by Yasuo Uchida
Professor Tachibana,
Having seen the look of supreme happiness on Taki's face, I no longer know whether I was correct or not in keeping you away from her for so long. I sincerely believe that my motives in doing so were, for one thing, the wish to preserve her tranquillity, and for another, the wish to keep you from seeing the pitiful state she was in. I am ashamed to admit, however, that you may also have been right when you said that I harbored certain feelings for her myself.
When Taki went mad, the people of the village said she had become a demoness. When I first heard of that, I was indignant, but later I realized that it was not really slander, but rather the expression of a kind of fear.
The truth was that she really had become a demoness. I believe that the only feelings she had were her devotion to you and her vicious hatred of the men who had done what they did to you. Though her illness eventually seemed to abate, and I finally had her released from the hospital, I do not think anything had really changed at all.
At the end of May this year, when I came as usual to do a few things for her, I found her in a state of unusual agitation. "The enemy is coming," she told me. It seems that in the course of her conversation with a woman named Kayo Ishihara, who had come to have her fortune told, Taki had figured out that the man named Kisuke Takeda with whom the woman was involved was actually the Kisuke Tokuoka who had informed on you.
"Revenge is mine!" she said. I did try to dissuade her, but she was determined. I am sure that if I had refused to help, she would have tried to accomplish the task herself. You have seen the upshot: I gave in and began planning the deed.
Two main conditions had to be satisfied. First, of course, it had to be done in such a way that no suspicion would fall upon either of us. Second, the villains had to know why they were being killed.
We planned carefully before killing Kisuke Takeda, but the second opportunity for revenge came so quickly that we had no time to plan. On the night of July 10th, when I stopped to see Taki, I found the Ishiharas asleep in this room. I had no idea who they were until she astonished me with the information that this Ryuji Ishihara happened to be one of the hated military policemen. Before we poisoned them, I threatened Ishihara into telling me the name of the other. Imagine my surprise when I learned it was Hirofumi Shishido! I was a member of one of his support groups. What irony!
Now that we have completed our revenge, I find myself filled with a great feeling of satisfaction, not at all with the emptiness I was afraid I would feel. Seeing Taki's happiness, I feel that I have accomplished what I was living for.
Now, though, 1 have no wish to live much longer, not because I can feel the firm hand of the law reaching out for me, but rather because I can see no further point to life. Besides, Taki is even more ready for death than I, and I must confess I could expect no greater happiness than to be with her at the end.
My only regret is for Katsura and Yuko. Needless to say, they know nothing at all of Taki's existence, let alone of what she and I have done. I pray that parent and daughter will be able to go on living in peace. I humbly beg you will oblige me by offering them the benefit of your advice and counsel.
By the time you awaken, Taki and I will probably have crossed West Peak and be wandering in the direction of Mount Takatsuma through the primeval forests of the Togakushi Mountains. Outside, the storm continues, and we could not have a better opportunity to begin our journey to the next world. I earnestly beg you to let us go quietly, without trying to alert anyone.
Please burn this letter as soon as you have read it, and do me the honor of telling the police simply that Taki and I have committed suicide together for love.
One more thing: Taki tells me that the Noh mask was her favorite, used in the Maple-Viewing play by Maple before she turns into a demoness. She wanted to take it along, but at my humble request, she has left it here for you to keep as a memento of her former self and her feelings for you.
With this, I bid you farewell.
—Keiichi Noya
Finishing the letter, Tachibana was overcome by the feeling that in the end, his love for Taki had not equaled Keiichi's. Tachibana had loved only Taki the beautiful woman, but Keiichi had loved Taki the demoness as well. It was Taki's understanding of the one-sidedness of Tachibana's love that had made her hide her aged face behind the mask until he had entered the world of illusions. He punished himself with that thought.
As Keiichi's letter burned on the cedar-stick altar, Tachibana looked at the Noh mask and cried Taki's name, begging her forgiveness with copious, uncontrollable tears.
Early on the morning of September 2nd, Takemura led a squad of men to the Hall of Heavenly Wisdom in Togakushi. Another squad headed for the home of Keiichi Noya in Yashiro. Neither squad was carrying a warrant, the case being still at the stage of voluntary submission to search and questioning, but since there was some fear of an attempt at escape, a number of men were assigned to each squad.
Both squads, however, struck out. The Hall of Heavenly Wisdom had been vacated, and the only people at home at the Noya house were Keiichi's daughter and her family, who said they had neither seen nor heard from Keiichi since he left the house at 5 P.M. the day before in his Hokushin Laundry station wagon.
Too late, thought Takemura, looking up at the sky. He should have moved the night before. He would not have caught Keiichi Noya at home, but he might at least have been able to stop him and Taki Tendoh at the Hall of Heavenly Wisdom. In truth, however, he had not insisted on going out immediately because he had not really expected them to move so quickly, especially in the storm that had been raging.
He headed straight from the Hall of Heavenly Wisdom to the Koshimizu Plateau Hotel, where he found still quite a few guests in spite of all the trouble and the hotel's having been requested to keep vacant the whole third floor, on which was the suite in question. CID had spent until late the night before carefully examining the premises, with results about as Takemura expected. He had come now to present his view of the case at a ten o'clock conference this morning, which even Chief Nagakura was scheduled to attend.
