1
It was almost dusk.
We were in the mountains of Kanagawa. The chill of the wind froze my legs in place. Yuriko and I were standing on the roof of the secret mansion built by Count Minoshima.
Looking down, I could see nearly twenty people in the garden. Everyone involved in the treasure hunt had gathered. The Hasebe family were there, consisting of Viscount Hasebe, his eldest and third sons, and their servants. Father was also there, having come in their car.
The Minoshima had arrived slightly later. Count Minoshima and his henchmen, plus my eldest sister, Noriko. The two families faced each other as though preparing for war, but their attention was focused on us up on the roof, forming a single, V-shaped formation.
Count Minoshima's men were growing restless, while the Hasebe were confused and wary. No one, myself included, knew what was about to happen.
“Alright. Everything's going according to plan.”
On the roof, Yuriko smiled at me.
Yuriko had been the one to call them all here. She'd asked Mr. Harumi to tell the Hasebe family about this place, specify when they should come, and make arrangements for their and Father's transportation.
Not only that, she'd even gathered the Minoshima family here. If they received a summons to a secret location no one else should have known about, they had no choice but to come.
One of the Count's men raised his voice.
“You! What are you planning? Do you realize that you've broken into someone else's private property without permission? Do you even know where you are?”
“Of course! I know everything.”
Yuriko held a throwing knife in her right hand and a crescent sword in her left, playing with them like toys.
Viscount Hasebe shouted out.
“I was told that if I came here, Mr. Minoshima's evil deeds would be revealed! Are you the one who summoned us?”
“Yep! I wanted you all to see all the bad things Mr. Minoshima's been up to.”
The crowd below grew tense.
Among Count Minoshima's subordinates was the old man with his hunting rifle. Yuriko pointed the tip of the crescent sword at the muzzle of the gun.
“Hey, you! You realize that even if you point that thing at us, you can't shoot. Isn't that right, Mr. The Count?”
“Y-Yes! She's right! That girl next to her is my daughter! Please, don't shoot.”
Father spoke for the first time.
Count Minoshima glared at us. He hadn't spoken once since his arrival. But, with remarkable obedience, he motioned for the old man to lower his rifle.
I turned around and looked behind me, and saw that the hut in the courtyard was completely still. It was dark inside and I couldn't see past the iron bars.
Mr. Yoshihisa must have been able to see us. I was sure he could sense the commotion from within his hut, but it seemed he'd chosen to hold his breath and watch the situation unfold.
As I said, Yuriko was the one to arrange for this standoff.
As we galloped from the ranch to the mansion and climbed up on the roof, the guards heard us and ran outside, appearing in the garden and aiming their guns at Yuriko.
At that moment, three cars containing the Hasebe family arrived. All they saw was an old man aiming a hunting rifle at a young girl on the roof. There was no way the guards could drive away the entire Hasebe family. Count Minoshima and his men arrived afterwards, and the formation was complete.
I had followed Yuriko onto the roof without knowing what she was planning, but wasn't this terribly dangerous? If the timing had been off by a second, couldn't Yuriko have been killed? Or Mr. Yoshihisa? Or me?
Yuriko danced across the sloped roof, glaring down at her audience.
I felt like an acrobat who'd been suddenly shoved in front of an audience without a day's practice. Still, I couldn't just stand there, frozen like a coward. I didn't know what she was planning, but I had to stand with Yuriko.
“What is it Count Minoshima did? Tell us!”
Ryuichiro, the eldest son of the Hasebe family, said that. From the suspicious look in his eyes, I suspected he recognized us from the garden party.
“Of course! I'll tell you everything. Is that okay, Mr. The Count? I don't have any choice but to tell everyone what I know. Otherwise, there's no way we can have this talk. Right?”
Yuriko brazenly asked the Count.
It seemed Yuriko's goal was to expose Count Minoshima's crimes to the public. But then what? What if the Count grew desperate? Could we really close the curtain on such a hostile crowd and save Mr. Yoshihisa without anyone getting hurt? I never expected that our treasure hunt would end with a scene more appropriate for the ending of a detective novel.
It seemed the mystery was about to be solved. Yuriko began to speak, making operatic gestures as she went.
2
“Okay! First, let me tell you about Viscount Kinukawa. Both Mr. Minoshima and Mr. Hasebe are trying to get their hands on the treasure he hid. So that's where we've got to start.”
“You all already know that in 1911, Viscount Kinukawa hid his treasure somewhere because he was afraid of it being stolen, right? You all know that story better than I do. I don't even know where I was or what I was doing in 1911.”
“But I bet none of you knew about this! In October of that year, a thief broke into the Viscount's villa and saw the treasure disappear like magic. Am I right?”
I remembered how we'd heard that from Kashida, the former thief.
Kashida and Akihiro Orihara had broken into the villa in Ōme after a sudden rainstorm. They'd confirmed that the villa was empty. Then they'd tried to break into the room where the treasure was stored, only to break their lockpick.
The two of them left the villa to get a replacement, being gone about two hours. They returned to find no signs of anyone having entered after them. And yet, when they returned, the treasure was gone without a trace.
Ryuichiro Hasebe yelled
“Do you know the answer to that mystery? Do you know how the treasure disappeared?”
“Yeah! I do!”
The members of the Hasebe family had heard about that incident from Kashida.
“So who did it, and how? Was it Viscount Kinukawa's doing after all?”
“Yep! Viscount Kinukawa planned it all. At least I think so. I don't actually have any proof, so it could have been someone else.”
“But everyone from back then's dead now, so it doesn't really matter. What's important is how they hid the treasure, and why. And that ties into Count Minoshima's evil plan.”
Yuriko kept hinting at Count Minoshima's secrets.
And it sounded like she was referring to more than just his kidnapping of the unknown surviving member of the Kinukawa family. Was there some other evil deed he'd committed that I didn't know about?
“Hey! I think you already know why Viscount Kinukawa did that, Mr. Minoshima. But I bet you don't know how. Am I right?”
Count Minoshima, who had been silent thus far, suddenly yelled at her.
“Don't address me so casually, girl! You stuck your head in where it doesn't belong like a meddlesome little gutter rat, and you ended up ruining everything! Go ahead and tell your story. I'll listen to the end.”
“'Kay, I'll tell you what Viscount Kinukawa did. Let me start by explaining how he did it.”
“Mr. Hasebe, did you know that in 1911, the thieves made a terrible mistake when they tried to break into the villa?”
Ryuichiro replied.
“I did! I heard Akihiro Orihara killed the villa's guard!”
“Right. Akihiro accidentally killed the guard while trying to stop him from running away.”
“Then he hid the body in his car and went back into the forest to check if he'd left any evidence at the scene. After that, he went back to the villa.”
“I think that was when Viscount Kinukawa noticed there was a thief trying to break into his villa. Viscounts are sensitive people, aren't they? Everyone knew that the Kinukawa family were in Tokyo, so he got worried about leaving the villa empty and snuck off to check on it. Then he saw that his guard had been murdered.”
Yuriko had pointed out the same possibility when we visited the villa the other day.
“Wait a minute! Are you saying that Viscount Kinukawa had a sudden premonition, went back to the villa, and just so happened to notice that there was a thief?”
“Yeah.”
“So Viscount Kinukawa hadn't known someone was there until he arrived at the villa. Are you saying he came up with the plan to prevent the treasure from being stolen after arriving at the villa?”
“Yep! That's it.”
Ryuichiro was skeptical.
“Is that even possible? He returned to the villa and suddenly found the guard dead. Could he really have come up with such an impressive magic trick to make the treasure disappear on the spot?”
“You're thinking about it backwards. If the Viscount had known in advance that a thief was coming, he wouldn't have needed to perform any magic tricks. It's because he unexpectedly stumbled on them that he had to do something like that.”
“What do you mean?”
I couldn't understand what Yuriko was saying, and neither could anyone else. When Yuriko realized that, she gave an innocent laugh.
“Alright then, I'll tell you the story. The story of how Viscount Kinukawa, who suddenly found a thief, made the treasure disappear from a villa nobody could enter or leave.”
“It was about ten o'clock at night. In the mountains after the rain, the Viscount found the guard at his villa murdered and saw his body being carried out of the forest. Watching from afar, he saw the culprits stuff the body into a sack of grain and load it into a car. After that, the culprits returned to search for evidence in the forest.”
“The Viscount took that opportunity to take the guard's body out of the car, strip him naked, and hide his body out in the grass. Then, he put on the guard's clothes, got in the sack himself, and got in the back seat of the car, dressed just like the corpse.”
Everyone was stunned by what Yuriko was saying.
“Wait. So Viscount Kinukawa decided to pretend to be a corpse and get in the culprits' car instead of calling the police?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Why? Even if his family treasure was about to be stolen, why would he have done something so dangerous?”
“I'll explain later. First, I have to finish telling you what he did. He hid in the car until the thieves came back. Then, not knowing that the corpse had been replaced by the Viscount, they drove the car up to the villa.”
“When they arrived at the villa, the thieves got out of the car and went up to the entrance.”
“Then, before they broke in, they walked around the villa to scope it out. Because they were afraid someone might be inside.”
“After the thieves left, Viscount Kinukawa got out of the car and went up to the front door. He'd seen them leave a twig leaning against the door, so he knew to move it out of the way.”
“Then, he opened the front door and entered the villa. Since it was his villa, of course he had a key.”
“Once he was inside, the Viscount quietly snuck into the servants' room. There, he crept up on the second guard, who was fast asleep, and strangled him to death. That was how he created a second corpse.”
“He killed him?” someone asked. “Viscount Kinukawa saw thieves going to break into his villa and responded by killing his own guard?”
“Yeah! There was a second guard inside the villa. Just as the thieves had feared.”
