Inspector Imanishi Investigates

FIFTEEN On The Track

A letter arrived for Imanishi from the head of the investigation section of the Ise police station.

The following report is in answer to your inquiry.

We went immediately to question Tadokoro Ichinosuke, manager of the Asahi Theater. Tadokoro-san says he does not know any Miki Ken’ichi, nor did he meet him during the period you indicated. This is as we reported to you in answer to your last inquiry.

Tadokoro-san is from the same village as Tadokoro Shigeyoshi, who was recently appointed minister of agriculture and forestry. Tadokoro-san holds Tadokoro Shigeyoshi in the highest regard. Each time he visits Tokyo, he stops by at Tadokoro Shigeyoshi’s residence to pay his respects and to deliver some special items from this area. He also mentioned that he has received many favors from Tadokoro Shigeyoshi.

Tadokoro-san has at his home many letters, calligraphic works, photographs, and other items that he has received from Tadokoro Shigeyoshi. Furthermore, to show his respect for Tadokoro Shigeyoshi, he has occasionally displayed at the Asahi Theater commemorative photographs taken of himself with Tadokoro Shigeyoshi. When we inquired about May 9, he indicated that at that time there was an enlargement of a photograph taken with the Tadokoro Shigeyoshi family placed on the wall of the hallway leading into the auditorium of his theater. This photograph was taken down at the end of May, and is now at Tadokoro-san’s private home.

I have borrowed the original photograph from Tadokoro-san and am sending it under separate cover. Please return it when you are finished with it. I have signed a receipt for this item in my own name and request that the utmost care be taken so as not to lose the photograph.

Impatient to see the photograph, Imanishi left home early the next morning and reached headquarters at nine a.m. Only two young detectives had arrived so far.

“Hey, has the mail come?” Imanishi asked right away.

“No, sir, not yet.”

Imanishi could not sit still. He had never wished so hard for a new case not to break. If a murder occurred, he would have to rush out.

The section chief arrived just before ten o’clock.

“Imanishi,” he called from his desk.

Imanishi shuddered. But after talking with the chief, he was relieved that he would not need to leave the office. He returned to his desk to find that the mail had been delivered, but there was nothing for him.

“Hey, didn’t I get anything?” he asked the young detective who had distributed the mail.

“No, sir, there was nothing.”

“When does the next delivery come?”

“Usually about three.”

Imanishi sipped the tea that a junior detective served him. He could hardly wait for the next delivery. As the long hours stretched slowly into the afternoon, he sat at his desk filling out reports. He kept looking at the clock. One of the young detectives picked up the mail from the reception desk. At three-fifteen, he came through the door, waving a manila envelope.

“Finally, it’s here.” Imanishi jumped up from his chair.

Inside the envelope was a photograph protected by two sheets of cardboard. Imanishi looked at the photograph so intently that he no longer heard the voices around him. In an elegant garden of a grand residence half a dozen people were standing in a line. Imanishi focused his attention on one of them, staring at his face for a long time.

“Could you lend me a magnifying glass?” he asked a young detective.

The detective brought over a magnifying glass, and Imanishi placed it over the face in the photograph. So this photograph was what Miki had seen. The enlargement displayed on the wall at the Asahi Theater in Ise must have been nearly poster size.

Miki had focused on one face, and he must have gone back to jot down the name of that person from the label beneath it. Even without an address, he was the sort of person who would be easy enough to find in Tokyo. Miki had changed his plans and suddenly decided to go to Tokyo. There was someone he wanted to see again before he took leave of this world. That person was one of the people in the photograph. Miki arrived in Tokyo early on May 11 and looked up the address of the person in the photograph, perhaps in the telephone directory. He telephoned.

Imanishi telephoned Yoshimura to arrange a meeting at Kamata Station at six-thirty.

“Where shall we talk?”

“Let me see.” Imanishi looked down the long, narrow shopping street and led the way into a tearoom. The customers were mainly women who came to eat bean paste sweets, which made it a good location for their confidential conversation. They sat at the table farthest from the door.

“This is it.” Imanishi took the photograph out of his pocket.

