Erhalten Sie Zugang zu diesem und mehr als 300000 Büchern ab EUR 5,99 monatlich.
- Herausgeber: Pushkin Vertigo
- Kategorie: Krimi
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024
Another fiendish classic murder mystery, from one of Japan's greatest crime writers - the author of The Honjin Murders __________ Praise for Seishi Yokomizo's classic mysteries 'The diabolically twisted plotting is top-notch' New York Times 'Readers will delight in the blind turns, red herrings and dubious alibis... Ingenious and compelling' Economist 'With a reputation in Japan to rival Agatha Christie's, the master of ingenious plotting is finally on the case for anglophone readers' Guardian __________ An old friend of Kosuke Kindaichi's invites the scruffy detective to visit the remote mountain village of Onikobe in order to look into a twenty-year-old murder case. But no sooner has Kindaichi arrived than a new series of murders strikes the village - several bodies are discovered staged in bizarre poses, and it soon becomes clear that the victims are being killed using methods that match the lyrics of an old local children's song... The legendary sleuth investigates, but soon realises that he must unravel the dark and tangled history of the village, as well as that of its rival families, to get to the truth.
Sie lesen das E-Book in den Legimi-Apps auf:
Seitenzahl: 414
Das E-Book (TTS) können Sie hören im Abo „Legimi Premium” in Legimi-Apps auf:
Ähnliche
PRAISE FOR SEISHI YOKOMIZO’S MYSTERIES
‘Readers will delight in the blind turns, red herrings and dubious alibis… Ingenious and compelling’
ECONOMIST
‘At once familiar and tantalisingly strange… It’s an absolute pleasure to see his work translated at last in these beautifully produced English editions’
SUNDAY TIMES
‘The perfect read for this time of year. Short and compelling, it will appeal to fans of Agatha Christie looking for a new case to break’
IRISH TIMES
‘This is Golden Age crime at its best, complete with red herrings, blind alleys and twists and turns galore… A testament to the power of the simple murder mystery and its enduring appeal’
SPECTATOR
‘The diabolically twisted plotting is top-notch’
NEW YORK TIMES
‘A stellar whodunit set in 1940s Japan… The solution is a perfect match for the baffling puzzle. Fair-play fans will hope for more translations of this master storyteller’
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, STARRED REVIEW
‘With a reputation in Japan to rival Agatha Christie’s, the master of ingenious plotting is finally on the case for anglophone readers’
GUARDIAN
‘A delightfully entertaining locked room murder mystery… An ideal book to curl up with on a winter’s night’
NB MAGAZINE
‘Never anything less than fun from beginning to end… Truly engrossing’
BOOKS AND BAO
‘A classic murder mystery… Comparisons with Holmes are justified, both in the character of Kindaichi and Yokomizo’s approach to storytelling—mixing clues, red herrings and fascinating social insight before drawing back the curtain to reveal the truth’
JAPAN TIMES
‘The perfect gift for any fan of classic crime fiction or locked room mysteries’
MRS PEABODY INVESTIGATES
3
CONTENTS
LIST OF CHARACTERS
THE YURA FAMILY
THE NIRE FAMILY
THE AOIKE FAMILY
THE TATARA FAMILY
THE BESSHO FAMILY
OTHER CHARACTERS
Prologue
An acquaintance of mine publishes a little magazine called Folk Traditions. It’s an altogether modest affair: only sixty-four pages in octavo with a tiny circulation limited to subscribers. Nevertheless, it makes for some interesting reading.
As the title suggests, the magazine is devoted to folklore and local customs collected from all over Japan. With the exception of a few well-known writers, the contributors are mostly ordinary members of the public who have sent in an article to the magazine. So, even if the writing can be somewhat naive at times, the articles, owing to their novelty and curiosity, are full of genuine interest, and you can learn a thing or two from them as well.
I collect copies of this publication, and, whenever I’m bored and have some spare time, I enjoy taking them out and flicking through their pages. Recently, I came across one particularly interesting article that had previously escaped my attention. Published in the September 1953 issue and titled “On One of Onikobe’s Temari Songs”, it was a study of a practically forgotten example of the genre. The article was signed by a certain Hoan Tatara, but the magazine does not make clear who exactly this man was. Perhaps he was one of those people who just happened to write to the editor.
Since this temari song plays such a crucial role in the dreadful story that I am, with Kosuke Kindaichi’s permission, about to unfold, I believe the reader would benefit from seeing a reproduction of Mr Tatara’s offering, before I add a few reflections of my own. 12
A Temari Song of Onikobe Village
In the trees in the garden behind our house,
Three little sparrows came to stay.
The first little birdie said to me:
In the faraway land where I come from,
Many are the pleasures of the shogun’s man—
Women, wine and hunting all day long,
But most of all, he likes the women,
Oh yes, it’s the women he likes.
