“This means that Kenzo-san committed suicide?”
“That’s correct.”
“He killed Katsuko and then killed himself.”
Ginzo-san’s voice was filled with pain.
Ryuji-san hung his head.
“Yes, that’s what happened,” said Kindaichi-san. “That’s why I had Doctor F—join us. Doctor, you were the first person to examine the two bodies. Tell me about Kenzo’s wounds and the position of his body. Was it all consistent with the experiment we just watched?”
“If what you’re asking is, is it possible that he inflicted wounds in several places on his own body before stabbing himself in the heart,” I replied. “I’d say that if he’d set up the kind of device we’ve just seen, then, yes, it’s perfectly possible.”
“So there are no inconsistencies?”
“No, I don’t think so. But the problem is: why?”
“He’s right, Kindaichi-san,” said Inspector Isokawa. “The question is why would Kenzo commit such a heinous act? To kill your bride and yourself on your wedding night? It’s unthinkable. Why the hell did he do it?”
“Inspector, I think you might know why from our talk this morning with Shizuko Shiraki. I believe the fact that Katsuko wasn’t a virgin might have had a direct bearing on this case.”
The inspector glowered at Kindaichi-san.
“But—but, something so trivial… Because a woman isn’t a virgin—if that was such a problem, then he could have broken off the engagement!”
“So you’re saying he wouldn’t have minded being a laughing stock among all his relatives? Well, you’re right. An ordinary person could probably have endured such treatment. But Kenzo couldn’t, and that was the cause of this terrible tragedy.”
Kindaichi-san paused a moment.
“Inspector,” he added, speaking very slowly, “this trick I just demonstrated for you, this was nothing. Most of the time you learn how a trick is done and say ‘Aw’—it’s a little disappointing, mere child’s play. The true horror of this case isn’t in the way it was done, but why it was done, and in order to understand that, it’s necessary first to understand the man that Kenzo was—his personality, and most importantly, the atmosphere of the Ichiyanagi family in which he was raised.”
He turned to look at Ryuji-san.
“We have Ryuji with us, the person who probably knew Kenzo the best. I am sure that he will correct me if anything I tell you is wrong. Last night I read all of Kenzo’s diaries. What interested me more than its contents was the way he handled them. Generally, a diary is something that you open at least once every day, three hundred and sixty-five times a year. It doesn’t matter how meticulous someone may be, the binding is going to come a bit loose, the corners of the pages get a little bent. There may be smudges, or even here and there an ink blot or a fingerprint. But Kenzo’s diaries have none of these. They’re immaculate. They look as if they’ve just arrived from the bookshop, freshly bound, but if you think perhaps it was because he was neglecting to write in his diary, you’d be wrong. On the contrary, he was scrupulous about writing. Even his handwriting, every character, every pen stroke was unwavering, finely drawn. Looking at his calligraphy, it’s so painstakingly perfect it leaves me short of breath. This alone gives me an image of Kenzo as sensitive, fastidious. I asked the maid, Kiyo, about it. Here is one example she gave me: she told me how one time a visitor came to the house in winter and she set up a brazier. The visitor’s hand happened to graze the brazier slightly. After he left, Kenzo couldn’t settle until that spot had been disinfected with alcohol. I would characterize this as an abnormal preoccupation with cleanliness. I’d go so far as to say Kenzo couldn’t help feeling that all human beings other than himself were dirty, impure.
“There’s one other personality trait that becomes clear from reading his diaries: he experienced intense emotional highs and lows; in other words he constantly went from extreme to extreme. His notions of love and hate were far from normal. With Kenzo, everything was exaggerated. There are no words to express how severe his case was. I realized this about him when I saw how casually he’d use a phrase like ‘my mortal enemy’.
“The next thing that was unusual about the man was that he had a very strict sense of justice. In normal circumstances this might be considered a human virtue, but in Kenzo’s case I think it should be considered one of his defects. It was merciless and it allowed for no flexibility whatsoever. He was hard on himself for any dishonesty or deceit, but he was also too strict with others. And then he had to grapple with the extra problem that by birth he was required to be a landowner with power over a whole community. This was at complete odds with his sense of justice, and his deep dislike of feudal ideology and practices.
