TATSUMI ATSUKAWA

Born in Tokyo in 1994. Debuted in 2017 with A Great Detective Never Lies via the new talent discovery program “Kappa Two”. In 2018, he won the Honkaku Mystery Award (Criticism and Research Category) for Tatsumi Atsukawa's Reading Diary: Thus Spake the Mystery Writer (Newcomer's Struggles Edition). His other works include the Murder Quartet series beginning with Murder in the Flame Red Mansion, An Invisible Person is Lurking in the Locked Room, Until the Afternoon Chime Rings, and Burning Dancer.

*This story will reveal the ending to The Wanderings of Mountain Monk Jizō by Alice Arisugawa, but it does not contain any details of the mysteries therein, so you will still be able to enjoy them even after reading. In addition, a situation similar to that of The Brazilian Butterfly Mystery also appears, but this story contains no spoilers for the original work.

1

The store's last light was going out.

I thought that a sentence like that would sound romantic, but it didn't.

I, Ryoji Aono, was putting what were once rental videotapes through the register with automatic movements.

I used to run one of the five video rental places in our town alongside a friend the same age as me. But the flow of time passed us by, and the five stores became four became three, and finally, our store, the last stronghold of the rental era, was closing today. We were able to keep up with the shifts from VHS to DVD to Blu-ray, but there was no way we could have predicted the dawn of the streaming era. Nowadays, people can watch movies or TV in the comfort of their homes without having to go to the video store or worry about late fees. And what of young people who didn't even own TVs? To be honest, I had a hard time even imagining that.

“Is this really okay?”

The person who'd brought over the basket full of VHS tapes was, surprisingly, an earnest, simple-minded young man.

“These prices are...”

The VHS tapes were 50 yen each. They were the sorts of clearance prices you could only get on the day a store closed down.

I wondered if he was a movie fanatic like I'd once been. In his basket were Sleuth starring Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine, Psychic Killer with Paul Burke, Jim Hutton and Julie Adams, and Criminal Behavior starring Farah Fawcett. Most of them were mysteries, and none of them had been re-released on DVD or streaming services, so they were all rare finds. He seemed to be quite the connoisseur.

“It's our final closing day sale. We can't guarantee they work or accept returns or exchanges.”

“That's true,” the young man blinked. “Still, it's a miracle to be able to get my hands on these.”

I couldn't help but grin. At least I could give them to a younger person.

As the young man finished paying and left, a man with white hair appeared from behind him.

“Hello there.”

I recognized his face. He was...

“Oh, Tokokawa. It's been a while.”

Tokokawa bowed deeply. His was going bald on the top of his head. He used to always wear a beret, but apparently he'd stopped.

He was, according to himself, a landscape photographer who'd published several books with local publishers, but he also ran the only photographer's studio in town.

“That kid was great. Seeing scenes like that cleanses my soul.”

Tokokawa gave a sad smile.

“Are you buying anything?”

“Oh, this.”

Tokokawa placed a VHS tape of a French film called Web of Passion on the counter.

“I'm a fan of the source material, the book The Key to Nicholas Street by Stanley Ellin.”

“I see.”

“When I heard this place was closing down, I couldn't help but feel sad... It's an old favorite of mine, you know. So I thought it was only natural to come buy something.”

“I appreciate it.”

I accepted Tokokawa's 50 yen coin. For some reason, he stood there fidgeting.

“Um, are you free after closing today?”

I hesitated for a moment. There were only 30 minutes left until closing time. If I left closing up to my friend, we could go out for a drink. The real work of the packing up wouldn't start until tomorrow.

“That's fine. You might have to wait for a bit, though...”

“Okay. I'll go to a coffee shop or something.”

2

It was a night where the winter chill felt good against our bodies.

Tokokawa and I were looking for a place to drink. We were a group of friends who had drank together in a bar called April more than twenty years ago. It wasn't just the two of us. We'd had many friends back then.

“What is your wife up to nowadays?”

“Her knees have been bad lately, so she's been staying home. When I told her I was going to Aono's place, she told me to say hello. She also gave me permission to have a few drinks.”

I couldn't help but chuckle.

Mishima, Nekoi, the Tokokawa couple, and myself – the five of us had gone to April every Saturday night.

As we searched for a place to go tonight, we chatted about what the five of us had been up to. I heard what Mishima had been doing since he shut down his clinic, and was told that the owner of April had closed the bar and now ran a different bar somewhere else.

Speaking of friends, there was one other person.

“What about the monk, Mr. Jizō? No one's heard from him since?”

“No one. I'm not worried, though. I'm sure he's still wandering around somewhere to this day.”

We looked at each other and laughed.

I didn't know if he was still wandering or not. It had been over twenty years since our last meeting, and he'd looked about 45 at the time, so he must have been pretty old by now.

Jizō the mountain monk...

A mysterious man in a monk's robe, carrying a satchel, holding a staff, and with a conch horn at his waist. He appeared on Saturday nights and ordered a cocktail called a “bohemian dream”. And after finishing his second cocktail, he'd tell us about his “experiences”.

His tales of mystery.

His own detective’s records.

“I liked that story. You know, the one about the guy who was poisoned to death at a dinner party in Hokuriku.”

“Yeah, I liked it too. It was pretty unique. Although I preferred the one about the broken window.”

“Was there one like that?”

“You know, the one where the guy who hated air conditioners got murdered.”

“Ah,” I nodded. “You've got to specify the situation if you want me to understand you.”

“But the whole point of that story was the interesting clue of the glass window.”

Tokokawa's eyes were sparkling like a true fanatic's. It seemed that he'd spent the last twenty years honing his love of mystery novels to a fine edge.

Or perhaps that was also that mountain ascetic's fault.

“I also liked the story of Professor Tenma.”

“Yeah, that was a brazen footprint trick.”

“Right, that night-”

I suddenly shut my mouth.

Each of the stories the monk had told us were well crafted tales of mystery. However, no one who listened to them believed they were true. But whether they were true or not didn't matter to us back then. We just cared if the stories were interesting, and we were happy as long as we could listen to his tall tales over good drink.

That would have been fine, but things went further than that.

“What do you all think when you listen to his stories?”

It all started when the bartender asked his regulars that after the mountain monk had left.

We all said what we believed, that we didn't believe it was true, and that it must have been hard to come up with all those stories.

That was when Tokokawa blurted out “Does he want to be a mystery writer?”

Had that been the wrong thing to say? I wondered. After that day, the mountain monk vanished. He never appeared at April again, having departed for somewhere far away. It may have been because we'd questioned our faith in him that he disappeared like a fleeting dream.

He had been as ephemeral as an angel.

Tokokawa let out a dry chuckle.

“You mean when Mr. Jizō stopped coming?”

“Yeah. You asked if he wanted to be a mystery writer...”

“You're overthinking things. Besides, if that really was the cause, then we're all equally guilty.”

It was also possible that there was no connection. He may have just moved on from our town.

But knowing that Tokokawa felt the same way brought me some relief. That day was stuck in my mind, and I couldn't forget it.

“Those kinds of things don't happen often.”

“What do you mean?”

“Meeting people like Mr. Jizō, who talk non-stop about cases and investigations and deductions. He's like an armchair detective. I can't stop thinking about him. I've read a lot of books in my life, but most of them weren't as good as Mr. Jizō's stories. A true armchair detective who can solve the case without even going out to investigate, based on nothing but the words of the person he's talking to, or something like that. Stories like that are best when you aren't sure whether or not they're true. The only thing that ever made me feel the way Mr. Jizō did was Baroness Orczy's The Old Man in the Corner.”

The old man in the corner talked about cases he'd read about in the newspaper and drew his own conclusions about them. Although the person he told his conclusions to was a reporter, she never knew anything about the cases, so one foreign reviewer had sarcastically described her as “a reporter who never read the papers.”

“But, you know, I do feel sorry for that reporter. Every time she tried to say something, the old man in the corner immediately interrupted her. I don't think it'd be a good look nowadays if an author wrote about an old retired man constantly talking over a female reporter.”

Hearing Tokokawa's criticism, I couldn't help but give a wry smile.

“What about there?”

Tokokawa pointed up ahead.

It was a neon sign of the sort you rarely saw nowadays. The name of the bar was “Fool's Mate”. I think it was a chess term. It was the fastest possible path from game start to checkmate. An ironic name for a bar.

“I've never gone there before.”

“Me neither, but it's got a good name.”

“It does?”

“From 'April' to 'Fool's'.”

So it was just a simple pun. But it fit the mood we were in that day. Plus, Jizō had liked those sorts of puns.

