“What is it, Misora?” “Oh... I was wondering if the killer had put a hook on the shelf to replace the two he took off and if that hook was the real message.
Assuming that it had really been Believe Bridesmaid who had carefully arranged his books to fill the shelf exactly. It might have been a much more haphazard affair, and the killer had arbitrarily filled it with books taken from another room—and by extension of that line of thought, there was no telling if Akazukin Chacha actually belonged to Believe Bridesmaid in the first place. With the lack of bookmarks, it might all be part of the killer’s message—but so what if it was? If that was the case, it just made it all the more convincing that there was some sort of message here. But if there was nothing unusual about the books themselves, then the whole theory fell apart. It was nothing more than idle fancy.
“Not a bad idea. No, rather a good idea—nothing else makes sense,” Ryuzaki said, reaching out toward
Misora.
For a moment she thought he wanted to shake her hand, and panicked, but then she realized he just wanted Insufficient Relaxation. She handed it to him. Ryuzaki plucked it from her grasp with his index finger and thumb, and began reading. Speed reading—he went through all 376 pages remarkably quickly.
It took him less than five minutes to read the entire book. Misora was tempted to make him read Natsuhiko Kyogoku. “I see!”
“Eh? You found something?”
“No. There’s absolutely nothing here. Don’t look at me like that. I swear, I’m not joking. This is just an ordinary entertainment novel, not a message, or even a metaphor like the Wara Ningyo. And of course, there are no letters of any kind hidden between the pages, nor anything scribbled in the margins.”
“The margins?”
“Yes, there was nothing in the margins but page numbers.”
“Page numbers?” Misora echoed. Page numbers... numbers? Numbers, like... Roman numerals? “Ryuzaki, assuming those cuts on the victim’s chest were Roman numerals, what did they say?” “16, 59, 1423, 159, 13, 7, 582, 724, 1001, 40, 51, and 31.”
Good memory. Didn’t even need to see the picture again. Nearly photographic memory—first the number of pages in the books, and now this.
“What about them?”
“I was just wondering if they were pointing at the pages in this hook, but... two of the numbers were four digits. The book’s only 176 pages long. They don’t match.”
“Yes... no, Misora, what if it wraps around? For example, 476 could be seen as 376 plus one hundred, and indicate page 100.”
“...Meaning what?”
“I don’t know. But let’s try it out...16 is easy, page 16. 59, 1423, 159, 13, 7, 582, 724, 1001, 40, 51,
31...”
He narrowed his dark-rimmed eyes.
Not even looking at the book. Seriously? Even at the speed he was reading, he’d managed to memorize the entire contents perfectly? Was that even possible? Could he really do that? Either way, Misora
could only stand and wait. “...l see.”
“That there’s nothing there?”
“No... there is something there. Something very specific, Misora.” Ryuzaki handed Insufficient
Relaxation back to Misora. “Open it to page 16,” he said. “Okay.”
“What is the first word on that page?” “Quadratic.”
“Next is page 59. The first word on that page?” “Ukulele.”
“Next is page 295. 1423 wraps around three times, and hits 295 on the fourth lap. First word is?” “Tenacious.”
They continued. 159 was page 159, 13 was page 13, 7 was page 7,
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