Pathway to Japanese Literature

Between K Spa Town and Hyoutan Island—lying ten cho offshore from the tideland—wound a half-rotted, crude wooden bridge. The locals had come to call it the Bridge of Sighs, a name tracing its origin to the poet Aoki’s designation. This required no explanation, for on Hyoutan Island stood Tennyoen Leprosy Sanatorium, funded through Dr. Kanetsune Ryūyō’s personal fortune—meaning those who crossed the bridge were exclusively patients shackled by melancholy or their family members.

On March 14th, when remnants of the previous night's thick fog still lingered—with an amber-tinged haze hanging in the sky around noon—Hōsui Rintarō crossed that bridge wearing a profoundly melancholic expression. Though he had meant it as a mere four- or five-day convalescence—a vacation wrested through considerable effort—the timing proved fateful: just as this period began, a bizarre murder case had occurred at the research institute called Paradise Lost within the compound. Knowing his friend Hōsui was staying on the opposite shore, how could Deputy Director Dr. Mazumi have let such an opportunity slip through his fingers?

Moreover, while Hōsui outwardly showed reluctance, inwardly his curiosity had been seething—this was because he had long since heard rumors about Director Kanetsune’s peculiar behavior and the various legends surrounding Paradise Lost. Well, from the very moment Hōsui met Dr. Mazumi, an air thick with Paradise Lost’s secrets began to envelop him. Dr. Mazumi first summoned Medical Scholar Anzumaru—Paradise Lost’s dedicated assistant—by phone, stating that he would be more suitable than himself, and only after doing so did he utter these unexpected words.

“If I told you I’ve never once set foot in Sazangyo—Paradise Lost’s location—you’d surely find that suspicious.” “But this truth holds not an ounce of falsehood—in fact, even I was barred from entering except for the two assistants Kawatake and Anzumaru.” “That entire area was an absolutely inviolable secret realm forged by the Director.” “Who was killed?” “Assistant Kawatake Igakushi.” “They claim it’s unmistakable murder, yet strangely, the Director also met an unnatural sudden death simultaneously.” “At any rate, do leave an imperishable official record for these provincial constables.”

At that moment, a stocky man in his thirties entered, and Dr. Mazumi introduced him as Medical Scholar Anzumaru. Anzumaru had mud-colored, sallow skin that looked almost swollen with edema, his countenance visibly gloomy. However, before conducting the on-site investigation, Hōsui first managed to hear from Anzumaru about Paradise Lost’s true nature and the three individuals’ mysterious lives there. "It has been exactly three full years this month since Director Kanetsune constructed the Paradise Lost building atop Sazangyo. During that time, research into complete corpse wax was conducted in secret." "In other words, preservation methods, tanning methods, and Mr. Malpighi’s mucous network preservation method were the main research items." "And during that time, Kawatake and I—lured by high salaries—were strictly forbidden from disclosing any internal matters concerning Paradise Lost." "Now, putting aside the research completed this January for a moment, there's something that must be addressed first here." "The thing is, over the past three years, there has been another secret resident at Paradise Lost."

With that, Anzumaru took out from his pocket a bound volume of ruled paper titled *The Madness Journal of Banshō Mikie*. "In any case, if you read this preface written by the Director, you will come to understand in detail just how demonic a being he was—and how his aesthetic philosophy, warped by illness and suffering, manifested in such ghastly forms." "And this was indeed the entirety of life lived at Paradise Lost, apart from the research on complete corpse wax."

When he opened the cover adorned with composite floral patterns and depictions of flower-eating birds, Hōsui’s eyes were instantly drawn to the opening chapter. ——XX06, September 4th. I rescued a comely drifting woman of twenty-six or twenty-seven years—her left eye blinded—from amidst the rocks. Through her belongings, I learned only her registered domicile and the name Banshō Mikie; yet whether due to mental agitation, she scarcely uttered a word, all symptoms pointing to melancholic madness. However, through occasional utterances she made, it became clear that Banshō Mikie was the wife of a priest from Kozukue Village—his jealousy having wounded her left eye—an injury that ultimately drove her to attempt drowning. Gradually, my heart became drawn to Mikie, until eventually entering into cohabitation with the madwoman revealed itself as despicable.

