The Lady Killer

THE LAWYERS

Hajime Shinji hastily got up from the mattress and quilts on the floor, which made up his bed, and pulled a shirt with a dirty collar over his torso. Without pausing to choose, he grabbed the nearest tie he could find and knotted it around his neck. The rest of his toilet was just as perfunctory, and within minutes he was on the way out of his room, leaving the bedding rumpled just as it was on the floor. There was a newspaper in his letterbox; without glancing at it, he rolled the pages, which still smelled of fresh ink, and stuffed it into his pocket and hurried off down the street.

Such had been the daily pattern of Hajime Shinji’s life since he had graduated from the Regal Institute of Law and Research and begun work as an attorney at the Hatanaka Law Office.

On the station platform he bought two bottles of milk and gulped them down as he waited for the train. It arrived, and he was borne along in the throng and squeezed into the crowded compartment.

Shinji was not tall—a mere five feet three inches—but his swarthy face and muscular body gave him an appearance of intrepidity. His main problem nowadays was that he was beginning to lose interest in the work that had so fascinated him when he had first joined the law office. As his curiosity had become blunted, everything he did seemed to become reduced to mere routine and became meaningless to him. The courts, which had once seemed to him to be the personification of legal solemnity, now seemed no more than gray buildings where the same futile arguments were continuously repeated. Hajime Shinji was bored.

The chief of the law office where he worked was Kentaro Hatanaka. A senior figure in the profession, he had completed two terms as president of his local lawyers’ association and was well known for the articles he wrote for magazines. He had saved many men from the death sentence and was much in demand as an appeal lawyer. But he had his enemies. They would say of him that he courted publicity, or that, with his reputation, he took work away from other lawyers. It was further alleged by his critics that he only took on cases when victory seemed certain. And, most of all, his colleagues criticized him for taking on cases even when it seemed certain that the defendant could never pay. This was regarded as a particularly obnoxious form of self-promotion.

Shinji had no patience for such views. The reason that he had joined Hatanaka’s practice in the first place had been his deep sense of respect for this upright old man, alone in the world without wife or child, a humanist whose whole life rotated around trials in court, and who applied himself to everything he did in a manner that made it clear that he believed it to be worth doing.

And yet, despite his respect for Hatanaka, Shinji’s life had recently come to seem empty. For his ambition had always been to be a judge and not a lawyer. It had been this dream that had sustained him through all those night classes at the Regal Institute after his grueling day’s work as a forwarding clerk at a department store. When, to reduce the long vista of study that lay before him, he had opted for the attorney’s course rather than the judicial one, he had felt guilty; he was letting society down, he thought, merely for considerations of his own welfare. And this feeling still remained with him.

A lawyer should be proud of his profession; he knew that. But what was the purpose of a life passed as a public defender in so many trivial cases? It had become his lot to defend petty filchers, sneak thieves, and demented people who set fire to garbage piles and were accused of arson. Once, he had been involved in a case where a teenage boy had stabbed a taxi driver in order to rob him of the princely sum of two thousand yen. His ambition was to become involved in some great and dramatic case where love and hate were intertwined; gradually he had come to realize that, in real life, such cases did not exist for him.

Such, then, were his thoughts as he went to work today. But today, had he but known it, was different, for the Hatanaka Law Office had just accepted the Appeal Court case of Ichiro Honda.

It was a week later when Shinji was sent for by Hatanaka. He found his chief deeply ensconced in the comfortable leather chair behind his desk, smoking a pungent cigar.

“Sit down,” the old man said. “Yes, there will do. Now, you have read the reports of the Ichiro Honda murder trial, haven’t you?”

“Yes, sir,” Shinji replied. “I even went to one of the sessions, as the defending counsel, Wada, was my senior at law school.”

“Indeed? Well, Wada will be helping us in the appeal case, too. A serious-minded fellow, that. All right in his way, but lacks flexibility, wouldn’t you agree? He’s too cautious; unimaginative, too. Well, I won’t ask you to comment on your senior.”

The old man fell silent for a moment, his worn-out eyes fixed upon the drifting smoke of his cigar. Then he began to speak again.

“What do you think of the Honda case?”

Shinji had observed Honda in the prisoner’s box at the trial, although he had mostly only seen his profile. To tell the truth, he had felt no particular interest in this man who had sat with downcast eyes as the prosecutor had launched into a peroration on how he had strangled women merely to satisfy his abnormal sexual instincts.

“Well, I got the impression that although Honda is essentially a weak man, he could, nonetheless, be capable of the cold-blooded acts of which he was accused.”

He picked his words carefully and the old lawyer detected this and smiled.

“Yes, well, I daresay you are right. But nevertheless I’m not satisfied. It doesn’t fit, somehow; murder doesn’t go with my image of the defendant.”

He paused again and then went on.

“Think of it this way. We know that Honda was a lady’s man. Why, then, did he only become a monster with those three women? With so many victims of his sexual charm, why only those three? Did he try it and fail in other cases, I wonder? If he is such a pervert, did he have, shall we say, unconsummated affairs? Were there others he tried to strangle without success?”

“I don’t think the police went into this aspect far enough. They were just out for a conviction; that’s their job, I suppose. But I agree that the other women of his acquaintance should have been investigated. I suppose they didn’t want to come forward for obvious reasons.”

“Quite. So I’ve got a little job for you. I want you to contact Honda’s other girlfriends and see what you can find out.” Hatanaka looked quizzically at Shinji, blowing a smoke ring the while.

“But how can I find them?”

“Oh, that’s easy enough; I’ve got a list. Here it is. Wada got a detective agency to track them all down. Of course, it’s only a fraction of the women he has been involved with, but it will do for a start. Find out if he ever seemed violent or threatening with them.”

He passed the list across the desk, and Shinji studied it. Names and brief personal histories appeared, together with sketch maps of the apartments and workplaces of the women.

“Those are all that Honda remembers for sure, it seems. There were plenty more, but he says that they were all listed in his hunting diary, which he claims vanished from his hideout.”

“Hunting diary?”

The old man explained.

“Did he really keep such a diary, do you think?”

“Well, if he did, and if we can find it, it could be an important key to this case. But for the time being, concentrate on the women we know about, and keep me informed.”

He dropped his glance back to the documents on his desk as a symbol of dismissal.

During the next week Shinji applied himself to the task that Hatanaka had given him whenever he had a spare moment between his routine cases. Not only was this a big case by his standards: he had another reason of his own for being so interested in it. For on the list of Honda’s conquests, a mere five women, there was one name that he recognized. The name and the personal history fitted. They belonged to a clerk at a lending library whom Shinji had known at school.

This coincidence struck Shinji as being ironic and in a way amusing. But was there not something of destiny in it, too?

Shinji decided to tackle the two most difficult women first, the ones who had refused to say anything to the police. He felt like a child saving the best things on his plate till the end. But after all he could get nothing out of either of those two. In one case, he had gone to a modern apartment block in Meguro; the door had been opened by a woman cradling a baby in her arms. She drove him away fiercely, treating him as if he were a door-to-door salesman or something. It was hardly surprising, he reflected; what married woman was going to endanger her position by talking about an old romance with a convicted murderer?

The third woman on his list was a Miss Kyoko Matsuda, aged nineteen, working in a coffee shop in Shinjuku. He decided to drop in there on the way to the office in Hibiya.

When he got there, he found that the shop was tucked under a bridge that carried the Koshu Kaido expressway over a humbler road. It was a cheap nighttime drinking area, and the neon signs and signboards looked dusty in the strong sunshine of the day. There was a big sign outside the shop: MORNING SERVICE, COFFEE AND TOAST. He went in. As he had expected, it was not crowded at this hour; the only customer was a man immersed in a racing paper.

“Is Miss Kyoko Matsuda in?”

The cashier to whom he had put this question nodded in the direction of a cheap restaurant opposite. “She’s gone to early lunch over there.”

“Can you tell me what kind of clothes she is wearing?”

The woman looked at him suspiciously for a moment, her surprise creasing the heavy makeup she wore even by day. Eventually she shrugged and replied, “She’s in a yellow cardigan.” Shinji thanked her and left the shop.

The restaurant to which he had been directed was long and low; in his fancy, it looked like a stranded eel. Arrayed in the windows of the narrow frontage were wax models of the various dishes served: peas boiled in honey and sweet bean jam, azuki bean soup with rice cake, rice balls, a few Chinese dishes, pork cutlets. He pushed his way in through the low door.

Inside, all the customers were women; there was not a male to be seen. He quickly identified Kyoko Matsuda; she was sitting at a table by the door, her back to him. He took the seat opposite her.

“I apologize for disturbing you,” he said, presenting his name card.

“Quite all right,” she said cheerfully, still plying her chopsticks. Shinji began to feel a glimmer of hope.

Just then a waitress came up and presented him with a menu. He would have to order something; without thinking, he pointed at a dish called tokoroten, a vinegared seaweed jelly flavored with horseradish. Too late he regretted ordering such an eccentric dish; moreover, it was one that women tended to eat more than men. But Kyoko looked up smiling.

“How delicious! I’ll have one, too.” And she pushed her empty plate toward the waitress.

When they were alone, Shinji smiled at her wryly.

“I hear you were a friend of Ichiro Honda.”

“Yes. About a year ago.”

“Did he come to the coffee shop, then?”

“No.” She shook her head and went on. “He was sitting next to me at the cinema. That’s how I met him. He told me he was a second-generation American Japanese, and my aunt lives in San Francisco, so that’s how we got talking. I found him interesting, and we both got the same idea at once—to go out and paint the town red together. We went to a bar I know and drank gin fizzes—lots of them.” She giggled.

“And then?” asked Shinji.

She concentrated on her food for a moment, plunging her chopsticks busily into the bowl.

“And then nothing. He said good night and I went home.”

Shinji cursed the clumsiness of his interrogation. He would have to do better than this. How could he get the answer he wanted questioning her in this way?

The waitress brought over two dishes of tokoroten, and Kyoko attacked hers wolfishly. Shinji followed suit but got too much horseradish in his first mouthful; the pungency assailed his sinuses.

He tried again, deciding to be more blunt.

“You became lovers, of course. So tell me what you think. Was he as abnormal as the papers say?”

She shrugged her shoulders and dilated her nostrils.

“You’re asking me the same thing as that policeman did who came here the other day. Asked if he ever tried to strangle me.”

“And?”

“Of course he didn’t—what do you think he was, a pervert or something? I’ll tell you this, though: he was really passionate—the most passionate man I’ve known,” she added self-importantly.

“Did you take him home with you?”

“Who, me? You must be joking. My apartment block is full of respectable families who like to spy on a working girl.”

“I see. How many times did you meet him altogether, then?”

“Well, maybe ten times or so—I forget.”

Shinji smiled to himself; a likely story, indeed, he thought. Honda never used his women more than once or twice, tiring of them quickly and moving on. The girl was boasting or disguising her injured pride.

Kyoko had finished her tokoroten. “Pay for mine, will you?” she said. “I’ve got to be off—if you want anything else, come and see me in the coffee shop.” And she got up and left without further ceremony.

Not a word of inquiry about Honda. The affair had just been another small incident in her life. Shinji dropped some coins on the counter and left.

Outside, the sun was beating down more fiercely than ever.

On the following day, Shinji visited the two remaining women on his list. First he went to see a chanson singer who worked at a music café on the Ginza. Before setting forth, he rang the establishment and inquired into her exact schedule for stage appearances. It was thus that he made his way down the stairs of the Salon de D at 3 p.m., passing on the way a poster upon which was emblazoned in large letters the name of the woman he had come to see. At the entrance they charged him 150 yen, giving him a ticket good for one drink and telling him that all further drinks would cost him a uniform 150 yen.

He made his way inside. It was pitch dark, only a spotlight playing upon the woman on the stage, who seemed to be whispering rather than singing into the microphone into which she leaned like a lover. Shinji took a seat at the back and watched and listened; this was the woman he had come to see.

Finally the song came to an end, the woman throwing her arms forward theatrically as if to embrace the microphone; the spotlight faded and simultaneously the house lights came on. There were, as he had expected, hardly any other customers around at this time of day. So far, so good. He summoned the white-coated waiter and asked him to present his compliments to Shoko Toda, handing over his business card as he made his request.

A few minutes passed, and then a statuesque woman in a backless black satin dress came over to him, holding his card in her hand as if it were a talisman. She presented herself and, in most formal language, asked how she might be of service to lawyer Shinji.

The brief description in the list prepared by the detective agency described her as being about twenty-seven, but she looked much older. Shinji waved her into a chair.

“I’m defending Ichiro Honda. Could I speak to you about him, please?”

She nodded and, remarking that this was a topic to be discussed without haste or interruption, led him over to a table in a discreet position at the corner of the room. They ordered drinks and Shinji embarked upon his interrogation.

“Tell me, please, if, within the limitations of your own knowledge or experience, there was anything abnormal about Ichiro Honda?” He gazed intently into her face, trying to appear as businesslike as possible.

“I suppose what you are really asking is, did he ever try to strangle me?” the woman answered frankly. It seemed to Shinji as if Shoko Toda had been asked this question before and was prepared for it, so that she immediately grasped its import.

“It seems as if the police have already asked you the same question. Would I be correct in presuming that? Did they examine you on the same point?”

“Examine me? Forced me to speak, rather,” the woman replied, her face suffused with cynicism. “They asked me again and again, ‘What sort of relationship did you have with Honda?’ Really! ‘What sort of a relationship’… a pretty indelicate way of putting things, don’t you think? I was furious with them; I almost wanted to spit in their faces. The relationship between a man and a woman, what passes between them in bed and so forth, really, what can it have to do with the police? Then it dawned upon me that the term ‘what sort of a relationship’ is just a cliché of police interrogation. But how does one answer such a question in just a few words? The relationship between a man and a woman is not such a simple thing, I told them.”

The woman paused and, extracting a cigarette from her case, broke it in half carefully before putting it into a long ivory cigarette holder. She lit it, blew the smoke over Shinji’s shoulder, and went on talking.

“So as a result we beat about the bush for at least an hour before I realized that what they were getting at was whether or not Ichiro Honda displayed any abnormal behavior. It became clear to me that they wanted me to say that he put a tie or a rope around my throat whilst we were making love. Those police! What a race apart they are, with their narrow little imaginations. To them, Lady Chatterley, the Marquis de Sade, they are nothing more than pornography; they don’t know what pornography is, that’s what I say.” A sort of grandeur entered her speech, and she went on.

“I am an actress, or at least a woman who lives out her life on the stage. What could please me more than to play the role of Othello’s wife, if that is what my audience wants. However, somewhat to my regret, I did not find Ichiro Honda to be a man of such unique and elevated tastes. He was just an ordinary man after all.”

“You mean that there was nothing abnormal about him?”

“If you accept that sex is not of itself abnormal, then he was in all other respects normal.” Again the cynicism showed through her mask.

“How did you meet him?”

“Well, these things are all a matter of timing, aren’t they? I was lonely, needed someone to talk to and so forth, and I suppose the same applied to him. Anyway, his seduction was just like dancing. He led and I followed. It was all very smooth. Do you know what he gave me? A paper umbrella with a bull’s-eye pattern! Rather original, don’t you think? That appeals to a woman, you know. And that voice of his… so sweet, so soft, so low. He really did look like a man of mixed blood; it was very romantic. And he said his work was importing films for TV—that was romantic, too.”

“And how many times did you see each other?”

“Oh, only the once. Yes, just once.” And suddenly she burst into a sudden laughter that contorted her body.

A man came across the room and joined them, a man wearing tight trousers and with his hair loosely permed. It was the pianist.

“I hear you are Ichiro Honda’s lawyer—the waiter told me. Look, I’d love to go and see him in prison—could you fix it up? I’ll make it worth your while.” The man’s voice and gestures were effeminate and Shinji felt a deep repugnance as the man laid his hand on his shoulder. Was he trying to make a fool of him? he wondered. But the man seemed deadly serious. Ignoring him, Shinji stood up and addressed Shoko Toda.

