Pathway to Japanese Literature

1

When asked why I was walking through that lonely backstreet late that night, I found myself turning slightly red.

In any case, I had gone out to the vicinity of the suburban railway station and was walking with the intention of hailing a round taxi.
I had a companion.
That companion was a man named Homura Sōroku.
It was none other than that amateur detective, Mr. Homura.

“The girl you seem to like has disappeared before you knew it, hasn’t she?” said Homura.

“Hmm——”

Just at that moment, as I walked along the street picturing that girl in my mind, I started in surprise. That night’s circumstances had led me to bring along that girl—lovely as a rosebud—to introduce her to Homura. She was a woman from a café in this rundown part of town. Though called a café girl, she was a princess-like young woman of refined elegance.

That café was called the Golden Bat.
At the entrance, two bats—whether female or male was unclear—were depicted stacked vertically in a neon sign.
At first glance, it had been a shabby, utterly ordinary café, but somehow I had taken a liking to it from the very night I first stumbled in.

That had probably been about a month earlier.
At that time I had been alone, but since I must eventually recount the events of that occasion, I would defer them for later and now—

“The condition wasn’t good tonight,” I said, half to hide my embarrassment.

“Not really. I found it quite entertaining.”

“And there was another woman I’d been wanting to introduce you to, but she’d taken the night off.”

“Ah yes—Kimie, that’s her name.”

“Right—Kimie. When it comes to her, she’s the complete antithesis of Cherry.”

“So her name’s Cherry, that sweet pea of a girl...”

“Sweet pea? I’m not sure about ‘sweet pea’...” (Ah, my poor rosebud!)――

“Huh?”

“No, there’s no woman of such superior qualities as that Kimie.”
“Her passion, her charm, and even her ability—she might just be the best in the world.”
“The living Mona Lisa—that’s exactly what Kimie is.”

Taking advantage of the darkness, I spouted such cringeworthy eloquence that even I found it cloyingly sweet.

After that, we both walked in lead-heavy silence beneath the eaves of that backstreet.
Autumn had already deepened even in this rundown part of town.
The night fog crept up around our necks, leaving a cold kiss in its wake.

(It's a long road—) I looked up to see Tsurumaki Apartment—like a square cut from the night sky—looming aloofly above the row houses with their low-hanging eaves.

And then it happened.

"Aghh!"

The scream certainly echoed deep in my ears, yet overhead I distinctly heard a terrible shriek—one that could only have been torn from someone gripped by absolute terror. Whether man or woman, the voice had become so inhuman it defied all recognition.

“Ah! This house!”

Homura planted both feet firmly on the ground and raised his Western-style cane to point toward what appeared to be the third or fourth floor of the apartment building. Gone was the beer-flushed modern boy with his gleaming face; he had fully transformed into Detective Homura—keen as a shepherd dog.

“Which way in?”

In that instant, I too resolved to charge forward.

“Go around to the back entrance. If it’s open, you’d better stay sharp.”

“And you?”

“I’ll charge through the front—hurry!”

I saw Homura twist his waist and draw a pistol from the hidden hip pocket as he hurled his body against the entrance door. Not to be outdone, I dove into the narrow space between the houses. I managed to leap in, but the clattering drain covers took me aback.

When I turned a corner in the alley, I came out at the apartment's back entrance. A sturdy iron-barred glass door was fitted there. Just as I reached for the handle, I sensed someone dart over the drain covers ahead. I felt as though someone had been hiding behind the wall. I left the back entrance behind and chased after that shadow.

When I emerged from the alley, a narrow lane stretched long in three directions. I quickly scanned the three paths, but not even a single kitten caught my eye.

"Maybe it was just my imagination," I thought as I turned back toward the apartment's back entrance. Covering the handle with a handkerchief and giving it a firm twist, the latch clattered open as the door swung inward. Realizing what was happening, I edged in cautiously, remaining fully alert. However, when I entered, there was a terrible clattering noise from above as something large thrashed about. A groan-like howl echoed—. Then suddenly, my name was called. It was shrill but unmistakably Homura's voice.

I ran up the stairs.
It was the third-floor corridor.
In the dimly lit corridor's center, Homura had just pinned down a man.

Around that time, the doors of each room finally began to open, and shadowy figures emerged from within, peering cautiously in our direction.

“What on earth happened here?”

The one who approached saying this was a portly man around fifty who identified himself as the caretaker of this apartment. He wore a thick belt over his sleepwear, a headband tied around his forehead, and carried a long stick.

