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“Well... yeah, but...”

There had been one thing the cuts on the victim’s chest. She wasn’t at all sure she should tell Ryuzaki about those. But it was also true that she was getting nowhere otherwise... either with the case, or with Ryuzaki. Possibly she should test him, just as he had observed her reaction when he handed her the crossword puzzle. If she played her cards right, she might figure out if he’d heard her phone call from under the bed.

“Right… Ryuzaki, As thanks for earlier, rather than a complete exchange of information... have a look at this photograph.”

“Photograph?” Ryuzaki said, with a reaction so exaggerated one would think he had never before heard the word. He came over toward her... still on all fours, and without bothering to turn around.

He essentially reversed toward her, a spectacle that would surely have made a small child cry. “A picture of the victim Misora said, handing him the autopsy photograph.

Ryuzaki took it, nodding gravely—or making a show of nodding gravely. So much for her test from his outward reaction, she could read absolutely nothing.

“Well done, Misora!” “Yes?”

“The news did not mention that the body was cut up like this, which means this photograph is from the police files. I’m impressed hit you were able to get your hands on it. You’re obviously no ordinary detective.”

“...So how did you get hold of the crossword puzzle, Ryuzaki?” “That would be my duty to keep secrets.”

Her follow up was knocked aside just as easily. She belatedly wished she had allowed him to deny that he had secrets, that she had never taught him the concept in the first place.

She was also pretty sure it didn’t make sense grammatically.

“I will not ask how you obtained this photograph, either, Misora. But how does this relate to your idea?”

“Yes, well...I wondered if the message might be on something that isn’t in the room anymore, but was in the room at the time. And the most obvious thing that should be here, but isn’t...”

“Is the room’s occupant, Believe Bridesmaid. Clever.”

“And if you look at that picture from the right angle... do the wounds look like letters to you? I

wondered if it might be some sort of message...”

“Oh?” Ryuzaki said, holding the picture perfectly still while moving his head around jerkily. Were there no solid bones in his neck? He moved like a contortionist. Misora fought the urge to look away. “No,

not letters...”

“No? I thought it was reading too much into it…”

“No, no, Misora, I am not denying the entire idea, just a portion of it. These are not letters, but Roman numerals.”

Oh.

Right, Roman numerals, the same ones that she saw on clocks and whatnot every day—V and 1, obviously, and C, M, D, X, and L. . .she should have figured it out when she saw three I’s next to each other—it wasn’t three I’s, but III. But there had been an L right after them, and she had connected that with the detective’s name and

distracted herself.

“I is one, II is two, III is three, IV is four, V is five, VI is six, VII is seven, VIII is eight, IX is nine, X is ten, L is fifty, C is one hundred, D is five hundred, M is one thousand. So these wounds can be read as

16, 59, 1423, 159, 13, 7, 582, 724, 1001, 40, 51, and 31,” Ryuzaki said, reading the complicated numbers without a second’s pause. Was he good with Roman numerals, or was his mind really working that quickly?

“It’s just a photograph, so I might not be reading them correctly, but there’s an eighty percent chance

I’m right.” “Percent?”

“However, I’m afraid that doesn’t change the situation. Unless we can figure out what those numbers are supposed to mean, it would be dangerous to assume they are a message from the killer. Perhaps they are simply misdirection.”

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