“I had on a one-piece dress of iridescent silk, and a pearl necklace.”
“What about Mr. Mogami?”
“He was wearing a white suit and a striped necktie. He had on a brand-new Panama hat, and he was wearing white shoes.” Daiyu Matsushita lifted his head and looked at Kyosuke with a quizzical expression. He had asked all the common-sense questions, and now he seemed to be saying, What should I ask her now?
“Detective Chief Inspector, could I see you for a moment?” Kyosuke said. The two men walked to the corner of the room, where Kyosuke whispered a few words in Daiyu’s ear. Nodding, the chief inspector returned to his seat wearing a severe expression. He then launched a verbal attack on Kyoko Kawabata. “It’s obvious to us that your statement is basically a pack of lies,” he said. “The person who is here with us today is a famous private detective, and he has located a witness who was at the Togeki Theater on that same day. That person is prepared to testify that you were sitting alone during the entire performance.”
Kyoko’s face had grown paler by the minute, and she blanched still further when Kyosuke took over the questioning. “Of the two seats, were you sitting in the one nearest to the runway?”
“No, Mr. Mogami was sitting in the seat nearest to the runway, and I was in the one next to that.” Kyoko smoothed out her crumpled handkerchief and used it to blot the delicate beads of perspiration that had accumulated on her upper lip.
“We’re never going to get anywhere if you insist on lying to us, you know. The seat next to you was empty during the entire performance.” Kyosuke spoke coldly, as if he had forsaken all human feeling for Kyoko Kawabata. “The usher working in that section of the theater has given a statement saying that you were by yourself the entire time.”
Kyoko’s lips began to tremble slightly, but no words came out. She plucked nervously at the pins that held her hair in place while Kyosuke plunged ahead, evidently oblivious to her distress. “You testified earlier regarding Mr. Mogami’s costume on that day. Since you work in the fashion business and are presumably more observant of such things than the average person, I’d like to take your word on this point. But if I do that, a strange problem arises. As you know, after parting from you that night, Mr. Mogami got into a brawl on the Ginza and ended up spending the night in jail. When he was booked, a form was filled out by the police which described what he was wearing, and according to that form he had on black shoes. Now, it hardly seems likely that a man would carry a change of shoes with him when he went out, don’t you agree?”
“Uh.…” Kyoko Kawabata’s mouth had fallen slightly open, but no words emerged.
“You’re lying, aren’t you? Hisashi Mogami asked you to back up his alibi, even though it’s a complete fabrication. Well, the charade’s over. Did you really think you’d be able to carry it off?”
Kyoko Kawabata’s pretty face took on an expression of injured pride. “I’m not lying,” she shouted. “I’m telling the truth. It’s all true!”
Coolly, Kyosuke continued his interrogation. “You’ve been deceived by Mr. Mogami,” he said. “Didn’t you realize that he’s a famous Don Juan? Perhaps he neglected to mention that he has promised to marry at least ten or twelve women, including the daughter of a nobleman, a wealthy widow, and a certain tattooed woman.”
Kyoko sat slumped in her seat, shaking her head in disbelief as several hairpins clattered onto the table. An enormous tear rolled down her cheek, a shudder shook her lithe body, and then she lay her head down on the desk and burst into tears. Kyosuke watched dispassionately as Kyoko’s luxuriant black hair, finally loosed from its moorings, rose and fell with the force of her weeping like a boat being tossed by a storm.
“That’s enough for today,” he said. “You may go now, and we’ll expert you here tomorrow at one P.M. Please understand that we are sympathetic to your situation and don’t want to harm you in any way, nor will you be prosecuted if you decide to change your story and tell us the truth. Give these matters some careful thought, and we’ll see you again tomorrow.”
Nodding agreement, Kyoko Kawabata wiped away her tears with the now-sodden lace handkerchief. After a halfhearted attempt to tidy her tumbled-down hair, she stood up, bowed silently to the people in the room, and vanished through the door without a word of farewell.
Daiyu Matsushita stared up at Kyosuke’s face. “Mr. Kamizu, I don’t mean to question your methods, but why did you let that woman go when she was so close to breaking down? One more push and she would have admitted that Mogami’s alibi was a tissue of lies.”