A good little woman was the cooper’s girl,
A pretty little thing, but she liked a drink,
All day long, she would guzzle it down,
She would measure by the barrel and drink through a funnel,
But before she’d had her fill, she was sent away,
They were all of them sent away…
The second little birdie said to me:
In the faraway land where I come from,
Many are the pleasures of the shogun’s man—
Women, wine and hunting all day long,
But most of all, he likes the women,
Oh yes, it’s the women he likes.
A good little woman was the weigher’s girl,
A very pretty thing, but rather mean,
She lived for money, weighing up her coins
Both great and small, all day and night,
But before she’d time to rest, she was sent away,
They were all of them sent away… 13
The third little birdie said to me:
In the faraway land where I come from,
Many are the pleasures of the shogun’s man—
Women, wine and hunting all day long,
But most of all, he likes the women,
Oh yes, it’s the women he likes.
A good little woman was the locksmith’s girl,
As pretty as they come, but rather stiff,
Then one fine day her lock did break,
And when a lock breaks, the key won’t fit,
And since his key didn’t fit, she was sent away,
They were all of them sent away…
The song appears to have had additional verses, too, but these three are all that the author provides.
According to Mr Tatara, temari songs—that is, the nursery rhymes that children traditionally sing while bouncing those brightly coloured temari balls—are mostly counting songs by nature, but there are also many that are based on wordplay. At any rate, these songs tend to have very little internal consistency and sooner flit from one idea to the next by word association alone. This one from Onikobe, however, seems to be much more consistent. In Mr Tatara’s view, this likely stems from the fact that, back in the old days of the shogunate, the farmers of that region liked to use these ditties as an indirect means to criticize the feudal lords who ruled them.
Let’s now turn to place the village on the map.
Onikobe is situated right on the border between Hyogo and Okayama prefectures, around seventeen miles from the coast of the Seto Inland Sea. Surrounded on all four sides by mountains, the village is in a valley that’s cut off from all major transport 14networks. Looking at its position and the few roads leading in and out of the village, one would think that Onikobe ought to have been incorporated into Hyogo Prefecture, but, oddly enough, probably because of its historical ties, it now finds itself in Okayama Prefecture.
This peculiar setting has forever caused problems, and nowhere more so than in the case of criminal investigations. Because of its geography, the local Okayama prefectural police treat the village as an unwanted stepchild, while the police in Hyogo, despite its better transport links, have a distinct tendency to turn a blind eye to anything going on there, since it is outside their jurisdiction. It will come as no surprise to learn that this has a significant bearing on the case that I am about to impart.
Historically, this region was the domain of a certain Ito, the Intendant of Shinano. Now, if you were to look at the historical records for the first year of the Meiji era, you would see in the ledgers for Ito a paltry fief of only 10,343 koku. His domicile is listed as Onikobe, so he must have lived there, although the size of his fief was the bare minimum to qualify for the rank of daimyo—possibly explaining why he is recorded as having had a “residence” rather than a “palace” or a “castle”.
It stands to reason, then, that “the shogun’s man” mentioned in the song was one of Ito’s relatives, and indeed, according to Mr Tatara’s research, there was in the eighteenth century a certain feudal lord by the name of Sukeyuki Ito, a tyrant of great lust and depravity who would tour his fiefdom on the pretext of hunting and, whenever he came across a great beauty, be she a maiden or a married woman, would callously abduct her and force her to attend his bedchamber. Then, once he had wearied of her pleasures, he would kill her for the most trifling of misdemeanours. Apparently, this Sukeyuki died suddenly, around the 15end of the Tenmei era, probably having been poisoned by one of his entourage.
Consequently, Mr Tatara believes that the refrain at the end of each verse—“They were all of them sent away”—is in fact a euphemism for the killing of those women. As for the professions listed in the song, these likely refer to the common people, who under the laws of the time were not permitted to have family names and distinguished themselves by their trades alone. Though these people officially received the right to bear surnames later, in the Meiji era, there are still those old-fashioned types who call each other by their family’s historical professions even today.
Such is the background to this section of the Onikobe temari song, as it was presented in the magazine Folk Traditions. Now, with this knowledge, it’s time to lift the curtain on the dreadful murders of which those three little sparrows told. 16
PART I
What the First Little Sparrow Said18
A Con Artist in the Village
It was late July, in 1955, when Kosuke Kindaichi, accompanied by a letter of introduction from Inspector Isokawa, took a rickshaw over the Sennin Pass—astonishingly, this mode of transport was still in use in those parts—and set foot for the very first time in the village of Onikobe. Of course, never in his wildest dreams could he have known about the temari song.
He had come to the village not because a case awaited him there—after all, he is a human being, too, and does not always go chasing after cases—but rather because, like anybody else, there are times when he longs for some peace and quiet and a chance to rest his body and mind.
He had pondered where to go for a retreat for some time, until eventually he alighted on the idea of somewhere in Okayama Prefecture. He’d had a connection to the area ever since the Honjin Murder Case, one that had only grown with other cases such as those on Gokumon Island and in the Village of Eight Graves—and at one point or another, he seemed to have developed a fondness for the local people and their ways. He especially liked this welcoming region for the warmth shown to him by its inhabitants.