“Thank you for telling me what you have. Could I ask you one more question? Do you believe that Ichiro Honda is a murderer and a pervert?”

She removed the cigarette holder from her lips.

“I am someone, perhaps the only person, who believes his apparently absurd protestations of innocence.” She fell silent and began to muse, a dreamy look in her eyes, as if she was reviewing sweet memories.

He climbed the stairs and drew a deep breath as he made his way into the street. That was another world down there, its denizens, perhaps, people who feared the light of day. He made his way to the subway station at Nishi Ginza and boarded a train headed for Shinjuku. And in the tunnels he became overcome by an obsessive urge to get off at Yotsuya Sanchome. It was there, he remembered, that Ichiro Honda had had his hideout.

He cast his mind back to the trial, to the severe cross-examination of Honda by the public prosecutor on the question of the secret apartment. Honda, the prosecutor insisted, kept this lair with its supply of clothes, the better to commit his crimes. The prosecutor got quite carried away, his language becoming ever more elegiac and anti-quated as he described the fiendish cunning of the criminal. The memory made Shinji smile. For to him Ichiro Honda’s motives were crystal clear. The profession of an engineer was a serious one; what more natural than that he should wish to discard it for a disguise and wander the town in casual clothes?

As the prosecutor had spoken, all Honda could do was to mutter such phrases as “to refresh myself” in response to the barrage of questions and accusations. Honda’s demeanor was that of a man who has given up trying to explain himself; this plainly left the judge with an unfavorable impression of him despite the attempts of the defense to explain that Honda’s changes of clothing had been quite innocent, that all he was seeking was a sense of freedom. How could the world possibly be convinced that the freedom that Honda sought was just the freedom to seduce women? Shinji sat crushed into the corner of his seat reflecting that it was not so much the law as morality that had brought its guns to bear upon Ichiro Honda. With morality on the side of the prosecution, what chance could the defense have?

So even when the defense lawyer had spoken of the existence of Honda’s diary and of how it had vanished, and also when he had spoken of the booby trap set in the wardrobe, the response of those who listened had been disbelief tinged with secret laughter.

Shinji obeyed his instinct and alighted at Yotsuya Sanchome, making his way to the pay phone in a small tobacconist. He rang the Wada law office and asked for the address of Honda’s hideout. The clerk at the other end of the phone kept him waiting for some time; it was plain that the Wada law office, having lost their exclusivity over Honda, had lost some of their interest in the case.

The sun beat down on Shinji’s head as he waited. At last the clerk came back and grudgingly, it seemed, gave him instructions as to how to get to the Meikei-so. It all seemed quite simple.

“Turn left by the sushi shop, you say, and then walk fifteen yards. Is that all?” Shinji scribbled feverishly on the memo pad by the phone. A ten-minute walk, that was all, it seemed. He made his way down the road. It was a very quiet area: there was a telephone exchange, a lumberyard—those were the sort of places that stood around the Meikei-so.

It was a two-story building faced with unpainted mortar, a simple enough place. A stairway ran up the side and along the outer corridor; anyone could come and go freely. Ideal for a hideout, Shinji thought.

On the corner door of the ground floor there was a small sign, which read “Manager.” Shinji knocked on the door; it was opened by a woman who took one look at him, turned around and shouted “Darling!” before making her way back inside. She looked haggard and worn-out; a few lank hairs were glued to her forehead by sweat.

The manager proved to be a man of about forty with a pale and puffy face. It appeared that he was a jobbing tailor, for he wore a tape measure around his neck. Shinji presented his name card and asked about the apartment that Ichiro Honda had rented.

“Oh, you mean Mr. Ueda’s room. It’s just the way it was.”

“You haven’t rented it out yet?”

“Well, since all this happened, the owner wasn’t sure what to do, but then we got a letter from Mr. Ueda’s family saying that they would like to keep the apartment on until everything is settled. So it’s left just as it was.”

Shinji noticed that the manager still referred to Honda as “Ueda,” the name under which the room had been rented. He asked if he could see the room, and the manager readily assented, slipping on a pair of sandals and reaching for a bunch of keys.

“I’m stuck to my sewing machine all day long, so I welcome the chance to get away,” he confided as he led Shinji up the stairway. He came to a door and opened it; the air inside was musty.

Shinji saw an iron bedstead, a wardrobe like a locker, a wooden table, and two chairs. The manager opened the window with some difficulty. “Should open them once in a while, I suppose,” he murmured.

“Did Honda have many visitors?”

“No one in particular. I used to think it odd, but then he told me he was a scenario writer and only took the room to work privately, so I thought no more of it. But he was such a quiet and nice person; I wish I hadn’t testified against him, you know, that he had an adhesive plaster on his face when he moved out, but I really didn’t mean… you know, I didn’t understand…” The manager smiled weakly, his face revealing his fear that his evidence had put the rope around Honda’s neck.

“There’s only one other thing that I remember… well, it was my wife, really. She swears she heard the sound of a woman weeping in Mr. Ueda’s room one day when he was out. Sounds like a ghost story, doesn’t it? It made the police laugh, anyway.”

“About when would that have been?”

“Let me see… it would have been six months before Mr. Ueda was arrested, I would say.”

Shinji thanked him and left the Meikei-so.

Walking back along the street, he reflected upon what the manager had told him. Could it be true, this story of a woman weeping in Honda’s room?

Judging from the fact that he still kept on referring to Honda as “Mr. Ueda” however often Shinji had corrected him, he seemed to be a man subject to idée fixe.

And if it was true, what could have been the meaning of those female sobs heard in the room?

Shinji thought about it for a while, but by the time he got back to the main road he had dismissed the matter from his mind. After all, he reasoned, it could not be very important, could it?

Getting off the suburban train, Shinji soon found a taxi outside the station.

Only one woman remained on the list that he had been given, a woman for whom he still entertained tender feelings although he had not seen her for several years. He had left her until last; soon he would see her again.

He had had to work not only through college but to get into college. He worked as a children’s tutor in the evenings and on weekends; by day, he was a part-time deliveryman at a department store or a seasonal assistant at the post office. At festival and gift-giving times he had been particularly busy and heavily laden. Often he would wander the streets, his down-at-heel shoes white with dust or snow, looking for some particularly obscure address, the heavy sack on his back bulging with parcels wrapped in the distinctive paper of the store. These labors, particularly when he was working for the college entrance exam, left him little time for classes, so he tended to spend a lot of time in the college library.

Gradually he got to know the young woman who was employed there as a lending clerk; they were attracted to each other, it was plain, but much as he had wanted to date her, he rarely had the money to do it. So in all those months and years he had only met her outside the college seven, eight, perhaps ten times. And amongst those few times, he had only made love to her once, quickly and furtively in the six-by-nine-foot room where he lodged.

Eventually he passed into the college and became even more busy attending classes as well as earning his keep on the side, so they drifted apart and, in time, ceased to see each other.

This short acquaintanceship remained ingrained in his brain, banal as it now sometimes seemed to him, this brief affair between a struggling student and a library clerk. But how often he wondered as he sat in the taxi, which was climbing the slope to the college campus, do such brief, doomed lovers ever meet again? A faint expectation stirred in his breast.

The taxi came to the gates of the college, beyond which no cars were allowed. He paid his fare and got out and began to walk toward the old brick building; the road was lined with cherry trees. The first green grass of summer was beginning to thrive on the lawn in front of the campus.

He cast his mind back to how it had been in his student days. Summer… so hot; the lawn in front of the library would grow so fast that even weekly mowings could not keep it down. Memories… a row of tall sunflowers; sweat that poured down him no matter how he had wiped his brow; the library, empty in the long summer vacation; a girl who worked there and always wore white blouses… Steeped in these memories of student life, he paused for a while in front of the library before suddenly going in as if he was only doing so on second thoughts.

Inside, it was still just the same: musty and cool.

He went up to the counter. Michiko Ono, the lending clerk, was writing on a heap of small cards. Just as he remembered, she sat with a slightly bent back, her head tilted slightly at an angle that he found charming. But the former childish expression on her face was no more. He read the passing of time in the lines and wrinkles about her eyes. What those lines meant was the slow death of a human soul.

“Miss Ono,” he said quietly, his voice choking a little.

She stopped her writing and looked up as if she was disgruntled at being interrupted in her task. Then recognition crept over her features, mixed with a look of mild shock. She blinked two or three times and then, in a voice throbbing with emotion, said, “Mr. Shinji! It’s you! It’s been a long time!”

“I was passing by so I thought I’d drop in.”

“I’ll be off in half an hour—we close at five-thirty.”

He glanced at his wristwatch. “Well, then, maybe I can do a little research while I’m waiting. Graduates are allowed to borrow books, aren’t they?”

“Yes, provided you don’t take them away. Use the reading room.”

“Well, do you have anything on blood types?”

She ran through her cards with a practiced hand and soon produced two volumes.

“This is all we seem to have—unless, of course, you look in the encyclopedias, too.”

Thanking her, Shinji carried the books to the reading room. He had wanted to talk to her for a little longer, but he knew the library rules—no talking or disturbing other people. The books she had given him were, as one might expect in a legal library, works on forensic medicine. He extracted all he could find that he thought might be of use, noting it in a small notebook that he carried, and then closed the books and lay back in the chair, smoking aimlessly and gazing up at the dirty ceiling until Michiko came.

She had changed and was ready to go home. “Were the books useful?” she asked.

“Oh yes, thank you. I found all I wanted.”

“So you are working on a case involving blood types? It must be pretty complicated.”

“Yes,” said Shinji, and then, summoning up his courage, “in fact, I am working on the defense of Ichiro Honda. You know, the Sobra case.”

Her countenance immediately darkened. “Oh, so you have only come to see me to talk business. Am I right?”

“Frankly speaking, yes, though it’s wonderful to see you again. Honda gave us the names of five women whom he could remember and… your name was one of them. A big coincidence, I felt,” he stated sadly.

The reading room was empty apart from the two of them; it was shrouded in silence, now that he had stopped speaking, broken only by the faint cries of students indulging in sports somewhere in the distance.

In this silence, there came back to him a memory of his primary school days. School had been over, and nearly everyone had gone home. Then, too, in the distance he had heard sounds—a faltering étude being played in a distant classroom.

And that was the time he had hit his friend who had passed an insulting remark about his father. Shinji’s father had been a mine broker and thus rarely at home, so the other children used to tease him by saying that his father must be in prison. Even when he grew up, Shinji believed he knew how children with fathers in prison must feel.

Bringing himself back to the present, he continued.

“Yes, a coincidence, one I didn’t really want to believe. So I put off seeing you till the last.”

Michiko hesitated a moment before speaking. Then, “It’s true,” she said quietly. “I did know him. I needed someone to talk to, someone who would speak to me in an endearing way. And he did that, which is why I went with him to the hotel. It was only once, though. You might as well know that.” She gathered up the books and walked toward the door and then, turning, spoke again.

“You must think I’m gullible. And worse still, I got pregnant by him.”

Shinji felt as if the ground was opening under his feet.

“Michiko! You can’t have!”

She smiled back at him quietly. “But I did. And my son is now nine months old. He has begun to speak baby talk.”

Shinji was flabbergasted. Michiko had borne Honda’s child. There had been nothing in the detective’s report about that. He ran after her. She stopped and gazed out over the campus, not looking at him.

“Yes, you must be surprised. My mother takes care of him, you know, so I can continue to work.”

“But didn’t you want Honda to recognize the child as his?”

“Why? It’s nothing to do with him. I decided to have the child on my own responsibility,” she said firmly. “So it’s mine, not his.”

Shinji realized that this woman had voyaged to lands of experience that were far beyond his ken.

“And you feel no anger or hatred toward him for his irresponsibility?”

“How can he be irresponsible if he doesn’t even know about it?”

Shinji was stumped for a reply. Eventually, he spoke.

“If it had been me… if I had fathered your child, would you have still kept silent?”

His words seemed to turn to bubbles as they fell from his mouth, so that his question was almost inaudible. It sounded as if he was speaking from the bottom of a deep lake.

“Had it been you, of course I would have visited you and asked you if you would have liked to be the father.”

She smiled at him and turned and walked out of the library, Shinji following her. They reached the gate. Shinji knew that he had nothing more to ask her. To ask if Ichiro Honda had put a rope around her neck was plainly quite meaningless.

Michiko turned. “Goodbye,” she said, and was gone.

Watching her retreating back, Shinji was at a loss as to what to do.

Of one thing he was certain beyond all doubt. He had lost something and it was gone forever.

Shinji climbed the cavelike staircase, his footsteps the only sound echoing in the dim gloom. Up and up: seven floors, and his feet, worn out by walking all day, felt like lead. After six the elevators ceased to function and the hall lights were turned off. At last he reached the seventh floor and paused to wipe the sweat from his brow.

He opened the office door. Here, too, dusk had fallen deeply. Mutsuko Fujitsubo, secretary to his chief, was sitting all alone, a vacant expression on her face. She was a modest-looking but ill-favored girl, with her heavy glasses with their thick, amber-colored rims, and she had joined the office immediately after graduating from junior college two years before.

“Hello! Sorry to be back so late! Is the old man still around?”

“Yes. He’s reading the report from the detective agency.” She pointed resignedly to the door at the far end of the office, worn-out by the long wait.

Shinji washed his face with cold water and, refreshed, went into Hatanaka’s room, the girl following him, her shorthand pad in her hand.

The old man straightened up in his deep chair. “You’ve been working hard, I see.” He spoke gruffly, his voice seeming strangled by phlegm. Shinji sat down and without further ado took out his notebook and, watching the girl out of the corner of his eye to see that she did not fall behind, began to make his report. In all that silent building about which the dusk had fallen, it seemed as if only his voice could be heard.

“Today, I completed my interviews with all the women on the list. It transpired that they had all been interviewed by the police, and that the thrust of their questions was the same as mine: did Ichiro Honda ever attempt to strangle them?”

“And did he?”

“I couldn’t get a word out of two of them. And even with the others, you must realize, it wasn’t an easy question to come right out with. But the three who would talk… two denied it plainly, and it was clear to me that there was no such incident in the third case.”

“No wonder they were not called to give evidence by the prosecutors,” snapped the old man.

“Yes, but why didn’t the defense summon them?” asked Shinji.

“Because the fools were trying to cover up his relationships with women! They thought it best to conceal the fact that he was a lady killer; I disagree with them entirely, of course. Honda Ichiro was on trial in a court of law, not a court of morals!”

Just what I thought, too, thought Shinji approvingly. He went on: “I did find out something quite interesting today, though. Michiko Ono, who works at a library, has a nine-month-old son and claims that the father is Ichiro Honda. If we work on her, she might be persuaded to give evidence on our behalf.”

“And for how long did her relationship with Honda last?”

“Only just the once,” said Shinji sheepishly, and the old man groaned audibly.

“But the child isn’t mentioned in the detective agency report. I wonder why she told you about it?”

Shinji realized that he would have to confess. “Well, I knew her when I was a student,” he said. “I was in love with her for a time. I suppose that’s why she told me.”

The old man was silent. The secretary, her pencil stilled, set her shoulders in a pose suggesting astonishment. The sun had finally set, and the desk light was hardly enough to see by. “I’ll put on the light,” said Shinji, breaking the silence. He got up and went to the switch, his motions disturbing the air of the room, which had become like a sealed tomb. The old man slowly lit a fresh cigar.

“And does this young woman, what’s her name?”—gazing at the report—“Michiko Ono, does she have any intention of telling Honda about the happy event?”

“She says it’s nothing to do with Ichiro Honda, that it is her affair entirely,” replied Shinji.

“Perhaps because the child’s father might be a murderer?”

“She doesn’t believe he committed any of the crimes.”

“Why do all these women believe in his innocence, I wonder?” mused the old man. “Is he particularly good to women, do you think?”

“That’s the main point about him,” said Shinji. “His abnormality, if we are looking for one, seems to lie in the fact that he can get inside women and win their sympathy. He deceived them all, but none of those women see it that way. I just don’t know how to explain it, but plainly it’s true.” He was surprised that his growing familiarity with the case had planted inside him feelings about Ichiro Honda of which he had not been aware. This did not mean that for a moment he approved of Honda’s behavior.