“This is the man who fled from the incident room,” Homura stated, his tone returning to calm.
“When you say ‘incident’... which room is it in?”
“It’s right over there.”
“Look—the door’s left wide open…”
“Is this bastard the culprit?”

“Well, I can’t say for certain yet, but he came rushing out of that room and suddenly attacked me.”

Homura took out a thin-bladed dagger from his pocket and showed it.

The suspicious man lay face down in the corridor, still bound, and made no attempt to move.
Slipping past him, we went to check the incident room we were concerned about.

“You mustn’t be startled.”
Homura cautioned the group once more as he twisted the entrance switch.
The room suddenly brightened.
After passing through one room, in the innermost area was a Western-style room of about eight tatami mats.
There was a bed with white sheets hanging, but it was slightly twisted.
But the bed was empty, and the master of the incident we sought lay sprawled in a spreadeagle near the doorway we had just entered, in the left corner.
He was a young man of tall stature, but only his square jaw was visible; the upper part of his face remained unseen.
At first glance it appeared as though a black cloth covered him, but looking closer revealed it to be a pool of crimson blood.
The head had been brutally mangled.
He was pressing his right shoulder with his own hand, but the shoulder also seemed to have been injured.
As I looked on, a wave of cerebral anemia threatened to overcome me.
The wounds were that brutal.

"Oh, Mr. Kin."
"Poor Mr. Kin..." The caretaker's voice trembled.
"Will he survive?"

"So it's Mr. Kin, then?" said Homura.
"Mr. Kin's pulse is still there."
"Of course he's unconscious."
"Get a doctor immediately! We'll call the police too, but first the doctor!"

“Where’s the nearest doctor, old man?”
I grabbed the caretaker’s arm.

“There’s a doctor.”
“If you go about three blocks that way, there’s a Dr.Okada.”

“Then old man, I need you to make a quick run.”

“I… I’m not sure…”

The caretaker hesitated.
As a result, I inevitably had to go myself.
Thinking I needed to properly observe the injured person's condition and report it if going to the doctor's place, I forced myself to muster courage and took another look at the blood-soaked victim's face.

"Oh, this is..."

I was struck by shock and finally let out a cry.

"What's wrong with you? Do you know him?" Homura exclaimed in surprise, tapping my shoulder.

"This is him."
I leaned close to his ear.
"This is that man who's notorious for his messy involvement with Kimie from the Golden Bat."

2

I rushed outside to fetch a doctor.
Dr. Okada was a physician who maintained his clinic near the Golden Bat.
That was why I had to retrace in reverse the very path Homura and I had taken earlier.

Every nerve along that route remained consumed by the injured man I had just witnessed.

The face of that man called Kin—I first seared it into memory when I initially passed through the Bat's gate, an unforgettable moment.
Amidst such crowds of patrons, why had his visage alone imprinted itself so vividly?
Now that I recalled, there had been another man noted at that time.
I should speak of him first—his sailor-like demeanor and uproarious tales told to the women lingered memorably.
Though not particularly large, he bore a sun-bronzed masculinity; moreover, brimming with that sailor-branded sexual magnetism that made him appear naturally doted upon by girls.

His stories naturally concerned maritime incidents, but what most arrested my attention were those involving smuggling.
Among sailors exist those bound by unbreakable toxic ties to land-based gangs—perpetually coerced into smuggling.
Yet even in smuggling, confined as they were to small vessels, repetition inevitably led to capture.
Thus they had no choice but to painstakingly devise new methods one after another.
Recently—as this sailor Kaihara Rikizō had amusingly recounted—smugglers adopted an Edgar Allan Poe-esque approach: rather than hiding contraband in obscure places, they now carelessly dumped it in plain sight.

Now, when it came to that Kin Seinen, he was a young man who was merely large in build—neither particularly handsome nor possessing any sporty refinement—and if anything, rather lacking in elements of male beauty.
Compared to someone like Kaihara Rikizō, he was considered an unlikely underdog in any romantic competition.
That he commanded such extraordinary popularity among the women of Café Golden Bat was truly remarkable.
When Kin entered, nearly ten women would erupt in clamor and rush toward him en masse, regardless of whether they had assigned customers or not.
They would unleash indescribably coquettish cries and cling to Kin's chest from every direction.
It was as though scarlet and black carp were jostling each other to swarm toward a single morsel of food.