“Please let me have a look.” Yoshimura gazed at the photograph, which he, too, had been eagerly awaiting. His eyes held the same expression as Imanishi’s had when he first saw the picture.

“Imanishi-san,” Yoshimura said, “you’ve done it.”

“Hm,” Imanishi answered. “Finally.”

He was thinking that he had taken many detours before he had been able to identify the face that had drawn Miki to Tokyo.

Neither Imanishi nor Yoshimura mentioned the photograph again. The remaining task was how to solve the rest of the case.

Imanishi had theorized from the start of this case that the murderer’s hideout was close to Kamata Station and that he had walked there to change his bloodstained clothes. So the murderer’s lover probably lived near Kamata. Naruse Rieko, who had destroyed the evidence, had been in close contact with the murderer.

She had moved into an apartment in Imanishi’s neighborhood soon after the crime. Where had she lived before? He had asked the manager of the apartment building, but had been told that it was unclear where she had come from. Yoshimura had searched the area around Kamata thoroughly, carrying with him a photograph of Rieko. He had not been the only one. Many detectives had taken part and the local policemen also had searched the area, but to no avail.

“Yoshimura,” Imanishi said. “We were wrong. Rieko was brokenhearted and committed suicide. There is no mistake in that. But we had the wrong lover.”

“I guess so,” Yoshimura agreed.

“Now that we know that, let’s try one more time to find Rieko’s address at the time of the murder. Your station still has her photo?”

“Yes, we do.”

“We did that investigation once, but there may be something we overlooked. She must have lived within a twenty-minute walk from Kamata. The murderer walked to this hideout after he committed his crime at the railroad yard. If he had walked for a long time, he would have risked being noticed.”

“I agree.” Yoshimura nodded over and over. “I understand. I’ll check it out once more. This time we’ll keep it to an area within a twenty-minute walk from Kamata.”

Three days later there was an interim report from Yoshimura. “My investigation section head was enthusiastic when I told him about your finding. He pulled together a special investigation team.”

“That’s gratifying.” Imanishi was satisfied. No matter how he might have fretted about it, if the local police station was unenthusiastic, he could not hope for any success.

“The newspaper reporters have started to suspect something, so it’s getting difficult.”

“Make sure they don’t find out anything.”

“Of course we’re doing all we can, but those fellows are quick to notice things. They won’t leave us alone. They’re after me to talk to them, and they’re really persistent.”

“That’s a problem,” Imanishi said, his expression clouded.

“We’re giving them various excuses. Imanishi-san, I’m afraid that we won’t have an answer for quite a while.”

“I’m not expecting anything right away. How far has the investigation proceeded?”

“We’ve practically finished the area a mile and a quarter around Kamata Station.”

“That’s a lot of work for you.” Imanishi thought for a bit and said, “My hunch is that the areas to the north and west of Kamata Station are the most likely.”

There was something else that Imanishi was looking into, but his best hope was that the Kamata police station would find Rieko’s former address. Imanishi became impatient. He wanted to go to each house, photo in hand, but his work schedule did not permit it.

One morning, Imanishi came across the following report in the cultural section of the newspaper.

Composer Waga Eiryo has announced that he will be visiting the United States by invitation of the Rockefeller Foundation. He will depart on November 30 from Haneda Airport for New York, where he will reside for a while. Mr. Waga’s stay in America will last approximately three months, during which time he will present performances of his electronic music compositions. Afterward, he plans to travel in Europe to observe developments regarding electronic music. He plans to return to Japan at the end of April. Soon after that, Mr. Waga will wed his fiancée, Tadokoro Sachiko, the daughter of Agriculture Minister Tadokoro Shigeyoshi.

Imanishi read through this article twice.

Arriving at headquarters in low spirits, Imanishi found Yoshimura waiting for him. “You’re awfully early.”

“Yes, sir.” Yoshimura’s face showed fatigue, and Imanishi realized that the investigation had not been successful.

“So, nothing’s been found?”

“We’ve come up with nothing.” Yoshimura was dejected. “The section chief gave us all the support he could, but…”

“How many days has it been since you started the search?”