Before the conference, he asked to see the woman who collected the sheets and robes from vacated rooms. He needed to check on just one more point that bothered him. Looking into the room he was directed to, he saw a stout, robust woman of about fifty.
"Good morning!" she greeted him, loud and amiable.
"Good morning!" said Takemura, forcing himself to sound amiable in return. "Do you do this every day?"
"You bet! Every day!"
"But the last couple of times I was here, I saw another lady doing it. Once at the beginning of July, and then just the other day, August 30th."
"Oh yes, those two days I was asked to let somebody take my place."
"You were asked, you say? By whom?"
"By the boss."
"You mean by the owner of the hotel?"
"No, by my boss at the Hokushin Laundry."
"Ah, Mr. Noya?"
"Oh, you know him?"
"Well, I... Then, are the women who work here dispatched from Mr. Noya's company?"
"Dispatched? That's a pretty big word. No, I wouldn't call it that. They're from the village, and besides, they only help out during busy seasons. It's almost autumn, and they'll be off now until the winter ski season begins."
"I see. By the way, do you know who it was that took your place?"
"No, I'm afraid not."
When the woman had finished making up the room, she put the dirty sheets, robes, towels, and so on into the pushcart with the big bag and proceeded to the next room, looking a little annoyed to see Takemura following her.
* * *
Arriving with his entourage a little behind schedule, Chief Nagakura was surrounded by reporters making a terrific commotion. In the entourage, Takemura saw two men he did not recognize. Both looked in their mid-thirties, and neither looked especially important, but Takemura had the instinctive feeling that he had better not drop his guard with eithe
r.
The reporters greeted the news that they would not be permitted to enter the hotel with considerable booing, as they retreated to the shade of the gift shop canopies across the street. The day's fierce sunlight belied the storm of the night before.
Spotting Takemura, Miyazaki came over and said, "We missed them, huh? I guess we should have listened to you last night."
"No, I think it would already have been too late," said Takemura, comforting his embarrassed superior. The night before, Takemura had suggested they go after Keiichi Noya and Taki Tendoh right away, but Miyazaki and Tsukamoto had together urged caution.
"Maybe so," said Miyazaki. "Anyway, their having run proves their guilt, right?"
"I suppose so, but I'm just going on theory, and I'm afraid we're going to have a hard time proving anything without them."
"Well, it's probably only a matter of time until we get them. We'll put out a nationwide APB today."
"Will you? Well, it would be nice if we found them," said Takemura, dejected.
"What do you mean, if? You think we may not?"
"I'd rather not think about it, but if I've got the right picture of our murderers, then I don't think we're going to find them alive, at least."
"No?" Miyazaki's eyes widened. "Then you're sure they're the murderers?"
"Well, aren't they? Didn't you just say so yourself?"
"What? Oh, I guess I did. But I'm not as sure as you seem to be. It is a pretty wild story, you know, and I'm not the only one who thinks so. Superintendent Tsukamoto only half believes it. He says he told Chief Nagakura about it this morning, but who knows what the chief will say?" It sounded like Miyazaki was waiting to come down on the same side of the fence as the chief.
The hotel had offered the use of its restaurant for the meeting, arranging the tables in conference-room style. Once inside, Takemura was surprised to discover that he was the only person present of the rank of inspector or below.
Nagakura himself introduced Takemura to the two men he had not recognized. One of them, thin and nervous, was an official of the National Police Agency named Miyamoto. The other, a rather corpulent, affable-looking gentleman, was a Mr. Ishida of the Investigative Committee of the Cabinet. Takemura had never met anyone of such high position before, nor had he heard of any other detective handling crimes of violence who had. He didn't even know what they did. He had heard rumors it was the same sort of thing as the American CIA, but he didn't know what truth was in them. Anyway, since the murder victim was a Diet member, he assumed their job included that, at least.
"Mr. Ishida is here to represent the government," said Nagakura. "When he heard what a detailed view you have of the case, he insisted on hearing it firsthand."
"By 'case,' do you mean only Representative Shishido's murder?" asked Takemura.
"I must confess that is our primary interest," said Ishida, leaning forward. "But I'm told, Inspector Takemura, that you view his murder as inseparable from the others, and have been operating on that assumption. So I'm ready to hear about the whole thing."
"Thank you," said Takemura, and immediately began his presentation. "The case begins with the disappearance of Kisuke Takeda from this hotel on July 3 rd. He had arrived here around 2 P.M. that afternoon, and after attending a meeting which began at 3 P.M., retired to his room a little after six on the pretext that he wasn't feeling well. He was last seen leaving the hotel alone, shortly before seven. Four days later, on July 7th, his body was found at a place known as Poison Plain in the Arakura Campground near the village of Imai in Togakushi.
