Chapter 4 part 5

We drank tea while we waited and I tried sticking my hand into the river (which was indeed cold). Twenty or thirty minutes later, the person from the Kajiwara household arrived to pick us up from the restaurant, and we met him outside the entrance.

“I’m Kajiwara’s secretary, Kurashina,” he said with a bow. He was a slim man in a suit who looked to be in his forties.

Kajiwara had a secretary? That’s kind of impressive.

“I’m Kiyotaka Yagashira.”

“I-I’m Aoi Mashiro.”

Kurashina smiled in response to my introduction. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Thank you for coming to pick us up,” Holmes said.

“It’s the least we can do, after suddenly forcing this request on you. Please get in the car,” Kurashina said, opening the rear door of the Benz parked in front of the restaurant.

A Benz! And it’s black!

“Authors sure are rich, huh?” I murmured to myself, impressed. Holmes and I got into the car.

“Aoi, do you know of the film Struggle for Power?” Holmes asked.

“Yes, I’ve heard of it. It’s about politicians and yakuza fighting and stuff, right?” I didn’t watch it because I wasn’t interested in the genre, but it was a famous film that got turned into a TV series.

“Kajiwara wrote the book that that film was adapted from.”

“Oh, really? Wow.”

Kurashina chuckled as he sat down on the driver’s seat. “It’s not exactly aimed at young ladies.”

“S-Sorry. I think my dad watched it, though.” I vaguely recalled the plot being really complicated.

“Kajiwara was a student at Tokyo University during a time rife with student protests. After he graduated, he became a lawyer and occasionally got a glimpse of the underworld. He wrote Struggle for Power using many of his personal experiences and won the Best New Writer Award. That book became a smash hit, receiving TV drama and film adaptations and propelling his career as an author to great heights,” Holmes explained as usual.

“You know a lot, Kiyotaka.”

“Yes, of course. He was close with my father, so I was personally proud of that connection as well,” Holmes said with a first-rate smile. He always has a perfect answer for everything.

“However, Kajiwara wrote more than just Struggle for Power. He also wrote beautiful stories such as Flowers of All Kinds and Forbidden Fruit,” Kurashina said cheerfully as he drove. He’d said it casually, but I could sense passion in his words.

“Indeed, Kajiwara’s books about taboo subjects are also a great success. You must be quite the enthusiastic fan yourself, Kurashina.”

Kurashina hesitated before saying, “But of course. I might even be his biggest fan.” He seemed embarrassed that he’d been seen through.

The car ascended the mountain road.

“Wow, we really are deep in the mountains,” I commented, looking out the window. The green leaves were almost dazzling. This view might’ve been the same hundreds or thousands of years ago, and I found the thought moving.

We turned from the main road onto a smaller road, and before long, a conventional wooden cabin appeared amidst the trees.

“Wow, this is lovely!”

“Thank you. This was Kajiwara’s studio.”

“Would he hole himself up in here when he was writing?” Holmes asked.

“Yes,” Kurashina answered with a nod. “His wife and I would also come here, so you could call it his second home.”

“Where’s the main home?”

“Right now, it’s an apartment in Shijo. He lived in a house in Kinugasa when his sons were young, but after all three grew up and moved out, he and his wife moved to an apartment because the house was too big for just the two of them.”

Kurashina parked the car in front of the mountain lodge and we quickly got out. The refreshing breeze carried with it the scent of leaves.

“The air is so nice,” I said, stretching my arms and taking a deep breath. It felt like the atmosphere was full of Mount Kurama’s spiritual energy. I could understand why an author would seclude himself here to write.

“Please come in,” Kurashina said. The moment he started walking towards the lodge, the front door opened, revealing a woman who I assumed was Kajiwara’s wife.

“Thank you for coming. I’m Kajiwara’s wife, Ayako,” the woman said, bowing deeply. I’d guess that she was in her fifties. She was thin and pretty enough to be an actress.

“Nice to meet you. I’m Kiyotaka Yagashira. My father has always enjoyed talking about you.”

“My, what has Ijuin been saying about me?”

“Every time he returns from meeting you, he always says, ‘She’s so beautiful. I’m jealous of Kajiwara.’”

“Such a flatterer. That aside, you look just like him, Kiyotaka.” She giggled. From her accent, I could tell that she wasn’t from Kansai. “I’m so sorry to intrude on your date,” she said, glancing at me. I was taken aback. A d-d-d-d-date?!

“So, what did you want to ask me about?” Holmes ignored the comment and swiftly moved on with the conversation. Wait, is he acknowledging that it’s a date? Then again, it obviously is one, no matter how you look at it.

“Oh, do come inside first.” Ayako opened the door all the way for us.

“All right.”

We stepped into the mountain lodge. The living room had a retro, Showa-era feel to it. There was a black chandelier, a large grandfather clock similar to the one at Kura, a bar counter, and a billiards table. Three men were sitting on a velvet couch. They stood up when they saw us and said one after the other:

“You must be Ijuin’s son…”

“…and Seiji Yagashira’s grandson.”

“Thank you for coming today.”