The old man seemed to be satisfied with Shinji’s report. He jotted a few notes down on a pad, but Shinji could not see what they were. Finally he looked up and said, “I went to see him today, you know.” There seemed to be almost a tone of intimacy in the way he said “him.”

“He’s been in jail for three months now, and it seems to have turned him into a mere shadow of himself. It’s impossible to visualize him as an attractive man who can sweep women off their feet. The death sentence has plainly knocked him all of a heap. I tried to put some life back into him; I advised him to reconstruct his lady-killer’s diary instead of just moping in his cell. He can do it if he tries; being a computer engineer, he has a better memory than most people. He should be able to remember most of it, given time—I’d bet on it.” He took out a fresh cigar and bit off the end.

“What do you think is the salient point of this case—the one we’re going to have to overcome at the appeal?” he asked as he fiddled with his lighter.

“The defendant’s rare blood type.”

“I agree. They found blood under their fingernails—minute quantities, but enough. It’s one of the first things you look for in cases of strangulation; often the victim manages to scratch the killer’s face. Well, when they first analyzed, they were a bit cursory and put it down as AB. But after Honda’s arrest they found that he had a rare group—AB Rh-negative. So they went back and analyzed again and found that the blood was not merely AB but also Rh-negative. So their suspicions were confirmed—proved to all extents and purposes. This evidence as good as put the rope around his neck.”

“Yes,” said Shinji, “and there’s a related bit of evidence—the sperm type. They detected type AB in the vaginas of the victims. Only this evidence is less overwhelming; you can identify a blood type from either saliva or sperm, but you can’t go further than A, B, AB, or O in such cases—it’s only from blood that you can detect Rh-negative.” Shinji thought that his earlier research in the library had been useful after all.

“Very good. Now, blood types apart, there is one other bit of evidence that weighs heavily against the defendant, in my view.”

“The lack of an alibi,” replied Shinji, as promptly as if he were a primary school student who had done his homework well. He was enjoying this dialectic with his senior.

“Indeed, yes. On the fifth of November, whilst the first murder was being committed, Ichiro Honda claims to have been with Fusako Aikawa. However, on the nineteenth of December, on the night that Fusako Aikawa was killed, he claims to have been with Mitsuko Kosugi, who was inconveniently killed next. This non-alibi that he submits in place of an alibi interests me greatly. On first study, it looks like a cock-and-bull story, doesn’t it? If we are to believe him, he would have perfect alibis—except that, unfortunately, the women who could give them to him were murdered in their turn. Absurd, you say? But it raises interesting possibilities, too. Let’s just stop and think about motive, shall we? Contrast Honda’s rather unconvincing excuses for alibis with the question of motive. What motive did the prosecution put forward, do you remember?”

“Yes, sir. They claim that he strangled the women during sexual intercourse to satisfy his abnormal sexual tastes. And in support of this they got the family doctor who attends upon him and his wife to testify as to his impotence when he is with his wife.”

“Correct. The court was convinced of the view that he was a sexual criminal. However, I don’t agree. If his motive was sexual perversity, then why stop at two or at most three? It’s inconsistent, isn’t it? Why spare all the other women? He should have felt the same abnormal feelings toward them—and we know that he didn’t. So let me present a hypothesis. Let us imagine that the killer of all three women is called ‘X.’

“Now, if X equals Honda, then you can be excused for thinking that all three murders were committed for sexual reasons.

“But if X isn’t Honda, if it’s someone quite different, then we are left with another motive, one we didn’t think about when we thought that X was Honda. Do you follow me?”

Shinji thought for a while. “I see,” he said at last. “You mean that X was trying to entrap Honda?”

“Precisely, a trap. And I will tell you this. X, having committed the murders, didn’t seek to put the blame on Honda to save his own skin. How perfectly it was all contrived! No, something far more deliberate was involved.

“The women were murdered in order to frame Ichiro Honda.”

He spelled out these last words slowly and with great clarity. After a pause to let his words sink in, he continued. “Thus, in my opinion, the motive of X was a grudge against Honda. I felt increasingly sure of this when I was talking to the defendant today. What I now need is a list of all people who might hold such a grudge against him—that’s why I want him to reconstruct his diary.”

The old man spoke with increasing ardor, carrying Shinji along with him. It was like listening to some great advocate making a speech in court. The logic was beautiful, but could it hold together? Shinji doubted it; there was too much of a jump somewhere.

“I think,” went on Hatanaka, “that the rock-firm, the adamantine evidence presented to the court has been deliberately contrived by someone. It is the cunning work of a human being, not a sequence of accidents.”

“But can you convince the court of that?”

“Probably not. I must find evidence no less hard with which to confront the evidence against us.”

Shinji did not ask him how he intended to do this. He was overwhelmed by the old man’s sense of commitment.

“So,” the senior lawyer went on, “I’m going to make full use of that detective agency. Luckily the father-in-law is paying the bills, and he is rich—we can spend as much as we like. Acting on my conviction that all the evidence is planted, I’m going to start off by finding out how one gets hold of Rh-negative blood if one wants to.” He relit his cigar, which had gone out. “My mind is full of the righteous justice of the ancient Greeks,” he went on. “To them, Justice was the median line drawn between the defendant and his accusers. In this case, someone has tampered with that line, and I’m going to put it back where it belongs.”

The conversation was over, and Hatanaka stood up to leave. Shinji helped the secretary close the windows. Outside, the robe of night had fallen on the city; gazing into the dark streets, he felt that, against all the evidence, the zeal and devotion of one old man could possibly change the whole balance of the trial after all. The vast, dark sky was no broader than the old man’s commitment.

Behind him, Hatanaka shuffled out of the door, stooping, his briefcase in his hand.

THE BLOOD BANK

A week passed before the old man sent for Shinji again.

“I’ve got another job for you,” he said. “Sit down and take a look at this.” He passed over three typewritten pages stapled together. “It’s the report I got back from the detective agency today. You will see that it lists the names, addresses, and workplaces of six people, together with an outline of their daily schedules.”

Shinji looked at the papers. “Yes, I’ve got it,” he finally announced. “But what do you want me to do?”

“Well, the blood type of everyone on that list is AB Rh-negative.”

“The same type as Ichiro Honda, in fact?”

“Correct. And what percentage of the population has that type, do you think?”

Shinji cast his mind back to his studies in the library. The book had said that fifteen percent of Caucasians had Rh-negative blood, but that in the case of Orientals, the ratio fell to only half a percent.

“One in two hundred, I seem to remember.”

The old man smiled. “No, much less. Certainly one in two hundred exhibit the rhesus factor, but AB Rh-negative narrows it down even further. Only ten percent of Japanese have AB blood. So the answer to my question is one in two thousand!”

“So how many does that make for the whole of Tokyo?”

“Well, taking the population of Tokyo at ten million, that makes five thousand.”

“From amongst whom you have listed six?”

“Ah, but five thousand is a sort of meaningless statistic. How many of those five thousand know that their blood is AB Rh-negative? In wartime, people tend to know their blood type, but not in peace. To be honest, I don’t even know my type.” He laughed mischievously, rolling the cigar around in his mouth.

Shinji, on the other hand, knew that his blood was type AB. At primary school he had always worn a tag with his blood type on it. This was one of his small remaining memories of the war. But he had never had cause to check it since. And, come to think of it, Rhesus types were discovered during the war, when transfusions became common. Nowadays, if people have Rhesus-factor blood, it is a matter of importance to them, but in his schooldays it had been unknown. Perhaps he, too, was Rh-negative.

If that was so, and if he had no alibi for the times of the murders, then he, too, could be a suspect.

“Yes. Even amongst people who know where they fall in the A, B, and O system, there are very few who know if they are Rhesus or not,” said the old man.

“So how do people find out?”

“There are two ways.”

“Well, I suppose if you have a blood transfusion, you know.”

“Yes. And what’s the other way?”

Shinji was stumped. The old man laughed triumphantly and explained.

“People who give their blood for transfusion, of course!”

“You mean donors? And people who sell their blood?”

“Yes. And I’m not interested in fresh transfusions, only in blood that is stored.”

“You mean in blood banks?”

“Yes. And, you know, you don’t deposit your blood and draw it back when you need it in a blood bank. Most, if not all, blood-bank blood is sold. And the banks keep details of the people who sell to them.”

“Ah! So you mean that you can get lists of AB Rh-negative people from a blood bank?”

“Yes, and that is what I have had done—hence the list in your hand. Inquiries were made at every blood bank in Tokyo. There were twenty-seven Rh-negative people on their books, of whom six were also AB. Statistically rather high, but there you are.”

The old man’s plan began faintly to dawn on Shinji. It seemed a long shot at best, a dangerous gamble at worst.

“I know it sounds funny, but when we discuss it in this way my imagination forces me to behave as if I were the criminal,” the old man continued. “What I mean is that I try and imagine I am the criminal, get inside his mind. If I wanted to frame Ichiro Honda by leaving his blood group at the scene of the crime, how would I set about it? Well, of course, I’d go to a blood bank to find people with the type I was after. So what do you think I did next? I caused inquiries to be made at all the blood banks to see if anyone had during the last year made inquiries about Rh-negative donors. And, you know, there was one.” He sounded almost triumphant.

He took another document out of the folder in front of him. Shinji reflected on the careful attention to detail that had made Hatanaka such a good criminal lawyer. The old man lit a cigar and went on.

“In the beginning of last September, I learned, there was an inquiry about AB Rh-negative blood made to several banks. The cause given was that it was needed for a newborn baby. Babies born to mothers with Rh-negative blood have to have all their blood changed to Rh-negative, or they die. The condition is called ‘Hemolytic disease of the newborn.’

“Well, I next asked for which hospital the request was made. It was a hospital in Toshima ward. So I rang them, and, would you believe it, they have not had a single such case in the last twelve months!”

“So the call was a fake.”

“Absolutely correct.”

The old man had finally picked up the traces of the person who had entrapped Ichiro Honda. Now all he had to do was to follow the trail. Shinji stiffened with excitement.

“What was the person who made the inquiry like?” he asked.

“It was always a telephone call. But they say that the voice sounded forced.”

“A man?”

“Most probably, judging from what was said. However, we must not overlook the possibility of a woman disguising her voice to sound like a man. I think we should keep an open mind.”

“Well, at least they left us with our first clue. So this list comprises the names that the inquirer was given?”

“Yes. But you will observe that one of them is a woman aged forty-two. A day laborer from the flophouses. I gather that nowadays you can tell gender from blood, so let’s strike her out. So just check out these five; I have a hunch that you will find that one of them sold his blood to our mysterious stranger.”

So far, the old man’s reasoning seemed to hold together, Shinji thought. But if his theory was true, and there existed a person who had trapped Honda, how on earth had they known his blood type?

“It seems to me,” he said, “that as Ichiro Honda knew that he was AB Rh-negative since he was at college, then only his close friends and relatives would know.”

“No. Anyone could have found out.” The old man produced a faded newspaper clipping from his file with the air of a child removing his secret playthings from a box. “This dates back ten years. I got it from the archives of a newspaper company. It relates how a hemolytically diseased baby was saved by a transfusion in a Fukuoka hospital. And of course you can guess who the donor was. Ichiro Honda.” The old man gazed at him in triumph.

“You see, it was one of the very first Rh-negative transfusions in Japan, and it was big news at the time. So it made the front page—complete with a photo of Honda.” He passed the clipping over, and Shinji looked at a photo of a much younger Honda. He cast his eye over the headlines and caption.

“A.M.U. Biology Lab saves baby,” he read. “All students’ blood classified in American manner. A triumph for science. Student flies to Fukuoka in military plane and gives blood.”

The old man chewed his cigar. “There’s something else which is interesting in there,” he observed. “In those days, the term ‘hemolytic disease of the newborn’ was not used, so they referred to it by the old medical name—‘Rhesus incompatibility.’ And the person who made the phone call used that expression and not the term now used. That’s one reason why the phone calls were remembered at the hospitals. And the phrase in the article is ‘Rhesus incompatibility.’ So it’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?”

“You mean that you think that the mystery caller had read the article?”

“That’s exactly what I think. I have no doubt that the caller was not involved with any baby at all. I feel certain that he or she was the elusive X. So you go and track down those five men, and meanwhile I think I’ll go to the prison and encourage Honda in his reconstruction of his diary.”

Could the old man be right? As he said, only checking with the five men would tell. He stood up to go, but the old man stopped him.

“I learn from the university that Ichiro Honda was a model student in every way. Always top of his class and an upstanding moral type.”

“So what came over him to change?” asked Shinji, but the old man gave him no reply.

Had Honda been a hypocrite at the university? Shinji wondered. Or had he become as he was as a reaction to his student life at Asia Moral University?

Why do some men become womanizers? Shinji would have dearly liked to know, but at present his main task was to hunt down the person who had framed Ichiro Honda.

He picked up the papers and left the room.

Shinji left the office just before noon; the bright daylight, after the gloomy office, dazzled his eyes. Who should he visit first? he wondered. At all costs, he must get his report back to the old man as quickly as possible. He had been through the list carefully several times but still could not make up his mind. He cast his mind back over the names and details on the detective’s report. They were:

Well, thought Shinji, most people would consider him to be a failure in life, but who is to say that he is not living as he wants to and enjoying it?

A man who is gradually getting mired in the mud and will probably sink into it in due course, thought Shinji.

This man, thought Shinji, is my highest common multiple.

Interesting, thought Shinji.

Well, thought Shinji, this man must know quite a lot about blood types and the collection of blood.

So Shinji decided to tackle the medical intern first. He thought that at least he would have a chance of catching him at his favorite coffee shop during the lunch hour. Looking at his watch, he saw that it was already 11:30.

He set off for Ochanomizu, where the hospital was situated, but en route he had an idea. He got off the train and phoned a journalist friend of his whose office was not far away. He felt that he would be better off with a journalist’s business card, so he rang his friend and asked him for the favor of two or three of his cards, explaining that he was involved in interviewing people and would find them useful. “Of course,” his friend said, and he made his way to the newspaper office. Resisting his friend’s invitation to take lunch together, he then continued on his way.

He got to the university and called Kotaro Yamazaki on the internal phone. The voice that answered him was heavy and unpromising.

“I am from the Daily News,” he announced. “I am writing an article on the devotion of blood donors and wonder if you could spare me a few minutes of your time.”

“You’ve come to the wrong person.” The voice was cold and aloof.

“But the G Blood Bank told me that you were a voluntary donor of Rh-negative blood…”

“That’s very peculiar. I haven’t given blood for years.”

“Nevertheless, couldn’t you spare me a little time? It won’t take long, I assure you.” Shinji adopted his most persuasive tones.

“Really, this is an imposition,” replied the voice angrily, but finally, with a great show of reluctance, he consented to meet Shinji at the Bluebird coffee shop. He turned up there twenty minutes later and proved to be a tall and handsome man. He identified Shinji by the fact that he was the only person there sitting alone and sat down opposite him.

“I’m Yamazaki. What can I do for you?”

“I would like to ask you a few questions, as I understand that you have been the donor of a rare type of blood. Can I begin by asking if your involvement is in any way due to the fact that you yourself are a doctor?”

Yamazaki stared at the reporter’s name card, which Shinji had given him, turning one corner down before replacing it on the table.

“Well, as I told you on the phone, I haven’t given blood for years.”

“And back then? Did you donate often?”

“No. Only two or three times in all.”

“And you haven’t given blood recently?”

“Not for at least a year. And even then it wasn’t voluntary. I received a specific request from the blood bank because of my unusual blood group. They were out of stock, it seems, and there was some emergency—a newborn baby, I believe.”

“Other than that?”

“Never.”

“What about between October last year and January this year?”

At this question, Yamazaki gazed at Shinji sharply, but the latter maintained his bland countenance and Yamazaki relaxed. He replied sulkily, “If I say never, I mean never! Why are you so inquisitive, might I ask?”

