The Ginza Ghost Page 3

  ‘So you were here on this balcony at half past six?’

  ‘No, I arrived at the store at half past six, but then I heard about what had happened and went outside to take a look at the body, so I didn’t get up here until seven.’

  ‘Was there anything unusual about the balcony when you finally got here?’

  ‘Not that I noticed. But the gas hose had become tangled up and the balloon had lost a lot of buoyancy. It was just drifting along and had dropped so much in height it looked as if it could drop down at any moment. But that happens often after bad weather.’

  ‘You always keep the balloon afloat, even at night?’

  ‘Usually we bring it down and moor it here, but sometimes we underestimate the weather and keep it up, as we did yesterday.’

  ‘And you mentioned the balloon lost buoyancy?’

  ‘There was a hole in the envelope which I had actually fixed a month ago.’

  ‘Aha, so that’s why you were repairing it just now. By the way, how much buoyancy does this balloon have?’

  ‘At normal pressure it can take 600 kilograms easily.’

  ‘600 kilograms is certainly an impressive number. Thank you.’

  After he had finished his questioning, Kyōsuke gazed up at the advertising sign that was attached to the rope connected to the balloon.

  At the precise moment the balloon had reached its maximum height and the rope had been pulled tight, the senior police detective arrived.

  ‘So you were all taking a nice breather up here? Splendid, splendid. By the way, we found out that the fingerprints on the necklace did indeed belong to the victim, Noguchi. Look at this, they came up as clean as a whistle.’

  So saying, he pulled out the beautiful, glimmering necklace and held it in front of us. And, sure enough, two big fingerprints were clearly visible on the large jewels. ‘That is indeed great news,’ said Kyōsuke with a smile. ‘Oh, if it isn’t too much trouble, I’d like to borrow a little of that mercury-chalk powder, or whatever it is.’

  My cousin looked perplexed as Kyōsuke took the analysis equipment and made his way to the winch, where he skilfully dusted some of the grey powder on the handle and swept the excess away with the camel-hair brush.

  ‘Now I come to think of it,’ said the man in charge of the balloon, who had been looking thoughtful, ‘when I pulled the balloon in this morning to repair it, the valve of the gas injection port was still open.’

  ‘So the valve was open?’ Kyōsuke looked up in surprise and started to think. ‘Hmm, that will be very useful evidence,’ he mumbled to himself and then returned to the work at hand. He peered at the surface of the handle through his magnifying glass and turned to the balloon engineer.

  ‘When you touched the handle this morning, you weren’t wearing your gloves, I assume.’

  ‘That’s right. I was in a hurry to lower the balloon for repairs….’

  Kyōsuke borrowed the necklace from the senior police officer and compared the fingerprints with those on the handle. I crouched down next to him. It was clear that the two sets of prints were completely different.

  ‘So, here are this gentleman’s prints on the handle, but the victim’s prints—the ones on the necklace—are nowhere to be seen. That’s good. Now could you please carefully lower the balloon for us?’

  The engineer looked suspicious when he heard Kyōsuke’s request, but he donned his worker’s gloves nonetheless and began turning the handle of the winch.

  One foot. Two feet. The advertising balloon slowly started its descent.

  Magnifying glass in hand, Kyōsuke walked over to the rope as it was being reeled in and watched it carefully. After some thirty-five feet had been reeled in, he ordered the man to halt the balloon’s descent and called the senior police detective over.

  ‘I’ve found your killer.’

  We were all taken aback by Kyōsuke’s remark. He was pointing to a section of the thick hemp rope where clearly visible bloodstains had seeped in.

  ‘These are the bloodstains from the wounds on the victim’s neck. Our business with the balloon is done, and you may raise it again. Oh, wait. Wind the whole rope in. There’s something I forgot. I need to check if I was right.’

  The balloon engineer, perplexed, started turning the handle once more.