However, I had a plan. To ascend its first step, I ordered Anzumaru from ophthalmology to perform prosthetic eye surgery on Mikie’s left eye. During that surgery, I compelled him to inject live spirochetes (Treponema pallidum) from the posterior wall of the eye socket into the cranial cavity. Indeed, as they erode the cerebrum, what these spirochetes produce in their early stages is none other than an imaginary world transcending reality. That is to say, I caused Mikie to develop paralytic madness and thereby planned to hear her unique god-imitating delusions. Sure enough, Mikie’s innate qualities—her lofty education and transcendental disposition—promptly led her to compare herself to a celestial being, and she began to chant of frolicking beneath the kārpāsī cotton trees in the Chariot Garden. The beauty of her utterances—so enthralling one could scarcely turn away—rendered even the labor of compiling this volume no burden at all. Truly, I came to think that not even the Ratnakūṭa Sūtra or Bishop Genshin’s Ōjōyōshū could hope to compare.

——Yet amidst this, there occurred something that startled me: I discovered Mikie’s pregnancy. I promptly sent her to a farmhouse in Numazu to have the childbirth completed and brought her back to this institute in January of this year. However, during that interval, Mikie’s mind and body indeed underwent the tragic transformation I had anticipated. That is, as the spirochetes infiltrated her spinal cord, motor ataxia arose and violent pain manifested in her lower abdomen; Mikie’s delusions became suffused with sorrowful expressions born of agony, and she began to chant of celestial beings in decline—their temple flowers wilting, their feathered robes sullied. In this state, she would only regress into a vegetative existence. Though treatment options existed, I no longer required Mikie; thus, the sole remaining measure was euthanasia.

Yet nature did not wait for my reach, and caused Mikie to develop massive ascites. When I beheld Mikie—her abdomen swollen to over six shaku in girth—her entire body withered and emaciated into a figure indistinguishable from the hungry ghosts depicted in old picture scrolls—I could only lament how utterly her former visage had vanished. The cold iron chains of transience proved as fleeting as a dream—ephemeral as a bubble. ——Thereupon, on March 6th, I performed an incision surgery and extracted dozens of membrane sacs floating in the ascitic fluid. However, due to postoperative decline, she passed into eternal slumber that very day. Thus, I made Mikie depict the life of a celestial maiden and indulged in over a year of intoxication; to memorialize the manner of her demise, I christened the Sazangyo Research Institute as Paradise Lost——

After Hōsui finished reading, Medical Scholar Anzumaru continued.

“However, upon completing the research, we acquired two additional corpses besides Mikie.” “Both were sanatorium patients—one being a fifty-year-old man named Kuromatsu Jūgorō with rare pineal nodular leprosy.” “The other suffered from Addison’s disease—where adrenal gland deterioration turns skin bronze—a young man called Shibusawa Tetsuzō.” “Thus we now have three corpses perfected into corpse wax, decorated with what the Director termed ‘gradated polychromy’—those bizarre embellishments.” “We preserved Mikie’s distended abdomen intact, while clothing the other two in hell-jailer garments to create this multifaceted Six Realms tableau.”

After saying that, a mocking glint flickered in Anzumaru’s eyes.

“However, when it came to negotiating with the bereaved families regarding legal permissions for corpse preservation and transaction costs, three representatives coincidentally came over to the island.” “That was three days ago—that is, on the 11th.” “So they’re still staying here, then?”

"That’s correct." "Therefore, this case cannot be simply—" "You can’t treat it as simple arithmetic where three minus two equals one." "Of course, the negotiations did not proceed smoothly." "It likely originated from the Director’s refusal to permit viewing of the corpses—both Kuromatsu’s brother and Shibusawa’s father objected to the compensation terms. But most remarkably, Kanako—Mikie’s sister, a Salvation Army officer who previously worked at U Library—upon reading this journal, made an extraordinary demand." "She asked not for money, but to be admitted as a member of Paradise Lost—isn’t that peculiar?"

“I see… A member of Paradise Lost…”

Hōsui narrowed his brow dubiously, "She probably saw this."

With that, Anzumaru opened the last page. The date corresponded to the day of surgery, followed by the inscription “Mikie enters eternal slumber—” after which a Queen of Spades playing card had been affixed. On its upper right shoulder was written “Hiding Place of Coster’s First Edition Bible,” while above the figure’s pattern appeared “Mor-rand foot.” “The Mor-rand foot—if I recall correctly, that was a case of eight toes, a so-called overabundance deformity.” “But is this a cipher?”