And so, having made up his mind, and with the freedom that comes from being a bachelor, one fine day he slung his travelling bag over his shoulder and headed out west from Tokyo.
His first port of call was Inspector Isokawa at the prefectural police headquarters in Okayama.20
As ever, Kindaichi hadn’t sent a letter or even a postcard in advance, so when Inspector Isokawa saw him sitting in the spartan waiting area, he could scarcely believe his eyes.
“To what do I owe the pleasure, Kindaichi? When did you get here?”
So delighted was the detective inspector to see his old friend that he immediately bombarded him with questions.
“I’ve only just arrived,” the famous detective replied. “I’m so tired, though. For some reason, I never seem to be able to sleep on trains.”
He yawned extravagantly as he said this, as if to show the inspector that he really hadn’t managed to get any sleep on the overnight train.
“You’ve just arrived, eh? Are you here on a case?”
“Oh, come, Inspector! You take one look at me and think I must be on a case?… Couldn’t I just have wanted to pay an old friend a visit after all this time?”
“That’ll be the day!” said the inspector, laughing.
“No, I really mean it!”
“Well, then, I’m honoured.”
The inspector had aged considerably since they last met, but his whole face beamed as he stroked his chin with the palm of his hand.
The hair on his closely cropped head was now almost completely white, and it was so thin that you could see his dark scalp beneath it. His eyebrows had turned white, too, and his forehead had grown wrinkled; yet his robust physique still projected a tough fearlessness, and the ruddy bronze tan of his skin contrasted pleasingly with this dazzlingly white hair. For decades, day in, day out, he had been a police detective—and in recent years, he had also become a widower.
“So then, Kindaichi, what are your plans?” 21
“Well, that’s just it, Inspector…”
Kindaichi told his old friend that he was looking for a quiet spot where he could go and rest for a month without being troubled by anyone or anything.
“Do you happen to know any nice spots around here? Somewhere remote. You know, a little village up in the mountains perhaps, totally cut off from the outside world?”
“Hmm, I’m sure I can think of somewhere…”
Inspector Isokawa looked at his friend, who, as usual, appeared dishevelled in his tired white-and-indigo kimono, which he wore with a pair of threadbare summer hakama.
“You never change, do you?” the inspector laughed, a warm crease forming in the corner of his eye. “Very well, let’s leave that discussion for this evening. Seeing as you’re so tired, I’ll give you the address of a nice inn where you can take a bath and rest until then. I’ll come and meet you there after work.”
That evening, after they’d enjoyed a couple of beers together, Inspector Isokawa extracted a letter from the breast of his yukata.
“I have, as per your request, brought you a letter of introduction. Though I feel duty-bound to warn you: it’s impossible to cut yourself off entirely from the outside world. The winds of the world blow even in this little village.”
On the envelope was written:
Rika Aoike, Onikobe Village
“Who is this Rika Aoike?” asked Kosuke Kindaichi. “It looks like a woman’s name…”
“Yes, indeed. And the lady’s had her fair share of sorrows, I’m afraid to say,” said the inspector, looking strangely moved as he 22stroked his chin. “Her husband was murdered, and to this day they don’t know who did it.”
Holding the letter in his hand, Kosuke Kindaichi fixed the other man with a serious look.
“No, this will never do, Inspector! As I told you just this afternoon, I’m looking for somewhere to rest, a place where nothing and no one will—”
“I know, I know!” said Inspector Isokawa, interrupting the detective with a dismissive wave of the hand. “You may rest assured, though: the murder took place more than twenty years ago. It didn’t happen just yesterday! All I’m saying is that finding somewhere that’s entirely cut off from the world is a bit of an impossible task nowadays. Twenty-odd years ago, Onikobe was far more isolated than it is today. But even then, there was a murder that’s remained unsolved.”
Inspector Isokawa was keen for Kosuke Kindaichi to hear the story, but, given the latter’s wish to get away from all that sort of thing, he was reluctant to broach the subject any further with him. Kindaichi, however, reasoned that, if he was going to be a guest of this Rika Aoike, it would be no bad thing to know a little about her circumstances. Quite the opposite, in fact: it was vital that he know, so he raised his eyes from the letter lying in his lap.
“It sounds rather interesting,” he said with a broad smile, intended to encourage the inspector to divulge more of the tale.
“Well, yes, you could say that…” the other said, seeming a little tentative. In his eyes, there was the look of a child pleading for something. “Would you care to hear the story?”
“By all means! I could never resist the chance to hear about an unsolved case from twenty years ago,” Kindaichi said with a laugh. “It’s a terrible habit of mine.”
“Very well, then. But there’s something you should know first…” 23
Touched by his friend’s show of consideration, Inspector Isokawa suddenly relaxed and began to talk with great enthusiasm.
“As you know only too well, Kindaichi, in any village, no matter where you go, there’s always one family that wields power, just as there’s always a dangerous rival family.”
“You’re not wrong there, Inspector. So, what you’re saying is that there are two powerful families in the village of Onikobe?” asked Kindaichi, coaxing him on.
