There are moments in any complex investigation, much like in a particularly stubborn piece of knitting, where one must simply stop. To continue to pull at a knotted thread is to tighten it into an unsolvable lump. One must set the work down, observe it from a distance, and allow the pattern to reveal itself in its own good time. For two days, such a stillness had descended upon the hotel suite. It was a silence not of inactivity, but of deep and separate contemplation, as if each of these remarkable minds had retreated into the private cloisters of their own thoughts to wrestle with the hydra-headed monster that was the Kira case.
Miss Marple sat in her armchair by the window, the needles in her hands moving with a placid, automatic rhythm. Her gaze, however, was not on the growing length of soft, grey wool in her lap, but on the sprawling, glittering city beyond the glass.
Agent Isabelle Dubois, her dutiful and increasingly perplexed assistant, noticed a subtle shift in the old woman's posture. The rhythmic clicking of the needles slowed, and then stopped altogether. Miss Marple's head was cocked to one side, a familiar gesture that Isabelle was coming to learn signified the arrival of a new and interesting thought.
"Is something on your mind, Ma'am?" the young agent asked, her voice a model of professional respect.
Miss Marple blinked, her gaze returning from some distant, interior landscape. "Oh, yes, my dear. I believe so." She placed her knitting carefully into its bag. "I believe it is time we paid another call on Mr. Hayashi. There is a list I should very much like to ask him for."
Isabelle's brow furrowed. "A list? Mr. Hayashi was in forensics. His active case files would have been archived upon his retirement. Anything he has would be purely from memory."
"Not a case file, dear," Miss Marple clarified gently. "Something a little more… specific. A list of all the poor souls who have fallen victim to this B.B. creature. But more than that. I should like to know the precise, scientific details of how they died, and a list of every person officially noted as being present at the scenes. The witnesses, the first responders, the officers who secured the perimeter. Everyone."
The professional in Isabelle immediately bristled. "Ma'am, with all due respect, that is an extraordinary request to make of a civilian. That information is highly classified. For us to approach him directly on such a matter, outside of official channels… it would raise a great many suspicions. It could compromise the entire investigation."
Miss Marple smiled, a small, knowing expression that crinkled the corners of her eyes. "You are thinking like a policewoman, my dear, which is very sensible of you. But you must learn to think like a person. Mr. Hayashi is a very proud man, an expert in a field that has, in his eyes, been rendered obsolete by a killer who leaves no evidence. He feels, I suspect, like a watchmaker in an age of digital clocks."
She leaned forward, her voice becoming confidential. "Old men, you see, do not like to feel useless. It is a terrible thing, to have a lifetime of knowledge and no one to share it with. Now, if an official investigator were to ask him for this list, he would be difficult. He would talk of protocol and secrecy, because that is his pride. But if a harmless old lady and her curious niece were to visit him again… if they were to show a fascinated, if slightly morbid, interest in his great expertise… if they were to make him feel, for an afternoon, like the most important forensic mind in all of Japan once more… well. It is a known fact that a little bit of flattery can unlock doors that a battering ram cannot."
And so it was that they found themselves once again on the polished veranda of Mr. Hayashi Rin's tranquil home. He received them with an expression of genuine, if surprised, pleasure. He had, it seemed, enjoyed their last visit.
This time, after the requisite tea had been poured, Miss Marple did not speak of gardens. She leaned forward, her expression one of wide-eyed, almost childish curiosity.
"Mr. Hayashi," she began, "I do hope you will forgive my forwardness. But our last conversation… it has been preying on my mind. This dreadful B.B. creature. It is quite unlike anything one reads about in the papers back home. The sheer… cleverness of it all. It is quite wicked, of course, but one cannot help but be fascinated by the mind behind it."
Hayashi's posture straightened. This was his territory. "He is no mere brute," the old man agreed, his eyes gleaming with professional interest. "He is a diabolical artist."
"Precisely!" Miss Marple exclaimed. "And I was saying to my niece, it must be the little details that are the most fascinating. From a scientific point of view, you see. The things the newspapers never print. As a man who understands such things, I imagine the patterns must be quite extraordinary."
For the next hour, they allowed him to hold court. He spoke of ligature marks and blood spatter, of time of death and cause of injury. He was no longer a retired gardener; he was the great Hayashi Rin, a master of a dying art, and he had a captive, appreciative audience. Finally, Miss Marple delivered the masterstroke.
"Oh, it is all so wonderfully complex," she sighed. "I should never be able to keep it all straight in my head. If only one had a sort of… catalogue. A list, you see. Just the basic facts, so one could see the patterns for oneself."
Hayashi hesitated, the old habits of official secrecy warring with the gratifying pull of his own ego. He looked at Miss Marple's earnest, kindly face, and the battle was lost. "It would be a breach of protocol," he said, but there was no conviction in his voice. "However… for the purpose of academic discussion…"
He disappeared into his study and returned with a sleek, modern tablet. On the screen was a clinical, horrifying document. It was a simple, three-column list. One column for the victim's name, one for the forensic cause of death, and one for individuals noted at the scene. He handed it to them.
Isabelle and Miss Marple huddled over the device. The contents were chilling in their stark detail:
VICTIM: Tanaka, Eiji (Loan Shark)
FORENSICS: Death by exsanguination. Victim suspended from chandelier; multiple precise, non-fatal incisions made to major arteries over a period of several hours.
PERSONS ON SCENE: S. Yagami (NPA), T. Mogami (NPA Data Sec.), 4 Uniformed Officers, 2 Paramedics.
VICTIM: Suzuki, Genji (Politician)
FORENSICS: Death by crucifixion. Victim affixed to office wall using industrial-grade staple guns. Cause of death: asphyxiation due to positional respiratory collapse.
PERSONS ON SCENE: K. Kido (NPA), 6 Uniformed Officers, M.E. Takeda.
VICTIM: Katagiri, Yuuichi (Student)
FORENSICS: No physical cause of death. Victim found seated in a chair in an abandoned warehouse, facing a single lightbulb. Autopsy indicates death by extreme psychological shock, leading to cardiac arrest. Subject's fingernails were worn down to the quick, suggesting he spent his final hours trying to claw his way out of a perceived, but non-existent, confinement.
PERSONS ON SCENE: T. Shibuimaru (NPA, Deceased), 2 Uniformed Officers.
They continued to scroll, the litany of cruelty washing over them. It was a catalogue of B.B.'s genius, a testament to his boundless, theatrical malice. Miss Marple's face remained placid, but her mind was racing, connecting the names, the places, the methods. They had come for a list. But what they had received, she knew with a certainty that settled deep in her bones, was a map. And somewhere, hidden in this cold, hard text, was the location of the treasure, or, in this case, the dragon.