Shinji felt that there was nothing more to be gained from the conversation and stood up to leave. Yamazaki leaned back in his chair and, gazing up at Shinji, drawled, “Blood is a boring subject, don’t you think? Now sperm, that’s quite a different matter. The other day I gave an interview to a journalist from some third-rate rag or other on the topic of sperm donation. That’s much more interesting, wouldn’t you agree? But of course we donors are not allowed to talk about it—ethics of the trade, you might say.”

He was now bantering, and so Shinji totally overlooked the significance of what he was saying and paid up and left the shop.

He went back to his office, where he found Mutsuko Fujitsubo filing papers. The old man was at the prison talking to Ichiro Honda.

“How’s the reconstruction of the diary going, I wonder?” he asked, meanwhile glancing at a sheet of information from the detective agency that Mutsuko was about to file. It revealed that amongst Honda’s victims there had been an elementary school teacher. The secret stains of humanity could be found in every life.

“Not too well, I’m afraid,” Mutsuko replied. “It seems that Honda can’t recollect as much as the old man had hoped he could. And the detective agency isn’t making much progress, either. They’ve got literally dozens of people out on the case, but without much effect.”

Shinji reflected that finding someone with a motive by reconstructing the lady killer’s diary would not be as easy a task as the old man had hoped, and he sensed that Mutsuko felt the same way. If this was true, the old man would have to go to the appeal court with nothing new to present. The day for the hearing was drawing close, and Shinji felt that he had no time to lose. The murderer had left a faint footprint at the blood banks; it was up to him to go out and collect the most precise details that he could and give them to the old man.

Evening came, and the sun went down. On the pavement outside the cheap pub called “Renko,” someone had sprinkled water in a vain attempt to lay the dust.

Shinji pushed his way through the mean rope curtain that separated the dive from the outside world. He quickly identified Yuzo Osawa as being the old man sitting by himself at the U-shaped counter and drinking shochu, a cheap and potent white spirit. As the researcher had suggested, there was a plate of mincemeat and bean curd in front of him. The pub was almost full, and nearly everyone was engrossed in the television screen, but when Shinji sat down beside Osawa he discovered that the screen was half hidden by a pillar from that seat. He ordered a bottle of beer.

Osawa sat next to him, cradling his glass of shochu in his hands as if trying to warm it. Occasionally, he would raise the glass to his lips and take a slow and careful sip. His fingernails were engrimed with oil and dust.

“Hey, old fellow! Haven’t we met somewhere before!” said Shinji with forced joviality.

Osawa turned and gazed at him blankly. He cupped his ear and said, “What?” His several-day growth of stubble, peppered with white, contributed further to his generally slovenly appearance.

“I said we’ve met before, haven’t we?”

“Oh yeah?” replied the old vagrant in negative tones, and he returned his attention to his shochu. He was withdrawing into his shell, and Shinji had to move quickly.

“I remember where it was. We were both in line at the same blood bank… let me see, the Komatsu Laboratory on the Keio line, wasn’t it? I’ve just sold 200 cc today, so let me buy you a drink, gaffer.”

“Really? Very kind, I’m sure.” His voice softened perceptibly. He gulped down the remainder of his glass in one mouthful, as if afraid that this stranger might change his mind. But still the way in which he wiped his mouth with his hand betrayed how precious the liquor was to him.

With the new glass in front of him, he relaxed. “It’s O.K. for you young guys, I expect,” he opened defensively. “They’ll still buy your blood, I expect. But an old man like me… they don’t want us any more. Say it isn’t thick enough or something.”

“So you aren’t selling any more? When did you last sell, then?”

“Over a year ago. The person in charge was shifted, and the new one doesn’t take me seriously.”

“But would you still sell if you could? I mean, if someone, anyone, came to buy, would you sell?”

“Sure I would. I’m quite healthy and besides, my blood is a rare type. Valuable, it is. Not the blood most people have, you know. I’m AB Rh-negative—only one in two thousand, you know. But still nobody comes to buy it.”

The old man’s speech was beginning to slur. Shinji ordered him another drink and stood up to go.

“Buy you another one sometime, old fellow,” he said. The old man, his mouth full of shochu, almost choked as he said goodbye. Shinji left and headed toward Shinjuku Station. Well, he thought, the old laborer was no longer able to sell his blood. Who would want it, thin and alcohol-soaked as it was? Anyone seeking blood would try to get it from a younger man, someone around Ichiro Honda’s age. He deleted from his mind the day laborer and the medical student. And, he reflected, X was unlikely to have approached the intern because of his medical knowledge.

At Shinjuku Station he took the Chuo line and headed for Kanda. Once the train started, he thrust his head out of the window, letting the rushing air drive the beer fumes out of his head. But as the train gathered speed, he found that the buffeting slipstream deadened his thinking. The palace moat, glittering in the summer night, flashed before his eyes; he just took in the lovers and others in gaily lit boats bobbing on the waters. Even after the sight was long gone, the white shirt and matching blouse of one such couple lingered in his eyes.

The Turkish bathhouse, Alibaba, lay about five minutes’ walk from Kanda Station. Indeed, Shinji could see its garish, red neon sign from the train as it drew into the platform. However, getting to it was much more difficult than he had anticipated. He had to walk down a narrow alleyway crowded with cabarets, cheap bars, and low-class eating houses. Passing one such establishment, which specialized in skewered chicken, he had to wade through the heavy white smoke that flowed down from its extractor grill. He felt trapped. And rather than the smell of oil, he began to sense the scent of sexual desire and immorality. There was also a row of small textile wholesalers, all of whom had closed and pulled down their shutters long since, leaving the approach to the Turkish bath in pitch darkness. Alibaba stood immediately next to a public bathhouse; what a contrast, Shinji thought, between the physical cleanliness of the one and the moral pollution of the other. For, although he had never been inside such an establishment, he was well aware that they were no more than the thinnest of veils for prostitution.

The entrance was flanked by potted palms and rubber plants. Passing them, he came into the tiled outer hall, which was hidden from the inside by a wall covered in maroon and gold satin damask.

Within, the lights were low and faintly red. The red carpet had such a deep pile that it absorbed his footsteps, giving him a sense of secrecy. There was a table with a couch and several soft armchairs to one side of the lobby, where sat several men who had nominated girls and were waiting for them to be free. They were mostly reading magazines or watching TV listlessly; although there were several open bottles of beer on the table, nobody seemed to be drinking much.

He sat down, and a male attendant immediately approached him.

“Do you have anyone in particular you want to see?”

“Yes. Miss Yasue.” This was the girl who, according to the detective’s report, was favored by Seiji Tanikawa. “Miss Yasue, if I remember aright. You do have such a girl here?”

“Certainly, sir. Please wait for a few minutes,” said the attendant with fawning politeness. “May I get you a drink in the meantime—compliments of the house, of course.”

Shinji ordered a whiskey, and the attendant withdrew.

According to the detective’s report, Seiji Tanikawa frequented this establishment on Mondays and Fridays—the days when he had no night work. Normally, it appeared, he came here between seven and nine—the slack period.

He noticed that the lobby was permeated by a strange, heavy odor. It was, he decided, the smell of men who were about to unload their sexual desire.

Time crawled by. Occasionally a customer sitting by the table would get up and disappear within in answer to the attendant’s summons. But they were always replaced by new arrivals from outside, some of them drunk. Sometimes a woman in sandals, wearing a red-and-white-striped wrapper over her Turkish bath girl’s uniform of a red-striped brassiere and scanty pants, would emerge and see her customer off with a gay voice. Had Seiji Tanikawa gone home already, or was he still within?

As this thought crossed Shinji’s mind, the curtain parted and out stepped Tanikawa. Shinji recognized him, down to the lean body, from photographs provided by the detectives. His skinny figure was emphasized by the black polo-necked sweater that he was wearing tonight. He was followed closely by a diminutive girl—obviously Yasue Terada. Tanikawa walked straight past Shinji, displaying his sunken cheeks and haggard profile.

Yasue saw him off at the entrance, tapping his bony shoulder with familiarity. Tanikawa merely shrugged his shoulders and left without a word. For a man to visit this place twice a week…, Shinji, whose private life was as clean as a sheet of blank paper, thought. He watched Tanikawa’s retreating figure until it vanished from his view, convinced that in it he could sense a shadow of weakness; this man’s feet were sinking into the swamp of vice.

Yasue made her way back in, but was stopped by the attendant, who whispered something to her. She came over to Shinji, but when she saw his face she was taken aback.

“You are Mr. …” she started, but could not finish the sentence.

“It’s me—Yamada, remember?” Shinji lied fluently. “I came once before—some time ago.”

“Oh yes, of course, Mr. Yamada,” she replied cheerfully, conducting him out of the lobby. These girls, he reflected, had congress with so many men each day, maybe over a hundred a month, so there was no question of remembering the face or name of a customer who had only come once some time ago.

Following her, he gazed at the sensuous nape of her neck and felt moved to erotic expectations. “Will you take a steam bath first?” she asked. What an extraordinary question, Shinji thought at first, and then reflected that some customers might be shy whilst others probably only did come here for the steam bath. He decided to play the role of someone who was shy or unromantic and opted for the bath. She led him to the cubicle, but instead of undressing, he killed time with questions.

“That customer you just had—his name is Seiji Tanikawa, isn’t it?”

She was raising the lid of the steam chest, but she turned sharply toward him, a suspicious look on her face.

“Do you know him, then?”

“Well, it certainly looks like him, anyway. A bit embarrassing, bumping into him in a place like this.”

“He’s a regular of mine. Works for a film company, he says.”

“Does he come here often?”

“Twice a week.”

“He must be pretty well-off, then.”

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe he makes money playing the stock market. Some of our customers come every day, you know. Maybe they’re addicted to steam baths.”

“I would say that that customer was more addicted to you.”

She laughed and was not displeased. “Not really. He had another girl before me, but she left, so he switched to me. I came here to work just when the other girl quit, so he was handed over to me. A sheer fluke.”

“I have heard a lot of people quit this job. Is it true?”

“Well, yes, I suppose you could say that in this business we have a high metabolism. As soon as a new place opens, everyone tries to join it for a better guarantee. People move a lot; I’ve been here six months, which makes me an old hand.”

“Oh. Well, as Tanikawa is older than you, he must have been coming here for quite some time, I expect. When did he start, do you know?”

“Pretty recently, from what he has told me. He says he only came here once before meeting me, and that was a mere two days before, too. He says he went back to see the same girl again, but she had quit, so he switched to me. But men are full of stories, so I don’t know.”

“And when did you start work here?”

Again, the woman became cautious. In place of her merry chatter, she spoke somberly.

“You are investigating something, aren’t you? Are you police, by any chance?”

“Do I look like a policeman? No, I’ve taken up divination recently,” he extemporized quickly, “and the theme of my research is the causal relationship between a person’s birthday and the day they take up any particular job.”

“You can’t fool me with that sort of tale. But if you want to know, my birthday is February sixth. And what day did I start working here? Just a moment.” And she removed her handbag from the locker and extracted a notebook.

“December twenty-first. And, oh my God, not one yen of tip that first day, I see.”

“December twenty-first. Half a year.”

“Yes, six months, and not a single day off. Every now and again I think of quitting this business,” she added, and Shinji detected a look of desperation in her eyes. “But then I take a look at my bank book,” she went on, “and my spirits soon recover, seeing it mounting up every day. When I reach my target, I’ll quit and set myself up in something else.”

She stood before him, and he looked at her chubby hands. Here she was, the innocent accomplice of men’s desires. Those chubby hands…

And then it came home to him.

If the date she had given him was correct, and if Seiji Tanikawa had not lied to her, then the day of his first visit to the Turkish bath would have been the nineteenth of December. The day, in fact, that Fusako Aikawa had been killed!

Mere coincidence? Or was there some hidden meaning? In that steamy room, he felt cold sweat start to his brow.

“I must go!” he said rapidly. “I’ve just remembered something vital I promised to do! Sorry!”

“But what about your massage?”

“Some other time.” And, grossly overtipping her, he fled.

If he was lucky, he might just catch Seiji Tanikawa in some nearby small restaurant.

Shinji found Seiji Tanikawa in a low-class establishment serving skewered chicken and beer. It stood in a narrow street full of similar places, which ran down to the back of the station. It was not the shop in the detective’s report, and Shinji was really very lucky to spot Tanikawa there, hunched over the counter facing the street and wearing his black polo shirt. When Shinji first saw him, he was inserting a skewer into his mouth, the sauce dripping down his front. He didn’t even bother to look up when Shinji came in and sat beside him. He was engrossed in his beer and chicken, and when not occupied with them he would sit gazing blankly into the middle distance.

“Hello, Mr. Tanikawa,” said Shinji, and the man started, spilling some of his beer.

“Nice to find you here!” Shinji continued.

“Who the hell are you?”

Shinji did not answer. Smiling in an obscure way, he looked Tanikawa straight in the eye and said, “How are the films doing, then?” As he spoke, he knew how a blackmailer must feel, for he saw his victim’s face darken and freeze as his words sank in.

“I said, who the hell are you?” Tanikawa finally spluttered.

It seemed that the reference to films had done the trick. Shinji took the pressman’s business card out of his pocket and handed it over.

“A newspaperman, eh? What do you want with me? And what do you mean by ‘films’?” He looked up from the card and stared at Shinji.

“Well, nothing in particular. I’d heard you work in the film-developing field, that’s all. Today, my business is to inquire about blood donors. You cooperated in the Rh-negative collection campaign last year, didn’t you? You won’t remember me, perhaps, but I was there.”

It was a shot in the dark, but it seemed to strike home. A look of relief gradually replaced the look of suspicion on Tanikawa’s face. At least the reporter was not onto his blue film business.

“Can’t say I remember, but maybe.”

“Have you given blood since?”

“No, never.”

“That’s funny. Haven’t the blood banks contacted you at all? I gathered from them that you gave blood in mid-January.”

“Not me. Must have been someone else.” His face was expressionless as he replied to Shinji’s leading question. It did not look as if he was lying.

“Oh, I’m sorry—must have been our mistake.” He had drawn a blank. Perhaps, after all, there were no fish in this pond in which he was dangling his rod. Or perhaps he had no bait, or even no hook, on the end of his line. He stood up to go.

“Hey, you’re not going already, are you? Stay and drink a bit.”

Shinji looked down at him. The man’s speech was slurred and his eyes were red; alcohol was beginning to tell. What a bore! But he was in no hurry to go anywhere else, so he might as well stay a while. The image of the back of the pudgy white hands of the bath girl floated before his eyes; he’d better have a few drinks and forget them.

“O.K., I’ll stay and join you.” And he sat down again.

“My round,” said Tanikawa magnanimously, and shouted for beer.

“Do you come here often?” asked Shinji, as much to make conversation as anything else.

“No, not really. I go to a Turkish bathhouse down the road.”

“Sounds fun. Any nice girls there?”

At first, Tanikawa did not answer. He raised his beer mug up to the level of his eyes and gazed through the amber liquor. And then, watching the rising bubbles, he began to speak in tones of self-hatred.

“I see a girl there called Yasue every three days. And damn all good it does me. No love or anything about it—purely a commercial transaction. You can buy anything with money, you know. And I know it, too, but somehow I’m unable to stop myself any more. I think I’m scared to stop; at least my life has some pattern the way things are. I am just a bloody fool!”

He was close to tears. He took a deep gulp of beer and went on.

“And it all started with one woman—it was her fault; do you understand me? Damn it! How cynical, how ludicrous life is! Look, I never went near a place like that until the end of last year! And there’s a date I can never forget—December seventeenth last year. It was my day off; I went down to Kabukicho in Shinjuku and saw a film and then went into a cheap bar. That’s where I met the woman; that’s where she came and sat next to me and spoke to me…” His head suddenly slumped forward, sending his glass spinning into the ashtray, which fell to the floor and shattered. The spilled beer spread over the counter and started to drip down.

