by Ben Stevens
Plummer gave a slight, tired, humorless smile.
‘I don’t believe in deliberately inserting one’s head into the noose, sir,’ he replied. ‘No, I would have been perfectly content to have had the identity of Figg’s ‘assailant’, as it were, to remain unknown. But I didn’t notice that bloodstain upon my shirt, what with it being nighttime, and still being out of sorts, what with general adrenalin and nerves, and sleeplessness, when I came down to breakfast in the morning, still wearing that same shirt…’
‘You were carrying a candle or lamp when you left your room, and saw Robert Figg take the stairs?’ asked Holmes suddenly.
‘No, no,’ said Plummer almost irritably, and I noticed he had obvious trouble meeting the detective’s eyes. ‘As I say, I’d only left my room with the intention of using the lavatory. I know the way well enough, whether it be dark or light.’
‘Yet you were able to discern Figg’s shape upon the stairs…’
‘He… he coughed – I knew his cough well enough, also, for he often smoked a pipe. Then, peering closer, I was just able to see a man of large build take the stairs. It could hardly have been anyone else, save Robert Figg!’
‘I see,’ said Holmes, completely calm in the face of Plummer’s strange, and somewhat sudden, show of hostility.
‘Well, lad, I’d better do things by the book here,’ said Captain Spillard slowly. ‘You’ll go on trial charged with murder; there’ll be a defense counsel to be appointed, together, of course, with one for the prosecution… I’ll start getting things organized, though I can’t say I’ve ever had to do this sort of thing before, or indeed hoped that I would have to…’
Shaking his head mournfully, the grey-haired, powerfully-built Captain started walking away from the small cell. This indicated to the rest of us that we should do the same; and as we exited outside, Holmes said to the Captain –
‘Would you have any objection, my good Captain, if my friend and I were to return at nightfall? Given the circumstances of this case, I think there is something that needs to be made known, as quickly as is possible.’
‘Of… of course, Mr. Holmes,’ stammered Captain Spillard. ‘But, for pity’s sake, if you know anything, then please say what this is right now – ’
‘I have to go and investigate something else – something of considerable importance – concerning this case first; everything must be in order, before I can act,’ returned the detective.
‘Well, of course, you must do as you see fit,’ declared the Captain gruffly.
‘Thank you,’ said the detective. And together with his friend, he walked towards the bridge which connects Leaving Island to the harbor.
As promised, Holmes returned as it got dark, which in Japan at this time of year is approximately seven p.m. (The sun, also, sets far quicker in the East than it does the West.) I noticed he did not have his friend with him on this occasion, though this observation hardly seemed very important.
Upon Holmes’s request, a small group of us (including Captain Spillard, and the translator Nakayama) went up to the row of rooms that are above one of the large warehouses. The residents of Leaving Island are fortunate to each have their own room, which is small but which nevertheless comprises of a bed, desk, chair, mirror and cupboard.
‘It is now fully dark, and we have made our way up here by candlelight,’ declared Holmes. ‘This is the room occupied by James Plummer we are standing outside of, you say, Captain – and that is the staircase, some twenty yards away at the end of this wooden corridor, where he claimed to have caught sight of Robert Figg?’
‘That is so,’ returned the Captain gruffly.
‘Please extinguish the candles.’
A moment of surprise, and then the Captain nodded to the two men holding the only sources of light.
‘Do as he says, lads.’
With the candles extinguished, everything was pitch-black. There was no window, here in the corridor, to provide any moonlight. It was inconceivable that Plummer could have seen Figg take the stairs, when right now I could scarce see my hand in front of my own face.
The meaning was obvious: Plummer was lying, in at least part of his story.
‘Thank you,’ said Holmes softly. ‘You may light the candles again.
‘He said… he said he heard a cough, though,’ remarked the Captain. ‘Through this, he could identify Figg…’
‘He had to try and invent a plausible story quickly, which, as has just been shown, can easily be disproved,’ returned Holmes. ‘But let us go back outside, and I shall present to you the real killer of Robert Figg.’
‘What?’ blurted the Captain, giving voice to my own thought; but Holmes had already started walking towards the stairs…
Outside, he further surprised the several men in his company by giving a high, penetrating whistle. Then he stood, smiling ever so slightly, as his sturdy friend presented himself, together with a delicate young woman dressed in a kimono which, I knew, immediately identified her as being one of the yujo who ply their trade in the harbor – and upon this island.
She stood, staring down at the ground, as Holmes said –
‘This is Midori. We all know her occupation. Leaving this island earlier, I went immediately to each of the ‘houses’ in a certain part of the harbor, asking the woman in charge of each house if any of her employees had made a request for a new kimono that very morning.
‘A number of women said outright that nothing of the sort had occurred; but when one woman hesitated, I knew that just such a thing had occurred, and so pressed her for the identity of the woman who’d asked for a new kimono.
‘I was presented with Midori here, and after I basically informed her of what had happened just the previous night, she confessed everything.
‘A single bloodstain upon Plummer’s shirt, and Figg with such traumatic head injuries? No, no, Figg’s real killer – that is, Midori here – would have been greatly covered by his blood. And so, Midori had to ask for a new kimono this morning, making some excuse concerning the ‘loss’ of her old one.’