We went up to the second floor of the building along the river and opened the door inside. There were a few other customers already there, so it was a bit lively, but that was fine. We were shown to counter seats in the back, and just as I sat down, the door to the bathroom opened.

I took a casual glance at the man coming out of the bathroom.

And I froze.

It was a certain mountain ascetic.

And he hadn't aged a day.

3

“What can I get you?”

The bartender called out to us. I snapped back to my senses and wondered how long I'd been sitting there frozen.

“Oh, uh, excuse me. Let me get a highball, um...” I pointed to the bottle in front of me. “With Maker's Mark.”

“Okay, I'll have one too.”

Tokokawa quickly followed up. He also looked shaken.

The mountain monk sat down a seat away from us.

I steadied by breathing and looked around the bar again.

There were eight counter seats and two tables in the back. It was a small place with a nice atmosphere.

There were three young men at the counter, on the side closest to the entrance. Between them and us was the man who looked the same as ever. He was dressed in the traditional robes of a monk.

One of the tables had been set up as a place for customers to keep their things, and a backpack and a staff were placed there. At another table, an elderly couple were sipping drinks with good cheer. The husband was sitting in a position where he could see the counter seats, and he watched the ascetic with a smile on his face.

What were the chances we'd run into another man dressed like a mountain monk in another bar? That was strange enough, but what was even more troubling was that this mountain monk looked exactly the same as the one we hadn't seen for twenty years.

The door to the bar may as well have been a time portal. We'd traveled twenty years back in time and been reunited with that monk once again...

“This is a dream, isn't it?”

Tokokawa, sitting next to me, whispered that, and all my romantic thoughts went up in smoke. Tokokawa and I had both aged considerably, and Tokokawa was starting to go bald.

“I don't know.”

“Well, if that's Mr. Jizō... I don't know how he hasn't aged in the past twenty years.”

Yes. That was the problem.

When we'd first met the monk, he'd looked to be around forty-five. There was some margin for error, but he still should have been at least sixty by now. He didn't look nearly that old.

Was he actually an Angel of Mystery? If he was an angel, that would explain why he didn't age...

The absurd thought casually passed through my mind.

“What can I get you next, Mr. Jizō?”

The mountain monk slid his glass forward and said:

“Another bohemian dream, please.”

I felt another shock.

His name. And his drink.

Everything matched the scenes from the past at April.

The monk had definitely said “another”. In other words, he was on at least his second drink.

What on Earth was happening?

I couldn't taste my highball. Not because it was weak, but because I was so confused my tongue wasn't working. Tokokawa and I threw our glasses back in sync, staring at the bohemian dream in the monk's hand. What would happen when that glass was empty? We needed to know.

“Hey, Mr. Monk! Tell us more of that story from earlier.”

One of the young drunks started bothering the mountain monk. He was a man in a business suit.

I looked over at the trio of young men again. They probably had different lines of work, because they were all dressed differently.

The first was the man in the suit I just mentioned. I'll call him “Suit”. He looked to be the most outgoing of the three.

The second was a man in a casual shirt and glasses. I'll call him “Specs”. He was carefully observing the monk with a shrewd look in his eye.

The third person was a man dressed in a T-shirt and jeans who tended to keep his head down. I decided to call him “Slouch”.

The mountain monk answered Suit:

“What it was we were talking about earlier...”

“Remember? You got involved in a murder case.”

“A murder!?”

I blurted it out before quickly clapping my hands over my mouth.

“Yeah, wanna listen, old man?” Suit smiled brightly. “This monk dude's really interesting. He says he gets caught up in all sorts of incidents while he goes on a pilgrimage around the country...”

“Oh, you don't say...”

Feeling embarrassed, I looked down, but the mountain monk had already fixed his eyes on me.

The monk was giving me a soft smile. I'd thought that maybe he would remember me or Tokokawa if he saw our faces, but he showed no signs of that.

“I feel a bit nervous with such a large audience...”

The monk blushed, then turned back to the three young men. Then he drained his glass of bohemian dream and began to speak slowly.

“So, let me tell you the story of the case of the butterfly. It was a truly unusual incident...”

4

It was a clear day in May.

On my path of ascetic training, I made my way to a small island in the Seto Inland Sea. As I was passing by, I remembered an acquaintance I'd met there.

On my way to his house, I encountered a man in the forest.

“Don't move.”

When he said that, I could only freeze in a half-squat position.

“Don't move...”

The man before me held a butterfly net and slowly approached me. As my mind filled with fantasies about being captured in that net, the man suddenly swung it down.

The net grazed against my head.

“Yes!”

The man cheered with delight. Within the net was a butterfly with pale blue wings.

“Is that butterfly so rare?” I asked.

When he heard me, the man began to laugh.

“No, it isn't, and yet there aren't enough in the world for me...”

5

“Wait a moment.”

Slouch chose that moment to interrupt.

“Given that its wings were pale blue, was it a species of swallowtail? You said it was in the Seto Inland Sea, so perhaps the setting is Suo-Oshima in Yamaguchi Prefecture, where the asagi madara – the chestnut tiger butterfly – lives?”

The entire bar froze.

Partially it was because the mountain monk was overwhelmed by the amount of information Slouch had just thrown at him, but mostly because we were all confused.

“Ah... um... well...”

At that moment, I found myself completely taken aback.

...I didn't know if the stories that “Jizō” told were based on his true experiences or were complete fiction. But now I could see clearly. This was made up.

The details weren't thought out, so there were holes to be exposed. Apparently, some novelists go so far as to create complete timelines for all their characters and make up background details. After writing all that down, they only publish the parts that are relevant to the story. But because those details do exist, if someone asks them something, they can immediately give an answer that doesn't contradict anything.

I took an unhappy sip of my highball. I once again moved in sync with Tokokawa next to me. Tokokawa let out a melancholy sigh.

I was disappointed in the mountain monk as an author. But I was also a bit upset with Slouch.

In the past, even when we'd noticed flaws in the monk's stories – inconsistent details, or narrative-driven jokes too on the nose to be believable – we'd sit quietly and listen to him, enjoying the stories he told (of course, we also heckled him, like when we'd ask him to get to the climax already). That was because we believed that if we just relaxed and let ourselves be carried away by his words, we'd get to hear an interesting tale of deduction.

It was a relationship built on trust. Yes, that's it. There had been a relationship of trust between the five of us and the mountain ascetic.

It may have been unreasonable to expect that from someone just meeting him for the first time. But still...

...Just shut up and listen to the story.

That was what I thought.

I remembered what Tokokawa had said about The Old Man in the Corner. We'd all used to listen to Jizō's stories without asking a single question. Just like the reporter from The Old Man in the Corner. Which would make these three “reporters who never shut up”.

“Ah, yes.”

The ascetic clapped his hands.

“I remember now. You're correct, those were the names of the island and the butterfly.”

I was shocked. Slouch looked like he hadn't even noticed the monk's hesitation because he was talking too much.

“Really? Well, I just jumped to conclusions based on the pale blue wings and the fact that it was in the Seto Inland Sea, so I thought maybe it could also have been-”

“Will you can it? The monk's trying to tell a story here.”

When Suit reprimanded him, Slouch looked down. He didn't seem like a bad guy. Maybe he just liked butterflies too much.

If that was the case, then the story the mountain monk chose was a bad fit. Having missed the conversation the monk and Slouch had (over his first glass of bohemian dream), I didn't know the context, but the material he prepared was always tailored to his audience.

...This monk may have looked just like the old Jizō, but he was nowhere near as skilled a storyteller.

Seeing that, I should have just finished my highball and left the bar, but... after hearing his introduction, I did want to know what happened next.

Regardless of the skill of the telling, what would the contents of the story be?

It was just interesting enough to match with my drink.

6

This was Jizō's story, again...

“Hello. I'm sorry I was so rude earlier.”

The man carefully placed the butterfly he'd caught... What was it again...? Ah, yes, the chestnut tiger butterfly in a cage and smiled at me. It was a flawless smile, but I felt something sinister behind it.

“What is it you plan to do with that butterfly?”

“I'm going to take it home and make it into a specimen. I'll start this evening. I'll stick needles through it, attach it to a display board, and give it two weeks to dry. The trick to getting the needle just right is...”

I never was any good with insects. I feared I would be sick if he continued any further, so I cut him off.

“And may I ask who you are?”

“Oh, forgive me again. My name is Daigo Kurosawa, I live near here. You would appear to be a mountain ascetic. What brings you out here?”

“I've come here to visit an old friend who lives in the area, unless my memory betrays me.”

When I told Kurosawa the name of my friend, he replied “Oh,” and developed an expression of great smugness.

“I don't know if that's good luck or bad.”

“What part of it is good?”

