Inspector Yamamura had assumed that once he finished speaking, the female manager would collapse to her knees with a smack, like those murderers who wept bitterly before Jiang Xia, and begin confessing.
But unlike the happy script he had imagined, the female manager slammed the table and rose to her feet at his accusation. "What do you mean, I'm the murderer?! At the time of the crime, I was clearly on the balcony of my own room! Everyone else saw me!"
"But strictly speaking, you only showed up after the gunshot." The producer hesitated, then muttered in a voice quiet enough for everyone present to hear:
"At the time, we were all looking toward the valley and didn't pay attention to what you were doing at all—your rooms are right next to each other. Who knows whether you stood on Sunaoka's balcony, fired a shot, and then went back to your own balcony?
"Then, once everyone rushed upstairs, all you had to do was throw the gun hard into the gorge. After all, everyone knows that a woman who's just been dumped by a man can be very dangerous."
"You!!" The manager shot to her feet, her voice changing. "You're talking complete nonsense!"
Just as the two of them were about to escalate from an argument to a fight, a young police officer ran in through the door, wrapped in the cold wind.
"Mr. Jiang Xia!" He held a report in his hand. "The examination results for the gun in the woods are in—there's a Hunting Management Center not far from this inn. That rifle, as well as the long rope hanging from the tree, both belong to that institution."
"Also, we removed a bullet from the victim's forehead. That bullet is indeed compatible with the gun."
"Is that so?"