‘Wait… wait…’ gasped Captain Spillard, holding out his hand in front of him like a man vainly trying to halt a charging house. ‘Then… why the bloodstain upon Plummer’s shirt, eh? Did he put it there himself?’
‘No, I believe he was genuinely unaware of it until it was observed by the others at breakfast this morning,’ returned Holmes easily. ‘It is here that I would allow Midori to speak for herself – with me translating her words into English, of course – but she is understandably nervous being here, and has come only because she wishes to save a man from being charged with – and quite possibly hanged for – murder.
‘As for herself, I have assured her that she has no other charge to answer for except for one of self-defense.’
‘That remains to be seen,’ said the Captain curtly. ‘If what you’re saying is true, she killed one of my men, after all...’
‘Put simply, what happened was this,’ continued Holmes, as though he’d not even heard the Captain’s words. ‘Midori came here last night, to – well, we know the reason. She met up with Figg, by chance, in one of the warehouses, but soon found that she’d got what might politely be called a ‘rough customer’.
‘Further details are as unnecessary as they are unsavory, but Figg made demands which she found wholly unacceptable; and upon her refusal to ‘oblige’ him, he began to get violent.
‘Beside herself with fear, she grabbed the nearest weapon to hand – that club-like length of wood that was later observed – and struck Figg, repeatedly. She did not mean to kill him, but he was such a large man, and you see for yourselves how slight she is…
‘Then, hurriedly leaving the warehouse, she quite literally ran into Plummer – who’d come down here for much the same reason as Figg. This explains the bloodstain upon Plummer’s shirt, I believe, for as she impacted with him, a little of what was staining her kimono went onto him.
‘She expected that she would be restra
ined, and that this young foreign man would set up a cry of ‘murder’. She was therefore greatly surprised when, after a few moments spent checking the dead body of the fighter by candlelight, he indicated to her that she should just leave.
‘This she did.’
‘So Plummer lied about seeing Figg on the staircase out of shame because he was going to try and find a prostitute himself,’ said the Captain roughly. ‘But why frame himself for a murder he didn’t commit, Mr. Holmes? Why risk being hanged?’
‘For the answer to that,’ said Holmes, ‘maybe we should go and ask Plummer himself…’
Now that it was clear the young man was not, in fact, Figg’s assassin, he was let out of the small cell and taken into the dining hall, where he was seated with a mug of something strong and comforting being placed in front him.
‘Why frame myself?’ he said, with a shrug. ‘Lord knows... Maybe I just couldn’t accept the fact that someone had killed Figg other than me – for I could quite easily have committed that crime! But when I saw that little woman there, and guessed what had taken place and why she’d struck him so cruelly, I could no more have caused her to be nabbed for the crime, than I could have sailed to the moon.
‘So I just indicated that she should go, which she did readily enough – while looking rather perplexed, I have to say – and I immediately returned back to my room. I thought the killing of Figg would remain a mystery – but, of course, I failed to notice that bloodstain upon my shirt, undoubtedly caused when the young woman ran into me.
‘Once that was noticed, there seemed to be no way to get myself out of the mess other than by giving up the woman, and that I just wasn’t prepared to do. Besides, who would now believe me, after I’d let her go before? Seemed the best I could do was to invent some sort of story about Figg and me fighting beforehand, thus giving me some claim for ‘self-defense’, but, I have to say, I didn’t really think this would save me from the gallows…
‘Only, please don’t say that woman’s going to swing for this crime…’
‘That woman’ had already been sent back over the bridge.
‘They have a different method of execution, here in Japan, you know,’ said Holmes. ‘The sword as opposed to the rope... What the woman did will be reported to the authorities, but I do not expect the matter will go any further. It was a clear-cut case of self-defense, after all…’
‘She didn’t seem to hold back with that length of wood, in any case,’ harrumphed Captain Spillard; but I knew that it was clear to him, as it was to us all, that this was firmly the end of a somewhat regrettable matter.
‘Of course, I had to quickly make up a story as to why I was out there, in the warehouse, in the first place,’ said Plummer. ‘I gather Mr. Holmes – to whom it seems I quite possibly owe my life – quickly proved my lie there, though, I have to say, I hardly think that this was the most challenging test of his powers…’
The young man was clearly exhausted after all that had happened, and once he’d gone to bed Holmes left the island with his friend.
Strangely, this incident did much to improve relations between the Englishmen on Leaving Island and the Japanese locally. (Relations which had been slightly strained, ever since the previously-mentioned incident of the samurai and the English sailors.)
It became widely-known that Plummer-san (as the Japanese now refer to him) had risked almost certain death, through his determined attempt to keep the real identity of Figg’s killer a secret. So that he, at least, can sometimes leave the island, and walk freely around the harbor area, where – his face being so well-known – he is treated with respect and courtesy by everyone he encounters.
Sherlock Holmes and the Vampire-Geisha
The wealthy merchant liked to visit the young, female servant after dark. When all members of his large household – family and also staff – were in bed. The servant had been coerced into becoming his mistress several months previously, and had thus been given a room of her own. This lay at the end of a long corridor, somewhat removed from the rest of the merchant’s sprawling residence.
