Murder in the Crooked House

by Soji Shimada

  “Chief Inspector Ushikoshi, had you heard from this man any part of what he planned to do?” said Ozaki quietly.

  “Yes. The name of the suspect and the general outline. I told him to do as he liked.”

  “And you kept quiet about it?”

  “Well, yes. But do you think that was the wrong decision? He’s got an extraordinary mind, that one.”

  “Has he? I’m not so sure about that, personally. Seems all swagger to me.”

  Ozaki was venting his frustration.

  “He behaves differently depending who he’s with.”

  “Oh… I just remembered—the hair I put on the door of Room 14. When you went with Mr Hamamoto, and rattled the doorknob, you must have knocked it off then.”

  “Ah, yes, I suppose so… And I’ve just realized myself about the blood on the string when Ueda was killed. The string had absorbed some of the red blood then, but in the case of Kikuoka there was nothing. Even though in both cases the string ought to have touched the blood. I should have noticed.”

  “Right, then. If there are no more points that need explaining, let’s get to the thing I want to hear the most. I’m ready to ask the big question.”

  I felt that Kiyoshi’s emotionless, businesslike way of talking was particularly cruel right now. It felt like a punch to the guts. This was his usual way of doing things. Except that, unlike the police, he never seemed to look down on the criminals that he caught. Kozaburo Hamamoto had been a worthy opponent, and he had treated him with respect to the very end.

  “Yes, of course. Where to begin…?”

  Kozaburo seemed to find it hard to speak. It was clear he had a heavy heart.

  “Everyone is no doubt wondering why I wanted to kill Eikichi Kikuoka, a man with whom I had no close relationship. Well, that’s a reasonable question. We hadn’t grown up together, we hadn’t even met when we were young men. I had absolutely no personal grudge against him. But I feel no remorse—I had a perfectly good reason to kill him. My only regret is that I killed Mr Ueda. I really didn’t need to. That was my own selfishness.

  “I’ll tell you the story of why I had to kill Kikuoka. It won’t be moving, or beautiful, or just, nor for some admirable cause. It was the atonement for a mistake that I made back in my youth.”

  He broke off there, as if trying to deal with some unbearable pain. It was the face of a man tortured by his own conscience.

  “The story begins almost forty years ago, when Hama Diesel was still Murata Engines. I’ll keep it short. Back then Murata Engines was just a simple office—nothing but a row of desks in the dirt-floor entrance way of a hut hastily constructed in the ruins of burnt-out Tokyo. Nothing but a backstreet workshop, really. Anyway, I had confidence in my own abilities and was promoted from apprentice up to head clerk. The boss had great trust in me, and although I say so myself, the company wouldn’t have run as smoothly without me.

  “The company president had a daughter—his only child. He’d once had a son too, but the young man was killed in the war. This daughter and I got on very well. Back in those days I couldn’t say we were going out together, but she made it clear that she liked me and it seemed that I had her father’s approval. I can’t deny that I had ambitions to marry the boss’s daughter and inherit the business, but my intentions towards her were always pure. While I’d been away fighting, my parents had been killed in an air raid, so there would be no objections from my family to taking my wife’s name.

  “And then a man by the name of Yamada turned up. He was the second son of a certain politician, and had been at school with Tomiko. (That was the name of my boss’s daughter.) It seemed that he’d had an eye for Tomiko for a while.

  “I can attest that this man was a fully fledged member of the yakuza. At that time he was already living with a woman of dodgy repute. All I wanted was for Tomiko to be happy, and if he’d been a good man, I would have been able to deal with the rejection. If by marrying this man from a good family, the small company could have profited and done well, then I would have been happy to step aside. But this Yamada was just a worthless punk, and totally unworthy of Tomiko. Unfortunately, her father was into the idea of his daughter marrying a politician’s son.

  “I couldn’t understand my boss’s attitude at all, and worried day and night. But now that I’m a father myself, I understand him much better. A father doesn’t want his daughter to marry purely from love. There are other considerations.

