“I am an acquaintance of Madame Moss,” I said hurriedly.
“Then that police officer…”
‘It is pointless to deny it now.’
“He is my colleague.”
“Are you a detective as well?”
“… I am, but being a detective does not mean one cannot be friends with Madame Moss.”
I recalled the conversation I had with the Madame earlier.
“Surely you know as well, Ms. Daisy? Our Chief of Police is an old friend of Madame Moss.”
“……”
“We are only here by his order to resolve a small concern for Madame Moss.”
“……”
The culprit said nothing.
‘Damn it, is it not working?’
Since she wore a mask, I could not check her reaction. Just as I was fiddling with my cane as a last resort —
“Detective Baron, that blockhead!”
I flinched, startled by the sudden shout. Charlie was putting on a passionate performance with a face full of annoyance.
“I have no idea what we are even doing because of that guy! Detective, Detective — I am tired of calling him that! I told him repeatedly to lose interest in Madame Moss’s party venue, but he is so inflexible. Thanks to him, we are the only ones suffering like this, aren’t we?”
“…! That is enough, Charlie. How can you be so disgraceful in front of Madame Moss’s secretary? Stop being a nuisance and let us just collect that blockhead and leave!”
“Tsk, fine.”
“Ms. Daisy, I assume you will cooperate?”
“… Of course. It is for the Madame’s sake.”
The culprit’s eerie voice turned blunt again, just as it had been before.
‘Did it work?’
Nice one, Charlie!
When I glanced back, he was smiling and mouthing words silently.
‘The. Detective. Is. The. Best!’
He even gave me a thumbs-up.
‘What? Since when did he start praising Detective Baron after bad-mouthing him like that?’
Perhaps he vented his frustrations because it was urgent, but now he was worried I might tell the detective later.
‘I wouldn’t have told him even if he didn’t do that.’
After all, we escaped a crisis thanks to his boldness.
‘Well, I suppose I have to find Detective Baron first before I can either curse him or praise him with Charlie.’
I cleared my throat to draw the culprit’s attention.
“Well. Shall we continue what we were talking about?”
“Ah. Yes.”
“Since you mentioned the first-floor hall was suspicious, we will search the first floor. Ms. Daisy, you—”
“No.”
The culprit cut me off.
“Now that I think about it, there is a better hiding spot than the first-floor hall.”
“What? Where is it?”
“It is the prop room behind the party venue. If I were a detective, I think I would hide there. It is a good place to eavesdrop on conversations from the first-floor terrace without being noticed.”
I was troubled. How should I interpret those words?
‘It is not like she just suddenly thought of it.’
She clearly changed her story after hearing that we were police.
‘Why did she change it? Why mention the prop room?’
Was there some kind of trap inside? Or did it seem easier to lose us there? Or perhaps for some other reason I had not considered?
“Mr. Jaguar?”
“… Ah, excuse me. We will do as you say, Ms. Daisy. We will search the prop room first.”
‘Fine. The culprit’s intention does not matter.’
Nothing changed. We would pretend to go to the prop room while tailing the culprit. Since the culprit had to find the detective before us, she would surely lead us to where Detective Baron was.
“Then, the two of us will search the prop room. Ms. Daisy, you…”
“I will search the first-floor hall I mentioned earlier. Just in case.”
The culprit turned and left without a word of farewell. I did not follow her immediately. I thought it would be troublesome if she noticed us tailing her.
‘It will be fine to track her after she has moved quite a distance.’
In any case, that pitch-black shadow was very conspicuous. Especially in a party venue where everything was colorful and bright. I turned my gaze away from the culprit’s back with a sense of relief and raised an eyebrow at Charlie.
“Mr. Charlie?”
“I’m sorry!”
He apologized before I could even say a word.
“I didn’t realize you had company… I must have been in too much of a hurry!”
“No, well, never mind that. In the end, everything was resolved well thanks to you, Mr. Charlie.”
“R-right? Detective Baron is truly the best!”
“Excuse me?”
Suddenly?
“Well, Detective Baron showed me! He showed me how to ruthlessly ignore and treat others as insignificant! Thanks to that, I was able to use it well this time.”
Wait, did he learn that by watching Detective Baron get treated that way? Or did he learn it by being scolded by the detective himself?
‘Either way, it seems Detective Baron is not exactly a good role model for Charlie…’
I looked at Charlie with a complicated expression and then gave up. By this point, the problem seemed to lie as much with the student as it did with the teacher.
“Yes, well… anyway, that is settled, so how did you get into the party venue?”
“Ah! It was easier than I thought!”
Charlie grinned as he held up a blue box. It was the box he had been carrying since we were at the police station.
“I made a fuss, saying that an item had gone missing.”
“Oh.”
Charlie had that much wit?
“I pleaded that it was an essential item for the explosives inspection, so they told me to check the entrance as if they were annoyed. I was able to slip into the inner part of the party venue while their guard was down!”
“You did well. But did they easily believe the excuse that an item disappeared?”
“They had no choice but to believe it. After all, an item really did disappear!”
“What?”
What kind of…
“Look! The nitric acid reactor, which is the most important thing for explosives inspection, is gone!”
Charlie opened the box. It was filled with miscellaneous items I could not identify, but there was a large indentation in the center. A large, lamp-shaped slot was empty. It was a shape that made it obvious something was missing to anyone who looked.
“This… something really disappeared?”
“Yes!”
“When exactly did it go missing? Did someone steal it while they were inspecting our belongings?”
“No? I think it was missing from the moment I first received the box. I should have checked it in advance.”
