Points And Lines Read online

  His peaceful mood was shattered. The man turned and took to his heels. He ran back towards town and banged on the door of the first police box he came to.

  "There are dead bodies on the beach!"

  "Dead bodies? On the beach?" The old policeman stood up and shivered as he buttoned his jacket. The man was obviously very excited.

  "Yes, two of them. It looks like a man and a woman."

  Such a report, so early in the morning, made the old policeman's eyes pop open. "Where are they?"

  "On the beach over there. I'll show you."

  "Just a minute."

  The policeman was a bit flustered. He took down the man's name and address, then telephoned the main police station at Kashii. As they left the police box together, their breath made little white puffs in the crisp morning air.

  The two bodies lay on the beach in the cold, salty wind. Now that he was accompanied by the policeman, the workman was able to look at them more calmly. He noticed the woman first. She lay with her face looking up at the sky. Her eyes were closed but her mouth, partly open, revealed her white teeth. Her face was slightly flushed. Underneath a gray coat she wore a brick-colored kimono; the white collar was slightly open at the neck. The folds of the kimono were neatly arranged and she lay in a very orderly manner. The skirt ends of the kimono, fluttering in the wind, exposed the yellow lining. There were clean white socks on her feet, which lay primly aligned. Her clothes were not soiled. Nearby lay her sandals, also neatly arranged. The workman looked over at the man. His head was turned sideways. His face also appeared flushed, almost the face of a living person. He looked as if he had been drinking and had fallen asleep. The cuffs of his brown trousers showed from under a dark blue overcoat and his feet, in a pair of black shoes, were carelessly extended. The shoes were brightly polished; the socks were blue, with red stripes. The bodies lay quite close together.

  Small crabs were scurrying in and out of cracks in the rocks. One little crab was trying to crawl into a bottle of orange juice that lay near the man's body.

  "Love suicide," said the old policeman, looking down at the bodies. "Poor souls; still young, too."

  The light showed that it was getting on towards midmorning.

  Forty minutes later, alerted by the Kashii police, the chief of the detective division, accompanied by two assistants, the police doctor and a criminal identification officer, arrived by car from the Fukuoka police station.

  When they had finished taking pictures from every angle, the police doctor inspected the bodies.

  "Potassium cyanide," he concluded. "The brightly flushed face is characteristic. They must have taken it with the juice." Some orange-colored liquid still remained in the soft drink bottle on the rocks nearby.

  "Doc, how long do you think they've been dead?" the chief asked. He was fingering his small moustache.

  "I can't be sure until I check more carefully. Offhand, I'd say about ten hours."

  "Ten hours," the chief repeated, looking around. This set back the suicides to ten or eleven o'clock the previous night. He seemed to be trying to visualize the scene. "You believe they drank the poison together at the same time?"

  "Yes. They must have taken the potassium cyanide in the orange juice."

  "What a cold place to die in," someone remarked.

  The doctor looked up at the speaker. He was a man in his early forties, very thin and wearing a shabby overcoat, a nondescript little man.

  "Ah, Mr. Torigai!" The doctor addressed the detective, looking into his thin face. "Your remark applies to living persons. As for a place to die, it is immaterial whether it is hot or cold. For that matter, fruit juice is hardly a wintertime drink. Anyway, this couple…" The doctor stopped and smiled, then added, "They were probably in an abnormal state of mind, victims of a sort of perverse, inverted psychology."

  The detectives laughed. The police doctor had a pretentious way of speaking that they liked to ridicule.

  "It takes courage to decide to drink poison. And a peculiar state of mind to acquire that courage," the chief commented.

  "Chief, do you think this could be a case of murder and suicide?" asked one of the detectives. He had a marked country accent.

  "It can't be. There are no signs of a struggle; their clothes are not even in disorder. I feel sure they took the poison willingly."

  It was true. The woman's body was in perfect repose. Her white socks were immaculate, as if they had just stepped out of the sandals that were neatly placed beside her. Her hands were folded over her breasts.

