“What’s this?” he said. “Young Matsushita? Hah, just as I suspected: you’re an admirer of the tattooed temptress, too.”
“Sensei,” Kenzo stammered, “this is no time for that sort of talk. Something awful has happened! Look here!” Kenzo grabbed the professor’s arm and pointed at the bloodstains on the tatami. Immediately the smile vanished from the doctor’s face. He had just finished lighting a Peace cigarette, and it dropped from his lips.
“Matsushita, come on!” Professor Hayakawa shouted. He took off his shoes and stuck one stocking-footed leg into the house. “Be careful not to touch anything,” he cautioned.
The floor plan of Kinue’s house included one eight-mat room, two six-mat rooms, two four-and-a-half-mat rooms, and a three-mat entryway. The two men searched them all. Every room had been turned upside down, as if by a burglar looking for valuables, but there was no sign of any human presence.
The trail of splattered blood that began in the room where they had entered the house continued up the middle corridor, all the way to the back door. Kenzo and Professor Hayakawa rushed around, peering into all the rooms, but they didn’t find anything. When they met back in the entryway, Kenzo let out a huge sigh of relief, for he had been afraid they might find Kinue murdered.
“Wait a minute,” said the professor. “Do you hear that?”
Kenzo listened intently for a moment. “I hear it. What do you suppose it is?”
“It sounds like water. Somebody must have left a faucet on.”
It was the faint but unmistakable noise of running water, at the end of the hall. Cautiously they went to investigate. It was coming from what appeared to be a bathroom. There was a solid door of dark brown wood, tightly closed.
Kenzo wrapped a handkerchief around his hand and tried to turn the doorknob. There was no keyhole, but he found it impossible to open the door. “Do you suppose someone might be inside?” he said.
Without replying, the professor got down on his knees in the hall. In the door of the bathroom there was a tiny crack, no bigger than a piece of string. It was an opening so minuscule that it hardly deserved to be called a crack at all.
Suddenly Professor Hayakawa turned around, his face an ashen mask.
“Oh, no,” he whispered
15
Kenzo’s heart was pounding as he peered through the tiny opening in the bathroom door. It wasn’t possible to view the entire room through such a narrow space, but he could clearly see what appeared to be a woman’s severed arm lying on the white tile floor, its bloody stump like an overripe persimmon.
An ordinary person, confronted with such an appalling sight, would probably have screamed or fainted. Kenzo was deeply horrified, but he struggled to remain calm. He was a doctor, after all, and in his long years as a soldier in wartime he had seen enough dead and mutilated bodies to become inured to such things. This was different, though. Please, he prayed, don’t let it be Kinue. Don’t take her away, just when we’ve found each other.
“Matsushita, quick, go call the police! I’m sure there was a phone in this house, somewhere.”
The professor’s words brought Kenzo back to his senses, and he went to the entry hall and picked up the telephone. It occurred to him that he ought to go through the tedious process of placing a call to the local police box, which had probably never dealt with anything more exciting than a stolen bicycle. Instead, he dialed a number he knew by heart.
“Hello, is this Metropolitan Police Headquarters? May I have the first division of criminal investigations, please? I’d like to speak to the section chief.” There was a pause as the call was transferred.
“Detective Chief Inspector Daiyu Matsushita speaking.”
“Hello? It’s me, Kenzo. I want to report a major crime. It’s really terrible!”
“Just tell me what happened.”
Hearing the strong, self-assured voice of his older brother, Kenzo calmed down a bit. “It looks like a burglary-murder,” he said.
“Murder?” Daiyu Matsushita’s tone changed in an instant from indulgent older brother to no-nonsense police chief. “Where’s the place?”
“If s the house of Kinue Nomura, in Kitazawa 4-Chomé.”
“And is that woman the victim?”
“I don’t know. We haven’t been able to get close to the actual scene of the crime. The bathroom seems to be locked from the inside, and all we could see was what appears to be the fatal wound. It’s really horrible.”
“Get hold of yourself. You’re supposed to be a doctor.” Daiyu’s voice was stern but not unsympathetic. “Tell me, who found the body?”