“I happen to live next door to your friend. I can show you the way.”

“That is good. And the bad?”

“Your friend is away on a trip.”

What? I felt my spirit ready to break, but Kurosawa grinned at me.

“It must be fate's will that we met here today. Would you care to spend the night in my house?”

“I would be ever so sorry to trouble you so...”

“No, no, not at all. As it happens, you wouldn't be my only guest. I just thought having someone like you around would put my soul at ease.”

I attempted again to decline, but Kurosawa put an arm to the back of my robe and began to push me, saying “Come, right this way.” I was taken aback by the man's forceful behavior, but I decided to accept his invitation.

Had I but known that he was escorting me to the scene of a disaster.

Kurosawa's home was a large boarding house. It was staggering in size; it was clear at a glance that there would be more than enough room to accommodate me.

Several figures had amassed on the wooden outdoor deck. I wondered if they were the other “guests” of which Kurosawa had spoken.

“Would you like to see your friend's house?”

“No, thank you.”

Of course, it was also possible that Kurosawa was lying for some reason or another, but I chose to place my faith in him for the time being. I was more interested in the people before me.

A man in his thirties stood and called out to Kurosawa. A pair of black-rimmed glasses stood perched on his bulbous nose.

“Um, who is this?”

My outfit must have struck him as unusual, as he anxiously fiddled with his glasses as he looked me up and down.

“He's a mountain ascetic I met out in the forest just now.”

Kurosawa answered him with a smile and recounted the story of our meeting.

“Oh, I see. How unfortunate, to arrive only to find the person you were searching for already away. Apologies for the late introduction. I am Kenichirou Okaba, a novelist.”

“Mr. Kurosawa, you can be awfully impulsive.”

The next to speak was a woman wearing a large pair of sunglasses. She was in her forties, to judge by appearances. The look she gave Kurosawa was somewhat cold.

“Isn't he fascinating, though? This mountain monk travels all over the country for his training. I'm sure he must be full of interesting stories.”

Kurosawa raised a hand to point at the woman.

“This woman is Yuri Tamii. She is the president of a famous mail order company. Do you know of her?”

I responded with a smile full of ambiguity.

“That's quite the story. Really makes me wonder.”

The man who said that with a derisive snort had his hair bleached blonde and sported a piercing through his nose. I guessed he was in his late twenties, although his attitude came across as considerably younger.

“Maybe the whole 'mountain monk' thing is just an act. Maybe he just uses it to bilk people out of money and housing in the name of charity. Maybe he's just a greedy pig.”

For some reason, he looked at Kurosawa as he spoke.

“Now Joe, it's rude to accuse him of being like yourself.”

Kurosawa said that with a broad grin, driving the no-longer-juvenile delinquent to look away and click his tongue.

“Don't call me by that nickname,” he said before turning to glare at me. “My name is Yuzuru Asagi. Written with the characters for 'to give way' and spelled the same as 'Jo'. So Mr. Kurosawa's gotten the idea in his head that it's funny to call me 'Joe'.”

“Don't worry, I don't intend to call anyone by silly nicknames upon our first meeting,” I assured him.

“What is it you do for a living, Mr. Asagi?”

“...I manage real estate.”

I wondered if his haughty attitude was born of a privileged upbringing. He made a living trading real estate inherited from his parents... That was the impression I had of him. But he didn't look to be in the mood to discuss the matter.

From what I could see, the group was fully disparate in age and occupation. They didn't appear to be family, either. What was their relationship to Kurosawa?

“By the way,” I said. “You were catching butterflies earlier. Is that a hobby of yours?”

“Huh?” Asagi's face twisted without shame. “Are you really asking him about that? I'm warning you, once he gets started he never stops.”

“Yes, I am.”

When I gave my answer, Kurosawa said “I'm glad you asked.”

“Let me show you my butterfly collection.”

Kurosawa put a hand on Yuri's shoulder.

“Incidentally, I finally managed to get that butterfly you said you wanted, so I was looking forward to showing it to you. Would you care to come along?”

Yuri shivered.

“Alright... I suppose I'll join you, then.”

“And what about the rest?”

They answered no.

...It truly was a strange gathering.

My doubts grew stronger by the second.

The boarding house stood two stories high, with the guest rooms located on the second floor. I was guided into a room on the back of the first floor, and the moment the doors were opened, I let out an involuntary gasp.

The wall of the room was festooned with rows upon rows of butterflies.

The specimens were stored in glass cases. Each glass case formed a rectangle of about thirty by fifty centimeters, and they contained butterflies of all sizes. Some had five or six large butterflies struggling to fit together, while others contained as many as twenty smaller species. There were ten cases in all. It may have been a small display, but it was quite the impressive collection for a hobbyist.

“How are these arranged?”

“They're separated by species and habitat. Most of them were purchased, but I do capture butterflies and turn them into specimens on my own, as you witnessed earlier.”

The room appeared to serve the purposes of both an exhibition hall and a study, with the butterfly specimens on the far wall and bookshelves lined up next to the door. In the middle of the room was a study desk, with a computer proudly displayed atop.

There was a bizarre object on the desk. It looked like a pedestal topped with a Y-shaped branch.

“What is this miniaturized tree?”

“Ah,” Kurosawa turned to it. “It's a perch. I had a friend who's handy with things like this carve it from driftwood. If you attach a butterfly to the branch using pins, it looks as though it's still alive. Quite interesting.”

“You mean to say you go to all the trouble of turning the butterflies into specimens, only to take them back out?”

My asking that appeared to somewhat annoy Kurosawa.

“I collect these butterflies as my hobby. What I do with them is my business and nobody else's.”

I supposed I had no response to that. Yuri gave a heavy sigh.

“By the way,” Kurosawa said. “This is it. The butterfly you wanted.”

Kurosawa grinned and pointed to a butterfly in the center case. It had wings colored in vivid shades of blue and black.

“Agrias beata. It's a butterfly native to South and Central America, called a 'flying jewel'. They trade at high prices within enthusiast circles. I had quite the difficult time finding one, I'll have you know.”

“Is that so...”

I'd thought Yuri had been the one to ask him to look for it, but she seemed saddened.

I don't know anything about butterflies. But the sight of the colorful insects all lined up together was able to bring me joy. I found myself thinking back to my boyhood days.

Suddenly, I noticed a gap in one of the cases. It was the case furthest to the right. Of course, I didn't know how it was supposed to look, but there was a single lonely gap among the neat rows of butterflies, which felt dissonant.

“Was that gap there left on purpose?”

Hearing that, Kurosawa looked even more annoyed.

“No... I recently gave that one up to another collector.”

“Oh.”

Did that mean he'd sold it for money? Or was it an exchange between collectors, motivated by goodwill? I suspected if I asked him that, he would grow more upset still and I would find myself struggling to obtain new lodgings for the night, so I decided not to ask.

7

“Why didn't you ask?”

Surprisingly, it was Specs's turn to speak up.

“If you'd asked him that, you could have learned all sorts of stuff!”

“Get real,” Suit said with a sly grin. “That's easy for you to say, but there's no way anyone would just give up free housing.”

What was it with them and constantly interrupting? We were just getting the details of the characters and scene.

“Umm,”

Suit timidly handed the monk a napkin and a pen.

“If it's not too much trouble, could you write down all the characters' names here?”

“Huh?”

The monk was dumbfounded.

“Well, I'm not good with names, even when I'm reading novels. It's even worse when I have to just listen with my ears like this. So I was just wondering if you could write down the names of all the characters who just appeared.”

“Ah, I see.”

The monk obediently picked up the napkin and the pen.

...Oh good, another interruption.

I decided to take the chance to go to the bathroom. Maybe I was getting old, but I'd been needing to use the bathroom more often lately.

I was surprised to see a poster for a movie from the Showa era on the bathroom wall. It didn't really fit the atmosphere of the rest of the bar. Maybe the owner was a fan. The title was Risky Things Make Money, and the lead actor, Joe Shishido, was holding up a pistol while covering his ear with his free hand. The bold, action-y red letters were pleasant somehow.

It was nostalgia for the young man who loved film that I'd once been.

I returned to my seat and asked Tokokawa something.

“The Joe Shishido movie Risky Things Make Money was based on something, right?”

“It was a Michio Tsuzuki novel. I think it was called Paper Trap.”

I couldn't help but ask Tokokawa about these kinds of things.

“I'm finished.”

The mountain monk gestured to the paper napkin.

Tokokawa and I instinctively leaned in closer

Daigo Kurosawa, Boarding House Owner

Kenichirou Okaba, Novelist

Yuri Tamii, Mail Order Company President

Jo Asagi, Real Estate Manager

Huh?

