The Honjin Murders

by Seishi Yokomizo

  “A c-corpse?” bleated the charcoal maker, sounding exactly like an injured goat.

  The police constable and the young detective paid him no attention. They made for the entrance of the kiln, but Ginzo stopped them.

  “Just a minute. I don’t think you’ll be able to dig like that.”

  He turned to address the charcoal maker.

  “This is your kiln, isn’t it?”

  “Er… yes.”

  “Right then, of course we’ll reimburse you later, but this outer shell will have to be knocked down.”

  By shell, he meant the roof of the kiln.

  “Well, I, er… I don’t mind, but a corpse? A corpse in there? That’s crazy.”

  The charcoal maker looked as if he were about to burst into tears any moment. The constable and the junior detective set about bashing in the semi-cylindrical roof of the kiln. It was a simple structure, built by a layman out of clay, so it didn’t prove difficult. As soon as the hole was large enough for the interior to be filled with light, the two law officers jumped down into the interior. As Inspector Isokawa, Kosuke and Ginzo watched from above, they began to dig.

  It wasn’t long before part of a man’s leg became visible, one that had turned a grotesque colour.

  “Ugh! It’s naked,” said the junior detective in disgust.

  “Kindaichi-san! Who is this? Does it have something to do with this case?” asked Isokawa.

  “Hmm. Never mind that for now. You’ll soon see.”

  The body was lying on its back. The policemen gradually exposed its emaciated belly, then worked upwards to its chest area. At that point, the detective let out another cry.

  “Argh! He was murdered all right. Look at the chest. There’s a huge stab wound in it.”

  “Wh-what the—?”

  This time it was Kosuke’s turn to be startled. He literally jumped in the air.

  “Ko-san,” asked Inspector Isokawa, “surely you can’t be surprised that this man was murdered?”

  “I-I-I—No, no, but…”

  “Hurry up, you two, and dig up the face!”

  At Inspector Isokawa’s command, the policemen began to dig in the region of the corpse’s head, and the detective called out for a third time.

  “Inspector, it’s him. That man. See, this great long scar on his face? It’s the three-fingered man!”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Isokawa craned his neck to look at the corpse’s face, and his eyes almost popped out of his skull. There was no mistake—there lay the indescribably revolting face of the dead man with a long, stitched-up wound running from the right-hand corner of his top lip up his right cheek. Just as if his mouth had been split open.

  “Kindaichi-san, this is—This can’t be—Hey, you two! Dig up his hand, his right hand.”

  They dug but this time all three—the junior detective, the police constable and Inspector Isokawa—let out a scream. The corpse had no right hand. It had been completely severed at the wrist.

  “Kindaichi-san!”

  “Don’t worry, Inspector. Don’t worry. This all makes sense. Here. Your souvenir.”

  Isokawa fixed Kosuke so hard with his bloodshot eyes that it seemed he was trying to bore a hole into his face. Eventually those eyes dropped to the handkerchief-wrapped bundle that Kosuke had handed him.

  “Open it up. I found it in the cat’s grave.”

  There was no doubt that Inspector Isokawa had worked out by the feel of the package exactly what it contained. He took a deep breath and with trembling fingers undid the handkerchief, cut the string and opened up the oilpaper. Inside was a man’s right hand, severed at the wrist. It had only three fingers: the thumb, index finger and middle finger.

  “Inspector, this is the stamp used to make all those bloody fingerprints.”

  CHAPTER 14

  Kosuke’s Experiment

  That evening Kosuke Kindaichi solved this most bizarre of murder cases by way of an intriguing experiment.

  Kosuke issued a special invitation to Doctor F—asking for his assistance. The doctor made detailed notes on the events of the evening, so I am going to borrow these to tell my story. From other sections of these notes, it is clear that this doctor was generally, due to the nature of his job, a calm character, not easily perturbed, but on this particular occasion his notes reveal that he was astounded by the events that transpired. I will do my best to edit out much of the doctor’s personal reactions, and to relate the information to you in as matter-of-fact a style as possible. I do believe that is what befits the conclusion of this case. And so, without further ado, I present the following section in the voice of Dr F—.

