２．Ｓｕｎｄａｙ Ｍａｒｃｈ ３１， ２０１９
文字数 5,157文字
"So let me explain how the culprit reworked it."
Maruta drew lines and figures on a white piece of paper he pulled out of his bag with a mechanical pencil he had brought with him. When he finished, he again held the paper in front of Captain.
"I say the root of this case." Marta sucked in his breath as if he was aboutu to run. "Look, the middle room can rotate internally. Surely, when it was rebuilt, it would have had that rotationally symmetrical shape.[Fig.5]"
〈Captain〉 turned his bright red nose upward. The core strength of his body seemed to have been drained out. At the same time, Kira said, "No way," in a bare-bones voice. After all, After all, Maruta did not care for their reactions here either.
"It's burned down now, so it would be more accurate to say that it had a structure that rotated internally. For the culprit, the house needed to be rotationally symmetrical."
"Maruta-san," Kira seemed to have finally overcome his drowsiness. "Wasn't the room to the left large enough?"
"Don't panic," Maruta restrained Kira with his outstretched hand. "I will explain in order. First of all, you need to remember. Captain, I believe that when you opened the doors in the middle room that could be opened, all of them opened inward. When Captain tried to break through the door leading to Silva's room, you did not try to push it to the other side, but pulled it inward. The other two doors would have been recorded on the video to open inward as well."
Maruta said, taking out more pieces of paper and creating a new simplified drawing. He then slid it into 〈Captain〉's hands as well. The leader looked at it languidly.
"The structure to rotate it could be anything, to be frank, but for example, can we think of a mechanism like the one shown there?[Fig.6]"
"The units that make the rotation possible can now be obtained through online shopping. I have just checked the Internet and found that they are available with a load capacity of several hundred pounds. The unit is placed on a platform with a support, and then a board is placed on top of it. It should have some sort of handle on the underside of the board. Then, a cylindrical room, that middle room with four doors, is placed on top of the board, and that is completed. Naturally, the interior must be that square room with a skylight in the ceiling. You can understand it sensibly, can't you? By getting under this mechanism and moving the handle, the room can be rotated freely. Of course, the weight of the room and the friction of the unit must be adjusted so that it can be rotated by human power. The culprit would have had plenty of time to make such adjustments before the incident. We were unable to find the crucial rotating unit in the woods near the house. Perhaps because of my poor search, the police may have found it by now. I don't know if I can call it a replacement, but I found this."
Maruta held up his smartphone so that 〈Captain〉 could see it. Taking one disinterested glance, he turned his face away.
"Do you see it? It is a metal ball. It is less than one inch in diameter. When I shone my flashlight through the woods, I identified several objects that reflected light. One of them is the metal ball I just showed you. I am thinking this way, these were probably part of the components of a rotating unit. If the rotating unit included a ball bearing structure, it is only natural that metal balls would be used as a component. Other parts of the rotating unit may have long since been taken by the culprit. As I will explain, the rotation of the middle room inside is, so to speak, the crux of that case. For the culprit, it would have been absolutely necessary to hide it."
"And, place rooms of the same shape on each side of the resulting 'rotating room'[1 of Fig.7]. No doors are needed in each side room. Once the entrance is cut out, it is sufficient to install a single window. To camouflage the fact that only the middle room is one step higher, foundation blocks should be placed at each vertex of the floor in the rooms at both ends. Next, install the walls to enclose the middle room[2 of Fig.7]. Then, the exterior walls, interior doors and windows are set up to create spaces as hallways and restrooms[3 of Fig.7]. It goes without saying that the arrangement should be in order to preserve the rotationally symmetric shape. Of course, foundation blocks are placed under each of the new rectangles. Finally, they will install that triangular roof with skylights seen at the beginning of your video[4 of Fig.7]. Those would allow the middle room to 'rotate inside' and 'naturally let in daylight'. To make the finished house look like one seamless building, the exterior walls should be covered from top to bottom with one continuous horizontal board, not overlapping windows or entrances."