Asagi's name. It was supposed to be “Yuzuru”. Joe was just his nickname

Ah. I realized something.

The monk had gone to the bathroom just before the story started. It was right as we entered the bar.

He must have seen the poster of Joe Shishido.

Maybe he'd made a mistake because he had Joe on the mind. It was a stupid mistake, but it made sense if you considered what was going on in his head.

...Was he really that sloppy?

I was completely dumbfounded by this mountain monk's incompetence, but having heard this much, I at least wanted to get to the end.

If my prediction was correct, Kurosawa wasn't long for this world.

8

There is one more thing I must tell you about the day of my arrival to Kurosawa's boarding house.

When I left the combination exhibition hall and study and went back out on the deck, I found Okaba standing there alone.

“Where is Mr. Asagi?”

“I heard that he went out for a walk.”

“Is that so?”

Okaba looked around anxiously, then whispered to me.

“So?”

“Yes?”

“What did you do?”

“I'm afraid I don't understand.”

“That whole 'meeting by chance out in the forest' story was a lie, wasn't it? There's no need to hide it. We're all friends here, united by the blemishes we bare. We're all trapped in the same foxhole.”

“Um, what is it you're talking about?”

When I continued to deny it, Okaba gave a dramatic sigh.

“What? You mean you really haven't done anything? That mountain monk costume is genuine?”

“Whether it's genuine or not, I really am in training.”

“Oh. I see. I'm sorry, I got my hopes too high.”

Okaba looked quite depressed.

I felt a shock through my body. The guests were all of different ages and appeared to have nothing in common. I suddenly felt I understood why they were there.

“I see. So it was that 'blemish' that caused Mr. Kurosawa to invite you. Could it be that...”

“It's exactly what you think.”

People with blemishes on their characters had all been summoned together. I could only imagine they were being blackmailed.

However, what I didn't understand were the intentions of the man who'd just told me.

“That's why we're all gathered here at Mr. Kurosawa's boarding house today. It's the biggest headache I've ever been forced to deal with.”

As I stared at Okaba's face, he suddenly started and stepped backwards.

“Oh, but I'm not telling you what my 'blemish' is. I have no obligation to share that with you.”

He said that, even though he had just tried to ask me about my own earlier? As I stood there dumbfounded, he continued.

“I'm always curious about other people's secrets. Perhaps it's because I'm a novelist. I just wanted to find out yours. No matter what you may think of me, you must admit that you're an unusual guest.”

I couldn't understand what was passing through that man's mind that drove him to call me “unusual” right to my face, but I kept quiet and listened anyway.

“From what I've determined, it seems that there is evidence of Joe's involvement with insider trading. He was first invited to this building last year. That was when we became acquainted. He was quite nervous about meeting with Mr. Kurosawa, fearing he would be exploited for money, but last year he was finally beaten down. I wonder what will happen this year... Well, insider trading is a crime, after all. Even a combative young man like him must tread carefully when dealing with Mr. Kurosawa.”

“I see.”

“What has me curious is President Tamii. I'm simply dying to know what it is that lured her here.”

I gave a slow nod. I could already see where this man was going.

“I'm sorry,” I said. “I'm afraid I can't help you.”

“Ahaha, I know, I know. I was just curious if you'd be curious about it. You must be an inquisitive man. Otherwise you wouldn't have accepted an invitation to a mysterious house.”

He was correct.

Setting aside Okaba's personality, I found myself unable to deny his powers of observation.

“I think,” Okaba added, “that Mr. Kurosawa plans to charge you with keeping an eye on us.”

“Keeping an eye, you say?”

“He must be, isn't he? He can't invite us here and then not remain on guard.”

I understood. So, he had invited me, an outsider unrelated to his plans, to act as a buffer between himself and those who had reason to wish him harm. However, I couldn't imagine I would be able to fulfill the role of “keeping an eye”, as Okaba had mentioned.

“He has high expectations of you.”

I didn't want to live up those expectations.

9

The next morning I awoke to the sound of a woman screaming.

Was it the voice of Yuri Tamii? I slowly crawled from the bed and made my way to the first floor, where the scream had come from.

Although I didn't accept the position of watchman that Okaba had told me of, I had been listening from my room on the second floor in case something happened. However, I was suddenly overcome by a feeling of intense drowsiness and fell fast asleep, not rousing until the scream reached my ears.

Yuri had collapsed and fallen to her bottom in front of Kurosawa's exhibition hall and study.

“What has happened?”

“Ah, it's...”

With a trembling hand, Yuri pointed into the room.

The other guests arrived after me. Okaba immediately began to take pictures using his smartphone, perhaps thinking it would make for good reference material.

The thing I'd most feared had become a reality.

Kurosawa lay in front of the study desk. A knife protruded from his chest.

What was strange, however, was the state of the area around the body.

Kurosawa's body was surrounded by a great number of butterflies.

There were about eighty of them, all in different sizes. Looking up, I saw that all of the glass cases on the wall had been opened, and every butterfly within had been removed.

The butterflies were nailed to the floor with the pins used to hold specimens in place. It must have been the culprit's doing, though at the time I hadn't the slightest idea why.

It was as though the dozens of butterflies had been used to decorate Kurosawa's body.

10

“Did they stick?”

Slouch asked.

“I'm sorry?”

“In the floor. I don't know what the floor was made of, but if the pins were able to penetrate it and get lodged in, it can't have been wood or plywood, right?”

The monk sat there, mouth opening and closing.

...Had he not thought of that?

If that was the case, then he'd come up with the scenario of “a corpse surrounded by butterflies” and just gone with it.

“It was carpet.”

“Eh?”

I said it without thinking.

Surprised by my voice, the mountain monk turned around.

“Ah, I forgot to mention,” the monk said apologetically. “There was a thick carpet in Kurosawa's room. That was what the pins had stuck in.”

It sounded like he'd just come up with the idea, but Slouch backed down.

“Oh, that makes sense.”

As he said that, Slouch handed over another napkin.

“Pardon me, but could you please write down the names of all the butterflies that were lined up.”

The monk shook his head.

“That would take a long time; I wouldn't want to bore our other guests.”

He'd managed to escape.

Perhaps he was finally figuring out how to deal with the three young men, and it seemed like he was finally starting to get a handle on his own story. That was interesting in its own right.

“But,” said Specs, “I am a bit worried about you suddenly becoming sleepy. That seems a bit too convenient.”

The mountain monk smiled gently.

“All will become clear in time.”

Hmm.

I'd thought that many interruptions would fluster him, but it looked like he was only getting calmer.

The body had finally turned up. The story must have been approaching its climax.

11

We now return to the continued adventures of Jizō, already in progress...

The local police arrived and subjected us all to questioning.

A detective introduced himself to me as Sasaki.

“So yesterday was the first time you ever met Mr. Kurosawa?”

“Is it true that you didn't wake up a single time until morning?”

“Yes,” “That is correct,” I answered the same questions over and over again, until the urge to sleep began to overcome me once again.

I had no choice but to share what I'd heard from Okaba with the officer. It seemed that the rest of our group had gathered there because Kurosawa had discovered their wrongdoings. And they may have all had motives.

Sasaki nodded.

“We knew that much already.”

What?

“Mr. Okaba told us what Mr. Yuzuru Asagi had done. He said he suspects him of involvement with insider trading.”

“Yes.”

“Though we don't know anything about Mr. Okaba himself or Ms. Tamii.”

“Neither do I.”

Sasaki rubbed his brow with the end of his ballpoint pen.

“So the situation hasn't changed much.”

“It hasn't?”

“No. The drawers in Mr. Kurosawa's desk were all ransacked. It appears the culprit took everyone's blackmail material.”

It was most likely that they only wanted to destroy the evidence of their own crime. However, if they only took their own material, it would immediately be obvious who the culprit was. That was why they disposed of everyone else's as well. Or it was also possible that everyone was in on the crime together.

“So, how did you know that Mr. Kurosawa was threatening them? Did Mr. Okaba tell you that as well?”

“No. Mr. Okaba kept quiet with us. Once of the desk drawers has a false bottom, and inside it, we found a notebook. It was a financial record, containing initials and the amounts he'd asked for.”

Which meant that the blackmail material itself was still unknown.

“What was the cause of death, if I might ask?”

“Blood loss after being stabbed with the knife. There were no other visible injuries. Do you know what the murder weapon was?”

“I do not. I only arrived here yesterday, as I've told you.”

“Do you have an alibi for between 10:00 and 11:00 P.M. last night?”

“I'm afraid I don't. I was fast asleep.”

So that was the time of death. What an easy to understand detective.

“Well, it's not surprising that you suddenly fell asleep last night.”

