Chapter 1: The Locked Door and Trembling Stilettos
The brass doorknob refused to budge by a single hairline.
"N-no good! The deadbolt and safety latch are both thrown completely! It's locked from the inside!"
Lawyer Yuzuru Kaburagi pounded his heavy fist furiously against the solid oak door. From the narrow threshold seeped the cloying, unmistakable scent of bitter almonds—cyanide poison lingering over fresh death.
"Father...! Tell me this is a nightmare, Father...!"
Shoko Narugami clutched her trembling shoulders beneath flowing black hair, pale throat pulsing rapidly above a sleek midnight dress.
"Why aren't the police here yet?! This storm snapped every phone line—and we have cyanide murder inside a sealed room! Miss Shoko, you held the spare key, didn't you?!"
Sweat dripping over his heavy jowls, Kaburagi rounded on the weeping heiress—less from grief than panicked self-preservation.
"How cruel, Attorney Kaburagi...! I know nothing—my knees are shaking so badly I can barely stand...!"
Tap, tap, tap.
Despite her quavering sobs, crisp stiletto heels clicked rapidly against the waxed floorboards in a jittery, uneven rhythm. Moments later, steady leather soles glided smoothly out of the corridor shadows—each stride measured to exact clockwork precision.
"A remarkably jarring dissonance. Might I trouble you to listen to how your shoes strike the wood?"
Adjusting spotless round spectacles with one slender gloved finger, forensic profiler Reiji Kujo stepped calmly into view in a sharp navy three-piece suit.
"W-who asked you?! As legal counsel to the Narugami estate—"
"Single key inside the corpse's pocket. Windows latched from within. A textbook locked room," Kujo murmured, ignoring Kaburagi completely as he knelt effortlessly—not examining the lock, nor the poison odor, but gazing intently at Shoko's slender ankles.
"Nobody stepped out of that room after the bolt dropped. Which means one of you carried a dead man piggyback across this hall."
Chapter 2: Creaking Alibis and Twin Strides
"R-ridiculous!! Why would I carry a corpse?! Show me proof!!"
In the firelit parlor, beads of grease slid off Kaburagi's forehead into the Persian rug. "At nine o'clock, I was auditing ledgers downstairs! Carrying a grown man up those stairs is absurd!"
"Your shoe leather tells sharper lies than your tongue," Kujo replied softly, pointing toward Kaburagi's Italian right loafer. "Notice that half-millimeter abrasion along the outer right heel? Now look back down the study corridor behind us—the Persian carpet pile shows double compression weight indentation."
"C-carpet compression...?!" Kaburagi choked.
"A man weighing seventy-eight kilograms hoisting a sixty-kilogram victim leaves deeper heel impressions and a telltale outward weight shift. You can't fake gravity, Counselor."
Trapped, Kaburagi collapsed forward, wild eyes gleaming by firelight. "No! I was blackmailed! She threatened to expose my embezzlement—I only carried the old man back into his room like Shoko ordered!"
Silence settled cleanly over the crackling hearth. Slowly, Shoko lifted dark, long lashes. Her helpless tremble dissolved into an icy crescent smirk.
"Oh, my? And where is your physical proof, Detective? A recording perhaps? Nobody trusts a cornered pig squealing to save his own skin."
Chapter 3: The Glass Mask and the Ensemble of Death
Lightning blazed white across stained glass windows, carving razor shadows across the stone hall.
"I never touched that key," Shoko stated calmly. "Manipulating an internal deadbolt from outside is parlor fiction."
"A classic gravity-spring piano wire looped silently through the upper doorframe," Kujo answered smoothly. "Simple physics—though snapping it loose requires fierce sudden tension."
"Childish guesswork without evidence," Shoko countered, tilting her chin. "Prove I pulled any wire."
"Beeswax and silk fibers clinging beneath the tip of your left stiletto—and far more decisively," Kujo's eyes gleamed behind silver rims, "when that taut steel snapped back under force, you mildly sprained your left ankle."
Shoko froze. A tiny pulse throbbed visibly along her collarbone.
"Your left heel strikes the floorboards a tenth of a second slower than your right. Every step shifts two millimeters inward to guard the joint. To my ears, every single step you took sounded like a confession."
(Impossible... how could anyone read a hidden twist from a silent sprain?!)
Casting poised innocence aside, Shoko spun wildly toward the storm-lashed terrace—fleeing blindly until crisp footsteps closed behind her in three strides.
Strong fingers locked swiftly around her narrow ankle before she cleared the threshold, pinning her sleek silhouette firmly back against dark wool.
"A magnificent script, truly—ruined by an off-key encore," Kujo murmured coldly near her ear, gloved thumb resting lightly across the tender tendon. "Such clumsy footsteps do not suit you."
Chapter 4: Quiet Shackles in Morning Light
Far beyond wet glass, distant police sirens wailed upward through thinning rain. Kaburagi sat weeping incoherently in puddles near the staircase.
"I built... a flawless world free from that cruel tyrant..." Shoko whispered bitterly from cold flagstones, glaring through torn silk.
"Indeed," Kujo agreed softly, stooping to cradle the discarded patent-leather stiletto gently between both gloved palms. Beneath silver rims, his calm gaze traced the stressed curve of the shoe's arch.
"An extraordinary silhouette. Even distorted under lethal tension, this sole wear belongs in my personal archive."
"...You're insane. Completely mad," Shoko breathed in helpless dread.
Pale dawn light broke cleanly through shattered transom glass. Standing silhouetted against the sun, Kujo traced one dark finger softly along the crimson sole from toe to heel.
"Next time, please play me a cleaner rhythm, Miss Shoko."