  (AN EXCERPT FROM DOCTOR F—’S NOTES)

  I received notice from that curious young man, Kosuke Kindaichi, that he was planning to perform an experiment that night at the Ichiyanagi residence. It was shortly after the ghastly corpse of the three-fingered man had been dug up.

  I’d performed an autopsy on the body right away. When I’d finished, Kindaichi-san had a request for me.

  “Whatever you’ve discovered about this body, no matter how strange, could you refrain from releasing it until I’ve finished my little experiment?”

  I was surprised by his request. I had indeed found something totally unexpected during my autopsy. However, at the time I had no idea why he didn’t want me to reveal my findings. It wasn’t until much later that evening that I would understand.

  Still, I couldn’t help but be filled with admiration for this young man with the mysterious, almost magical powers of insight and observation. From what I’d heard the police hadn’t just happened to come across the corpse; Kindaichi-san had directed them exactly where to dig. He must have known that the three-fingered man was dead, and where he was buried. And then, in addition, he must have already realized the strange truth that would emerge as a result of my autopsy. This young detective with his ungainly manner, wild, dishevelled hair and stammer had become to my eye something of a genius. I didn’t even hesitate to do as he requested. I was in a state of great anticipation and looking forward to observing this experiment.

  This is how the evening unfolded.

  As agreed, I arrived at the Ichiyanagi residence around 9 p.m. and was directed to the annexe house. Detective Sergeant Kimura was on duty at the garden gate that separated it from the rest of the residence but he left his post to accompany me to the front door. All of the amado shutters were closed, but after Sergeant Kimura showed me into the famous tatami room, I found there were already four men assembled, seated around a charcoal brazier, quietly smoking. The four were Kosuke Kindaichi, Inspector Isokawa, Ginzo Kubo and finally, the sole representative of the family, Ryuji Ichiyanagi. Seeing how pale and nervous everyone looked, I couldn’t help sensing that we had arrived at the final scene of this drama.

  Seeing me approach, Kindaichi-san quickly disposed of his cigarette butt in the brazier.

  “Well then, we’re all assembled. It’s time to begin the experiment.”

  He sprung to his feet.

  “Now, as the original crime took place around four in the morning, technically we’re rather early for beginning the experiment, but I don’t want to keep everyone waiting around, so let’s get things underway. The early start does mean there will be several artificial aspects to our re-enactment. This is unavoidable and I apologize to you all in advance.”

  He put two fingers into his mouth and whistled. Immediately there was the sound of footsteps—someone outside running from the east to the west end of the annexe house. We were all startled, but Kindaichi-san just smiled.

  “What’s the matter? That’s just Sergeant Kimura. I asked him to take care of the artificial aspect I just mentioned.”

  Kindaichi-san went over to the byobu folding screen that had been placed in front of the tokonoma alcove and moved it aside. Everyone murmured in surprise. Behind it stood a life-sized straw doll.

  “I got the local farmhand, Genshichi, to make it for me. To be ac
curate, there were two people in the room on the night of the murder, but for the purposes of this experiment, just one will do. Otherwise, I’d like you all to check that the room is in the exact same state it was that night. The amount that the west-side shoji sliding door was open for example… And this screen, is it in the right position? The bodies were found on this side, is that right?”

  With Inspector Isokawa’s help, Kindaichi-san moved the folding screen over to where it had stood the night of the murders. Suddenly he made a sign as if to shush us. At first, I didn’t understand why, but then as it fell quiet in the room, I could make out the sound of the waterwheel turning. It had only just started up and its steady creak created a distinct background noise. We looked at each other.

