The Mystery Clock

“I’m sorry. Let me change the tape for a moment,” Ota said apologetically. The tense atmosphere dissipated almost instantaneously.

Since Enomoto was just about to start unraveling the riddle, he looked disappointed and kept his mouth shut.

Tokizane took advantage of the interruption to ask the makeup artist to carefully wipe the sweat from his face. Hikijii moistened his throat with a glass of water and groaned.

“Thank you for your patience. Now then, resume, please. Hikijii. I apologize, but could you please repeat the last line you just said?”

“Understood.”

Hikijii repeated a grating cough four or five times.

“…This time, yeah! Logically speaking, about another way of conceiving of this incident… yeah! Do you mean it’s not valid?” he said with a stern expression and a firm tone of voice that had changed from earlier. “Well, then, let the explanation begin. What exactly is the time that we have been led to believe is right all along until now? And by what means have we human beings, who are like butterflies pinned to the setting board known as time, discovered how to free ourselves from its perpetual domination and fetters and flap our wings freely in the dark space? Or…”

“Excuse me. If possible, I would appreciate it if you would repeat the exact words that you used earlier.”

Ota intervened with a look of difficulty on his face.

“Okay. I thought it would be much better if I included some poetic expressions.”

“No, please use the same words, or even better, make it simpler.”

“I get it.”

Hikijii’s face turned regretful, but he said in a more natural voice than before.

“Then, let the explanation begin.”

Enomoto waited for a while, apparently thinking there was more to the explanation, but when Hikijii didn’t say anything again, he hurriedly spoke up.

“…Um, well, to begin with, have you guys ever wondered if there was something strange about it? All of us were made to pay attention to the clock at every given moment that night, checking the time over and over again. Thanks to this, Tokizane’s alibi was ironclad. I wondered if this act of checking the time was a form of inducement.”

“Does that mean I induced you?” Tokizane asked, looking oddly refreshed, perhaps because he had wiped off his sweat.

“Yes,” Enomoto answered simply.

“At the dinner party, we were made to watch the Grandfather Clock and the flip clock from beginning to end. After we moved to the hall, there was a radio-controlled wall clock, and in the study where we discovered the body of Mori Reiko, there was yet another clock, but this time a box-shaped electric clock. So that is to say there is a radio-controlled wall clock in the hall; a Grandfather Clock and a flip clock in the dining room. And an electric clock in the study. Ultimately, we checked the radio-controlled wall clock in the hall, before things settled down with a look at our own wristwatch…”

Enomoto counted with his fingers.

“It’s a relay of clocks, so to speak. Because the clocks were in perfect synchronicity with each other at key points, we were led to conclude that all of the times we saw throughout this period were accurate. However, some of these times were correct, while others were false. All of them were arranged for the purpose of establishing Tokizane’s alibi.”

“To tell the truth, the time trick was something I thought of as well. But I couldn’t work it out because so many clocks were used to ascertain the time,” Hikijii said ruefully. “Besides, even if Tokizane had been the culprit, he would not have had a chance to touch most of these clocks.”

“You are right,” Enomoto nodded. “I assume that everyone here is familiar with the classic mystery book, ‘The Five Clocks’.”

“Of course.” Motojima gave a broad nod. “It is one of Ayukawa Tetsuya’s masterpieces, you know.”

“Yeah. It is the predecessor, so to speak, of my masterpiece, ‘The Six Clocks’,” Hikijii made the comment irreverently.

“The murderer in ‘The Five Clocks’ fabricated his alibi by using five clocks, including a table clock, a radio, and a clock in a buckwheat noodle shop. This was a coincidence, but it was also five clocks that the murderer used for the trick in our present case… But before we get into that, let’s consider the ten different clocks that can be classified into four categories.”

Junko’s head was getting dizzy from just listening.

“Four categories? Ten different clocks? There were that many clocks?”

“Yes, there are. In the first category are the wristwatches worn by the invited guests, the cellular phones, Mori’s FM tuner, Tokizane’s satellite cellular phone call logs, and President Shimizu’s landline phone call logs.”

Enomoto listed them indifferently.

“Next is the second category. This is the real-time clock of Mori’s computer.”

“Real-time…? What is that?”

Junko was stumped.

“I’ll explain later. There is also a third category. Here, in the hall, is the radio-controlled clock.”

Enomoto indicated the radio-controlled clock hanging on the wall that bordered the dining room.

“Finally, the fourth category includes the box-shaped electric clock in Mori’s study, and the Grandfather Clock and flip clock in the dining room.”