“I did, along with Dr Hayakawa. You know, he’s the professor at the university. The storm window was open, and the tatami is covered with blood, and there’s stuff thrown all over the place.”
“I’m on my way. I’ll be there as soon as I can, so just wait for me, okay?” Wasting no time on pleasantries, the chief inspector hung up.
Kenzo stood in the dim entry hall, holding the buzzing receiver. The reassuring image of his older brother galloping down the stairs of headquarters, scolding several cowering subordinates on the way, floated before his eyes like a phantom. At the same time, thoughts about the necessity of concealing his secret relationship with Kinue Nomura were whirling around in his mind like a dark vortex.
Kenzo made an effort to pull himself together, then went back down the hall.
“Matsushita, how did you happen to stop by Kinue’s house this morning?” Professor Hayakawa still looked pale and shaken, but his voice was strong.
“No special reason,” Kenzo said glibly. “The other night at the meeting of the Tattoo Society, my old schoolmate Hisashi Mogami introduced me to Miss Nomura. When I said that I would be interested in hearing the story of her life, and of her spectacular tattoos, she said that she would give me a call and invite me over.”
“The story of her life? When she had only just met you? That woman gives away her secrets much too easily.” The professor was clearly jealous. Glaring at Kenzo, he said, “When did you receive that phone call?”
“Yesterday morning, in the research room.” It suddenly struck Kenzo as suspicious that Kinue would have invited the professor to join their private rendezvous. “I’m a bit surprised that she would have called you at all, after your recent falling-out,” he said.
“Not as surprised as I was,” said Professor Hayakawa. “I mean, why would that woman call the two of us and suddenly ask us to come to here? And why would we both get the calls around the same time yesterday morning? I wonder if she wanted to have some sort of joint medical consultation about her tattoos.” The professor seemed to be recovering from the initial shock, for he was showing signs of his usual sarcasm.
“No matter how much your brother rushes to get here from Metropolitan Police Headquarters, it will take him at least thirty or forty minutes, don’t you think?” he said, in a friendlier tone of voice.
“That sounds about right, since he’s coming from the heart of Setagaya.”
“Then let’s go wait outside. This atmosphere of dissecting room and graveyard is just too depressing.”
Professor Hayakawa immediately began walking around the garden in circles with his head bowed and his hands clasped behind his back. After a while he spoke. “Matsushita, look at this,” he said as he peered at the bathroom window from outside.
“Look at what?”
“The iron bar is in place on the outside of this window. The window appears to be locked from the inside as well, and the glass isn’t broken anywhere. And when you add the fact that the door to the bathroom is also locked from the inside, what do you have?”
“A locked-room murder,” said Kenzo, after a moment’s thought.
“Exactly.” The professor pointed at the dry earth outside the bathroom. “What’s that?” he said.
It was a fragment of black glass. There were several other shards scattered around; put together, they would have formed a pane about the size of a postcard. Th
e pieces of glass were dark, with a distinctive sheen that identified them as the shattered remains of a photographic plate.
Professor Hayakawa picked up one of the pieces of glass. “It hasn’t been here long,” he said, turning it over in his hand. “Judging by the accumulation of dust, I’d guess that it was dropped here no earlier than yesterday.”
Just then the quiet air was shattered by a shrill, piercing ring. “That’s the phone,” said the professor. He took two or three steps in the direction of the house, then stopped. “Matsushita, you answer it. I don’t know who it is, but you’d better not tell them anything about this case.”
Flustered by this new development, Kenzo ran into the house and picked up the phone. As is the custom in Japan, the caller spoke first.
“Hello, Kinue, is that you?” It was a man with a low, muffled-sounding voice, but he still managed to give the impression of a certain amount of power, and pride. Kenzo felt a surge of jealousy at the familiar way the stranger said “Kinue.”
“I’m afraid Miss Nomura has stepped out for a while, but may I ask who’s calling, please?”
The caller hung up.
