The Dark Inn

***The Dark Inn*** (暗い宿, *Kurai Yado*) is a collection of Japanese short stories by Alice Arisugawa in his Himura Hideo series.

## Plot Overviews

"**The Dark Inn**" (暗い宿, *Kurai Yado*)

     (First published on *KADOKAWA Mystery*, November 1999 issue)

While on a trip, Alice Arisugawa becomes ill and reaches an inn. He desperately asks the landlord to let him stay at the inn, though the landlord insists that they are already out of business and that it was not a place where people could stay. Despite his protests, Alice manages to secure a place to sleep overnight; in the middle of the night, he hears a sound of quick digging on the ground. The next day, Alice reads the newspaper and reads that human bones were uncovered at the inn where he was staying. These bones belong to the landlord's brother-in-law, who had disappeared 16 years ago. From the conditions of the bones, it is speculated that he was murdered at the time of the disappearance.

"**Hotel Rafflesia**" (ホテル・ラフレシア, *Hoteru Rafureshia*)

     (First published on *KADOKAWA Mystery*, April 2000 issue)

Alice and his editor Katagiri will attend a mystery event at Hotel Rafflesia on Ishigaki Island. Hideo Himura also accepts Katagiri's request to accompany them, but he was not interested in the event and stays in his room instead. As Alice, who solved the mystery in the event quickly, goes to the beach on a whim, he sees two men walking with a wobbly woman. The couple met in the cave during the day, and the man who supported his wife was Himura. According to her husband, she took her asthma medicine from her husband's sleeping pills by mistake, but Himura draws another fact from her suspicious husband.

"**An Odd-looking Customer**" (異形の客, *Igyō no Kyaku*)

     (First published on *KADOKAWA Mystery*, November–December 2000 issue)

A strange man who covers his face in bandages stays in a small hot spring area in Hyōgo Prefecture. After the bandage man went out for a walk on the morning of the third day, a strangled corpse of an unknown man was discovered in the bandage man's room, with the bandage man nowhere to be found. There were no fingerprints or hair found in the bandage man's room. Alice, who happens to stay at the place by chance, contacts Himura and cooperates in the investigation of the incident. From his belongings, the victim turns out to be a man who was absent from university and became withdrawn in his room. He gradually began to look strange since the end of last year: he has been wearing sunglasses, has himself shut inside the room constantly, and has since avoided eye contact. Furthermore, while listening to a friend who frequently visits his room and takes care of it, Himura becomes interested in the unresolved murder that occurred on a street on that year.

"**Disaster in Room 201**" (201号室の災厄, *201-Gōshitsu no Saiyaku*)

     (First published on *KADOKAWA Mystery*, May 2001 issue)

The lucky Himura, who was able to stay overnight at a high-end hotel that he would not normally stay at, gets drunk at the hotel bar. He was supposed to go back to Room 301, but he goes to Room 201 of the wrong floor by mistake. Himura's bad luck begins when he witnesses the body of a woman lying in the room of the popular rockstar, Milton. According to him, he got drunk in the room and, when he woke up, the window was locked, and the door was chained. Milton claims to have been alone with the body and was disconnected from the outside. Himura, who had to find a criminal other than Milton in the situation, infers a locked-room murder using a trick from the situation of the room and from Milton's story.

## See Also

* "An Odd-looking Customer": The episode adaptation from the drama based on the eponymous short story from this collection.

## References

1. ↑ 作家アリスシリーズ — Wikipedia (Japanese)
2. ↑ 有栖川有栖「火村英生（作家アリス）シリーズ」『ペルシャ猫の謎』あらすじとほんのりネタバレ感想 — I Want to Solve All Mysteries (Japanese)