“After the murder, the Viscount carried the body back out the front door, put the twig back against the door, and returned to the car, stuffing the second guard's body into the grain sack in place of himself and leaving it back in the back seat.”
“Maybe the Viscount swapped clothes with the corpse again. But if the guard killed by Akihiro and the guard killed by the Viscount had similar clothes, he might not have needed to. I don't know.”
“Now, the thieves finished going around the villa and returned to the entrance. The slope around the villa made it hard to walk, and the two of them were being careful, giving the Viscount plenty of time to commit the murder. Also, apparently the wind that day was strong, so they wouldn't have noticed any small noises.”
“When the thieves got back to the front door, they found the twig propped up right where they'd left it, so they never thought that another murderer had come while they were gone. They forced open the door and looked in each room of the villa to see if there was anyone hiding, but of course, there wasn't. So they thought that there had never been anyone in the villa at all.”
“Relieved, the thieves set about opening the door to the treasure room on the first floor. The Viscount then emerged from behind the car and entered the villa, hiding on the second floor.”
“As he watched the thieves, he got lucky. They broke their lockpick and had to leave to get a new one.”
“When the thieves returned to their car to go into town, they checked on the body, but of course they didn't realize it had been swapped. Akihiro probably didn't realize anything when he dumped it, either.”
“Akihiro must have been seriously panicking, and it was the body of a complete stranger he'd killed in a dark forest. I don't see how he could have noticed that it had been swapped with someone else, especially if the clothes were the same.”
“There are stories in detective novels where the murderer makes it look like they couldn't have gotten in or out of the crime scene, but this was the exact opposite. The culprit only committed the murder so that they could go in and out of the crime scene.”
“Did you all see? There was an article in the newspaper that said that in October 1911, after the one guard was found murdered, another guard went missing.”
I remembered. That was the article I'd read at the Ueno library.
Count Minoshima's henchmen and the Hasebe family both remained silent, but I got the feeling they agreed with Yuriko. Since they were also searching for the treasure, it was likely they had also checked the newspapers from that time.
Yuriko continued.
“Anyway, now that Viscount Kinukawa was able to get into the villa without the thieves noticing, all he had to do was make the treasure disappear.”
“'All he had to do'? How did he do it? That's the hardest part. He didn't leave any traces behind, you know?”
Ryuichiro made a sensible point.
“Not at all. That was the easiest part of the Viscount's whole plan.”
“When the thieves went to town, the Viscount opened the door to the treasure room. He took all the treasure out of the room. I think he put them in a series of strong bags, like more grain sacks. He smashed all the big vases and sawed the wooden Buddhas into pieces.”
“Then, with all his might, the Viscount threw all the treasure out the window into the river! See? All the treasure disappeared without leaving a trace.”
Everyone was stunned by the truth Yuriko had revealed.
He had assumed the form of a corpse to get into the thieves' car. Then, while the thieves were investigating his villa, he went inside and killed the other guard, just to create a corpse, which he put in the car to take his place. And when the thieves left, he threw all his treasure into a river. That was what Viscount Kinukawa had done.
Ryuichiro argued.
“That's ridiculous! He went to all the trouble of hiding in the thieves' car and killing the guard at his own villa, but then he threw all the treasure in the river? Was Viscount Kinukawa crazy?”
“He wasn't crazy. Well, I mean, yeah he was, he killed a guy. But he thought he was doing the right thing.”
“How could that be the right thing?”
“Think about it this way: what Viscount Kinukawa was trying to protect wasn't the treasure. It was a secret.”
“A secret? What secret?”
Yuriko had mentioned that back in the library. The existence of the guard had interfered with Viscount Kinukawa's ability to keep some secret.
“And when it came to that treasure, Viscount Kinukawa had a big secret. You can figure it out when you realize that the Viscount killed the guard at his villa and dumped all his treasure in the river, plus a few other things.”
“First, about a year before the incident, the Viscount met with an English watch dealer named Richard Rockwell at his villa in Ōme. Did any of you know about that? Mariko saw it in a newspaper.”
It was Viscount Hasebe who answered.
“I do recall that at the end of the Meiji era, Mr. Rockwell had a meeting with Viscount Kinukawa during his visit to Japan. I don't know the details of their meeting, however...”
“Yeah! Nobody does! The Viscount probably didn't want anyone to know why they met. The important thing is that Rockwell guy was famous for collecting art. That's what it said in the newspaper.”
“Another thing: after the incident in 1911, the Viscount told a bunch of people that he hid the treasure.”
“If that treasure was so important, you'd think he'd want to keep it a secret, right? But then, it's strange that he went around telling so many people about how he'd hidden it and made that code, even though nobody asked. It's like he was bragging.”
Viscount Hasebe responded again.
“I assumed Viscount Kinukawa was confident in how well he'd hidden the treasure, and wanted to show it off.”
“Yeah, that's what everyone thought. But they were wrong.”
“Now! A question for everyone. Everyone here is searching for the treasure, right? But what you all want isn't a pretty wall scroll or an antique clock, is it? No, you all want money. Do I have that right?”
Yuriko's words had a strange childishness to them that made them sound sarcastic even though she was completely sincere.
The nobles gathered in the garden below all looked embarrassed in the face of such innocence. Of course, none of them could deny that their interest in the Viscount's treasure was entirely motivated by money.
“There's no need to be embarrassed! Everyone's like that. Viscount Kinukawa himself was like that.”
“By the way, Mariko! You know stuff like this. If you had a valuable heirloom, how easy would it be to turn it into money.”
Yuriko suddenly pointed her crescent blade at me.
What was she talking about? I answered, loud enough that I could be understood by those down in the garden.
“...It wouldn't be easy. Heirlooms are symbols of familial honor, so if you were to give them up, you would feel bad for your ancestors, and those around you might say that your family had fallen to ruin.”
As I answered, I looked down at Father, who was watching his daughter cause such commotion with a worried look on his face.
My family had experienced the misery of being forced to sell our property. Besides, when the creditor Yuriko had come to our mansion, Father, fearing what he'd be made to do to pay off his debts, tried to protect his family heirlooms in a most unsightly way.
“Right. I'm sure everyone here can agree with that. Now, try to think about how Viscount Kinukawa felt.”
“The Viscount had a treasure worth over a million yen. But that wasn't the same thing as having a million yen. It was a treasure he'd inherited from his ancestors, which he was very proud of. Like Mariko said, if he sold it, it would tarnish his family's reputation.”
We lived in an age when it was common for members of the nobility to sell their family heirlooms to escape financial troubles, but back in the Meiji era, it wasn't so common that one could sell one million yen worth of heirlooms without drawing the public's attention.
“And even if you did have a treasure worth one million yen, if you had to take care of it to keep it from getting damaged and worry about having it stolen, isn't it just a burden? But you couldn't just get rid of it, either. To the Viscount, that treasure was nothing but a nuisance.”
“Just as he was thinking that, a wealthy foreigner who loved art by the name of Rockwell came to visit him in his home.”
“If you think about it, you can probably imagine what Viscount Kinukawa did, right? He must have seen a golden opportunity to turn the treasure into money without anyone finding out. If he sold it in Japan, rumors would have spread that he'd given up his treasure, but with a foreigner, it would be fine. And since he was rich, he could turn it all into money. Such convenient things don't happen very often.”
“So, you mean...”
Ryuichiro spoke up.
“When the thieves broke into the villa in 1911, Viscount Kinukawa had already sold the treasure? He'd had it converted into cash?”
“That's right.”
“Then what was the treasure kept in the treasure room of the villa?”
“Fake, of course! The Viscount had fakes on display in that room so his guests wouldn't get suspicious. I doubt they were very well made, though.”
“Now, remember what Viscount Kinukawa did.”
“The Viscount killed his own guard. He did that because he caught thieves trying to break into his villa. Do you know what the Viscount feared most at that time?”
“He feared that someone would find out he'd secretly already sold his precious treasure. If that were to become known, the reputation of the Kinukawa family would be destroyed.”
Not only had he given away the family treasure, but he'd done so in an underhanded manner, keeping it a secret from the world. It was surely the Viscount's greatest shame.
“But the thieves were going to break into the villa any second. And there was another guard in the villa.”
“The guard must have known the treasure was fake. The deal with Rockwell had been made in the villa he guarded.”
“So if the guard and the thieves had run into each other, the thieves might have interrogated the guard and learned the secret.”
“So Viscount Kinukawa ran ahead of the thieves and silenced the guard!”
“Right. As long as the guard was alive, the Viscount would worry about his secret being leaked. So he decided to just kill him.”
“By using the corpse substitution trick, the Viscount was able to sneak into the villa without the thieves noticing. Then, as he waited to see what they would do, he saw them break their tools. While they were gone, he decided to destroy the fake treasure as well.”
“Of course, he had to do it without leaving any evidence, or the thieves might realize what had happened.”
“After throwing the fake treasure in the river, he quietly waited in the villa for them to return. When they did, he snuck back outside and hid behind their car.”
“When the two of them cried out in shock at the treasure's disappearance and ran out of the villa, the Viscount went back inside. When the thieves ran away, the trick was a success. All that was left to do was to dispose of the remaining guard's body, and that was the end of that.”
“Now you see why Viscount Kinukawa was boasting about how he'd hidden the treasure somewhere no one would find it, right? It was to trick people into thinking he still had the treasure, when actually, it no longer belonged to the Kinukawa family. It was all so nobody would be suspicious that the treasure room in the villa was empty.”
“The Viscount left the fake treasure in the villa for about a year to keep people from getting suspicious. If the treasure had disappeared right after he met with Rockwell, people would suspect he'd sold it to him.”