16
Some moments later, a police officer from the local precinct ran into the garden, covered with sweat. His blue uniform was dark with perspiration, and he was panting slightly. Mopping his face, the policeman looked suspiciously at Kenzo and the professor. “What are you two doing here?” he said in an officious tone. “And why didn’t you notify us immediately?”
Kenzo replied loftily, “We’re both here because we had an appointment with the owner of this house, Miss Kinue Nomura, to discuss something of a scholarly nature. And since my brother works at Metropolitan Police Headquarters, I thought it would be quicker and more efficient to call them directly.”
“And what does your brother do at headquarters?” The officer sounded skeptical, as he expected Kenzo to say, He’s an apprentice floor-mopper.
“He’s the chief of the investigative section,” Kenzo said. “His name is Detective Chief Inspector Daiyu Matsushita.”
The policeman’s posture suddenly became rigid. Standing respectfully at attention, he said in a very formal tone, “I’m sorry, sir, I didn’t know that. Please forgive my rudeness. I’ve been ordered to protect the integrity of the crime scene, so would you please stay in the garden for the time being?”
Kenzo sat down in a corner next to a late-blooming hydrangea bush and waited for his brother to arrive. Professor Hayakawa, meanwhile, continued to pace around the garden, his brow furrowed with thought. Just then a car from police headquarters stopped in front, its siren wailing. A tight-lipped Detective Chief Inspector Matsushita, followed by a large crowd of detectives and forensic investigators, burst into the garden.
“Kenzo, where’s the body?” he called out in a loud voice.
“It’s in the bathroom at the end of the hall,” Kenzo replied, standing up. He felt dizzy, light-headed, and sick to his stomach. Please, don’t let it be Kinue, he prayed again, to any god who might be listening. Let it be anyone, but not my lovely snake-woman.
“Right-o, show us the way.” Daiyu Matsushita was all business, as usual.
With Kenzo shakily leading the procession, the new arrivals hurried to the scene of the crime. After listening to Kenzo’s account of what had happened earlier, including his encounter with the distraught Gifu Inazawa, Daiyu tried pushing and pulling the door a couple of times. When it didn’t move he issued an order to one of his subordinates. “You there, cut out this plank of wood, but be careful of the fingerprints.” After a moment, a hole had been made in the bottom section of the door, large enough for one person to squeeze through.
One by one the men peeked through the crack, and one by one they gasped, or groaned, or made some exclamation: “Oh, no!” “This is too awful!” “Who could do such a beastly thing?”
There was a severed head, and two soft white forearms, and two long legs from the knees down, all laid out on the tile floor, with the hideous cuts of the saw clearly visible. The faucet was running, and the water had filled the bathtub and overflowed onto the floor. The long, luxuriant black hair on the bloated head twined and floated in the water like an undulant knot of snakes.
DCI Daiyu Matsushita, the first one in the room, looked at the locked door and moaned, “How on earth did the perpetrator get away?”
The key to the door was the old-fashioned bolt type. There was a horizontal bar which slid downward, and that bolt had been pushed firmly into place. Just as Professor Hayakawa had surmised, the window, too, was tightly locked from inside. There wasn’t a crack an ant could have crawled through, much less a person.
When someone opened the door from the inside, Kenzo peeked in and gave an involuntary scream at the dreadful sight. “Kenzo, what’s the matter with you?” said his brother, giving him a disgusted look. “You’re a doctor, you should be able to handle this.” Kenzo barely noticed that his brother was scolding him, for he was staring at something gray and viscous that was moving on the windowsill inside the bathroom. An animal that was shapeless, yet had a shape, unlike a human being, such an elusive creature could go in anywhere and get out again. The creature on the windowsill was a very large garden slug.
Professor Hayakawa appeared suddenly at his side, and Kenzo jumped. The professor’s face was distorted with grief, and he spoke in a husky whisper. “It’s just as I thought. But what on earth has happened to the torso? What’s become of Orochimaru? Who stole that tattoo?” He sounded as if he was on the verge of hysterics.
“Tattoo?” said Daiyu Matsushita, stepping into the hall “What tattoo?”
