The Case Files of Jeweler Richard - Chapter 3.1

The title chapter, a.k.a the one where Richard and Seigi actually solve a mystery! Thanks to Maralynx for proofreading for me.

The second floor of the station building at the west entrance of Shinjuku Station was almost entirely dedicated to women’s clothing stores, but there was one café tucked in the middle of it. It was a shop that served cute cakes and light meals.

On an early Friday afternoon, at the counter seats that overlooked the bike parking lot, I was trembling with nervousness.

“Tanimoto-san, I’m…not…da…not da……!”

“‘Notda?’ Seigi-kun, are you alright? Did cake get stuck in your throat?”

“No! Sorry…when I’m trying to say something important, I tend to stutter.”

“I see! Don’t worry about it, speak slowly.”

In the seat next to me was Tanimoto-san.

While somehow suppressing my heart that felt like it was about to explode, I put together the words. First is “not”. Second is “dating”. It’s alright, if I could just get to “anyone”, then I had this in the bag. Prepare yourself. Let’s go.

“I’m not dating anyone!”

“Huh?”

I said it. Yes.

The incident dated back to the end of this spring. Due to various circumstances, I had Richard take his Jaguar to the back entrance of the school, and due to my bad friends’ unpleasant misunderstandings, Tanimoto-san ended up thinking that I was dating the beautiful foreign man. It was a problem. It was a big problem. It wasn’t a matter of worrying that I would be fired by Richard, who was completely dumbfounded, or anything like that.

I liked Tanimoto-san. I wanted to date her. That was why, whether the other person was Richard, a Hollywood actress, or an alien, her thinking I had a partner was extremely problematic.

When I, trembling with fear, peeked at her reaction, Tanimoto-san widened her dark eyes and stared at me blankly.

“Umm, who is?”

“Huh? Oh, I am!”

“With who?”

“With that foreign man!”

“……Oh!”

Now that you’ve mentioned it, there was something like that, wasn’t there? Tanimoto-san laughed in her usual soft and slow tone. I thought that my soul would escape from my mouth. Thank goodness. It appeared that it was something that didn’t matter much to her. Tanimoto-san was probably the type of girl who looked at personal relationships with leveled eyes. I couldn’t bring myself to think that I didn’t matter much to her. Even today, didn’t she agree to have lunch in a café since both of us had free periods? The two of us having lunch together was a wonderful development. Thank you. Thank you, God.

“I misunderstood and said something weird, I see. Seigi-kun, I’m truly sorry. Even my friends are shocked at how many times I misunderstood things. I’ll have to be more careful from now on.”

“No! Not at all! It’s all good as long as everything’s cleared up…! At any rate, this cake is so small and cute, it feels kind of like a waste to eat it!”

“It really is, isn’t it! This chocolate tart with oranges looks like a pallasite meteorite sample.”

“…I’ve never seen one before.”

“Hold on a second.”

Tanimoto-san quickly took out her phone and showed me a photo from her picture folder in the blink of an eye. It was a cross-section view of a meteorite sample that contained sparkling orange grains within. Isn’t it pretty? She, who smiled as she said that, was truly pretty. Her eyes, as she informed me that this was a stony-iron meteorite*, an extremely rare type of meteorite, were gradually beginning to fill with force.

(TN: A stony iron meteorite is a meteorite that contains equal parts silicates and metallic iron.)

She, like me, was a second-year student at Kasaba University, and she was in the faculty of Education. She was a petite and slender woman with a gentle personality and a remarkable love for stones. In high school, she started a club that gathered people who loved stones and served as the president. When she talked about what rocks and minerals were like, her eyes blazed and lines distinctly stood out on her force-filled namida-bukuro . Yes, she was just like—.

“Oh, isn’t it Gorgo?”

“…Aki-chan? It’s Aki-chan! It’s been so long!”

A veteran sniper—wait, what?

A woman with long dark hair sat down with a thump on the empty seat next to Tanimoto-san. She was wearing a sleeveless tank top and a bright green cardigan, and her slender legs were clad in jeans. She wore flats. She had pale skin and almond-shaped eyes. She was pretty.

“What are you doing here, you surprised me! You go to uni, right? Don’t you have class on weekdays?”

