“Hmm, I wonder what it could be…”
[Damn! This little brat is acting so confident! I’ll find it quickly and definitely come up with a good excuse! That confidence of yours will be your downfall!]
(No, it’s the opposite. It’s my lifeline)
He’d never think that I haven’t found even the beginning of a clue and am having everyone else deduce.
While this was happening, someone’s mental cry reached my brain.
[Ah!? That windowsill, something’s unnatural about it!]
As expected, the first to notice was the culprit Butler Hanzawa, who was feeling the most crisis.
I decided to focus on his mind and peek in.
[…Aah! The traces of melted ice that spread by the windowsill have dried and salt is floating up! Damn, the sunlight was stronger than I thought! I can get away with saying I used salt when cleaning the carpet for the floor, but the windowsill is too unnatural!]
(I see! That’s salt! Now that you mention it, salt on the window frame is unnatural!)
Praising the culprit in my mind with “Great deduction!” I stole his reasoning and started talking as if it were my own.
“Look, Inspector Gori, don’t you think something’s strange about that windowsill?”
“What… y-you’re right! There’s some kind of white powder…”
“That’s right, that’s salt. That’s the very evidence that the culprit used ice.”
I immediately presented the information I got from the culprit’s brain about “adding salt to ice makes it melt easier” as if I’d known it all along.
“Um, according to research from a certain university, ice made with salt water, even board-shaped pieces about 30 centimeters thick, will melt in about 30 minutes to an hour. By a sunny windowsill, it wouldn’t take much time, probably.”
It’s a bit fuzzy since I just heard it, but that’s part of the charm. Butler Hanzawa could only make strange sounds while sweating profusely at this explanation.
“H-heh”
[W-what the hell! This girl, despite her stupid face, does she usually devour academic papers!?]
(No no, the admirable one is you for researching properly… well, not admirable since you committed a crime)
Having his ice traces exposed, the butler began making painful excuses while wiping his streaming sweat.
“Ah, but, maybe when I cleaned the carpet with salt, I might have wiped the windowsill with that rag too, or something.”
But Inspector Gori immediately pointed out:
“No, however, this way the water soaked in, the amount of salt that floated up – it’s more natural to think it’s the remains of something that melted rather than something that was wiped.”
“Ugh”
Butler Hanzawa was flustered by Inspector Gori’s supplementary deduction.
Now, having found the evidence of ice traces, I presented the full picture of the trick I got from Butler Hanzawa’s mind with great fanfare.
“Actually, the reason the culprit placed the ice by the windowsill wasn’t just to make it melt quickly.”
“W-what!?”
“Think about it – would there be any need to melt it at the scene?”
“Y-you’re right… they could have just thrown it out the window, so why…”
Inspector Gori responded excitedly. This person became a detective because of his love for mystery novels and detective dramas… he must love this kind of situation.
Using his somewhat enjoyable reaction as accompaniment, I continued my deduction (lol) pleasantly.
“Yes, after the culprit placed the weapon ice by the windowsill, they put the decorative vase on top of it. Positioned cleverly so it would fall when the ice melted and lost balance.”
“Why would they do such a… ah!”
“Do you understand, Inspector? That’s right, to make it seem like the moment the sound occurred was when they finished the crime and escaped through the window… evidence destruction and false staging – those two things were the purpose.”
Seeing me declare this so definitively, everyone except Butler Hanzawa gave me a small round of applause.
Having somehow managed to solve the vase trick at the last minute, combined with the situation, I felt like a circus performer who had just finished crossing a tightrope to thunderous applause.
READ THE ORIGINAL TRANSLATION AT LOCALIZERMEERKAT.PAGES.DEV
(Yes! I made it across again! That tightrope!)
While I was mentally striking a victory pose with such thoughts, Butler Hanzawa was nervously trying his best to act innocent with a fidgety expression.
“Wh-what a terrible thing! If that’s the case, then everyone who was in the living room is a suspect! Right, Ichiwada-san!”
“Wh-why are you suddenly speaking so casually?”