What was truly strange was that despite all this, Kin never looked the least bit happy or pleased.
He would simply head to a corner seat and plop down heavily.
That was always a reserved spot for him.
There, he leisurely produced a cigarette.
Then another uproar ensued.
About ten women—every last one of them—each pulled out a match from their obi and struck a light with a swish.
It was as if they were engaged in some frenzied match-stripping competition.
It was so absurd it was unbearable to watch.

“You fools! You’ll burn the cigarette away!”

At that moment, Kin smirked faintly and lit the cigarette.
When he exhaled smoke with a “hoo,” the women twisted their bodies like snakes,

“Hey... hey...”
“Come on now, hey...”

they whined in nasal voices.
At that point, Kin rummaged through his pocket and threw a cigarette case onto the table with a thud.
With a collective shriek, the women scrambled to snatch the case—it usually ended up in Kimie’s hands—and the one who seized it would press a cigarette into each companion’s palm like distributing sweets to children.
The recipients would light Kin’s cast-off cigarettes, inhale greedily, and let out shrill cries.

Now, as for where the heart of Kin Seinen—that young man bearing such extravagant (yet puzzling) popularity—truly lay, it was with Kimie.
This Kimie was quite the character herself—one moment playing the dutiful wife to Kin, and the next, whenever she had a moment to spare, flirting with anyone she could and showering them with affection.
Thus, Kimie enjoyed popularity among the customers in a different sense than Kin.

However, true to the adage that what waxes must wane, Kimie’s countenance had begun to change slightly of late.
Even frenzied confrontations directed at Kin Seinen had begun attracting public notice.
And yet, in the end, Kimie would reconcile with Kin—or rather, end up pleading with him.

In contrast, Kin Seinen’s mood seemed to have improved somewhat compared to before.
That was because Cherry, who until then had never shown any desire for cigarettes, had begun smoking through his tutelage.

“Cigarettes—they’re just like breath mints, right?” Cherry said.

“Cigarettes being breath mints... that worked out well, didn’t it?”

Kin laughed.
The women too were drawn in and burst into uproarious laughter, but Kimie alone—for some reason—abruptly rose from her seat and vanished toward the kitchen, never to reappear no matter how long we waited.

That such a popular figure—veritable emperor of Café Golden Bat—had suffered a crime so gruesome to behold left me utterly appalled; I found myself mentally canvassing the faces of everyone I knew from daily life, wondering which among them could have done this.

Dr. Okada’s house was quickly located.
Though it might have seemed a great deal of time had passed due to my lengthy account, in truth only four or five minutes had elapsed between leaving the apartment and arriving there.

When I pressed the doorbell, it was unexpected that someone answered immediately. The man who greeted us was a kimono-clad gentleman in his mid-thirties with a neatly trimmed beard that lent him a refined air, exuding robust health from his very appearance.

"Where is the Doctor?"

"Oh, that's me."

"Ah, I see. Actually..."

I explained about the emergency patient and requested that he come immediately due to severe trauma.

“I’ll attend to it immediately. I’ll accompany you right away, so please wait a moment.”

Dr. Okada’s face tensed slightly before he retreated inside.

He had gone inside to prepare, but despite his promise of "immediately," he showed no sign of emerging for quite some time. While feeling slightly irritated, I scanned every corner of the entrance to observe this doctor's way of life.

At that moment, something caught my attention. I too, in Homura’s fashion, prided myself on having rather sharp observational skills—even if I say so myself. First, my eyes fell upon the teeth of a brand-new pair of men’s geta left discarded there. The thick, pure white paulownia teeth—nearly two-thirds of them—were stained black with fresh mud.

Then another thing—a walking stick had been propped up, but when I brought my eyes closer to examine it carefully, the ivory ferrule at its tip was soiled with the same kind of fresh mud.

Given that Dr. Okada had come rushing out to the entrance so late at night, and that his eyes had been perfectly clear without any sign of drowsiness—along with the mud on the geta and walking stick—I began forming some idea of what he might have been up to.
I sniffed around like a dog and paid closer attention to my surroundings.
The area where what appeared to be Dr. Okada’s men’s geta were lined up was a cement-paved earthen entranceway.
It was so thoroughly dried that the white color stood out prominently.
However, I discovered a very slightly damp area alongside the men’s geta.
I crouched down and, turning over the back of my hand, probed various spots on the earthen entranceway with my knuckles.
The back of the hand possesses remarkable sensitivity to temperature.
In the manner of a doctor performing percussion, I pressed around the area until finally discovering the shape of something.
It was, to my astonishment, the shape of a pair of high-heeled women’s shoes.
Pressed against the shoe, the foot size appeared to be approximately twenty-two centimeters.