“Exactly!” cried the inspector, fidgeting in his chair. “Or rather, let’s say that there were two powerful families there. Because, you see, the balance of power in Onikobe shifted in more recent years. It all started back in 1932, the year after Japan invaded Manchuria. I need hardly remind you, Kindaichi, that, at the time, our farming villages were suffering in the depths of economic depression.”
“Yes, I remember… If I’m not mistaken, it was that very fact, in large part, that led to the Mukden Incident, which began it all.”
“Quite so… At any rate, back in those days, the Yuras and the Nires were the two families that wielded power in Onikobe. There was also the Tatara family, whose members had held the title of village chieftain since the days of the shogun and ought to have been the most powerful there; however, the leader at the time, and likewise his predecessor, had both given themselves over to debauchery, and so the house had fallen into ruin. It was then that the Yuras and the Nires seized power. And so, everyone in the village was forced to declare their support for one family or the other. Neutrality was not permitted.”
“It sounds a lot like the situation with the Americans and the Soviets these days.”
“Exactly! But, you see, the Yuras had for a long time been the richer of the two families because they owned a lot of farming 24land—not just in Onikobe, but in the surrounding areas, too. And, to think, so much of that land fell into their hands because of the profligacy of those two generations of the Tatara family! The Nire family, which was an emerging power at the time, owned a lot of land too, but theirs was mainly in the mountains. But back in those days, the mountains weren’t profitable at all, and the simple fact of having land there wasn’t enough to allow them to compete with the Yuras. Yet the head of the family, a certain Jinpei Nire, was a man of great foresight, and at some point in the mid-twenties he began cultivating grapes on his mountains—well, I call them mountains, but I suppose they’re more like hills. In any case, by the early thirties the grapes had begun to give a crop, and that’s how the Nire family became the richest and most powerful in the village.”
“And they still grow these grapes?”
“Of course! They’ve become Onikobe’s greatest resource.”
“I see. Then the Nires must still be the most powerful, seeing as they’re the source of the village’s prosperity?”
“That’s right, yes… He was a remarkable man, this Jinpei Nire. He realized that the basin where Onikobe is situated is practically identical in terms of climate, humidity and hours of sunlight to the Koshu Basin, which is renowned as a grape-producing area. He checked everything with the greatest care. Then, he set to work in the mid-twenties and, a couple of years later, his efforts paid off. Well, you know how people are. It’s in their nature to flock to success. So old Jinpei found himself surrounded by people fawning over him, and, before he knew it, he’d been elevated to the level of ‘the boss’. You can imagine how it was: he let it all go to his head.”
“I see… So, when that happened, I suppose the Yuras were none too pleased by their reduced status and decided they’d have to do something about it?” 25
“A very good deduction, Kindaichi! That’s exactly what happened. The Yura family wanted to retaliate, and that’s how this terrible tragedy all began… The head of the House of Yura was a man called Utaro, and he must have been around forty at the time. In the eyes of old Jinpei, however, he was still a young whippersnapper—and besides, he’d been spoilt since childhood and knew little of the world. To make matters worse, he was desperate not to be outdone by the old man. That’s when they were taken advantage of…”
“Taken advantage of by whom?”
“By a con artist… A trickster who went round gulling those poor people in the villages. And it wasn’t just the Yura family that was thrown into disarray by this, but the whole of Onikobe.”
“A con artist?… Fancy that!”
Kosuke Kindaichi was astonished to see the story take such a bizarre turn.
“I know… But he ended up killing a man before absconding and plunging the whole village into turmoil.” Inspector Isokawa’s face clouded over. “He called himself Ikuzo Onda, but of course that probably wasn’t his real name. He turned up on Utaro’s doorstep towards the end of 1931, bearing a letter of introduction from somebody. He was a handsome fellow of around thirty-five, and he wore a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles and had a little moustache. Well, he said he’d come to bring a new sideline business to the village, and that business was making tinsel. You know, for Christmas trees?… Obviously, it was intended for export.”
“Yes, I see… Obviously…”
As the story was no longer merely about a power struggle in the village, Kosuke Kindaichi’s interest had been piqued all of a sudden. Without realizing it himself, he leant in, rapt with interest, while the inspector really got into his stride. 26
“Anyway, Utaro thought the pitch sounded interesting, and so he decided to go for it. He planned to give the extra work to the impoverished farmers and benefit from their obligation of gratitude to him. When the farmers heard about all this, they jumped at the chance. It all seemed simple enough: Onda would lease the machines—they were quite simple affairs—to those farmers who wanted them, and also supply them with the raw materials. Then, the farmers would make the tinsel, and Onda would buy it back from them at a reasonable price. Eventually, the farmers would have enough to buy the machines outright. Such was the arrangement. And while the farmers were saving up the means with which to buy the machines, the rent on them would be covered by Utaro. It all seemed to go well at first. The farmers, who had profited from this unexpected source of income, were grateful to Utaro, who himself seemed to grow in prestige. After about a year, by the autumn of 1932, most of the farmers had bought their machines outright. But it was around then that one of the farmers began to have suspicions about Onda’s methods. This man was called Genjiro, and he was the husband of the woman I’ve promised to introduce you to, Rika Aoike…”
The Femme Fatale
“Apropos of which, I should tell you a little about the Aoike family,” said Inspector Isokawa, taking a long drag of his cigarette. “For generations, they’ve run a sort of spa resort called the Turtle Spring, which is in a little hamlet just outside Onikobe.”
