Murder in the Crooked House by Sōji Shimada

Author:Sōji Shimada [Shimada, Sōji]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Tags: Detective, Mystery, Japanese Literature
ISBN: 9781782274643
Publisher: Pushkin Press
Published: 2019-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

When lunch was over, Ushikoshi and Okuma made their way back to the library in silence, sat down in the exact same chairs as before and watched the sun gradually sink in the sky. They had the feeling that they might be forced to watch the sun again tomorrow, and the day after that too. Neither man felt much like talking.

It wasn’t that he didn’t hear the door open, but Chief Inspector Ushikoshi didn’t feel inclined to turn his head around until he heard his name spoken. His hopes were riding on this result. He could barely look Sergeant Ozaki in the eyes.

“What happened?”

“We searched every room in the house. And every person too. There were no women police officers available, so we’ll probably be fielding complaints from the female contingent.”

Ozaki’s speech was a little more sluggish than usual.

“I see. And?”

“We found absolutely nothing. Nobody was hiding a fishing rod; there isn’t one in the whole house. No long poles either. The billiard cues are about the longest thing here. And of course we didn’t come across any modified firearms.

“There was no evidence that anything had been burnt in the fireplace besides regular firewood. We combed the ground around the house to a distance farther than an Olympic javelin champion could have thrown, but found nothing.

“There are no stools or stepladders. Just like Room 14, in Kajiwara’s and the Hayakawas’ rooms there are desks—well, not as fancy as that one—but they were both so large and solid that it would have been extremely difficult to move them anywhere. And their height wasn’t that much more than the bedside tables—barely another twenty centimetres.

“Then I thought that perhaps the long object we were looking for might be a javelin, so we went to check the sports equipment in Room 10. But there was no javelin in there. There were pairs of skis and ski poles in there, and in the storage shed we found a long-handled shovel, a hoe, spade, broom—all those kinds of tools. But to bring those into the house would be just the same situation as with the stepladder. We give up.”

“I’m so sorry. But I guess I kind of expected it,” said Ushikoshi with a sigh. “Do you have any other ideas?”

“As a matter of fact,” said Ozaki, “I did come up with something.”

“All right, tell me more.”

“I wondered about a frozen rope. Whether it could be used like a long pole.”

“Clever! And what did you discover?”

“Nobody had any rope, but there was some in the storage shed.”

Ushikoshi began to think furiously.

“You know that could be an important point. Some kind of long pole… Something inside this house that is long. Maybe something that is always there right in front of our eyes. Something that takes just a little bit of fixing up and suddenly you’ve got a long pole—something like that. Is there anything in that display room next door?”

“We searched it thoroughly, but a stick or a pole—”

“There has to be something somewhere. If there isn’t,

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