Officer Sato glanced at the recorded checkout time, and her expression shifted slightly. "Arranging the corpse into that state would have taken quite a bit of effort. Working backward, only this Totsune had time to do it. He's the culprit—the 'Hell Puppeteer' who fooled us several times!"
The manager: "!"
Still shaken, he said, "The Silver Meteor came through here two days ago. That Mr. Totsune arrived on it."
Officer Sato looked suspicious. "Wait, every train has so many passengers. Why do you remember Totsune's background so clearly?"
The manager said helplessly, "If you had seen Mr. Totsune, you wouldn't forget him either—he wore a white plastic mask. From a distance, he looked like one of those white plastic models in a mall, but up close, he was even more frightening..."
He sighed. "That outfit was really strange, and Mr. Totsune never said a word, as though he were mute. I couldn't help paying extra attention to him."
"As far as I remember, he'd been holed up in his room these past two days, doing who knew what. Then, not long ago, he suddenly left with his luggage, went downstairs, and checked out."
As he spoke, the manager glanced at the train schedule posted on the wall. "The next train won't arrive for another two days, so I found it strange that he was checking out now. But I didn't dare ask where he was going. Now it seems... he was fleeing out of fear of punishment."
Jiang Xia lowered his head and flipped through the guest register, finding Mr. Totsune's full name—Totsune Tanfu.
"What a strange name." Suzuki Sonoko stood beside him, curiously studying those odd characters. After silently repeating their pronunciation a few times, she suddenly froze. "Wait, the pronunciation of this name..."
Jiang Xia nodded. "It's a