〈Captain〉 was listening to Maruta's story with his elbows on the desk. His expression, unchanged up to that point, did not attempt to let Maruta read detailed emotions.
Maruta drew lines and figures on a white piece of paper he pulled out of his bag with a mechanical pencil he had brought with him. When he finished, he again held the paper in front of Captain.
"I say the root of this case." Marta sucked in his breath as if he was aboutu to run. "Look, the middle room can rotate internally. Surely, when it was rebuilt, it would have had that rotationally symmetrical shape.[Fig.5]"
〈Captain〉 turned his bright red nose upward. The core strength of his body seemed to have been drained out. At the same time, Kira said, "No way," in a bare-bones voice. After all, After all, Maruta did not care for their reactions here either.
"It's burned down now, so it would be more accurate to say that it had a structure that rotated internally. For the culprit, the house needed to be rotationally symmetrical."
"Maruta-san," Kira seemed to have finally overcome his drowsiness. "Wasn't the room to the left large enough?"
"Don't panic," Maruta restrained Kira with his outstretched hand. "I will explain in order. First of all, you need to remember. Captain, I believe that when you opened the doors in the middle room that could be opened, all of them opened inward. When Captain tried to break through the door leading to Silva's room, you did not try to push it to the other side, but pulled it inward. The other two doors would have been recorded on the video to open inward as well."
Maruta said, taking out more pieces of paper and creating a new simplified drawing. He then slid it into 〈Captain〉's hands as well. The leader looked at it languidly.
"The structure to rotate it could be anything, to be frank, but for example, can we think of a mechanism like the one shown there?[Fig.6]"
"The units that make the rotation possible can now be obtained through online shopping. I have just checked the Internet and found that they are available with a load capacity of several hundred pounds. The unit is placed on a platform with a support, and then a board is placed on top of it. It should have some sort of handle on the underside of the board. Then, a cylindrical room, that middle room with four doors, is placed on top of the board, and that is completed. Naturally, the interior must be that square room with a skylight in the ceiling. You can understand it sensibly, can't you? By getting under this mechanism and moving the handle, the room can be rotated freely. Of course, the weight of the room and the friction of the unit must be adjusted so that it can be rotated by human power. The culprit would have had plenty of time to make such adjustments before the incident. We were unable to find the crucial rotating unit in the woods near the house. Perhaps because of my poor search, the police may have found it by now. I don't know if I can call it a replacement, but I found this."
Maruta held up his smartphone so that 〈Captain〉 could see it. Taking one disinterested glance, he turned his face away.
"Do you see it? It is a metal ball. It is less than one inch in diameter. When I shone my flashlight through the woods, I identified several objects that reflected light. One of them is the metal ball I just showed you. I am thinking this way, these were probably part of the components of a rotating unit. If the rotating unit included a ball bearing structure, it is only natural that metal balls would be used as a component. Other parts of the rotating unit may have long since been taken by the culprit. As I will explain, the rotation of the middle room inside is, so to speak, the crux of that case. For the culprit, it would have been absolutely necessary to hide it."
"And, place rooms of the same shape on each side of the resulting 'rotating room'[1 of Fig.7]. No doors are needed in each side room. Once the entrance is cut out, it is sufficient to install a single window. To camouflage the fact that only the middle room is one step higher, foundation blocks should be placed at each vertex of the floor in the rooms at both ends. Next, install the walls to enclose the middle room[2 of Fig.7]. Then, the exterior walls, interior doors and windows are set up to create spaces as hallways and restrooms[3 of Fig.7]. It goes without saying that the arrangement should be in order to preserve the rotationally symmetric shape. Of course, foundation blocks are placed under each of the new rectangles. Finally, they will install that triangular roof with skylights seen at the beginning of your video[4 of Fig.7]. Those would allow the middle room to 'rotate inside' and 'naturally let in daylight'. To make the finished house look like one seamless building, the exterior walls should be covered from top to bottom with one continuous horizontal board, not overlapping windows or entrances."
〈Captain〉 was listening to Maruta's story with his elbows on the desk. His expression, unchanged up to that point, did not attempt to let Maruta read detailed emotions.
