Chapter 2.2 Write-Up :
Norimizu interrogates Tago, the butler, but instead of asking him about Santetsu’s beliefs and fears of the occult and the house, he straight up accuses him of killing Santetsu. His explanations is tortuous (to say the least), and revolves around analogies between astrology, alchemy, and astronomy. His idea is that Tago, for some unspecified reason, devised a trick to kill Santetsu, using the room as prop, and make it look like a suicide. After all, Santetsu had no reason to kill himself. Tago refutes that, and says that he found Santetsu’s dead on top of Thérèse, the mechanical doll; Tago removed the doll, out of fear for the family’s reputation. Norimizu doesn’t seem convinced, but right at this point, music is heard : the family is playing a Requiem for the memory of Claude Digsby, the manor’s architect. Kumashiro says this is very strange, considering someone just died, but it seems that this is an important custom of the family. Norimizu, Hazekura and Kumashiro leave to investigate the music. Kumoshiro asks Norimizu why he suddenly stopped accusing Tago when it seemed so clear he killed Santetsu, but Norimizu replies that the whole interrogation was just a powerplay to gain a psychological advantage on Tago, and to determine that the doll was also on the site of Santetsu’s death. Once more, the doll has been seen in a closed room, though the trick for this one relies on the physical phenomenon of dilating and shrinking of hairs when subjected to a warm liquid, and seems to have been lifted from a fake magical experiment in 17th century England.
When they finally get to the music room, they find the remaining three members of the quartet, and Hataro Kuriyagi, the natural heir to the manor. Suddenly, Norimizu deducts that Ekisuke is dead, and that his body is in a side corridor
Thoughts
That chapter was very puzzling, because the first part felt like a gigantic non-sequitur. While the previous deductions and conversations with Shizuko were definitely strange, they always fell back in place with the current situation. Not so here… I was wondering whether Norimizu had developped psychic powers himself, to be so sure about Tago murdering Santetsu. This really came out of the blue. And while the explanation helped make sens of the whole scene, it still seemed forced. On the other had, I enjoyed the alchelmy/astrology explanations much more than last week’s physics (because I felt I could more or less follow). I’m not sure about the hair trick though…
As for the requiem, I’m with Kumashiro. This seems really weird. But I guess the weirdest part is that, so far, there has been no interaction at all between our detectives and the actual family/heirs. We have seen Norimizu and al. discussing with various helpers, and pretty much looking around the house wherever and whenever they wanted, but the quartet members and Hatatro seem… almost as artificial and mechanical as Therese to me !