“Didn’t you know? This woman had one of the most magnificent tattoos in all Japan on both arms and legs, and on her back. Oh, what kind of fiend could do such a thing!” Professor Hayakawa slumped wearily against the wall, looking as if he had been beaten by thugs.
The police searched the bathroom from top to bottom, but they couldn’t find the body’s torso. Both arms had been amputated above the elbows, both legs had been cut off just below the knees, and there wasn’t a trace of a tattoo anywhere. There wasn’t even that much blood; the water had washed most of it away.
The policemen and investigators gathered at the door. Stunned into silence, they stood staring at the sad, horrible scene. They were all accustomed to death and violence, but they shivered in spite of themselves when the professor began softly chanting. “The snake eats the frog. The frog eats the slug. The slug dissolves the snake.…”
17
The first thing Detective Chief Inspector Daiyu Matsushita did after seeing the corpse in the bathroom was to summon his brother. “Kenzo, come here a minute,” he called in his curt official voice. With Kenzo following, he went into the large eight-mat room, which was the only part of the house that hadn’t been messed up in the apparent burglary. Daiyu plopped down on the floor tailor-fashion and slowly lit a cigarette.
“What were you doing here, anyway?” he asked. “What sort of relationship did you have with the murdered woman?” The warmth and humor that filled his voice at home were totally absent, and his facial expression was severe.
Kenzo swallowed nervously. He had never lied to his brother before, but he didn’t see any alternative. “Well,” he said, “we were just… acquaintances, really. The murdered woman, Kinue Nomura, was the mistress of a man called Takezo Mogami who runs a big construction and engineering company. She was the daughter of a famous tattoo master named Horiyasu, and before the war she apparently persuaded her father to give her a full-body tattoo. Earlier this month there was a meeting of the Edo Tattoo Society, and she won the grand prize in the tattoo contest. At that meeting I happened to run into an old school friend, Hisashi Mogami, who is the younger brother of the contractor I mentioned. Hisashi introduced me to the woman, and we chatted a bit. Out of the blue, she told me she had a feeling that she was going to be killed. Not only that, but she had an unbearable premonition that after being murdered she would be s
tripped of the tattoo on her back. It was a rather startling conversation, to say the least. I’m sure the reason she confided in me is because she knew I had a brother in the police department. So anyway, yesterday I got a phone call in the research lab at the university, and it was that woman, begging me to help her. ‘Lend me your strength,’ those were her words. I couldn’t help sympathizing, so I stopped by here early this morning. You know the rest.”
Kenzo felt satisfied that he had managed to make his story ambiguous, yet not suspiciously so. His brother had listened without interruption, nodding his head and blowing an occasional perfectly symmetrical smoke ring toward the ceiling.
“I see,” he said. “Someone was saying that woman had a tattoo, right? But somehow the torso containing that tattoo has disappeared. With the primary identifying characteristic missing, how can you be sure the murder victim is Kinue Nomura?”
“Well,” Kenzo said carefully, “I only met her once, but she wasn’t the kind of woman you’d soon forget. I’m absolutely certain that the, um, head in there is that of Kinue Nomura.” His stomach seemed to turn a back flip as he spoke those horrific words, but he managed to keep his face as expressionless as a Noh mask.
“Is that so?” Daiyu Matsushita’s expression was equally inscrutable as he closed his eyes and blew three leisurely oval smoke rings. His reverie was interrupted by the shrill, bloodcurdling sound of a woman screaming somewhere in the house.
“What on earth was that?” Daiyu asked a member of the criminal investigation team who had just entered the room.
“Oh,” said the investigator, “that’s the neighbor, a Mrs. Kotaki, wife of a government employee. When she saw the severed head she fainted dead away. What can I say, she’s a woman.”
“I don’t know what it has to do with being a woman,” Daiyu responded in a serious tone of voice. “I think anyone might faint at such a ghoulish sight. I mean, if this weren’t our job, a few of us might be under a doctor’s care right about now.”
Tattoo Murder Case Page 8