  “Anyway, I wanted to save Tomiko from the misery of becoming this man’s wife. I swear that I didn’t only have the ulterior motive of making her my own. Back then, it never even occurred to me.

  “Around that time I bumped into an old childhood friend of mine by the name of Noma. I’d thought he’d been killed on the front line in Burma. It was a joyous reunion, we went out drinking and caught up. Noma was in a bad way—nothing but skin and bones, sick and weak.

  “I’ll get to the point. Noma had turned up in Tokyo at that time because he was hunting down a man. This man was a few years younger than him, but had been his commanding officer in the army—an unspeakably cruel man. Noma had managed to survive but he couldn’t forget the suffering he had endured at the hands of this officer.

  “I heard the story of what happened to him many times over. But what was slightly different in his case was that to him this officer was a double murderer—he’d been directly responsible for the death of one of Noma’s comrades-in-arms and also the woman Noma loved. In time of war, this officer had got kicks out of inflicting private punishment on his subordinates. It was an everyday occurrence with him. In fact, there were some of Noma’s fellow soldiers who ended up permanently scarred from his cruelty.

  “Noma had become involved with a local Burmese girl, an extremely beautiful young woman. He’d decided that once the war was ended, if he managed to survive, he would marry her and remain in Burma.

  “But with the misfortune that comes in wartime, his commanding officer captured this woman, accusing her of being a spy. Noma knew it wasn’t true, desperately tried to stop him, but the officer merely replied that ‘All beautiful women are spies.’ Utterly ridiculous reasoning. He made her a prisoner of war, and proceeded to subject her to worse abuse than any human being could possibly imagine.

  “Finally, when the order to retreat came, the officer ordered all of the prisoners to be shot. And later, when Japan surrendered, he threatened all of his men to keep quiet about it—I mean the fact that he had had all the prisoners of war killed. As a result, one of Noma’s fellow soldiers ended up being executed for having carried out those orders, while the officer, after a brief detainment, went scot-free.

  “Noma was an academic type, not physically strong at all. The way he was living his life, constantly plotting revenge on his commanding officer, was destroying him. He had started coughing up blood. It was clear to me that he didn’t have long to live. Noma told me he wasn’t afraid to die, but that if he did he would die with regret in his heart, because just a few days earlier he had finally managed to find that commanding officer.

  “Noma used to carry a concealed pistol around with him at all times. But it only contained one bullet. He used to say that it was impossible to get bullets any more, but he was ready for the day when he faced off with his enemy. He wouldn’t hesitate.

  “After being demobilized, this commanding officer had apparently lost everything he ever owned, and spent his days drinking. He used to hold his bottle of cheap sake and look Noma in the eyes, telling him, ‘Oh, it’s you. Make sure you shoot me right in the heart.’ If Noma hesitated, he’d say, ‘I’ve got nothing left to lose. I don’t care if I die. Death would be a release.’

  “Noma used to tell me, with tears pouring down his face, that because of all the pain this man had inflicted on him, his fellow soldiers and the woman he’d loved, he didn’t want to give him such an easy death.

  “There are probably many stories like this one, but this is one of the worst I’ve ever heard. I was furious, and
even thought of getting revenge on his behalf. Noma then asked how I was doing and I told him about my own troubles, all the while aware that mine were nothing in comparison to his.

  “I finished talking, Noma’s eyes were glistening. ‘Let me use my final bullet on this Yamada,’ he said. ‘Then you’ll be able to marry that woman. I don’t have long on this earth, but in return, promise me that when that bastard finally has something worth losing, you will get rid of him for me.’ It was a heartbreaking appeal from a close friend.

  “I didn’t know what to do. If I got rid of Yamada, then I would be free to marry Tomiko and eventually take over Murata Engines. And however I looked at it, it wouldn’t only be beneficial to me, but to my boss and to Tomiko too. I was young and hard-working, and I believed I had a lot of talent. I thought it would be crazy for me not to be given the opportunity to work the way I knew I could. I was sure I could expand the company—I had already developed concrete plans as to how I would achieve this.