  My cousin was gnashing his teeth, looking in turn at the slowly descending balloon, the movements of the balloon engineer and the silhouette of Kyōsuke’s face. After a while, the balloon was completely reeled in and the envelope was bobbing above our heads. Kyōsuke opened the valve of the gas injection port and inserted his hand. He searched around inside the envelope and it wasn’t long before he was holding a second beautiful necklace in his hand.

  ‘Of all the nerve!’

  The senior police detective was about to jump on the balloon engineer.

  ‘Please hold it. You’re mistaken. Your murderer is the balloon. This advertising balloon here. Take a look.’

  Kyōsuke used some of the grey powder on the gas injection port’s metal fittings, the valve and the newly discovered necklace, brushing the powder away with the camel-hair brush. We could see what appeared to be the same fingerprints on all three objects.

  ‘Please check them. I assume they’re the same.’

  ‘Hmm. Yes, as you say, these are the fingerprints of the victim, Tatsuichi Noguchi.’

  My cousin looked as if he had seen a ghost. Kyōsuke turned to me.

  ‘Can you do something for me? Make a phone call to the Central Meteorological Observatory and ask them for the weather conditions in the Tōkyō area last night.’

  I went down to the fifth floor phone booth as requested, and wrote down the information received. I returned to the roof again and passed the note to Kyōsuke.

  ‘Thanks. I see, I see, low pressure at 753 millibar and heavy wind from the southwest. Alright, we’re done here, so you can raise the balloon again. And I will now explain my conclusions.’

  He lit a cigarette, watched the balloon take flight again, and quietly started his tale.

  ‘First of all, I formulated the following basic assumptions. One: the murderer was an exceptionally powerful individual who was not one of the night guards. Also include the fact here that the doors and windows were all locked tightly. Two: the murder took place on the roof. Also make note of the passive clue that there were no marks left anywhere here, not in the shrubbery, not on the railing, not on the tiled floor, not anywhere. Three: the one weapon which was used for the crime was a long object with a rough surface which could twist at will. Or, simply put, a rope. Four: there was no clear motive for the murder. Starting with these assumptions, I let my imagination run as freely as possible. It didn’t take long for me to arrive at the admittedly tentative conclusion that the rope attached to the balloon was the murder weapon, and I came up here to burnish my theory and collect new evidence.’

  Kyōsuke paused to turn to the balloon. He continued in a louder voice.

  ‘Two days ago, Tatsuichi Noguchi, who was working the evening shift, stole two necklaces. He naturally assumed that everyone in the building would be subject to a rigorous search, so he hid the necklaces in the safest place he could think of: inside the balloon.’

  Kyōsuke turned to the balloon engineer.

  ‘I assume you don’t keep watch over the balloon all night? Of course not. So, last night, the victim had been assigned to watch. Hiding the necklaces must have been the only thing on his mind. So it was that, around ten o’clock, before the guards went to bed, he went up to the roof to check up on the balloon. There he discovered to his dismay that the balloon had a hole in it and was slowly losing buoyancy and height. He hurriedly began pulling on the rope to pull it down to the roof. But, although the balloon had lost some buoyancy, it was still a balloon capable of carrying 600 kilograms when completely filled with gas. As the thief desperately tried to reel the balloon in, the rope chafed the palms of his hands. He opened the valve of the gas injection port to check whether his loot w
as still safe. As things had not yet cooled down, he decided he couldn’t risk taking the stolen goods out of their hiding place, so he got the gas hose out and started refilling the balloon with gas. And, as gas started pouring in, the balloon’s buoyancy started to increase again, needless to say. It was here that the victim made his biggest mistake. When he had first discovered the balloon’s state, he had used his bare hands, not the winch, to reel it in. The proof for that is that his fingerprints aren’t anywhere to be found on the handle of the winch. The only fingerprints on the handle are those of the balloon engineer, when he also was in a hurry to pull the balloon in. So, as he was filling the balloon with gas, the thief was holding the fitting of the gas injection port and the rope. He only realised his mistake of not using the winch when the balloon started to regain buoyancy. In a panic, he probably tried to secure the rope somewhere on the winch to prevent the balloon from rising further. But the balloon, now able to float on its own again, detached itself from the gas hose and, with the valve still open, headed for the sky. The victim was desperate to prevent it. While being careful not to be pulled along, he tried to tug on the rope with both hands. But the only result was that the thick, rough rope, still rising, left a host of grazes on his hands. By the time the advertising sign was airborne too, the victim’s hideous fate was sealed. As he struggled, his body became entangled in the rope which was unreeling from a coiled pile at his feet. That led to a horrible conclusion. That is, as the victim struggled, his body started to get entangled in the rope, which had been rolled up near his feet. Try as he might to fight back, the inexorable rope left countless abrasions all over the exposed places on his body: on his shoulders, his chin, his elbows and more, and even made tears in his pyjamas. Eventually the rope twisted itself around his neck and chest. Unable to move any more, he was lifted into the sky. The balloon rose higher and higher, pulling the rope tight. The victim couldn’t breathe any more, his rib was broken, and he started to bleed from the chafing wounds on his neck. Tatsuichi Noguchi literally left for the heavens.’

