Points And Lines

9 Landscape with Figures

The house stood at the bottom of a slight slope, some distance from the station. Most of the houses in the neighborhood were of wood, the walls a combination of bamboo and cedar. The Yasuda home had only one story and was quite small. It was shaded by a few tall cedars and a hedge enclosed the tiny garden. It was the kind of place a person would choose to recuperate in.

Mihara pressed the bell. He could hear it ringing in the house. He took a deep breath; the task before him was not a pleasant one.

The door was opened by an elderly woman.

"My name is Mihara; I'm from Tokyo. I'm a friend of Mr. Yasuda's. I happened to be in the neighborhood and have called to inquire about Mrs. Yasuda."

The servant listened politely, then disappeared indoors. She presently returned. "Please come in," she said.

She showed him into a Japanese-style room, about eight mats in size. The sunlight, slanting through the sliding glass doors that faced the garden, reached to the middle of the room where a bed was spread on the tatami.

Mrs. Yasuda was sitting up in the bed, waiting to receive her guest. The servant slipped a haori over her shoulders while she acknowledged Mihara's greeting. The dark silk jacket had a brilliant red pattern that formed a pool of color in the center of the room. She was a woman in her early thirties; her hair was tied loosely at the back and on her thin, extremely pale face Mihara noticed a trace of make-up, as if she had put it on hastily to receive him.

"Please forgive me for dropping in unannounced," Mihara said. "My name is Mihara; I'm a friend of Mr. Yasuda's. I was in the neighborhood and felt I should call." He could not very well hand her his official business card.

"It is very kind of you. I am Mr. Yasuda's wife."

She was very beautiful. Her eyes were large, the nose rather thin and pointed. The line from cheek to chin was angular and sharp but there was no noticeable sign of illness. A broad forehead, very slightly creased, gave her an air of intelligence.

"I hope you're feeling better," Mihara said. He felt guilty for deceiving her.

"Thank you. It will be a long convalescence, I'm afraid; I have given up hope of a quick recovery." A polite smile played about her lips.

"That is unfortunate. But perhaps now that it's getting warmer you'll get better more quickly. It has been a particularly cold winter."

Mrs. Yasuda looked out at the garden, her eyes blinking in the bright light. "This part of Kamakura does have a mild climate. There's usually a difference of four or five degrees be-. tween here and Tokyo. Even so, it has been very cold. I'm glad the warm weather has set in."

She looked up at Mihara. She had clear, beautiful eyes, and her gestures were graceful but studied, as if she calculated the effect of her glances. "Forgive me for asking, but are you a business friend of my husband?"

"In a way," Mihara replied vaguely. He was feeling uncomfortable. He would have to explain later to Yasuda.

"I'm sure my husband must be greatly indebted to you."

"On the contrary, it is I who's obligated to him." Perspiration appeared on Mihara's forehead. He quickly changed the subject. "Is Mr. Yasuda able to come here often?"

The invalid answered with a slow smile. "He's a busy man. But he makes a point of coming once a week." This confirmed what Yasuda had told him.

"How difficult for you both! But I'm glad to hear that your husband is so very busy."

He glanced casually around the room. Time must be heavy on her hands, he thought, as he noted the stacks of books in a corner of the alcove. He was surprised to see a literary monthly on top of one pile; atop another, a foreign novel in translation. Under the latter he noticed a paper pamphlet, the size and thickness of a small magazine. It looked familiar but the cover was hidden.

The servant entered with cups of tea. Mihara felt he should leave.

"Forgive me again for coming by unannounced. Do please take good care of your health."

Mrs. Yasuda looked up at him. In that light her eyes were almost blue and very bright. "Thank you for coming," she said quietly.

When Mihara presented the box of cakes she bowed formally to him from her bed. He noticed for the first time that her shoulders were pitifully thin.

The servant accompanied him to the door and while he was putting on his shoes he casually asked, "Who is Mrs. Yasuda's doctor?"