“What do you mean?”

“We found a package of sleeping pills in the kitchen trash. It appears they were mixed into your coffee.”

What?

According to Sasaki, none of the other guests claimed to have experienced any sudden sleepiness. If the motive was blackmail, then I also had no motive, so I wasn't considered a suspect. It seems they'd drugged me and only me because they didn't want me to fulfill my role of watchman. Incidentally, everyone had a chance to mix in the drugs.

Sasaki stared directly at me.

“You weren't involved with the butterflies, were you?”

“Speaking of the butterflies, there were a large amount of them surrounding the corpse...”

“That's right.”

“Why do you think I was involved?”

“I don't know,” Sasaki blinked. “I thought maybe it was some kind of ritual.”

It seemed he'd misunderstood what it was a mountain ascetic did.

“Well, I'll call you again if anything comes up.”

Sasaki matter-of-factly told me that and let me go.

Okaba sat at the wooden desk. Yuri had been taken into questioning after me. Asagi had holed himself up in his room.

“Well? How was it being questioned?”

I decided it was for the best if I kept the existence of Kurosawa's records a secret.

When I asked him about his actions last night, Okaba told me he was asleep and didn't know anything. From what I'd heard, Yuri and Asagi didn't have alibis either.

“I wonder why they took all the butterflies out of their cases and lined them up like that.”

“Hmm, that did make me curious.”

“Mr. Okaba, you took photos of the scene, didn't you? Do you still have them?”

“I handed the data over to the police, but not before I made copies.”

How intelligent.

Okaba opened his laptop and pulled up the photos.

Kurosawa lay face up, his blood soaking into the carpet. There were no other bloodstains, suggesting his body hadn't been moved. There was no blood on any of the butterflies, either.

That meant that after stabbing the victim, the culprit, for whatever reason, took all the butterflies from their glass cases and set them out like that.

Kurosawa lay sprawled, and the butterflies surrounded him as though forming an outline. There were even butterflies drawing between his legs, as though they were closely following the contours of his body.

The perpetrator had taken the butterflies from their cases, bent down on the carpet, and stabbed them. No special tools would have been needed. There were around eighty of them, so the task would have taken between ten and fifteen minutes.

Okaba stroked his chin.

“Maybe they wanted to display the body?”

“If that is the case, than it is quite the perverse motive.”

“Maybe they needed to empty the cases.”

“That may be possible, but I am curious what the culprit would need all of them empty for. And besides, if they did only need to empty the cases, there would have been nothing stopping them from leaving the butterflies lying on the floor.”

“Maybe they wanted to draw attention to the butterflies. There was a valuable butterfly in that collection that Mr. Kurosawa had obtained illegally. They wanted to alert the police to it, so they took it out of its case.”

“I see. But if that was the case, than they should have only taken that butterfly out of its case. And it would have been much more noticeable if they had pinned it to Mr. Kurosawa's clothes.”

“Maybe all of the butterflies were obtained through illegal means...”

“When I met him yesterday, I saw him collect one himself, and some of them were purchased openly. It isn't possible that all of them were obtained illegally.”

I participated it Okaba's discussion, but if Okaba himself was the culprit, he wouldn't have given me the answer right then and there. Only listening halfheartedly to what he said, I allowed my imagination to wander in the direction of the culprit's motives.

“But it does seem likely that they were after a specific butterfly.”

“I see.”

“For example, what is the name of that one there?”

I pointed to a butterfly next to the corpse's left hand. It had orange wings with black veins running through them like those of a leaf. It was quite beautiful.

“...Danaus plexippus.”

“What?”

12

“What?”

Specs mirrored the mountain monk's reaction exactly.

“Dana... huh? What did you say?”

“Could you write this down for us as well?”

Suit handed over the napkin with the cast of characters written on it. The monk made a sour face as he wrote down the name of the butterfly.

“Don't be such a grouch,” said Slouch. “You deliberately mentioned that specific butterfly during your talk with Mr. Okaba. It must be some sort of clue.”

...It's even more obvious if you say that.

I wanted to interject again, but the three young men never gave me a chance.

“But I've never heard of a butterfly called danaus whatever. Aren't butterflies all named stuff like 'ageha' or 'monshiro'?”

“Those are their Japanese names. Danaus plexippus is a scientific name. It's Latin, with ties to Greek mythology. Its common name is-”

“Now, now, all of that will come up later.”

The mountain monk's forehead was dripping sweat.

Somehow, I was starting to feel sorry for him.

13

Once more, back to Jizō's story...

“...Danaus plexippus.”

“What?”

“Well, I've just heard about that butterfly from Mr. Kurosawa. I don't know anything about the others.”

Okaba suddenly went silent and became very closed off.

The fact that Kurosawa had only told him the name of that butterfly suggested he had some special attachment to it. However, even if this species of Danaus was special in some way, that didn't explain why the over seventy other species had also been taken out.

I once again found my thoughts at an impasse.

As I wandered the boarding house, I saw Sasaki enter the room where the crime had taken place, accompanied by someone. The forensicists should have been finished by now.

I attempted to observe them through the police tape spread across the door.

“...Ahh, what a waste.”

“The body has been removed, but the butterflies are still here. The blood already coagulated, so the butterflies weren't soiled.”

“That may be true, but won't this entire collection just be taken away as evidence?”

Sasaki groaned.

“That does appear to be the case.”

“So it's like I said. Such a waste.”

“Is there anything you can tell from looking at the butterflies pinned here?”

“Their habitats and values are all different. They do look like they came from a private collection. Some of them are in poor condition, as though they've been taken out of their cases and observed several times.”

I see. So Sasaki had called a butterfly expert to advise on the case. If I kept listening, I might get the information I wanted.

“So there isn't any sort of pattern.”

“Right. Not from Mr. Kurosawa or our culprit. If I had to say something, it looks like there are a large amount of South American butterflies. He appears to have had a complete collection of all the species of genus Agrias, which are known in Japanese as miiro tateha.”

“All of them?”

“There are many variations within the genus. They can be divided into six types based on the colors of their wings.”

Sasaki sighed. I wondered if he was interested or not.

“Um, the Agrias are...”

The man pointed to the six butterflies in turn. One was next to the right foot, another by his head. Their positions didn't appear to have any significance.

“There are also a benimono kuro ageha – a common rose butterfly – an akiresu morpho – a blue-banded morpho – a beata miiro tateha – an Agrias beata – an aka tateha – an Indian red admiral – a kujaku chou – a European peacock...”

There was no way I could remember that many names. I gave up on trying to keep up with the man.

“Ah!”

It was at that moment that Sasaki noticed me.

“What are you doing over there!?”

Even though I'd been seen, I brazenly stayed where I was.

“I'd like to ask you something.”

I ignored Sasaki as he steadily approached and spoke to the butterfly expert.

“What is it?”

“What kind of butterfly is Danaus plexippus?”

The man's eyes widened.

“Well, that's strange.”

“What is?”

“I thought you didn't know much about butterflies, but you went out of your way to use the scientific name?”

“The scientific name?”

“Its common name is the monarch butterfly, or in Japanese, the okaba madara. It's a species of poisonous butterfly that lives in tropical and subtropical regions around the world.”

“Poison...”

Just as Sasaki grabbed me by the shoulder, a young policeman ran in.

“Mr. Sasaki, we got a response to your inquiry.”

Sasaki let go of my shoulder.

“That was fast.”

“Yes, it was just as it said on the delivery note you found. It seems that the wood carver, Mr. Y, handed the package to the courier the afternoon of the day before yesterday. The courier's delivery was scheduled to arrive between 2:00 and 4:00 P.M., and it was handed directly to Mr. Kurosawa at 2:05.”

If memory served, Kurosawa and I had met yesterday at around 3:00.

“The object delivered was that pedestal for holding butterflies, wasn't it?”

When I asked, the young policeman looked surprised. He must not have expected to see a man dressed like me.

“Yes. Apparently he has it replaced once per year, and made the order regularly.”

“Did you find the previous item?”

“Yes. Apparently he was planning to get rid of it; we found it in the backyard. There were many holes in the branches.”

“Mr. Kurosawa liked to take the butterflies out of their cases and stick them to the branches with pins. He thought it was funny, seeing them look like they were resting on the branches as though they were still alive.”

“So that's it!” the butterfly expert exclaimed. “No wonder they're so poorly preserved. It’s no different than if a child had played with them.”

Sasaki stroked his chin and hummed.

“Maybe that was it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Ah, no,” Sasaki said before talking at length as though he'd forgotten I was an outsider. “I once spoke to someone who said they'd been blackmailed by Mr. Kurosawa. It seemed Kurosawa misunderstood that they were guilty of something and threatened them to the point where they filed a police report. However, because the culprit never took any direct physical action or made anything that legally qualified as a threat, no charges were ever raised.”

