Points And Lines

4 A Man from Tokyo

Jūtarō Torigai stood in front of the fruit store across the square from the railway station. "May I ask you a question?" The middle-aged storekeeper put down the apple he was polishing and turned to greet him. Shopkeepers are generally surly if addressed in this manner but when Torigai said he was from the police the man became attentive.

"How late do you keep the store open at night?" Torigai asked.

"I stay open until about 11."

"From here would you be able to see the passengers coming out of the station, say at 9:30 at night?"

"Nine-thirty? Oh, yes. There's a train from Hakata that arrives at 9:24 and I watch the people as they come out. The shop is quiet at that hour and I look for a possible customer."

"I see. On the night of the twentieth did you happen to notice a man about thirty years old, dressed in Western clothes, and a woman of about twenty-five, in kimono, coming out of the station at that time?"

"The night of the twentieth? That's some time ago. Hmm."

The storekeeper bent his head as if in thought. Torigai was aware that the question was difficult; the event had occurred four or five days before. The man would probably not remember the date. He thought of a better way of putting the question. "Have you heard of the recent suicides, here on the beach?"

"You mean the two bodies that were found on the beach the other morning? Yes, I heard about them and read about them in the papers."

"That's right. That was the morning of the twenty-first. The twentieth was therefore the night before. Now do you recall anything?"

The storekeeper slapped his thigh. He was wearing a heavy apron that carried the store's name in big letters. "You mean the night before the suicides. Now I remember. I saw them."

Torigai's eyes lighted up. "What, you saw them both?"

"Yes, I saw them. I remember it because of what happened the following morning. Let me see, that night there were only about ten passengers from the 9:24 train. There are never many, anyway, at that time of night. Among them I noticed a man and a woman who answer your description. I hoped they would stop to buy some fruit so I kept watching them from here."

"Did they buy anything?"

"No. They walked in the direction of the Nishitetsu station and disappeared. I was disappointed. Then there was the excitement the following morning and I wondered if that was the couple who had committed suicide. That's why I remember them."

"Did you see their faces?" Torigai looked intently at the storekeeper as he asked the question.

The man rubbed his chin with one hand. "As you can see, the station is rather far away. Besides, the station lights are behind the people as they come out. From here they are little more than black shadows. I can't see their faces. I know these two only from their pictures in the papers."

"Hmm." Torigai's shoulders sagged a little. "What about their clothes?"

"I don't know about that either. I saw them walk away, and I vaguely recall that the man was wearing an overcoat and the woman was in kimono."

"Could you see the pattern of the kimono?"

"Impossible." The storekeeper smiled apologetically.

A customer was in the shop, selecting oranges. He appeared to be listening to the conversation.

"You say the couple seemed to be heading for the private railway station. Is that in the direction of the beach?" Torigai asked.

"Yes, yes. If you go past that station you'll come to the beach."

Torigai thanked the storekeeper and left. I've found out a good deal, he thought as he walked away. His intuition was correct. While waiting at the station entrance he had had a hunch that perhaps someone in the shop had noticed them, and he was right. It was unfortunate that the shopkeeper had not seen their faces, but Torigai was certain that the two passengers were Kenichi Sayama and Otoki. They had come by train from Hakata, arriving at Kashii railway station at 9:24 on the night of the twentieth. This meant that they had left Hakata station about 9:10 since it was only a fifteen-minute journey.

Assuming Sayama had left the inn at about eight o'clock, after receiving the phone call from the woman, where did they meet and what did they do for that one hour before getting on the train at Hakata? This would be difficult to ascertain, probably impossible. There was no place from which to start checking in a city the size of Hakata.

Torigai was walking slowly towards the Nishitetsu station, pondering the problem, when someone called to him from behind.

"Excuse me!" Torigai turned around. A young man was approaching. "Are you from the police?" His manner was diffident.

"Yes," Torigai answered. The man was carrying a paper bag full of oranges. Torigai remembered seeing him make the purchase at the fruit store he had just left.

"I overheard your conversation while I was buying these oranges," the young man explained as he came up to Torigai. "I want to tell you that I also saw the couple you were inquiring about. It was around 9:30, the night of the twentieth."