“But the irony was that at the same time as abhorring the system, he could sometimes be the most haughtily aristocratic of all the Ichiyanagis. It was the result of being at once the powerful head of a clan, a descendant of the honjin and a large-scale landowner—when someone failed to show him respect, he was incredibly offended. In other words, Kenzo was a creature full of inconsistencies.”
Ryuji-san had sat silently through Kindaichi-san’s speech, staring down at the floor. The absence of any protest from him seemed to confirm each one of the points made. As his doctor, I had known Kenzo quite well, and felt Kindaichi-san was painting an accurate portrait of the man.
Kindaichi-san took up the story once more.
“A person such as this one had no choice but to be lonely. He couldn’t trust anyone besides himself; indeed it would be fair to say that he considered everyone an enemy, and this attitude was even more pronounced when it came to his nearest relatives. The close relatives with whom Kenzo had regular daily contact were first of all his mother; and then his cousin Ryosuke; his youngest brother, Saburo; and finally his youngest sister, Suzuko. The latter two are barely more than children, so we can assume the people he had the most problems with were his mother and cousin, particularly Ryosuke.
“This Ryosuke-san is another very interesting character. At first sight he appears to be the exact opposite of Kenzo, personality-wise. On the surface he is meek, light-hearted, almost flippant, an easy man to get along with. But if you dig a little deeper you find he’s not so different from Kenzo after all. He has quite a temper. It’s all there in the diaries—how much trouble was caused to Kenzo by both Ryosuke and Itokosan, how much they got on his nerves. The only reason this all never came to a head was because Kenzo prided himself on the self-control he learned through his superior education. Ryosuke knew this, and with feigned innocence would deliberately do things to rub Kenzo up the wrong way.
“And then into this situation came the issue of Katsuko. I don’t need to remind anyone here of how much resistance there was to Kenzo and Katsuko’s engagement. Kenzo forced them to accept it and the marriage finally happened. However, shortly before the wedding, Katsuko confessed to Kenzo that she wasn’t a virgin, that she had once had a lover, but that wasn’t all. She admitted that she had run into him recently, albeit accidentally. How did Kenzo react to this news?”
Kindaichi-san broke off here. Nobody offered a response. They all just sat there looking grim.
“I think that Kenzo was originally attracted by Katsuko’s intelligence, her bright character. And there was also a calm within that brightness, something efficient and businesslike in her nature. These were all huge factors in her appeal for him, but I believe the aspect that held the greatest charm was that she appeared extremely virtuous. Purity was something that was of the utmost importance to Kenzo. And then, right before his wedding, he discovers that she has lain with another man. He believes that another man’s blood runs inside her body. I told you earlier the story of how Kenzo had used alcohol to disinfect a heater that a guest’s hand had accidentally touched, and now this! How can I say it?… Another man’s—Well, to Kenzo all other people were dirty… The woman he held in his heart, the same woman he planned to hold in his arms, bring to his bed… For a man like Kenzo, just
thinking about it would make his flesh crawl. He would have to break off the engagement. But unfortunately, Kenzo couldn’t do that.
“To him, to back down and break the engagement in front of all the relatives that he had power over would be akin to removing his helmet and surrendering to the enemy. He could have taken Katsuko as his wife in name only, and deceived the eyes of his family, but there was a reason why he couldn’t do that either. It was because just a few days before the wedding, Katsuko had met this man called Taya in a department store in Osaka. We have little idea of what kind of a man this Taya is, and of course Kenzo had none. But Taya may well have been the type to come and squeeze Kenzo for money to keep quiet about the affair. There was no guarantee at all that this wouldn’t happen. For argument’s sake, if he made Katsuko his wife in name only, glossing over the truth, imagine if Taya had then turned up. How shameful it would have been for Kenzo. Just picturing this, Kenzo decided he couldn’t take the risk.
