The student in the next room, Jaffard, said.
“It was almost time for roll call, but roll call started late that day. I was waiting for Mr. Squong to come when I heard a sound from the room next door.”
“So you didn’t see the victim’s face yourself.”
“No. Mr. Squong really hates it when people are in the hallway during roll call, so everyone avoids walking around at that time. So I was inside my room, and I heard Allen’s and Ed’s voices. The soundproofing between my room and Allen’s room isn’t very good. So I could hear their conversation very well.”
“The contents of the conversation? Was it exactly as Mr. Edward Burr just said?”
Jaffard nodded.
“Yes. It was a promise to lend the notes tomorrow.”
Why did the culprit make such a promise?
‘To naturally enter the victim’s room the next morning?’
Perhaps the culprit had a reason to be the first witness. What if he naturally set up an appointment for that purpose?
‘What a psycho.’
To think he calmly promised “tomorrow” to someone he had decided to kill a few hours later. He must have known full well that the promise would not be kept.
“I don’t know anything about notes or whatever.”
The warden said.
“I think it was after that when I went for roll call. When I went, Ed, Allen, and Jaffard were all in their respective rooms. I checked everyone’s condition and locked all the doors.”
“Was the victim the same as usual then?”
“He was. He seemed to have no problems at all. Allen was alone in the room, and he looked fine. Far from looking like someone who was about to die, he was grinning as if something good had happened. That is why I locked the door without any concern.”
After that, the victim was not seen by anyone until he died.
“Mr. Squong, you said you were on night duty. What did you do after locking the doors?”
“Nothing much. I brought a chair to the hallway and sat there the whole time. Until 6 AM when my shift ended.”
“Did you ever leave your spot?”
“Once or twice to go to the bathroom. But even then, it was very brief. At most five minutes. Other than that…, right.”
The warden’s gaze suddenly turned toward Jaffard.
“That night, around midnight? Jaffard called me, saying he was sick.”
“Ah, y-yes…”
Jaffard explained hesitantly.
“That day, I kept feeling nauseous and sick to my stomach, so I asked him to bring me some medicine.”
“I left the hallway briefly to get the emergency medicine from the first-floor infirmary. But even then, it was only about 15 minutes. It wasn’t enough time to kill a person.”
That remained to be seen.
“I took the medicine, suffered for a bit, and then fell asleep. That’s all.”
“Did you hear any kind of commotion from the next room? You said the soundproofing is poor.”
“I didn’t hear anything like that. B-but I was so sick I was out of my mind. So…, there might have been some noise that I just didn’t hear…”
“What about you, Warden?”
“Nothing at all. The only sound I heard that night was the sound of that boy Jaffard retching all night.”
I felt like I was falling deeper into a labyrinth.
‘How did he kill him without a single sound leaking out?’
Just then, the warden spoke as if he remembered something.
“Ah, there was one unusual thing.”
“What was it?”
“When night falls, this hallway becomes quite dark. So you can see all the light leaking through the gaps in the doors. It is a small hobby of mine to observe who has fallen asleep and who is still studying by looking at those lights. By watching that, I can roughly guess the students’ next exam grades.”
Jaffard looked disgusted at the warden’s words.
“…That’s creepy.”
“Jaffard, you always go to sleep as soon as roll call is over. That is why your grades are like that.”
The warden gave a scolding and continued.
“Anyway, that night too, I was looking at the light leaking through the doors as usual, but the light in Allen’s room was quite strange. Allen usually went to sleep before midnight, but that night, the light in his room didn’t go out until after 1 AM.”
The warden let out a sigh.
“…If I had discovered something wrong then, I might have been able to save Allen. But I only thought Allen was being commendable. You see, Allen wasn’t a child who entered after being pre-educated like the other students. He was a boy who was close to last place when he entered, but his grades kept rising until he even placed first in the whole school last semester. Since it happened to be exam period, I thought he was studying hard to maintain those grades this time as well.”
“So that’s why you left him alone.”
“I kept watching to see when he would finally go to sleep. The light in Allen’s room went out around 2 AM, long after the lights in all the other rooms had gone out.”
“The oil in the lamp in the room was all gone.”
Inspector Beren said.
“It wasn’t that the victim turned off the light, but that the oil ran out and it went out naturally. Well, I’m sure the detective noticed that too.”
No, I didn’t know that at all.
‘In that case, there’s a high probability the victim died before midnight.’
Unless he specifically wanted to stay up late that night and kept the light on.
But even then, he would have refilled the lamp oil, so it was certain he died before 2 AM.
“That is all I witnessed. After that, I swear there was nothing.”
“Hmm.”
Inspector Beren narrowed his eyes and looked at the warden suspiciously.
“You said you guarded the hallway alone from 10 PM to 6 AM?”
“I did.”
“Are you saying that during that long time, except for going to the bathroom and the first-floor infirmary, you stood in the hallway and worked diligently? Without dozing off even for a moment?”
The inspector tested him, but the warden was confident.
“Of course. I can tell you as many times as you like. I guarded the hallway without resting for a single moment, and I did not detect any abnormalities.”
‘He seems really confident about that.’
“When it became 6 AM, I unlocked the students’ doors and went to sleep. That is all.”
Thus, the warden’s testimony was also finished.
Now it was the turn for the grand finale I had been waiting for.
It was time to hear the culprit’s testimony.
“Now, Mr. Burr. Could you tell us about the time you discovered the body?”
“Of course. So…, I woke up around 7 AM that morning.”
A pleasant mid-to-low-pitched voice followed.
“I thought I should go borrow the notes from Allen before classes started. Since it would be rude to go too early, I entered his room around 7:30 AM. At that time, Allen looked like he was sleeping face down on the desk over there.”
He made his voice tremble slightly as if he were afraid.
“At first, I thought he had fallen asleep while studying. So I tried to shake him awake.”
Ah, right. So even if your fingerprints are found on the victim’s body, you have an excuse, right?
“But it was strange. No matter how much I tried to wake him, he wouldn’t get up. Then I happened to see the notebook placed in front of Allen…, and a chilling message was written there.”
He’s talking about the dying message.
“I thought something was wrong, so I checked Allen…”
Burr stopped speaking as if it were too difficult to even recall the situation at the time.
“…He wasn’t breathing. I don’t know what happened after that. I frantically called out Allen’s name, and soon people who sensed something was wrong came running.”
“My, you must have gone through a lot of mental distress.”
The inspector said as if comforting him.
‘He’s quite the actor.’
If a guy with a handsome face is also good at acting, he should have joined a theater troupe; I don’t know why he’s wasting that precious talent on murder.
The testimony itself was bound to be a lie, but hearing it raised one question.
“You’re saying you noticed the victim’s abnormality after discovering the dying message?”
“Yes. There was no way to miss it. It was wide open right in front of Allen.”
As he said, there was no way anyone would have missed seeing something like that.
‘Then why didn’t he get rid of that dying message?’
Because the dying message didn’t point directly to him? Or else…
‘Because the dying message itself is a trap made by the culprit?’
Perhaps the culprit had manipulated the dying message to remove himself from the list of suspects or to frame someone else as the culprit.
It was entirely possible, but it was hard to stop the doubt spreading inside me.
‘…Why would he do such a stupid thing?’
If it was the culprit who left the dying message, it was the worst possible move I could think of.