When Hōsui tilted his head slightly and asked, Dr. Mazumi nodded, but from beneath, “But what of Coster’s first edition Bible?” he retorted. “If there were one, it would be momentous." “That would be a historic discovery.” Hōsui, as if refusing to believe a word of it, “The world’s first printed Bible is the 1452 Gutenberg edition, but records show that in the same year, a Dutchman from Haarlem named Coster also invented a printing press and produced a typeset Bible.” “However, not a single copy of this one remains today, though the Gutenberg Bible is said to be worth six hundred thousand pounds.” “So if this were true, one could not help but call it truly astonishing.”

After saying that, he turned to Anzumaru and—

“Now then, let me hear the full account of how the incident was discovered.” “Which came first—the Director or Medical Scholar Kawatake?”

“The Director was first.”

With that, Anzumaru took out a scrap of paper on which he had drawn a floor plan and gave it to Hōsui.

“The Director was a tuberculosis patient in an advanced stage, so on windless nights he slept with the window open.” “That’s why around eight this morning, a grotesque figure came easily into view through the open window.” “But when I went to inform Kawatake of this, his door wouldn’t open no matter how I pushed or knocked.” “I waited over an hour, but when he still didn’t emerge, we had no choice but to break down the door with two other men.” “There lay Kawatake face down, a dagger driven through his heart from behind.” “As for the rooms—the Director’s had only the courtyard window open, all others locked tight.” “But Kawatake’s? A completely sealed chamber.” “The autopsy leaves no doubt about Kawatake, but the Director’s case still seems like acute illness pending full examination.” “The timing’s peculiar too.” “The Director died between two and three AM, but Kawatake’s examination at ten only gave us ‘within two hours postmortem.’” “Meaning while we were making a racket, the culprit worked unseen—no cries, no sounds.”

After saying that, Anzumaru formed a cunning smile and lowered his voice.

“However, Mr. Hōsui, there is an event here that must not be overlooked. You see, just before discovering the Director’s death, we found Banshō Kanako collapsed beneath the window of the corpse wax room. Of course we immediately carried her into the room and revived her, but afterward there was no time to attend to her, so it wasn’t until around eleven o’clock that we finally went to check on her. But at that time, she was perfectly composed as usual and had already gotten up from the bed without anyone noticing.”

“So, regarding Kawatake’s death, Kanako lacks a clear alibi, then.”

Hōsui shot a piercing glance at the other man’s face, “Then, please guide me to the scene.”

II. Secret of the Six Realms Paintings

Paradise Lost stood atop a reef expanded through landfill—a three-block expanse extending from Hyoutan Island—its entirety shrouded by surrounding luxuriant trees. Between it and the mainland lay a drawbridge, its operation rumored to be known only to the Director and his two assistants.

The entirety of Paradise Lost was arranged in the central flatland exactly as shown in the diagram above, and all four buildings were white-painted single-story wooden structures whose appearance differed not at all from utterly ordinary hospital wards. Hōsui first began examining the surrounding footprints, but those on the soil—damp from last night’s thick fog—were only Anzumaru’s from when he made the discovery, and ultimately yielded nothing. However, upon entering Dr. Kanetsune’s room and looking through the window at a building on the opposite shore, he noticed that Anzumaru’s laboratory—visible diagonally—also had its windows left wide open.

The windows of Dr. Kanetsune’s room—the two on the corridor side were simple glass panes with their latches fastened, but the three facing the courtyard were left wide open. The door was at the left end of the corridor side, and on that side’s right corner stood a bed where Dr. Kanetsune lay supine, still in his sleepwear, his limbs slightly disheveled. He appeared to be about fifty-four or fifty-five—were it not for his Briand-style beard, he would have had a rather fearsome countenance—yet seeing the deathly pallor with his half-open mouth, there was nothing but a peaceful slumber to behold.

The room showed no furnishings out of place; nowhere was there any sign of disturbance, let alone fingerprints or evidence of criminal activity. The corpse showed not only no external injuries but even lacked any signs indicative of death by poisoning. Moreover, the time of death was evident even from just the wristwatch—its glass shattered beneath the back of his right hand where it had been thrown onto the small desk—the hands frozen at exactly two o'clock. "It was cardiac arrest after all, I suppose."