“Still, this wasn’t just a way to solve a practical problem. I believe the origin of the motive lay much deeper, deep in Kenzo’s psyche. He must have felt a furious hatred towards Katsuko for putting him in this hopeless position. This woman who with her defiled body was attempting to become his wife. It must have driven him to indescribable fury. But given Kenzo’s personality, he would have avoided showing any part of this hatred and anger to Katsuko. Instead, the kind of outburst of emotion that both his father and his uncle had displayed was buried deep in Kenzo’s heart and nagged at him persistently, eventually bursting out in the form of this sinister plan. The motive for this murder–suicide plan is incomprehensible to any normal person, but to the character of Kenzo, and in the eyes of such a family, proud descendants of a honjin, it becomes perfectly natural and reasonable. No, I’d go so far as to say that this was an unavoidable murder. Kenzo had to murder Katsuko; there was no other way. For appearances’ sake, he had to go through with the wedding ceremony, given that he had insisted on it so forcefully, but he had absolutely no intention for them ever to live as a married couple. Thus there was no other possible moment for the killing than the point at which they were to consummate their marriage.”
“So was it a double suicide?”
“A lovers’ suicide?… No. I am sure it wasn’t. This was a regular murder, fuelled by malice, hatred and fury at Katsuko for having entrapped him in this impossible situation… And he certainly succeeded in his plan to kill Katsuko. But this killer was very clever. He knew that however ingenious his murder plan, he was bound to get found out in the end. Or even if he wasn’t found out, a man with such a conscience, such a strict sense of justice wouldn’t be able to live with the knowledge that he was a murderer. Kenzo knew himself well. And so before the police could work it out, before his crime could register on his conscience, he killed himself, believing it was the right thing to do. In other words, this case is the opposite of the usual murder or detective story. In the normal order of things, first, there’s a murder; second, the police or the private detective does their job; and then third, the murderer commits suicide upon being caught. This is the regular sequence of events. In our case, steps two and three were reversed. The murderer already killed himself, but that doesn’t mean that we should take this case any more lightly as a result. From the start, the killer wanted to convince us that Katsuko’s death wasn’t his fault. He even tried to hide the fact of his own suicide. I hate to say it, but it’s a very dirty trick.”
“Not wanting it to look like suicide—was that from not wanting to admit defeat to his relatives? To not have his relatives, and Ryosuke in particular, ridicule him? Is that what he was thinking?”
“Right. Right. This whole puzzle, all of the mystery in this case came from that one thing. Lineage. The tragedy of the honjin.”
CHAPTER 16
The Rehearsal
Nobody spoke for a long while. There was only the single brazier in the whole of the annexe house, and the cold was slowly seeping through our bones. But nobody wanted to leave, and thereby put an end to this conversation. The inspector was idly drawing kanji characters in the ashes, then erasing them, writing, erasing… Finally he looked up.
“Well, that explains more or less why all this happened, but how exactly did it happen? Tell us that.”
Right away, Kindaichi-san’s trademark grin and head scratch were back.
“Okay then, how about this? In this murder case, the perpetrator is already dead so we can’t hear his confession. I suppose we’re going to have to use our imagination. Luckily, we have assembled here a whole cast of people connected to the case. Let’s go back to the beginning.”
Kindaichi-san produced a small notebook from his pocket and opened it on his lap.
“The very first thing that struck me about this case was how much it resembled a mystery novel: starting, most obviously, with the locked room murder, then the introduction of the three-fingered man character, the sound of the koto, the photograph in the album and the burnt fragments of diary pages. All of these are straight out of the pages of a detective novel. If there were just one or two of these elements, perhaps I would have believed them to have been no more than coincidence, but with all these various elements carefully included, I couldn’t help but believe it was part of a deliberate plan. And that was when I came across Saburo’s mystery novels. Inspector, you will remember how thrilled I was to discover his collection.”
Inspector Isokawa nodded.
“The trick at the centre of this case—making a suicide look like a murder—comes up quite often in detective fiction. The most famous example would be the one featured in the Sherlock Holmes story ‘The Problem of Thor Bridge’. In order to make her suicide look like a murder, it was important for the perpetrator to get the weapon as far away from her body as possible. The weapon in this story was a revolver, to which she attached one end of a piece of string, then tied the other end to a heavy rock. The woman stood on top of Thor Bridge and shot herself in the head with the gun. The moment her hand loosened its grip on the revolver, the weight of the rock pulled it down to the bottom of the river below. I believe Kenzo came up with his plan after reading that story. The evidence is that the book was there among Saburo’s collection, but unlike the rest of his books, some of the pages had been marked.”