“Uni classes don’t happen every single hour, you know. I have third periods free on Friday, so I go out with a friend sometimes. Today we’re having lunch.”

“Friend, eh…”

The woman called Aki-chan greeted me lightly. She seemed to be a down-to-earth person.

“I’m Shinkai Aki, I’ve been friends with Gorgo in elementary and middle school.”

“Aki-chan, you’re still an important friend even now, you know? I feel lonely since we don’t get to see each other a lot though.”

“It’s ‘cause you still straight out say embarrassing things…ah? Oh, sorry! I accidentally revealed your Gorgo nickname to your boyfriend…”

To an ashamed Shinkai-san, I patched things over by saying that I knew about it and that it was from the rocks and minerals club, but Tanimoto-san cut in as I was talking.

“Aki-chan, Seigi-kun isn’t my boyfriend, he’s my good friend.”

“…Is that so?”

“Yep. It’s rude to misunderstand. He really loves stones, after all.”

It’s rude to misunderstand.

That’s right, Tanimoto-san had deeply apologized for mistakenly thinking that I had a partner. That was why she took care so that I would not be misunderstood again. In other words…

Didn’t that mean I was no more and no less than a good friend to her?

I understood. It was fine, I got the gist of it. It was premature to rejoice that this was a date just because she accepted my invitation to go out and eat something tasty. I was dealing with Tanimoto-san. An angel of rocks and minerals. I had no idea what kind of angel that was, but anyways, since she was an angel, I couldn’t communicate with her in the “please guess” style. I could only ask her to go out with me at this point. But I didn’t have the guts for that. I was pathetic.

I hung my head, and from the other side of Tanimoto-san, Shinkai-san smiled wryly.

“It’s tough, isn’t it. Shouko’s always been like this, so I knew it would be a struggle.”

“Huh? I’m struggling? Why?”

“Not you, people like…what’s your name?”

“It’s Seigi. Nakata Seigi.”

“A cool name like a hero’s! People like this Nakata-san, Shouko.”

Why? Tanimoto-san’s eyes rounded, and Shinkai-san laughed, saying it’s nothing.

“But this is really surprising. You eating cake with a boy who loves stones? There must be only about ten men in all of Japan who are more knowledgeable about stones than you?”

“Seigi-kun is currently studying about stones. He’s working part-time at a jewelry store.”

“Really…is it your relative’s store? Places like that don’t usually hire part-time. I thought they only have trustworthy employees. It’s pretty rare, isn’t it?”

“I only got to work there because of a strange coincidence. Our store is a bit special, and what I do there is make tea. But…even so, I’ve had all kinds of strange experiences…”

“Strange experiences? What kind?”

I glanced at Tanimoto-san, and she smiled and told me to go ahead and tell her. I told Shinkai-san about the many strange incidents I got involved in since this spring in a light and easygoing way. Of course, I concealed all the personal information. From the friendly appearances of the two, I would guess that Shinkai-san was also someone who liked stones a little. And, she was Tanimoto-san’s important childhood friend. For the sake of my love from now on, there is probably no disadvantage in getting friendly with her. If you have that kind of time, why don’t you just tell Tanimoto-san you like her and want to date her? The second personality in my brain shouted, but then, there wouldn’t be any hardship if I could do that.

I talked about the customers that came from overseas and the owner who was the great king of sweets, but whose power to see into someone’s heart was first-rate. Tanimoto-san was probably already familiar with everything. Shinkai-san had been leaning forward in interest at the beginning, but her expression was gradually becoming more somber.

“…I wonder. They say gemstones have power. Is it normal for them to be strange? I don’t think so…”

“What’s wrong, Aki-chan? Are you worrying about something?”

“Mm, a little. Oh, that’s right. Seigi-kun, you’re the apprentice to a gemstone pro, so to speak, right?”

“I’m just a part-timer!”

“Don’t be so modest. Can you solve this?”

While saying she had a little quiz for me, Shinkai-san searched around in her bag. It was a white shoulder bag, but it was strangely large. What did she carry around as she walked everyday? She was like a faint perfume, or somewhat like a princess who came here in secret. Since she said she wasn’t in university, was she from some talent agency?

She took out an A4-sized clear file. It contained colored pencil drawings drawn on copier paper. “Wow!” Tanimoto-san exclaimed.

