And Thus Diogenes Pondered (3)

My classmate, Yonemura, was unchanged from the last time I saw him, which was about a few hours ago during the last class of the day. Excluding the overgrown fringe, which was clearly against school regulations, he cut a largely unremarkable figure. However, I knew better than anyone that his banal appearance hid a frighteningly sharp mind.

The other student was the polar opposite, at least in the sense that he seemed like the type to stand out. He was of a prominent height, likely capable of standing shoulder to shoulder with Kazami yet possessing a fraction of the muscle mass. A milky pallor and brand name glasses, which did little to brighten his gaunt features, completed my assessment of the stranger.

“It seems like you’ve forgotten the forty-second rule of the Diogenes Club, Yonemura: phones should be on silent mode. Always.”

Mamiya Junichi reprimanded my classmate. It was clear from this snippet of conversation that the tune we heard was Yonemura’s ringtone. In response, Kazami cancelled his call and the music cut off with instantaneous effect.

“What’d you call me for?” Yonemura’s apologetic expression dissipated as he cautiously turned his gaze from Mamiya to us.

“I was the one who asked him to call you,” Haruhi answered in Kazami’s stead. “I thought it might drive you out of your hiding place.”

Yonemura’s eyes flickered towards the cavity he had just appeared from. “You knew about the Diogenes Club’s secret hideaways this whole time?”

“My brother told me,” she replied. Addressing the rest of us, the ones not in the know, she added: “Their ‘hideaway’ is just an old storage room. The doorway out in the corridor was plastered over years ago but you can still access the space if you carve a hole like that,” Haruhi nodded at the cavity which, moments prior, had been obscured by the robot.

Evidently, the walls in this building were not too thick.

She continued. “It’s a bit of a copout, I suppose, using information that my brother told me years ago to solve the mystery. Well, things worked out a lot better than I thought they would, hey? I didn’t know where the entrance was, so I wanted to get Fujiyama-senpai’s number from this Yonemura guy. I was going to listen in on the conversation by pressing my ear against the wall.

“Who would have thought Yonemura was here too? Or that we would be able to hear his phone ringing? Or that you guys would give the game up so easily?” Haruhi spoke triumphantly.

“As you can tell, the walls are very thin,” Mamiya replied dryly. “Once this guy’s phone went off, I knew it was over,” he patted his underclassman on the shoulder.

Yonemura murmured another apology, but Mamiya prattled on.

“Additionally, I know very well that trying to hide something from Masaya-senpai’s sister is a pointless endeavour,” he said. “Even if you only have half his brains.”

“Twice his brains more like,” Haruhi retorted.

“How about it then?” Mamiya gestured towards the hollow in the wall. “Would you like to see the Diogenes Club’s secret rooms? This offer is only extended to Masaya-senpai’s sister, of course.”

Haruhi rejected the invitation immediately with a stern shake of the head. “I only came here because I wanted to clarify some things. For starters, I’d like you to tell me how many of these hideaways your club has. Secondly, I want you to confirm that these hideaways are the secret behind the vanishing trick.”

“You want me to explain even though you already know everything? It must be for the benefit of your friends,” Mamiya smiled at us maliciously, almost as though we were idiots.

“Just talk.”

“Very well then,” he cleared his throat. “We have five hideaways, each one being an unused storage room that we’ve appropriated for our own purposes. Of course, the regular entrances have long been sealed, and we go in and out via holes in the wall.”

“And I assume these holes are all hidden behind something?”

A curt nod. “In this room, it’s a robot; in another, it might be a grand piano or a bag full of sports equipment. Whatever suits the room.”

“And the vanishing?”

“The club that vanishes, is it?” he laughed a mirthless laugh. “Just an urban legend, I’m afraid. We would rather have our club gatherings at a karaoke bar or at my parents’ condo than spend our time sneaking around the school grounds. And like I said, the walls are thin, so we have to be unbearably quiet when we make use of these hideaways.”

A pause, and then Mamiya began to speak again. “Well, there is some truth to that story, but it’s all before my time.”

“What exactly do you mean by that?”

“Why do you think the Diogenes Club isn’t officially registered? Have you ever thought about why your brother founded the club in the first place?” Mamiya queried. “The club’s original activities were illicit, of course, but you should ask him for the details. It’s not my place to tell you.”