Ryosuke-san was surprised in return by Butler Hanzawa, whose true nature was starting to show. The culprit seemed to be quite mentally flustered.
Butler Hanzawa’s character was already falling apart, so I decided to deliver the finishing blow by exposing the locked room trick here.
“By the way, regarding the locked room, there was a string with a loop attached that had fallen outside the window. The culprit probably struck Futsuko-san, then hooked that sturdy string to the key, closed the window, and slowly pulled it from outside to create the locked room.”
“……”
[Th-this guy… this bastard! Didn’t you say earlier that it wasn’t related?!]
(Nothing to say, huh? Well, of course. Now that the alibi trick has collapsed, you can’t even think about pinning the blame on Ayashi-kun anymore. In fact, you’re in danger yourself.)
Watching the silent Butler Hanzawa with a smirk, I deliberately raised one finger theatrically again and began the finale of my deduction.
“The reason for deliberately obscuring the timing of the crime was to create an alibi. In other words, the culprit is someone who had no alibi before the sound occurred, but had an alibi when the sound was heard…”
Then I pointed my single finger toward Butler Hanzawa.
“The answer derived from that is… Butler Hanzawa, you are the culprit.”
“Wh-what?!”
At my words, everyone’s gaze turned toward Butler Hanzawa all at once.
“…No way! This butler?!”
“Hanzawa! Was it you?!”
“Now that you mention it, he was suspicious as hell.”
“Cough-ho! Cough-ho!”
Even the most suspicious-looking bloody bandaged man was condemning Butler Hanzawa.
“I-I am… n-no, I mean…”
Butler Hanzawa, who had been told he was the culprit, completely changed from his fidgety expression and glared at me with the face of a villain.
“N-no, but this is just coincidence! Honestly, isn’t the eldest son Ayashi way more suspicious?!”
“Y-you! Again with the casual speech?!”
“Cough-ho?!”
Suddenly having suspicion directed at him and hearing the casual speech, both Ryosuke-san and Ayashi-kun couldn’t hide their surprise. He must have been good at hiding his true self normally.
Throwing caution to the wind, Butler Hanzawa continued his final desperate struggle.
“No, no, think about it logically – Ayashi who was in the garden the whole time without an alibi is way more likely!”
“Well, it’s certainly not zero possibility, but I can’t see any reason why he would bother using an alibi trick, so Detective Oba’s deduction is convincing. Additionally, Ryosuke-san is a bit too portly to jump to tree branches, and Hitomi-san with her flashy nails and dress would also find it difficult to jump to trees… By process of elimination, you’re the most suspicious.”
Inspector Gori calmly refuted him, and Hanzawa looked like he was about to grab him and start shouting.
“Shut up! The guy who was sneaking around doing something in the garden is more suspicious! The weapon might not have been ice but something hidden there! The fishing line for the locked room trick that was dropped – he could have borrowed it from the fishing equipment in the shed!”
“That must be it,” Butler Hanzawa began saying.
Inspector Gori stopped the ranting man.
“…Wait a minute.”
“What, you incompetent detective! That brat is more suspicious than an old man like me—”
As Butler Hanzawa pressed forward aggressively, Inspector Gori pointed a thick finger at him. The butler immediately flinched at the incredibly burly finger.
“I apologize, but did you just say ‘fishing line’?”
“Eh, ah? Wh-what? It’s a locked room using fishing line, isn’t it?! That detective over there is saying so! Or don’t you know what fishing line is! It’s fishing string—”
Cutting off Butler Hanzawa’s words, Inspector Gori scratched his head and sighed.
“Haah… Listen, Detective Oba has only been saying ‘sturdy string’ this whole time.”
“—Ah!”
“By the way, we were having that conversation in the hallway, so it should have been impossible for you to confirm the contents of the evidence.”
“Ah, ahhh?!”
Butler Hanzawa’s absent-minded voice echoed in the room. Then Inspector Gori turned toward me with an exasperated expression.
“Were you deliberately saying it wasn’t related to make the culprit slip up? What a nasty personality for a detective.”
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