“Almost a week. We’ve searched everywhere we could.”

“I see…” Imanishi placed his hand on the shoulder of his young colleague, “Thanks for all your efforts.”

“I’m so sorry that we couldn’t come up with anything.”

“Don’t let something like this get you down. Keep up the good work.”

“Yes.”

“You’ve given so much to this investigation. I’m sure there was no oversight. I feel that there must be something that we don’t see yet-a blind spot.”

“Imanishi-san, it makes me relieved when I hear you say that. As you say, there may be something like a blind spot.”

“Right, let’s think about it some more.”

“Yes, I’ll think about it.” Yoshimura’s expression regained some of its energy.

“Please give my best to your section chief.”

“Yes, I will.”

Imanishi saw his young colleague out to the front door of police headquarters. He watched as Yoshimura crossed the brightly lit avenue.

That day Imanishi did not go home directly, but took the streetcar to the Avant-Garde Theater. It was dusk, but there was still a light shining in the office where three of the staff were putting posters and tickets in order. One of them recognized Imanishi.

“Welcome.” The clerk guided Imanishi to the reception area.

“Thanks so much for your help before,” Imanishi said, as he took off his raincoat and sat down.

“Have you been able to find Naruse-san’s previous address?” the clerk asked, lighting a cigarette. He seemed to welcome a break from his work.

“I’m afraid we haven’t been able to locate it yet.” Imanishi also lit a cigarette. “I don’t suppose you’ve heard anything here?”

“Nothing at all,” he replied. “But I’ll keep my ears open.”

Imanishi chatted for a while with the clerk. He had come to ask about Rieko’s previous address, but he felt he could not be so curt as to leave right away.

“Why are the police still trying to find Naruse-san’s previous address?” the clerk asked with a puzzled expression. The theater company had no idea that there was some connection between Naruse Rieko and the Kamata railroad yard murder case.

“We’re just looking into the circumstances.” Imanishi avoided a direct reply. “Naruse-san committed suicide, so we treat it as an unnatural death, not as a normal death from illness. That’s why we need to find out more about the circumstances.”

“Oh, I see what you mean.” The clerk was impressed. “If the police are that careful about finding things out, one can’t commit suicide lightly, can one?”

“I suppose not.” As they were talking, Imanishi heard shouting in the distance. “What is that?” Imanishi asked, straining his ears.

“Oh, that? They’re rehearsing for our next production.”

“Oh, I see.”

“How about it? If you have the time, would you like to take a peek?”

Imanishi had never seen a contemporary play. As its name indicated, the Avant-Garde Theater was currently noted for staging the most progressive dramas.

“Well, perhaps I could take a look if I wouldn’t be in the way.”

“That’s no problem. It’s a dress rehearsal. It’s really no different from seeing a regular performance. You could sit there and not be noticed by anyone.”

Opening the door of the theater office, the clerk walked ahead of Imanishi along a hallway. The clerk quietly opened the closed door at the end of the hallway, and Imanishi followed.

Suddenly they could hear the voices on the stage where many people were moving about. The clerk showed Imanishi to a chair placed against a dark wall. There were four or five others sitting in the dark, watching the stage.

The stage set seemed to be part of a factory in which were gathered about twenty people dressed as factory workers. They were surrounding one man, also dressed as a factory worker, and arguing with him.

As Imanishi watched, the director, standing below the stage, occasionally corrected the delivery of the dialogue. Imanishi gazed at the stage. It was no different from watching a real stage performance. All of the actors were wearing workers’ uniforms. Imanishi thought that it must be quite a task to gather so many costumes. As he watched the progress of the play, his eyes began to shine. Soon he was merely following the action with his eyes while his thoughts were running elsewhere.

He left quietly and returned to the office, where the three staff members were still preparing posters for mailing.

“How was it?” the clerk who had shown Imanishi to the rehearsal hall asked.

“It was very interesting,” Imanishi responded, smiling.

“I’m glad you thought so. If you’d like, you’re welcome to watch until the end.”

“Thank you.”