“Alright! That's everything Viscount Kinukawa did! That way, even though he'd turned his treasure into money, he still got to keep the honor of owning it! That was everything the Viscount wanted.”
The people below whispered to each other, confirming the details of Yuriko's theory. Knowing what they did about Viscount Kinukawa's character, they were forced to accept the truth.
Viscount Hasebe's shoulders slumped.
“So, then, the Kinukawa family never had any hidden treasure to begin with? We went to all that trouble, and I even lost my Ryujiro...”
A sense of emptiness welled up within me, as well.
But Yuriko's expression didn't change.
“That's not true. There is a hidden treasure. Otherwise, Viscount Kinukawa wouldn't have made a code. And besides, Ryujiro Hasebe must have managed to solve the code correctly. Otherwise he wouldn't have died.”
“What?”
Yuriko suddenly went straight to the heart of the matter, throwing the Hasebe family into an uproar.
“Ryujiro? What do you know?”
“You'll understand if you just think it through. Well, the question now is, what exactly did Viscount Kinukawa hide, and where did he hide it?”
3
“Viscount Kinukawa got a million yen by selling his treasure. But he wasn't sure what to do with the money.”
“A million yen's a lot of money, so if anyone found out he had it, they'd realize he'd sold the treasure. Even if he deposited it in a bank, there might still be rumors.”
“The Viscount was more afraid of that than anything, so he made a code and, just like he'd said he had, he hid the money instead of the treasure. He was also worried about keeping the money in his own home. And, in fact, a thief did break into his villa.”
“Money's easier to hide than treasure. Whether it's in yen or dollars, if you use bills worth 100 each, it doesn't take up much space.”
Ryuichiro had a question.
“So, you mean the art pieces were all converted into cash, and we should just take Viscount Kinukawa at his word? If we decipher the code, it will point us to the money's hiding place?”
“Yep! That's it! To get the million yen, you have to solve the code.”
“That's the part you've been struggling with, though, Mr. Hasebe. But it's okay now! Because Mariko just solved the code! So you don't have to worry about that anymore.”
“Come on, Mariko! Tell everyone! How do we read the code?”
“Um?”
I was confused. Weren't we supposed to find the treasure before the others?
“Is it okay to tell everyone now?”
“Sure! Since you figured it out, just tell us.”
“Really? ...Well, alright then.”
I threw my copy of the hiragana code into the garden. It fluttered to the ground and Ryuichiro picked it up.
“That was very rude of me, I'm so sorry.”
Without understanding Yuriko's purpose, I began to explain.
“I was able to decipher the 100 characters of the code by comparing them to the wallpaper in the Kinukawa family villa. Did you know that the wallpaper was the key to solving the code, Mr. Hasebe?”
“Now that I think about it, Ryujiro did say something about the wallpaper in the villa...”
Ryuichiro's words were vague. As I'd expected, Ryujiro hadn't told his family much about the code.
I explained about the clock pattern on the wall, and how I'd solved the code by following that pattern.
“...And it formed that page.”
“But this still doesn't make any sense. How do we interpret this? It's just a bunch of random sentences.”
“You're right. It's a jumble of sentences that make sense and sentences that don't.”
“I thought long and hard about how to read it to find the hiding place, and the first things that caught my eye were 'First, we is red' and 'Then, yo is white.”
“Really? Those are the parts that are least clear...”
“Yes. The problem is that their meaning isn't clear, because the characters 'よ' and 'ゑ' don't have any particular meaning.”
“Those two hiragana characters both have small circles in their designs, don't they? That is what's important. Another important detail is that '寶' is the only character in the message not written in hiragana.”
“What that means is that the code itself is the map.”
“The message is exactly 100 characters long, right? And there are the sentences 'Measure it with a square', 'Break the corner', and 'Do not forget that it is also a corner'.”
“'Measure it with a square' doesn't mean to actually measure something with a carpenter's square, but to measure a location on a square grid.”
“What we need to do is turn these 100 characters into a single square block of text. The two instances of the word 'corner' represent the top left and bottom right corners of the square.”
“That is the map which reveals the hiding place.”
That was what I'd realized just half a day ago as I took care of Katsuyo at the ranch. The rambling strings of sentences were a map of coordinates.
Ryuichiro appeared to have copied the code into his own notebook as I'd explained it.
“I see. If this is a map, how do we read it?”
“The circle of the 'yo' represents the Kinukawa family villa. The villa is a white plaster building.”
“The circle of the 'we' represents the Kinukawa main house. It was a brick building in Akasaka, although it collapsed in the earthquake.”
“Using those two points as references, the kanji for 'treasure' – '寶' – must be the location where the Viscount hid the money. Specifically, the '王' radical, which means 'king'. The code says 'the treasure is kept by a nobleman', so I believe that's the most likely interpretation.”
“To indicate an unknown location requires a minimum of three landmarks: two known points and a destination.”
“I see. So if you overlay these three coordinates on an actual map...”
“Yes, sir.”
A Hasebe family servant took out a map. Ryuichiro carefully measured his notebook on the map.
“Of course, this method doesn't allow you to mark the exact hiding place. A tiny slip in the handwriting on the code could translate into an error of hundreds or even thousands of meters.”
“That's why the code also says how to find the hiding place using a torii gate as a landmark. Once you know the approximate location, you just need to find the torii gate there and measure sixteen blocks northwest.”
“I see...”
I watched with bated breath as Ryuichiro carefully estimated the location on the map, leaving marks as he went.
Then, with a puzzled look on his face, he spoke.
“Is this really it? 'Yo' is the villa, 'we' is the main house, and the 'treasure' kanji marks the hiding place? From what I can see on the map, it looks like the hiding place is... right near here...”
“Huh?”
This was the location of the hidden treasure?
I looked back to Yuriko.
She was giving the satisfied smile of someone whose theory had just been confirmed.
“What? This is where the treasure's hidden? This is–”
At that moment, Count Minoshima screamed at Yuriko and I with a hideous grimace.
“Stop! Do you two understand that if you say what you're about to, you can never take it back?”
I flinched at his rage. But Yuriko didn't care and urged me onward.
“What is it, Mariko?”
“This is the secret mansion Count Minoshima built to keep Mr. Yoshihisa Kinukawa locked away. Why is this the hiding place?”
Yuriko took a brief look back at the courtyard, then said:
“The truth is, everything you just said is wrong. Count Minoshima didn't build this place to lock up Mr. Yoshihisa Kinukawa.”
“The person living in that hut isn't Mr. Yoshihisa Kinukawa. It's Mr. Akihiro Orihara. Building this mansion wasn't Count Minoshima's idea, but something Mr. Akihiro made him do. It was so he could hide here and wait out the statute of limitations on the murder he committed in 1911.”
4
At that moment, the sun began to disappear behind the mountains, and it became as dark as though the curtain had fallen on a play.
No one spoke. The members of the Hasebe family couldn't comprehend what Yuriko had revealed.
Count Minoshima dripped with sweat and didn't breathe, as though he were waiting for a dynamite explosion outside a coal mine. Yuriko's words must have lit the fuse.
The hut in the courtyard remained silent. However, the person inside the hut must have heard Yuriko.
Even I remained at a loss for words for a while. The person in there – the one I'd snuck in to meet and exchanged words with twice – was Akihiro Orihara.
“What are you saying, Miss Yuriko? Didn't Mr. Akihiro Orihara die in the earthquake?”
“You said the same thing about Yoshihisa Kinukawa.”
“That's true, but...”
I felt so dizzy I nearly fell off the slanted roof.
“He told us he'd been kidnapped by Count Minoshima and forced to decipher the code, didn't he?”
“That was a lie. He lied.”
“And his being worried that the Count would kill him if we found the treasure?”
“Also a lie. A complete and total lie.”
“...Then what exactly have we been doing this whole time? He was the one who gave us clues to decipher the code, wasn't he?”
“Yeah. He was.”
Yuriko spoke sympathetically, then turned back to yell to the hut in the courtyard.
“Hey, Mr. Akihiro! What should I do? Can I tell them? It'd be easier for everyone if you did the talking yourself.”
There was no immediate reply.
But soon, without anyone visibly appearing in the window, a voice echoed.
“I don't feel like making the effort. Say whatever you want!”
The voice reverberated around me and over the people gathered in the garden, as startling as a sudden thunderclap and frightening as the roar of an unseen monster.
Could that voice really belong to the haggard man who had called himself Yoshihisa Kinukawa?
Back then, he had spoken in a soft, resigned whisper, but what I'd just heard was the agonized scream of a demon, repenting at the exposure of his crimes.
Yuriko spun back to face her audience like a music box figurine.
“Allow me to explain! Mr. Minoshima, that's fine with you, right? I'll tell everyone what really happened. But there's still a lot I don't know! So if I'm wrong, please correct me, Mr. Akihiro, Mr. The Count.”
“Now, about Mr. Akihiro's story. The first thing you need to do is ask yourself what Mr. Akihiro did after the incident in 1911.”
What Mr. Akihiro did after committing the murder?
Looking back, I hadn't thought about it.
“Oh! But before that, a quick survey. Who here knew Mr. Akihiro Orihara before the earthquake? Come on! Raise your hands!”
Yuriko said that, once again displaying an unusual knowledge for such an uneducated girl.
No one will raise their hand just because you asked, they aren't kindergartners... Just as I thought that, Father started to raise his right hand, but, looking around at the others, withdrew it.
Viscount Hasebe answered verbally, without moving his hands.
“I have know for a long time that the Orihara family had an eldest son by the name of Akihiro. However, the Orihara kept his existence a secret. It has been a long time since I last heard his name.”
Father looked as though he wanted to say something, but he didn't have the courage to speak up.
“So, had anyone here met Mr. Akihiro Orihara before the earthquake?”
This time, nobody reacted.