From behind Hōsui, who was handling the corpse, Anzumaru called out. “Since air embolism would involve intense agony—and there being no signs of drooling or convulsions—it doesn’t appear to be cerebral hemorrhage either…” “Moreover, in such an open room like this, poisonous gas wouldn’t serve its purpose.”

“Exactly.” “If that’s how it turns out, it would be most convenient.” Hōsui had hinted at a contrary view for some reason, but now began examining the area around the corpse. The key bundle lay entirely under the pillow, and according to Anzumaru, each room’s key had a distinct shape. However, he immediately left the bed and fixed his gaze on the nearby floor. Across that entire area lay four or five crushed, desiccated bladder-like objects scattered about. Yet these small sac-like entities—each roughly an inch in size—abruptly demanded attention through Medical Scholar Anzumaru’s explanation.

“Actually, I too have been suspicious.” “These are the membrane sacs that were extracted along with Mikie’s ascites fluid.” “At the time, around thirty or so were extracted and are now stored in the glass trays of the corpse wax room. However, some of the membranes are quite durable.”

“I see.” Hōsui also nodded, but

“It’s truly an eerie matter that foreign objects from the abdominal cavity are scattered about in such a place. But you only think that way because you’re treating them as signs of a crime. If they were part of the murder weapon…”

“Oh ho… When you raise the murder theory—given my room lies directly across.” “But even assuming these membrane sacs contained toxic gas—these flimsy membranes couldn’t survive being hurled such a distance.” “Which leaves us with this courtyard showing not a single footprint.”

To Anzumaru’s derisive sneer, Hōsui cast an ironic smile. “No—we don’t need footprints. “These membrane sacs were thrown from the direction opposite the courtyard, you see.” He pointed to each membrane sac.

“If you connect all of these here, don’t you notice the line forms a semicircle centered on the corpse? There seems to be significance in this radial pattern. Given that the latches are fastened on the rear glass windows, doesn’t this shape appear to suggest some inexplicable force acting upon the Doctor? In any case, this situation clearly isn’t a natural death. And whether murder or suicide, within this shape lies the secret of the Doctor’s death.”

With the cause of death still unknown, they left the Doctor’s room and immediately shifted their investigation to Medical Scholar Kawatake’s quarters.

The room was located within the same building, separated by one small chamber in between, but all windows were locked, with only the shattered door left open. The room’s perimeter was nearly filled with experimental equipment, and at its center lay Medical Scholar Kawatake—clad in a dressing gown over his sleepwear—facing the door, prone in a spreadeagle position. And behind him, a single dagger was thrust so deeply near what would be the heart area that its hilt seemed nearly buried, yet blood only pooled around the wound’s edges without a single droplet nearby. Moreover, as for phenomena that caught the eye within the room, there was only a single chair overturned at the corpse’s feet.

Moreover, the dagger also belonged to Kawatake, and the perpetrator appeared to have used gloves, as no fingerprints remained on the hilt. Thus, all circumstances—from the apparent instantaneous death to every other detail—bore such a striking resemblance to those in the Doctor’s room that not only were there no signs of a struggle, but nowhere could any traces of the perpetrator having leaped be found. However, seeing that the door key was in the pocket of the sleepwear, even Hōsui could not suppress a feeling akin to bewilderment at the criminal’s technique of miraculously and mysteriously infiltrating the sealed room.

When the cuckoo clock on the wall to the right of the corpse began to chime, Hōsui inspected even the experimental gas valve beside it—apparently concluding his investigation with that final act—before heaving a sigh uncharacteristic of him and speaking.

“This is utterly hopeless.” “Internal bleeding occurred, and with so little blood flowing externally, we can’t even determine where the stabbing took place.” “However, after killing the Doctor around two o’clock and then waiting until daybreak to murder Kawatake around eight—where on earth could the culprit have been lurking all that time?” Anzumaru said suggestively, but Hōsui merely furrowed his brows in displeasure at the words and did not respond. Next came interrogations of three island visitors. Both male visitors—like Anzumaru—claimed they hadn’t left their rooms after retiring for the night and only learned of the commotion that morning. Kuromatsu Kukurō—brother of a leprosy patient—merely demanded increased compensation for procuring corpses, while Shibusawa Yasunori—father of an Addison’s disease patient and a pharmacist by trade—spoke with suspicion-laden emphasis about his son’s premature death given the illness’s typical progression.