“When Mr. Kurosawa invited them to his boarding house, he showed them a butterfly he'd pinned to a wooden object. They'd forgotten its name, but it was brown with yellow edges and spots the color of lapis lazuli.”

“The mourning cloak, or kiberi tateha,” said the expert. “But that's strange. It isn't among the butterflies lined up here.”

“That's only to be expected. When Mr. Kurosawa realized his mistake, his face went red and he crushed the butterfly into pieces.”

“How horrid!”

The expert screamed in horror.

That episode unlocked everything in my mind.

Ah, I see.

In that case...

“May I ask two things?”

“What is it?” asked the young policeman.

“Where there any pin marks on the wooden object on the desk in the study?”

“Yes, there was a hole.”

“This second question is for Mr. Sasaki. By any chance, was the person who Kurosawa mistakenly tried to blackmail named...”

When I mentioned the name, Sasaki's eyes shot wide open.

“That's right, but how did you know?”

“That's it, then. There's no doubt in my mind who the culprit is.”

14

Slouch spoke with a grin. I didn't like how relaxed he looked.

“The biggest question,” I said, hoping to liven up the conversation, “is why the culprit took out all the butterflies and pinned them down.”

“It is quite the puzzle,” Tokokawa chimed in, perhaps understanding what I was going for. “At the very end there, it felt like we got a lot of information about the perch and Mr. Kurosawa's little episode.”

“I get it,” Slouch said. “It's the name Mr. Monk mentioned.”

“Eh?”

“The name was Kibe, wasn't it?”

The monk's eyes went wide.

“But there's something strange here. I can't narrow it down to one suspect. I'm sure my theory is right, and yet...”

Slouch continued to mutter to himself.

...Oh no.

If things continued like this, there wouldn't be anything left of the solution section. I quickly interrupted him.

“Is that correct?”

“Oh, uh, yes, that's right.”

“You didn't realize, old man?”

Slouch spoke provocatively. I'd thought maybe he'd seen through me, but I quickly shook my head.

I did know. Of course I knew. There was a certain trend in the names of the butterflies that the mountain monk had recited. Even if what he was telling was a made up story, it was a made up story meant to be told, so he wouldn't have wasted time with a meaningless list of butterfly names.

So the name Kibe was a good guess. But that's all it was. When you listened to stories of deduction, you didn't want to hear someone's guess. You wanted to hear a logical argument from a dignified detective.

“I'd like to hear the rest from you, Mr. Jizō.”

As I said that, a gasp came from somewhere. It bothered me, but I didn't pay it any further mind.

“I understand.”

The mountain monk sounded somewhat relieved.

“As has already been explained, the surname of the person who Kurosawa had attempted to blackmail was Kibe. And the name of the butterfly that Kurosawa showed them was kiberi tateha. Yes, they both contained the sound 'kibe'.”

“I guessed that because I noticed that the names of the butterflies at the crime scene all had something in common. Yes, they contained the names of the suspects.”

“I see.”

Suit tapped his fingers twice on the cast of characters list in front of him.

“Mr. Okaba is from the OKABA madara.”

“Ms. Tamii is the beaTA MIIro tateha. The 'Tamii' is split across two words.”

“And Mr. Asagi was the ASAGI madara.”

The mountain monk nodded.

“Of the many butterflies at the scene, all the suspects' names were among them. That couldn't be a coincidence.”

“But,” said Specs, “isn't that just the usual mystery fiction convenience? It's basically a dying message, isn't it? But in this case, the victim wasn't clutching a specific butterfly or anything.”

Inwardly, I gave a bitter chuckle.

...Don't call it “like mystery fiction”.

“The term dying message may be appropriate,” said the monk. “However, while a standard dying message is something a person comes up with as they lie dying, this was something the victim had constructed in advance. He had purposely gathered all of the butterflies with those names together.”

“Why did he do that?”

I urged him onward.

“Since Mr. Kurosawa has already passed on, we can only speculate, but I believe Kibe's story makes it quite clear.”

“To Mr. Kurosawa, the butterflies represented the people he was blackmailing... since he was trying to extract money from them, perhaps I'll call them 'debtors'... the butterflies were likely a symbol of the debtors. He pinned them down and locked them in a case so he could take them out and observe them whenever he wanted.”

“Wow, that's creepy.”

Suit opened his mouth wide and gave an exaggerated groan.

“Whenever he invited a debtor into that room to demand money, he would take out the butterfly representing that debtor and place it on the perch to show that their fate was in his hands. The moment he realized that he had no actual blackmail material on Kibe, he crushed the kiberi tateha not only because he was enraged to meet a person he couldn't control, but because he no longer had any use for the specimen. When Yuri Tamii and I visited the scene the day before the incident, there was a case with an empty spot inside. That must have been where the kiberi tateha had once been.”

The monk continued.

“Now, if we consider that the victim was a man with such a hobby, the perch suddenly becomes much more meaningful.”

“What do you mean?”

Tokokawa tilted his head.

“That perch was a brand new object that was delivered to the boarding house at 2:05 P.M. that day. And it bore only a single hole from a pin.”

“Ah!”

Tokokawa spoke up.

“I see, so that single hole is the key to the case.”

The mountain monk gave a deep nod of understanding.

“Yes. In short, on the night of the murder, the victim called one of his debtors to the room. He'd probably been intending to call them in order, one after another. At that time, the butterfly corresponding to the debtor's name was placed on the perch. Since he'd gathered multiple debtors in his home, he probably intended to talk to them all, but since there was only one hole, we can confirm that the victim was killed by the first debtor he talked to.”

“Wait a moment,” said Slouch. “If that's all there was to it, the culprit could still be the second or third visitor. All it would have taken was for the pin to be reinserted in the same hole.”

I thought that made sense.

...Well, Mr. Monk, how do you respond?

I felt like part of a judging panel, and I was starting to enjoy myself.

“That isn't true,” said the mountain monk. “No matter how carefully you try to return the pin to the same spot, the angle and depth will change. That would widen the hole. If such had been found, Mr. Sasaki and the forensics team would have noticed. Also, the previous perch that had been scheduled for disposal had several holes in it. That showed Mr. Kurosawa wasn't in the habit of repeatedly placing the pins in the same spot.”

It seemed he'd had the answer prepared and been able to counter the counterargument. For now, the mountain monk reigned supreme.

“If we organize all of the information thus far, we can finally see why the culprit decorated the victim's body with butterflies.”

“I get it.”

Slouch leaned forward.

“Since they'd brought a knife, the crime must have been somewhat premeditated. However, the culprit didn't know about Kurosawa's habit, that is, the plays on words between the Japanese names of the butterflies and the names of the debtors. Perhaps the victim told them about it himself just before they struck.”

“So, this is what happened after the murder. Mr. Kurosawa was lying on his back on the carpet. And a butterfly bearing the killer's name was attached to an object sitting in plain view on the desk.”

“A ha!”

Specs slapped his knee.

“That is an unconventional dying message. It doesn't really count because it wasn't left at the time of death, but it did wind up naming the culprit.”

“The culprit who, naturally, was under quite a lot of stress. There were no guarantees that Mr. Kurosawa hadn't confessed his unusual habit to anyone else. If they left the butterfly behind, it would be revealed who he had been meeting with immediately before his death...”

“So, they found themself in a desperate situation.”

When I said that, the mountain monk nodded.

“But,” said Suit, “is that really a problem? With the deductions thus far, we can deduce that it was one of three butterflies – the okaba madara, the beata miiro tateha, or the asagi madara – but all three of those were originally in the glass cases. So there was nothing stopping the culprit from just putting it back in its case and being done with it.”

“No, the culprit couldn't have done that.”

“Why not?”

“Because the culprit had no knowledge of butterflies.”

Suit gasped.

“Mr. Kuroswa,” the monk explained, “said he arranged the butterflies by species and habitat. I don't know the exact details, but the culprit must have known that Mr. Kurosawa arranged the butterflies somehow. And unfortunately for them, there were two empty spaces in the glass cases that day.”

“The culprit's butterfly and the kiberi tateha,” I said.

“Precisely. And the culprit didn't know which case their butterfly belonged in. The odds of getting it right were only 50%. They could have made an educated guess based on size and color, but the culprit didn't want to gamble. They were afraid of someone noticing the unnatural arrangement and realizing what had happened.”

The mountain monk paused.

“Which is why they instead decided to hide their butterfly among a mass of other butterflies.”

“I see, so that's how it was,” Tokokawa mused.

