Chapter 61: CASE 4. Upside Down (5)

There were three people in the living room.

First, Mrs. Posha.

She wept incessantly. From the moment she realized her husband was dead until now, her crying had not stopped. By now, one would expect her tear ducts to have run dry, but the tears bubbled up as if they knew no end.

“Sigh…”

Mrs. Nelissa was slumped on the sofa opposite her. She had already given up on trying to soothe Mrs. Posha. Having suddenly been labeled a murder suspect herself, the situation was becoming too much for her to handle.

And then, there was the black shadow. A dark presence loomed over these two women.

“Madam, please do not be so sad.”

Renner approached Mrs. Posha, feigning the manners of a gentleman, and placed a hand on her shoulder.

“The day will come when you meet that fellow, Utu, again.”

Posha was lost in her own grief, her mind in a haze. She was so distraught that she didn’t even realize the person comforting her with a hand on her shoulder was not Mrs. Nelissa.

‘How pitiful.’

Renner was more than willing to put an end to her sorrow.

‘You’ll be reunited with your husband soon enough.’

His hand slowly crept toward the nape of Mrs. Posha’s neck. Just as he was about to snap that pale, slender neck—

“Wait a moment!”

A shout rang out from the direction of the upper floor.

Renner flinched and hid his hand. At the climactic moment, arriving just in time to stop the villain’s crime, that brilliant detective was none other than…!

“Pardon me, but could you all come here for a second?”

It was Walter Bell.

“There is something I would like your cooperation with.”

He beamed with a kind expression.

“Now what is it?”

Renner, having missed his chance, shouted irritably.

“I found a strange object in Mr. Utu’s room.”

Walter continued as he slowly descended the stairs.

“It seems to be an important item, but I haven’t quite figured out what it is yet. I wanted to see if any of you might know its identity.”

“If that’s the case, I’ll gladly cooperate. What is this object?”

Renner stepped forward toward Walter without hesitation.

“Oh, wait a moment.”

Walter stopped him.

“There’s no need for everyone to come at once. Mrs. Posha, could you come here first?”

“What? Why?”

“It’s a rather unusual item. I’d prefer to hear from each of you separately if possible.”

“Ah, is that so?”

Renner did not stop despite those words. Instead, he strode closer, questioning him.

“Well now, I’m curious. Just what kind of item is it that you’re being so cautious?”

One-third of the way down the stairs.

Renner, standing right below Walter on the step, gave a threatening smile and spoke.

“Can’t I check it first, mister?”

“Um, I’m sorry, but the madam must go first…”

Walter’s sentence remained unfinished.

Suddenly.

*Thwack!!*

Renner punched Walter in the stomach.

“…!”

Posha, who had been approaching the stairs, gasped in shock. Mrs. Nelissa also jumped up in surprise.

“Ugh… Mr. Renner. Were you the culprit?”

Even after being struck unexpectedly, Walter did not lose his posture. Instead, he grabbed Renner’s fists and whispered.

“Don’t do anything foolish. Even if you attack a detective, the clan won’t protect you.”

“Stop acting so high and mighty, you weakling!”

Renner shouted fiercely and swung his captured fists. Walter could not withstand the force and—

*Crash!!!*

He tumbled backward with a loud noise.

“Kh…!”

Walter groaned, his head hitting the stairs. Blood from the detective now flowed on the spot where Utu’s blood had spilled hours ago. A dark shadow loomed over his fallen form.

“I’m sorry, but you’ll have to die, mister.”

Just as Renner was about to deliver the final blow—

*Thump!*

“Ack!”

A blunt object struck his head with force.

“Stop right there!”

A warning followed a moment late.

“If you don’t stop, I won’t go easy on you!”

Standing a few steps above them, Hayes appeared out of nowhere and shouted grandly, raising his cane.

However, quite pointlessly, the opponent he intended to point his cane at was already gone.

“I think he’s already unconscious…”

A voice drifted up from his feet. Hayes looked down.

“Ah, Mr. Walter. Are you alright?”

“I suppose so. I think I’ll be able to tell for sure if you could just remove this heavy person from on top of me.”

Walter exhaled with difficulty. The unconscious Renner was sprawled over him. The impact of the blow had left Renner with his eyes rolled back and drool leaking from his mouth.

“I’ll move him right away.”

The cane was a very useful tool. It was good for knocking someone out, and it was also perfect for pushing aside something filthy without having to touch it.