Kyosuke replied in his usual cool, uninflected manner. “I’m happy to see that you’ve started to lean in the direction of my theory. But that woman is nothing but a decoy. For the murderer, and for us as well, she’s just a convenient tool. Pursuing her any further would just be a waste of time and energy. We’ve already poked enormous holes in Mogami’s story, and that’s all we needed to do. More important now is the question of what Mogami will do when he learns his alibi has been demolished. If he wants to do something dramatic, tonight is his only chance, because the case is rapidly approaching its finale.”
There was a long moment of thoughtful silence. Then Kenzo said, “Since the case is almost solved, can we order some noodles now?”
“The Ultra-Extraordinary Eater has spoken,” Kyosuke said, and everyone laughed.
57
The ramen noodles had been ordered, devoured, and cleared away, and Kenzo, after eating twice as much as anyone else, had gone for a short stroll around the block.
Detective Chief Inspector Daiyu Matsushita had ordered constant surveillance on Kyoko Kawabata, who was expected to run straight to Hisashi Mogami. The chief of detectives had also sent a heavily armed team of marksmen and a number of regular police officers to surround Mogami’s house. Now Daiyu and Kyosuke were sipping weak green tea and discussing the case while waiting to make their move.
“Mr. Kamizu, you were talking earlier about a mystery woman. That wouldn’t be Kyoko Kawabata, would it?”
“No,” Kyosuke said. “I don’t really think she had a very important role. I’m still not sure how much she knew about the details of all this, but I suspect not very much.”
“Actually, when you started to close in on Kyoko Kawabata, I was thinking of trying to get her fingerprints.”
“That would probably have been useless,” Kyosuke said, shaking his head. “Even if you had taken the trouble to do that, you wouldn’t have found her fingerprints at the Kitazawa crime scene. She was never there.”
“In that case, the mystery woman is someone else entirely. She’s the same woman who lured Tsunetaro out, and she would also have left fingerprints at the Kitazawa crime scene, is that right?”
“That’s exactly right, and it’s because of that woman that this brilliantly conceived crime could be carried out. If you think about it, she’s really a frightening character.”
“So who is she, anyway, your mystery woman?”
“I’m surprised you haven’t guessed. She’s, uh.…” Just as Kyosuke was about to make that revelation, a very diminutive, boyish-looking police officer walked into the office and began to give his report in a surprisingly deep, authoritative voice.
“We’ve just heard from Officer Ishikawa, via radio. When Kyoko Kawabata left police headquarters, she went immediately to East Ogikubo and entered Hisashi Mogami’s house. We’ve also received word from the officers who have Mogami’s house surrounded, saying that Mogami has been seen there, at an upstairs window.”
Daiyu Matsushita nodded at the reporting officer, who saluted smartly and left the room. “Mr. Kamizu, what do you think?” he asked.
“Let’s get going,” Kyosuke said, standing up and stretching his long limbs in a fluid movement. “Let’s go to Mogami’s house and wait for the fish to swim into our net.”
***
The crosstown rush-hour traffic was horrendous, and it took Kyosuke, Kenzo, and Daiyu nearly an hour to reach the neighborhood police sta
tion in East Ogikubo that was serving as temporary headquarters. The early-winter day was already completely dark when they arrived, and the absence of light made the cold seem even more penetrating.
The local policemen were obviously thrilled and nervous at having a big boss in their small domain. After the three interlopers had taken over the shabbily furnished conference room for their command post, they were served a take-out dinner of Chinese-style fried rice and garlicky gyoza dumplings, hastily ordered by the precinct sergeant.
“Oh, my,” Kyosuke said, looking down at the mound of food. “I’m not sure I can eat again so soon after that noodle feast.”
“Don’t worry,” Kenzo said, waggling his eyebrows. “I can eat all three servings, if necessary.” As it turned out, it wasn’t. The food was unexpectedly delicious, and the three men cleaned their plates. While they were drinking their umpteenth cups of yellowish-green tea, an officer appeared at the door and said, “Kyoko Kawabata has just left Mogami’s house.”