However, when it came to Banshō Kanako—the last of them—a truly uncanny witness account spilled forth from her lips, her hand pressed to her chest as though lost in recollection, one that unequivocally pointed to the existence of a fifth figure with neither form nor shadow.

“I only wanted to catch a single glimpse of my sister.” “Last night around one o’clock, I made my way through that terrible thick fog to beneath the corpse wax room’s window.” “With some difficulty, I managed to level just the horizontal bar of the armored window—but all I could see were sac-like objects floating in what appeared to be a glass tray, only illuminated by the flicker of a struck match.” “Yet at that moment, I sensed someone was present in that room.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” “Who else could be there besides the three corpse waxes?” “That room absolutely cannot be opened by anyone other than the Director.” When Medical Scholar Anzumaru spoke in a menacing tone, Kanako sharply retorted, “Otherwise, that would mean my sister and the other two are still alive.” “Actually, I saw something strange.”

With a look of vivid terror on her face, Kanako began to speak. “At that moment, a clock struck two somewhere, and I struck the last remaining match I had.” “Then suddenly, the glass tray lit up with a pure white light, and sac-like objects began to rise and fall, moving about as if something were stirring inside.” “That, too, lasted only a mere one or two seconds, but the moment I was startled, I lost consciousness from shock and exhaustion.” “It was absolutely not a hallucination.” “I truly wish you would believe that this is the truth.”

The two startled men instinctively locked eyes in a shuddering moment, but Anzumaru muttered as if unable to believe his own words. “If the membrane sacs inside had ruptured, decomposition gas emissions might have caused movement. But that light you mentioned—I simply can’t fathom it. There’s definitely someone else lurking here besides us—that bastard’s undoubtedly the culprit.”

And he stared fixedly at Kanako's fox-like, piercing face. Thus, the interrogation came to an end, but Kanako did not let slip even a single word regarding the Coster Bible, while Hōsui for his part made no attempt to pursue her alibi.

However, Hōsui—appearing to have thought of something—left Anzumaru behind and was absent from the room for about two hours, but upon returning, it was decided that the final investigation would be conducted in the corpse wax room.

The Corpse Wax Room was located to the right of the building where the incident had occurred, its windows uniquely fitted with armored shutters. Inside the double doors lay embedded a stained-glass depiction of Indra—sovereign of Trayastrimsa Heaven—his hand thrust downward in perpetual command as though decreeing, "Begone, Fallen Angel—"

When they stood before the door, an uncanny stench wafted over them—a noxious odor like rotten egg whites that forced them to cover their nostrils with scraps of cloth. However, inside the room, an utterly phantasmagoric scene—one that no one had likely ever seen before—was unfolding.

To call it macabre would be an understatement—when myriad grotesque wonders reached such extremes, they transcended base emotions like terror or revulsion. What lay there resembled nothing so much as a single panel torn from some densely ornamented mythological tableau. To the right of the door stood two underworld jailers, their forms rendered in the hues of ancient mineral pigments—vermilion, ultramarine, ocher, and malachite—through a masterful pigment-fixing technique. To the right stood the bronze demon of the Addison’s disease patient, clad in a malachite-hued unlined robe, its countenance tinged with sorrow. But the grotesque nodular leprosy figure to the left—dressed in crimson—bore pinecone-shaped scabs so mineralized they resembled cast metal, their mountainous accumulation blocking eyes and mouth alike. Worse still, this cloud-piercing giant spread its Vajrapani-like limbs tautly, lips contorted in a snarl as it glared half-blindly into the void.

And crouching between those two was the naked form of Banshō Mikie, her hair parted down the center and tied into a treasure bun. Her ribcage sunken into hollows and limbs emaciated to a translucent amber hue, the idiot beauty clutched a drum-like belly over two shaku in diameter—so taut it seemed ready to twitch into pulsation at any moment. However, Hōsui merely cast a glance at it before immediately walking over to the table situated between the corpse wax and the window.

A large glass tray containing ascitic fluid extracted from Mikie’s abdomen and the membrane sacs sat atop it, within which over twenty soft, gelatinous objects floated like turtle eggs in brown-tinged turbid liquid. And it was discovered that the foul odor was also emanating from the decomposed ascitic fluid.

At that point, Hōsui turned to Anzumaru and said.