“That’s a play that our troupe is premiering, so we’re putting all our efforts into it. The advance notices are very favorable.”

“Is that so? They’re all putting a lot of spirit into their performances.” Imanishi went over to the clerk and said in a low voice,

“I’d like to ask you something. I noticed that you need many costumes.”

“Yes, we do. Just making those costumes takes quite a bit of money.”

“Do you save the costumes after you finish with a performance?”

“Yes, we usually save them.”

“Then there must be someone who oversees the costumes?”

“Yes, there is.”

“I’m sorry to trouble you, but could I see that person?”

“The wardrobe mistress?” The clerk looked at Imanishi’s face with a quizzical expression.

“Yes, I’d like to ask her some questions.”

“I see. Please wait a minute. I’ll see if she’s in.”

Soon the clerk returned and led Imanishi toward the rear of the building. “This is our wardrobe mistress.” She was a plump woman of about thirty-five, wearing a coat and preparing to leave.

“I’m sorry to hold you up just as you’re about to go home.” Imanishi bowed his head.

“What is it you’d like to ask me?” The short woman looked up at Imanishi.

“There must be an incredible number of costumes. Do you ever lose any?”

“No, that hardly ever happens.”

“Hardly ever?” Imanishi took that phrase as his cue. “Then that means that sometimes they do disappear?”

“Yes. It almost never happens, but there are times when one or two pieces might be missing. But that’s only once every several years.”

“I see. That must be because you’re careful about overseeing the costumes. But there must be forces beyond your control. No matter how careful you are, with so many items, there must be times when the numbers aren’t complete.”

“Yes. Then it’s my responsibility.”

“I see. Did a man’s costume disappear this past spring?”

The wardrobe mistress looked surprised at Imanishi’s specific question.

“Yes, one did.”

“And when was that?”

“We presented Flute by Kawamura Tomoyoshi-sensei in May. During that time a man’s raincoat disappeared, and we couldn’t find it.”

“A raincoat?” Imanishi opened his eyes wide. “When was that?”

“That play was on for the month of May, so I think it was around the middle of May that we lost it. Since we couldn’t find it anywhere, I rushed around and got another one to take its place.”

“I’m sorry to ask you, but could you tell me the exact date?”

“Please wait a moment. I’ll look in my work journal.”

She hurried back to her own room.

“I suppose things do go astray,” Imanishi said to the clerk. Despite his nonchalant manner, his heart was pounding with excitement.

“I’ve found it,” the wardrobe mistress said, as she returned. “It was May twelfth that we lost it.”

“You said May twelfth?” Imanishi thought, This is it!

“That’s right. It was on the twelfth that I searched for another raincoat to take its place.”

“What time did the previous performance end?”

“It was at ten p.m. on May eleventh.”

“The location?”

“It was at the Toyoko Hall in Shibuya.”

Imanishi’s heart pounded again. Shibuya was close to Gotanda. From Gotanda the Ikegami Line went to Kamata. Furthermore, Meguro was even closer to Shibuya. And from Meguro the Mekama Line went to Kamata.

“What color was that raincoat?”

“It was a darkish gray.” Having said this much, the wardrobe mistress’s expression became puzzled. “We didn’t report it as a burglary; was it wrong not to?”

“No, that’s not a problem at all. This has nothing to do with any burglary report.” Imanishi smiled. “Was there a burglary?”

“No, we don’t think so. But it is certain that it disappeared.”

“Was it kept in the dressing room?”

“Yes, it was. At the end of a play’s run, we store things in the costume warehouse, but during a run we leave them in the dressing rooms.”

“That’s strange. Do you have burglars who steal from the dressing rooms?”

“I can’t say we never do, but I can’t imagine that a burglar would take a worn-out raincoat. Although sometimes money has been stolen.”

“It was the twelfth that you realized the raincoat was gone? That means the raincoat was there the evening of the eleventh and was used for the performance, but on the next day, the twelfth, you found that the raincoat had disappeared before the performance began.”

“Yes, that’s the way it was. Since Miyata-san was tall, I had a hard time finding a raincoat that was long enough.”