All of them were listening silently.

“Let’s start with the first category. First, it was utterly impossible to rig the time on our watches.”

“Wait a minute! We had our watches taken away, didn’t we? Couldn’t he have adjusted the time forward or backward during that time?”

Junko questioned promptly.

“Indeed, it is common practice in magic to make the watch seem to be hidden in a drawer before surreptitiously removing it and manipulating it. However, since the watches were never seen by us until they were returned to us, it would be meaningless to do anything with them in the meantime. It would have worked if all the watches had been radio-controlled, but that was not the case.”

“Why on earth would a wristwatch need to receive radio waves? Only a spy or a thief would wear such a weird thing!” Hikijii retorted.

“You’re absolutely right. In fact, the only radio-controlled watch available was my G-Shock.”

Enomoto looked around at the faces of the group and continued.

“The rest were three quartz watches, Kumakura’s Grand Seiko, Aoto’s Tag Heuer Aquaracer, and Hikijii’s Omega Polaris. The two mechanical watches were Motojima’s Rolex Oyster Perpetual and Kawai’s Panerai Luminor 1950.”

All of the members felt a certain suspicion that Enomoto remembered all of the watches correctly.

“By the way, Sasaki Natsumi and Yamanaka Ayaka were not wearing watches that night, right? Why was that?”

Natsumi was racking her brain.

“I can’t remember exactly why. Perhaps it was because Mori told me that it might damage the collection, or because Tokizane instructed me not to wear a watch.”

“I have never worn a wristwatch. It interferes with kitchen work,” Ayaka answered modestly.

“I get what you mean. I believe the perpetrator was fully aware that neither of you were wearing wristwatches. They may then come up with a pretext to temporarily retrieve your wristwatches since only invited guests wear wristwatches.”

“I knew it!” Kawai spat out. “I thought it was odd that you would let someone touch my aunt’s precious collection of table clocks and guess the price!”

“Everything was just as the murderer wanted it to be. Under the guise of not damaging expensive clocks, such as the Mystery Clock, they had managed to retrieve our watches.”

“Since you have already named me as the culprit, why don’t you stop talking about the culprit in a roundabout way now?”

Tokizane interrupted at the right moment as if it was scripted.

“I understand. Then, from now on, let’s call the culprit as Tokizane,” Enomoto responded clerically. 

“Since the very beginning, Enomoto seemed to be suspicious of me,” Tokizane offered a forlorn smile as if he were the victim of a false accusation. “Well, I admit that I am a character that is easily misunderstood. I am the closest to the stereotype of an intelligent criminal in novels and movies.”

“I didn’t suspect you because of your character.” Enomoto, who was clearly the same type of a criminal, said, “Tokizane was the one who was able to manipulate the items in the villa, and he was in charge of everything that night, even using a hunting rifle. No one else could have pulled off such a complicated trick.”

Junko thought that was true. It was common for the culprit of a locked room case to put themselves in a position where they could control everything and then find themselves in a situation where no one else could possibly be the culprit.

“….None of the watches in the first category could be tampered with or falsified.”

Enomoto continued his explanation.

“The second category of cell phones was also extremely challenging for the culprit, Tokizane since he could not make a call because it was out of range and would not necessarily look at his cell phone, use some app, or try to take a picture of it. If he looked at the time, Tokizane’s elaborate murder plan would be foiled. For this reason, Hikijii was summoned from the demon world as the trump card to block cell phones and smartphones.”

With everyone’s attention on him, Hikijii straightened his posture and turned his head at a 45-degree angle to the camera.

“In the first place, the main question was why Hikijii was invited to the party. He doesn’t seem to have much of a background as a mystery writer, and he wasn’t particularly close to Mori or Tokizane. Furthermore, he is not just someone with a venomous tongue or a cynic on a level, but someone who is worthy of being called the worst party pooper in the history of verbal terrorism, who deliberately utters the worst possible statements even if he can read the atmosphere.”

You don’t have to say anything to that extent in front of the person in question. Junko was flabbergasted, but Hikijii, for some reason, did not become enraged but instead slapped his knee.

“I see! So that’s what this is all about. As I said before, I myself had always wondered why I had been invited, but now my doubts were finally cleared up.”

“I heard that you are feared in the publishing world for your aversion to cell phones and smartphones. There are numerous saga accounts of him forcing people to turn off their cell phones at parties, snapping the phones of those who did not comply, and throwing their phones into a bowl of fruit punch. With Hikijii around, no one would ever take out their cell phone.”