"Oh," exclaimed Torigai, his voice betraying his surprise. Looking around, he saw a small shop at the side of the road that looked like a coffee shop and invited the rather shy young man to enter with him. Over a cup of something black and steaming that was said to be coffee he studied the young stranger. "Please tell me what you know."

"I really have little to tell," said the young man, scratching his head. "But when I overheard your conversation, I thought the few facts I have might be of use to you."

"That's kind of you. Please tell me what you know."

"I live here but I commute to Hakata where I work," the young stranger began. "The night before the bodies were found, therefore the night of the twentieth, I too saw a couple who resembled the pictures in the papers of the two who committed suicide. They arrived at Nishitetsu Kashii Station at 9:35."

"Wait a moment." Torigai held up his hand. "You say the Nishitetsu line?"

"Yes. That train leaves Keirinjo-mae at 9:27. It takes only eight minutes to get here." Keirinjo-mae is in Hakozaki, on the extreme eastern edge of Hakata.

"I see. Was it in the train that you saw the couple?"

"No, not in the train. The train had two coaches and I was in the second coach. There were only a few passengers so if they had been in my coach I would have noticed them. They must have been in the first coach."

"Then where did you see them?"

"After I came through the gate and was walking home. I had had a few drinks at Hakata that night and was a bit drunk so I was walking slowly. Two or three passengers who followed me through the gate soon passed me by. They were local people I know by sight. There was also a couple I did not recognize. They came from behind and walked past me quickly. The man wore an overcoat; the woman had a Japanese coat over her kimono. They took the deserted road that leads to the beach. I didn't think anything of it at the time. But then there was the incident the next morning! According to the papers they died around ten o'clock that night, so I wondered if they were not the couple I had noticed."

"Did you see their faces?"

"As I said before, they came from behind and hurried past me so I saw them only from the back."

"How about the color of the overcoat or the pattern of the kimono?"

"I didn't notice that either. The road was dark and I was a bit under the weather. But I did hear something the woman said."

Torigai's eyes brightened. "What did she say?"

"Just as they went past I heard her say, 'What a lonely place!'"

"What a lonely place," Jūtarō repeated to himself, half-mumbling. "What did the man say?"

"He said nothing; he just kept on walking."

"Did you notice anything in particular about the woman's voice?"

"No, it was a pleasant voice. But she didn't have the local accent. People around here don't speak like that. I believe it was a Tokyo accent."

Torigai took a cigarette from a crumpled packet and lit it. The smoke drifted in the air while he thought of other questions.

"That was the local train that arrived at 9:35?"

"No mistake about that. I make a point of always catching the same train, even if I stay over in Hakata for a drink or two."

Torigai pondered the answer. He was trying to determine whether the couple the young man had encountered was the same couple the fruit store dealer had seen, emerging from the main railway station. The young man had not seen them in his coach; he merely took it for granted that they had traveled with him in the same train because they had overtaken him outside the gate. The other train had arrived at the railway station at 9:24. His train had arrived at Nishitetsu Kashii Station at 9:35. Thus, there was a difference of eleven minutes. The distance between the two stations was about five hundred meters. The road to the beach from the railway station passed in front of the private railway station, so the time and place agreed.

"That is all I have to tell you." The young man stood up. He looked at Torigai who was still deep in thought. "I wanted to give you this information when I heard you making inquiries at the fruit store."

"Thank you very much." Torigai asked the stranger for his name and address and bowed low to him to show his sincere gratitude. Just to hear the one remark the woman had made was worth a good deal.

It was already dark when they left the coffee shop.

"What a lonely place!" The words the young man had repeated rang in Torigai's ears. It was as if he himself had overheard them.

That chance remark led Torigai to make three deductions:

From the woman's speech, he concluded that she was not from the area. She was not from Fukuoka and very likely not even from Kyushu.

As the words indicated, the place must have been unfamiliar to her.

Therefore, she was not asking the man to agree; it sounded, on the contrary, as if she were giving her impression of the place to someone who had been there before. The fact that the man did not answer, that he continued to walk rapidly, supported this view.