“What! It was Miyata-san?” Imanishi’s voice rose involuntarily. “That raincoat was for Miyata-san’s part?”

“Yes, it was.” The woman was surprised at his loud voice.

“You mean Miyata Kunio, of course?”

“Yes.”

Imanishi’s rapid breathing showed his excitement. “When he found out that the raincoat he was to wear was missing, what did Miyata-san say?”

“He said ‘What shall I do?’ He asked me to find something quickly. He kept saying, ‘I know it was here last night.’ ”

“Wait a minute. Was Miyata-san on stage until the last scene of that play?”

“Yes, he wore that raincoat in the last scene.”

Imanishi crossed his arms. The memory of Miyata Kunio’s death returned forcefully. “I’d like to ask you something else. There was a staff member named Naruse Rieko here, wasn’t there? The girl who committed suicide.”

“Yes, I knew her well.”

“It might be impolite of me to ask this, but were Miyata-san and Naruse-san on close terms?” Imanishi asked the wardrobe mistress.

“I don’t think they were especially close, but Miyata-san seemed to like Naruse-san.”

Imanishi had heard this before. He himself had seen Miyata standing under Rieko’s apartment window trying to draw her attention.

“That night, did Miyata-san go straight home after the performance?”

“I wouldn’t know about that.” The wardrobe mistress smiled. “Usually he seemed to go home alone after performances. He didn’t drink much and didn’t seem to have many friends.”

“What about Naruse-san?”

“I don’t know about her either. Probably the other office people would know.” She turned to look at the clerk standing beside them.

“I can’t be sure,” the clerk cocked his head in doubt. “I don’t remember if she went home right away on that particular day. Naruse-san was a very hard worker. She never left the office early.”

“Do you have a time card system here?”

“No, we don’t.”

Imanishi wanted to find out whether Naruse Rieko had left the theater during work hours on May 11. “Was Naruse-san’s work the kind where she could have left for a while during her work hours?”

“Well, if she had wanted to, she could have. Her responsibility was to make sure everything was orderly after the performance was over. During the performance, she wouldn’t have been that busy.” The clerk added, “But she never left the theater during a performance.”

“You said on that occasion the theater was the Toyoko Hall. So naturally, Naruse-san was at Toyoko Hall as well?”

“Yes. There’s no doubt about that.”

“Sorry for asking such troublesome questions.” Imanishi bowed to the two theater employees.

If the murderer had put the raincoat on over his bloodstained clothes, no one would have noticed. He could even have taken a taxi without difficulty. That raincoat was the one Miyata wore on stage. And Miyata had shown a special liking for Naruse Rieko. Rieko, in turn, was passionately in love with another man. A thread connected these figures.

Imanishi recalled a passage from Rieko’s journal.

Must love be a lonely thing?

Our love has lasted for three years. Yet nothing has been built from this love… At night, despair haunts my dreams. And yet I must be strong. I must believe in him… This love always demands sacrifices of me. I must feel the joy of a martyr as I make sacrifices. Forever, he says. As long as I live, he will continue to demand that I sacrifice.

The passage spoke of three years. Rieko had started to work at the Avant-Garde Theater four years ago. Her first move was one year later. That meant that for three years she had lived at an address she had kept secret from the theater.

“This love always demands sacrifices of me,” she had written. And she had actually sacrificed for her love. She had stolen a costume from the theater for her lover and had taken it to him. It was also she who had cut up her lover’s shirt into tiny fragments. She had had no regrets about these acts that were against the law. “I must feel the joy of a martyr as I make sacrifices.”

Imanishi had been wrong. Not only had he mistaken the identity of her lover; he had also made a great error in his surmise that her apartment had been used as a hideout. No wonder no hideout could be discovered even after so much investigation around Kamata Station.

Imanishi ruminated, putting his thoughts in order.