“That sounds right. Mr. Akihiro Orihara was someone whose existence had been hidden from the public for a long time.”
“The full explanation starts before the incident in 1911. There was a reason why Mr. Akihiro was treated like a nuisance by his own family.”
“We heard this story from Kashida: Akihiro's mother was involved in a criminal case when she stabbed someone, and since then, he wasn't allowed to go outside.”
“So, Mr. Akihiro committed a murder. He accidentally killed the villa's guard.”
“That must have been a big problem for the Orihara family. After all, it would have come out that Mr. Akihiro was the culprit.”
I interjected.
“Really? Did he leave some evidence behind?”
“Think about it from Mr. Akihiro's perspective. He was trying to steal something, but then, in the moment he took his eyes of the treasure, it disappeared. If that happened, it was only natural to conclude that the one who made the treasure disappear knew that he was stealing, right? They would have known that he killed the guard.”
“I see! You're right!”
Viscount Kinukawa had seen Akihiro carry the body back to his car and break into the villa. He may not have recognized him as Akihiro Orihara at the time, but he would certainly remember his face.
“So, if Viscount Kinukawa talked to the police, Mr. Akihiro would be caught instantly. But that didn't happen, because Viscount Kinukawa had also committed a murder. But of course, Mr. Orihara didn't know that.”
“And then there's the matter of the thief he worked with. He also knew that Mr. Akihiro had committed murder.”
It was Kashida, the accomplice. Since he hadn't agreed to help with a murder, there was no guarantee he wouldn't betray Akihiro by telling someone.
“That isn't the only evidence. After the incident, a policeman found a button with fingerprints on it near the guardhouse. I had Grandpa Harumi look into it.”
“Hey, Mr. Akihiro! That was your button they found, wasn't it?”
“It was! I thought I'd checked my belongings, but when I got home, I realized I was missing a button.”
This time he answered quickly.
I didn't know what was going through his mind. But it was at least clear that he had no intention of hiding his true identity any longer.
“Well then! He committed a murder and left behind that much evidence. The Orihara family must have thought long and hard about what to do with Mr. Akihiro.”
“And they must have decided that this was the best thing they could do:”
“They locked Mr. Akihiro up in their mansion and never let him leave. Then, they'd act as though he never existed in the first place and wait. Wait until the statute of limitations on the murder ran out and there was no longer any need to worry about him being caught by the police.”
“How about it, Mr. Akihiro? Do I have anything wrong so far?”
“No. Since October of 1911, my family kept me locked in one room. It was perfect for them! I was shunned by my family long before that. If I committed a murder, there was no other way they could respond. If I ever went outside, there was no guarantee I wouldn't be caught.”
“I had limited freedom even before then, but since that day I've lived no differently than a prisoner. Though I suppose I have no right to complain. I didn't want to be arrested by the police, either.”
I perfectly understood his position. Of course the Orihara family couldn't let a murderer leave their home. They had to protect their honor.
Viscount Kinukawa killed the guard to hide that he'd already sold his family's heirlooms, and the Orihara family had imprisoned their own oldest son. Both acts were expressions of the weight they placed on familial honor.
Yuriko continued.
“But it's really hard to wait out a whole statute of limitations. Mariko, how long is the statute of limitations for murder?”
“It's... fifteen years.”
“You'd have to stay locked up for fifteen years. I sure couldn't do that. It'd be like the Count of Monte Cristo. I'd definitely find a way to escape.”
“But that's what Mr. Akihiro did. He hid there for ten years, without being found by anyone.”
“I guess it worked. Most people didn't even know Mr. Akihiro existed, and no one had ever met him. The murder wasn't solved.”
That certainly did sound like something that could have happened to Akihiro.
But I still didn't understand. Even if Akihiro did need to hide until the statute of limitations for the murder passed, why was he in that courtyard?
“Miss Yuriko, what happened after that? You said that Mr. Akihiro had Count Minoshima build this mansion, correct? What are the two of them doing here? It must have something to do with the earthquake...”
“Yeah, I'll explain that now. To put it simply, it's like this:”
“Mr. Akihiro isn't locked in that hut out in the courtyard, he's barricading himself in it. He's holding Viscount Kinukawa's money hostage. If anyone tries to drag him out by force before the statute of limitations runs out, Mr. Akihiro will set the one million yen in bills on fire.”
“That's why Count Minoshima had to build this mansion around the hut to protect Mr. Akihiro until the statute of limitations runs out. It was all so he could get his hands on the million yen.”
5
I couldn't immediately comprehend what Yuriko had said.
“The million yen is in that hut? With Mr. Akihiro?”
“Yeah.”
No one spoke. The Hasebe family seemed unable to believe the shocking secret of the courtyard without having seen it.
Count Minoshima's henchmen also remained silent, as though they were afraid a single word could bring about their downfall.
Yuriko continued speaking to her silent audience.
“So, let me tell you how it came to this. Mr. Akihiro managed to remain in hiding in his mansion until 11:58 A.M., September 1st, 1923. Then, something terrible happened that threw all of Mr. Orihara's plans into disarray.”
“The earthquake.”
Someone quietly added to Yuriko's monologue.
“Yeah. There was a big earthquake. The mansion collapsed, and everyone in the Orihara family died. I wonder what happened to Mr. Akihiro at that time? Well, he was locked in a secure cell, so it isn't surprising that he was the only one to survive.”
“Mr. Akihiro was in trouble, though. His family and his home, which had been his only protection from the outside world, were gone. He probably didn't even have any possessions left. He had been locked up for all that time, and then he was suddenly thrust into a burning Tokyo with nothing but his clothes.”
“What could he do? There were still three more years until the statute of limitations on the murder expired. If it were possible, he would have wanted to hide somewhere and quietly wait for them to pass. But running and hiding both cost money.”
“So Mr. Akihiro decided to search for the hidden treasure of the Kinukawa family.”
“...Mr. Akihiro did the same thing as Mr. Minoshima and Mr. Hasebe.”
“Yep! Viscount Kinukawa had created a code leading to the hiding place, and Mr. Akihiro heard about it from inside his cell. Mr. Akihiro must have started by looking for the code. So? Where'd you find it?”
Akihiro, who was supposed to be holding one million yen hostage, answered with disquieting frankness.
“On Viscount Kinukawa's body! The first thing I did was search for the Viscount's corpse. The banquet hall where the Kinukawa family met their ends wasn't far from the Orihara mansion.”
“And then, Mr. Akihiro solved it using the wallpaper in the Kinukawa mansion. That wallpaper was used in both the villa and the main house.”
Akihiro was able to decipher the code? I didn't understand.
“Wait a moment. There's something strange about that. You may have had a hunch that Viscount Kinukawa had the code, but how did you know that the wallpaper was the key to deciphering it? You'd been confined to your mansion all that time–”
“It's the opposite. It was because he was confined that he thought of the Kinukawa's wallpaper. In fact, after the Kinukawa family and the craftsman who made it, he was the person who had the most experience with that wallpaper.”
“When he broke into the villa in 1911, while his hired thief was trying to pick the lock on the door to the treasure room, he was waiting out in the hallway, right? That was when he noticed the strange pattern on the wallpaper.”
“He might have even traced it with his finger and realized it had a clock pattern. Well? Did you?”
“Right again! I didn't realize the wallpaper formed a pattern of clocks at the time, but I had over a decade to think on it. When I heard that Viscount Kinukawa had created some sort of code, I thought to myself that perhaps that wallpaper was the key.”
“Got it? So that's why, when the earthquake happened, Mr. Akihiro became the first person to crack the code, faster than anyone else.”
“I see. I understand.”
But still, there were many things that didn't make sense to me...
Yuriko turned back to her audience in the garden.
“Mr. Akihiro had the code, then he returned to the Kinukawa mansion to solve it.”
“Count Minoshima's henchman and Mr. Ryuichiro Hasebe had already been to the mansion, which had collapsed during the earthquake. Mr. Akihiro must have arrived after Mr. Ryuichiro left. So Mr. Akihiro was able to solve the code, then go straight to the treasure's hiding place.”
“The code said that the hiding place was right here where we are now. That's right, Mariko, what was that phrase in the code?”
“It was 'Sixteen blocks northwest of the torii gate, the treasure is a filthy sight'.”
“That's right. I couldn't find any torii gates around here, so it must have collapsed in the earthquake and been cleaned away. But the ruins must have been there at the time. Mr. Akihiro came to the area marked on the map and found the hut in the mountains. Right?”
“That's right.”
According to “Yoshihisa Kinukawa”, he had been kidnapped by Count Minoshima and locked in that dirty hut, but that wasn't the case... Akihiro had come here of his own free will.
“See? You know where the hiding place is now, right? The filthy sight. The hole of the toilet in that hut! Viscount Kinukawa hid the million yen in there.”
The members of the Hasebe family all groaned and sighed.
The hidden treasure we were all looking for had been found two years ago.
Really, what a man Viscount Kinukawa had been! We could only marvel at how well hidden the money was. There was little risk of it being discovered accidentally this deep in the mountains, and no one would think to look for money in a toilet. If it were hidden under the toilet's lid, it would be easier to retrieve than if he'd buried it somewhere.
“And that's how Mr. Akihiro found the million yen. But he couldn't just take it and run.”
“Why not?”
It wasn't Yuriko who answered my question. Akihiro's voice rang out from the hut.
“Because Count Minoshima's men, who had been following me, surrounded the hut!”
It was a sharp, piercing shout. The Hasebes were surprised, and Minoshima's henchmen flinched.
No matter how angry Akihiro grew or how panicked the crowd in the garden were, Yuriko remained calm.
“Yes, Count Minoshima's men also came here straight after the earthquake. You were the one who chased Mr. Akihiro, right? How did you find him?”
