Points And Lines Read online

  "Yes."

  Tatsuo Yasuda's substitute was now clear. There was no possible mistake. The senior individual was Division Chief Ishida of X Ministry. The subordinate must have been the official traveling with him.

  Until this moment, Mihara had taken for granted that Ishida had been traveling alone. But it was natural for a person in Ishida's position to be accompanied by a member of his staff.

  Mihara went to the X Ministry to ascertain who had accompanied Division Chief Ishida on his trip to Hokkaido on January 20. He learned that it was Kitarō Sasaki. This was the same man who had visited the Metropolitan Police Board some days before on instructions from Ishida to inform Chief Kasai that Tatsuo Yasuda had been aboard the Marimo.

  Mihara flew to Aomori the following day. He checked the passenger lists of all Sei-kan ferries on January 21. Ishida and Yasuda's names were there; Sasaki's name was not. It was clear that Sasaki had boarded the ferry using Yasuda's name.

  The towering wall in front of Mihara had begun to crumble. At long last victory was in sight.

  All he needed now was to find how Yasuda's signature came to be on the passenger list. Having come this far, that should not be difficult.

  13 Mihara's Reply

  Dear Mr. Torigai:

  The weather is very hot. Walking in the scorching sun, one's shoes get stuck in the soft asphalt. All day I keep looking forward to the cold shower and the glass of cold beer that await me when I return home from work. I remember, almost with pleasure, the day you took me to Kashii Beach and I stood shivering in the cold wind that blew in from the Sea of Genkai.

  Not for a long time have I been able to write a letter in so relaxed a mood. It was last February when we first met in Hakata. Seven months have gone by since I stood with teeth chattering on Kashii Beach and listened to your story. Ever since that time, my mind has been absorbed by the case and I have been unable to rest. Today, at long last, I am at peace; the feeling is like sunlight in early autumn. This is probably because the case is closed. The more difficult a case, I find, the more relaxed one feels when it is solved. To you, of course, this must be obvious. Nevertheless, it is this feeling of accomplishment which prompts me to write to you. Moreover, it is my duty. And also my pleasure.

  I wrote you once before to tell you that the most difficult feature of the case was Tatsuo Yasuda's trip to Hokkaido. You sent back a kind letter, urging me to persist. I cannot tell you how much your encouragement has meant to me.

  Yasuda's almost foolproof alibi, that he left Ueno Station in Tokyo by the express Towada on January 20 and crossed to Hokkaido on the Sei-kan ferry No. 17, arriving in Sapporo by the Marimo at 8:34 P.M. on the twenty-first, was finally broken. The formidable wall which kept blocking my way was not easy to demolish because Yasuda did meet an official of the Hokkaido government on the Marimo, he did meet Kawanishi at Sapporo Station when the train arrived, and his signature was definitely on the passenger list of the ferry. The most difficult point was that signature on the passenger list. He had seen to every last detail.

  On the other hand, nothing seemed to develop from our assumption that he had used a plane. Yasuda's name was not on the passenger list of any one of the three flights-from Tokyo to Fukuoka, Fukuoka back to Tokyo, and Tokyo to Sapporo. We could not even discover a false name. We checked the 143 passengers on the three planes and found that each one could be identified, each one admitted traveling in one or the other of the planes. Unless he were a ghost, Yasuda could not have been on those flights. Once again his story proved to be true.

  In short, on the train to Hokkaido Yasuda's presence aboard was definitely established, while his not being on the planes was equally well established.

  However, I began to have doubts because of the fact that Yasuda had asked Kawanishi to meet him in the waiting room of Sapporo Station instead of on the platform. He did this, I surmised, because of a possible delay in the arrival of the plane. Flying to Sapporo made it possible, of course, for him to catch the Marimo later at Otaru. We located the telegraph office which had dispatched the wire to Kawanishi. We found it was a passenger on the Towada who had asked the conductor to send it while the train was at a station near Asamushi on the morning of the twenty-first. The conductor remembered the passenger. From his description we recognized Division Chief Ishida of X Ministry and his staff assistant, Kitaro Sasaki. It was Sasaki who had handed the telegram to the conductor.