"Dr. Hasegawa. He lives near Daibutsu-mae." It was said without a moment's hesitation. There was even a note of friendliness in her voice as if she were grateful for his interest.

Mihara took the Enoshima Line to Daibutsu-mae. Once again the train was full of school children on a day's excursion.

He had no trouble finding Dr. Hasegawa's private clinic. At the entrance he presented his official card.

Dr. Hasegawa was a stout, ruddy-faced man with white hair, neatly combed. He put aside the business card, which he had been studying, and offered Mihara the chair beside his desk. He waited for Mihara to speak.

"I'm calling on you to get some information concerning a patient of yours, a Mrs. Yasuda."

At this remark, Dr. Hasegawa looked again at Mihara's card. "Is this an official inquiry?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Does it concern the patient's private life?"

"No, neither personal nor private. I merely want to know her state of health. Information of a general nature will be enough."

The doctor nodded. He asked the nurse to bring Mrs. Yasuda's card.

"She has tuberculosis. The treatment generally takes a long time. She's been ill now for three years. To be frank, in her case I see very little hope of recovery. I've told Mr. Yasuda. For the time being, her strength is being sustained by the injections I'm giving her."

"Is she confined to her bed?"

"No, she's able to get up from time to time, but she seldom goes out."

"She doesn't go out at all?"

"She can take short walks. And once in a great while she visits a relative living in Yugawara. She stays there a day or two. That much she can do."

"Do you visit her every day, Doctor?"

"No, not every day; her condition is not that critical. I make a point of going on Tuesdays and Fridays. And sometimes on Sunday afternoon."

The doctor smiled at Mihara's puzzled expression. "Mrs. Yasuda has literary tastes," he explained. "Patients who have a long convalescence often turn to literature. In her case, she's not only an avid reader of novels but sometimes she herself writes short stories and essays."

Mihara recalled the magazines and the foreign novels he had seen in her room.

"I, too, am interested in literature," the doctor continued. "I'm a friend of Masao Kume, the novelist. There are many writers living here in Kamakura but Kume is the only one I know. At my age one is a bit shy about calling on such people. But we have a group here, elderly people for the most part, who like to write-short pieces and poems- and we put out a little monthly magazine. It's our hobby; we turn to it as others do to bonsai, for example. Since we have this interest in common, sometimes I call on Mrs. Yasuda on Sunday afternoons and we talk about literature. We both enjoy it. About six months ago she gave me a copy of a short essay she had written. May I show it to you?"

It was in a little magazine of about thirty pages called Nanrin. Mihara turned to the index. He quickly found the essay, Landscape with Figures. Under the title was the name Ryōko Yasuda. This was her full name, he learned for the first time. He began to read the article with the curious title.

When one is confined to bed for a long time, reading becomes an absolute need. Of late, however, I have become weary of contemporary fiction. When only part of the way through a novel, I begin to lose interest and soon put it aside. One day, when my husband had come to see me, he happened to leave behind a railway timetable. I picked it up out of sheer boredom. A timetable is of no use to me, bed-ridden invalid that I am, but I found it surprisingly interesting. It was far more entertaining than a poorly written novel. My husband uses a timetable very often because of his many business trips. He is familiar with it for practical business reasons, whereas I, an invalid, have become a constant reader not out of necessity but for the sheer pleasure it gives me.

This timetable has the names of all the stations in Japan. As I read them, I can picture each one, even to the surrounding landscape. The small local stations are the ones that really stir my imagination. Toyotsu, Saikawa, Saki-yama, Yusubaru, Magarikane, Ita, Gotō-ji, these are names of little stations on the local lines in Kyushu. Shinjō, Masukata, Tsuya, Furukuchi, Takaya, Karikawa, Amarume lie along the local railways in the Tohoku region. The name Yusubaru, for instance, suggests to me a village set in a deep ravine filled with the luxuriant flora of the south; Amarume, I imagine to be a desolate little town in the northeast, cowering under a sullen sky. In my mind's eye I see the villages, the towns, the mountains that surround these stations, the houses and even the people living there. I recall a phrase in the famous Tsuretsuregusa which says, 'Whenever I hear a name, I seem to be able to visualize the person.' Well, I feel the same way about places. When I am bored, I open to a page in the timetable. No matter which page, I am carried away. I am free to travel through San-in, Shikoku, Hokuriku, just as I please.