Yuriko pointed the tip of her crescent sword at the Minoshima family's servant.
On the night of September 2nd, a servant named Enokida had gone to the Kinukawa family's mansion to find the code.
Enokida hesitated to speak. But Count Minoshima whispered “Tell them.”
“I was searching in the ruins of the Kinukawa family's home on the orders of the Count. That was when I ran into him–”
The servant pointed to Ryuichiro Hasebe.
“–He was the first to discover the copy of the code held by the Kinukawa family's secretary. As soon as he found it, he left me. I refused to give up and searched for further clues in the rubble. That was when Akihiro Orihara arrived.”
The servant grew more cautious upon the mention of Akihiro's name.
“I watched his actions in secret. I saw him use the wallpaper to decipher the code.”
“I realized what he was doing when he threw away a piece of the code he had deciphered incorrectly. When I saw that, I left to gather additional forces.”
“So that was it. Mr. Akihiro, you're so careless. So, just when you thought you'd found the million yen, Count Minoshima's minions surrounded you in the hut.”
“So, what did Mr. Akihiro do? If he'd tried to fight, he'd lose. They'd take away the million yen. But he needed that money to hide for the three years.”
“So, Mr. Akihiro decided not to leave the hut. He forced Count Minoshima to hide him.”
“By holding the one million yen hostage?”
“Yeah. Mr. Akihiro threatened Count Minoshima's henchmen, saying that if they tried to enter the hut, he'd burn the money. He agreed to hand over the million yen once the three years had passed.”
“And Count Minoshima was willing to agree?”
“Guess so.”
“So you mean to say that Mr. Akihiro has been threatening the Count this entire time? Threatening to burn the money?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Even now?”
“Of course! There's still a year left of the statute of limitations. Right, Mr. Akihiro!?”
A clear answer came from the hut.
“Everything the girl on the roof has said is true! As we speak, I'm holding an open oil lamp over one million yen's worth of bills! Depending on how things go, the money could disappear into ash!”
6
I understood why Count Minoshima had been so unexpectedly weak-willed and acquiescent, and what had him so frightened.
If he said one wrong word, the million yen he'd fought so hard and spent all his resources and our efforts to obtain could be set aflame.
I fixed my eyes on Noriko, who stood petrified beside Count Minoshima.
What I truly wanted to know now was whether my eldest sister had been involved in the Count's plan.
As Count Minoshima and his men stood sweating profusely, Noriko's expression showed only surprise and dismay. She hadn't known! I was somewhat relieved.
The Count shouted at Yuriko.
“You! You knew all that, and you still caused this foolish scene? Just what do you plan to do now!?”
It was a valid question. Yuriko had exposed Akihiro's crimes in front of all these people. What would happen next? Surely, they wouldn't all agree to go home and wait for the statute of limitations on Akihiro's murder to expire.
Was she planning to persuade Akihiro? Encourage him to give up the million yen and turn himself in to atone for his crimes? After all these years, I doubted that would work.
Yuriko was still sporting that same carefree smile she wore when everything was going according to plan.
“Before that, back to the story! We're not done yet.”
Ignoring the million yen, Yuriko continued explaining.
“Mr. Akihiro decided that it would be for the best to lock himself in there until the statute of limitations ran out.”
“Who knows? Maybe he was right. After the earthquakes, vigilante groups went roaming all over the place, and even innocent people were getting turned into the police, right? It would have been really bad for him if one of them had grabbed him.”
“Because the police still had his fingerprint. If the police had caught him and his fingerprint had been taken, they would have realized he was the culprit.”
“Plus, everyone thought he'd died along with the rest of his family, right? That meant he was in an even worse situation than before.”
“What do you mean?” asked Ryuichiro.
“Well, Mr. Akihiro had an accomplice. That thief he'd hired was apparently a man with integrity, so the secret that Mr. Akihiro was the murderer stayed kept.”
“But if Mr. Akihiro, his family, and the Kinukawa were all dead, that would be different. The accomplice might have figured that there was no reason he had to keep his mouth shut anymore and told someone. So Mr. Akihiro couldn't come out and say 'Hey, I'm actually alive!'”
“I see. That makes sense.”
Ryuichiro, who had met Kashida, seemed to understand.
And she was right. Kashida had thought that Akihiro had died a long time ago, and as a result, he told us about the events of 1911.
“Mr. Akihiro was cornered, afraid, and desperate. That's why he was able to make such a strange threat against Count Minoshima. The Count had no choice but to believe that if he didn't listen to him, Mr. Akihiro really would burn the money before committing suicide.”
“Of course, he couldn't just shoot Mr. Akihiro from outside the hut. If he locked himself in the hut and held the oil lamp over the stack of bills, the money would burn even if he were killed instantly. Although, it looks like none of the Count's minions have the guts to shoot someone, anyway.”
Yuriko pointed at the old man with the hunting rifle again.
“You're just trying to scare people with that gun, right? You're holding it all weird.”
It seemed Akihiro had been lying when he said the old man was a crack shot.
“So, the count reinforced the outside of the old hut with stone blocks, added an iron door, and barred the windows. That was for Count Minoshima, but also for Mr. Akihiro. That way, the Count knew that Mr. Akihiro wouldn't run away when he wasn't looking, and Mr. Akihiro knew that nobody would take the money while he was asleep.”
“Then the Count built a mansion around the hut. That way, nobody would be able to see Mr. Akihiro from the outside. The hut's really cramped on the inside, but it's a convenient place to hide.”
For one million yen in three years, everyone seemed to agree the effort was worth it.
“But in the end, Mr. Akihiro was found. We found him first. When Count Minoshima kidnapped Mariko and brought her here, she noticed that it looked like there was someone in the courtyard.”
“Count Minoshima was careless. So after we ran away, we snuck back to see who it was.”
“Mr. Akihiro must have been really surprised when we showed up.”
“But the good news for him was that we didn't know that hut was the treasure's hiding place. The first time we came, we didn't even have the code. That's why Mr. Akihiro was able to lie to us.”
“He lied that he was Yoshihisa Kinukawa, and that he was being held captive by Count Minoshima and forced to help him decipher the code.”
“...And that's how it was.”
This time, there was no reply from within the hut. The silence seemed to be confirmation.
“It's rare for someone to find such a convenient lie. Anyone seeing a situation like that would assume the person in the hut was being locked up, and Mr. Yoshihisa Kinukawa would be the perfect person for the Count to imprison to get the treasure.”
“On the day of the earthquake, Mr. Yoshihisa was the only member of the Kinukawa family whose body wasn't found, because he'd gone to Kamakura. Of course, that was just because his entire family was dead, so there was nobody to identify him.”
“That's how he became a perfect subject for Mr. Akihiro to impersonate. Mr. Akihiro is older than him, but with that beard and how skinny he is there's no way to tell. We don't know much about the real Mr. Yoshihisa Kinukawa. There aren't many pictures of him left after the earthquake.”
“So he asked us to keep his existence a secret because he was afraid the Count might kill him. That was very clever of him. After he said that, there was no way we could let anyone know about him.”
I'd had no doubt that he really was Yoshihisa Kinukawa.
Everyone was listening. But Yuriko kept directing her speech to me.
“But the second time we met, Mr. Akihiro must have struggled a lot. Because we came with a copy of the code. He was pretending to be Mr. Yoshihisa Kinukawa, so it would have been suspicious if he'd had no idea how to decipher the code. But if we did learn the answer to the code, we'd learn that the hiding place was right there.”
“So Mr. Akihiro decided to just tell Mariko that the wallpaper was a clue. He should have told the Count's henchmen to get rid of the wallpaper in Ōme sooner, but it was too late for that. If somebody noticed that the wallpaper had been removed, that would give away that it was a clue. Since there was a possibility that wallpaper still existed somewhere else, he decided not to do that.”
Akihiro had given me a hint, all the while hoping I never deciphered it.
“That hiding place has a big problem. Anyone who cracked the code would find it. But Mr. Akihiro couldn't go anywhere else.”
“Even if the Count did prepare a different hiding place for him, it would be hard for him to move without giving anyone a chance to steal the money he was keeping. It's because he was holed up in that hut that his threats were effective.”
“That's why, even after we sent him that letter, the Count just increased the number of guards. He couldn't move Mr. Akihiro.”
When she said, Count Minoshima's face changed color.
“It was you! You wrote that letter.”
“Oh man, Mariko really is amazing. You had no idea who sent it. But actually, there was another reason why you increased the number of guards.”
“Now, let me tell you about Mr. Ryujiro Hasebe.”
7
As Yuriko continued her story, a feeling of unease began to descend over the Hasebe family. Of course, it was because suspicion had unexpectedly arisen regarding the death of Ryujiro.
Ryuichiro shouted up at her.
“Hey! You said that Ryujiro died because he deciphered the code, right? What do you mean? Explain yourself!”
“Yeah, I'll explain. But I don't really know what happened! Only Mr. Akihiro knows. I'll tell the story for you, so you can ask Mr. Akihiro later.”
“Like I said earlier, this is a hiding place that would be found by anyone who solved the code.”
“Mr. Ryujiro studied the code very diligently. It must have taken him all of the two years to discover the secret of the wallpaper and realize the code itself was a map. And then, he declared to the Hasebe that he was going to find the treasure, and came out here alone.”
“Once he found the mansion, he, of course, realized there was a secret in the courtyard. The treasure was hidden here, so he couldn't just ignore it.”
“So Mr. Ryujiro did the same thing we did and snuck into the courtyard.”
“Mr. Akihiro was in trouble. Mr. Ryujiro had already solved the code, so he wouldn't fall for the 'I'm Yoshihisa Kinukawa' routine.”