  “Sergeant Kimura has opened the water channel for us. As you probably know already, that waterwheel doesn’t turn constantly. The water channel is normally blocked off. When it’s needed, they open the channel and the flowing water causes the waterwheel to turn. But recently Shukichi, who is in charge of hulling the rice, is too busy with other farm work in the daytime, so he comes around four in the morning to start up the mill. In other words, every morning at 4 a.m. that waterwheel begins turning.”

  Kindaichi-san threw out all this information at high speed, as he dashed out into the engawa corridor and returned right away carrying an unsheathed katana sword in one hand and with the other pulling two lengths of some kind of cord, which seemed to be attached somewhere out of view behind him.

  “This katana is the one that was hidden in the closet behind the tokonoma alcove. And this length of cord… see? It’s koto string.”

  He pulled what had first looked to be two lengths of string in from the engawa, over the top of the folding screen and into the main part of the room. But now that I looked again, there weren’t two strings at all, but one single loop. Kindaichi-san took the end of this loop and slipped it over the hilt of the sword, wrapping it around a couple of extra times and tightening it just under the guard.

  “Inspector, would you mind? The doll…”

  Inspector Isokawa brought the straw doll over to Kindaichi-san, who was now standing just in front of the folding screen. We all watched spellbound, as with the hilt of the sword still in his right hand, Kindaichi-san took the doll in his left.

  At the start of the experiment, the loop of koto string had been slack, hanging loosely over the top of the screen, but now we saw that it was being pulled away from us, as if someone were standing behind the screen, tugging it steadily towards them. Ginzo-san’s eyes suddenly widened.

  “Oh—the waterwheel!”

  At that moment the koto string snapped tight. The guard on the sword was already up to the level of the top of the screen. Instantly, Kindaichi-san pushed the straw doll against the sword, plunging the tip into the doll’s breast.

  “Ah—!”

  Inspector Isokawa, Ginzo-san, Ryuji-san all sat there, teeth and fists clenched, as they watched this grim re-enactment.

  At the perfect moment, Kindaichi-san let go of the sword and the straw doll. The latter fell to the floor, and for a few moments the sword remained suspended at the top of the screen before ducking behind it. The next moment, the hilt of the sword clattered against the rain shutter behind.

  We all ran into the west-side engawa. The double koto string was hanging through the ranma transom. With each turn of the waterwheel, it was being steadily pulled out through the gap between the decorative tree trunk and the door lintel. The sword was being pulled upwards by the string and for a few moments its guard became stuck in the corner of the transom. After a few more tugs on the string, the guard finally slipped through the gap, and the blade followed. At the same instant something fell from the transom with a soft thud. Kindaichi-san picked it up and showed it to Ginzo-san.

  “Look. This is a hand towel like the one you found lying on the engawa when you broke in that night. It was draped over part of the transom to protect it from damage by the sword.”

  Kindaichi-san opened the rain shutters and we all rushed out into the garden, not a single one of us caring that we were barefoot outdoors in winter.

  The moon had just risen so the garden was not terribly dark. The sword was there in front of us, dangling loosely in the air. The string wrapped around the guard now headed in two different directions—the line to the left running through the top of the stone lantern and heading off towards the north-west; the other line running back towards the roof of the annexe house. Kindaichi-san shone a flashlight in that direction, eliciting a cry from Inspector Isokawa.

  “Ah! The koto bridge!”

  Right at the corner of the protruding lavatory roof, someone had attached a koto bridge, as a support for the koto string. As the waterwheel turned, the string was being reeled in until eventually the length of string between the koto bridge on the roof and the stone lantern grew taut. And the sword that hung right in the middle—

  “There’s the power of the waterwheel, and the two supports of the lantern and the koto bridge,” explained Kosuke. “The weakest of the three points is bound to give.”

  A grating sound came from the direction of the waterwheel and the tension on the koto string kept increasing until with a pop the koto bridge flew from its perch on the roof and the string dropped loose.