But my imagination does not stop there; it extends into the element of time. For example, I may look casually at my watch: it is 1:36 in the afternoon. I turn the pages of the timetable and look for a station marked by the numerals 1:36. I find that at Sekiya Station on the Echigo Line, number 122 has just pulled in. At the same moment, people are getting off number 139 at Akune station on the Kago-shima Main Line. Number 815 has arrived at Hida Miyata. At Fujiu on the Sanyo Line, Iida in Shinshū, Kusano on the Jōban Line, Higashinoshiro on the Ōu Main Line, Ōji on the Kansai Main Line, at all these stations, trains have come to a stop at this same instant.

At this very moment, as I lie abed staring at my emaciated hands, trains are coming to a stop at certain stations in Japan. People from every walk of life and with varied backgrounds are getting on and off these trains. I close my eyes and picture the scene. If I check the time and the station I may even learn how trains pass each other and at which station and at what hour. This can be fascinating! How and when trains connect or pass each other is deliberate and planned, but the meeting and parting of passengers is purely accidental. At such moments I can imagine the ceaseless movements of these thousands as their paths cross and their lives briefly brush past each other in those faraway places. I find more pleasure in my own flights of fancy than in novels born of the imagination of others. It is a pleasure wrung from the dreams of a lonely woman.

The railway timetable with its numbers and Chinese ideographs is one of my favorite books these days.

Mihara finished reading and put the little magazine aside.

"An interesting idea, don't you think?" the doctor remarked. "Of course, these thoughts occur to her because she is confined to her room."

"I suppose so." Mihara's answer was curt. How Ryōko Yasuda felt or what she imagined did not interest him. What she had written at the beginning of the article was the important point. "My husband uses a timetable very often because of his many business trips. He is familiar with it…" For a moment, Mihara forgot the doctor's presence.

By the time Mihara had returned to his office it was close to eight o'clock. Inspector Kasai had already gone home. On the desk, under an ink bottle, Mihara found a telegram. It had arrived sooner than expected, he thought as he opened it. The message was from the Sapporo Central Police Station in Hokkaido and was a reply to his inquiry.

"Kawanishi of Futaba Company says he met Yasuda at Sapporo Station on Jan. 21 stop Yasuda stayed at Marusō Inn Jan. 22 and 23."

He had half expected the confirmation; nevertheless he was disappointed. Kawanishi did meet Yasuda at Sapporo Station on January 21; Yasuda did stay at the Marusō Inn on Jan. 22 and 23. It was exactly as the man had claimed.

Mihara sat down at his desk and lit a cigarette. He was alone in the room. He could think quietly.

Yes, it was the answer he had expected. Yasuda would not tell a lie that could be easily detected. This meant that Yasuda had actually arrived in Hokkaido on the twenty-first. Sayama and Otoki committed suicide in Kyushu, at the other end of Japan, on the night of the twentieth; their bodies were discovered the following morning. During this time, Yasuda was aboard the express Towada on his way to Hokkaido. He had to be; he could not have met Kawanishi at Sapporo Station otherwise.

But Mihara was troubled by the fact that Yasuda had used the four minutes at Tokyo Station to make a third party witness Sayama and Otoki's departure. Why he had done this was still not clear. And since it was not clear, he could not help connecting Yasuda's movements on the twentieth and the twenty-first with the tragedy in Kyushu. Mihara was honest enough to admit to himself that he wanted to make the connection. He suspected Yasuda. Of what, he was still unable to say. Yet the man was actually traveling away from Kyushu at the time. Instead of going west he was going north!

He lit a second cigarette. Was there something suspicious, he wondered, in the mere fact that Yasuda was traveling in the opposite direction? Wasn't there something unusual, almost forced, in this trip of Yasuda's? Could it have been as deliberate, as carefully planned, as his use of the four-minute interval?

