We all understood that it was a serious situation, but let’s set that aside for now.
Just saying “this is bad” won’t improve the situation. So, what now?
“…Should we tell the teacher?”
“Well, eventually we will have to. Even though Mr. Hibiki is away on a business trip, the other teachers are still around.”
See? I knew it.
By “eventually,” I mean:
“Wouldn’t it be better to do what we can before reporting to the teacher? It would be a hassle for the teacher if we report without a clear story.”
First, we should do what we can on our own.
“Shall we organize everything first? Um, where was the money kept again?”
“In that cabinet…”
“Was it just placed there?”
“No, not exactly… Um, it was kept in this can.”
Let’s start with where the money was stored.
The place Maito-san pointed to was one of the shelves lined up along the wall of the chemistry lab.
The chemistry lab, well, I think it’s the same in any science room, but the walls are mostly shelves. Shelves everywhere. Lots of shelves.
However, dangerous items and chemicals are stored in the chemical preparation room, and since this school has a biology lab and a physics lab besides the chemistry lab, many of the shelves are actually empty.
So, one section of those empty shelves is used by the chemistry club. It seems like the club’s budget was kept in one of the drawers in that shelf.
The can where the money was stored was just a regular can. Like the kind that might usually hold cookies. But in reality, it contained money and some notes. Haha.
“Is there a lock on the cabinet?”
“No, there isn’t… I’m really sorry for the poor management…”
Maito-san was visibly down, but well… I think it can’t be helped. I mean, who would expect someone to open a random cabinet out of all these shelves and steal money?
“The can doesn’t have a lock either, right?”
“No, it doesn’t…”
A cookie can with a lock? I’d like to see one if it exists.
“So, was there no lock on the lab door?”
“Um, if the lab door was usually locked, we wouldn’t be able to use this place for self-study or playing cards, you know…”
So, the lab itself wasn’t locked either.
…Well, we often use this lab as if it were our own.
We use it for games, for self-study, to store textbooks that don’t fit in our lockers, to keep our bags, to stuff our wet shoes with newspaper on rainy days, and to take disposable chopsticks from the lab if we forget to bring our own for lunch. (The lab always has disposable chopsticks on hand for mixing slime and stuff.)
…Ah, yeah. Now that I think about it, we always leave this place unlocked. But since the teachers are usually just a couple of doors away, there’s rarely any trouble. And it’s a relatively safe school, so we don’t usually worry about pranks either…
But thefts do happen! Ah, geez!
“…So narrowing down the culprit is going to be really difficult, isn’t it? Since anyone could have come in here, opened the shelf with the money, and taken it.”
“Well, logically speaking, that means everyone in the school is a suspect.”
And so, the challenges begin. There aren’t many clues to help us identify the thief, are there?
“What about the time? When was the last time the stolen 2,000 yen was confirmed?”
“Um, it was December 25th. The last time we checked the account was after shopping during the camp.”
And today is January 15th, so… 20 days. Wow, that’s a long time. And we had winter break in between.
…But looking at it from the other side, during the winter break, only students who came to school during the break could have stolen the money. And if they were here for club activities, they would have been busy with that. Most of the sports clubs don’t even enter the school building. But, hmm, narrowing it down from there might not be realistic either…
“…So, it seems difficult to narrow down the culprit based on time or period.”
Well, if it were just one or two days, we might be able to figure it out. But yeah, this is tough.
“Hmm, something about this bothers me.”
When everyone had serious looks on their faces, Toriumi, twisting his neck, looked into the can and then tilted his head again. Ah, that can. The one where the money was kept.
“Why did they only steal 2,000 yen?”
From beside Toriumi, who was flipping through the contents of the can, I also peeked into the can.
Hmm. Just regular bills and coins.
…Ah.
“But it was just 2,000 yen, right? If someone was going to steal, why not take a larger amount?”
“Just 2,000 yen!? ‘Just’!? Wait, Toriumi-kun! What kind of sense of money do you have!? Just!? Is 2,000 yen ‘just’!?”
“It’s ‘just.’ And you’re being too loud.”
Maito-san, who probably has the strictest sense of money in the club, was shocked, but yeah. I get what Toriumi is trying to say.
It’s not about the value of money. I mean, there was more money in the can. If they wanted to steal, they could have taken more.
So why did they only take 2,000 yen?
“…Maybe they thought that amount wouldn’t get noticed?”
“No, Kadomi-kun. That’s unlikely. The culprit must have known that they would eventually be caught. …Maito. Where did you keep the accounting notebook?”
“Huh? In the drawer, together with the can of money.”
“Exactly. So, if someone decided to steal the money, they would know that the money was being tracked by the ‘accounting notebook.’ Therefore, they would know that it was impossible for the theft to go unnoticed forever.”
That makes sense. Yeah.
If you saw this notebook with “Accounting Notebook” written in large letters on the cover, you’d understand that the contents of the can could be checked at any time.
…So, the reason they took only 2,000 yen wasn’t because they thought it wouldn’t be noticed.
“…Wait! Maybe, Maito-san!”
Just then, Kariya raised his voice.
“Could the 2,000 yen have been one of those bills with Shurijo Castle on it!?”
Wow, sharp observation!
Right? If it were a rare 2,000-yen bill, that might explain why only 2,000 yen was taken!
“No, no. It was just two regular bills with Noguchi on them. Or maybe it was four 500-yen coins. Yeah, I don’t remember the exact contents of the can, but I don’t recall there being a 2,000-yen bill. And none of the Noguchi bills were fresh, either.”
…But yeah. If there had been a rare 2,000-yen bill, we definitely would have remembered it.
I mean, we’re the kind of people who look for unusual coins like Giza 10-yen coins or 5-yen coins with different fonts in the sales from the cultural festival. Haha.
“So, it doesn’t seem necessary to consider that the 2,000 yen itself had any special value.”
Yeah. President reached that conclusion, and no one objected.
The 2,000 yen was stolen purely for its monetary value.
“Then let’s think about this from a different perspective.”
President said something.
“Who, if they were the culprit, wouldn’t seem out of place?”
“…Uh, it wouldn’t seem strange if anyone were the culprit.”
“That’s a theoretical statement, Kadomi-kun.”
It feels a bit odd when someone as logical as President says something like that. Haha.
“Listen. We’re high school students. We have a certain level of academic ability, and along with that, we have a certain degree of self-control, a sense of responsibility, and ‘things to lose.’ We’re that kind of high school students.”
“Things to lose? What do you mean?”
President answered with his usual smile.
“It’s simple. Trust. Credibility. To put it more concretely, it’s hard to imagine that a student at this school would commit the foolish act of stealing for ‘just 2,000 yen’ and risk suspension, being excluded from internal recommendations, or damaging their record.”
Ah, yeah. That makes sense.
There are certainly people in the world who are genuinely unhinged, but at least here, I don’t think anyone would steal while knowing the risks. We all have that much common sense and awareness, I believe.
And before anything else, we should be able to distinguish between right and wrong…
…Wait.
“Therefore, we need to consider the situation, the person, and the motive behind the theft of 2,000 yen. By doing so, we should naturally arrive at the culprit. Even if not, we will get closer to them.”
President’s words cleared my mind.
…I feel like I was making a big mistake.