“The hydrogen sulfide odor is quite strong in this decayed gas, isn’t there? The cloth beneath the glass tray has also discolored to a pale green. No doubt the culprit aimed to convince everyone they’d murdered the Doctor using pure gas collected and pumped into those membrane sacs. However, unfortunately, hydrogen sulfide—infamous as the patients’ toxic miasma—continues to leave traces wherever it goes. Moreover, even if it were pure, encountering last night’s intense thick fog would be untenable. Before it can disperse, the water vapor would absorb it first, you see. Well then, shall we dissect Kanako’s eyewitness account?”

With that, Hōsui stood by the window, half-crouching for a while as he stared intently at the glass tray, then finally broke into a faint smile and straightened up. Medical Scholar Anzumaru, suspicious of this behavior, began mimicking Hōsui’s actions, but in his case, it only served to deepen his bewilderment.

“I cannot fathom what warrants that self-satisfied look of yours.” “Doesn’t this only deepen the mystery?” “With no ruptured membrane sacs, we lack even a basic explanation for their buoyancy.” “Then there’s the matter of this light Kanako claims to have witnessed.” “Assuming it came through the courtyard window behind the glass tray—as we saw earlier—the vermilion and malachite drapes covering those corpse wax figures would’ve blocked any pure white reflection.” “Which means that uncanny glow must have originated around the tray itself.” “The culprit is manifestly some phantom lurking beyond our four selves.” “So why then would you—?”

“The reason lies elsewhere, you see.”

Hōsui said quietly. "Now, if I were to put it this way, it might be considered ironic—but it's precisely because Kanako's eyewitness account has been verified as true." "Tell me, Mr. Anzumaru—doesn't that timeframe align perfectly with the Doctor's exact time of death?" "Therefore, I felt I had discovered an agent capable of crystallizing that nebulous gaseous substance." "In other words, we can employ the principle of using poison to neutralize poison." "To vanquish enigma through enigma itself."

“But I can’t put faith in dialectics for criminal investigations.”

Anzumaru rebutted. "Above all, it's intuition." "Why aren't you pursuing Kanako?"

“Hahahaha! But there exists a suspect even more suspicious than Kanako herself.”

“What? More than Kanako?”

Anzumaru exclaimed in surprise. "Now, Mr. Anzumaru—what would you do if that were you?"

Hōsui said as if delivering the final blow. “Earlier, I discovered this item in the shelves of your laboratory. This L-shaped wooden piece is, as you can see, a boomerang—the so-called ‘fly-and-come-back’ toy. And what might this perforated paper sphere clamped in its mouth be? I’ve come to feel that I’ve mostly grasped the essence of this case. Now, all of you head back to the main island and let me think in peace for a while.”

III. Exposing the Coster Bible

Hōsui appeared at the gathering where Dr. Mazumi and all involved parties were holding their breath—an event that occurred shortly after sunset. And as soon as he took his seat, he said quietly.

“I have identified the culprit.”

“Does that include the location of the Coster Bible?”

In the abruptly tensed air, as if utterly disinterested in the murder case, Kanako brought up the Coster Bible for the first time. Her lips had turned leaden, sweat trailing in threads from her quivering temples, while her eyes burned with a base desire that clearly pursued O’s magnificent procession. “Indeed, the Coster Bible as well.” “Well then, I shall explain in order—but incidentally, the key that led me to this analysis was none other than your eyes, Ms. Kanako.”

Quelling the restive group, Hōsui began his explanation. “That eyewitness account is indeed factual.” “An uncanny white light did manifest, causing movement within the membrane sacs.” “Now then—if we posit the light source near the glass tray, we must accept either a human presence concealed within that chamber or supernatural yōkai activity. Yet I, steadfast in pursuing material explanations, relocated said luminescence far beyond the tray’s plane.” “However, vermilion and malachite robes adorning the corpse waxes blocked this rearward space.” “Paradoxically, this very obstruction revealed an impossibility within your vision, Ms. Kanako.” “You suffer from mild protanopia—red-green colorblindness—do you not?”

“To think you’d know that…”

Before she could stop herself, Kanako let out a gasp of astonishment and stared at Hōsui’s face as if in stunned disbelief.