The merchant liked to tell himself that this affair was taking place in total secrecy, with no one other than himself and the servant girl aware of it. But really he didn’t much care; if anyone else knew – or even suspected – then they’d certainly keep their mouth shut. That was, if they knew what was good for them…
The merchant opened the sliding door without knocking. He knew the girl would be waiting for him, lying naked upon the futon, as per his desire. Only now that it was autumn, and thus getting chilly in the evenings, she was allowed to cover herself with a sheet as she awaited his arrival.
In he stole, almost chuckling to himself as he again closed the door behind him, not really looking yet in the direction of the futon that lay by the window at the opposite end of the room. This girl was good to him; she knew what pleased him – he’d ensured that she’d quickly learnt all about that, of course. When he grew tired of her, he’d give her a bit of money and send her packing with an excellent reference – he always did this, at least, so that she’d quickly find another position…
Yes, the futon lay almost directly below the sliding window-shutter of wood and paper, which when open in the summer could thus let in delightfully cool breezes at night. But it should be closed now, in autumn, except it was not. And the face staring back at the merchant’s, on the other side of the open window and shining white in the moonlight, was not that of the servant girl. The hair was arranged in the classical style of the geisha – of whom there were many in the town’s ‘pleasure quarter’ which lay nearby, frequently visited by the merchant himself – and something dark crimson showed on the chin of that otherwise whitened, glowing face.
It was blood. Blood from the figure lying so still upon the futon below that window. The merchant had heard the rumors, the servants and such in other residences purportedly found dead in the morning, their bodies entirely drained of blood and those two small holes on one side of their necks… But he’d put such stories down to mere hysteria, the bodies in any case quickly being buried or cremated (this custom of burning bodies becoming ever-more popular within Japan), the victims soon being forgotten…
In a moment, the face of the geisha with the gleaming white face and the blood-soaked chin was gone. But the merchant knew what he had seen, just as he knew that the naked servant girl he’d been so earnestly intending to make love to was now lying dead upon the futon…
And with this, the merchant began to scream…
1
‘It is fortunate indeed that you should happen to be in this neighborhood, Holmes-san, so that I can hopefully hire your services to investigate this strange affair.’
So declared the geisha named Iwasaki, the so-called ‘older sister’ and owner of the large ‘Spring-sea’ teahouse which (Holmes had already informed me, upon our journey here from the inn where we were staying) was the oldest and most respected geisha business in this area.
Certainly there was no shortage of such businesses, here in this town’s large ‘pleasure quarter’. Even during our short walk here – with Holmes having to support my slow, limping progress, due to the injury I’d recently received to my left ankle – we’d seen any number of geisha and also maiko (those young ‘geisha in training’, as it were) bustling past on raised geta, their kimono beautifully colored. They carried those three-stringed instruments named shamisen and also small drums in cases, spare clothing, barrels of alcohol and all those other items necessary for their work.
Now, Holmes inclined his head at Iwasaki’s words.
‘I am at your service,’ he said gravely.
‘You have heard that the merchant who allegedly saw this… Well…’
Iwasaki gave a discreet cough, before continuing –
‘In any case, he is now effectively insane – so that one may very well be tempted to question the actual truth concerning what it is he claimed to have seen that evening.’
This ‘older
sister’ struck me as being a woman of strong character, with a somewhat pragmatic nature disinclined to believe in the type of shocking story Holmes and I had recently heard.
Otherwise, it was difficult to tell too much about her – even her age. She was not wearing the full geisha ‘make up’, and yet her face was still whitened slightly, and her teeth fashionably blackened.
She was sat kneeling, facing us across a low table in a small tatami room. There was a pot of green tea, from which she refilled Holmes’s and my cups.
‘The other geisha teahouses in this area are already suffering, business-wise, because of this unfortunate incident,’ declared Holmes levelly.
The unspoken question was obvious, and Iwasaki answered it readily enough –
‘Mine is certainly the most well-established teahouse in this area; but, yes, we too are seeing fewer customers. That is why, if you were agreeable, I would like to engage you to investigate this story concerning what the merchant (now judged to be insane, don’t forget) claims he saw – and disprove it.
‘To find out the truth concerning what actually happened to that poor servant girl – and those other victims before.’
‘Then you don’t believe that they were attacked by a geisha who becomes a vampire at night, and who thus visits the living as they sleep to suck out the blood from their very bodies?’ inquired Holmes in his excellent Japanese, his expression in that somewhat dimly-lit room earnest.
Iwasaki merely gave Holmes a look, and I found myself emitting a slight cough, out of sheer embarrassment at the Englishman’s words.
‘Whoever is responsible for these disgusting murders needs to be uncovered and caught,’ continued the senior geisha, after a few moments’ awkward silence. ‘Unfortunately, it is true that enough people believe the ravings of a lunatic for it to affect business at the house I run, as well as those other teahouses in which geisha operate. And I feel it is my duty to somehow try and put a stop to this whole, unfortunate turn of events – in this instance, by employing the well-known foreign detective Holmes-san…’