“What about the other three things in the first category: the FM tuner, Tokizane’s satellite cell phone, and President Shimizu’s landline phone call logs?” Kumakura asked.

“The FM tuner itself does not have a time display, but it would have been inconvenient for us to ask since we often refer to the time signal or the time of day during broadcasts.”

Was that why the perpetrator had turned off the radio? Wait a minute.

“That’s when we went to the study, right? If the correct time could not be known at that time, then the time had already been changed?”

“That’s right… But more on that subject will be explained later.”

Enomoto brushed it off lightly.

“The phone records of the two phones cannot be tampered with without hacking into the computers of both phone companies. I would say that it is impossible. In other words, there is no doubt that the two of you were on the phone for 31 minutes from 9:07 to 9:38,” Enomoto replied with a cold stare. “Tokizane’s trick, therefore, involved a total of five items in the second through fourth categories: the RTC on Mori’s computer, the radio-controlled wall clock in the hall, the electric clock in the study, the Grandfather Clock in the dining room, and the flip clock. However, by manipulating all five at will, Tokizane was able to achieve his desired goal.”

“How in the world can someone operate something so freely?”

Junko had no idea.

“First of all, let me explain the RTC of the computer.”

Enomoto pulled out from somewhere what looked like a PC circuit board.

“This is a rather old-fashioned motherboard, but the principle is the same as the one in Mori’s computer. Look here. You can see a chip with a button battery attached to it, and this is the RTC.”

“So that’s what keeps track of the computer’s time?”

Junko’s gaze was fixated on the motherboard. The time would presumably remain to tick even if the computer was switched off if it had a button cell attached to it.

“The computer’s operating system gets the time from this chip when it starts up and runs. The time when Mori updated the document is also based on this chip.”

“Hahaha. So we can advance or delay the RTC in advance,” Kawai nodded.

“That way, he could disguise the time when the document was updated and misidentify the time of the crime.”

“Yes, but I don’t think he simply changed the RTC time on the OS.” 

Enomoto shook his head.

“Let’s assume that the RTC on Mori’s computer was tampered with and the time at which the document was updated was falsified. The culprit – Tokizane – would then have to adjust the RTC to the correct time once more. The reason is that the computer’s internal clock must show the correct time when the police verify it.”

“Maybe he fixed it after the crime was committed? The murderer was in the study.”

Kawai crossed his long legs and put his index finger on his brow, striking a pose as if he were a well-known detective.

“If he used software to manipulate the RTC, it would have been recorded in the event log.”

“Can the logs be erased?”

“Even so, there is no guarantee that it cannot be restored. Even if the criminal – Tokizane, 

even if he could cover his tracks perfectly without committing such a crime, he would need even more time.”

Enomoto asked, turning to Sergeant Yaegashi, who was silently listening to the discussion.

“The police did a detailed analysis of the hard drive of Mori’s computer, didn’t they?”

Sergeant Yaegashi cleared his throat.

“We found no evidence of time manipulation in the event logs or elsewhere.”

“Wait a minute. If that’s the case, how could this guy tamper with the computer’s internal clock?”

Kumakura asked, looking at Tokizane with a sideways glance.

“There was a very easy way, without leaving any traces. The computer itself was replaced.”

Enomoto turned to Tokizane.

“You provided the computer for Mori Reiko’s work, didn’t you?”

“Yes, but…”

“If it were Mori, I would think she would have chosen a stylish notebook, but why did you choose a desktop?”

“An ergonomic natural keyboard is better suited for writing for a long time. I recommended it to Reiko.”

“I see, so you ordered two computers at the same time, one for you and one for Mori. I suppose the hardware configuration was exactly the same.”

“It was cheaper that way.”

“Both computers had hard drives that could be easily inserted and removed from the front.”

“So what is your point?”

Tokizane glared at Enomoto with eyes like a ferocious animal.

“You took out Mori’s hard disk in advance, replaced it with your own computer whose RTC was delayed by twelve minutes, and left it in her study.”

“Twelve minutes?” Junko involuntarily asked.

“There is a reasonable basis for that time, but I’ll explain it later.”

Although he may not have intended to be putting on a superior air, Enomoto brushed off the question.

“Mori was using that computer to work on a novel that night. By any chance, she might have noticed that the time was twelve minutes late, but as long as it didn’t interfere with her work, she figured she could ask Tokizane to correct it later. And then she was poisoned with coffee and murdered.”

