The three police officers heard that something was wrong too, but the sound also felt strangely familiar.
A moment later, Officer Sato remembered. "That was gunfire from the hunting grounds, right? We heard it when we came this afternoon... Who'd still be out hunting this late?"
They walked over to the railing of the Garden Restaurant and, over the rushing stream below, looked curiously toward the opposite bank.
Vermouth, who had nearly been hit by a stray arrow earlier, suddenly thought of something and stopped the students who wanted to go watch the commotion. "This hunting ground's safety measures aren't up to standard. We should go back inside first, in case a stray bullet comes from across the way."
—On such a dark night, if someone really did shoot this way, one careless moment and there would be several bloody holes in their bodies.
"But..." Suzuki Sonoko still felt the gunshot had sounded very far away, so the danger probably wasn't that great.
As she hesitated, the balcony door upstairs creaked open, and the female agent, wearing a bathrobe and drying her dripping hair, walked out of her room.
She stood on the balcony, looked doubtfully at everyone who had left the table, then followed their gazes toward the opposite side. "What happened? I think I heard some strange noises just now."
The screenwriter and director had returned at some point, and they started talking with her. "Was it gunfire?"
"It really did sound like it. You heard it too?" the female agent muttered. "I thought I'd misheard. After all, if there really was gunfire, that busybody Kazuyoshi would've rushed out long ago..."
As she spoke, she looked toward the male actor's room next door.
The next instant, the female agent saw a conspicuous hole in the French window next