  Kyōsuke then looked at the note I had passed him.

  ‘From midnight until two-thirty, a low pressure area of 753 millibar passed by the Tōkyō area, as well as a violent wind from the southwest. The combination pushed the balloon in a north-easterly direction. There was a hole in the balloon, and that, accompanied by the low pressure area, made the balloon lose buoyancy. When the rope consequently lost tension, the victim’s body was released and thrown down. But not onto the roof of the department store. He fell on the asphalt of the alleyway to the northeast of the building. The shock of the body being thrown away by the rope was what caused one of the necklaces inside the envelope to pass through the open gas injection port and follow the dead man down to the ground. Although death occurred several hours before the rope released the victim, the blood inside bodies of people who have been strangled remains fluid for a relatively long period, so the destroyed head still managed to bleed profusely after hitting the asphalt.’

  Having finished his explanation, Kyōsuke turned his face to the sky.

  Up in the beautiful blue heavens, the advertising balloon—the mysterious hangman of the department store—drifted peacefully as gentle breezes caressed it.

  First published in Shinseinen, October Issue, Shōwa 7 (1932).

  THE PHANTASM OF THE STONE WALL

  1

  Immediately to the west of the apartment building where Yūtarō Yoshida lived in the town of N— stood the Akimori residence. It was a large south-facing mansion whose grey tiled roof, covered here and there with lichen, was barely visible from his window because of the chestnut and evergreen oaks which surrounded it. The grounds of the old mansion were also encircled by a sturdy wall unusually high for the neighbourhood, which had only been repaired the previous winter. A six ken wide road ran peacefully from east to west in front of both buildings, separating the main gate of the mansion from a lengthy but narrow 300 tsubo lot. To the south of the vacant, weed-covered lot stood a cliff several jō high, cutting cleanly through the white rock.

  Ever since Yūtarō Yoshida had moved here he’d been curious about the Akimori residence. His interest was not so much in the old mansion’s appearance, but more about the household members who resided inside. It had been almost six months since he’d moved in, and while he’d occasionally caught sight of a young woman, presumably a maid, at the back entrance—which faced a path at the western corner of the stone wall—never once had he spotted anyone looking like a member of the Akimori family, nor had he ever seen the large, old wooden front gate actually open. The family was obviously reclusive, shunning all contact with the outside world: to Yūtarō’s eyes, it was as if the Akimoris had been left behind on this small hill at the foot of the mountain, forgotten by society.

  According to rumours he’d heard, there were only three in the family: the father—a man in his late sixties—and his two unmarried sons. Also living in the sizeable mansion were a middle-aged house manager and his wife, who worked as the housekeeper, and two maid- servants. Even the people who told him these rumours had never seen the old master or his two sons

  for themselves. But, unsuspected by Yūtarō, and without warning, the Akimori residence would become the stage for a mysterious and utterly inexplicable case, with him in the middle.