A certain man decided to commit a murder. He realized that his clothes would become bloodstained. He could not hail a taxi in such a state. Before committing his crime, he called the Avant-Garde Theater at Toyoko Hall from a public phone booth. It was late at night, but Rieko was still there. He ordered her to bring him something to wear over his clothes. He also told her where to meet him. On the spur of the moment, she stole the raincoat, which was a stage costume worn by Miyata Kunio. Perhaps she had asked Miyata to sneak the raincoat out. That’s it, that must have been it. Otherwise, even if it were just one raincoat, her conscience would have prevented her from stealing something from the theater troupe. By taxi, it was a short ride from Shibuya to the scene of the crime. If she had taken the train, she could easily have changed at Gotanda or Meguro to reach the site. She met her lover, who was standing in the shadows, and handed him the raincoat.

Imanishi felt that what had puzzled him for so long had finally been made clear. There were still many things he did not know, but he told Yoshimura what he had concluded.

“I agree with you completely,” Yoshimura said in response. “I’m impressed, Imanishi-san.”

“Don’t flatter me,” Imanishi said, embarrassed. “If I had figured this out right off, I might be able to accept your praise, but this is the result of having gone around in so many circles.”

Three people related to the Nouveau group in some way had died since the Kamata murder was committed. Miyata, Miura, and Rieko. Imanishi now believed the Kamata railroad yard murder case was linked with these three deaths.

At about three o’clock the next day, Imanishi realized he was hungry. Finding a break point in his work, he headed for the fifth-floor coffee shop. Many others were already there. He ordered coffee and a piece of cake and took a seat.

At the table next to him were some men from the crime prevention section. He knew them by face, but not well enough to strike up a conversation. Among them were two men who were not in the police department, members of a crime prevention association. They were engaged in a lively discussion.

“These days many houses are equipped with burglar alarms,” one of the men from the crime prevention association was saying. “I think public relations by the police have had quite an effect in that area.”

Imanishi alternately ate a bite of cake and drank a sip of coffee.

“Alarms might be enough to dissuade burglars, but what hasn’t declined is the number of door-to-door peddlers,” a detective in the crime prevention section put in. “This is a real problem for us. You may avoid trouble by buying something for a hundred yen, but it is ridiculous to buy something knowing that it’s worthless.”

“Some housewives become frightened and hand over money to the peddler right away. Then the peddler becomes more obnoxious and pushes more items onto the poor victims. If they were to go ask for help from a neighbor, the peddler might steal something while they’re gone, and if the neighbors hear that it’s a gangster-peddler, they’re not likely to come to help out. It’s really a serious problem.”

“These days, though,” one of the crime prevention association members said with a chuckle, “there’s a miracle cure to get rid of pushy peddlers.”

“Really? What is that?”

“You have to install a special device.”

Imanishi overheard this comment and turned to look at the speaker. His ears had perked up when he had heard the word “peddler” in their conversation. Now that the talk was about equipment to repel peddlers, his attention was drawn even more.

“It’s like this…” the man from the association explained. “First I’ll tell you the effect. The peddler starts to feel sick and scurries away.”

“Really? Is that true?”

“It’s true,” the speaker nodded.

“Well, that really is a miracle cure. It’s funny to think that those pushy gangster-peddlers would run away feeling sick. What sort of equipment is it?”

Imanishi became even more curious. Drinking his coffee, Imanishi concentrated on listening.

“The machine is called an ultrasonic peddler repellent,” the man said.

“Ultrasonic…? Oh, yes, it must be a piece of electrical equipment.”

“No, it’s not electricity that causes this effect. A high sound can make the person feel sick.”

“If it’s a high sound, then wouldn’t the neighbors hear it?”

“No, it’s not that kind of high sound. I don’t understand the theory myself, but instead of causing a noise, it echoes in your body directly, making you feel strange.”

Imanishi remembered the fragment of a boring newspaper article. He had put it aside. The word “ultrasonic” had appeared in it. It was a strong force. It could drill metal, he recalled. He was intrigued. He waited until the group stood up, then he grabbed one of the detectives he knew by sight and whispered to him, “Who is that person who was talking about the peddler repellent machine just now?”

The detective told him, “That’s Yasuhiro-san of the crime prevention association. He runs a bicycle shop.”

“Could you introduce me to him? I’d like to ask him something.”

“Sure, glad to.”