“Ah, so there’s an onsen there?” asked Kindaichi, leaning forward again out of curiosity.
“Well, I wouldn’t exactly call it an onsen. The water only ever reaches twenty degrees, so it’s really a cold mineral spring. You have to heat up the water in order to bathe in it, but, during their off-season, farmers come from the surrounding areas to take the cure. Those farmers are a strange lot, you know. The rice farmers are the only ones who enjoy any respect, and they have a tendency to look down on anybody even a rung below that. In extreme cases, those who make their living by growing anything other than rice—vegetables, for example—are scorned as ‘lower farmers’ by the others. Even old Jinpei Nire, who made his fortune growing grapes, wasn’t held to be on the same level as Utaro. But to return to the topic in hand…”
Inspector Isokawa gently tapped the ash off his cigarette.
“It was much the same story with the Aoikes and the Turtle Spring. The farmers looked down on them for running a spa resort. The Aoikes’ younger son was called Genjiro, and he would have been twenty-eight at the time. In his youth, he’d gone to Kobe and Osaka and travelled around quite a bit, and so he knew something of the world. Then one day in the autumn in 1932, he returned to the village along with his wife and son… or rather, 28he returned to the Turtle Spring. Apparently, he took one look at what Onda was up to and immediately had his doubts. And not only did he have them, but he voiced them to Jinpei Nire. He told the old man that he thought Onda was a con artist, and, delighted by this, the old man apparently gave him some money to investigate. Jinpei denied it all later, of course. But still, one way or another Genjiro managed to catch Onda by the tail. He went to pay Onda a visit at the village chieftain’s cottage, but when Genjiro took him to task for it…”
“… he ended up getting killed?” Kindaichi asked.
“Precisely.”
“How exactly was he killed? Strangled? Stabbed?…”
“He was struck down… It was late autumn, so a fire had been laid in the irori sunken hearth, and, beside it, there was some firewood and an axe. He was killed with a single blow to the back of the head,” said the inspector, frowning. “It was on the 25th of November.”
“Were there any witnesses?”
“No. If there had been, they’d have intervened and prevented it.”
“So, how was the body discovered?”
“Well, it was like this, you see. Rika knew that her husband had gone to have it out with Onda. In fact, when he left, she’d apparently tried to stop him, saying that it was none of his business. But then an hour went by, and then another, and still her husband hadn’t come home. Genjiro had left a little after six o’clock in the evening, but when there was no sign of him by nine, Rika began to worry and went to look for him where Onda was staying.”
“And where exactly was he staying?”
“Ah, yes, I haven’t told you that, have I? You see, he didn’t live in Onikobe. He would come once every month or so and stay 29for a couple of nights while he was seeing to matters of business before going home again. At first, he stayed with the Yuras, but that became a little cramped, and so, later on, he rented a little cottage on Hoan Tatara’s estate.”
“The same one whose family has been the village chieftains?”
“The very same. His real name is the very solemn-sounding Kazuyoshi, but he calls himself Hoan and is the sort of man who essentially just suits himself. For two generations, that family had been profligate, and things had already gone downhill, but Hoan still had the house left to him by his father, and that was where he eked out his frugal existence with his fifth wife, O-Rin.”
“His fifth wife, you say?” said Kindaichi in astonishment.
The inspector had a mischievous look in his eye.
“That’s nothing!” he said. “Mr Tatara’s in fine fettle even now and has had a succession of other wives since then. I believe he’s had eight, all told.”
“Well, I never! And you say I’ll be able to meet this singularly vigorous man in Onikobe?”
“Yes, he’s quite an amusing old boy! He’s always done just as he pleased ever since he was a boy… Oh, and there’s another extraordinary character you can meet if you go to Onikobe!”
“That being…?”
“I’ll leave that surprise for later,” said Inspector Isokawa with another mischievous twinkle in his eye. “For now, let’s get back to the story. Since her husband still hadn’t returned by nine o’clock, Rika decided to find out what was going on at Onda’s. That evening, however, there had been a disturbance at the Tatara residence. After an argument, O-Rin had up and left him. Frantic, Mr Tatara had been looking for her everywhere all evening, but she was nowhere to be found. Certain that she’d run off for good, 30he was drowning his sorrows when Rika arrived. And that was when they went to check at the cottage.”
“… and found Genjiro already dead?”
“Yes, exactly. His face was buried in the irori…”
“In the irori?!…”
Kosuke Kindaichi looked at Inspector Isokawa in astonishment, then suddenly burst out laughing:
“That’s a good one, Inspector. You really had me for a moment there!”
