted that it could only be understood by those from the Kinukawa family.
He looked up and saw Enokida casting a glance at him from the other side of the corridor. His light was shining on the paper, and it seemed he'd realized that Ryuichiro had found something.
Ryuichiro shuddered. Under normal circumstances, it might not have mattered, but under these circumstances, when it looked as though the world were ending, there was no guarantee Enokida wouldn't just kill Ryuichiro and take the code. He quickly stood up.
“I found what I was looking for! My business her is concluded. Excuse me.”
With that quick remark, Ryuichiro quickly left the Kinukawa residence. Looking back, he saw Enokida collapse to his knees in frustration.
The Hasebe family desperately studied the code.
Even as the imperial capital slowly recovered from the earthquake, they still couldn't decipher its meaning.
Count Minoshima, having had the code to the Kinukawa family's treasure snatched out from under his nose, refused to give up on the million yen fortune.
After the earthquake, he took up a strange new business, unbeknownst to anyone else.
In the confusion following the earthquake, he purchased a piece of land deep in the mountains of Kanagawa Prefecture, and there, he constructed a mansion with an unusual layout. The mansion was a perfect square, with a structure like tenement housing surrounding a courtyard. Within the courtyard was a hut of stone blocks with iron bars over the window.
The mansion had been constructed in secret as part of a scheme to obtain the hidden wealth, but, naturally, Count Minoshima didn't reveal the mansion's existence to anyone outside his family. The Hasebe family, who were rivals in their treasure hunt, were kept in the dark about the Count's plans.
However, Count Minoshima's plan didn't go smoothly.
A bit less than two years passed after the earthquake, and neither family was able to obtain the treasure.