“Thank heavens,” Kyosuke said with a sigh of relief. “I thought it would probably be all right, because even a fiendish person like Mogami often has a scrap or two of humanity left. Nevertheless, I had serious reservations about using her as a decoy.”
As the Matsushita brothers lit their after-dinner cigarettes—unfiltered Hope brand for Daiyu, hand-rolled for Kenzo—Kyosuke Kamizu said, “It looks as if we have some time to wait, so why don’t I go ahead and explain about the second murder. The fact is that this murder was Hisashi Mogami’s primary objective. The first murder was designed to draw attention away from that objective, and was really nothing but a diversionary tactic. He had a clear-cut motive for Takezo’s murder, and however impeccable an alibi he might devise, he couldn’t be certain of throwing the police permanently off the track. The way he achieved his goal was by first committing a murder for which he had a seemingly perfect alibi. He then killed his brother Takezo and made it look like a suicide of remorse, so it would appear that Takezo had committed the first murder. It was a remarkably daring and intricate plan. An elegant solution, indeed.”
Kyosuke looked around at his little audience, which was hanging on his every word. “From the questioning of Kyoko Kawabata today, we established that Hisashi’s alibi until eight o’clock is full of holes. It’s entirely possible that he committed the second murder during that time period. But why did Takezo go to the haunted house in Mitaka, carrying his own fully loaded gun? Clearly, he went there with the intention of shooting someone else. He fell into a trap, and his weapon ended up being used on him instead.”
“But what was the purpose of Hisashi’s plot? Was it purely for financial gain?” Daiyu Matsushita lifted his gold-trimmed captain’s hat—the same one he had rashly promised to eat if Kyosuke solved the case—and scratched his close-cropped head.
“That’s exactly right, at least initially,” Kyosuke said. “However, I don’t believe Takezo would have tried to kill his younger brother just because he realized Hisashi had designs on his fortune. No, I think Takezo’s motive was love, which is to say jealousy. Hisashi claimed to have been upset because people unjustly suspected him and Kinue of having an illicit relationship. But was that suspicion really unfounded? I don’t think so; in spite of all his pronouncements to the contrary, I think such a connection did exist. Of course, the walls have ears, so Takezo would have learned eventually that his brother was carrying on with his mistress, the woman he intended to make his wife. How would an exceedingly jealous and possessive man like Takezo have reacted? If Kinue had fallen in love with another man, a stranger, that would have been bad enough, but her handsome young lover turned out to be someone he loved and trusted: his own brother. That was a different sort of betrayal altogether. Takezo had no wife or children, and when he saw his hopes for starting a family with Kinue going up in smoke, it’s no wonder that he decided to punish Kinue and Hisashi the best way he knew how, by cutting off their financial support. We know that shortly before his death he met with his attorney, Mr. Sayama, and expressed his intentions of changing his will.
“Here’s another question: Why did Kinue defy Takezo’s wishes and enter the tattoo contest? However much of an exhibitionist she may have been, she would hardly have flaunted her naked body in front of a crowd of strangers if the man she supposedly loved asked her not to. Women’s minds just don’t work like that. No, she was manipulated by Hisashi Mogami for reasons which I’ll explain later.
“Of course, Hisashi would have found out that Takezo knew about his relations with Kinue, and he would have heard about the visit to the lawyer. He was probably seized by panic, because—as we know now—he had run up vast gambling debts that his brother had been paying off for years, and if his brother abandoned him, he would face financial ruin. But that wasn’t all. Hisashi understood his brother’s character very well, and he knew that Takezo’s jealousy could lead him to shoot his own brother in the heat of the moment. Hisashi decided that he’d rather be doing the killing, especially since he had been planning to murder his brother eventually in order to get his hands on the inheritance.”
With the flair of an expert storyteller, Kyosuke described a selfish soul in torment. Even though Takezo’s attempt had failed, it was still chilling to listen to a tale of two brothers intent on killing each other. Kenzo couldn’t help thinking that this terrible case was a reflection of the moral bankruptcy and spiritual corruption that followed the Second World War.
“Having made his decision,” Kyosuke went on, “Hisashi telephoned Takezo at work. He’s a good actor, so he probably disguised his voice. When Takezo answered, Hisashi whispered something about Kinue having a secret rendezvous with his younger brother at the haunted house in Mitaka.”