“Let me take you somewhere else,” said Shinji hastily. He lifted the drunk man in his arms and, staggering under the dead weight, paid the bill and made his way outside.

Who could this woman be that Tanikawa had suddenly mentioned? Could there be anything to it? In the recesses of his brain, an indistinct female form took shape.

He staggered down the street, supporting Tanikawa, who was no help, but merely muttered again and again, “It was that woman, that woman…” Anything else he said was unclear.

Shinji hailed a taxi and dumped Tanikawa in the back, sitting beside him. “Mitaka!” he said. Tanikawa spread himself out so that his hair, which reeked of pomade, came close to Shinji’s nose, and put his feet on the white covers of the seat back in front of him. This displeased the driver, who told him to desist in sharp tones.

The car moved off. Shinji wound down the window so that the wind blew into Tanikawa’s face and shook him by the shoulder.

“And what did you do next—you and the woman?”

“Well, she took me to a bar and stood me several drinks. Then she said she had to go, but she wanted to see me again soon.”

“She paid for all the drinks? Or did you go dutch?”

“No, she paid for the lot. And when we parted she told me that she worked for a Turkish bath and would I come and see her? She promised me good service and gave me a piece of paper with the name and address of the bathhouse on it.”

“Have you still got it?”

“Yes—I’ve always kept it. Here, have a look.” And he delved into his wallet and finally fished out a scrap of paper. “There, if you don’t believe me!” His voice and his motions betrayed his drunkenness. Shinji took the paper and read it.

“Be sure to come at 9 p.m. the day after tomorrow. Don’t forget—I’ll be waiting for you. Kyoko.” It was written in pencil but was still legible. Down the side, she had drawn a crude map showing the way to Alibaba.

Nine p.m. on the nineteenth of December last. Another coincidence? Looking at the paper, he was reminded of the printed messages that call girls leave on parked cars—name, telephone number, and some message such as: “Lonely tonight? Give me a ring.”

“So you went there?” He handed the scrap of paper back to Tanikawa.

“Of course I did. And it was marvelous. You should have seen how she performed! And like a bloody fool, I thought she was interested in me! Why, she even refused a tip! She just said, ‘Please come again.’ So I went back the next day, but she was gone.” He screwed the slip of paper into a ball and hurled it onto the floor of the car.

“What kind of a woman was she?”

“Oh, she was nice! And how she gazed at me with her large eyes with their double lids! It was enough to make you swoon!”

“Big eyes; double eyelids. Was that all? Was there nothing else special about her? So that you could recognize her again, I mean.”

“Oh yes, she had a big mole at the base of her nose. It was really sexy! Could you really find her for me?” he cried in a maudlin fashion and then slumped over Shinji’s knees and began to snore.

Shinji picked the ball of paper up off the floor and slipped it into his pocket. The car turned off the Koshu Kaido and into the Suido-doro.

Who could that woman have been? She had stood drinks to a stranger in a bar; although a Turkish bath girl, she turned down a tip. And then she vanished into thin air. Why? What had she been up to?

Ahead, the road, illuminated in the headlights of the car, seemed to rush toward him. He had better report this to the old man as quickly as possible. The car swung left down the edge of Inokashira Natural Park, whose thick groves were the last remains of the forests that had once covered Tokyo, and then turned down a gravel path that ran along the edge of the Mitaka Brook. Soon he would be there.

He would drop the drunk off, and then go to the apartment of Sada, the cosmetics salesman.

It was on his way, anyhow.

The coffee shop, Dakko, was located at the end of a shopping arcade. It was a tiny place built on the corner of the row, having no more than two box seats; five customers would be enough to fill it, and tonight it was overfull with men wearing clogs and light cotton kimonos who seemed to have nowhere in particular to go. A glance at the towels and soap containers that they all were holding revealed that they were all on their way back home from the public bath. Amongst this group, one man stood out, for he was wearing a summer suit and was tall for a Japanese—at least five feet seven. When Shinji entered, he spotted him immediately, for he seemed to be talking to himself, moving his large limbs in an exaggerated manner the while. He seemed to be rehearsing a sales pitch, and his soft, well-modulated voice betrayed him for what he was—a cosmetics salesman who made his living from women. The moment Shinji opened the door, their eyes met. Sada came over to Shinji, glancing at him shrewdly, and they sat down together in a seat that had just become vacant. Sada bowed slightly.

“Hello. Sorry, but I forget your name.”

Shinji handed him a reporter’s card. “I went to your apartment, but your wife told me you would be here, so…”

“Yes, she phoned me and told me.” Sada proffered his card, his face set with his business smile.

“Thanks for coming,” he went on. “As you can see, I’m ready for business twenty-four hours a day.” He oozed politeness.

“Well, to be honest, it isn’t that. I came in search of facts on blood donation. Have you given recently?”

“Well, there’s been no call for it for quite some time. Rather a waste really—I’m a full-blooded fellow and have more than I need.” Sada laughed at his weak joke.

“What about the fifteenth of January last?” he said, mentioning the date of Mitsuko Kosugi’s murder. But Sada assured him that he had not given blood for at least a year. It seemed that Shinji’s visit was wasted, and he decided to leave. However, having come so far, perhaps he should question Sada a little on his private life. It seemed that Sada was a man who liked to talk, and he was awaiting Shinji’s further questions, moistening his underlip the while.

“The nature of your business must bring you into contact with all sorts of people. Have you got any interesting stories to tell me?”

“Not really. My life is pretty dull, really.”

“Honestly?”

“Yes. The life of a cosmetics salesman consists of wearing down shoe leather, no more. I know there are a lot of stories about us, but they are not true, at least not in my experience.”

“What about the jewelry business, then?” Shinji only said this in a spirit of light sarcasm, but it struck home. Sada’s slimy eyes, which bulged as if he suffered from Basedow’s disease, suddenly ceased their motion. He lowered his voice and leaned toward Shinji, plainly anxious not to be overheard.

“Detective, are you? I know what you are talking about, but we can’t speak here, so let’s move on somewhere else. There’s a sushi shop called ‘Kawagen’ a few doors up; go and wait for me there.” His tone was friendly but insistent.

Shinji decided to fall in with his plans. Leaving his coffee more or less untasted, he went out of Dakko.

He was sitting at the counter of Kawagen, wiping his hands with a cold flannel, when Sada came in. “Sorry to keep you waiting.” He gave a few orders to the cook behind the counter and turned to Shinji again. “I had quite a difficult time with the lady, and it really wasn’t my fault,” he began.

“Go on,” said Shinji, his curiosity aroused.

“Well, she rang me at home—must have got my number from another customer, I suppose. Anyway, she said she wanted to see some jewelry. Well, it’s only a side business of mine, you understand, but anything to oblige… Anyway, she said she wanted to see some jewelry and asked me to meet her at a coffee shop downtown. So, as I said, what the customer wants is always right, and I went to see a fellow I know who lets me have stock on consignment when I need it.”

At this point, he broke off and ordered a tuna sushi, offering one to Shinji, too.

“Well, I went to the coffee shop, but on the way I had second thoughts. I mean, I was carrying a small fortune in gems, and I didn’t know the woman from Adam. What if I was drugged and robbed? So I put my briefcase in a station locker and just took two pieces with me—the cheapest diamond in the batch and an opal. Why did I go at all in that case, you may ask. Well, there was something suggestive in the woman’s manner that attracted me. Anyway, I got to the coffee shop in Yurakucho and there she was, waiting for me, wearing a kimono. Quite a beauty, and immaculately turned out.

“I was going to show her the jewelry, but she said the coffee shop was too public. We ought to go somewhere very private, she said to me archly, and I began to feel I wouldn’t mind being cheated out of my jewelry if she would first give me a little bit of pleasure in return. As I say, she was beautiful. Anyway, we went to an inn in Sendagaya by taxi. When we got there, it was still before noon, but there were several other couples there already. It seems that those places have business twenty-four hours a day, you know. Makes you think, doesn’t it?”

He paused to wolf down two sushi; looking at him, Shinji reflected that here was a man whose mouth never stopped moving, either in eating or in speech.

“So we went into a bedroom and she asked to see the jewelry. She said she liked both pieces and asked how much they were. Well, I was a little confused, so I quoted her a good price and she bought them both on the spot—and paid cash there and then, too.” He laughed hollowly. “Well, we’d paid for the room for two hours, and it seemed a waste not to use it, if you see what I mean, and she was willing, it seemed. So we drank a little beer, and undressed, and then…”

“Yes?”

“And then nothing. I woke up and was lying on the bed all by myself. I called the front desk on the phone and they told me the lady had left an hour and a half before. That put the wind up in me, and I checked to see if anything was missing, but nothing was. Even the eighty thousand yen she had paid me for the jewelry was still there. It was just as if I had been possessed by a fairy or a ghost. But my head was strangely heavy and my throat dry, so I went back home and slept it off. Beer doesn’t normally affect me like that; if you ask me, it was drugged. Anyway, that wasn’t the end of it. The next day, when I returned the remainder of the jewelry to my friend, I discovered that the diamond I had sold her was a fake. Look, it’s only a sideline of mine, and I’m no expert. I assure you that I had no intention of cheating her. Please believe me.” He paused for a drink.

“Oh, yes, the money is quite intact—I’ve kept it in an envelope so as to give it back to her in due course. I’ve tried to track her down, but to no avail.” The story was at an end, and he rounded it off with a laugh that seemed to Shinji to be extremely studied.

Was he telling the truth? Perhaps he had seen the incident as a small, illicit affair with a married woman and had taken the money without any qualms. But perhaps the fraud had been deliberate, and he was now making up this story to cover up his deceit. In either case, how could this bizarre tale be related to the case of Ichiro Honda?

“And when did this take place?”

“Let me see—I can tell you exactly.” The salesman took a small notebook out of his breast pocket and examined it. “January fourteenth,” he said.

The day before Mitsuko Kosugi was killed… but could there be any connection? Surely not. Feeling disappointed, Shinji poured himself a mug of green tea to take the taste of sushi out of his mouth. He prepared to leave, but the salesman began to speak again.

“Look, as I’ve told you, I’ll give the money back. And to make amends, I’ll give her some of the new cream I’ve got that covers up spots, freckles, and even moles. It contains ingredients imported from France and is rather expensive, but I will give her a jar for nothing.”

Shinji listened in stunned silence.

“You know, that mole she has on the side of her nose.”

Shinji absently picked up a small pebble that was lying on the counter and hurled it somewhere without particularly caring. It struck something, rattling hollowly.

“Yes, she was concealing it behind a handkerchief, you know, but of course that attracts more attention than if you are open about it. A mole isn’t such a defect that you have to hide it; indeed, if displayed openly, it has a charm of its own. But this new makeup will take care of it.” Sada chatted on, but Shinji sensed behind the self-confident charm of the salesman a deep concern about the money and the jewelry.

“What will happen as a result of all this?” Sada asked.

“Depending on how it turns out, you may have to give evidence in court. However, I don’t think there’s any way you will get into trouble over this. For the time being, hang on to the money.”

“Court? Do you mean a divorce court?”

“Something like that.” He got up to leave and made as if to pay, but Sada restrained him, laying an oily hand, sticky with sweat, on his wrist. Shinji allowed him to pay, thanked him and left.

He set off on foot for Asagaya Station. What did it all mean? How could he organize the jumble of facts into a coherent picture? Everything seemed so disconnected. In the damp heat of the evening, he couldn’t think straight. If only Hatanaka was with him; the old man would soon put the pieces of the jigsaw together.

After all, he thought, he was just a reporter collecting facts and incidents for his master. He could almost see the old lawyer’s heavy-lidded face, smell his fragrant cigar.

He reached Asagaya Station and bought a ticket to Shinjuku. Now for the last name on his list. He must go and talk to a boy in a homosexual bar.

He felt like going home to sleep instead but overcame the urge, as does a gambler who is determined to stay up all night.

The distance from Shinjuku Station to Hanazono-cho, which was where the gay bar was located, was quite far on foot. As Shinji headed in that direction, the majority of people were coming the other way. He collided with a hostess who was obviously in a rush to catch the last train, and she cursed him raucously.

Finally he came to Toden Avenue; crossing this broad thoroughfare and making his way toward the Hanazono Shrine, he finally came upon a maze of streets laid out like a gridiron behind the shrine, formerly an area licensed for prostitution. Turning into a narrow alleyway at the second intersection, he found himself in a jungle of tiny bars, each of them with a frontage no more than a few feet wide, and each advertising itself with a similar neon sign. There were also paper lanterns and painted boards; which, amongst these myriad establishments, could be his destination?

It was late, and the street was deserted. No voices of drunkards singing arose to assail his ears, as he might have expected. No heavily made-up woman tried to tug him into a doorway, as might normally be expected in such an area. He poked his head into a tiny bar occupied by a middle-aged woman in an apron and asked her how he could find his destination.

“I’ve no idea,” she said. “Give up and have a drink here instead. I’ll introduce you to a nice girl.” She sat warming her feet over a charcoal brazier, which seemed to double as an ashtray, so full was it of cigarette ends and broken chopsticks. He declined her offer and made his escape; after a few moments he looked back, but there was no sign of her following him. It seemed that she was resigned to her lot and no longer hustled for business.

Only one place showed any sign of life: a tiny restaurant that had obviously once been a bar. From it wafted delicious smells of fish on the grill and fermented bean soup. Shinji suddenly realized that he had hardly eaten that night and went in. Five customers would fill it; there were three—a waiter off-duty, identifiable by his bow tie, and two tarts. They looked up as he entered but betrayed no interest, soon returning to their chopsticks and their bowls.

Behind the counter, an honest-looking couple in their early fifties were working diligently; he took them to be husband and wife. He glanced at the menu and ordered a bowl of rice and salmon doused in hot tea. While it was being prepared, he smoked a cigarette and reflected. The faces of the four men that he had interviewed floated before his eyes. The medical intern, the day laborer, the salaryman at the film laboratory, the salesman of cosmetics… each face rose before him in turn.

Of these four, two had nothing to tell him that he could see was of any significance. The other two had both spoken of the strange woman. And none of them had recently given blood. Did that mean that they had no connection with blood? If so, why had the person who had spoken to the blood banks on the telephone been so interested in AB Rh-negative? Surely he or she wanted to obtain some? Shinji was totally confused.

The cook brought his food, and he savored the perfumes of seaweed and sesame seed.

Just one more to go, he thought as he ate. The boy in the gay bar; was he the last stud card? Had he been turning up the wrong cards so far? It was almost like playing poker, he decided.

He ate the last mouthful and found it full of horseradish, which almost choked him. He gulped down some tea hurriedly and then asked the master the way to Bar B.

“It’s right here—one floor up.” The neon sign with the big letter B was under the eaves, he now realized, and he had not noticed it. He paid his bill, went out and began to climb the narrow staircase, which was so steep and contorted that he nearly fell halfway up. But upstairs turned out to be more spacious than he had expected; the room was occupied by four or five customers, all of them looking like pederasts. He flopped into a bar stool and hunched his shoulders. A boy with softly waved curls down his forehead came up to him.

“What can I get you, sir?”

“Beer,” said Shinji.

“Yes, sir, of course, sir, please wait a moment,” said the boy coquettishly and minced away.

Behind the counter were three other young men, all dressed identically in shirts with broad vertical stripes and narrow ties. They leaned on the counter flirting with the customers, occasionally stepping back and shaking their bodies sensuously in time to the music. They all wore tight jeans that were sculpted over their bottoms. And which of them could be Nobuya Mikami? Shinji had no idea, for although the detective agency had provided photographs of the other four men, they had omitted to do so in this case. Either the researcher was embarrassed to ask the precious young man for a photograph, or else he had presumed that Shinji would make contact by phone rather than visit the bar.

Perhaps it had been a mistake to come here, Shinji reflected as he sipped his beer; certainly his motives would be misunderstood. He put a cigarette in his mouth, and immediately the boy who had served him produced a light. There was a golden initial A embroidered on his tie.

“My name is Akiko,” said the boy, pointing to the A on his tie. “How do you do?”