*Thud!*

The culprit was pushed off the side of the stairs, which lacked a railing, but no one cared.

“Whew. Thank you, Mr. Hayes. I can finally breathe. Fortunately, it doesn’t seem like my internal organs are ruptured.”

Walter struggled to sit up on the stairs and began to straighten his disheveled clothes. Following the duty of a detective, he had to look neat and composed to reassure the people.

“Mr. Hayes, you must be confused by this situation since you don’t know the full story. Well, let me explain. It seems Mr. Renner was actually the culprit who murdered Mr. Utu. He attacked me as soon as I said I found important evidence. He likely felt anxious that evidence had been discovered and acted impulsively.”

“Ah, I don’t think that’s it.”

“Pardon?”

“He did act impulsively, but it wasn’t because he was anxious about evidence being found. It was something else that provoked the culprit. It was the mention of speaking with Mrs. Posha alone.”

Walter stopped his movements and turned back, looking up at Hayes a few steps above him.

“…Were you watching the situation? No, that’s not important. Just what do you know?”

“The culprit’s target was Mrs. Posha from the beginning. Mr. Utu was merely collateral.”

“And your basis for that?”

“It was written in the letter. Since Renner is a member of the Herbert Clan, he had to ‘protect’ Posha.”

“…The letter? You mean that coded letter?”

“Was there another letter in this case?”

“You mean to tell me you decoded that cipher?”

Astonishment filled Walter’s eyes.

“How on earth did you do it? It was clearly a cipher that seemed impossible to decode without additional clues…”

“Well, I told you,” Hayes said with a smirk, pointing to himself with his thumb. “I’m a detective too.”

Walter looked up at him with wonder in his eyes. Walter’s intuition still told him that this man couldn’t possibly be a detective. But standing atop those stairs, smiling confidently as if his reasoning couldn’t possibly be wrong, he looked so arrogant.

He thought the man looked damnably like a true detective.

***

‘Phew. That was close.’

I let out a sigh of relief inwardly. Fortunately, Mrs. Posha was safe. Walter seemed a bit injured, but he was safe too. No one was seriously hurt. It was a narrow escape, but the case had been resolved successfully.

“Please, tell me more. How exactly did you decode the contents of the letter? What technique did you use?”

“Oh, that’s…”

I hesitated for a moment, troubled by the difficult question, but I didn’t have to worry for long.

“Master! Is Mrs. Posha alright?”

This was because Lure came running in breathlessly, holding the coded letter and the decoded transcript in his hands.

“See for yourself.”

Walter buried his nose in the paper, scanning it.

“I see, so that’s what it was! An alphabet made of two numbers. The range of the two numbers, this pattern, the sequence…”

He nodded repeatedly, muttering something. I wondered what he was looking at so intently, but a moment later, he looked up and shouted as if he’d had a eureka moment.

“Yes! The answer was Mother Goose!”

“Pardon?”

“It was Mother Goose! The code for the cipher!”

Walter pointed his finger somewhere. Following his fingertip, I saw a framed picture hanging on the wall near the entrance on the first floor. Inside the frame, it was written:

Zeppelin Quade,
Just Born on a Monday,
Carefully Trained on Tuesday,
Keenly Married on Wednesday,
Poorly Groaned on Thursday,
Vexed on Friday,
Quickly Died on Saturday,
Solemnly Buried on Sunday,
That was the end Of Zeppelin Quade.

“To think that Mother Goose poem was the code. I never would have imagined it! I thought it seemed a bit different from the standard version, but I just assumed it was a custom in the Northern Region. You are a genius, Mr. Hayes!”

‘What the heck is he talking about?’

If I were to give my impression, I didn’t even know such a creepy poem was hanging in this house. If I had known, I would have thought Mr. Utu had very strange tastes.

What does that have to do with the cipher?

I was about to burst with frustration over the incomprehensible talk, but fortunately, Lure seemed to feel the same way.

“Stop talking only between yourselves and explain it to me too! So, what exactly is the relationship between that frame and the cipher?”

‘As expected, you’re the best! You are my eyes and my mouth!’

I put on a benevolent, professor-like expression, as if to say, ‘I naturally know the answer, but I want to see how much you’ve understood,’ and looked at Walter.

Walter gladly took on the role of explainer.

“I’ll give you a hint. Look closely at the Mother Goose poem. It contains every letter of the alphabet from A to Z. Furthermore, it’s exactly nine lines long. Perfect for representing with single-digit numbers. Well? Do you think you get it?”

