"Knock knock!"

"Hi hi...... Is it Mr. Landlord?"

With a knock on the door, the sound of a guest answering was immediately heard in the room. This made Aizawa and Hanagata, who came from afar, breathe a sigh of relief.

"No, are you Ms. Echishiko?"

Hanagata leaned in front of the door and asked in a loud voice.

With the sound of a door lock coming from inside, a slightly plump woman suddenly poked her head out of it, and then carefully looked at the men standing in front of the door, and soon she recognized Kanai standing behind Aizawa and Hanagata.

"Aren't you the police officer, sir!"

"Hi...... Lady Echizen, haven't seen each other for a long time?" Kanai hurriedly nodded to the other party

"Ms. Echizen, I have taken the liberty to visit today because we still have some information about Professor Noguchi that we would like to know from you. So, can I delay you a little bit?"

"Didn't I make it clear at the police station?"

Echishiki Kiko was a little puzzled and asked Aizawa rhetorically.

"Yes, but this is a necessary workflow for our police, so if you agree, it won't take much time!"

"Why, I was trying to go out with my friends, huh...... Forget it, you guys should come in!"

Yukiko said as she let Aizawa and the others into the room.

Yukiko lives in a very old apartment that looks probably thirty or forty years old from the outside. However, when everyone walked into the room, they found that it was very clean, there were not many furnishings in the room, and the walls around and even on the roof were newly laid with cheap new wallpaper. It looks a lot cleaner all of a sudden.

"Would you like tea?" Yukiko asked the crowd as she took out the teacup from the cupboard.

"No, we're just going to ask a few questions, so we won't bother you!" Hanagata hurriedly said politely.

"It's okay, I want to drink it myself, it's not a tea that I can handle, so please don't dislike it!"

Yukiko walked to the stove and got busy, and everyone sat around the tatami floor, because the space was small, everyone felt a little unable to move.

"Sorry, it's too small, by the way, what else do you want to know?"

"Excuse me, could you recount the discovery of Professor Noguchi's body?"

Well, that day was the day I went to work at Professor Noguchi's house, and I went to his house as usual. By the way, I had asked the company for a week off before that, and I was a little sorry for Professor Noguchi, who opened the door to Professor Noguchi's house with the key as I usually do. Then I called a few times, but I didn't hear a response from Professor Noguchi, so I thought he wasn't at home......"

"That...... Can you interrupt you just said that you took a week off work before, can you ask where you have been during this time?"

"This one...... I actually got a temporary job cleaning at the exhibition, and it was said that the pay was very good, and I could earn a lot of money in a few days, so I had to be cheeky to talk to Mr. Noguchi. However, Professor Noguchi was a very good employer, and he happily agreed to my request. I just had time to leave Sapporo's ......"

Aizawa listened quietly, and at the same time compared the current testimony of Echishiko in his mind with the original testimony, and now it seems that the basic content of the two testimonies is roughly the same, but there are still some inconsistencies in some details, but these are very normal phenomena, after all, it has been a while since the last inquiry, and it is common sense that people's memories will have a certain amount of forgetting.

Suddenly, there was the sound of hot water boiling on the stove. Yukiko hurriedly got up and went to the stove to prepare tea for everyone, and after a while, Yukiko returned to his seat with a tray and served everyone a cup of hot tea.

"Thank you...... Yes...... Doesn't it smell good?"

Aizawa picked up the teacup and was about to drink it, but suddenly noticed that the tea in the teacup was not as ordinary as Yukiko said, and there was a special aroma when he asked.

"This tea...... Seems pretty good!"

Aizawa suddenly raised his teacup and said to Yukiko.

"Yes, in fact, I don't usually have much time to make tea, so I don't know much about tea. By the way, I think this box of tea was given to me by Professor Noguchi. I remember that Professor Noguchi seemed to be very fond of tea, but he had so many tea leaves that he gave to me that he couldn't drink......"

"So, you have a pretty good relationship with Professor Noguchi?"

"Hey, Professor Noguchi is a nice guy and takes good care of me. It's a pity that Professor Noguchi died too suddenly!"

Yukiko said with a look of regret.

Aizawa glanced at Yukiko, and then asked the other party again:

"So, did you notice anything strange about Professor Noguchi before he died? For example, any mood swings and so on......

"There seems to be something wrong with what you said, but by the way, I remembered that just before I left, when I said goodbye to Professor Noguchi, he didn't know if he had encountered something particularly happy, and he seemed to be very happy. Yes, it just doesn't feel the same way you usually feel. ”

"Happy?"

Aizawa asked as he felt a little strange.

"Hey, it's really fun. Actually, I was a little embarrassed when I asked him to quit that time, because it was so sudden, but I didn't expect Professor Noguchi to agree to my request very simply. He also told me that I could play for two more days and not have to worry about what happened to him, and I was really embarrassed at the time. ”

"Wait a minute, do you think that Professor Noguchi was happier than usual, but why didn't you mention this paragraph when you made your confession before?"

Officer Kanai asked Ms. Echizen in surprise, with an embarrassed expression on her face.

"You didn't ask these questions at the time, you just asked me where I was the day before I found the body, so I didn't tell you......"

Ms. Echizen didn't seem to realize that what she had just said might overturn the Hokkaido police's decision to commit suicide, so it's no wonder that Officer Kanai reacted so much.