“No, you’ve got it wrong, Kindaichi!” said the inspector, waving his hands. “I’m serious. That’s really what happened…”
“All right… So, what you’re saying is that the body was difficult to identify?”
“It wasn’t impossible to make the identification, but there was considerable damage to the face.”
“But you’re sure that it was Genjiro?”
“Yes. It wasn’t just Rika—his parents as well as his older brother and his wife also identified the body as Genjiro’s.”
Kosuke Kindaichi felt a growing sense of impatience. He had the distinct impression that Inspector Isokawa was holding something back.
“Were there any signs of a struggle?” he asked.
“No, but it was clear that somebody had turned the place over in a hurry.”
“And I presume the murderer was never found?”
“That’s right. Ikuzo Onda seemed to disappear off the face of the earth.”
“So, what makes you say he was a con artist?”
“Ah, yes, that… It’s hard to prove anything, of course, but when you look at it all in retrospect, it’s clear that he was one. The farmers were conned into buying this rather expensive machinery, 31and then the work dried up. At the time, though, you couldn’t have said that he was a crook for sure. He paid the workers well enough for the goods they produced. We even found the tinsel concern that he represented. It was based in Kobe, and it folded a short while before the tragedy took place. You see, it had been affected by the Great Depression in America.”
“And the company had no idea about Onda’s whereabouts either?”
“None whatsoever. The company hadn’t even done the proper background checks on him. You know how it is: so long as they receive their guarantee… So, we don’t know for certain whether he was a con artist and set out to swindle the villagers to begin with, or whether things really did fail because of events in the United States. Either way, the fact remains that the murder took place shortly afterwards, and this Onda, if that was his real name, simply vanished… It was just after the Mukden Incident, so it was the perfect time to disappear. He could easily have absconded with the money he took from the farmers and fled to China…”
Inspector Isokawa’s voice did not betray any particular emotion, but Kosuke Kindaichi knew well what he must have been feeling. It was the regret of an officer of the law who had let a suspect slip through his fingers.
“So, what happened in the village after that?” Kindaichi asked.
“It was Utaro’s reputation that suffered most of all. He’d never had much backbone, nor any common sense—so, although he tried to compensate the farmers for part of the money they’d lost, they still resented him. He became a laughing stock in the village. Before long, he sank into a deep depression, and three years later, in 1935, he died.”
“You mentioned that the Yuras owned a lot of land. What happened to them after the war?” 32
“Like so many others, they lost practically everything in the land reforms. Luckily for them, though, these reforms didn’t extend to the mountains, and so they were able to hang on to the small area of mountainous farming land they owned. Utaro’s widow Atsuko is made of strong stuff, and, after her husband’s death, she swallowed her pride and asked old Jinpei Nire to teach her how to begin growing grapes. And so they managed to survive after the war, but the influence they had in the old days is long gone. These days, it’s the Nire family that holds the power in Onikobe.”
“Is Mr Nire still alive?”
“No, Jinpei died a while back. But his heir, Kahei, is a chip off the old block. When Utaro passed away, there were all kinds of rumours about him and Atsuko. Now he’s king of Onikobe.”
“You said that Genjiro was the younger son. Did Rika stay on in the village afterwards?”
“Ah, that poor woman… She was pregnant when it all happened. You can imagine the shock it must have been to see her husband killed like that…”
“You mean she had a miscarriage?”
“No, she had the baby, sure enough. But the child, that little girl…”
The inspector grimaced.
“Well, you’ll see for yourself if you go… It was a tragedy, of course, but you could also say that Rika was lucky. The elder brother and his wife had no children of their own, so it’s Kanao, Rika and Genjiro’s son, who’s taken over the Turtle Spring. They say he does an awful lot to help his mother.”
Kosuke Kindaichi scrutinized his old friend’s face.
“Do you visit Onikobe often, Inspector?” 33
“I occasionally go to take the waters at the Turtle Spring. And Rika keeps in touch. She sends cards at the O-Bon festival and at New Year’s, so I’m pretty well abreast of what goes on in the village.”
They both fell silent.
“Well, Inspector,” said Kosuke Kindaichi after a few moments, “you’ve certainly piqued my curiosity, but I know you’re still hiding an ace up your sleeve. You mentioned that I’d meet another extraordinary character in Onikobe. Who could it be, I wonder?”
“Ah, yes, that…” said the inspector, gazing intently at his friend. Then, with his eyes fixed firmly on Kindaichi’s dishevelled hair, he said something strange. “You go to the cinema from time to time, don’t you, Kindaichi? And you listen to popular songs on the radio and on television?”
This apparent non sequitur took Kosuke Kindaichi by surprise, so much that he blinked when he heard it.
“Why, yes… now and then… Only, why do you ask?”