  “It would get tedious for me to describe every single bit of my thought processes back then. Suffice it to say, Yamada died, and together with my beloved Tomiko, I was eventually able to run Murata Engines.

  “It was a time where demobilized soldiers wandered around in the ashes of post-war Japan, where children starved to death every day, and often no one could help.

  “I worked like a dog to build up the little backstreet workshop into the Hama Diesel you know today. And I’m very proud of all the work I’ve done. But in the breast pocket of every jacket I’ve ever worn, I’ve kept the old photo that Noma gave me of his commanding officer, along with his address on a scrap of paper. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that the officer in question was Eikichi Kikuoka.”

  Kozaburo stopped for a while. I stole a glance at Kumi Aikura. Her expression didn’t reveal anything.

  “I heard through the grapevine that Kikuoka’s company’s fortunes were improving, but I had no intention of contacting him. My own company was doing really well, my overseas investments were succeeding and the time spent with Noma back in my youth began to feel like a distant bad dream. I wore expensive clothes and sat in my president’s office, and the path I walked, the chair I sat in, were so different from back when I was poor that I felt as if I now lived in a completely different world. I never wanted to go back to having nothing. I almost got away with telling myself that my current status had been earned by my hard work alone. But the truth is, if Yamada hadn’t died, Murata Engines would still be a backstreet workshop, and I would still be a humble factory worker. It took the death of my wife for me to admit this to myself.

  “But bad things do happen to those who do bad things. My wife didn’t die of old age… She died of an illness, much too young. The cause remains unclear. But with her death I felt Noma’s demand that I should hurry up and keep my promise.

  At that time, Kikuoka’s company was doing rather well. I got in contact with him in a perfectly normal way. For him, to hear from me must have felt like a sudden windfall.

  “And after that I think you all know what happened. I retired, and built this eccentric mansion. I suppose you all thought that it was the whim of a crazy old man, but in fact I designed it with a very specific purpose.

  “I committed a crime, but something good came out of it. I realized yesterday when I was listening to Wagner. I’ve spent my whole life keeping that secret inside, while around me the lies have been building up and hardening until it was as if I’d been fixed in cement. There have been ‘yes-men’ jostling for position around me, and all the flattery they’ve heaped on me has set my teeth on edge. But now I’ve managed to smash through that false protective layer I’d built up, and I’m feeling like I did back in my youth—finally, truth and honesty have returned to me. You said something about Jumping Jack the other day?”

  “Yes, the doll,” said Kiyoshi.

  “That’s not Golem. It’s me. The last twenty years of my life I’ve been nothing but a kind of doll. I was only creative right in the beginning, after that I was nothing but a snowman. Long ago people were impressed by my work, but I haven’t done anything creative for years.

  “Just for a moment, I believed I could be my old self again. Pure-hearted, honest, with close friends, that brilliant young man of long ago. That’s why I kept my promise. It was a promise made forty years ago, by a version of me that I admired.”

  Nobody spoke. Perhaps they were contemplating the true meaning of success.

  “If it were me, I wouldn’t have done it.”

  It was Michio Kanai who spoke. I saw his wife poke him in the ribs to try to make him stop, but he ignored her. Perhaps he thought this was his opportunity to show what he was made of.

  “I don’t think I would have been so faithful to my old friend. Society is full of deceit. I mean that people deceive each other all the time. I don’t mean this entirely in a bad way. Cheating is a kind of art, particularly in the working world. A salaryman has to spend half his working life lying. I mean this in all seriousness.

  “Take, for example, a doctor. He has a patient with stomach cancer, but he tells him that it’s an ulcer. Can you blame him? The patient will die in the end, but he’ll believe it’s because the ulcer got worse. He’ll die relieved that he never was unlucky enough to suffer from a terrifying cancer.

  “It was the same with Mr Hamamoto’s friend. He was able to believe that his good friend would destroy the evil brute for him, and so he died a peaceful death. What’s the difference between Mr Noma and the cancer patient? Mr Hamamoto had to become the president of Hama Diesel and so he did. There were no losers in this scenario.