So they all had their initials on their ties, thought Shinji, and indeed it was so. Each boy had an initial on his tie, but none of them sported an N. Nobuya Mikami must be out with a customer. If he waited, would he be back?

“Is Nobu off tonight?” he asked.

“Oh, it’s Nobu you want, is it? Sorry—he’s out with a customer, taking a cup of tea together, if you see what I mean. Well, if you know him, you know how self-centered he is; he’ll do anything, he says, if there’s money in it for him!”

“Really,” said Shinji. “A real pro, you mean?”

The boy giggled, but an epicene little man sitting at the counter next to Shinji turned to him, peered at him through his glasses and lisped, “Oh, my! I’m terribly sorry! Are you interested in Nobu, too? But do be careful—he’s an awful tease, and quite cold-hearted. Why, once he went to a hotel to meet a strange man who phoned in, and the man gave him ten thousand yen, and still Nobu only spent an hour with him!”

“Wow!” said another customer. “What a boy! When was that?” Shinji found this intervention most convenient.

“Six months ago—on his birthday. You know, his best patron came and said, ‘Let’s celebrate in the grand manner. Tonight, everything is on me!’ But as soon as that telephone call came, Nobu just walked out on us. ‘An engagement,’ he said, ‘comes first.’ Even Mama-san was disgusted with him that night! He came back after an hour and said, ‘I had a steak in a hotel restaurant as I dissipated my energy.’ What lies! Everyone knows hotel restaurants aren’t open at that hour. Typical showing off! As if he’d buy a steak—he’s too mean to give anyone even a sheet of tissue paper!”

“Some customer, to give him ten thousand yen. Wish I could find one like that!”

“But he only called the once, you know. Nobu hopes he’ll call again, but he won’t, mark my words. Once is enough with that cow! He’s got no sense of service, that one, which is why all his customers leave him in the end.”

It was Akiko, also known by the diminutive “Attchan,” who was running down his rival behind his back. It appeared to Shinji that Nobu had stolen one of his customers off him. He sat listening to this and similar talk interspersed with suggestive banter between Attchan and the plump, pink customer on his right for thirty minutes, but still there was no sign of Nobu. Perhaps he’d better phone later. He paid his bill, a mere 350 yen for the beer and some tidbits, and left.

But when he got to the bottom of the stairs he found that it was raining outside. In fact, it was a downpour, and he decided to shelter there until it subsided. The water formed deep pools on the asphalt, reflecting the red neon light of the bar sign. He lit a cigarette and gazed at the furious deluge. Not a soul was in sight.

A taxi stopped at the end of the lane, and a man, his jacket pulled over his head, ran to where Shinji was sheltering. He paused under the eaves and put his jacket on; under it was a striped shirt, which revealed that he was a waiter from Bar B. He glanced at Shinji and smiled impishly. His face was feminine, with something of the soft roundness of childhood left in it. And on his tie was the initial N.

“Nobu, I presume,” said Shinji. “I have been waiting for you.”

“Sorry to keep you waiting in this rain. Won’t you come up?”

“No thanks—I spent quite a time there already. I must be on my way now—but just a question or two first.” And taking a thousand-yen note out of his wallet, he folded it with deliberation and slipped it into Nobu’s handkerchief pocket.

“I’m a lawyer,” he went on. “I’m checking into blood donation. Have you given recently?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. I’ve become anemic of late. Are you looking for AB Rh-negative, then? What sort of operation is it for?”

Shinji just shook his head. His stud card had turned out to be useless after all; it was time for him to fold.

“Anyway,” the young man continued, “I made a pledge at my last birthday that I would never give blood again. I make an important resolution every time I have a birthday. Who knows, next year I may resolve to quit gay bars!”

“And when is your birthday?”

“January fifteenth.”

January 15… the day that Mitsuko Kosugi was murdered. And the boy had said…

“And you said that something interesting happened to you on your birthday. What was it?”

“I didn’t say it.”

“Sorry, Attchan did.”

“Oh. Well, it wasn’t really anything nice—Attchan’s jealous, that’s all. I mean, yes, I was given money, but ooh, what a weird customer! I was called to the hotel by telephone. He made me take a bath, but he didn’t remove a single garment—in fact, he even wore gloves throughout! A short guy, with a muffled sort of voice. And he only left a small bedside footlight on, so it was almost pitch dark. I don’t think it’s so romantic in the dark, do you?”

“And he gave you ten thousand yen?”

“That’s right.”

The rain had subsided; at the far end of the lane, a drunkard staggered along, supported by a harlot. And nobody had taken the boy’s blood after all. So the old man’s efforts—the careful listing of AB Rh-negative donors, his investigations with the blood banks—had been to no avail. His own long hours on the trail had also been useless.

“Thanks,” he said weakly.

“Is that all you want of me?” said Nobu Mikami, winking at him lasciviously and tapping the handkerchief pocket into which Shinji had slipped the thousand yen. “But, between you and me, I think that all men with moles are a bit abnormal, don’t you? My customer tonight had a large mole above his belly button, just where his fat was running to slack. Disgusting, I call it!”

The rain had at last stopped, and Shinji left without a word. But he had only gone a few paces down the narrow street before the significance of the boy’s words struck home. He rushed back and caught Nobu halfway up the stairs.

“You said ‘mole,’” he panted. “Do you mean that the customer on your birthday had a mole, too?”

“Sure—a big one on the base of his nose.” He looked down the stairs at Shinji and laid his finger down one side of his nose suggestively.

“Are you sure the customer was a man? Could it not possibly have been a woman in disguise?”

The boy blinked in surprise at this peculiar question, but at length replied, “I have no idea—could be. I have lots of oddball customers, but it doesn’t worry me so long as they pay. But if it was a woman, I don’t know what on earth she wanted from me.” He turned his back and vanished up the stairs, his full buttocks twinkling under the tight jeans. Shinji stood there in stupefaction. At last it was all becoming clear.

Three out of the five people with that rare blood group had met someone with a mole on the side of his or her nose. But in every case the circumstances had differed. And, even more significant, those three meetings had occurred on the day of one of the murders or on the day before. Three moles on three noses, all connecting up in one line. It hadn’t occurred to him until he had heard the boy’s last words. But who could she be, this woman with a mole on her nose? What was she after? Question after question poured through his mind.

He hurried away from the shady quarter. On the main street, he looked for a public telephone.

He went into a coffee shop and used the public telephone to call up the old man at his home, but the maid answered and grumbled that he was not back yet. “And he didn’t even say where he was going,” she complained.

Where could he be, all by himself at this time of night? Shinji decided to wait a while for his return home and took a corner seat and ordered a cup of coffee. A few seats away, an avant-garde group of young people who seemed to be led by a young woman wearing white lipstick were striking extravagant poses and putting white tablets into their beer. Shinji ignored them. Getting his memo book out of his pocket instead, he began to write down his conclusions from his research to date:

Shinji reread what he had written and contemplated. Although the gay boy had said that he had met a man, there was enough about his description to suggest that it could have been a woman in disguise. Above all, there was the mole.

So it was fair to assume that in all three cases, the person had been the same.

And it was highly likely that it was the same person who had telephoned the blood banks inquiring about the rare blood group.

So what lay behind this mysterious person’s actions?

Why did she meet people with AB Rh-negative blood on the day of the murder, or the day before?

Suppose all three men had told the truth, and she had collected blood from none of them, what was her purpose behind these meetings?

She had always effected contact through sex.

So…

Perhaps her target was the semen, and not the blood, of the men! This seemed to Shinji to make sense.

A murderess… gathering secretions from the bodies of men… leaving them in the bodies of her victims… how morbid! If he were a psychopathologist, he might be able to explain the distortion of the criminal’s mind, but as a lawyer he had no theories. His mind was horrified at the thought of this woman who gathered the sperm of men with clammy hands and then bent over the bodies of the women whom she had strangled. Could it really have been a woman, and not a man in disguise, who had entrapped Ichiro Honda?

He looked again at the list. There was no appearance noted on the first occasion, the murder of Kimiko Tsuda. Did he, or she, visit someone with this obscure blood group on that day, too? he wondered. If so, it had to be either the day laborer Oba or else Yamazaki, the medical intern. Which of them had lied to him?

By process of elimination, the day laborer seemed the most unlikely, particularly if the criminal was a woman. And then in his mind’s eye he was again sitting in the Bluebird coffee shop, facing the pale face of Yamazaki. What had the man said in response to his questions about blood? “Blood is an old-fashioned topic.” What had he meant? And then Shinji suddenly realized.

Had Yamazaki not spoken of an interview with a third-rate magazine… on the topic of artificial insemination? Was not this a hint? Had the woman with the mole also approached Yamazaki? What had transpired to link him, his blood group, the woman with the mole, and the case of Ichiro Honda?

Perhaps the sentencing of Honda to death had given him a guilty conscience; perhaps this was why he had remained silent about… about what? About the giving of his sperm. Shinji felt sure that it was Yamazaki who could fill in the blank space in his notebook. He would visit him again at the hospital tomorrow.

He stirred his lukewarm coffee. One question remained in his mind. The cosmetics salesman had met the woman with the mole on the fourteenth of January. If he wasn’t lying, and if the woman had not taken sperm from him, then what had she taken? The only possible answer would be blood.

When he was lying insensible on the bed, she had taken his blood.

That was it; that made sense. So the old man’s theory that the criminal had taken blood from these men was correct! And his harvest today had been a woman with a mole on the base of her nose.

Suddenly he felt weary. He called the old man’s home again, but still he was not back. He paid and left.

In the street, he suddenly thought of his empty apartment where no one was awaiting him. And by contrast, he thought of the plump, white hands of Yasue, the girl in the Turkish bath, and of the slim nape at the back of the neck of Michiko Ono as she had walked ahead of him in the damp-smelling library.

He shook his head to clear it of such thoughts and walked heavily toward the station.

THE BLACK STAIN

The waiting room near to the entrance of the hospital was crowded with outpatients with bandages on them and with mothers soothing fretful children. It was just after 9 a.m.—opening time. Shinji sat on a hard wooden bench waiting to see intern Yamazaki. A little girl with short, bobbed hair sitting next to him had just wiped her caramel-covered hands all over his trousers; the child’s mother had said, “Don’t do that!” absently, her eyes looking away at something else.

Yamazaki came in. Tall and elegant, he wore his white coat with distinction, one hand in the pocket, the front buttons undone. Stylish fellow, Shinji thought.

Shinji rose to greet him. “Thank you for seeing me yesterday.”

“Not at all. But why are you back again today? I’m busy, you know.”

“Yes, I do realize, but I won’t keep you long. Look, I told you I was a journalist, but that isn’t true. I’m a lawyer.” And he presented his genuine card. The intern gazed at it with interest.

“I’m defending Ichiro Honda. Incidentally, do you know his blood type?”

“Yes. I saw in the newspaper. It’s the same as mine.”

“We are convinced of his innocence. For one thing, we do not believe that the AB Rh-negative blood found under the fingernails of the victims was his. The same applies to the sperm that was found.”

“Really? Are you implying that the blood was mine?”

“Not the blood. The sperm.”

The intern was speechless for a moment; he stared at Shinji out of the corner of his eye and then broke into a high-pitched laugh that had a hollow and insincere ring. “Very interesting. And what makes you so sure?”

“Well, you told me yesterday that you were interviewed by a popular magazine on the topic of sperm donation. That’s correct, isn’t it? So you have some experience, don’t you?”

“Well, yes, I’m one of several medical students here who donate. Usually about three of us, but sometimes four or five. But the names are always kept confidential, and even if you give you don’t know if it will be used. But what on earth can this have to do with Ichiro Honda?”

“I have reason to believe that you donated on the fifth of November last year.”

“Wait a minute.” Yamazaki consulted his pocket diary. He shook his head. “I didn’t note it, and my memory of last year is hazy. I have a feeling that I donated in about October, but I can’t be sure.”

“And where would the donation have taken place?”

“Why, here, of course.”

“And how is it usually collected?”

The faint smile vanished from Yamazaki’s face. His susceptibilities were plainly offended. “I don’t see why I have to go into details… I don’t see what bearing… Oh, very well, I suppose there’s no harm in telling you. In a test tube, of course.”

“So someone goes around collecting these tubes? For example, a nurse?”

“No, we usually hand it over to the registrar in person.”

Whilst talking, they had moved away from the crowd and were now standing by a window next to a shoe locker. To the casual observer, they would have been seen as two men holding a light conversation.

“Look,” said Shinji. “A man’s life depends upon this. You won’t have to go into court and give evidence if you don’t want to, but please just tell me the truth. On or just before the fifth of November, did you not give a test tube of sperm to someone other than the registrar—even, a faint possibility that occurs to me, to a strange nurse?”

A cool breeze, chilled by the shade of the trees outside, blew in through the window. Kotaro Yamazaki had turned his back on Shinji, causing the latter to reflect on how such a gesture symbolizes rejection. After a pause, Yamazaki turned and faced Shinji again.

“How much do you think the hospital pays me?” His voice was low and challenging. Shinji did not reply.

“Nothing, that’s the answer! No matter how long you’ve worked, nothing. You’ve got to be rich to become a doctor, you know! A lot of the others are themselves sons of doctors, so they can afford it and don’t mind working like horses for nothing. I’m not complaining; that’s the way it is. I’m just saying it’s easier to qualify if you are rich, if you’re a doctor’s son like those others, so I ask you to spare a thought for people like me who have to make it on our own. Yes, I did sell a test tube of semen for ten thousand yen on the fifth of November last year, if you must know.”

“Ten thousand yen! That’s a lot of money! What’s the normal rate?”

Yamazaki again turned his back on Shinji and answered over his shoulder. “A thousand or fifteen hundred.” His voice seemed to be full of self-contempt.

“And what did the person look like—the one who came to collect the tube?”

“A nurse in a white uniform. It was in the afternoon, I think. I had just had lunch, and was walking down the corridor when a strange nurse carrying a test tube appeared and, having identified me, offered me ten times the usual rate to make an urgent donation under conditions of strict secrecy. I accepted without hesitation. I mean, ten thousand yen. And in other ways it was not such an unusual request.”

The nurse had waited for him to make the donation and had then left. She had introduced herself as being from the K Obstetric Clinic in Setagaya.

“And you got the payment all right?”

“Oh, yes, she gave it to me in a brown envelope together with the test tube.”

“And what did you do with the envelope?”

“I threw it away.”

“Can you remember what she looked like?”

“Not particularly. A small woman in a nurse’s uniform, which contributes to anonymity. When she turned to go, I saw that her hair was braided under her cap.”

“Did she have a mole at the right base of her nose?”

Shinji touched his nose to refresh Yamazaki’s memory.

“Yes, she did, now you mention it. Quite a big mole. She was wearing a mask at first, and I didn’t see it.”

So the woman with the mole had come here, too. She had collected semen; her criminal intent now seemed clear.

“And she took her mask off?”

“Yes. She apologized for having a cold and blew her nose. That’s when she took the mask off and I saw the mole.”

So she invariably tried to conceal the mole, and thereby drew attention to it. Was the criminal fighting a losing battle with fate?

“Did she give you the impression of being disguised?”

“Not at all. A white uniform in a hospital is most natural, after all, so I thought nothing of it.”

“But didn’t you think it a bit peculiar—coming from so far to collect semen?”

“Not really—she could have used a taxi.”

“Do you usually keep donations so secret?”

“Our professor tells us to. And it’s an important principle, don’t you agree? Can I go now? Frankly, by nature I don’t like discussing things that are over and done with.” His face had grown cold.

“Of course, and I’ll treat everything you have said in strict confidence, don’t you worry. But just one last question before you go. Yesterday, you told me that blood donation is a stale topic and that artificial insemination is more interesting. You even mentioned an interview with a popular magazine. Frankly, it seemed to me that you were being evasive. Now I want you to be perfectly frank with me. Did it not later occur to you that there was some connection between this incident and Ichiro Honda’s case? Didn’t there seem to be some linkage, perhaps more than coincidence, between the date of your donation and the rape-murder in Kinshicho?”