“If they couldn't put theirs back in the case, they could take everything else out of the cases...”

“They reversed the idea. They stuck the pins into the carpet because the thin specimen pins wouldn't stick to the walls. And since moving the body would have created unnecessary traces, they placed the butterflies around it.”

Even the flaws Slouch had pointed out had been carefully woven back into the narrative. I was impressed.

“Wait a minute,” Slouch kept pressing. “If they just wanted to hide the butterfly, why not take it away, or destroy it?”

“Then we find ourselves back where we were earlier. If someone who knew of Mr. Kurosawa's habit noticed the missing butterfly, the culprit's name would have been exposed. Taking it away or destroying it would only make things worse.”

Slouch let out a groan of defeat.

“So far, we've exposed two things about the culprit. One is that they are one of the debtors Mr. Kurosawa called that day, and the other is that they didn't know which case to return the butterfly to.”

“We can't narrow it down any further via alibis, so the latter condition is really our only clue.”

When I said that, the monk nodded happily.

“Yes. Now, let's think back.”

“First, Mr. Okaba. When I pointed out the monarch butterfly in the crime scene photo, he immediately answered with its scientific name, Danaus plexippus. Perhaps he'd noticed that the Japanese name, okaba madara, contained his own name and found that unpleasant, or perhaps he feared that the investigators would find out and thus avoided the issue. Whatever the case, Mr. Okaba, who was knowledgeable enough to immediately identify the scientific name, definitely had knowledge of butterflies. Thus, we can eliminate him as a suspect.”

Was that really the case? It didn't sound like much, but if that was “the answer”, there was nothing I could do.

Surprisingly, Slouch didn't argue either.

“Next, Yuri Tamii. I don't know if she had any knowledge of butterflies or not, but she entered the crime scene before the murder that day, together with me. At that time, Yuri Tamii and I both witnessed the empty space where the kiberi tateha had once been, in the case on the far right.”

“In other words, if Ms. Yuri was the culprit, she should have been able to determine that one of the two empty spaces was unrelated to her. The empty space on the far right had existed before Mr. Kurosawa removed the beata miiro tateha. If that was the case, the most sensible thing she could have done would be to return the butterfly to the empty space where process of elimination dictated it must originally have been.”

The ascetic from the mountains spread his arms.

“Based on those deductions, I was able to eliminate Mr. Okaba and Ms. Yuri as suspects. That is how I was able to point out the remaining person, Mr. Yuzuru Asagi, as the culprit.”

15

...I see.

I gave a slight nod.

Starting from the strange items found at the crime scene, he'd narrowed things down using process of elimination until there was only one suspect left. I didn't like how convoluted the setup was – the people all having the names of butterflies and the victim's bizarre hobby – but as a story, it was entertaining. Whether it was a real experience undergone by the mountain monk – or a story.

It was enough to pair with a relaxing drinking session. Having the three young men there had been a bit nerve-wracking, but all in all, I'd enjoyed myself.

I gulped down the rest of my highball. Just as I was about to ask for the bill, Slouch spoke up.

“Wait a minute.”

I nearly fell out of my seat.

What, there was more?

“You said you eliminated all but one, but there's still one suspect left.”

“Huh?”

The mountain monk's shoulders shrank.

“This person here.”

Slouch pointed to the list of suspects he'd had the mountain monk make.

Jo Asagi, Real Estate Manager

Wow. Okay.

I probably let my annoyance show on my face. He was just nitpicking.

“There were two more people involved in this case: Yuzuru Asagi, who was nicknamed 'Joe' because of the characters used in his name, and Jo Asagi, whose name the monk wrote on this napkin.”

“Hold on a minute.” The mountain monk was pale as he looked at the cast of characters. “There were only three suspects. That was just a mistake.”

And I already knew the reason why he'd made it. The poster for Risky Things Make Money hanging in the bathroom. And its lead actor, Joe Shishido.

“Did you ever once say 'three people’?”

“Eh?”

He hadn't.

The mountain monk didn't appear to have noticed it yet, but I had. That was actually why I'd thought it was hard to listen to the monk. In the meeting scene, he could have said at any point that the guests were 'those three people'. If he'd then described each person in turn, Suit might not have needed that list.

In addition, it wasn't good that Asagi didn't appear much in the story. Most of the conversations in the story were with Okaba and Sasaki, and Yuri was the one who'd gone to the study-slash-exhibition hall before the incident so she could be eliminated as a culprit. If it was a true story and that was how it happened, that was one thing, but if it was fiction, that bias should have been fixed.

As a result, Slouch had started teasing the monk.

A mischievous smile like the Cheshire Cat's played at the corners of Slouch's mouth. He was probably well aware of how petty he was being. He looked eager to see how his opponent would retaliate.

It was unfortunate for the mountain monk, but perhaps that dirty trick had won Slouch the match. The shallowness of his creation had been exposed.

...Of course it had. He was a different person.

It was an obvious conclusion, but it had taken me that long to accept it.

There was no way old dreams would just come back.

It didn't matter if they were truth or fiction. As long as being deceived by them was pleasant, that was enough. The old Jizō had spoken like a wizened old sage. Even the flaws and artificialities of his stories had been somehow charming.

I was being unusually sentimental today.

Earlier today, I had closed up the shop I had managed for so many years. Maybe I had just grown naive.

I couldn't bear to watch the mountain monk before me today panic any longer. Tokokawa and I nodded at each other and got up to leave.

That was when it happened.

“I see, how interesting.”

It was the old man sitting across from the counter. The one who'd been sitting in the back with the woman who looked like his wife.

The old man smiled and sat down next to the monk. Everyone present was stunned. Even the bartender, who had been polishing a glass, froze in place.

“Of course, the culprit of the incident that this mountain ascetic encountered must have been Mr. Yuzuru Asagi. After all, if that was a real incident, the police would have investigated thoroughly, gathered more evidence, and filed a case, right?”

“Eh, right...”

The monk blinked.

“In that case, young man, let's call what you just said a mix up, a word game if you will. That is assuming this story is fiction, of course.”

“Really?”

Slouch sighed in dissatisfaction, but he seemed to agree with the gist of it.

The old man had a mysterious aura about him, as though he had everyone present in a trance.

“Well, as long as I'm here, I might as well play along with this word game. If there are two Asagis, which of them is the culprit? Let me tell the rest of the story starring this mountain monk.”

The old man gave us a clumsy wink.

“Doesn't that sound like fun?”

16

This was the old man's story...

The scene was still the room where the crime had happened. There were the three of us: myself, Detective Sasaki, and the butterfly expert. The young policeman had left the scene to investigate something.

I told the two of them my deductions. But Sasaki just frowned.

“But Mr. Monk, your deductions still aren't enough to solve the case.”

“What do you mean?”

I tilted my head when I heard Sasaki's question.

“Isn't it obvious? There are two people with the surname 'Asagi' involved in this case. Yuzuru Asagi and Jo Asagi.”

That was certainly true. When I first arrived at the boarding house yesterday, there were four people gathered on the wooden deck. Okaba, Yuri, and the two Asagis. They were both real estate managers, and they just so happened to have the same last name, but they weren't related by blood. The Asagi called Yuzuru hadn't spoken much, but Jo Asagi had been silent the whole time.

“Since the name is Asagi, they must map to the asagi madara.”

“Indeed,” said the butterfly expert, “among the butterflies around the body were two asagi madara. But one of them...”

I knew what the expert was about to say, so I stopped him with my hand.

“When I first met Mr. Kurosawa, he was catching an asagi madara with a net. I think one of the two people with the surname Asagi was a last minute invitee to this meeting. So Mr. Kurokawa had to catch another asagi madara.”

That would explain why Kurosawa had said “there aren't enough in the world”. When we first met, he'd caught an asagi madara and I'd asked if it was rare. That is how he'd responded. Even though they weren't rare, he needed another one. That was what he'd meant.

“But... what does that tell us?”

Sasaki tilted his head.

“In the end, all we know is that there were two specimens of asagi madara at the scene. That's it. We don't know which one represents which Asagi. Which means we can't narrow down the culprit-”

Sasaki then suddenly started. “Ah!”

“I get it. Neither of the asagi madara represent the culprit. After all, even if you don't know anything about butterflies, you can tell if two species look identical. And if they were organized by species and habitat, then the two asagi madara should have been right next to each other.”

“So regardless of whether the culprit was Yuzuru or Jo, if they put their butterfly back next to its partner, they would have been able to avoid suspicion. So then neither of them is the culprit. Right?”

I slowly shook my head.

“No, that isn't the case.”

“What do you mean?”

