Chapter 21 Chapter Four

In the afternoon of the same day, the search team visited the publishing house where Chefci Kishimoto had signed the contract, and investigated what materials he had collected.I learned that Kishimoto is mainly responsible for the industry scandal.However, Kishimoto himself is a secrecyist and never discloses what he is tracking to the publishing house to which the contract is opposite.Therefore, it can be expected that it will be very difficult to find out what Kishimoto threatened. On the screen of Kishimoto's word processor, "President Goes to Las Vegas for a Grand Tour?" The fact that the first-class securities company is dumbfounded" has been found to be published in the June magazine.

And Kishimoto's room also has that number one magazine on the bookshelf.Thus, a question like what Hayase Police Department said: In order to re-read that article, why didn't Kishimoto just read the printed words in the weekly magazine, but why did he want to read the text of the word processor? The next morning, the results of the forensic autopsy were sent to search headquarters.Regarding the speculative moment of death and the cause of death, it is completely in line with yesterday's coroner's identification. However, the forensic autopsy revealed a fact: the disappearing porch key appeared in an extraordinary place.

The key was actually found in the stomach of the victim.It is impossible to put the key in the victim's stomach after locking the door, which means that the door was not locked with that key.So, is there only one key? The search team hurriedly asked whether the management company of "Mansion · Banggang" had given the victim two keys.I learned that giving apartment residents two keys is a long-standing rule.According to the management company, the victim himself said that one key was enough, so he returned the other key to the management company. Afterwards, the search team asked whether the entrance key could be opened by itself as a spare key.The answer is no.

The keys used there are very special, unless it is the key maker, it is impossible to make a spare key. In case of loss, you can only ask the key manufacturer to make a spare.All the rooms where spare keys have been made will be recorded, but the door key of room 103 has no such record. In summary, the door was not locked with a key at all - the prisoner turned the doorknob to lock it from inside.In that case, the prisoner could only escape through the windows, but the windows were all locked with crescent locks, and it was impossible to go out of the window and lock them outside.In other words, this is a murder case in a secret room.

The victim had kept the key to the entrance door in a wooden box on the table next to the door.The criminal threatened the victim with a pistol to swallow the key and shoot him, and then used some method to create a secret room.The criminal uses a gun as the murder weapon, firstly to coerce the victim to open the safe, and secondly to force the victim to swallow the key. However, it is unclear why the victim was made to swallow the key. The search team rushed to the scene and began to decipher the method of making the secret room. Did the prisoner turn the crescent lock or doorknob of the indoor window by rope or thread after he went outside?

However, when the window is closed, there is no gap through which the string can pass. There is a threshold at the bottom of the door, and when the door is closed, the door and the threshold will meet tightly, and the rope and thread still cannot pass through. So, did the prisoner hide at the moment when the police station inspected and found the body, and left quietly after finding an opportunity?However, after the inspection found the body, he never left the scene. If there is a hidden prisoner trying to escape, the patrol will definitely find it. The Hayase Police Department said: "I probably understand the reason why the criminal asked the victim to swallow the key and made an anonymous phone call to the Metropolitan Police Department to announce the crime. In short, the prisoner wanted to eliminate the mystery of the secret room."

"—Want to eliminate the mystery of the secret room?" Detective Fujimoto showed an incredulous expression. "The reason why the prisoner let the victim swallow the key is to eliminate the explanation that 'the prisoner locked the entrance door with the key, and then quietly put the key back after the discoverer found the body'. The discoverer after discovering the corpse Fleeing from the scene in a panic, the prisoner who was hiding and watching quietly sneaked in and put the key back. The above possibility is an imaginable solution to the secret room. Especially, the victim has always kept the key by the side of the entrance door. In the wooden box on the table, the air raid left by the finder sneaked into the entrance, and it was not difficult for the prisoner to put the key back.

"In order not to let us use this trick to unlock the secret room, the prisoner deliberately let the victim swallow the key to eliminate the mystery in advance. After all, it is impossible to put the key into the stomach of the corpse when it is found. Yes, so the idea of ​​'returning the key when the body is found' is negated." "I see……" "The act of calling the Metropolitan Police Department anonymously to let the police find the body is also to eliminate confusion." Ordinary people may panic and flee the scene if they find the body. Even if they are not scared away, they may not dare to use it. call the police at the scene, and maybe borrow the phone from the neighbors. In this way, the criminal who was hiding at the scene at the time could escape while the discoverer left the scene. If the discoverer was the police, they would not have fled the scene in a panic. Therefore, if the prisoner wanted to leave the scene quietly, he would be found.' The housewife who came at eleven o'clock could have found the body, but it happened at ten o'clock Half a dozen anonymous phone calls to the Metropolitan Police Department to declare the crime.' Suwon's above doubts have also disappeared. Because if ordinary people like housewives are the discoverers, they will probably flee the scene in panic when they find the body. The incomprehension could not be eliminated. Therefore, the prisoner called the Metropolitan Police Department to declare the crime before the housekeeper arrived, and let the police be the discoverer. The reason why he called as late as 10:30 in the morning was because the prisoner wanted to This makes the moment of death speculation blurred, so that the time after the crime is freed up as much as possible. On the other hand, the prisoner must call the police to find the body before the housewife arrives at eleven o'clock. The hour of half past ten is determined under these two opposing conditions."