However, Hōsui continued methodically. “Now, in physiological terminology there exists what we call Füger’s color chart—if you write gray letters on a colored surface and cover them with thin cloth, colorblind individuals cannot read those letters as they disappear.” “That exact principle applied to this situation.” “To put it plainly—the light emerging from behind and entering the glass tray passed through red and green fabrics. Thus, when viewed through this filter, the brown ascites fluid would only appear gray to your eyes.” “Consequently, the membrane sacs of matching color inside became invisible.” “Moreover, since this was observed momentarily under matchlight, it created the precise illusion that the membrane sacs were floating.” “Everyone—through this reasoning I proved there was a luminous object behind the glass tray. Now, regarding that light source’s location—it lay in Dr. Kanetsune’s room beyond several glass panes.”

And when Anzumaru saw Hōsui take out the boomerang and paper spheres, he lowered his face and restlessly began biting his nails. Hōsui continued,

“In truth, these two items were discovered in Mr. Anzumaru’s laboratory—located across from the director’s room on the opposite shore. However, considering the boomerang’s unique property of returning to the thrower’s hand, we must inevitably cast suspicion upon Mr. Anzumaru.” “Moreover, these paper spheres with circular holes perforated here and there are firework shells.” “So then, if someone were to fill membrane sacs with toxic gas, pack them into these holes, use extremely low-strength saltpeter compound in the shells, clamp them to a boomerang, and launch it—wouldn’t the membrane sacs ejected by the compound’s combustion at the optimal location likely cause an immediate death with no discernible cause?” “Of course, the shells would return to the thrower’s hand along with the boomerang, but the sparks from that moment passed through several glass windows and were reflected in the glass tray of the corpse wax chamber.”

In that instant, a multitude of gazes laden with implication were directed at Anzumaru. But not even a hint of inflection shifted in Hōsui’s voice. “However, advancing one step further and considering the boomerang’s characteristic arcing flight—particularly the grand arc of its return trajectory—it becomes evident that interpreting Mr. Anzumaru’s room as the base point constitutes a fundamentally flawed, superficial observation.”

Then, after drawing an arc on the diagram, Hōsui continued his explanation. “As you can see, if launched from Mr. Anzumaru’s laboratory, the position is slightly askew—so due to the arc’s trajectory, it would collide with the adjacent room.” “Moreover, to prevent the gunpowder from igniting directly, the length of the fuse must also be considered.” “So then, the crime committed using the boomerang would hit a complete dead end—but then I had a sudden inspiration: what if, just as the return path was about to end, we imparted another propulsive force to make it fly back once more?”

“What—once more…”

Dr. Mazumi raised his face in surprise, but Hōsui coldly deflected his gaze, “In other words, it was because I had realized that by applying a propulsive force midway through the large arc of its return path—to launch it once more in the opposite direction.” “That force was the combustion of gunpowder.” “In that case, the base point would now shift to Kawatake’s room, located in the same building as the doctor, and if one were to first launch the boomerang into Mr. Anzumaru’s laboratory on the opposite shore, its large returning arc would enter Dr. Kanetsune’s room.” “At that moment, since the gunpowder had ignited, the recoil from expelling the membrane sacs created a phenomenon precisely akin to a rocket.” “Therefore, the boomerang—now imbued with this new force—retraced its incoming path in reverse and flew back into Mr. Anzumaru’s original laboratory.”

With matters standing thus, one felt utterly adrift in a fog regarding the culprit's identity. Though phenomenally one sensed the solution was near, that crucial name—the one Hōsui's lips refused to readily release—remained elusive. "In essence, this constitutes an act of transferred culpability. However, given both the boomerang's and firework's thoroughly calculable physical properties, this crime exhibits a high degree of precision." "The toxic agent was likely arsine—the corpse shows no cyanide poisoning indicators."

"But the gas would dissipate completely, you know."

Dr. Mazumi rebutted once more. "Yet there existed something that forced its descent to the floor in an instant." "And if not for that ferocious bank of fog, you know."

Hōsui retorted sarcastically,

“By the way, are you familiar with the phenomenon where fog splits in two when airflows of differing temperatures pass through it?” “To put it plainly—even without name-dropping some lofty scholar like Helmholtz—the vapor barrier and temperature differential prevented dispersion. Thus last night’s dense fog offered the culprit an unparalleled opportunity. But when the membrane sacs ruptured, the arsine gas released was thrust downward into a cord-like stream by the swirling airflow generated during the rupture.” “And one end of that stream found its way into the doctor’s nostrils.”