Many of the listeners had a somber look on their faces. Tokizane was the only one who displayed no sign of change.

“Tokizane must have found Mori’s note shortly afterward and figured he could disguise it as an accident. So he made additions to the ‘Mystery Clock’ document in the idea folder. Imitating Mori’s writing style should have been no problem for Tokizane, who was also a mystery writer and had worked as Mori’s assistant. Once he had finished with the computer, he pulled out the hard disk and inserted it back into Mori’s computer, where the RTC was showing the correct time and left it in her study.”

“Wait a minute!” Hikijii interrupted loudly. “When did Tokizane rewind the internal clock on the computer?”

“I don’t know the exact time, but it was before the dinner party.”

“I see. It may have been necessary to do so in order to plan the murder. But if he rewinds the computer’s internal clock by twelve minutes, wouldn’t that create another contradiction?

“What other contradiction?” Junko asked immediately.

“It was around 8:41 when Mori left the hall. Then she went to her study and immediately started up her computer. The time would be recorded. If the time had been delayed by 12 minutes, 8:31, the fraud would have been immediately exposed.”

Hikijii looked smug. Junko was amazed. It seemed that he was not a long-time mystery writer for nothing.

“You’re right.”

Enomoto nodded.

“To avoid contradictions, a buffer zone of time is necessary. It was necessary to allow about twelve minutes for Mori to start up her computer.”

“How did he manage to do that?”

Motojima asked curiously. Indeed, it would be difficult to keep Mori from working for more than twelve minutes unless the power cables for the computer were hidden.

“Before leaving the hall and going to his study, Mori would stop by the kitchen and make herself a cup of coffee, which would take her about three minutes.”

Kumakura said, “Then we have to subtract that.”

“In other words, the remainder is still twelve minutes, not nine,” Tokizane interjected, taking advantage of Kumakura’s comment and looking like a third party.

“There is no problem. Tokizane had another trick up his sleeve for that purpose.”

Enomoto was unfazed.

“Trick? What on earth are you talking about? “

Tokizane asked with a faint smile as if to ask what the man was talking about.

Enomoto turned to the group and continued, “Do you all remember the box-shaped clock that was in Mori’s study?”

Junko, too, remembered it clearly. She wondered how it worked, with its unique design of a rotating ring of three colors (sky blue, green, and red) inscribed beneath a silver dial with a blue dashed border.

“I remember it. It was a retro Showa-era design.”

Motojima nodded. After a pause, Tokizane also answered sourly.

“That was a clock called Ringlet, which was released by National in the 1970s. It was the only one in the collection that Reiko liked because of its aesthetic design.”

“Then, did you give it to her as a gift?”

Enomoto’s question was met with a nod of the chin this time.

“When was it given to her as a gift?”

“Who knows? I don’t remember. What does that have to do with anything?”

Tokizane growled reproachfully.

“I don’t think it’s possible that you don’t remember. It was that very night, wasn’t it? When Mori went up to her study, didn’t you leave it on her desk as a gift?”

“I gave that as a gift much earlier.”

Tokizane denied it with an impassive look on his face.

“Sasaki. Have you ever seen the Ringlet in Mori’s study before? Or did Mori ever tell you that it was a gift?”

Enomoto asked Natsumi.

“No,” Natsumi answered softly and glanced at Tokizane.

“If it was a gift given earlier, it would be strange for Sasaki not to know about it. The wrapping paper and Tokizane’s message have probably been destroyed, so it would be difficult to prove.”

Kawai coughed, then lifted his cup, took a drink of water, and placed it noisily on the table. He then turned his hawk-like gaze to Tokimi.

“Mori was overjoyed to receive the present and carefully unwrapped it when she returned to her studies. She must then have read Tokizane’s note, which was attached to the present, attentively. I’m sure it had a series of lovely words written on it. Next, she pondered where to put the Ringlet. The Ringlet was put on the shelf once it had been cleaned and plugged into an electrical socket. For a while, she might have watched the tri-colored Ringlet twirling around.”

The mere thought of it made Junko’s heart ache.

“The whole sequence of actions must have taken at least fifteen minutes. If the customer hadn’t been waiting, it would have taken more than thirty minutes. So this would have avoided the inconsistency of the start-up time being too early.”

Silence descended. An indescribable sense of discomfort settled over the group.

“This is ridiculous. It’s no longer speculation; it’s simply your imagination, your fantasy. Besides, that trick is too unreliable. Even if the gift had been left there, she might have turned on the computer right away, right?”