“Well, it’s like this, you see. While Ikuzo Onda was staying in the village, he was very good to the blacksmith’s daughter, Harue Bessho. Only, in 1933 she had a child… a little girl… out of wedlock. The father was clearly this Onda fellow. She would have been stigmatized for giving birth to a bastard child anyway, but since she’d had the child of a con artist and murderer, she incurred the wrath of the villagers, who made her into a pariah. But this Harue was made of strong stuff. She placed the daughter—her name is Chieko—in the care of her father, Ryota, who, together with his wife, officially adopted the girl. And so, having entrusted little Chieko to her parents, Harue left the village and went to Kobe, where she became a waitress or something like that. She soon came back to take Chieko with her to Kobe, but then the 34pair of them were forced to return to the village late in the war, to live with Harue’s parents. Then, in 1948, they left the village a second time. Chieko would have been fifteen at the time. Since then, the girl has grown up to become quite the celebrity.”
“A celebrity, you say…?”
“You’ll have heard of Yukari Ozora? She’s phenomenally popular these days. They say she rakes in several hundred thousand just from a single performance… In films, she always plays the beautiful and mysterious femme fatale…”
Kosuke Kindaichi clenched his fists instinctively.
“And you’re saying that she’s come back to Onikobe again?”
“Well, last year, she had a beautiful, almost palatial house built for her grandparents… Well, strictly speaking, I should say her parents, since they adopted her… She’s due to go back there any day now, so all the newspapers in the prefecture have been making a big fuss over it, needless to say.”
And true enough: this was exactly how Kosuke Kindaichi found the village of Onikobe when, after a bone-shaking journey by rickshaw across the Sennin Pass, he arrived there, wearing a crumpled old panama hat, a similarly tired-looking white-and-indigo kimono, and his threadbare summer hakama.
The Turtle Spring
For fourteen days already Kosuke Kindaichi had been resting at the Turtle Spring on the outskirts of Onikobe, and it was now the month of August.
As is often the case in these rural spa resorts, the building itself was a dilapidated two-storey wooden affair, and its dreary appearance was more reminiscent of a boarding house or a hostel than a proper ryokan inn. You wouldn’t even dream of mentioning it in the same breath as the renowned hot-spring resorts at Hakone and Izu.
People from nearby areas flocked there during the farmers’ off-season and even brought provisions so that they could cook for themselves—from pots and pans to rice, salt, miso and soy sauce. They would get together in groups of four or five and lodge together, with the Turtle Spring charging them a pittance for accommodation and use of the bathing facilities.
From time to time, however, the resort would also receive ordinary visitors like Kosuke Kindaichi. For these guests, they had a separate single-storey building, which was a little rustic but looked more or less like a typical ryokan. It had a half-dozen guest rooms and a bathing room. This was also where the owner’s family lived. There were four of them in all: the proprietress Rika, her son, Kanao, her daughter, Satoko, and the maid, O-Miki. During the busy season, though, another maid would be taken on temporarily.
According to Inspector Isokawa, Rika’s husband had been killed in 1932, aged twenty-eight. Given the three-year gap 36between them, Rika must now have been forty-seven or -eight, but she looked as though she were in her fifties. She didn’t carry herself like an old woman, though. On the contrary, despite her slight and delicate-looking frame, she was tall and projected a certain strength.
As it was summer, she wore simple, light clothing, but that isn’t to say that she didn’t take care over her appearance. Her hair was always neatly combed, and she would never go to see Kosuke Kindaichi without first changing into a kimono. Everything about her, from her refined features to her elegant and sophisticated manners, made one think that she had been a great beauty in her youth.
However, the terrible tragedy that she’d experienced in those days had left its mark. There was a certain darkness about her, and a trace of sadness; she spoke rarely. This must have been why she seemed older than her years.
Her son, Kanao, had piqued Kosuke Kindaichi’s interest. He was twenty-five and had attended high school in one of the nearby towns, which was a rarity among the children of the village in those days. He was tall and had once been a pitcher on his high-school baseball team, and, like his mother, he was good-looking, with fine, chiselled features. Besides the family business, he also cultivated several rice paddies and grew grapes on a nearby mountain, all of which had given him a dark tan and strong muscles. He was cheerful and had a lovely, mellow voice, and so you could always hear him singing songs while he worked in the vineyards.
Needless to say, he was popular with the village daughters and enjoyed a reputation as something of a Don Juan—a fact that seemed to give his mother sleepless nights.
Kanao’s younger sister Satoko was born in 1933, the year after her father died, and so she would be twenty-two now. However, 37as she kept herself hidden away in an annex at the far end of the wing where the family lived, Kosuke Kindaichi had yet to set eyes on her.
Then, one evening, as he was returning from a stroll, the detective entered not through the main door as usual, but via the rear gate. Seeing Kindaichi, the young woman, who was in the garden at the time, rushed back to the annex, so he caught only a glimpse of her from behind.
Inspector Isokawa had not dwelt on the subject of the girl, but, having now seen the way she fled from another’s gaze, Kindaichi understood that something terrible must have happened after the tragedy, while she was still in her mother’s womb, and he wondered what this could have been.
Later that evening, Kindaichi discreetly enquired of the maid O-Miki as she was serving his dinner:
“Earlier on, I came across a young lady in the garden. Would that have been the owner’s daughter, Satoko, I wonder?”
“Yes, sir, that’s very likely.”