I felt a bit of anger at that cheerful response.
‘Hoo, let’s keep it together.’
If he had come here truly for an explosives inspection, this would have been an utterly incompetent act, but our goal was to find Detective Baron. The nitric acid reactor or whatever did not really matter.
“If it went missing at the police station, it probably has nothing to do with the case. Let’s find Detective Baron first and then think about it.”
“No. That is… no matter how much I think about it, I think the missing item is related to the case.”
“What? Why?”
“Well… a nitric acid reactor is not that expensive, and it is not exactly an item worth stealing. If someone among the police had touched it, they would have told me in advance. When I think about it, there is only one person who would take a nitric acid reactor without saying anything.”
“Could that person be…”
“Detective Baron, of course!” Charlie said. “The explosives inspection box is not used that often. Since Detective Baron was appointed as the person in charge of the explosives inspection for this party, he had been holding onto the box all along.”
“So, the detective took the nitric acid reactor.”
“Yes. And he was unable to return it.”
The reason for the failure to return was likely his disappearance.
“Mr. Charlie…”
As I frowned and let out a sigh, Charlie looked at me tentatively, feeling restless.
“Is… is my deduction too strange? Or is it just a useless story?”
“It is not that. I am saying, what are you doing telling me such an important fact only now?”
I had forgotten for a moment. This man’s first impression was an “obnoxious broadcast producer.”
“The detective had the nitric acid reactor and then went missing? Of course that is important! The Chairman never mentioned seeing anything like that!”
“What? Could it be that Chairman Peterson simply forgot to mention it? Since he wouldn’t know what a nitric acid reactor is, he might have mistaken it for a lamp…”
“No. Chairman Peterson testified that ‘Detective Baron was wearing a large pumpkin mask, dressed as a waiter, and carrying wine glasses.'”
That was an activity that would be impossible while carrying a large lamp.
“In other words, Detective Baron left the party venue once to get the nitric acid reactor.”
I already knew that Detective Baron had left the party venue at least once. It was because of the telegram the detective had sent me. In that telegram, there was a story about meeting Chairman Peterson and a mention of digging up a large pumpkin.
‘The large pumpkin was a description of this party.’
The Pharmakos Festival, symbolized by pumpkins. A party prepared with a large pumpkin to commemorate it. The contents of the telegram were clearly hinting at this party.
‘In other words, the detective’s tracks can be summarized as follows.’
The detective infiltrated Madame Moss’s party venue but left for some reason. That reason was likely witnessing something. Afterward, the detective sent a telegram to me, all the way in the Northern Region, hinting at this party. Then he returned to the police station, grabbed an item in a hurry without even seeing Charlie, and went back to the party venue. The item he grabbed then was the nitric acid reactor. After that, the detective went missing.
“Mr. Charlie.”
“Yes?”
“When is a nitric acid reactor normally used?”
“Well, it is used to check the nitric acid reaction of an object, isn’t it?”
“What is the specific use?”
“I mean… it is used to determine whether an object is gunpowder or not. To check if it is an explosive.”
For a moment, I felt dizzy.
“Listen closely and stay sharp, Mr. Charlie.”
I saw countless people. People dancing without a single care or worry. An elite group said to belong to the top 1% of this society.
“This case might be more than a simple disappearance.”
“More than a disappearance?”
“Move with the thought that a bomb might be hidden beneath those people’s feet.”
It was a bomb threat.
***
I ran through the party venue frantically. This was not the time to worry about being caught tailing someone.
‘A bomb threat.’
I had to stop it. However, the culprit who had made the detective disappear and might be planning the attack was nowhere to be seen.
“This makes no sense… she is not here either.”
I had searched everywhere searchable. There was only one place left.
“We have not checked the path I came from yet,” Charlie said.
The path Charlie came from. In other words, the path connecting to the back of the party venue.
‘This is ridiculous. Why would she go there?’
The culprit had said Detective Baron would be hidden in the prop room behind the party venue. I was certain. That was clearly a trick to lure us to the back of the party venue. But the culprit herself headed right for that path?
“Uh… do you think this is not the way? Then did we miss the culprit?” Charlie asked foolishly. “For example, if she is hiding in the first-floor hall after changing her mask, we might not have seen her…”
“No. There is no such possibility.”
Changing a mask did not mean one could change the sins within. There was no way the shadow covering the culprit would disappear like that.
‘Since I did not see the shadow, it is certain the culprit is not in any of the places we have searched so far.’
There was no time to waste searching useless places.
‘Yes. No matter how low the probability seems, if it is the only possibility, then it must be the answer.’
When my reason and my ability clashed, I decided to trust my ability.
“Let’s go, Mr. Charlie. Please lead the way.”
We ran along the back path of the party venue. Unlike the bright and brilliant party venue, the back path was very dark, and various items were piled up. I saw small rooms with nameplates here and there. Even when I opened them, there was nothing special inside. Just miscellaneous goods. Whether Madame Moss had already passed the word along, there was no one blocking our way either.
“Ah, this is the prop room,” Charlie said, pointing to a room. “This door was locked earlier.”
I was about to ignore it and pass by when —
*Haaa….*
A sound was heard. A low, eerie sound like the wind.
*Ugh….*
One could have mistaken it, but I had heard such a sound a few times before. It was clearly the sound of a person groaning.
“Detective Baron?!” Charlie shouted in surprise.
“No, wait!”
Before I could stop him, he yanked the door open. The door to the prop room, which he said had been locked, opened smoothly. And then, revealed inside the prop room…
Premium Chapter
Login to buy access to this Chapter.