Tokizane looked around the place, not at Enomoto, with his hands outstretched as if in need of salvation.

“If it was Tokizane, you would have done that. So would I. That way, I could save myself the wasted time waiting for it to start up. But Mori did not. Knowing her personality and behavior, you would have known that Mori would not start up a distracting computer while she was opening a present from someone she cared about.”

“Mori… Her character was really like that,” Natsumi remarked. When she looked around, Kumakura, Motojima, and Kawai were nodding their heads like silver grass in the wind.

“…I think if we check Tokizane’s computer… we can find out what happened. The internal time must be twelve minutes behind, right?” Hikijii asked in a low voice.

Sergeant Yaegashi answered on Enomoto’s behalf.

“Tokizane’s computer is in perfect working order. The internal time is also normal.”

“So you corrected it afterwards? Well, that’s to be expected.”

“…I don’t know if this is related, but I checked the ashes in the fireplace and found a remnant of a USB memory stick.” Sergeant Yaegashi added with a bitter look on his face, “Unfortunately, it was already impossible to read the information.”

All eyes fell on Tokizane.

“There were images that no one was allowed to see. I’ll leave it to your imagination. I thought it would be bad if the police investigated, so I adopted an absolutely certain method of erasing them,” Tokimitsu replied expressionlessly. “…After the end of the private courtroom, most of you waited in this hall for the police to arrive. Discussing memories of Mori and drinking scotch whiskey on your own accord.”

Junko casually averted her eyes.

“I remember that Tokizane holed himself up in his study for a few minutes in the midst of all this. When it was time for the RTC, he must have used a USB memory stick to boot up his computer, reset the RTC to normal time, and plugged in a hard disk drive that had no problems. After that, he went down to the hall and joined the conversation. And while everyone was heading for the front door when the police arrived, I think he burned the USB memory stick he used, because while the contents of a USB memory stick can be completely erased, as Tokizane said, it is more thoroughly safe if you burn it,” Enomoto said calmly.

“Wait a minute. If the time on Mori’s computer was correct, then why did the culprit, Tokizane, turn off the computer?”

“It’s just like an FM tuner. At that point, it was not good for the correct time to be known. And it was for the same reason that he rejected my suggestion to start up the computer.”

“Either way, the story is beyond the realm of Enomoto’s imagination. I have a perfect alibi. Even if the time stamp on Reiko’s computer could be falsified, it would have no effect on the alibi itself.”

Tokizane blurted out with a glum expression on his face.

“Now, let’s talk about the third category, the radio clock trick. This is the core of this case, the ‘Mystery Clock’ so to speak.”

Enomoto retrieved a large wall clock from a paper bag behind the sofa and looked at the lowered wall between it and the dining room.

“I had a hard time finding the same one.”

Indeed, it seemed to be the same model as the one hanging there.

“Let’s put the situation in chronological order. First, Tokizane announced that he was going to present Mori’s collection to everyone. The time was 8:50. I remember Tokizane looked at the radio clock on the wall and said, ‘Assuming that the clock is accurate, I guess we’d better get started’. I found this statement disconcerting. Because if it is a radio-controlled clock, it must be accurate. But what if it was an inducement to check the time for an alibi? In fact, some of you must have looked at your watches at that time. I did, too. And the time was definitely 8:50.”

“I checked too,” Junko said. Like Enomoto, she remembered finding Tokizane’s statement odd.

“Yes, I saw it too,” said Motojima. A few people chimed in.

“The time must have been exactly 8:50 at that point. The wristwatch was the first category, for it was one of the items that Tokizane could not touch.”

Enomoto, perhaps tired of talking, quenched his throat with a sip of water. Everyone quietly awaited the rest of the story.

“After that, everyone was absorbed in guessing the price of the table clock, but when Tokizane returned, he announced the end of the session. That was at 9:39, also just after Tokizane had finished his satellite cell phone call. Again, Tokizane looked at the radio clock on the wall and mentioned the time out loud. I’m sure many of you also checked the time as you were being lured in.”

Enomoto’s words were received with nods from the crowd.

“The crucial difference, however, was that this time all the guests had their watches taken away from them and could not use them for reference. Therefore, the time was checked only with radio-controlled clock.”

“Why was that so decisively different?” Kawai asked, looking puzzled.

“Because at that time, the time had been falsified. The radio-controlled clock seemed to show 9:39, but the actual time was 9:51.”

“So you don’t mean to tell me that…?” Kumakura murmured in horror.

“At this point, Tokizane had already killed Mori.”