They were probably Kajiwara’s sons. From oldest to youngest, they looked like they were in their early thirties, mid-twenties, and early twenties respectively. The three brothers seemed mildly concerned at how young Holmes was, although they didn’t voice it out loud.

“Nice to meet you. I’m Kiyotaka Yagashira.”

“I-I’m Aoi Mashiro.”

“Nice to meet you. I’m the eldest son, Fuyuki,” said the man in his early thirties. My first impression of him was that of a young businessman.

“I’m the second son, Akihito.” The man in his mid-twenties looked frail and had the aura of an artist. He was quite good-looking, perhaps resembling his mother.

“I’m the third son, Haruhiko.” This one looked around the same age as Holmes. He was all smiles with a gentle aura and seemed like a good guy.

Based on their outer appearances, I assumed the eldest son, Fuyuki, resembled their father—who I’d never met, but knew was a strapping man from Kyushu—while the second son, Akihito, resembled their mother, and the third son, Haruhiko, was a mix of the two. Also, you could tell from their names what seasons they were born in, with “Fuyu” meaning “winter,” “Aki” meaning “fall,” and “Haru” meaning “spring.” They were rather unimaginative names coming from an author…

“Well, it’s not strange for an author to have a hard time assigning names,” Holmes whispered quietly enough that only I could hear. I started. Don’t read my mind! It’s terrifying!

“Please have a seat,” said Ayako. As prompted, we sat down on the velvet couch. Coffee and biscuits were brought out for us immediately, and I was relieved to see that milk and sugar were provided as well.

“Kiyotaka, I hear that you go to Kyoto University just like your father did.”

“Yes, although I started from grad school. I was at Kyoto Prefectural University before that,” Holmes answered with a smile.

“Ah, KPU. Haruhiko is in his second year there right now.”

“Maybe I’ll try to get into Kyoto University for grad school too,” Haruhiko said with a laugh. If Haruhiko’s a second-year university student, that puts him at around 20 years old.

The second son, Akihito, who was sitting at the counter, shrugged. “I never went to college, so that stuff’s all foreign to me.”

“That’s because you ran off saying you’d become an actor,” said the eldest son Fuyuki with a bitter laugh.

“Since you went to the University of Tokyo just like Dad did, I felt bad that I sucked at school. But hey, since you moved to Tokyo, I was able to go there too.”

“Only because you moved in uninvited and leeched off of me. Geez.”

Ayako interrupted, “My husband acted like he was against it, but on the inside, he was willing to help Akihito if he truly wanted to become an actor. But Akihito said he didn’t want to become famous because of his parents’ influence, so he studied acting while hiding the fact that he was Naotaka Kajiwara’s son. His hard work slowly paid off, and now he’s appearing in films and TV shows, albeit in minor roles.” She seemed embarrassed yet eager to share her son’s story.

“I heard that you originally wanted to become an actress too, Ayako. You met your husband through an audition, right?” Holmes asked, drinking his coffee.

Ayako nodded. “Ijuin told you everything, huh? Yes, that’s right. I didn’t have the talent to become an actress, but fortunately, my son has inherited my dream.”

Ayako, it’s not that the manager told Holmes everything. It’s that Holmes figures out everything in the blink of an eye, I secretly thought to myself while listening to their conversation.

Holmes placed his coffee cup on the table with a clunk, looked up, and asked, “So, what did you want to talk about today?”

Ayako and the Kajiwara brothers looked at each other, as if unsure where to begin. Then, the secretary, Kurashina, stepped forward. “Please allow me to explain the situation.”

The friendly atmosphere in the living room was replaced with an air of tension.

“When Kajiwara passed away, he left two wills with his attorney. The first one was unsealed immediately and was a formal will detailing how his assets should be distributed. For the second one, we were instructed to unseal it three months later in this mountain lodge. The three-month anniversary of his death was three days ago, so we came here to receive the will from the attorney. Inside was written, ‘I wish to give each of my three sons one of my prized paintings,’ as well as the password to a safe. The safe contained three hanging scrolls.”

I gulped as I listened to the story.

“Hanging scrolls, you say?” Holmes said quietly.

They must’ve called him here for an appraisal. Three hanging scrolls left by a famous author to his sons… How much would they be worth? I started to get excited.

As I sat next to Holmes, anxiously waiting for the scrolls to be brought out, Kurashina sighed and dropped his gaze. “Yes. A painting of Taira no Kiyomori for Fuyuki, the eldest son; a painting of Mount Fuji for Akihito, the second son; and a painting of Taira no Tadamori for Haruhiko, the third son. Thinking they might be worth a great sum, we immediately called for an appraiser and found that they were all reproductions with no particular value as antiques. We then speculated that Kajiwara simply wanted to give his sons his favorite pieces of art.”

I stared blankly at him. The appraisal has already been done? Why did they call Holmes here, then? Meanwhile, Holmes’s expression remained unchanged as he waited for Kurashina to continue.

Instead, Fuyuki sighed deeply. “That day, we shared drinks here in this mountain lodge while talking about how we were going to take good care of the scrolls. Everything was peachy when we fell asleep, but the next morning, something terrible had happened.”