  “Inspector, try to find that bridge. I think it probably fell into the pile of leaves.”

  The inspector found it right away just next to the leaf pile.

  All this while, the loosened string was tightening again. This time Kindaichi-san raised his flashlight and illuminated the trunk of the camphor tree.

  “The sickle…”

  Sure enough, there in the shade of the leaves was the sickle, driven into the trunk of the tree, and the koto string ran straight through the space between its freshly sharpened blade and the tree trunk. Kindaichi-san shone his flashlight into the space beyond the camphor tree.

  “Watch the string on the far side,” he said.

  The string that ran over the blade of the sickle continued in a north-westerly direction. As the strain on it increased, several of the bamboo trees that hung over the edge of the cliff beyond were being bent lower and lower. Eventually there was one straight, taut line of string between the sickle and the top of the stone lantern. The sword was still hanging there in between, but now it was much closer to the lantern than before.

  “This time we are comparing not only the power of the waterwheel with the stability of the the stone lantern and the sickle—we’re adding one more element: the strength of the string. Of those four, which do you think is the weakest?”

  And then it happened. As if in response, the bamboo trees suddenly sprang back and the string vibrated with a pinging sound. The part of the string that ran through the camphor tree was instantly severed by the sickle. A loud twang zwing zwing echoed through the air. The sword was tossed upwards, spun for a few moments, then thrust itself into the ground at the foot of the stone lantern.

  “How about that, Uncle? Isn’t that just about the same spot you found the sword stuck in the ground that night?”

  But no one could reply. All that could be heard in the darkness was our ragged, heavy breathing. All eyes were on the sword, which was still vibrating in the ground.

  “Right then, shall we take this opportunity to go and check where the string ended up?”

  We looked up as if we’d only just realized Kindaichi-san was speaking to us. Then, one by one, we filed past the sword in the ground, and headed deep into the garden away from the annexe house. We followed the two ends of the severed string; both were being dragged from branch to branch and moving away steadily further into the distance. Eventually both ends of the string ended up at a large pine tree with a supported branch, and disappeared inside one of the bamboo supports.

  “I think this is as far as we need to go. After this, the string passes through the hollowed-out bamboo and is tied around the axle of the waterwheel beyond. At the point where it meets the whee
l, it’s concealed by a length of thick rope, so that nobody would have noticed there was koto string there at all.”

  Ginzo-san let out a loud sigh. The inspector clicked his tongue and swore. Then we all returned to the rain-shuttered house. But right as we got there, Ryuji-san stopped dead and looked up.

  “But the koto bridge…” he mumbled. “What was the point of it?”

  “Ah, that was to make sure the sword wasn’t dragged along the ground. Take a look—there’s slightly too much distance between the camphor tree and this transom. So the perpetrator constructed something that would hold the load, and prevent the sword from leaving tracks in the snow. The person who constructed this whole device really didn’t want that to happen. And it wasn’t only the koto bridge. The byobu folding screen, the bamboo crutch, they were all cleverly used to support the string so that there were no traces left on the tatami matting or the ground. The screen, the sickle, the stone lantern, the bamboo, they were all things that were on hand, all things that wouldn’t be out of place in the crime scene. It really offers us a glimpse of the brilliance of the designer, don’t you think? The only unnatural element was the koto bridge. But instead, its use helped to make the whole case seem more mysterious. Clearly not a person of mediocre skill.”

  That was the end of the experiment. We all returned to that eight-tatami room. Back in the light, we saw Kindaichi-san’s face was the only one that wasn’t completely drained of colour.

  CHAPTER 15

  The Tragedy of the Honjin

  “So?…”

  For a while we sat around the brazier in silence, until finally Ginzo-san mustered some kind of response. His dismal tone reminded me of the dull thud of a pebble dropped into an empty well.

  “And so?…” repeated Kindaichi-san. He alone was still smiling.

  The inspector leaned forward.