Ryoko lamented the analysis of the Hayase Police Department.As expected of someone who is one of the heads of the First Investigation Division. "But then again, why does the prisoner want to eliminate the mystery of the secret room?" "It's not clear yet. In short, the prisoner doesn't want people to use a different solution to unlock the secret room. But the reason is unknown. Well, the next step is the most important part, how did the prisoner create the secret room... Since the prisoner can't get through the door or the window. If the rope is locked, it can be imagined that the prisoner used some kind of power source in the room to lock it after going outside. Then, what should be used as a power source?"

"How about a word processor printer?" The person who said this was the detective Tomizawa, the old fritter.Everyone looked at him in surprise.After all, that was the speech of a person who had the least relationship with the latest machinery such as a "word processor". "Fu Jun, do you have a lot of research on word processors?" Minister Tomizawa said shyly, "Although I don't know much about it, my nephew works in a home factory that makes word processors. Since there was a word processor at the scene of the incident, I wanted to know more about it, so I questioned him last night. It is said that behind the word processor, there is a printer that can print the text called out on the screen. And there is a paper feed roller for paper output in the printer. That thing should be used as a power source, right?"

"Let's see." The officer poked his head toward the back of the word processor. "...Fu Jun, you got it right. There is a thin rope wrapped around the paper feed roller." "Really?" The investigators all probed to confirm. Ryoko, the youngest, was the last to be confirmed.Something like a kite string is wrapped around the paper feed roller.What appears to be the string of a kite adorning the walls at the site. "So how about thinking of it this way? Extend the string from the paper feed roller to the curtain rod, and hang down through the gap between the curtain rod and the window frame, over the handle of the crescent lock when it is unlocked. As soon as printing starts, the paper feed roller will rotate, Then roll up the string. That way the handle of the crescent lock will be pulled up, allowing the crescent lock to make a half-turn to lock the window." "If that's the case, the curtain rod should have scratches from the string." After Detective Fujimoto finished speaking, he moved the chair under the table to the window, stood on it, and stared at the curtain rod. "...Yes. I found scratches that looked like strings." The investigators clapped their hands and cheered. "In this way, the victim's word processor will call up the "President's Grand Tour in Las Vegas? The real state of the first-class securities company's jaw-dropping" question. Before, I wondered why the victim didn’t directly I chose to read the text of the word processor when I read the printed version of this journal, but it was not the victim who called up this article but the prisoner. It was randomly called up by the prisoner to print the article by turning the scroll wheel." In this way, the conspiracy of the secret room was solved in a blink of an eye. "However, there are still puzzles left." The police department said, looking around at each subordinate. "Why would the prisoner create a secret room? I don't understand it. Usually the reason for creating a secret room is to disguise suicide or accident, but the prisoner didn't do anything to the victim to pretend to be suicide or accidental death. So creating a secret room is simply It doesn't make sense. Also, as I said just now, why is the prisoner so unwilling to let us unlock the secret room with a different solution..." The suspect surfaced the next day. A letter received by the Metropolitan Police Department changed the face of the person in charge.The other party hurriedly sent the letter to the investigation headquarters for the Kishimoto murder case established in the Takinogawa Bureau. The investigators became nervous after reading the description in the letter.It was a letter from the victim. ——If this letter is sent to the Metropolitan Police Department, it means that I have been killed by one of those three people. So wrote Chef Kishimoto.He blackmailed those three characters, and if he was killed by one of them, this letter would be sent to the Metropolitan Police Department after his death.Probably, he gave the letter to the convenience store and entrusted the other party to "send it if he loses contact with him". In the letter, the three people's names, gender, age, occupation, residence, and threats were recorded in detail. The first person is a woman named Takagi Tsuki.Forty-seven years old, a member of the Metropolitan Council.Lives in the "Nishi Rokugo" apartment in Ota Ward.Takagi Tsuki, who is currently serving her second term as a senator, is reported to have graduated from the Faculty of Law of Hubert University, a prestigious American university, and holds a New England state bar certificate.However, Chef Kishimoto found out that these resumes were all forged. Falsely reporting the experience of a member of parliament violates the Public Office Election