“So, the culprit is…?”

“Of course, it’s Kawatake Igakushi.” “Then who killed Kawatake?”

“However, Kawatake committed suicide.”

Hōsui laughed. Ah, every circumstance had been completely overturned.

“Kawatake’s twisted nature—seeking to make others bear his misfortune—devised a truly astonishing technique. That dagger was launched from the experimental gas valve at the side. First, he inserted the dagger’s hilt into the valve mouth, drilled a small hole in the lead pipe between that point and the original valve, then evacuated the air from that section using an exhaust pump. He then tied one end of a thread to the butterfly-shaped component of the original valve and fastened the other end to the spiral inside the cuckoo clock’s small door. This spiral would slacken hourly—when it did, the small door would open and the pigeon would move—but naturally, this mechanism had to be set up immediately before the scheduled opening time. Then, when the appointed hour arrived and the pigeon’s door opened, the thread would snap taut with a twang, pulling open the gas valve’s butterfly component. The ghastly force erupting through the vacuum launched the dagger from its mounting. However, with the regulator’s screw closed, what little gas escaped dissipated instantly. Meanwhile, the other thread—having slipped free from the butterfly mechanism when drawn toward him—was retracted into the cuckoo clock’s spiral within the following hour.”

“So, Kawatake was the culprit after all?” “Even so, what possible motive could he have—” Even as Dr. Mazumi and Anzumaru Igakushi continued their silent exchange of meaningful glances—conveying precisely this line of inquiry—Hōsui pressed on without pause. “The motive lies in the extraordinary true nature of what compelled him to kill Dr. Kanetsune—needless to say, that being the Coster Bible.” “Having finally located its whereabouts, Kawatake plotted to steal it by murdering Dr. Kanetsune—yet paradoxically, the Coster Bible itself refused to be taken by him.”

“Ah!” Kanako involuntarily revealed manic obsession and clutched the edge of the table with white-knuckled intensity.

“Indeed, following Kawatake’s trail, I have pinpointed the hidden location of the Coster Bible.” “Of course, this was because I solved the riddle left by the doctor on that domino—but it turned out to be surprisingly straightforward, unraveling in this manner.”

Hōsui took out tobacco for the first time and leisurely began deciphering the cipher. “Generally speaking, since the Morrand foot has eight toes—three more than usual—I thought this surplus number three meant we should subtract three characters in this case.” “After much trial and error, I removed Mondo’s three characters, leaving only ra and ru. Then, when I laid ra sideways to the left, the two together formed precisely the shape of ru written on paper and viewed from both front and back.” “This is precisely what’s on the corpse wax room’s door.” “That would be the stained-glass artwork of Indra, wouldn’t it?” “Moreover, regarding the Queen of Spades—from how it maintains the same shape no matter the orientation—I considered it might hint at the character for ‘well.’” “Therefore, when we searched beneath where Indra in the stained-glass artwork pointed, sure enough, there was a natural vertical hole there—and the Coster Bible was discovered within it.”

With that, Hōsui turned to face Kanako and smiled gently.

“However, its ownership should clearly be attributed to you.” The moment the rare book worth ten million yen at current value was taken from Hōsui’s coat pocket was likely a historic moment; moreover, in that blend of awe and envy, there was perhaps not a soul who dared to breathe. When they saw what had been taken out, the group cried out in surprise.

To their astonishment, it was nothing more than a flat gray object shaped like an unrecognizable fetus—let alone being a Bible. Kanako shouted through veiled anger. “Stop this jest!” “Come now—quickly! The Coster Bible!” “This is it.” “Dr. Kanetsune likened this fetal mummy to the Coster Bible, but the reason was simply that he substituted the paper-thin fetus—formed when one twin was crushed—with a more beautiful term.”

Hōsui looked at Kanako’s face, which seemed on the verge of tears, and spoke quietly. "What Ms. Mikie had conceived were twins." "With weak twins, when one dies, the surviving one grows healthy—and Ms. Mikie’s case followed precisely that pattern. He compared this sacrificed twin to the unfortunate Coster, who invented a printing press contemporaneously to produce Bibles yet found himself buried in obscurity by Gutenberg’s brilliance." "Hey everyone, what ended Dr. Kanetsune and Kawatake Igakushi’s lives amounted to nothing more than this single metaphor."