“No doubt Takezo was enraged at the betrayal. Without the faintest inkling that a trap had been laid for him, he marched right into its jaws. By the time Takezo arrived at the house in Mitaka, Hisashi was already there, hiding. When Takezo walked through the front door, holding his loaded pistol, Hisashi grabbed him from behind and held a handkerchief soaked in chloroform over his nose until he lost consciousness. Hisashi then dragged his brother’s inert body into the storehouse, where he propped it in a sitting position on an empty box. After being shot in the head by Hisashi, Takezo’s body collapsed onto the floor. That’s the way the second murder took place.”
“But why didn’t we find any traces of the anaesthetic?” asked Daiyu Matsushita.
“Because any residue would have disappeared after three or four days.”
“What if Takezo hadn’t showed up with a loaded pistol?”
“In that case, Hisashi probably would have used prussic acid—the preferred beverage of discriminating suicides—as he did in the first murder.”
Quite a bit of time had passed, and the cold had become even more biting. Everyone synchronized their watches: seven o’clock. It was necessary to prevent Mogami from escaping while also making sure that anyone entering or leaving his house wouldn’t notice it was under surveillance. The appropriate orders had been given, and a discreet but secure police cordon surrounded Mogami’s house.
At last it was time to move. As silently and stealthily as ninjas, the five men—DCI Matsushita, Officers Ishikawa and Akita, Kenzo and Kyosuke—crept onto the grounds of the estate. They had already received reports that Hisashi Mogami was in his chemistry laboratory. Sneaking through the garden gate, they tiptoed up to the converted artist’s studio and peeked through the window.
A large industrial-type pressure cooker stood in the middle of the room, and Hisashi was walking around and around the blue-enameled vat with long, agitated strides. The room was lit only by a dim lamp in one corner, and in the muted light Hisashi looked like an unkempt, nervous ghost. As he paced in circles, obviously lost in thought, he kept raking his hands through his hair and shaking his head as if in despair. Kenzo felt a pang of sympathy for this doomed man, whom he had known since childhood. There was something distinctly otherworldly about Hisashi’s appearance
, and Kenzo thought of Daiyu’s comment about sending the man to the gallows.
The five intruders crouched in the bushes and waited. Minute by minute, the passing time ticked by, the numbers on their watches glowing m the dark like tiny, luminescent sea creatures. One hour, two hours, three hours, four. The time passed so slowly that to those who were waiting silently in the chilly shadows, it seemed more like four days than four hours.
Eleven P.M. Suddenly a woman wrapped in a long black cloak, her face hidden by a black shawl, walked through the gate. She looked around cautiously. In that instant Kenzo felt as if his heart had stopped beating. Tamae Nomura! he thought. I was right, after all.
“Kyosuke, that was our mystery woman?” Daiyu whispered.
“That’s right. The big fish just swam in.”
The five shivering ninjas crept up to the laboratory building. The former artist’s atelier had been divided into two large rooms connected by sliding doors, which now stood open. In the inner room, Hisashi Mogami was still pacing around his cauldron. The other room was a storage room filled with large vials of sulfuric acid, hydrochloric acid, and other chemicals. Concealing themselves in the shadows, the five men peered through the windows and waited.
58
“Darling, is it really true?” The woman appeared to be out of breath. After gasping out those words she collapsed into an antique velveteen armchair. The laboratory was dim, lit only by a single lamp.
“Yeah, it’s true all right,” Hisashi Mogami replied in a low, weak voice. “And all because I made the mistake of underestimating a weird guy named Kyosuke Kamizu.” Hisashi had stopped his pacing and was leaning against his laboratory table with both legs trembling uncontrollably. “It’s all his fault, that Kamizu,” he said. “Thanks to him the police began to question my alibi from three to eight. He was here yesterday with Matsushita’s younger brother. When they started asking questions about the case, I did as we’d planned and spun out an elaborate theory that pointed the blame at my uncle. I had the feeling even then that Kamizu wasn’t buying my story, and now it looks as if there’s no way out.”
Tattoo Murder Case Page 29