“Strictly speaking, I didn’t really see her. I just caught a glimpse of her from behind. Does she always live in that annex?”
“Yes, sir,” the maid replied hesitantly, as she balanced the tray on her knee.
O-Miki must have been in her late twenties. She had married a farmer in one of the neighbouring villages, but since she had a bad relationship with her mother-in-law, she’d run away and come back to Onikobe. Upon her return to her parents’ house, however, she found that her brother would soon be marrying and bringing his wife to live with them, and so, unable to stay there, she had relied on Rika’s kindness and been taken on as a live-in maid at the Turtle Spring. Despite Rika’s strict discipline, O-Miki still had a natural tendency to talk, but today for some 38reason she wasn’t quite so forthcoming. Perhaps this subject was strictly off-limits.
“But how can the young lady bear being cooped up like that and not let out?”
“Her health is poor, sir,” replied O-Miki, still reluctant to say anything.
“What’s the matter with her?”
“It’s her heart, sir. Even a little walking makes her breathless.”
She could well have had a heart murmur—such cases are known to happen when the mother has a severe shock during pregnancy—yet that still didn’t explain why she was so afraid of meeting people.
“So, what does she do with herself all day in the annex?”
“She reads, sir,” O-Miki said with a strange look on her face. “She likes to read an awful lot.”
“She reads, eh? What sort of books does she read?”
An ambiguous smile appeared on her lips.
Kosuke Kindaichi realized that there was no point pursuing this line of enquiry with the maid. Very likely it was of no concern to her what other people read. He decided to change tack, but just as he was trying to think of another question, O-Miki asked him:
“It’s very good of you to concern yourself with Satoko’s welfare, sir, but perhaps you’re finding it a little dull here in the countryside?”
“No, that’s precisely what I came for! They do say that dullness extends one’s lifespan, do they not?”
“Ah, to be without a care in the world!… How the other half live.”
But Kindaichi, of course, was not “the other half”. Indeed, if he were, he wouldn’t have come to such an out-of-the-way place as this. Thankfully, he just managed to stop himself before saying so. 39
Realizing that, no matter how much he asked about Satoko, he would get nothing further out of this woman, he gave up.
“By the way,” he said, changing the subject, “Yukari Ozora hasn’t arrived yet, has she? I hear there’s a lot of excitement about her upcoming performance…”
With this question, he had of course intended to ingratiate himself, but O-Miki’s face suddenly clouded over.
“Ugh, her!” she said, screwing up her plump little face with its button nose. “I really can’t understand why people make such a fuss over a woman like that.”
“Have you ever met her?” Kosuke Kindaichi asked with a degree of trepidation.
“A long time ago, when she was evacuated here during the war,” she said, scowling. “She was a dark, dirty-looking thing.”
“So, you haven’t seen her since she became famous?”
“How could I? The woman’s never come back! I see her photos in magazines and the like often enough, though. Always showing herself off half-naked… It’s shameless, it is!… And to think, she’s nothing more than the locksmith’s bastard daughter!”
“The locksmith’s daughter?!” exclaimed Kosuke Kindaichi. “I’d heard that her mother was the daughter of a blacksmith…”
“Locksmith’s a family name of sorts. In these parts, people have always been known by the old ‘guild names’—professions their families used to work in. Take me, for example—mine is basket-weaver.”
Naturally, at that time, Kosuke Kindaichi attached no particular importance to the name “locksmith” that was attributed to Yukari Ozora’s family. But later on, by the time he realized its grave significance, three people were already dead.
“But what do you think, sir?” asked O-Miki.
“Think about what?” 40
“About women like that, going around half-naked, making a show of themselves…”
“Well, I’ve no real objection to it. But then, I am a man,” Kindaichi laughed.
That he could be so off-handedly in favour of the woman elicited a cry of horror from the maid.
“Oh, you men are all the same,” she said. “Even Kanao’s crazy about her. He’s already kicking up a fuss about throwing a welcoming party for her and organizing some singing contest… Oh, it’s just awful! Just awful!”
O-Miki began to clear away the empty plates from Kindaichi’s meal.
“If you need anything, sir, just ring the bell,” she said, before shuffling out of the room, her shoulders slumped.
Kosuke Kindaichi watched her go in silence. He no longer had the heart to ask her any more questions.
For the moment, Kindaichi was the only guest staying at the Turtle Spring, and so he sprawled out in the tatami room, being lulled to sleep against a backdrop of rolling hills and amber-coloured grapes. With the smell of fruit wafting through the air, he could quite happily give himself over to idleness without being disturbed by anybody.
He hadn’t gone there in order to drag up events that had taken place more than two decades ago. Nor did he feel any particular sense of obligation towards Inspector Isokawa. Instead, he contented himself by opening his eyes and ears, little inclined to seek out every last detail of what had become of the Houses of Yura and Nire since the tragedy. Instead, he spent most of his time holed up in his room at the Turtle Spring, occasionally reading a book or organizing his case notes, but mostly dozing all day long. Truly, there were few things he enjoyed more than lazing around 41