Act and is subject to criminal punishment. Kishimoto obtained the roster of Hubert University graduates and the New England State Bar roster for the past thirty years, and confirmed that Takagi Tsuki's name was not there at all. And in exchange for not disclosing this fact, let the other party pay a hush money of 100,000 yen every month. The second person is a woman named Shirota Hiroko.Fifty-three years old, is the president of Shirota Sangyo, a fitness equipment sales company, and lives in Hiyoshi Town, Kohoku District, Yokohama City. Kishimoto got the company's internal and external ledgers from a man who had worked as an accountant at Shirota Sangyo four years ago. Then the accountant immediately regretted it and wanted to get back the internal and external ledgers from Kishimoto, but Kishimoto was not swayed by his words. After that, the accountant died in a traffic accident.Kishimoto, who had the exclusive secret, then blackmailed Hiroko Shirota with this, asking her to pay a hush money of 100,000 yen a month. The third person is a man named Toshiro Shibayama.Sixty-one years old, is the director of Shibayama General Hospital and lives in Kishi Town, Urawa City, Saitama Prefecture. There was an incident of bone and joint tuberculosis spreading in Chaishan General Hospital six years ago.Kishimoto found that every patient had been injected with steroids for reasons such as neuralgia, and he suspected that the disinfection of the syringes should be insufficient, leading to the spread of tuberculosis.Kishimoto took the testimonial tapes of the patients who had been injected with steroids in the hospital to Toshiro Shibayama to present evidence, and demanded that the evidence not be reported to the Ministry of Health and the health center as a deal, and the other party pay 100,000 yen a month as a seal fee. In the safe in Tetsuo Kishimoto's study, as the investigation team speculated, there was once a threatening material. Takagi Tsuki’s data is a negative of Hubert University’s roster of graduates and the New England State Attorney’s Register, Shirota’s data is internal and external ledgers, and Shibayama’s data is a patient’s testimonial tape. The criminal threatened the victim to open the safe and take away all the information including himself.This is a matter of course. If you only take your own share, if the police find out the names of all the intimidated targets, it will be clear who the culprit is.The prisoner might feel relieved by this, but he didn't expect the victim to be so clever that he actually arranged in advance to send a report letter to the Metropolitan Police Department after his death. After the investigators took turns taking statements from the three suspects, they announced the results at a search meeting held by the Takinogawa Bureau that night.To boost morale, candid photos of the three suspects were posted on a whiteboard at the meeting. Takagi Tsuki is a slender, intellectually oriented woman.Her face turned blue when she mentioned that she lied about her resume, but she immediately asserted that she didn't know Kishimoto at all.It is said that on the day of the incident, she went home after attending the entire Metropolitan Assembly at nine o'clock in the evening. After that, she was alone all the time, and went to bed after twelve o'clock. Shirota Hiroko was a little fat, and her face was bloated. At first glance, she looked like a cheerful aunt, but her eyes showed no flaws at all.When talking about internal and external account books, she laughed like she was listening to a joke, threatening that although she didn't know Kishimoto, she probably wrote some nonsense remarks about internal and external account books because he had an enmity with her company. On the day of the incident, she and company executives had dinner in Yokohama's Chinatown, and spent time with them in local bars until eleven o'clock in the evening. After eleven o'clock, I took a taxi and returned home at eleven forty.Take a shower and go to bed at one o'clock in the morning.From the results confirmed by the taxi driver, Hiroko Shirota did arrive home at 11:40pm. Toshiro Shibayama is a small and thin man.When it came to the topic of bone and joint tuberculosis, he immediately blushed and lost his temper.According to him, there was indeed an epidemic of tuberculosis in the hospital, but it had nothing to do with injections. Of course, he said that he did not know the man Kishimoto.On the day of the incident, he had an emergency operation to be performed, and he knew that he would be performing surgery in the operating room until eleven o'clock in the evening.Afterwards, after he and the nurse finished a brief summary, he took a taxi and got home at half past twelve. I confirmed from the taxi driver that it was indeed at that time that I arrived home. Since all three were single, none had an alibi for the period of time they claimed to be home. That is to say, from eleven o'clock in the evening to two o'clock in the morning, which is Kishimoto's estimated death time, the three of them either had no alibi at all, or part of them had no alibi.Moreover, all three of them have private cars, and all three of them can drive to Kishimoto's home in the middle of the night.So all three are likely to be criminals.