  Since it was clearly a case of love suicide, the detectives relaxed. They even showed signs of disappointment that no crime was involved, that there was no need to search for the murderer.

  The two bodies were transported to the police station by special van. The detectives climbed aboard also and huddled inside to keep warm. With the unsightly objects removed, Kashii Bay looked peaceful again in the bleak winter sunshine. And the wind kept blowing in from the sea.

  The bodies were carefully examined at the police station. Many pictures were taken as each article of clothing was removed.

  A wallet was found in the pocket of the man's jacket. He could therefore be identified. The wallet also contained a railway pass. It was a commutation ticket for the run between Asagaya and Tokyo Station, made out in the name of Kenichi Sayama, age 31. The business cards gave further details. Under the man's name was printed: X Ministry, 7 Section, Assistant Section Chief. His home address appeared in the righthand corner.

  The detectives looked at each other. The 7 Section of the X Ministry was currently being investigated on charges of bribery and almost every day some item concerning the scandal appeared in the papers.

  "Any last messages?" the chief asked.

  "We've searched very carefully. There was nothing in any of his pockets. Less than ten thousand yen in cash, a handkerchief, a shoehorn, yesterday's newspaper, folded, and this crumpled receipt from a railway dining car-that was all we could find."

  "A dining car receipt? What an odd thing to keep." The chief picked it up and carefully smoothed away the creases. It was crumpled as though carelessly left at the bottom of the pocket. "The receipt is dated January 14," the chief read. "The train number is 7 and it's punched for one person. The bill amounted to 340 yen. The receipt was issued by the Tokyo branch of the Japan Restaurant Co. But it doesn't say what he ordered."

  "How about the woman?" someone asked. Her identity had also been established. In a folding pocketbook containing 8,000 yen were four or five business cards that read: "Tokyo, Akasaka, Restaurant Koyuki, Otoki."

  "Otoki must be her name," the chief remarked. "She was probably a waitress at the Koyuki Restaurant in Akasaka. This looks like the love suicide of a government official and a restaurant waitress." He ordered telegrams sent to the addresses on both cards.

  The bodies were examined further by the police doctor. There were no superficial wounds. The cause of the deaths was clearly from poisoning by potassium cyanide, and the presumed time of death was between nine and eleven o'clock of the previous night. "That means that they were walking on the beach at that hour, then committed suicide," said one of the detectives.

  "They must have taken a long time saying goodbye," another one remarked pointedly. However, a medical examination showed no signs of intercourse prior to their death. This surprised the detectives. "They died remarkably innocent," one of them remarked cynically. Again it was confirmed that both deaths were from poisoning by potassium cyanide.

  "They must have left Tokyo on the fourteenth," said the chief, checking the date on the dining car receipt. "Today is the twenty-first. Which means they left a week ago. I suppose they stopped off somewhere on the way, then came to Fukuoka to look for a place to die. Say, call the station and find out what this 'train number 7' means."

  One of the detectives went to the telephone. He soon returned with the report. "The train is the super-express from Tokyo to Hakata. It's called the Asakaze."

 
"What, the super-express to Hakata?" The chief looked skeptical. "I wonder if they came directly to Hakata. If so, they either stayed the whole week in Hakata or visited other parts of Kyushu. They must have had some baggage; we must look into that. Take their pictures and check all the inns and hotels in the city. See if anyone recognizes them."

  One of the men spoke up. "Chief, may I see that dining car receipt?" It was the thin, dark-skinned detective, the small man with the big eyes and the unshaven face. He had been in the original group that went to Kashii Bay when the bodies were discovered. His suit was as shabby as his overcoat, and his frayed necktie was askew. His name was Jūtarō Torigai and he was one of the senior detectives.

  Torigai studied the receipt which he had unfolded with his bony and not very clean fingers. He was muttering to himself, "For one person, eh! I suppose he dined alone."

  The chief overheard him. "The woman didn't accompany him to the dining car probably because she didn't care to eat."