"Our subsequent investigation makes it almost certain that he went from the hotel to a nearby villa owned by Ryuji Ishihara. At the villa that night was Ishihara's wife, Kayo, with whom Takeda was having an affair. Now, his actions from this point on have been our biggest riddle, but according to testimony from an occupant of the villa next door, sometime between 10 P.M. and 11 P.M. that evening a car left the Ishihara villa and returned five or six minutes later. Common sense would tell us that must have been Kayo taking Takeda back to the hotel, but the fact is that the desk clerk did not see him come in, and nothing was heard of him until his body was found four days later, at which time he had been dead for three or four days. Cause of death was poisoning.
"We went on the assumption that Takeda had left the villa and been driven back to the hotel by Kayo late on the evening of the 3rd, been taken captive by someone between the car and the hotel entrance and subsequently poisoned, his body being left on Poison Plain on the 7th.
"There were two important points to be considered. First, how was he taken captive? And second, how and why was his body left on Poison Plain? Now, since discovery of the body, we had been proceeding on the assumption that he had been taken captive before being murdered. I did have some doubts as to the validity of that assumption, but we continued to base our investigation on it, until the murder of Representative Shishido, which convinced me that it was mistaken.
"If Kayo drove Takeda back to the hotel, it is hardly likely she would have dropped him off very far from the entrance. There is reason to believe that he wanted to keep his affair with her a secret from his secretary, Izawa, so she might have dropped him off a short distance away, but still, ten or twenty meters would have been enough. If he had been attacked by someone on his way in, his shouts of struggle or cries for help would have been heard by her or by someone in the hotel. Moreover, when his body was found, there were no external injuries that would have indicated such a struggle.
"Now, here's what I think happened. I think Takeda did, in fact, return to his room in the hotel, and was killed there after taking a bath and getting into bed. To tell you the truth, until the murder of Representative Shishido, I was hung up on the preconceived notion that nobody would have tried something so ridiculous, which is why I couldn't rid myself of the kidnap theory. But if we assume that Takeda was murdered in the hotel, then we no longer have to force everything to fit the unnatural theory that he was kidnapped."
"That may be true," interrupted Ishida, gesturing with his hand, "but now you've got a theory that means the body had to be gotten out of the hotel, and that seems even more dangerous and unnatural, wouldn't you say?"
"It sure does," said Tsukamoto, seeing the opportunity to express his hearty agreement. "That's the first thing that bothers me about it."
"I don't think so," said Takemura, unperturbed. "This way the murderers would have had plenty of time to refine their plan and develop confidence in it. Actually, it enabled them to commit the perfect crime. Besides, they had the added purpose of sending someone a warning, and for that, they needed the body."
"To send someone a warning?" Ishida frowned.
"Exactly. By putting the poisoned body on display on Poison Plain, they made their intention clear. I didn't realize it at the time, of course, but putting it together with the subsequent murders of Mr. and Mrs. Ishihara, it became obvious."
"I see. But before you go on to the Ishihara murders, would you mind explaining just how Takeda was killed and how his body was gotten out of the hotel?"
"I'm afraid we'll never know the exact details of that unless we get to ask the murderers, but we can deduce at least that they must have secretly gotten into his room in the middle of the night and forced the poison down his throat while he was asleep—a comparatively simple method."
"So you mean they had a key to his room?"
"That's right, they did. I believe they must have had a key to one of the outside doors as well. In other words, they were people in a position to get hold of the keys—one more reason why they had to get the body out of the hotel. After all, who would ever believe that anyone would kill someone in the hotel and then try to carry the body out? It would be much more natural to assume that Takeda had been murdered after leaving the hotel of his own accord. Also, they even had a bit of good luck when he just happened not to be seen re-entering the hotel that night."
"So the only question is, how did they get the body ou
t, right?" asked Ishida, looking thoroughly interested now.
Takemura smiled faintly and nodded. "We have not found any conclusive evidence that the murderers did get into the hotel from outside. But at around 2 A.M.—the estimated time of death—the halls would have been mostly deserted, allowing them to move freely until they got to Takeda's room. If they saw someone in time, they could conceal themselves before being seen. If not, they could pass as hotel guests.
"They could not afford to be seen carrying the body, though. There might not have been much chance of that, but they had to make absolutely sure it did not happen. They most likely did not expect any hotel employees in the halls at that time of night, but they had no guarantee that they might not run into a guest, what with vending machines located at the end of the hallway on each floor and the possibility of a thirsty guest coming out of his room to buy something in the middle of the night. The minimum condition they had to satisfy was that any guest they did happen to meet should not become suspicious. And for that problem, they had the perfect solution.
"As soon as I figured out how they had done it, I knew who we were looking for. But it wasn't until much later, I mean, until after the murder of Representative Shishido, that I did finally figure it out. Permit me, therefore, to discuss his murder before I do those of the Ishiharas.
"Now, we may assume that the murderers intended to use just the same method to kill Representative Shishido that they had used for Takeda. Only this time, something big went wrong: Representative Shishido sent his white dress shirt out for overnight cleaning before he retired. That was totally unexpected, a contingency they had failed to provide for, and a circumstance that has been extremely significant in enabling me to identify them. Until I found out about it, I had been considering the possibility that the murderers were people who worked for the hotel. From this circumstance, though, I realized they must be people from outside, but ones who knew the hotel well and had the opportunity to copy keys. That erased all my doubts about who they were.