“But unlike us, Mr. Ryujiro was alone. That was his mistake. Because he'd snuck in by himself, Mr. Akihiro was able to kill him.”
“What!?”
The Hasebes were furious.
I couldn't believe what I'd heard.
“What do you mean? The hut was locked and barricaded by stone blocks, so Mr. Akihiro couldn't have opened it himself, right? There's no way Mr. Ryujiro could have broken inside–”
“He didn't need to do anything like that. He did it from inside the hut.”
The culprit killed someone outside from within a locked hut? Was this another instance of something being the opposite of how it happens in detective novels?
“But how on Earth did he do it?”
“Oh? I thought you'd be the first one to realize how, Mariko. After all, you came up with the same trick before Mr. Ryujiro died.”
“Remember? When we were talking about how to rescue Mr. Yoshihisa from the hut, you said it. You said we should tie a rope to the iron bars of the hut, pass it over the branch of a tall cedar tree and hang it down to the work shed below. Then, if we used the winch inside to pull it, we could remove the iron bars.”
I remembered. I'd thought that Yuriko could tie the rope around her body and climb the cedar tree.
“Even if you did that, the bars probably wouldn't come off. But that didn't matter in this case.”
“Mr. Akihiro tricked Mr. Ryujiro by telling him he was trapped and that he'd tell him where the nearby treasure was if he helped him. He then said that all he had to do was pull the bars off with a rope. Mr. Akihiro knew that there was a winch in the shed because he'd seen inside the work shed when he first arrived two years ago, or maybe he'd asked one of Count Minoshima's henchmen.”
“Mr. Ryujiro did as he was told and tied one end of a rope to the bars and the other end to his body, then climbed up the cedar tree. He had to do it like that because you need both hands to climb a tree.”
“Now, what would have happened if, just as Mr. Ryujiro reached the top of the cedar tree and tried to pass the rope through a branch jutting out over the top of the cliff, Mr. Akihiro pulled the other end of the rope tied to the bars as hard as he could?”
...Ryujiro would fall to his death. The image of him crashing to the ground near the work shed flashed through my mind.
The Hasebe clan all changed colors and roared with rage. The Viscount's screams in particular echoed through the mountains.
“Was he murdered? Did Akihiro Orihara trick Ryujiro and drop him off that cliff?”
Yuriko replied immediately.
“Not necessarily! I just said it as a possibility. Mr. Ryujiro could have come up with the idea on his own and fallen off by accident. That's why I said you'd need to ask Mr. Akihiro.”
“But there is one thing I know without needing to ask. And that's that Count Minoshima's henchmen brought Mr. Ryujiro's body near the villa in Ōme to make it look like he died there.”
I started. That was right, Ryujiro's body had been found in Ōme. Of course, Count Minoshima's men moving it was the only explanation.
“The next morning, the guard was surprised to find Mr. Ryujiro's body near the shed. He checked his belongings and realized that Mr. Ryujiro had come by because he'd solved the code.”
“The body had to be moved. If they left it there and someone else found it, the police would be there in an instant.”
“Count Minoshima thought it would be better if the body were found than if they tried to hide it. Mr. Ryujiro was on a treasure hunt. That's why everyone would mistakenly think that wherever his body was found was the hiding place.”
“That's why they went to the trouble of moving Mr. Ryujiro's body near the Kinukawa's villa in Ōme. It would make this place safer if everyone thought the treasure was there.”
“Mariko! Do you remember seeing Count Minoshima's henchman near where Mr. Ryujiro's body was found?”
“Yes.”
It was when we'd read the article about his death in the newspaper and gone to the scene. We'd thought that Ryujiro had died searching for the treasure near that scene, but that wasn't the case.
“He must have been worried that he'd dropped something when he dumped the body. That's why he went back to the scene to look for it.”
Thinking back, even though I'd assumed he was searching for the treasure, that man had been looking at his feet.
Ryuichiro approached Count Minoshima.
“That's clear abandonment of a corpse! How dare you make a mockery of my brother's death!?”
“It's not like I killed him! Don't mix up your gains and losses. Don't forget why we're here.”
Akihiro remained silent.
Yuriko tilted her head.
“Let's see, what else is there... Right, Mariko, do you remember how the second time we came here, the only guard was that old man, so it was easy to get in?”
“I think the other guard was out that day because he was moving the body. They had to load it into a car and transport it overnight, so there weren't enough people left in the mansion.”
“That means... that was the night Mr. Ryujiro died.”
It was after that the number of guards increased. I'd thought it was because of my threatening letter, but it was actually because of what happened with Ryujiro. Since an intruder had managed to solve the code, they had no choice but to increase their vigilance.
“Could it be, Miss Yuriko, that you asked me to write that letter to protect not Mr. Akihiro, but Mr. Ryujiro?”
“Yeah. It would have been dangerous if Mr. Ryujiro had solved the code and gone to the courtyard, so I wanted to keep the guards on guard. If the security was tighter, Mr. Ryujiro wouldn't go in so casually, right?”
“But it was too late. By the time we sent the letter, Mr. Ryujiro was already dead.”
“Welp! That's my story. Now we need to hear Mr. Akihiro's side. Then we can all decide what to do.”
Yuriko clapped her hands like she was praying at a temple.
The emotions and interests of the Hasebe family, Count Minoshima, and Akihiro Orihara had all grown so entangled that they could never be disentangled again. The Kabatani family's 20,000 yen debt no longer mattered.
What would happen now? There was no way things would just end here. Akihiro's crimes had been exposed with a year left until the statute of limitations expired, Count Minoshima had harbored said criminal for money and criminally abandoned a body himself, and the Hasebe family had lost their second son... There was no solution that didn't demand sacrifice from someone.
Yuriko called back to the silent hut in a carefree tone.
“Hey! Mr. Akihiro! It's hard to talk to you from out here, so can you come out? We can't stay here much longer, anyway!”
For a moment, everyone braced for the sight of the black smoke of burning bills to rise from the hut.
But Akihiro, resigned that he could longer remain in the hut no matter what he did, shouted in a trembling, high-pitched voice:
“Very well! Let's get out of here.”
8
When Count Minoshima's men made to run into the courtyard, Akihiro spoke as though he could see right through them.
“Nobody move! Everyone drop your weapons!”
The old man lowered his hunting rifle to the ground. Without even showing his face, Akihiro held us all back as though with magic powers.
At that moment, nobody thought of trying to defeat Akihiro. We all understood his had been a life that had known no happiness. There was an ominous feeling, like a hunter hesitating to kill a wounded animal. It was his pitiful circumstances that had made him so skilled at threats.
“The girls on the roof will be the ones to open the door to the hut! Give the key to the Kabatani girl!”
When Akihiro nominated me, I turned around, feeling a sudden chill. His voiced sounded like an angry spirit demanding a sacrifice.
Yuriko was in no hurry.
“Mariko, it's okay. Give us the key.”
One of Count Minoshima's men threw a heavy key, thick as a fountain pen, up onto the roof. Yuriko grabbed it without letting go of her sword and handed it to me.
“Okay! Mariko, you have to open it.”
“I'm afraid. When I open that door, what will happen? Do you know?”
“Well, I wonder... What is clear is that whatever happens, it won't be your fault. Now let's go.”
Yuriko turned her back to the audience and stepped, carefree as ever, into the courtyard. I grabbed the key, shook both hands to steel my resolve, and jumped after her.
Even from within the courtyard, I couldn't see Akihiro's shadow in the hut's window. It seemed he was crouching down inside.
Yuriko and I slowly made our way to the iron door. When we stood before it, Yuriko called out loud.
“We're here! Can we come in?”
“...Step back, Yuriko! I said the daughter of the Kabatani would be the one to open the door!”
“Yeah, yeah...”
Yuriko disappeared around the corner.
Now that I was alone, my body started trembling. The sun had already set. I put my hands on the large bolt. The sun's afterglow still shone on my hands.
The rusted bolt wouldn't even budge until I'd applied all my strength. It was true, he hadn't gone outside once since his arrival.
However, that the bolt was connected to an alarm bell in the mansion was a complete lie. Even after I'd removed the bolt entirely, there was no alarm.
The claim that there was a combination lock on the door was also a lie. There was nothing but a keyhole. Akihiro had lied to convince us that there was no way we could rescue him.
I inserted the key into the keyhole.
I wondered why Akihiro, who had remained in hiding for fourteen years, had suddenly decided to come clean. Where would he go from here? Would he hand over the million yen to Count Minoshima and Viscount Hasebe and turn himself in? Surely he wouldn't, or else why had he driven Yuriko away?
Akihiro would come out with a burlap sack full of money in one hand an an oil lamp above it in the other. If anyone harmed him, the bills would immediately go up in flames.
I turned the key. The lock was stiff and rusted. Timidly, I called out.
“I've unlocked the door.”
“Turn around! Take three steps away from the door. And don't move.”
Stomping my feet to ensure I was heard, I did as Akihiro asked. I stood three steps from the hut, patiently waiting for the sound of him emerging behind me.
A few moments passed in tension.
Eventually, I heard the faint creak of hinges, and I realized that, slowly, the iron door was opening.
I was overcome by a sudden feeling of foreboding.
I wanted to run, but the image of a mound of burning money held me in place.
When I tried to turn around, I saw the burlap sack of money being tossed to the ground. Before my mind could catch up with the sight, I was grabbed from behind.
I felt something cold at my throat. It was a knife, being pressed firmly to my neck.
9
Did I scream? Next thing I knew, Count Minoshima's gang, the Hasebe family, and Father, all of whom were supposed to have been waiting outside the mansion, stormed into the courtyard.
A knife was at my throat and a heavy burlap sack full of bills had been pressed into my hands. Akihiro stood with his back to the wall of the hut and faced the crowd, using my body as a shield.