In short, the man must have been familiar with the area, whereas the woman was seeing it for the first time. She had a Tokyo accent, and the scene occurred shortly before the suicides were believed to have taken place Torigai believed he could safely assume that the two people the storekeeper had noticed were the same two who had passed the young man on the road.

Of course, on second thought, he had no proof. In Fukuoka alone were thousands of visitors from Tokyo, and the fact that a couple was seen walking in the Kashii area at that hour of the night could be purely accidental and have no connection with the double suicide But Torigai refused to entertain these doubts. He believed they were the two people who had committed suicide.

A cold wind was blowing. The stars were unusually bright in a very black sky.

Jūtarō Torigai returned to the railway station. Pausing at the entrance, he looked at his watch. It was an old timepiece but kept excellent time. He then started walking as if he had a stopwatch in his hand. He walked briskly, stooping slightly, his hands in his pockets. He was once again heading for the private railway station. The wind whipped the edges of his overcoat.

Coming to the brightly lighted station he looked at his watch. It has taken him less than six minutes. It took less than six minutes, he noted, to walk from one station to the other.

Torigai repeated the experiment. Again timing his walk, he turned around and headed back towards the national railway station. He could almost judge his speed from the sound of his footsteps. Arriving at the station, he checked his time. A little over six minutes!

For the third time, he started back on the same road. He deliberately slowed his steps. He studied the houses on either side of the road, as if taking a leisurely stroll. When he reached the private railway station he looked at his watch. Eight minutes!

The exercise had proved that it took six to seven minutes to walk, at a normal pace, from the Kashii national railway station to the Kashii Nishitetsu Station.

The couple the storekeeper had noticed coming out of the railway station were passengers on the 9:24. The couple the young man saw at the Nishitetsu station was among the passengers who had arrived on the 9:35. Thus, there was a time lapse of eleven minutes. If it was the same couple in both instances, it had taken them eleven minutes to walk from the one station to the other.

What does this mean, Torigai asked himself. No matter how slow the pace, it had taken him only about eight minutes to cover the distance. How could they have taken eleven minutes? He remembered the young man telling him that the couple had passed him walking rapidly. If true, if they had walked fast, it shouldn't have taken them more than five minutes. How to explain the eleven minutes? Two alternatives came to Torigai's mind: 1. they stopped along the way for some reason, a purchase, for instance; 2. the couple seen by the storekeeper and the couple seen by the young man were not the same people. They were different couples.

Either alternative was possible. The first was probable enough while the second, equally acceptable, would account for the time lag of eleven minutes. Torigai had to admit there was no proof that it was the same couple seen in both places. The identification rested on the fact that in both instances the man wore an overcoat and the woman a kimono. No one had observed their faces or noticed the pattern of the kimono.

If there were two couples, then the one seen by the young man at the private railway station was very likely Sayama and Otoki.

The woman's exclamation had deeply impressed Torigai. On the other hand, he could not be certain that the couple seen at the railway station was not the pair in question. They could very well have stopped along the way. Torigai was not ready to give up the idea that the two couples were the same.

In the end, still undecided, he returned to his home in Hakata and went to bed.

Reporting to work the following morning he found two telegrams on his desk. He opened one: "Kenichi traveled often to Hakata on business. [Signed] Sayama." He took up the other one: "Hideko had never visited Hakata."

These were replies to the telegrams he had sent from Kashii Station the day before. The first was from Kenichi Sayama's brother, the branch bank manager; the other, from Mrs. Kuwayama, Otoki's mother. The implication was quite clear: Kenichi Sayama had made many trips to Hakata on business; therefore he knew the locality well. Otoki, on the other hand, had not been in Hakata before.

Torigai recalled the scene of a woman exclaiming, "What a lonely place," and of a man walking rapidly towards the beach without making a reply.

Torigai accomplished one task in the course of the morning. Leaving the police station, he took a streetcar to Hakozaki and from there walked to the Keirinjo-mae station on the Nishitetsu line. This line continues on to Tsuyazaki, a port on the north coast of Kyushu, passing through Kashii. It was a bright and unusually warm day for winter.

Torigai presented his card to the station master.