“This is my name.” Imanishi gave Yasuhiro his card. “Thank you so much for your cooperation.” He bowed.

“Please don’t mention it.” The man named Yasuhiro also gave Imanishi his card, and the information he sought.

Imanishi left headquarters just after four o’clock. He had not felt so impatient about reaching a destination for a long time. Normally, he would have taken trains and buses, but today he made the extravagant choice of taking a taxi.

The communications research center was located in an empty lot surrounded by a flimsy wire fence. On the roof of the white, two-story, Western-style building were a parabola antenna shaped like a bowl and some steel towers for wireless transmission.

Hamanaka, the researcher Imanishi had come to see, had given instructions for a security guard to escort him to the sitting room. Soon the door opened and a man of about thirty-five with thinning hair above a broad forehead appeared.

“My name is Hamanaka.”

They exchanged name cards. On Hamanaka’s card was the designation “Post and Telecommunications Specialist.”

“I’m with the government, on temporary loan to this research center,” Hamanaka explained.

“As I mentioned to you over the telephone, I heard about the electronic peddler repellent device from a member of the crime prevention association. I hear that you invented it?”

“No, it’s not really my invention.” Specialist Hamanaka squinted his large eyes and chuckled. “The theory is very simple. But I may have been the first one to assemble it into something for practical use.”

“Could you please explain that theory to me in a way that a layman can understand?” Imanishi asked.

Hamanaka continued to smile. “It’s actually a sound.”

“A sound?”

“Yes. If I can explain a bit. We live every day among many sounds.” Hamanaka spoke, searching for simple words. “These sounds can be like notes of music, or they can be just noise. Among those sounds, there are some that are very unpleasant. For example, the sound of a saw screeching as it goes through wood, or the kind that makes you grind your teeth, like fingernails on a glass window. Those are unpleasant sounds, aren’t they?”

“They certainly are.”

“The difference in tone causes them to sound unpleasant. These tones come to us as waves through the air, so we call them sound waves. If these sound waves are sent in cycles at certain frequencies they can be very unpleasant for human beings. The peddler repellent device utilizes this acoustic effect.”

“I see.” Realizing that the theoretical discussion would become complicated from here on, Imanishi waited for the next words.

“If I can give you an example,” Hamanaka continued, smiling, “let’s say that you were made to listen to a low-frequency sound of ten cycles for several minutes. In this case, the sound is not what we normally call sound, but might be better described as vibrations. So it might be considered that you are not listening to the sound but are feeling the sound.”

Imanishi looked confused, so Hamanaka’s explanation became even more basic.

“You would feel uncomfortable after hearing that vibration for a while. Your head would start aching, and your body might start shaking. It’s a strange phenomenon.”

“Does one really react that way?” Imanishi asked, leaning forward.

“Yes, most definitely. What I just explained was a low sound that may just barely be heard or not heard at all. The same can be said about high sounds.”

“High sounds?”

“Yes. High sounds over ten thousand cycles in frequency. If one is exposed to twenty-thousand- to thirty-thousand-cycle sounds, rather than hearing them, one starts to feel strange. Both high-frequency and low-frequency sound waves are felt as very unpleasant sensations.”

He continued, “Please look at this. This diagram plots the average range of auditory senses of a number of people in terms of frequency and volume. The numbers along the bottom are the frequencies, and the numbers on the left side are the levels of volume. On the right side is sound pressure. The range of audible frequencies is usually said to be from ten thousand to twenty thousand cycles. As this diagram shows, the range narrows at lower volumes. We call the curve at the bottom the minimum auditory value, or the auditory limit. This means that we cannot hear sounds below this point. The curve at the top of this diagram is called the maximum auditory value, or the sensory limit. If we hear a sound higher than this, we feel discomfort or pain, or some other sensation.”

“So,” Imanishi said, “between twenty thousand and thirty thousand cycles, sound can make you sick?”

Hamanaka nodded.

“Very, very sick?” Imanishi asked.

“It would depend on individual susceptibility, of course. Those who are especially vulnerable could even die -if the cycle of sound waves went on and on.”

“I see,” Imanishi said. And he did.