Mihara took from his desk drawer the file which contained the reports on the suicides. These were the materials that Tori-gai had collected for him. It was a long time since he had given a thought to that kindly little man with the thin face and the tired eyes.

He looked through the documents. Sayama and Otoki… they had swallowed potassium cyanide… the night of January 20, between the hours of 10 and 11. Double suicide, the police had concluded. There was the autopsy report.

He turned to the railway timetable on his desk. At that particular hour, he noted, the express Towada was passing through Hisa-no-hama or Hirono. He looked again at the schedule. At 6:30 on the morning of the twenty-first, the hour the bodies were discovered, the train had just left Ichinohe station in Iwate Prefecture. If Yasuda was a passenger it would be impossible to connect him with the events on Kashii Beach in Kyushu, either as to time or to place.

He had reached this conclusion when he realized suddenly that his manner of checking the trains was exactly as Mrs. Yasuda had described in the little magazine. The thought made him smile. In her essay she had written that her husband was always studying the timetable. Could that mean that he knew it thoroughly, perhaps by heart? Mihara had heard of people who were amused by such things. There was certainly something strange about this interest of his. Could a train schedule be the basis of an alibi?

No, it was incorrect to call it an alibi. Yasuda's absence from Tokyo during the three eventful days had been confirmed. Now what was needed was evidence that he had not been in Kyushu, that he was not on his way to Kyushu during this period.

Mihara picked up the telegram and reread it. He was not questioning the reply. The statements must be correct. But the important facts were missing. It was as if he were seeing a building from the outside only. There was something more, some addition, perhaps, to the structure that could not be seen from where he stood.

I've got to go to Hokkaido, he said to himself. In order to find out what was wrong with a thing, one had to see it, touch it, feel it. This was equally true of an investigation.

The next morning, as soon as Inspector Kasai arrived Mihara went up to his desk.

"We have the reply from Sapporo," he said, showing Kasai the telegram.

"Just as Yasuda reported," the inspector commented. "Sit down." He knew Mihara wanted to talk to him.

"I went to Kamakura yesterday," Mihara began.

"I know, I read the memo you left on my desk."

"I called on Yasuda's wife. I wanted to check his statements. She's in bed with tuberculosis, just as he said."

"Which means that everything he's told us so far has been true."

"I suppose so. But I came upon an interesting piece of information." Mihara then told him about the magazine article by Ryko Yasuda which the doctor had given him to read, and how it had mentioned Yasuda's interest in the railway timetable.

"That is interesting, to be sure." The chief folded his hands on the desk. "It could have some bearing on the four-minute train interval at Tokyo Station."

"I believe so too." Mihara was encouraged. "The fact that Yasuda deliberately had witnesses present during those four minutes makes me believe that he had something to do with the double suicide. This is just a hunch. I have nothing to support it. But I feel almost certain that he had something to do with it." Mihara was finally admitting that he believed a crime had been committed in connection with the suicides.

"Exactly!"

His boss, he discovered, was of the same opinion.

"I would like your permission to go to Hokkaido. I cannot accept the story that Yasuda was on his way to Hokkaido the day of the suicides. Even though we have the report from the Sapporo police, I can't help feeling that there are hidden facts in the case. When we find out what they are, we'll know why Yasuda needed to have a third party witness Sayama's departure from Tokyo Station."

Kasai did not answer at once. His sat thinking, his eyes averted. Suddenly he said, "Good! We've come this far. Go and investigate and clear away the suspicions. I'll talk to the section chief."

Mihara looked up at him, a question in his glance. "Is the section chief opposed to further investigation?"

"Not exactly opposed," Kasai answered vaguely. "There's no point in pursuing an investigation when the case is clearly one of suicide, he once said to me. For that reason he doesn't want to waste time on it. But don't you worry, I'll talk to him."

Inspector Kasai smiled at Mihara as if to encourage him.