“I see,” said Ryuji-san. “But then what was Saburo’s role in this whole thing?”
Ryuji-san looked anxious, but Kindaichi-san just grinned and scratched his head.
“Wait a minute. I’m sure you’re eager to know what part Saburo played, but if you don’t mind, I’ll come to that a little later. Suffice it to say that when Kenzo first began to hatch the plan, Saburo knew absolutely nothing about it. Given Kenzo’s personality, there seems little chance that he would have asked anyone else for help with such a serious undertaking. So keep this in mind as we follow how the plan developed and now let’s take a look at the case once again, starting from the beginning and building it piece by piece.”
Kindaichi-san looked at his notebook.
“Act one of this play took place on 23rd November—in other words, two days before the wedding—early in the evening. This is when the mysterious three-fingered man turned up at Kawada’s tavern opposite the government office. That’s the moment that the plan went into operation.”
The inspector suddenly leaned forward.
“Really? But what relationship does the three-fingered man have to the Ichiyanagi family?”
“Inspector, that man had nothing whatsoever to do with the Ichiyanagis. He was no more than a traveller passing through.”
“But, Ko-san—” Ginzo-san frowned. “He asked the okamisan the way to the Ichiyanagi residence.”
“Yes, he did. But, Uncle, what he really wanted to know was the way to H—village. Inspector, you recall what happened this morning in K—when I asked at the tobacconist’s?”
Inspector Isokawa’s expression revealed that he had just figured it out. Kindaichi-san grinned.
“E
veryone agrees that the man appeared to have come from far away. He most likely got off the train at N—station. There he asked for directions to H—village. So how do people usually reply when asked that question? H—is a good five miles from the station. It’s much too difficult to give all the directions in one go, so people start by giving some of the landmarks along the route—you know: ‘When you get to so-and-so, ask again’—it’s perfectly normal. So the man reached K—town and did just that—asked again. I carried out my own little experiment this morning. The tobacconist who told me the way explained it something like this: ‘If you follow this road, you’ll end up in front of the government office in O—. When you get there, ask for the Ichiyanagi place. It’s a huge mansion—you can’t miss it. If you take the road that passes in front of the Ichiyanagi place it’ll take you over the hill and into H—.’ The three-fingered man was given the same kind of directions, and so when he got to O—government office, he asked the okamisan at the tavern opposite directions to the Ichiyanagi residence.”
Inspector Isokawa, Ginzo-san and Ryuji-san all gave some version of a groan. It was a perfectly plausible explanation. The three-fingered man, with whom everyone had been obsessed, turned out to have only the scantest of connections to the Ichiyanagi family.
“I’m afraid it’s true,” continued Kindaichi-san. “Until that moment he had nothing to with the Ichiyanagis at all. But shortly after asking those directions, he was mixed up in the case. Or to be more precise, he got mixed up in Kenzo’s plan. Next, he left the tavern and walked up here to the Ichiyanagi home. Just as everyone had said, it was a huge, impressive mansion. He had heard the okamisan and her customers talk about the head of the household getting married soon… so his interest was piqued and he peeped in through the gate. It was just normal human behaviour—natural curiosity. And when he was caught peeking by a local, to cover his embarrassment he asked again the way to H—village. This is still all totally normal behaviour. So asking the way to H—right then was to cover his embarrassment, but at the same time he simply said what was already in his mind. He’d always intended to go to H—. By the way, have you all noticed? From here, the road slopes sharply uphill. Everyone who saw him agrees that the three-fingered man was weak and emaciated. Before climbing the hill, he needed to take a break. But, aware that just the sight of him made people suspicious, he searched for somewhere out of sight—he clambered up into the thick bamboo on the cliff just behind the Ichiyanagi home. That makes perfect sense too.”
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