“This is your art, isn’t it! You’re as talented as ever. What’s it for?”

“They’re DM rejects. I worked really hard on them, though.”

I moved the cake plates aside and placed Shinkai-san’s incredible work in the center of the counter.

It was like one of those fill-in-the-blank quizzes. The drawings were arranged in two rows, and the top and bottom rows were connected with down arrows. There were three altogether.

On the right side of the upper row, there was a picture of an onion-roofed Orthodox church often seen in Russian economic news. Its arrow pointed down to a white gemstone. It was sparky with a round brilliant cut, so the first one must be a diamond.

On the center of the upper row, there was a picture of the Statue of Liberty and a hamburger. Its arrow pointed to a red and round gemstone that was likely a ruby. There were several drawn.

And then, there was the question of the left side. On the top row, there was a tower that seemed to be the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe. It was France.

Its arrow pointed to a blank space. Was it telling me to guess what was supposed to be there?

“…Russia is diamonds, America is rubies, and France is…?”

“Oh, you knew it was Russia from that? That makes me happy. I worked the hardest on that one.”

“What kind of combination is this? I don’t get it. It doesn’t seem to be where the stones are produced, and it’s not the national stones either. Is this something everyone who’s knowledgeable about stones knows?”

“I don’t know about that. Rather than gemstones, it’s more like…I guess someone who’s knowledgeable in a different genre? Ahaha. If I can’t make it clear, then there’s no helping that it got rejected. It ended up being the usual photo DM.”

“If you have any extras, then I want one. You’re in it, right?”

“Sorry, I handed them all out. I think I still have some at the school, so I’ll give one to you next time we meet.”

There was also the answer to that mysterious association game, but I was more and more not understanding Shinkai-san’s true character. There was direct mail with her in it?* She wasn’t in university but she went to school? Was she working hard at a training agency for entertainers? Why did she draw pictures like that? Even if it was to advertise a performance, what kind of announcement was this?

(TN: Direct mail or advertising mail are the flyers and coupon books and stuff like that that show up in your mailbox. This honestly took me the longest time to look up lol)

“Seigi-kun, do you know…?”

Tanimoto-san looked at me with anxious eyes. If I said “Of course!”, her impression of me would probably get higher, but I unfortunately have to throw up my hands in defeat. For now.

“I still don’t get it, but I think I’ll know by tomorrow. I’m ninety-nine percent positive.”

“Wow, you’re amazing, Seigi-kun!”

“Confident, aren’t you? If you’re talking about Googling it, you can do it right now.”

It’s all good , I said, checking Shinkai-san with my hand, and took a picture of the drawings with my phone. The two female customers at the counter next to us were snapping pictures of their cute cakes while exclaiming over them. To Shinkai-san, who was smiling like she was challenging me, I returned a confident smile back.

He was for times like these. That jeweler who was like a trivia king, of a store called Étranger.

Richard looked at me with a deadpan look on his face and told me this without even blinking.

“I want to ask this just in case, but have you mistaken me for a blue cat-shaped robot or something of the sort?”

“So you read manga and watch anime too.”

“Please understand my sarcasm.”

It was ten-forty on a Saturday morning. The owner’s response was unfavorable. Ever since then, I prowled around on the sea of the internet to search for the answer to Shinkai-san’s riddle, but I didn’t get any satisfactory returns. Searching with ambiguous keywords wasn’t helpful. But I was optimistic. There was an ultimate weapon called Richard here. I had even assumed to some extent that the ultimate weapon could be in a bad mood.

I placed the paper bag I brought with me on the low glass table. It contained cakes decorated with icing. They were tarts with finely chopped orange peels scattered within them. Tanimoto-san was delighted that they looked like hessonite samples.*

(TN: Hessonite garnets are yellow-ish orange stones.)

“Here’s some souvenirs from the cake shop at the Shinjuku Station building. They sell baked sweets. If you like…”

“Emeralds.”

“Hah?”

“The answer to the association game from earlier. France is emeralds.”

What a self-interested man. No, what a well-learned man. Richard was exactly how I expected him to be. If it was knowledge relating to gemstones, then he knew it all, and he had a weakness for sweets. Thank the heavens, thank the heavens.

“Tell me the reason later! I’m going to make some delicious tea.”