Akihiro warned them
“Don't come any closer!”
Slowly, they spread out across the courtyard, surrounding us.
“Listen to me very carefully. I am going to either leave this place unharmed, or kill this girl. It'll be one or the other! But one of those things will happen.”
My mind finally began to work. I was being held hostage. The realization made me feel like every organ in my body had failed.
Although I was trapped in the grip of fear, strangely enough, my mind also cleared, as though a cloudy piece of glass over my eyes had finally been cleaned.
The expressions of the people gathered before me were astonishingly clear. I felt as though I could see down into their souls.
Count Minoshima was enraged.
“What do you plan to do after you leave here? Are you going to take the money with you? Even if you do have a million yen, everyone here knows your face! You can't stay in hiding for another year! Why drag others down with you?”
The Count's face overflowed with hatred. His hatred seemed directed more at me than at Akihiro, as though he blamed me for opening a wild animal's cage.
The Count continued trying to persuade Akihiro, but Ryuichiro interrupted him.
“What did you do to Ryujiro? Did you really pull the rope to kill him?”
“I did!”
To my surprise, Akihiro answered immediately.
“Everything that girl said was true! Ryujiro believed me when I said I was being held captive by the Count. He tied a rope around his waist and climbed that big cedar tree to free me, in exchange for my promise that I'd give him all the treasure. I was afraid he might not die, but everything went exactly as I hoped.”
His heartless voice washed over me.
It wasn't just the Hasebe family. Everyone was shocked by Akihiro's answer.
With those words, he'd thrown away the fourteen years he'd endured. Akihiro had been hiding to avoid punishment for the murder he'd committed in 1911. Now that he'd admitted to a murder committed just a few weeks ago, that was no longer possible.
Akihiro hadn't even needed to confess to the murder. There was no evidence. If he'd said Ryujiro had climbed the tree himself and accidentally fallen off, nobody could contradict him.
Akihiro no longer cared about escaping justice. The only question was how he'd be brought to the courtroom. He could go there after killing me, or he could go there without killing me. He probably didn't even care which it was.
Ayako's image appeared vividly in my mind. A pointless death, just like hers.
Was that why I was so strangely calm? Did I want to be sure I saw the same view my sister had at the end of her life?
Count Minoshima had failed. No matter what he tried, there was no way he could reach a man who had no hope. It was obvious now that no one could save him.
When everyone else fell quiet, Akihiro shouted.
“There's one more thing I need to tell everyone here! It's about this million yen, said to be the fortune of the Kinukawa family! Do any of you know the truth of why I tried to steal the Kinukawa family's treasure fourteen years ago?”
I could feel the trembling in Akihiro's throat against my skull.
“Probably you don't! Nobody even cares anymore! But that's exactly why I need to say it now.”
“At the end of the Meiji era, my father, Hisago Orihara, fell ill with lung cancer. In his delirium, he began to desire the Kinukawa family's treasure. Do you know why he desired it so? It's because the 'Kinukawa' treasure was stolen from the Orihara family during the Meiji Restoration!”
“Sixty years ago, when the Meiji Restoration was on the verge of enactment, wealthy families were being attacked every day. The storehouse where my great-grandfather kept his family heirlooms was among those attacked by the mobs, and we all thought the treasures had been scattered to the winds.”
“It was ten years after the end of that era of change when we learned the truth. We learned from one of the culprits that the Kinukawa family had faked a peasant uprising to steal our fortune!”
“There was no evidence left. It had occurred during a time of turmoil, and all of the treasure was lost.”
“My sick father went mad under the weight of his ancestors' hatred. Everyone in the family understood that their spirits wouldn't be appeased until we regained what was ours!”
“And the responsibility to make things right was placed with me. I was made to overturn the crime committed against us decades ago, all by myself. I was the Orihara family's sin-eater. All that was dark and filthy in the family eventually came back to me.”
“Fourteen years ago, I fought bravely, and I failed, but now the million yen is in my hands, along with this girl's life! This was never going to be a prize in your little treasure hunt game. Now that the rest of the Orihara family is dead, this money is rightfully mine!”
Akihiro roared like an animal, then tightened his grip on the knife.
No one could find it within themselves to talk to him anymore.
Father fell to his knees and screamed.
“Yuriko! Where are you? Is this how you collect your debts? I couldn't pay back your money, so now you'll force me to watch my daughter die?”
Yuriko had disappeared, nowhere to be found.
Akihiro was beginning to win the crowd over to his approach.
That is to say, they understood that my life and the million yen were what hung in the balance. There was no way out of that dichotomy, and they had to pick one or the other.
But then, Count Minoshima spoke, allegedly to himself, but loud enough that the entire courtyard could hear him.
“But if we let him go, the girl won't be saved.”
I was shocked by the malice hidden behind his words.
If Akihiro were allowed to do as he pleased, I would die anyway. That was what the Count wanted people to think.
The Count couldn't bear the thought of Akihiro leaving the courtyard with the million yen. But he couldn't just ask him to kill me.
Count Minoshima was trying to spread the idea that letting Akihiro go would mean my death. He was forcing everyone to continue to hold him until either someone made a suicide attack on Akihiro, or Akihiro got fed up and killed me.
Of course, he couldn't come out and say as much. If I died now, nobody would blame him. He was just worried about me.
I felt the circle around us get a bit tighter.
The Hasebe family was being lured in by the Count.
Of course, they didn't want to let Akihiro, who had killed Ryujiro, get away. They had to settle things, here and now. They were avoiding the fact that this would lead to my death.
If they let Akihiro go, surely I'd be killed anyway! In that case, there was no choice but to stop this foul murderer from escaping. At least that way, they could save the money... Unconsciously, that was where their thoughts were going.
As time seemed to slow around me, I felt as though I was witnessing the birth of evil, like seeing water freeze for the first time, or seeing the inside of a clockwork mechanism. Perhaps it was they, not Akihiro, who would kill me.
No one made any sudden moves. But the twenty people around us, moving as one, inched imperceptibly closer to Akihiro and I.
At that moment, a sharp voice rang out.
“No! Everyone get away from them! Let that man and my sister go.”
It was Noriko. My eldest sister stood with her arms spread wide, as if to wake them from a daze.
Count Minoshima looked like a sorcerer whose spell had just been broken.
“Noriko! What are you doing? How can you advocate for letting that man get away?”
“Who's advocating? It's the only way to save Mariko, so it can't be helped!”
Noriko stood in front of Akihiro and glared at him.
“Go on! Go! Use the car and run away wherever you want. You can play with your stacks of bills until you get caught. But as soon as you've escaped, let that girl go.”
“I don't have a shred of sympathy for you. You may have led a sad life, but you're a selfish man. I'm only doing this for Mariko, the girl you're pointing a knife at.”
“Mariko's the only person here who understands how you feel. You're both sad, lonely children. But unlike you, Mariko is innocent. You shouldn't even have the right to touch her!”
“Well? What are you all doing? Make way!”
Noriko pushed people aside with a fury I'd never seen from her before.
Nobody tried to stop her. The sea of people parted, and we made our way to the door that led out of the courtyard.
10
When Akihiro left the mansion, he put me, still holding the sack of money, into the passenger seat of the Minoshima family's car.
Having been held from behind the whole time, I was shocked to see Akihiro.
He had shaven his beard and cut his hair short. He was wearing a fine suit that looked freshly tailored, which held none of the dirty stench he had before.
As I sat there stunned, Akihiro handed me the knife.
“Give this back to that girl.”
Looking closely at the knife, I saw that it was one of Yuriko's. When I took it, I realized the blade had been dulled, and there was no way it could have been used to kill someone.
Like a falling tide, the fear that had been clinging to my body slowly drifted away.
What was going on here? Just what was happening?
“I'm sorry, but please just bear with me for a little longer.”
Akihiro said pleadingly. All of the hatred had disappeared from his voice, leaving only sadness.
He turned the crank and started the car.
The car started moving.
He drove us down the mountain road. Akihiro moved slowly.
“It's been a while. I haven't driven a car since I went to the villa in Ōme...” he mumbled.
When I finally managed to accept that the tension in the air was gone, I asked softly.
“What's going on here? This is Yuriko's knife...”
“You weren't told anything?”
Akihiro looked surprised.
“Well, I suppose I'm not surprised. I was also being used by that girl.”
“The whole time I was listening to that speech from the rooftop, I was desperately trying to figure out what Yuriko was up to. That's why I told you to open the door: so I could question her about her purpose.”
“But while you were struggling to open the door to the hut, that girl handed me a blunt knife through the window and told me to take you hostage.”
“Thinking about it, that was the only way to escape from that group. Holding the money hostage was no longer enough. I couldn't escape holding an oil lamp over a burlap sack the entire time.”
“Is that so...?”
Yuriko came up with such a ridiculous plan and didn't even discuss it with me. Although, if she had, my terrible acting might have ruined everything.
“I'm the one being threatened. Everyone involved in the treasure hunt was there, so my only options were to run or be caught. I'm still being threatened. Look behind you.”
“Behind me? ...Oh!”
I turned around and saw Yuriko and Katsuyo chasing us, about five meters behind the car. Yuriko had a throwing knife in her hand.
“If I try to speed up and get away, that knife will embed itself in a tire. I have no choice but to let her follow. I'm worried what will happen if they chase us in another car...”
I realized there was nothing to worry about.
“No, no one will follow us.”
“Why not?”
“Because the exhaust pipes of their cars have got konjac in them.”
Akihiro seemed to understand, at least generally. His jaw relaxed a little.
“Whatever the case, I have no grudges against you or Yuriko. I'm grateful to you both. You revealed the truth of what happened in 1911, which had remained a mystery for so long.”