  “I was forced to show respect to Kikuoka. How many times did I dream of strangling that dirty, lecherous old man? But, as I said before, society is full of deceit. And in Kikuoka’s case, I planned to use him, profit from him, suck him dry before he died. That was to my benefit. That’s what you should have done. Anyway, that’s my opinion.”

  “Mr Kanai,” Kozaburo replied, “this evening, I am sensing everyone is… how should I put it…? Lacking in outrage. In fact, sympathetic to me. It’s something I never used to feel back there in my company president’s office. You may well be right. However, I should emphasize that Noma didn’t pass away peacefully in hospital. He died in a prison cell, wrapped in a flimsy blanket. When I think of that, I can’t bear the thought of spending the rest of my life sleeping alone in a luxurious bed.”

  Night had somehow slipped away and the sun was already up. The wind had died down and outside was completely quiet. There were no more snowflakes tumbling from the sky, and the section of deep blue sky outside the salon window hadn’t a single cloud.

  The guests sat for a while, then gradually, in groups of two and three, got to their feet, bowed to Kozaburo, and went off to their various rooms to prepare to put an end to this extraordinary winter holiday.

  “Mr Mitarai, I just remembered,” said Kozaburo.

  “Hmm?” said Kiyoshi, in his habitual flat tone.

  “Did you work that one out too? The flower bed puzzle I set for Togai and the others? Did they tell you about it?”

  “Oh, yes, that.”

  “Did you solve it?”

  Kiyoshi folded his arms.

  “That one… No, I didn’t get it.”

  “Oh, that’s not like you! Well, if you didn’t work that one out, then I wasn’t totally defeated after all.”

  “Isn’t it better that way?”

  “If it’s just some misplaced sense of sympathy on your part though, I’m not at all impressed. That wouldn’t bring me any satisfaction at all.”

  “All right, then. Would you detectives be up for a little morning stroll to the top of the hill?”

  Kozaburo chuckled.

  “I see. It’s just as I suspected. I’m very glad to have met someone like you. I don’t feel as if I lost. I wish I’d met you a little earlier. Life would have been far less tedious. It’s really too bad.”

  SCENE 5

 
The Hill

  We reached the top of the hill, exhaling white clouds into the frigid air, just as the morning sunshine reached the ice floes out on the northern sea. The house we had been staying in was wrapped in a cottony blanket of morning mist.

  Everyone turned to the north to face the Ice Floe Mansion and its tower, which from this direction stood to the right of the main building. The glass at the top of the tower picked up the rising sun and for a moment shone with a dazzling, yellow light. Kiyoshi shaded his eyes with both hands, stood and watched the spectacle. I thought he was appreciating the aesthetics, but I was wrong. He was waiting for the sun to move off the glass. Finally, the moment arrived and he opened his mouth to speak.

  “Is that a chrysanthemum?”

  “Yes, it is,” said Kozaburo. “A chrysanthemum with its head hanging down.”

  I had no idea what they were talking about.

  “Where?” I asked.

  “That glass tower. The chrysanthemum’s wilted, right?”

  I finally saw it. And then there was a murmur of recognition from the three detectives.

  In the glass cylinder of the tower, there was a chrysanthemum with a hanging neck. The effect was like a magnificent painted scroll. The curiously shaped flower bed around the base of the tower was reflected in the cylinder, and the whole thing was the exact image of a chrysanthemum. A colourless chrysanthemum.

  “If we were in a flat place, we’d have to use a helicopter to be able to enjoy that view. If you look up at the tower from the middle of the flower bed itself, you can’t see the reflection. You have to be at a distance and diagonally above to be able to see it.”

  “It was extremely fortuitous that this hill happened to be here, wasn’t it?” said Kiyoshi. “But I can see that as you were building you realized that even the very top of this hill wasn’t high enough. And so you constructed the tower so it leant very slightly in this direction. And now we can see it perfectly. That’s the real reason you built that tower at an angle, isn’t it?”