I rushed into the kitchen in high spirits, and before I poured water into the pot, I sent a message to Shinkai-san, who told me her number yesterday.

“ Emerald!”

When I put the tea leaves into the boiling water, a reply came.

“You got it!”

There were a lot of emojis before and after those words. Shinkai-san and Tanimoto-san were alike in this kind of friendly openness. She must also be popular. Crap , I thought. I forgot to ask her what that association game represented.

I added milk, it boiled, bubbles reached all the way to the edge of the pot, and when I turned off the stove, a postscript came.

“This must also be some sort of fate, so I’ve set aside two tickets in your name. If it’s not inconvenient for you, feel free to go with Shouko!”

There was a photo attached to her message. This was probably the DM Tanimoto-san wanted. It was the picture of a ballerina.

A woman wearing a long green chiffon skirt and a jeweled diadem and necklace was posing brilliantly in the center of a shiny flyer. A performance by the Kataura Ballet Company. Was the name of the performance “Jewels”? The date was Sunday, three weeks later. I see, Shinkai-san was a dancer. A pro? Ballerina?

The shock came late. Why didn’t Tanimoto-san tell me that? Even though she told me that they shared their box lunches together, why didn’t she tell me Shinkai-san’s current job? I loved that gentle and airy part of her, but it was a bit troublesome sometimes.

Ballerina. I felt like I became acquainted with someone far above me.

When I returned to the reception room with the carefully brewed royal milk tea, the owner was crossing his legs on the sofa. His eyes said, Don’t you have something to say?

I politely served him tea and placed the baked sweets on a plate, and then Richard placed his hands together. He hmphed.

“The receipt for this item?”

“It’s just a gift. I’m not trying to write off the expense.”

“I appreciate your thoughtfulness, but please do not do this sort of thing too often.”

“You really are scrupulous. Putting that aside, what was that drawing from before? What does it mean?”

“I also want to ask you questions, but why did you have such a talk with me on today of all days?”

“…What do you mean?”

The doorbell sounded. That was unusual. We didn’t have any appointments in the morning today. Lately, customers who arrived unannounced had been increasing, but we only had items that were completely unrelated to limited-time sales, and this was the first time someone came at a time like they were waiting for the store to open.

It was a woman in a grey suit who came in quietly.

She had a small frame, but her standing figure was imposing and dignified, and long, long black hair flowed down her back. It must have reached all the way to her waist. She looked around fifty. Her back was amazingly erect. Her expression was stiff. I didn’t think she came here in search of wonderful gemstones.

“I am Kataura, I called you last night…you are?”

“I am Richard Ranashinha de Vulpian. Please have a seat.”

“Pardon me. I was surprised. You are younger than I thought.”

Who was this? Did that mean she made an appointment with that phone call last night? Should I step out by any chance? I asked Richard with my eyes, but the person in question was not looking at me. That was unusual. Was he panicking?

Kataura-san didn’t attempt to sit down and stared fixedly at Richard.

“Since you came to the store, does that mean you have the item in question?”

“No, there is an insurance issue, so it was not up to me.”

“…So, what kind of business do you have here?”

“I came to ask you directly.”

The two advanced their conversation, taking no notice of me. Kataura-san bowed her deeply before Richard, who had a grim look on his face. Her dark hair almost touched the ground.

“I do not mind if you only take a look at it once. I was hoping that you could give us some advice.”

“If it is as what you told me on the phone, then I think it is something that is strikingly out of my field.”

“I am very much aware of that. But…”

Where else can I discuss this? Kataura-san expressed. She sounded tired. Richard offered her a seat once again, but she didn’t take it and continued to speak as though entreating him.

“Please. We need you to solve the curse on those emeralds.”

I first thought, Did I hear that wrong?

A curse —— ?

I stood there in speechless amazement, and Kataura-san, as though she had just remembered it, opened her shoulder bag and gave out her business card, saying “This is who we are.” She even gave me one. Kataura Ayako. Artistic Director. The Kataura Ballet Company? From the DM?

“You’re from the ballet? The one Shinkai-san is in?”

“You know our Shinkai? My…how blessed, to think we have such a connection.”

Kataura-san, smiling happily, slowly turned towards Richard again and nodded to him with a “say”. Oh, this might be bad.

The beautiful store owner sullenly glared at me.