“Yuriko also gave me a chance to talk to you alone, which we otherwise wouldn't have gotten.”
“Talk to me?”
“Yes. There's something I need to tell you. Even though it's something I'm quite embarrassed about.”
Akihiro was suddenly hesitant.
But surely, we had no connection that would require him to talk with any pretense, right?
He continued.
“Mariko Kabatani. About two months ago, you were kidnapped by Count Minoshima and brought to that mansion. The Count said that he needed you to obtain the hidden treasure of the Kinukawa family. Do you know why? Why did the Count need you?”
“...No. I don't.”
That's right. Now that the truth had been revealed, that didn't make sense. Count Minoshima already knew that the treasure was in the hut in his courtyard, and there was nothing he needed me for. And yet, he was desperate to obtain me.
Yuriko hadn't explained that.
“I see. Then I'll tell you. I have to start from before the earthquake. It was a few years after I'd been imprisoned following the murder I committed.”
“I spent my days cursing everything that existed outside the confines of my cell. It was around then that my father died and my half-brother inherited his title. Under him, the Orihara family decided they had to give me some sort of future.”
“I would have to be confined for fifteen years, and my family feared that I would go insane. After all, that was what had happened to my father.”
“So my family wanted to give me some life I could look forward to when I was released. In other words, I was engaged to be married. They searched for a family with a daughter who would agree to marry me after 1926, on the premise that I'd be overseas until then. They thought that would be enough to allow me to endure fifteen years of imprisonment.”
“I wondered if such a convenient arrangement could really be arranged, whether such a kind-hearted family existed, but soon enough, I received a photograph brought from a matchmaking session with an announcement that they'd found me a partner.”
“The bride was a girl named Ayako Kabatani. She was the second daughter of the Kabatani family, and your older sister.”
“Ayako?”
The image of my younger sister, which constantly faded in and out of my mind like a rotating lantern, became vivid and lifelike once again.
“My sister was engaged to you?”
“I don't know if that was true. It's just what I was told. I never met Miss Ayako. Perhaps my family just used your sister's photograph without permission to trick me.”
“Whatever the case, I believed she was my future. I would marry the daughter of the Kabatani family if I could only wait until the statute of limitations expired. That was my only hope.”
Akihiro spoke glumly.
Ayako and Akihiro had been engaged to be married.
I was surprised, but at the same time, that was the most sensible thing I'd been told that day.
“Mr. Akihiro, I'm sure that was true. Father never told me, but I'm sure Ayako and Sir Orihara had made an agreement.”
“When Yuriko asked about you earlier, Father seemed to already know you. And when my family fell into debt after the earthquake, Father always said how much he wished my second sister was still alive. There must have been an arrangement for Sir Orihara to pay him a dowry. Father must have been sad that it was now all for naught.”
“Is that true? Then I wasn't lied to...”
Akihiro muttered sadly.
“I waited and waited until the earthquake struck. What I did afterwards was exactly as Yuriko said. I exploited Count Minoshima and locked myself in that hut.”
“From within the hut, I asked Count Minoshima about something that had been bothering me. I wanted to know if Miss Ayako, the second daughter of the Kabatani family, was safe. The Count replied that she was.”
The sun had finally finished setting, and the car continued to make its way down the dark mountain road.
“But Ayako...”
“Yes. She'd dead, isn't she? The Count lied to me. He was afraid that if he told me the truth, I would fall into despair and choose death, taking the money with me. In truth, his fears may not have been misplaced. At the time, my desperation was my only weapon.”
“The Count knew that someday, he would have to make his lie add up. What would he have done if I'd demanded that he bring Miss Ayako with him when I gave him the money? He needed that money quickly as part of a real estate deal. So he had to think of some way to appease me.”
“That's why the Count tried to adopt you.”
“I don't think he was planning to trick me into thinking you were Miss Ayako. But he thought the only person I'd accept as her replacement would be her sister, you, Mariko. The Count wanted you to be engaged to me.”
I couldn't bring myself to look at Akihiro, so I turned my face away. He seemed to buckle under the weight of his shame as he struggled to continue his story.
“I found out about all this when you first snuck into the courtyard. That night, when I saw your face between the bars, I thought for a moment that Miss Ayako had come for me. You and your sister look much alike. At least, from the matchmaking photograph I'd seen.”
“Then, when I learned that you were actually Miss Ayako's younger sister and that the Count had kidnapped you, I understood everything. Of course, I didn't tell you any of this at the time.”
“I was greatly troubled. Miss Ayako had been my only hope, but she'd already passed on. Not only that, but because of me, the Count had turned his attention to her younger sister.”
“Think about what that means. From the Count's perspective, he had revealed a portion of his secret to you, and now had no choice but to convince you to become his adopted daughter. The only way you could escape that fate would be to reveal all of the Count's evil deeds to the world.”
“In other words, from the moment the Count brought you to that mansion, we were forced into a choice: your freedom, or mine. Only one of us could ever leave.”
Akihiro's voice was dry.
I was at a loss.
“You're an anxious man, Mr. Akihiro.”
“Am I? ...Yes. I suppose I am.”
At the bottom of the mountain road, Akihiro stopped the car. He let go of the wheel, put both hands on his knees, and exhaled.
“Do you remember the second time you came to see me, when Yuriko said she would 'expose all the crimes committed over the treasure'? That was when I made up my mind.”
“Yes... And that's exactly what she did.”
At that time, I'd thought she was talking about Count Minoshima, but now I realized she was also talking about Akihiro.
I heard Katsuyo coming up behind me. Yuriko wasn't in any hurry to catch up to us.
“Did you really kill Mr. Ryujiro Hasebe? You said that so your plan to take me hostage would work, didn't you? You may have strangled someone to death in a panic, but were you really cold enough to pull on that rope and drop someone off of a cliff?”
Akihiro hesitated for a long time before he answered me.
“No, I did kill him. I'm tired of seeing the truth unnecessarily complicated. Whether by others, or by myself. Now, give me that bag.”
Akihiro picked up the burlap sack from my lap and pulled out a thick stack of 100 yen bills, which he handed to me.
“What is this?”
“My repayment for deceiving Miss Ayako and the rest of your family. I made a promise to marry her while hiding the fact that I was a murderer. The Orihara family must pay compensation. That will be enough to cover your debts, won't it? I will give you the freedom I've spent my whole life doing cowardly, underhanded things for. You won't have to run and hide any longer. Unlike me, you'll be able to live freely.”
“Please accept it. Then, I might finally be able to let go.”
Seeing that there was no hesitation behind his words, I took the wad of bills from his hand, feeling as though it was a pair of handcuffs around my wrists.
Akihiro closed his eyes.
“Thank you. Now all that's left is to get rid of the remaining money. I don't need it anymore. What should I do? Perhaps I should burn it now, before the Count and his men arrive...”
The crueler parts of my mind cheered at the thought of setting fire to the burlap sack, full of the money the hated Count wanted so badly.
But Akihiro quickly continued.
“What would Miss Ayako have told me? Do you know? Can you allow me to follow her advice one last time?”
What would, not I, but Ayako have said to do with that money, full as it was with grudges?
It was obvious.
“If you'd asked Ayako, she would have said something mundane. She would have said it would be better to donate it to a hospital, or an orphanage, or a shelter, rather than to burn it. Ayako was a kind-hearted, thoroughly ordinary young woman who understood people.”
“I see. Very well then.”
Akihiro re-tied the mouth of the burlap sack.
He told me to get out of the car, and I did.
“That's all I needed to hear. Goodbye, Miss Mariko. I'm sorry to have trampled your sister's memories. If you can, please forget about me. I don't think I could bear the disgrace otherwise.”
He was a man afraid of leaving any trace of himself in people's hearts, like a person being careful not to touch a freshly painted wall.
I turned away from him and answered:
“You leave it up to me whether I remember or forget. You've been shut away for so long, you've earned the right to feel a bit of shame.”
“Really? Alright, then. I'll leave it to you.”
Akihiro took the wheel again.
As he started the car, he asked me
“That's right, you said you wanted to be a novelist?”
Feeling that now was no time for ambiguity, I answered him.
“Yes, I do.”
“Then do your best.”
Without taking a final look back at me, Akihiro stepped on the accelerator.
The headlights flashed around a curve, then vanished. I lost track of them just as the sound of hooves approached behind me.
When I turned around, I saw Yuriko on horseback.
“Heya! How'd it go?”
Before I could answer her, Katsuyo curiously put her nose to the stack of bills I was clutching close to my chest. She licked the stack of bills and my fingers, then exposed her gums in what looked like a vulgar grin. Even though she was just a horse...
“I see! So it went well, did it?”
“Yes. I was able to get the money. And he had a lot to say.”
“Oh, really?”
Yuriko looked as though she had no idea what was happening.
“Let's get out of here for now. It's for the best if we don't see the Count for a while.”
“Yes, it is.”
I did as I was told and got up on Katsuyo's back. I didn't want to see Count Minoshima again, either.
Just then, the lights of a car shone from higher up the mountain path.
A procession of cars approached. Count Minoshima and the Hasebe family, who had finished clearing the konjac from their exhaust pipes, were chasing Akihiro together.
Ryuichiro Hasebe called out to us.
“What happened to him?”
“I don't know! He ran off somewhere!” Yuriko replied at once.
I turned around and saw Father poking his head out of the back seat of the Hasebe family's car with a worried look on his face. I yelled out just as Katsuyo turned and prepared to gallop away.
“Father! Don't worry! I'll be home soon!”
Not knowing where Akihiro had gone, the group of cars remained on the mountain road. We left them behind as we galloped away.
Yuriko didn't turn on her lamp. Katsuyo sped off down the narrow country road into the twilight.