“It's impossible that those two butterflies were next to each other in the case. Because there are only two butterflies here. And when I met him yesterday, at around 3:00 P.M., Mr. Kurosawa had only just obtained the second butterfly.”

“Oh!” The butterfly expert finally spoke for the first time in a while.

“I see! So it was just collected. It's obvious.”

The butterfly expert squatted down next to the carpet.

“Look, look here. I was just about to say that this butterfly is the only one that hasn't dried yet.”

“What do you mean?”

Sasaki squatted down and looked at the butterfly.

The expert was pointing to an asagi madara that looked somewhat limp. Its wings weren't open, and it was drooping under the weight of gravity. We hadn't noticed before because it was in the shadow of a larger butterfly.

The expert spoke rapidly.

“When making a butterfly into a specimen, you first stick a needle into the butterfly's body, spread its wings on a spreading board, and let it dry. In countries with extremely dry climates, this can take a day or two, but in Japan, it requires an average of two weeks.”

“So?”

“So the asagi madara butterfly he collected on the day of the incident hadn't dried yet.”

I nodded.

“He told us he was going to start the drying this evening. If Mr. Kurosawa was a man of his word, then last night, the second asagi madara had its wings on a spread board, waiting to dry.”

“So it wasn't in a glass case...”

Sasaki muttered.

That was right. It wasn't in a condition to be put in one.

“So, let's sort our facts here. The reason Mr. Okaba knew about Mr. Yuzuru Asagi's involvement in insider trading two years ago was because they met here last year. Therefore, Mr. Yuzuru Asagi was the debtor who had been connected to Mr. Kurosawa for a long time. He corresponded to the asagi madara that had already been made into a specimen.”

“Therefore, Mr. Jo Asagi corresponds to the asagi madara that was just caught, or in other words, the one on the spread board.”

That narrowed down the culprit.

“Now, let's imagine the crime more carefully.”

“The wooden perch on the desk had a hole from an insect pin. That means Mr. Kurosawa had impaled a butterfly corresponding to the person he'd met to the perch. It would have been impossible for him to perch a specimen that hadn't been dried yet. And in terms of symbolically expressing the position of the debtor, the butterfly being pinned to a spread board may have been even more appropriate.”

“If he attached it to the perch anyway, it must have been the person corresponding to the specimen butterfly, or in other words, Mr. Yuzuru.”

The rest was the same as before.

The culprit took out all the butterflies from the cases and lined them up to prevent anyone from noticing the butterfly that bore his name.

He probably also took the butterfly from the spreading board because he hadn't realized it wasn't dry. He may have also noticed that it was identical to his own butterfly and wanted it to blend in with the others.

And thus, the conclusion was still the same: Yuzuru Asagi was the culprit.

17

Everyone in the bar sat stunned.

Even Slouch couldn't say a word.

And that was to be expected.

Most likely... When the mountain monk and Kurosawa met, the butterfly Kurosawa had been trying to catch being established as an asagi madara had been an accident.

That was because, to the mountain monk, “Asagi” was one person, so the depiction of a second asagi madara being captured wouldn't have been a clue to anything. The line “there aren't enough in the world” had also been thrown in there as set dressing, probably not meant for anything but to impress that Kurosawa collected butterflies.

So why was it determined that the butterfly in question was an asagi madara? It was because Slouch had interfered and determined the species of butterfly and the setting of the story.

At that point, the only information we had about the butterfly was the color of its wings. It could have easily been read as a species of butterfly other than the asagi madara. However, when he'd hastily “Yes, and”ed Slouch's suggestion, the then-meaningless clues became fact.

The old man knew that.

So the old man's reasoning was revenge on Slouch for causing confusion. He'd used the unnecessary clues that the other person had set up to further the process of elimination reasoning. It was pretty showy, but if he'd just come up with it on the spot, it was quite impressive.

Slouch must have been aware that it was revenge. He bowed his head, turning red up to the ears.

“I'm very impressed. It was a brilliant solution.”

At Slouch's weak response, Tokokawa and I looked at each other and exchanged quiet laughs.

Even so, there was something about the way Slouch spoke and the way he'd argued that made me think he might have been a fan of mystery novels. He was a bit mean sometimes, but I didn't think he was a bad guy. Maybe Suit and Specs were just going along with him.

Slouch bowed deeply.

“I'm incredibly sorry for my rudeness, Mr. Monk. Getting hung up on minor details is a bad habit of mine.”

“No,” the monk said, shaking his head. “It didn't bother me.”

“Thank you for the story, I had a wonderful time,” Slouch laughed. “I was very impressed by you as well.”

He turned to the old man as he spoke. The old man gave a shrug.

Perhaps that was also the old man's skill. Suit and Specs were also wearing bright smiles.

After everyone had paid for their drinks, it was time to go. It was getting late. The three young men paid first, and when the mountain monk went to pay, I waved him off.

“I'll pay for his.”

“What?”

The mountain monk's eyes widened.

“It's payback for the interesting story you shared.”

“No, I didn't...”

Oh dear. His true colors had been completely exposed.

His behavior of trying to pass himself off as a wandering storyteller was completely finished. The monk bowed deeply as he accepted my offer.

Then he left the bar.

“What an interesting night. Too bad in turned out to be someone else, thought.”

Tokokawa was smiling.

“Yeah...”

As I said that, I looked at the old man sitting next to us. The woman who appeared to be his wife was still sitting at the table behind us, cheerily sipping her drink.

“Your deduction was brilliant.”

“Deduction? No, no, no, it was simple wordplay.”

“Thank you for the interesting story. Could you please allow me to pay your bill, just like that mountain monk from before?”

...Just like last time.

He gasped slightly.

I'd noticed something odd when I called the current mountain monk “Mr. Jizō”. At that moment, I'd heard a gasp from somewhere. It had come from the old man.

“Mr. Jizō” was what Tokokawa and I had used to call him.

The wrinkles on the old man's face grew deeper.

“Is that okay? Well then, I suppose I'll take you up on the offer.”

“Does that monk from before come here often?”

The old man started to answer, but then closed his mouth. He spoke again and said:

“No, this was his first time.”

That would be a strange thing for a bartender to share, but it was even stranger for an old man who was supposed to be a customer to know. He'd practically admitted it.

I let my imagination run wild... What had surprised me the most when I saw the mountain monk was how similar his face was to Jizō's. That was why I had the illusion that the old mountain monk had appeared before me without aging.

However, if he was the monk's child, their resemblance would make sense. Their age difference was about twenty years. He would have been a child when we first met at April.

To continue with my imagination... That mountain monk was an aspiring mystery novelist, and when he went to April, he would discuss the plots he was workshopping as storytelling practice. So when his son decided to follow in his footsteps, he decided to tell him. “I had a unique training method I used to do. How about it? Want to give it a try?”

If my hunch was correct, it made sense that the mountain monk we saw today was so flustered, and especially affected by the customers' comments. It was his first time. The old man was watching him, either to supervise or just because he was having fun. However, the customers today were quite persistent, so in the end, he stepped up to solve the “case”...

But I didn't say any of that out loud.

I looked at Tokokawa. He smiled and nodded.

He must have noticed it too.

The true identity of the old man before us. He must have realized it.

But if we were to say it aloud, he would disappear again. Tokokawa had always regretted blurting out that the mountain monk may have wanted to be a mystery writer. So even though Tokokawa and I both knew, we didn't say anything.

We just took our receipts and thanked him for the pleasant conversation.

Just like we had back then.

We left the bar together with the old couple. We were going in opposite directions.

“Well, that's all from us.”

The old couple turned their backs to me.

I called out to them.

“Is this your favorite bar?”

The old man turned around and gave me a faint smile.

“I just happened to come here... No. It wasn't just a coincidence. There are two reasons.”

He held up a finger.

“First, I heard a familiar bar close by had closed down, and...”

He pointed to the sign for Fool's Mate.

“I like puns.”

REFERENCES

The World's Most Beautiful Butterflies Illustrated Encyclopedia: Flying In Search Of Flowers and Watersides (Kazuo Unno/Seibundo Shinkosha)

Field Guide: Japanese Butterflies (Japan Butterfly Conservation Association/Seibundo Shinkosha)

Scientific Names of Butterflies: Etymology and Explanations (Yoshihiro Hirashima/Kyushu University Press)

Special Thanks

The Wanderings of Mountain Monk Jizō (Alice Arisugawa/Sougen Mystery Bunko) – Main text and commentary by Yasunobu Togawa

The Old Man in the Corner (Baroness Orczy/Sougen Mystery Bunko) – Main text and commentary by Yasunobu Togawa

The Brazilian Butterfly Mystery (Alice Arisugawa/Kodansha)