This revelation seemed to perturb Haruhi, but she kept her cool as she turned to Kazami. “Friend of Watson, I’d like to ask you a question too...”

“M-m-me?” he looked shocked. “What do I have to do with anything?”

“It’s about when you came into our clubroom the other day… you actually came here first, right?”

“H-h-,” he spluttered. “H-H-How could you possibly have known that?”

“It was something that you said,” she winked in my direction, and then declared empathically. “Last week, after running away from the ‘phantoms’ on the baseball field, you came to this building. You met with the members of the vanishing club – the Diogenes Club – who subsequently directed you to the New Wave Mystery Club on the second floor. Is that correct?”

“Uh-huh, that sounds right,” Kazami’s contorted features reflected the fact that his brain was working overtime trying to remember the events of last week – when Haruhi discovered the truth behind the mysterious voices on the baseball field.

“I can clear that up,” Yonemura suddenly interjected. “We had left something in our hideaway and came back to get it. As we were leaving, we ran into Kazami on the ground floor. It was President Mamiya who told him to go to the New Wave Mystery Society on the second floor.”

“Masaya-senpai’s orders, you see,” Mamiya adjusted his glasses. “He told us during his last visit that he had a younger sister who loves to play detective. I thought I was doing you a service. How did it go, by the way?”

“I solved it,” Haruhi spoke through gritted teeth. “A very simple solution, if one takes the time to think.”

“I did find the premise to be very sensational myself. Isn’t that ramshackle baseball diamond horrifying enough without having to believe that there are demons lurking in the outfield?”

“The real demons aren’t scheduled to show up for another two and a half weeks,” Yonemura added cryptically.

“Ah yes,” Mamiya looked as though he remembered something. “Now that’s a mystery worth looking into, Miss Detective. If that’s all, then I think I’ll be going back into the hovel. I trust you’ll all use your discretion in regard to the Diogenes Club. Miss Detective knows just how scary our founder can be.”

Mamiya spun on his heel and languidly disappeared through the hollow, muttering words that clearly weren’t meant for us. I hadn’t given it much thought, but it was obvious now that there were still people on the other side.

For example, Fujiyama-senpai, who did not bother to show his face again…

“So that’s why you were still in school so late last week…” Kazami said to Yonemura, who merely shrugged in reply.

“I couldn’t very well tell you that I was in the walls, could I? The Diogenes Club is a very exclusive and secretive social club.”

Their conversation lapsed into something that was completely irrelevant to me, so I shut it out. “So, you managed to clear up Kazami’s suspicious movements from last week, huh?” I whispered to Haruhi.

“I figured it out over the weekend,” she told me plainly. “There weren’t any other interesting mysteries today, so now seemed as good a time as any to reveal the truth. That’s all.”

“But you said Kazami was looking for me, remember? How could Mamiya-senpai or Yonemura have known I was around too?”

“You were seen, obviously. Remember how you were late on your first day because you didn’t know where the clubroom was? The sight of you sprinting from room to room must have been conspicuous, to say the least.”

And now I remembered why Fujiyama-senpai’s face looked so familiar to me. I must have asked him for directions that day…

The various conversations faded and at some point Yonemura headed back into the cavity, with Kazami and I shifting the five-foot robot (or would ‘door’ be a more appropriate noun?) back into its place. As we exited the Robotics Club’s clubroom, Akiha began to grumble.

“I hate playing the supporting role. I’m going to be the one to solve the mystery next time!”

“There won’t be a ‘next time’ for you,” Haruhi’s eye began to twitch comically. “I still haven’t given you my blessing to join the club.”

“Take it up with the President then, why don’t you?”

“Maybe I will!”

Kazami draped his arms, bronzed and toned from an afternoon of fielding and hitting, around my shoulder.

“It looks like your already exciting everyday life is going to get a lot livelier,” he chuckled, almost begrudgingly. “If I weren’t the hope and hero of Kamijousaki baseball, I’d want to join the Mystery Club myself!”

The great detective, who had been trading jabs with Akiha, cut their verbal spar short. Her ears flickered when she heard Kazami’s nomenclatural faux pas, the second in what must have been just under an hour. She began to rebuke him, glowering all the while.

“How many times do I have to tell you that it’s the New Wave Mystery Society?!”