In the days that followed the unsettling discovery of Kira's countermove, a quiet industry had fallen upon the task force. While Holmes and Poirot pursued their own lines of inquiry, Miss Marple remained in the hotel suite, a picture of tranquil contemplation. She sat in her armchair, surrounded by files and reports, her knitting needles clicking with a gentle, rhythmic purpose.
On the third morning, she set her knitting aside and approached L, who was, as usual, constructing a small, edible fortress out of sugar biscuits.
"If I am to be of any real use, dear," she began, her voice possessing a deceptively frail tone, "I find I am not quite as spry as I once was. All this to-ing and fro-ing… it is a bit much. I think it would be a great help if I had a nice, sensible young lady to assist me. An aide, I suppose you would call her."
L paused, a biscuit halfway to his mouth. He considered her for a moment, his dark eyes unreadable. He gave a single, sharp nod. "It will be arranged."
True to his word, within twenty-four hours, a young woman arrived from Interpol's headquarters in Lyon. Agent Isabelle Dubois was sharp, efficient, and possessed the crisp, no-nonsense air of a career professional. She was a woman who trusted data and procedure, and her expression upon being assigned to assist a knitting English spinster was one of polite, but profound, bewilderment.
"And now, my dear," Miss Marple said to her new assistant once they were acquainted, "I think we shall pay a visit to Mr. Hayashi Rin."
Agent Dubois consulted her tablet. "Hayashi? The retired forensics chief? The psychological profile suggests he is a low-probability subject. His access to the system is purely consultative and heavily monitored."
"Perhaps," Miss Marple said with a gentle smile. "But you see, my dear, I have always found that when a man reaches a certain age, he has spent a lifetime building his legacy. The interesting thing is to see whether he is trying to protect it… or to escape from it."
Their approach was one of disarming simplicity. They arrived at Mr. Hayashi's traditional Japanese home—a beautiful, low-slung building of wood and paper screens surrounded by a pristine rock garden—not as investigators, but as a pair of English tourists. Miss Marple, the elderly aunt, and Agent Dubois, the dutiful niece, had heard from a local acquaintance that Mr. Hayashi was a master of traditional gardening and had hoped he might be so kind as to permit them a brief look.
Mr. Hayashi, a man with a neat white moustache and the piercingly intelligent eyes of a lifelong observer, was clearly charmed. He was a man accustomed to a quiet retirement, and the arrival of a polite, curious English lady seemed to be a welcome diversion. He graciously invited them in for tea.
His home, unlike the others they had seen, was a place of lived-in history. Books on forensic science sat beside volumes on horticulture. Framed photographs of a younger Hayashi with his team stood proudly on the mantle. It was the home of a man content with his past.
They sat on cushions overlooking the garden, a masterpiece of raked sand and moss-covered stones. Agent Dubois, trying to follow some investigative protocol, attempted to steer the conversation towards Hayashi's work with the NPA, but Miss Marple deftly intercepted.
"Oh, it is simply beautiful, Mr. Hayashi," she said, gazing at the garden. "It takes such patience, does it not? Such an eye for detail. It is not so different from my own little garden in St. Mary Mead, though I am afraid my delphiniums are not nearly so well-behaved."
Hayashi chuckled, his professional guard visibly lowering. "It is a work of discipline, yes. One must know where everything belongs. Every stone, every plant… it has its place. It is a world of order."
"Just like your old work, I imagine," Miss Marple remarked, her needles beginning their soft, clicking dance. "Finding the one thing that is out of place. The clue that solves the puzzle."
A shadow passed over Hayashi's face. "Indeed. In my day, evidence was something you could hold. A footprint. A fibre. A fingerprint. We brought order to the chaos of a crime."
Here, Miss Marple looked up, her expression one of grandmotherly sympathy. "It must be so very different for you now, with this dreadful Kira business. All this killing, leaving nothing behind at all. It must make a man like you, who dedicated his entire life to finding a trace, feel quite… irrelevant."
The air grew still. Agent Dubois held her breath, recognizing the shift in the conversation. It was a subtle but perfectly aimed dart, striking at the heart of the old man's pride.
Hayashi's teacup rattled almost imperceptibly in its saucer. "Irrelevant?" he said, his voice quiet but intense. "Not at all. A new world requires a new kind of order." He stared out at his perfect garden. "In my career, I saw hundreds of criminals walk free. A clever lawyer, a lost piece of evidence, a sentimental judge. Our justice was… imperfect. Slow. Inefficient."
He turned his piercing gaze on Miss Marple. "What this Kira does is horrifying, of course. A tragedy. But the result… a world with fewer monsters in it… a clean slate. I must confess, for an old man who has grown tired of seeing the weeds grow back no matter how many times you pull them, the idea has a certain… appeal."
Soon after, they thanked him for his time and departed. As their car pulled away from the serene, traditional house, Agent Dubois turned to Miss Marple, her frustration evident.
"With respect, Ma'am, what did we learn? We spoke of gardens and philosophy. He admitted nothing."
Miss Marple smiled, her eyes looking far away. "Oh, I shouldn't say that, my dear. We learned everything that matters." She paused, tucking a stray ball of yarn into her bag. "Mr. Hayashi is not our killer. He does not have the fire for it. But he is the old gardener who has grown tired of pulling up the weeds by hand. And so, he stands back and quietly praises the fire that burns the whole garden clean."