“No, not for one minute. Your hypothesis lacks scientific substance.” He looked disdainfully at Shinji and went on. “Human beings are divided into secretory and nonsecretory types, you know. It is only in the case of a secretory type that the semen and saliva are identical in type to the blood. And I am a nonsecretory type. So although my blood type is AB, my semen and saliva will not show up as AB but as O. If you don’t believe me, look it up or go and ask an expert.”

“And how do you know you are nonsecretory? Most people wouldn’t, would they?” Shinji made a last effort to catch him out.

“We were experimenting in the forensic lab at university, and they used a cigarette butt that I had smoked. Do you know that you can detect a saliva type from one-third of a postage stamp that someone has licked? So that’s how I know.” And without further ceremony he turned away from Shinji, hurrying down the corridor with long strides.

Could this really be true? Could the semen found in the body of Kimiko Tsuda not belong to Yamazaki after all? So was he wrong in his theory about the woman with a mole who collected samples of AB Rh-negative blood and sperm? His supposition, which had seemed to be 99 percent probable, seemed on the point of collapse. But then, why would the woman with the mole bother to collect Yamazaki’s semen?

Shinji felt that he was still blundering in the dark.

Shinji came to the end of his report, but even then the old man did not raise his hooded eyes. He was gazing down at the scrap of paper that the Turkish bath girl had given to Tanikawa, tapping it absently with his fingertip. Was the old man silent because the case had turned out to be as he had expected? Was he stunned by this or merely satisfied? And yet, was there not an enormous hole in his theory—the matter of secretory and nonsecretory types, which Yamazaki had explained?

“The fact that Yamazaki is a nonsecretory type, and that his fluids are type O, does not matter at all,” said Hatanaka at length. “Indeed, it only goes to prove that the woman with the mole did use his sperm.”

“Why?”

“Well, go back and read the trial transcript. You will find that the semen found in Kimiko Tsuda’s body was originally classified as type O. However, a later submission by the prosecution to have it reclassified AB was upheld by the judge. It was partly due to this doubt that Honda was acquitted of that murder. However, it now seems plain to me that the original assessment was correct and that the semen found in the corpse must have indeed been type O.”

“But surely it is a matter of scientific fact rather than surmise?”

“Not a bit of it. Expert evidence is often just as subjective as lay evidence. Two different professors are quite likely to come up with two different views.”

“So you are convinced that the woman with the mole is the person who entrapped Ichiro Honda?”

“Can there be any doubt? I am quite convinced that the woman with the mole collected the semen and deposited it in the women’s bodies. And furthermore, I have proof that these crimes were premeditated for a long time. You see, last night I went to a bar called Boi in Shinjuku.” The old man’s eyes were like curtains; he paused and lit a fresh cigar.

“Let me tell you a little story. One summer’s evening just two years ago, Ichiro Honda was in that bar, singing the ‘Zigeunerliedchen.’ A girl joined him and sang with him. And they ended up spending the night together.”

“Where did they go? An inn?”

“Probably, but it is not relevant.”

Shinji felt the excitement welling up inside him; at the same time, he felt disgusted by Honda’s promiscuity.

“And let me tell you another little story. Six months later, there was a key-punch operator who took her own life; she fell from the window of an office building.” He drew heavily upon his cigar, blowing the purple cloud of smoke high toward the ceiling. “And the two stories are linked, for the girl was the same in each case. The girl who killed herself, and the girl who slept with Honda after singing ‘Zigeunerliedchen.’ One and the same—Keiko Obana, aged nineteen.”

“And was Honda the cause of her suicide?”

“No. She had become neurotic because of a vocational disease.” Shinji was listening attentively, but in place of the key-punch operator he was thinking of his former lover, the lending clerk in the library. She, too, had slept with Ichiro Honda, hadn’t she? He reflected bitterly upon his client.

Somewhere in the distance, he heard the old man continue. “Keiko Obana had an only sister, much older than she was.” Hatanaka’s voice was like a bee heard at a distance in a summer garden. “When Honda told me about Keiko Obana yesterday, I felt I had to go to the bar. So I went and sat in the box seat on the second floor where Honda said the girl was sitting before the singing began. After a little while, I heard the weeping strains of a violin from the ground floor, just as Honda had described to me. So I sent for the player and asked him to play ‘Zigeunerliedchen.’ The violinist, a bald old man, changed his expression sharply at my request.”

At last Hatanaka opened his sleepy eyelids and gazed at his junior. The old man’s voice began to take on an urgency that Shinji had never heard before.

“The player grinned at me in a crooked way and remarked, ‘Customers at Boi certainly like this song, don’t they, sir?’ I asked him what he meant, and he looked knowing and replied, ‘Next you are going to tell me that a thin girl occupied this seat and sang in chorus with a man downstairs. That would be right, wouldn’t it, sir?’” The old man stubbed out his cigar. “I asked if anyone else had put these questions to him, and he immediately answered that a woman had, about a year ago.”

Shinji felt as if he had suddenly been pulled from a dark coalhole into brilliant sunshine. He watched the old man’s lips as a gambler watches the dealer; it was as if two cards were about to be turned up, and they would both turn out to be the same.

“So I asked what the woman looked like. All he could remember was that she had a mole at the base of her nose, for the rest of her face was concealed by a wide-brimmed hat and sunglasses.”

Silence dominated the room. What had that woman with the mole been up to? Surely, Shinji thought, the old man was right; she was preparing to entrap Ichiro Honda.

“And what did the woman ask of the violinist?”

“The name of the man who had sung in union with the girl, and also the bars that he frequented.”

“And that was a year ago?”

“Yes. Just four months before the murder of Kimiko Tsuda at Kinshicho.”

“And who do you think she was?”

“I don’t know, but I have my suspicions. A relative of Keiko Obana’s, I’d say.”

“And the sister was the only relative?”

“Yes. I read up all the newspaper articles that came out at the time of the suicide. They were living together in an apartment at Omori. So I’ve sent a researcher off there to see what he can find.”

Shinji drew in his breath sharply, an involuntary sign of respect. The Hatanaka Law Office had found the trail, which would help it in its efforts to defend Ichiro Honda. It did indeed seem as if there was some connection between the key-puncher’s suicide and the murders. He saw in his mind’s eye those three faces: the worker at the film laboratory, the cosmetics salesman, the homosexual prostitute. Now they had to string together the moist episodes in the secret lives of these three men of a rare blood group and so prove Honda’s innocence.

The old man had again closed his eyes as if in sleep. Suddenly the phone on his desk rang with heart-stopping suddenness; the old man was shaken, for his hands trembled as he picked up the receiver.

The conversation was one-sided; occasionally, the old man would grunt or interject a terse word. Meanwhile, his right hand was engaged in scribbling on the memo pad in front of him. He replaced the receiver and lay back with his eyes closed, and Shinji knew better than to interrupt. After a while, the old man opened his eyes, lit a cigar and spoke.

“Keiko Obana’s sister moved from the Omori apartment last September. No one knows where she went, just that she moved. But all the people living around there describe her in the same way—a woman with a large mole on the right-hand side of her nose.”

“So that’s it; we’ve got her, haven’t we?”

“No. In addition to finding her, we’ve got to find a motive, and also how the crimes were committed.” The old man showed his normal prudence.

“She must have believed that her sister killed herself because of Honda deserting her.”

“I expect so.”

“So we must find out where the sister is.”

“That may not be so easy. However, I agree with you that we have no alternative.” The old man’s voice was suddenly tired, and Shinji could see why. A person capable of the cunning that had been used to trap Ichiro Honda would be no less capable of disappearing from the face of the earth once the plot was complete. If they failed to prove Honda’s innocence, and if he were executed, would the real criminal wallow in secret satisfaction? Or would he or she—and it seemed to be she—have killed herself by then?

The old man looked up at Shinji. “I’d like you to go to the police station that handled Keiko Obana’s suicide,” he said, half apologetically.

The M Police Station was housed in a gray building so dirty in color as to be almost sordid. Shinji reported to the policeman at the front desk and was kept waiting on a plain wooden bench in the entrance hall for some time. The section chief who had been in charge of Keiko Obana’s case was informing the relatives of the discovery of a drowned corpse in the palace moat that morning. Eventually he came out, conducting a matronly-looking woman whose eyes were red from weeping. She had a small baby on her back, poor soul, and Shinji reflected that those who are left behind always suffer most.

The section chief greeted him amiably and conducted him into his room. But when he heard that Shinji’s business concerned Keiko Obana, his face set in firm lines and he crossed his arms.

“It is correct that this station handled the suicide of Keiko Obana, a key-punch operator with K Life Insurance. We officially decided that the motive for suicide was neurosis caused by a vocational disease.” As he spoke, his eyes avoided Shinji’s; he stared at the wall or else widely over his shoulders, as if addressing a large audience. Shinji judged him to be an honest man who did not like telling lies.

“Yes, that’s very interesting, but apart from the official version, what else can you tell me—off the record, of course.” The section chief struggled with himself for a moment and then obviously decided there was nothing for it but to tell the truth.

“Well, there’s one thing I did not make public, and that was on my own responsibility. Keiko Obana was six months pregnant at the time of her death. I did not tell the press, and I hope you see why.”

“Did you tell anybody?”

“Just her sister, when she came to collect the body.”

“And did she know who the child’s father was?”

“It seems that it was some man that she met at an all-night café or some such place.” But it was so long ago that the policeman did not wish to talk further without reference to his records and, excusing himself, went over to the filing cabinet in the corner of the room. Shinji gazed at the toe caps of his shoes and reflected, So Keiko Obana, too, was pregnant by Honda. That would surely give Keiko Obana’s sister adequate motive for revenge. How many people would pardon such a thing? How many more would never forgive?

He imagined the sister sitting in this room, perhaps in this very chair, two years ago and hearing the news of her dead sister’s pregnancy. Did she not at that moment fix her mind upon revenge? And after so many long nights, so many slow dawns, would she ever have relented? Perhaps grudges bring out the most tenacious in the human spirit.

The policeman came back to his desk, bearing a file. Shinji hastened to ask him the most important question that was on his mind.

“Did the sister have a mole on the right side of her nose?”

“Oh, yes, a big mole—I remember it quite clearly, although I forget which side it was on.”

“And did she seem very shocked to learn that her sister was pregnant?”

“To the extent that I felt pity when I saw her reaction and half wished that I had not told her. And I am quite accustomed in my duty to imparting bad news to the relatives of suicides and witnessing their grief.”

Shinji half thought of observing that the sister must have been indeed a beautiful woman to have won the sympathy of the section chief, but he thought better of it.

He glanced quickly through the file and, thanking the section chief, left the building. He wondered if he could bring out what he had learned in court; it would certainly put the policeman in a difficult spot for having covered up the pregnancy out of the kindness of his heart.

The lives of men and women are like toothed cogs; once one cog slips out of sync, it damages not merely those around it but also others having no direct connection with it. Thus, now, the tiniest secrets of individuals were likely to be laid before the public gaze. Not just the policeman—the cosmetics salesman and the medical intern, too.

He phoned the office and reported the results of his visit to the police station, but the old man did not seem in the slightest surprised. “Is that so?” was his only response.

“Well, I’ll be off to check out the Omori apartment,” Shinji said and hung up. He must do his best to track down Keiko Obana’s sister as quickly as possible.

The apartment was located close to the waterfront, and he could smell the sea as he got out of the taxi. “It’s somewhere round here,” the driver said and was of no further assistance. He had to hunt for the red pillar box that stood on the corner near the building. When at last he found it, it proved to be a cheaply constructed wooden edifice, its corridors cluttered with such junk as old earthen braziers, empty orange boxes, and so forth.

He found a housewife roasting fish over a charcoal brazier, which she had taken into the garden. She seemed to be a person who liked to talk and answered him immediately. Fortuitously, it turned out that she lived immediately next door to Number 5, which was where the Obana sisters had lived. The surviving sister had moved out in the last September. The decision had apparently been very sudden, and she had sold all her furniture to the local secondhand shop. She had let it be known that she was moving to the west of Japan and had departed without making the appropriate round of farewell calls.

“Did she have any visitors just before she left?”

“I heard that a journalist from a woman’s magazine came to interview her about her sister’s suicide two or three times, but I don’t think she had any other visitors.”

“So no one knows where she went?”

“Well, she did talk about going back to Hiroshima sometimes, but…”

“Did she use a removal firm when she left?”

“No, I doubt it. There was nothing to carry—she even sold her bedding. But she left late at night, so none of us saw her go. The rumor is that she got paid a lot of condolence money for her sister’s suicide, and so she probably went home and set herself up in some small business.”

He thanked her for her help and left. He could not help feeling gloomy, for it was clear to him that tracking down Keiko Obana’s sister would be no easy task. Suppose—and it seemed quite possible—that she had vanished on purpose; how could he find her amongst over one hundred million Japanese? And there was a deadline—the opening day of the trial at the appeal court. And that was looking on the bright side of things, presuming that she was still alive. What if she had killed herself—had plunged into the crater of an active volcano, or cast herself into a whirlpool, had gone, in fact, where none would ever find her body? Such cases were common enough.

He was caught in a steel trap, and the more he moved, the more hopeless his predicament became. In the taxi, he decided to make inquiries at the various scenic spots where people commit suicide. One never knew, after all…

He got back to the office, but the old man was out. The secretary, Mutsuko Fujitsubo, was engaged in copying a newspaper advertisement.

“Mr. Hatanaka has gone to the prison. He asked me to place an advertisement in the missing-persons section of the paper—do you think that this will do?” And she handed him her draft.

“Did Mr. Hatanaka tell you to publish this every day?”

“Yes, for at least a month.”

“Pity we haven’t got a photo.”

“That’s what Mr. Hatanaka says. He says we might be led on a wild-goose chase and end up with the wrong person.”

Shinji went over to the window and looked down on the park below. The pigeons that congregated every morning on the windowsill were gone about their noonday business. There was a delicate haze over the woods of the park; the sky above was scattered with cumuli. Somehow or other, he thought, they would not track down Keiko Obana’s sister. She had vanished, and it was due to the crimes.

His premonitions, dark as winter, contrasted with the vigorous skies of summer outside.

INSERTION

The woman stretched her hand slowly to the pillow on the bed where she lay. These noises in her head; she must calm them.

Her lean hand looked like a dehydrated chicken leg: no flesh, only skin and bones.

That dry hand clawed under the pillow and took out a large notebook. The cover was soiled, with inky fingerprints showing on certain parts.

On the cover were brushed the words “The Huntsman’s Log.” But the word Huntsman was so stained as to be almost illegible. It had been read so often… it sent away, for a while, the noises in her head.

She brought the notebook to her breast. After a while, she opened it and flipped the pages, stopping at the tenth page. Her eyes were concave, like black holes drilled in her head, like the eyes of a rotting corpse. Just visible in the dark hollows were muddy pupils, which no longer seemed to focus.

The lean hand flipped the pages precisely, but the eyes did not seem to see. This was her daily routine, so most of the words in the diary were inscribed in her heart. Her hand came to rest at a certain page.

“Silly, silly little girl. Don’t say you cried in his arms; don’t tell me that you were crushed under his body. Don’t try and tell me any of those things. I bet you were biting your lip with those sharp little teeth of yours that you always kept so clean; I bet you bit so hard that the blood came. Silly little girl!

“Silly to shed blood for his enjoyment! That man, to steal two hours of pleasure, pressed his filthy lips against your girlish and unsullied skin. He left his sticky seed of sin within your childlike body, not yet mature, and all for his own selfish satisfaction! Was it in spite of that seed, or was it because of it, that seed growing in your body, that you were forced to die? And as you were preparing to kill yourself, that man had long forgotten you and was tasting the flesh of some other woman… But it’s all right now, darling; don’t cry any more. Curse him no more, though you lie underground being eaten by worms!