  This gave me a further clue. Ishida's name was on the passenger list of the ferry but not Kitaro Sasaki's. I concluded that Sasaki, on boarding the ferry, had used Yasuda's name instead of his own when filling out the passenger form. We were remiss in not realizing that Ishida would be traveling with an assistant. We found this out only later. When we interrogated Sasaki, he confessed that Yasuda had prepared the passenger landing form two weeks before.

  When you board the ferry at Aomori you can pick up any number of these forms. They are kept in a box outside the ticket window, just like telegraph blanks at a post office. Yasuda had asked Ishida to have one of his subordinates get him some forms when he went to Hokkaido, and he filled one out and left it with the division chief. Later, I will explain the relationship between Yasuda and Ishida, but the scheme to have Yasuda's name appear on the passenger list, which had us completely baffled, was as simple as that.

  Yasuda's trip to Hokkaido by train was thus completely disproved. Next was the matter of the passengers on the planes. Here we had the reverse of the problem of the passenger list on the ferry.

  We had the 143 passengers rechecked. We investigated their professions, as indicated on the passenger lists. We did this with a definite purpose in mind. Eventually the total narrowed down to five or six suspects. These turned out to be businessmen with close connections with X Ministry. We questioned them thoroughly and finally three of the men broke down and confessed. Between Tokyo and Fukuoka a Mr. A, from Fukuoka to Tokyo a Mr. B, and from Tokyo to Sapporo a Mr. C were not passengers on those planes. All three admitted that Ishida had asked them, under the seal of secrecy, to let him use their names. "One of our men has to travel on very discreet business so if the police should ask, please say that you were on the plane. It will not get you into trouble." This is what Ishida told them. The scandal at the ministry was breaking at the time and they believed an official was making the trip to hush it up. That sort of thing is not uncommon. As you may suppose, they were offered business opportunities by Ishida in return for the favor.

  Tatsuo Yasuda flew to Fukuoka, Tokyo, Sapporo and back using the names of A, B and C. He used these different names in order to make it more difficult in the event of an investigation. Yasuda always had in mind the possibility of such an investigation and he laid his plans very carefully.

  With the Hokkaido alibi broken and his presence in Hakata established, we were still left with one more problem, the matter of the witnesses. It was clear that Yasuda had planted these witnesses, the two girls from the Koyuki who had watched Sayama and Otoki board the Asakaze at Tokyo Station on January 14. Now, the real relations between Sayama and Otoki are not known, nor have we been able to learn anything about them. Otoki was an unusually discreet young woman and, according to the waitresses at the Koyuki, although she seemed to have a lover no one was certain. They were not trying to protect her; they seemed really not to know. We had been told that Otoki used to get telephone calls from a man but she never brought him to her home. In other words, she seemed to have had a secret lover but he had yet to be identified. Of course, after the double suicide at Kashii everyone assumed that Sayama was the lover.

  However, there was something strange about this aspect of the case.

  Why did Yasuda need to have someone observe the couple leaving together? Did he merely want a witness to prove that they had boarded the Asakaze? And why did it have to be the Asakaze? Wouldn't any train going to Kyushu have served as well? Since they committed double suicide in Kyushu there was no mistaking where they went. Then what was the reason?

  Yas
uda had to have someone see Sayama and Otoki boarding the train together. He went to a great deal of trouble to have the witnesses on the platform at the right time. What he really wanted was someone to observe Sayama and Otoki together and to conclude that they were lovers.

  Why was this necessary? It is a strange story. After giving the facts much thought I reached the startling conclusion that Sayama and Otoki were not lovers. This had to be so, I decided. Precisely because they were not lovers, Yasuda had to have someone witness their departure and conclude that they were.

  I greatly admire your skill in deducing from the dining car receipt that Sayama had traveled to Hakata alone. Your suspicion was aroused by the fact that the receipt was made out for one person, and your daughter's observations on the subject of love and appetite were very enlightening. Otoki got off the train somewhere along the way and Sayama continued alone to Hakata. I came to the conclusion that Sayama and Otoki were only vaguely connected and that they were certainly not lovers.