  It happened on a steaming-hot midsummer Sunday. At half-past two in the afternoon, having just finished writing a letter home, Yūtarō suddenly remembered that the postman was due to arrive at any moment for the second pick-up of the day, so he hurriedly left his room. Customs are an unrelenting practice and, sure enough, the reliable old postman was already crouching in front of the letter-box in front of the apartment building, just about to insert his key. Yūtarō went over to the man, greeted him, and handed him his letter. As he studied the old postman, wrinkled and covered with perspiration, he thought about how hot and how silent it was. This was an especially quiet neighbourhood, even for one at the foot of the hills. Almost nobody ever passed by and, this being a particularly hot day, there was not even a cat loafing around on the six ken wide road in front of the building. There was only tranquillity, bathing in the sunlight. It was during this moment of silence that tragedy struck....

  Yūtarō and the postman suddenly heard a muffled shriek coming from the direction of the Akimori residence. They turned in surprise to see, about thirty ken down the road, two men dressed in simple white yukata kimonos[ii], standing beside a large, dark lump lying on the ground by the front gate. The two figures started to run alongside the high stone wall, away from where Yūtarō was standing. They were running so close to each other it looked as though they might bump into one another. A moment later they had disappeared around the corner where the road turned in a northerly direction. It had happened very suddenly, and they had been thirty ken away, so Yūtarō was not able to make out who the two figures were, but he was sure that they were of identical build and each was wearing a white yukata with a black waist band. Yūtarō suddenly felt slightly light-headed and leant back against the letter-box. The red-hot skin of the iron box brought him quickly back to his senses and, realising that the old postman had already started running towards the Akimori residence, Yūtarō immediately followed in his footsteps. By the time they reached the gate there was no sign of the two suspicious men. The large, dark lump was, as they had feared, the figure of the assailants’ victim, who had fallen over with her face to the ground, but was still breathing faintly. She was a middle-aged woman with a pale neck. A red liquid was already oozing onto the pavement. Anxiously, the postman crouched down and tried to help the woman, while pointing with his chin to the stone wall. He was telling Yūtarō to chase after the two men!

  The six ken wide road first started its gentle curve to the north in front of the Akimori main gate, but both road and wall then made a sharp turn to the north at the western corner of the wall. When Yūtarō turned the corner and took in the long path to the north in front of him, he could see the l
ong stone wall of the Akimori residence to his right and a similarly long, but not quite so high, brick wall to his left, protecting the mansion of some baron. There was absolutely no place to hide along the lengthy path, yet there was no sign of the culprits!

  Instead of the two assailants, Yūtarō saw a man dressed in a Western suit carrying a black leather suitcase. He looked to be a salesman.

  Yūtarō asked: ‘Have you seen two men dressed in white yukata coming down this path?’

  The man seemed surprised and shook his head vigorously.

  ‘I have seen no such men. Has something happened?’

  ‘Something awful,’ exclaimed Yūtarō, showing his agitation. ‘Someone was just murdered in front of the Akimori residence….’

  ‘What!’ The man paled visibly. ‘A murder! Who was killed?’

  Yūtarō had already turned back to return to the crime scene and the man ran alongside. Between breaths he introduced himself: ‘I am… the Akimoris’ house manager... My name is Yaichi Togawa.’

  Once they turned the corner and the front gate came in sight, the two continued running without exchanging a word. The postman had turned the woman over and was pressing a handkerchief against the wound on her chest. As soon as the man in the suit saw the woman lying lifelessly on the ground, he cried out: ‘Ah! Someko!’

  He looked around like one possessed.

  ‘…It’s my wife…!’

  He sat down next to her.

  From around the corner of the wall, Yūtarō could hear the raucous noise of chindon’ya street musicians[iii].

  2

  Several minutes later, at the police box[iv] of N—.

  Rookie constable Hachisuka had been dozing off, fighting with the sandman in the oppressive heat.

  A chindon’ya musician arrived at the box, completely out of breath. He had a sign saying “Café Lupin” on his back, and bells and taiko drums hanging in front. He quickly explained that, as his group was passing in front of the Akimori residence, they had learnt that a horrible murder had happened there, with three bewildered men attending to the victim. He had come running here to inform the police.