“For I have taken revenge, in spite of these sounds in my head. I have put him away into prison, where he can never touch any woman’s body again. Now he faces the hard wall of a cold cell, doubtless inscribing upon it your name, yours and the names of many other women, with his anecdotes of those nights spent together. Soon, they will take him away and hang him, and then they will place a heavy tombstone above him. It will press down upon him firmly so he won’t be able to budge an inch ever again. So there! Instead of pressing himself upon your body, upon the bodies of other women, the stone will press him! Cruel stone, press him!

“Now let me tell you how I made that man taste the same agony with which he fed you…”

THE BLACK STAIN—CONTINUED

A week passed after the advertisement was placed in the newspaper, and many leads came about Tsuneko Obana, but all of them were false trails. And then there came the first real clue. It was from the manager of an apartment building called the Midori-so, the building where Mitsuko Kosugi was murdered. He reported that a woman with a mole on the right side of her nose had been residing there under the name Keiko Obana since last September.

The woman was a little over thirty and worked as a model for a cosmetics company. This work took her to department stores the length and breadth of Japan, so she only spent about two days a week in the apartment. And for the last two months, she had not shown up at all.

“Well, she’d paid six months in advance, so at first I thought nothing of it. But recently I got worried and was thinking of going to the police, when I saw your advertisement.”

The manager, who had the air of a war veteran, talked in tones that bespoke his honesty. His linen suit, shiny with age, was well pressed and stank of mothballs; obviously, it was only worn on special occasions. The mole, the age, the recent disappearance… all added up to the elusive Tsuneko Obana.

“Right under our noses, so we didn’t see it!” Shinji exclaimed. The old man said nothing, and Shinji then reflected that there was something fishy; why use Keiko Obana’s name? Wasn’t that a giveaway?

The old man seemed to be thinking the same thing; he chewed his cigar in a perplexed manner.

“Let us suppose that the woman really is Tsuneko Obana, as seems likely,” he said. “Then it seems that she used her sister’s name to make clear her intention of revenging her sister. In that case, we can presume that she has vanished again, this time perhaps for good.”

At all events, they decided to visit the apartment immediately. The old man sent for his secretary and told her to give the manager the reward, which was handed over in a brown paper envelope, the manager protesting politely at first. A hire car was called, and soon they reached the Midori-so at Asagaya. Until they arrived there, the old man spoke not one word but merely pondered, chewing his cigar the while.

First of all, they looked into Mitsuko Kosugi’s room. In spite of the housing shortage, no one had moved in—naturally enough, in view of the fact that somebody had been murdered there. Both the door and the windows stood open, as if to wash out some half-sensed odor of the mortuary.

There was nothing to see, so they went upstairs to the Obana room.

It was very neat and tidy. The manager, half-fearfully, opened the door of the closet, but it proved to contain no more than a set of bedding. All seemed in order, and yet Shinji felt strangely uncomfortable. Why did the woman with a mole rent this apartment under the name of a dead woman? Why had she now abandoned it? He thought of hermit crabs moving from shell to shell; had she not thus, once more, effected her escape? Would she ever return? Where was she now?

A deep sense of disappointment suffused his body and mind.

He went to the window and looked out. The street below, with its stepping-stones set in the mud, looked commonplace and dirty by the light of day. But at night, in the dark, would it not become the theater of horror from which Ichiro Honda had stumbled?

The old man called him, and he turned and went over to the low Japanese table where Hatanaka was standing. The drawer was open, and the old man was pointing at a large notebook that lay within. Shinji’s body tensed with a thrill similar to vertigo.

“The Huntsman’s Log!” he breathed.

“Yes,” said the old man, turning the pages quickly, staring at them myopically through his thick glasses. “But the passage about Keiko Obana has been removed.” He showed Shinji where the pages had been violently torn out.

“Did you find something?” asked the manager.

“This,” said the old lawyer, quickly slipping it into his pocket. “And I’m going to keep it as evidence.” On such occasions, Hatanaka was adept at glossing over the boundary between the requirements of the law and of reality.

Impressing upon the manager the need to contact them immediately if Obana showed up, they left the Midori-so. In the car, Shinji broke the silence.

“Will she come back?”

The old man shook his head. “I don’t think so. The bird has flown, all right. She left the Huntsman’s Log deliberately, just for someone like us to find if we could.” He began to read the diary with care, Shinji peering over his shoulder.

He saw the passage referring to Michiko Ono, the librarian, and he felt a stabbing pain in his heart. He turned away and gazed out of the window.

The town lay in the dust of a summer’s afternoon. The air conditioner of the car was blowing on his neck, no matter how he moved. They passed Shinjuku Station; some construction work was going on in the forecourt, and there was a temporary wooden sidewalk laid, over which the crowds moved slowly through the summer heat. Dump trucks came and went, dropping piles of earth onto the road.

Of what avail had it been for him to visit men with Rh-negative blood and to track down the woman with the mole? Was he not, in spite of it all, no more than a bystander? The real protagonists—Ichiro Honda, Michiko Ono, the woman with the mole, the murdered women, even—they had gone to the edge and looked down into the depths of life, and in some cases had returned. He had been nowhere. He had watched from the outside.

The old man was still buried in the diary. He looked up, beaming. “He really has got a good memory!” he exclaimed. “His reconstruction was almost perfect, even down to the order of things!” He turned the pages again, and suddenly his face stiffened.

“But there’s a page missing at the very front—look, can you see where it has been torn out?” It was true.

“Who did he say his first victim was? Surely it was… Yes, it’s the woman who appears as number two in this book. But there was obviously somebody before her—who could it have been? And why is the page missing?”

The old man closed his heavy eyelids and began to think. Eventually he spoke, half to himself.

“If we are not careful, we are in danger of making a big mistake.”

He spoke with pain; had he suddenly realized some mistake that he had already made in his theorizing? Shinji tried to engage him in conversation as the car rolled through the town, but to no avail. When the car stopped at a red light at Hibiya, the old man broke his silence; leaning forward, he said to the driver, “Sugamo Prison, please.”

On the way to the jail, Shinji’s mind was in a turmoil. He longed to read the Huntsman’s Log, which was reposing on the old man’s knee, and yet he half dreaded the thought. What had Honda written about his affair with Michiko Ono? How fully did he describe his lovemaking? In what tones had Michiko spoken to him? He realized that he was jealous.

For him, curiosity about his old lover meant as much as the torn-out page in the diary meant to the old man.

The waiting room at the prison was hot and stuffy; Shinji’s face ran with sweat. The old man sat steady as a rock, his black bag, containing the diary, on his knee. At last their turn came, and they went into the interview room.

The condemned man naturally wore no necktie, and this added to his appearance of shabbiness and depression. Just as the old man had said, he looked as if all the fight was gone from him. He was in need of a shave, and his hair was dry and disheveled. And above all, the light was gone from his eyes.

Was this the man who had held Michiko Ono close to his breast? Shinji realized that he was glaring at Honda and quickly adjusted his countenance to one of total unconcern—unconcern toward Honda, toward the stone walls and the flagged floor.

“We have found the diary,” said the old man. Behind the wire netting, Ichiro Honda was momentarily speechless.

“Where?” he said at last, his lips twitching. His deep voice was somber.

“At the Midori-so, where Mitsuko Kosugi was murdered. Obana’s sister had an apartment on the second floor of the same building. We had advertised for her, and the manager of the apartment came to see us today. She moved in there in September, but hasn’t been near the place for the last two months.”

“I see,” said Honda, hanging his head low, his hands joined loosely between his knees. “Now I understand. When I went there, I noticed the name ‘Obana’ on a shoe box at the entrance, but I didn’t associate it with the key-punch operator.”

“If the criminal who entrapped you had a room there, your whole explanation becomes rational. No wonder your shoes disappeared; not surprising that the door was locked on you. Maybe she was hiding in the broom cupboard opposite the door.”

“But then why did the key turn up in my pocket?”

“You now say that you may have unconsciously removed the key when you stepped into the room, and put it into your pocket. But that isn’t what happened at all. I think the criminal put it into your pocket when the jacket was hanging in your apartment in Yotsuya. The woman with the mole had access to that room; we know that, because she stole the diary. Reading it, she could predict your activities and play her tricks upon you.”

“But how come the blood was my type?”

“She got the names of donors of your type from blood banks and must have collected from one of them—we know she made contact with at least four. Shinji, the man next to me, interviewed them all.” Honda glanced at Shinji and then looked back at the old man.

“There’s a lot I still don’t fully understand. Why was there no sign of a struggle in any of the cases?”

“Perhaps the criminal used an anesthetic—chloroform or something like that. That would explain the sweet smell you noticed in both Fusako Aikawa’s room and also Mitsuko Kosugi’s.”

“Chloroform. That fits.”

“And the semen. That was collected from the blood donors, too.”

“It’s mad!” exclaimed Honda, tugging at his hair nervously. “Why me?” Watching him vacantly, Shinji realized that he had no more than a walk-on part in this drama.

The old man took out the notebook. “Your memory was very good. However, the criminal tore out the pages referring to Keiko Obana. That I can understand. What I cannot understand is why he tore out this page—the first one. Who was the woman described here?” The old man displayed the book to Honda. Looking at it, the prisoner’s eyes gradually became hollow. It was as if his whole core had suddenly melted, leaving him no more than a soft doll. Watching the scene, Shinji felt even more of an outsider. Ichiro Honda knew whose name had appeared in that missing page… and so did the old man. The closeness of the room began to irritate him.

Honda opened his mouth for a few seconds, like a landed fish that finds the density of the air too much. “I can’t remember who it was,” he said at last. “Please give me time to think about it.” From the way he would not meet their eyes, Shinji realized that Honda knew the name of the woman very well but was not saying. The old man knew, too, he was certain. But the old man was silent. Without a word, he stood up, and gazed at the prisoner with sympathy before leaving the room.

On the way back to the office, Shinji wondered what the old man was going to do with the diary. What was the old man thinking about, his head on his chest, a cigar in his mouth?

Shinji, for his part, felt the slow stain of jealousy creep toward his heart. All of that diary that he wished to read was the passage referring to Michiko Ono.

About a week passed, and then there was a sudden development that took Shinji by surprise. Honda asked for an interview with the director of the prison and confessed his guilt, asking to be allowed to withdraw his appeal.

“Just what I feared,” said the old man mysteriously. “We’re off on our travels—get ready at once.”

“Where are we going?”

“To Osaka. I’ve got to talk to the father-in-law of our client.”

They left Tokyo that evening, and on the next day Shinji waited at the hotel whilst the old man went off to see Ichiro Honda’s father-in-law. Before leaving, Hatanaka had been once more to Sugamo Prison, but Honda would say nothing about the missing page, merely asserting his guilt. Even Shinji understood that the reason for Honda’s new stance was based upon the missing page at the front of the diary.

The old man had been to Osaka already, on his own, for five days from the day after the two of them had interviewed Honda in prison. He was uncommunicative about his trip, and Shinji did not feel that he could question him about it, confining himself to grumbling to Mutsuko Fujitsubo about the old man hogging the case now that it was getting interesting. He did at least gather that the objective had been to visit Honda’s wealthy father-in-law as well as his wife. He had to admire the vigor of the old man, now over seventy, in undertaking this trip.

Now Shinji waited in the Osaka hotel. An hour passed, and the old man returned. Where had he been? Shinji did not ask, but got into the car and accompanied his chief to Ichiro Honda’s wife’s home.

They were met by the old housekeeper. She was plainly expecting them and conducted them immediately to the atelier at the back of the garden. Within, it was almost dark despite the brightness of the day outside; the only sound to be heard in the otherwise cavernous silence was the hum of the air conditioner. The old retainer took a long pole and slid back the cover to the skylight; immediately the room was flooded with light.

In the corner stood an old-fashioned iron bedstead, upon which a woman was lying. The housekeeper fetched a couple of wooden stools, which looked as if they were meant for children rather than adults, put them by the bed and invited the two men to sit on them with a silent gesture.

Shinji looked at Taneko, the wife of Ichiro Honda, for the first time. Although she was said to be under thirty, she looked like a sick woman in her forties. Was it his imagination that told him that the room was suffused with the smell of death, just like a cancer ward?

“Your husband has withdrawn his appeal,” said the old man in measured tones. The woman on the bed made no reply. She seemed to be quite insensible to their presence. The old woman bent over the bed and whispered something in the woman’s ear; there was no response, and she straightened up and shook her head at the two men.

The three of them gazed down at the sick woman; an invisible barrier seemed to separate her world from theirs. She lay without any sign of vitality, staring blankly at the ceiling, her blanket drawn up over her mouth. Only the whir of the air conditioner could be heard, marking the presence of reality and the passing of time. The minutes crept slowly by.

Eventually, Taneko moved a lifeless hand up toward her face, and the blanket slipped down to her throat. She stared at Shinji and the old man and laughed, but her face remained expressionless, giving her smile an eerie quality. And then Shinji saw it.

On the right base of her nose was a large mole, about the size of an azuki bean! The mole of which he had heard so much!

It sat upon her face like the symbol of some revealed sin; gazing at the black stain, he muttered to himself, “Why did no one tell me that Honda’s wife has a mole?”

Taneko stretched her hand toward the side table and slowly picked up a silver hand mirror. She gazed vacantly at her face in the mirror, and then slowly scooped up a handful of cold cream from the jar by the pillow and rubbed it over her cheek by the base of her nose. The mole began to blur and then finally vanished. What sort of a trick was this?

She then applied cream to her eyelids and dissolved the starchlike cosmetic that had given them a double-lidded form, reverting to narrow slits. The transformation complete, she replaced the mirror and lay back, her face once again a mask, hollow and unsmiling.

“So now you understand,” said the old woman to Hatanaka and Shinji. She picked up the pole and made the room dark again. Silently the two men followed her out into the garden. Shinji looked back for one last time, but Taneko had once again pulled the blanket up over her face and lay as still as a corpse.

Back in the entrance hall to the main house, the old woman handed a notebook to the old man.

“This is her memo book in which she used to write before she got into her present state,” she said. “You can see that it would be quite hopeless to conduct a handwriting test at present, so please use this as a sample of her handwriting. I feel sure that you will find that the writing matches that on the note by the Turkish bath girl. But you must promise me not to make this notebook public—not to anyone, not ever. If you won’t promise me that, I am going to throw it on the fire.”

“Was it you,” asked the old man, “who tore out the pages from the Huntsman’s Log—the first page and the entry on the key-punch operator?”

“Yes, it was me.”

“And was it you who put it in the apartment on the second floor of the house where Mitsuko Kosugi was killed?”

The old woman nodded. “The young mistress has gone beyond the reach of the law, and by doing what I have done my duty is now complete. I thought I ought to save Mr. Honda’s life, so I went up to Tokyo six weeks ago and left the diary where you found it.”

The old man smiled faintly as they took their leave.

Walking down the gentle paved slope that led to the station, Shinji was still stunned by the way things had turned out and said so. “I could have sworn it was the sister; how did you know?”

But the old man said nothing.

Suddenly, Shinji saw the pathos of the world. Going down the slope… on either side, modern houses with red-tiled roofs. Who knew what frugal lives were lived therein, what trifling quarrels took place? Banal and monotonous lives of everyday folk—what a contrast from the room from which he had just stepped! How real were they, the sick woman smelling of death and the man whose spirit had been broken in the condemned cell? Was it not all but a bad dream, occupying but one moment in this summer’s heat? He thought back to Yasue in the Turkish bath, to Tanikawa with his forced jollity in the chicken restaurant, to the medical student who always turned his back on him. How were these puppets in the curtained drama connected with that mad woman lying in bed, the blanket drawn over her face?

The old man hailed a taxi, and they got in.

But still…, thought Shinji.

Were not our experiences the same as those of Tiltil and Mytil, who found the bluebird at last in their own home? The woman with the mole, whom he had pursued so assiduously, had been in a cage all along.

Breaking into his reverie, Hatanaka spoke. “We’re not out of the woods yet. I can’t break my promise and use this notebook. We must find some other way to get the defendant out of jail.”

Saying which, he vigorously shook the notebook that had been written by Taneko Honda.