  Yasuda was a good client at the Koyuki, often entertaining his business friends there. Sayama did not frequent the Koyuki but he must have known Otoki. It is even possible that Yasuda, Sayama and Otoki met together at times, unknown to anyone. Sayama and Otoki were certainly acquainted and would naturally talk to each other as they boarded the Asakaze. To a third person they could well have looked like lovers departing on a trip together. That was Yasuda's intention.

  Therefore, it must have been Yasuda who arranged for them to travel on the same train. He was probably in a position to do so.

  Now, here was Yasuda's problem: It was all very well to plan to have the two waitresses see the couple, but since he had no reason to go to platform 15 he could not take them directly to the Asakaze. They had to come upon the scene naturally. Platform 15 is the one reserved for the departure of the long-distance trains. To take the girls there deliberately would look suspicious. He had to let them observe the scene from another platform. The most natural way to do this would be to use platform 13, the one he always left from when visiting his wife in Kamakura. This would not arouse suspicion. But he was perplexed. From platform 13 one cannot see the trains on platform 15. Trains keep arriving and departing on the intervening tracks and obstruct the view. I believe I mentioned this before. After careful search, however, Yasuda discovered that prior to the Asakaze's departure, for exactly four minutes, from 5:57 to 6:01, the train could be clearly seen from platform 13. These were four valuable minutes. Yes, most precious minutes.

  I said earlier that the couple could have taken any train to Kyushu but it was clear now that it had to be the Asakaze, leaving at 6:30. Yasuda had to get them aboard the Asakaze. Other trains bound for Kyushu could not be seen from platform 13. It was brilliant of Yasuda to have discovered this four-minute interval. There can be few, if any, railroad men at Tokyo Station aware of this brief interval.

  Thus it became clear that Yasuda had planned the departure of Sayama and Otoki. But this did not solve the greater mystery: the double suicide on Kashii Beach six days later, the undeniable fact that Sayama and Otoki drank fruit juice containing cyanide and died, almost in each other's arms. Both the medical report and the photographs of the scene pointed unmistakably to a case of double suicide.

  Here was something I could not understand. Why should these two, who were not lovers, commit suicide together? Surely Sayama and Otoki, who were barely acquainted, would not be so insane as to obey Yasuda's order (if his order it was) to kill themselves. Yet the stark fact of the double suicide destroyed the assumption that they were not lovers, no matter how convinced one was to the contrary. You were obliged to believe that they were intimate since they committed suicide together. I could find no answer to this contradiction.

  However, since it was Yasuda's plan to have the two depart together, I could not fail to be suspicious of those suicides on Kashii Beach. Yet there was no denying that they had died there together. No matter how much I thought about it, I could not get past that obvious fact.

  But since the beginning had been plotted by Yasuda, I thought I could discern Yasuda's presence at the end also, the tragic end in suicide. I could not dismiss this suspicion from my mind. All the while I was in Hokkaido investigating I could almost see Yasuda standing like a ghost on Kashii Beach the night of the tragedy. I had no idea what part he played. He could not have used hypnotism to make them commit suicide. Yet, as normal human beings, they would not have taken their own lives simply because he ordered them to do so. I didn't understand; nevertheless, I had to have Yasuda on that spot and on that night.

  Fortunately, we broke Yasuda's Hokkaido alibi, and we proved that he had left Tokyo by Japan Airlines for Hakata at 3 P.M. on January 20, arriving at Itazuke Airport in Fukuoka at 7:20. Thus, he could have been on Kashii Beach at 9:00, about the time the deaths took place. But when it came to trying to connect Yasuda with the actual suicides, I soon reached a dead end, as if confronted by a wall. I could think of no solution. I was completely baffled and I held my head in my hands.

  It was on one of the days when I was feeling desperate that I happened to enter a coffee shop. I like coffee. My boss often makes fun of this, but I was deeply depressed and I wanted to get away from the office. Usually, I go to my favorite shop in Yūraku-chō, but it was raining that day so I stopped in at an unfamiliar place near Hibiya Park.