“…Ah!”

‘What is it?’

Lure, are even you betraying me? Are you just going to understand it on your own and move on!

Fortunately, the answer followed immediately.

“The numbers in the letter… they represented the positions of the letters within that Mother Goose poem.”

“Exactly. The two numbers were a kind of coordinate. The first number indicated the row, and the second number indicated the position within that row. That’s how every letter could be represented.”

‘Okay. I roughly get it now.’

So if the number was 33, it would mean the third row and the third character of that poem? Since the third row was “Carefully Trained on Tuesday,” 33 would be the letter ‘R’?

“It’s similar to telegram codes.”

Detective Baron’s telegram also looked like a cipher at first glance. Two letters denoted the category and the sequence of the example sentences, so you had to look at a book to find the matching sentence.

“Yes. It’s the same method. Both belong to the book cipher family. But wait… what exactly are you saying, Mr. Hayes?”

“Wh-What?”

I stammered, caught off guard.

‘What? Was that a slip of the tongue? Did I make it too obvious that I didn’t know?’

Wait, let’s think calmly. From Walter’s perspective, what is the situation? A detective who claims he solved the cipher but then expresses admiration, saying it’s similar to telegram codes only after hearing the explanation?

‘That’s incredibly suspicious!’

“I mean… I was able to solve the cipher easily because it was similar to telegram codes…”

“I knew it! I heard you correctly!”

“Yes, yes?”

“A prime example of a book cipher is telegram codes. For you to admire it anew means you’ve never separate studied or encountered book ciphers before. Isn’t that right?”

“Oh, no. That’s…”

While I was debating how to answer the unexpected remark, Lure, who was beside me, boasted on my behalf.

“It wasn’t his first time encountering it! Actually, Master received a telegram this morning that used those coded telegram examples!”

“You solved a cipher using an everyday experience…”

Walter sent a look of admiration my way.

‘Wait. Something is going wrong here.’

“Tell me more, Mr. Hayes. Just when did you realize the Mother Goose poem was the codebook for the letter? Did the idea of cross-referencing them come to you easily? It must have been quite a bold assumption.”

No. Something was definitely going wrong. Walter’s current tone was like a coach facing a student who said they had never exercised but just ran 100 meters in 12 seconds. If I didn’t handle this right, I didn’t know what would happen.

“It was nothing much. Just a coincidence.”

Just as I was about to give a vague excuse—

“Wait a minute! Something is strange!” Mrs. Nelissa, who had been listening quietly, suddenly shouted. “That gentleman hasn’t come down to the first floor even once since he went up to the second floor!”

“What!”

“I’m certain of it. Isn’t that right, Mrs. Posha?”

Even Mrs. Posha, who had been crying the whole time, nodded her head with reddened eyes. This is driving me crazy!

“Furthermore, that ominous poem is only hanging here in the first-floor living room, so you can’t see it from anywhere else!”

At Mrs. Nelissa’s testimony, shocked gazes pierced toward me one after another. Even Lure chimed in.

“They’re right. Now that I think about it, I never saw you come down either, Master.”

“In that case, Mr. Hayes…”

There was only one excuse I could make in this situation. I closed my eyes tight and spoke.

“Actually, by chance… I memorized it. Earlier.”

“If you mean earlier, do you mean when we first entered this house? In that brief moment, you memorized that entire long Mother Goose poem without missing a single word?”

“It looked suspicious at a glance, didn’t it? And… it seemed a bit different from the standard version. So, I took a close look at it just in case.”

A moment of silence followed.

Eventually, Walter slowly opened his mouth.

“It seems the time has come for me to set aside my stubbornness.”

“……”

He bowed his head politely toward me.

“I sincerely apologize for doubting your abilities. Whatever your past may be, Mr. Hayes, you are a detective. And a formidable one at that, incomparable to someone like me. You may be unknown now, but one day, you will join the ranks of the great master detectives. And not long from now.”

“That…”

This was really not the direction I wanted things to go. But since things had already turned out this way, what else could I do?

“That apology. I shall gladly accept it.”

If you can’t avoid it, you might as well enjoy it.

“How could it be your fault, Mr. Walter, that I am a genius whose depths are difficult to measure through your intuition?”

Despite my boastful words, Walter sent me a gaze filled with nothing but admiration.

…Honestly, it was a little fun.