５．Ｔｈｕｒｓｄａｙ　Ｍａｒｃｈ　２１，　２０１９

"That's it." 〈Number 4〉 let out a long breath and pressed the stop button.
Maruta's mood to get drunk was no more than a speck of dust. But there was only lukewarm beer there, so he had no choice but to take a sip of it.

"Did the two of you," Maruta put down his glass. "Leave the scene at the end?"
"Yes. I'm embarrassed to say, but as you just saw, above that house, we saw some blue fire flickering in the air."
"It's just above the 'No Trespassing' woods."
"So, after I got scared furiously, Mont Blanc and I ran away together. We ran uncontrollably toward the roadway on the path we had originally come from. We were concerned about Silva-san, but there was nothing we could do about it. I even began to wonder if I was the one who would be the next to go wrong."
"There is no need to be concerned." Maruta looked his opponent in the eye. "In the same situation, anyone would have done so, unless they were a daredevil. And afterwards, the two of you waited in the driveway for Captain and the others to return."
"That's right. We were both trembling. After about twenty minutes, the Captain's car returned with the ambulance. I had never experienced such a long time in my life."

Reversing the video, 〈Number 4〉 stopped it again at the point the house was in flames. Then he asked him pleadingly.
"What do you think the blue fire in the images is, Maruta-san?"
Maruta stared at the screen, then leaned against the wall and thought honestly.
"I have no idea."
"As I thought." 〈Number 4〉 said, still pleading with him. "It means that there was something in the woods at the back of that 'ghosts of suicides' appear."
"It would seem that way, but we can't say for sure. The direction would be that way. I am just concerned about the height of the area where that blue fire was seen."
〈Number 4〉 kept his mouth shut, waiting for Maruta's next words.

"The last scene was shot from the front yard of the house. The fact that fire could be seen above the house from there suggests that it was flickering in the canopy of the trees in the 'suicide forest', that's to say, around the branches where the leaves grow. Sorry I can't help you, but that's about all I can say right now."
A hint of disappointment appeared on 〈Number 4〉's face. But he did not dare to say it out, but only said in a small voice, "That's okay."

"Number 4-san," Maruta asked in the same tone as before. "There was one more odd thing."
"What's that?"
"Before Silva-san was found dead, you mentioned that you lost your ring."
"Oh yeah," 〈Number 4〉 made a gesture of putting his fist in his palm. "That's when my ring went missing."
"Have you found it since then?"
"No, I never found it."
"Was it expensive?"

When asked, 〈Number 4〉 quickly showed Maruta a web page on his smartphone.
"It's the same one you see in the picture."
A silver ring with a crest of lilies is shown on the screen of the mail order website. The price is 560 dollers. Looking at it, Maruta thought to himself, 'If I had been in junior high school, I might have wanted one too'.

"That's quite expensive."
〈Number 4〉 put away his smartphone. "I like silver jewelry, and I've always wanted one of this. I bought it with my first salary as a member of Tokyo Spread, so I was very attached to it. That's why I still miss having lost it."
"Repeating the same question in the video may be bothersome to you, but you left it in the restroom."
"I believe that was the case. Now I can't say for sure, though. Maybe I just left it somewhere in that house."
Maruta thought about it, but did not have a feeling that an answer would come to mind. If he knew the whereabouts of the ring, he would have let this unidentifiable man know immediately. While he was pondering this, 〈Number 4〉 added more information.

"Captain lost his watch."
"What?" Maruta's movements were as if he had been woken from a nap by force.
"I heard that Captain's was more expensive, costing about 10,000 dollers."
"Ten thousand?" Listening this, Maruta and Kira showed great dismay, literally opening their mouths. 〈Number 4〉 continued, regardless.
"Captain says that it must have burned in the fire because he left it in that house. Plus, burning up were all the other members' smartphones, wallets, and other things they had in that house. Poor thing, isn't it?"
Maruta mouthed a curt reply, "Yeah, poor thing, it is." He could not shake off the shock of what 〈Number 4〉 had just told him. He couldn't resist asking.
"Are video creators making that much money?"
"Oh no, it depends on the month. It's no big deal."
As was to be expected, 〈Number 4〉 only minced words and made no further mention of the matter.

After watching the video all the way through, Kira said in a voice that sounded like it was about to disappear. "That guy was really killed behind the locked door."
〈Number 4〉 looked at Kira's face. Then he tapped the table several times with his fingers, perhaps to find words to say. But finally he could not seem to squeeze those out of him proper.
Beside the stalemate between the two, Maruta still continued to watch the key points of the video.

"I can't get this video data, can I?" Now Maruta looks at 〈Number 4〉's face.
"That's indeed impossible." 〈Number 4〉 shifted his gaze to Maruta. "If Captain finds out, that is rather a big deal. I've been told never to show this to outsiders."
"That is, of course, true."

Stopping the video at the beginning, Maruta looked at the screen again. It shows five people who have just arrived at the site lining up in the vestibule.
"Is there anything more?" It was clear that 〈Number 4〉 was bored.
"Yes," Maruta is the only one who is not carried away by the malaise atmosphere. "About this skylight I mentioned earlier."
When Maruta pointed to the screen, 〈Number 4〉 leaned forward again, looking annoyed. Kira, too, looked exhausted, but turned his attention back to it. Maruta then said with almost as much enthusiasm as before.
"I just don't think it's the same shape as the skylight that was inside."

The two people who were told so seemed to have regained some of their focus.
"Is that true?" The light in 〈Number 4〉's eyes comes back.
"Number 4-san, the roof of this house is clearly triangular. But from what I observed inside, I believe the interior ceiling was parallel to the floor, just like a typical house."
"I don't remember any of those details at all."
"Let's see."

Maruta took the initiative to operate the PC. He had already gotten the point, so the necessary section in the video was immediately displayed. This is the scene where 〈Number 4〉, holding the camera, enters the middle room for the first time.
"I knew it." While Maruta said, the two was in silence. "The ceiling is parallel to the floor. A single square frosted glass window is set into the ceiling."
"So," 〈Number 4〉 stared intently at the screen. "You are saying that the skylight seen from the outside is different from the one seen from the inside?"
"That is what I mean. It can be said that there was a space between the roof and the ceiling. We do not know at this stage what that means. It may just be that the skylights were simply double."

Maruta felt that he had not yet given it enough thought. But here he noticed for the first time that more than ten plates of food had arrived at the table. Seeing this, Maruta finally turned his attention to matters other than the video.
"Once we get ourselves together, why don't we eat? It's all cooled off now, though." Maruta gave them a cheerful voice, different from the one they had heard before, as they sank down in front of the difficult question. Then 〈Number 4〉 also relaxed his face and said, "Let's eat now."

Kira was the only one who did not pick up his chopsticks and remained silent for a while. Maruta took pity on him, thinking that Kira would never be able to work up an appetite, having been shown firsthand the death of his friend.
In this case, there is no way that one could say something insensitive like, "What's wrong with you?" Maruta slowly moved with his chopsticks, unsure of how he should behave.