  The shop had a second floor. As I was about to open the front door a young girl approached from the side and we almost collided. She was quite lovely. She was wearing a bright-colored raincoat. I was polite and let her enter first. She smiled at me, went in, and gave her umbrella to the waitress standing near the stairs. I followed and handed over my umbrella also. The waitress, taking us for a couple, quickly tied the two umbrellas together and offered me the check. The girl flushed slightly and I hastened to explain. "No, not together; we're strangers." The waitress apologized, untied the umbrellas and gave us separate checks.

  You may think I relate the incident because it flattered me to be taken for the companion of an attractive young girl. Actually, something very different flashed through my mind at the time, something that astounded me. I went upstairs, sat down at one of the tables and for a while didn't even notice the cup of coffee in front of me, which I must have ordered.

  The waitress had greeted us as a couple because we happened to enter the shop together. That was natural; almost anyone would have thought so. She drew this hasty inference from the way we had come in the door together. For me, however, the incident started a whole new train of thought.

  We-including yourself and the men at your station-had concluded it was a double suicide because Sayama and Otoki were found dead, side by side. Now I understood! They had died separately and at different places. Only after they were dead were the two bodies brought together. Someone gave Sayama the cyanide and he died, and someone gave Otoki the same poison and she died; only then were the two bodies brought to the beach and placed side by side. The two deaths should never have been connected. Since they were similar, we believed it was a single case, but we were wrong.

  Don't chide us for immediately concluding it was a case of double suicide when we discovered a man and a woman dead, almost in each other's arms. Love suicides are not uncommon; this is the way the bodies are always found. No one would think of doubting it. And when termed a love suicide, the inquest is never as strict as in the case of a murder. The investigation is generally perfunctory. Tatsuo Yasuda knew this.

  I remember something you wrote to me once in a letter: "Sometimes a preconceived opinion will make us overlook the obvious. This is a frightening thing. We call it common sense but it often leaves us with a blind spot." Here was a case in point. A man and a woman are found dead side by side. It is all quite clear. The obvious assumption that it is a love suicide puts an end to any further investigation of the case. And so everyone is deceived. A clever murderer knows this; he will take advantage of this so-called common sense.

  This time, the criminal fooled us
completely. But he still had reason to feel uneasy. Sayama and Otoki were only slightly connected yet he had to make the double suicide look convincing, he had to give the impression that they were lovers. This is the reason for having the waitresses of the Koyuki witness their departure together from Tokyo Station. He arranged the scene carefully. Nevertheless, a criminal never ceases to worry. In this case, he planned exceptionally well: he used the four-minute interval.

  As I look back on it, I see the case built around train and plane schedules, from start to finish. It is buried in timetables. Did Yasuda have any personal knowledge of those things? Doubtful. It looks, rather, as if the crime had been planned by someone with a lively interest in such details.

  Let's leave aside for the moment the matter of the deaths of Sayama and Otoki and turn our attention to these timetables.

  The figure of a woman comes immediately to mind. She had a special interest in timetables. She even wrote an essay on the subject for some magazine. The piece was full of poetry and sentiment. What may look to us like very boring lists of names and numbers to her were more absorbing than the most exciting novel. From the tall columns of figures she drew inspiration for her poems and travel articles. She had been confined to her bed for a long time with tuberculosis and for her these timetables were a sort of bible, a constant companion in her loneliness. She never tired of them, turning to them as one would to a classic novel, a best seller or the scriptures. She was Yasuda's wife, then convalescing in Kamakura. Her name is Ryōko.

  A person suffering from tuberculosis is often said to have a morbidly clear mind. I wonder what was behind that pale mask; what was Ryōko Yasuda thinking? No, not thinking; it would be more accurate perhaps to say plotting. She must have kept playing with those columns of figures, drawing lines up and down and across to form some sort of pattern. I came to the conclusion that the plot was not originally Yasuda's but Ryō-ko's.