"What brings you here?" asked the stout, ruddy-faced man in uniform from behind his desk.

"On the night of the twentieth a train on this line arrived at Kashii station at 9:35. What time did it leave here?" Torigai inquired.

"Nine twenty-seven," the station master replied promptly.

"I have some questions I'd like to ask the man who was on the gate that night. Is he around?"

"Let me see." The station master ordered his assistant to check. The name was on the office record and the man was found to be on duty. The assistant went to fetch him.

"Has anything happened?" the station master asked while they waited.

"Yes, an incident." Torigai took a sip of the tea that had been offered to him.

"You have a tough job," the station master commented.

A station employee entered the office, approached the desk and saluted. "This is the man who was on duty that night," said the station master.

Torigai turned to address him. "I'm sorry to trouble you, young man. Were you on duty at the gate when the 9:27 train left on the night of the twentieth?"

"Yes, sir, I was."

"Among the passengers did you by chance see a man, about twenty-seven or twenty-eight years old, wearing an overcoat, accompanied by a woman, around twenty-three or twenty-four, in kimono?"

"Let me think." The young man blinked his eyes. "There were many men wearing overcoats. Can you give me the color of their clothing?"

"The overcoat was a dark navy blue and he was wearing brown trousers. The women's coat was gray and under it she wore a brick-red kimono." Torigai was describing the clothes found on the two bodies on the beach. The young man tried to concentrate, his eyes looking into space.

"I'm afraid I don't remember. You see, most of the time we notice only the hands when we punch the tickets. Unless something unusual happens we seldom look at the faces of passengers. And anyway, since this is the start of the line, as soon as the gate opens passengers crowd through the wickets."

"But surely there was no crowd at that hour of the night?" Tongai remarked.

'There might have been thirty or forty passengers; that's about average."

"It's more usual for women to dress in western style these days, it seems to me. Not many wear kimono. Do think again; see if you can't remember."

"I'm afraid I can't."

Torigai was not easily put off. He insisted, but the station employee kept shaking his head and repeating that he could not remember. Jūtarō suddenly had another thought.

"Well, then, perhaps some people you know came through the gate that night."

"I believe there were."

"There were? Do you recall their names?"

"There were three, as I remember, all three old acquaintances of mine. I know their names and where they live."

"Excellent. Please let me have that information."

Torigai took it down in his notebook. He thanked both men for their cooperation and left the office. The next few hours were spent largely afoot. The three individuals lived along the Nishitetsu line Torigai visited in turn Wajiro, Shingu and Fukuma stations.

The man residing at Wajiro had this to report:

"I was in the first of the two coaches and remember seeing two women wearing gray coats. One was about forty years old, the other about twenty-six or twenty-seven. Seated to either side of them were some young office girls. I don't believe there was a man in a navy blue overcoat."

Torigai took Otoki's picture out of his pocket and showed it to him. "Was she the younger of the two women?" he asked.

"No, the features were very different."

The man living at Shingu said he had been in the second coach.

"A woman wearing a coat? I don't know. Maybe she was there. Actually, I fell asleep almost immediately. And I don't recall seeing a man in a dark blue overcoat either." Torigai showed him the two pictures but he failed to recognize them.

The last of the three passengers, the one from Fukuma, had more to say: "In the second coach, where I was, there was a woman wearing a coat. Yes, I suppose she could have been about twenty-five or twenty-six."

"Was the coat gray?"

"I don't remember the color. But so many coats are gray, this one could have been also. She was talking all the time to the man seated beside her."

"A man? What type of man?" Torigai was aroused. The answer was disappointing.

"They could have been a married couple. He looked over forty. He was wearing a kimono."

Torigai showed him the pictures but the man saw no resemblance to the couple he had described. He added that he could not remember the color of the man's overcoat.

Torigai returned to Hakata weary and despondent. He had been unable to determine whether Otoki and Sayama had been aboard the train.

When he entered the police station the chief got up immediately from his desk, as if he had been waiting for him. "Ah, Torigai," he said, "someone is here from the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Board to see you."

A young stranger, wearing street clothes, was sitting next to the chief. He looked up at Torigai and smiled.