  "But…" objected Torigai.

  "But what?" asked his superior.

  "But chief, a woman likes to eat, you know. Even if she's not hungry she'll usually go along with her escort and have a cup of coffee or some dessert with him."

  The chief laughed. "That's true," he said, "but maybe this time she was so full she couldn't manage even that."

  Torigai looked as if he were about to say something, but he changed his mind. He put on his hat, a very old hat with a floppy brim that seemed to match his personality, and quietly walked away. He was wearing a pair of shoes that were down at the heels, and he dragged his feet as he walked.

  When the detectives had left, the room regained its air of emptiness and futility. One or two of the younger men remained behind; they put more charcoal in the brazier and every once in a while filled the teacup on the chief's desk.

  Later in the afternoon, as the sun's rays, filtering through the window, grew weaker, footsteps resounded outside and the room suddenly filled with people. These were not policemen but newspaper reporters.

  "Chief! A certain Sayama, assistant section chief in a Tokyo ministry, died in a love suicide. We were just notified by our head office and rushed over." Their voices betrayed their excitement as they pushed their way into the room. The Tokyo newspapers had immediately assumed a connection between the political scandal and the suicides and had alerted their offices in Fukuoka.

  The morning papers carried in big headlines the news of the love suicide of Kenichi Sayama, assistant section chief of X Ministry, and a restaurant waitress. In addition to the two newspapers that have the largest nationwide circulation, the important local papers reported the news in detail. It was not an ordinary case of double suicide. The deaths were linked with the bribery case in a government ministry. All the papers broadly hinted that Sayama's death was connected with the scandal. The Public Prosecutor's Office was quoted as saying that Sayama had not been summoned to appear; nevertheless, according to the stories in the press, it was certain that Sayama would have been called up as a witness and that he had committed suicide out of fear that the scandal would involve people higher up.

  These newspapers were stacked on the chief's desk. The chief himself was looking over the contents of a small leather suitcase.

  The suitcase had been discovered as a result of a thorough check, lasting through most of the night, of the inns in Fukuoka City. It had been found by a young detective at an inn called Tambaya. The inn reported that the man, identified by the picture the detective carried with him, had been a recent guest. In the register he was listed as Taizō Sugawara, 32, a businessman; address: 26 Minami Nakadōri, Fujisawa City. He had been alone from the night of the fifteenth until he departed on the night of the twentieth, after paying his bill. At that time, he had left the suitcase behind, saying that he would pick it up later.

  The suitcase contained only such ordinary things as toilet articles, extra shirts and underwear and a few magazines that had probably been bought on the train. There was not even a notebook, let alone a letter or a farewell note.

  When he finished examining the suitcase the chief turned to the young detective who had brought it to the station. "Did you say the man was alone?" he asked.

  "Yes, he was alone."

  "That's strange! What happened to the woman? I wonder where she was all that time. The fifteenth is when the Asakaze arrived from Tokyo. That whole week, from the fifteenth to the twentieth, did the man remain at the inn the entire time?"

  "He didn't go out at all, apparently. He was alone at the inn."

  "Didn't the woman show up at any time?"

  "I was told that no one called on him."

  While this conversation was taking place, Detective Torigai quietly left the room. Taking his old hat, he went out on tiptoe so as not to disturb anyone. Outside, he boarded a streetcar and sat down. He looked absentmindedly at the passing scenery through the window across the aisle. When the car reached a certain stop, he got off. His movements were as careful as those of an old man.

  He turned many corners. His steps were very deliberate. Presently he came to a building which bore the sign "Tambaya." From the entrance he could see the well-polished hall and corridors. The hotel clerk greeted him with a low bow, straightening up rather quickly when he saw the police card.

  The clerk confirmed what the young detective had reported earlier to the chief. Jūtarō Torigai then asked, his face bearing the semblance of a smile, "How did the man look when he arrived?"

  "He looked tired and went to bed right after his dinner," the clerk answered.

