The Case-Book of Kakashi Hatake

A Study in Silence {Part 7}

The cab turned the corner ahead of us and disappeared from sight. I cursed, but Hatake simply turned left into an alley, the gap between the buildings so narrow that two people would have struggled to walk abreast. The cobble stones were covered with filth, and the air itself seemed to hold more moisture than was entirely natural. I gathered my shirt up into my right hand to keep it from dragging through the grime, heels clicking on the uneven stones and echoing around us as I struggled to keep pace.

"You said that you'd explain on the way so explain," I panted, so out of shape that it was pathetic.

"That old lady was no old lady. It was a man in disguise, about thirty years of age, short in stature, very skilled in the art of disguise."

"How," my chest heaved from my labored breathing, "how did you know that he was not a she?"

"The hands. They were too large, the nails too broad."

"Is he the killer?"

"No."

"How can you be so sure?"

Hatake sent me a little look over his shoulder before diving out of the narrow gap between buildings and turning left again onto the main road, having just enough to time to see the cab that we were chasing gallop too far ahead of us to catch on foot.

"The necklace. The real killer would have known that the necklace that I gave him was a fake. This man had no reaction to that at all."

"A fake?"

"Yes, it was a fake!"

I panted heavily as Hatake led us after the hansom, dodging pedestrians who gave us very offended looks.

"When did you get that made?"

"The same day that I put the advertisement in the paper. Did you really think that I'd give a piece of evidence like that back to the murderer?"

"Yes."

"No faith."

The cab was moving much faster than it usually would have on the narrow lanes; the horse's tongue was even lolling out of its mouth. Whoever was in there knew that they were being chased. It turned the left corner up ahead onto an even busier street, and when we stumbled around that turn ourselves, the cab had vanished into the multitude of carriages, carts, other cabs, and horses.

"Dammit," I swore, the old lady walking next to me on the street looking utterly scandalized by my language.

Hatake shoved his hands in his pockets, breathing already perfectly even, "They gave us the slip."

I pressed my hands to my stomach, finding that my tailored coat was far too tight to have been made with breathing in mind, "I'm sorry. I just wasn't fast enough to keep up with you."

I looked around, noticing that they had led us in a large circle, ending up only a block away from where we had started.

I stumbled, feet pulsing from uncomfortable foot wear, breathing labored as a result of my still recovering health.

Hatake subtly held his arm out to me, hand still in its pocket. I slipped my hand into the crook of his elbow, grateful as he immediately took a lot of my weight off my aching feet while we hobbled (well, I hobbled and Hatake strolled) back to 221B.

Just as we got to our door, a new cab pulled up, and out of it stepped Inspector Aoba Yamashiro, flustered and worried, ovular glasses fogging slightly from his heavy breathing.

Hatake froze, "There's been another murder."

Yamashiro nodded, not even bothering to question how the consulting detective knew. "Sometime last night or early this morning at the Kiri Hotel. We found the J. Gato that was on the first victim's business cards, but it seems that the killer found him first."

Hatake stepped into the cab, and I followed him, brushing past the hand of help that Inspector Yamashiro offered me. 

The brown and grey facades glided past us as I watched, entranced by their bumpy progress. The silence was suffocating, impenetrable by even the rhythmic clopping of the horse and muffled sounds of a bustling metropolis.

Ten minutes later the cab pulled up in front of the hotel, the three of us quietly spilling out onto the cobbled streets. The front was painted a faded blue, chipping in places off the smooth bricks. There was a small garden planted to either side of the stairs leading to the front door, the trees trimmed to perfect bonsais and the lilies in full bloom, withering slightly from the intensity of the midday sun. "Kiri Hotel" was emblazoned in gold lettering above the door.

The policeman led the way inside, nodding to the concierge as we passed by, who looked like he was going to be sick. The wallpaper was slightly faded, depicting ocean waves, and the shoji doors to the rooms had turned from white to a pale yellow. Everything was very clean, though, and the beige carpet was freshly replaced.

The new, bright carpet was marred under the door of room 210. Maroon and brown peeked out of under the edge of the shoji, barely distinguishable from the shadows.

Yamashiro inserted a key into the lock and gave it a hard turn before sliding the door back and standing to the side as Hatake waltzed in, careful of where he stepped.

I followed close after and took in the scene.

A rather short and rotund man was prone on the bed. A pillow was covering his face, dried blood flowed from underneath, like a dark shadow coating the bottom of the pillow, the bedspread, the victim, and trailing all the way across the floor to peak out into the hallway. What you could see of his neck was crimson, a curved slice like a second mouth smiling at us, bits of trachea and larynx still recognizable through the deep slit. The smell was horrendous. Like a harsh metallic salt, body odor, and the faintest sweet traces of early decay. I pulled a handkerchief from my pocket and pressed it to my nose and mouth to filter out the air that I was still sucking in from our running.

Gently, Hatake pulled the pillow from the dead man's face, giving it a slight tug as the dried blood adhered it to Gato's face. The victim's eyes were wide open, just like Yagura's, just like the first murder, and his lips were slightly blue, trails of dried spit and blood branching from his mouth. His pale brown hair was thrown into disarray, and his hands were clenched tightly into fists.

I glanced over at my housemate and friend; he glanced back and stuck his hands deep into his pockets, "It would seem that our murderer has had a busy day."

A/N: I am going to try to keep the updates to at least one a week, but no guarantees, especially at finals and midterms.