  "It must be very boring to stay indoors the whole time. What did he do all day?"

  "Usually, he just stretched out on the tatami and read. He seldom called for the maid. Which reminds me, the maid did say that he was a gloomy sort of person. He seemed to be waiting anxiously for a phone call."

  "A phone call?" Torigai's eyes brightened.

  "Yes, he told me as well as the maid that he was expecting a phone call. He said to be sure to connect him as soon as the call came. I believe he didn't go out on that account."

  Torigai nodded. "That could be. Did the call come through?"

  "Yes, I took it. It was about eight o'clock, the night of the twentieth. A woman's voice said, 'Mr. Sugawara, please. He's one of your guests.' "

  "A woman's voice! And she said Sugawara, not Sayama?"

  "That's right. I knew he was waiting for the call so I put it through right away. We have a switchboard and extensions in every room."

  "Could you hear the conversation?"

  The clerk's smile was forced. "We're forbidden to listen in on guests' phone calls."

  Torigai sucked in his breath as if in disappointment. "What happened next?"

  "The call lasted only about a minute. Then he sent for the bill, paid it and left, asking us to hold his suitcase. We didn't dream that he was leaving to commit suicide."

  Jūtarō Torigai was in deep thought, his fingers rubbing his unshaven chin. Assistant Section Chief Sayama waited impatiently at the inn a whole week for a phone call from the woman. And when the call came at last, he left right away, to commit suicide that same night. Very strange.

  Still before his eyes was the dining car receipt plainly marked "for one person." "Sayama was waiting at the inn for the woman to arrive," he muttered to himself. "Why in the devil did he have to wait a whole week for the woman he intended to commit suicide with?"

  3 Two Stations in Kashii

  Jūtarō Torigai got home about seven o'clock. Although the front door made a good deal of noise as he entered, no one appeared to greet him. He was removing his shoes in the small vestibule when he heard his wife call from the next room, "Hello, your bath is ready!" He pushed open the door and found her putting away her knitting. On the table the dinner dishes lay covered over with a white cloth. "I thought you'd be late so Sumiko and I had our dinner," she explained. "Sumiko went with Nitta to see a picture. Do take your bath first."

  Torigai undressed quiet
ly. The suit he put aside was well worn, the lining badly frayed. Some dust and sand spilled to the floor from inside the trouser cuffs. It was as if his weariness, from the many hours he had walked that day, was seeping out of his clothes.

  His work obliged him to keep irregular hours. If he was not home by 6:30, his wife and daughter would not wait for dinner. Sumiko was his daughter and Nitta the young man she was going to marry soon.

  As usual, Torigai took his bath silently. The bath was an old iron tub. "How's the water," his wife called to him. "Fine, fine," Torigai replied wearily. He was tired and did not feel like talking. He wanted just to sit in the tub and let his mind wander.

  He started thinking about yesterday's suicides. What led them to take their lives, he wondered. He would know before long because telegrams had been received from the families of the two young people to say they were sending representatives to claim the bodies. The newspapers reported that Sayama was deeply involved in the government scandal that was currently under investigation and that his death had come as a relief to some senior officers in the ministry that was implicated. Sayama, they said, was a good man but the timid sort. Also, according to the press, Sayama and Otoki were lovers and Sayama was believed to have been worried about the illicit relationship. If that were true, Torigai decided, Sayama had certainly solved his two problems, the office scandal and the love affair, by taking his own life. No, the scandal by itself might have been enough to drive him to suicide but the additional problem of the young woman was what made him do it. And yet… Torigai splashed the warm water over his face. After arriving together at Hakata station on the Asakaze, where did the woman go? Sayama was alone when he checked in at the Tambaya, the night of the fifteenth. There was the date on the dining car receipt and there was no mistaking the date of his arrival at Hakata, so he did go directly to the inn. The woman was not with him at the time. From the sixteenth to the twentieth-for five days, therefore-Sayama remained at the inn, waiting impatiently for a phone call from the woman. What was Otoki doing during this time?