What could it mean that while the earthen entranceway bore dampness in the imprint of women’s shoes, no actual women’s shoes were to be found there? Just as I pondered this, something like a woman’s stifled sob sounded once—then again—from the inner room. Startled, I instinctively bent forward to listen intently when Dr.Okada—who had taken his time—emerged abruptly in Western clothes, leaving me thoroughly flustered.

“What’s the matter?” Dr. Okada asked testily.

“Oh, no—don’t you have a patient here?”

“There isn’t one. It’s just the helper complaining of a toothache.”

That voice was unnaturally stiff—proof positive that he was lying.

We went outside, but by then the conversation had shifted to the grievously injured Kin Seinen.
According to Dr. Okada, he both knew Kin Seinen and had examined him before, but he didn’t mention what illness.
And to my eager questions, while occasionally giving nonsensical replies, he kept quickening his pace.

3

Though Dr.Okada had gone to the trouble of rushing over, it seemed Kin Seinen—gravely injured—had breathed his last not long after I left.

Guided by Homura, the doctor who had come to Kin's corpse first saluted the deceased with solemn formality, then took out a flashlight and examined the wounded area.

“This appears to have been inflicted by some sort of blunt instrument.”
“It must be a considerably heavy blunt instrument. The left shoulder is far more severely damaged than the head.”
“The bones have been shattered into fragments.”

“I thought as much,” Homura replied, then gestured to the side.
“There’s the murder weapon.”

“Where is it?”
The doctor raised his eyes.

“Look, this is it,” Homura said, taking a few steps and pointing to a large rug-like object lying on the floor.
“The exterior is knitted from wool yarn as you can see.”
“However, this is merely a bag.”
“The contents are an iron shot put—the same type used in athletic events—but it’s extremely heavy.”
“If you look from this side, you can see the bloodstains.”

Homura indicated part of the murder weapon from beside it.

"This has been stained by blood from the head wound," the doctor said.

"That does seem to be the case. Now then, Dr. Okada—is the fatal wound still attributable to this external trauma?"

"Of course there's no doubt about that, but do you have some particular opinion..."

"It's hardly worth calling an opinion, but when examining this deceased's body, I notice peculiarities unseen in ordinary people. Something like... an addiction."

"That's right! Precisely right!" The doctor vigorously nodded in agreement.

“If you insist, I’ll come out with it—the truth is, this Mr. Kin was a morphine addict.”

“Ah, so he came seeking treatment from you?”

“That’s correct.
Actually, he’s been under treatment these past four or five days, you see.”

“Did you examine him today as well?”

“I examined him this morning.
His condition has become quite severe.
It takes about four times the maximum dose for a normal person to have any effect, you see.”

“Four times, I see...”

Homura pulled out a cigarette from his case and lit it with a click of his lighter.
Then he fell completely silent, simply exhaling purposeless purple smoke.
This was his habit whenever he encountered something requiring serious contemplation.

At that moment, a shrill cacophony of automobile horns erupted from the main street’s direction.
The noise seemed to halt when reaching the apartment’s front.
Soon came the clattering tumult of footsteps ascending stairs—investigators and prosecutors from the Metropolitan Police Department who had learned of the incident arrived.

“Well, well—”

“Ah, thank you for informing us earlier about…”

Detective Ōeyama thanked Homura for reporting the incident.

“Now then—the victim’s condition?”

“He expired shortly after. Never spoke a word in the end... Time of death was 12:35 AM.”

“Hmm, I see.”
“Is this the man called Kin?”
“Well, this is dreadful.”

“I’ve kept the entire crime scene exactly as it was immediately after the incident.”

“Not at all—thank you.”

The officials thanked Homura for keeping the crime scene completely undisturbed.
Homura prompted me, and we moved to another room.
This was to avoid interfering while the officials carried out their investigation.

The adjacent room had a similar layout. With no chairs available, we sat down on the bed.
There was some time here, but I needed to get properly aligned with Homura during this interval.

“How about it? Did the suspect say anything?”

Then, Homura waited until he had lit his Hope cigarette before posing the question.

"No, you see, that man hasn't been confirmed as the culprit yet."

"But that man did come out of the crime scene, didn't he? And then attacked you with a thin-bladed dagger, didn't he?"

"Yeah, but there's not a single drop of blood on that dagger."

“Then he must have finished him off with that shot put in the bag.”
“Wouldn’t that be a means suited to that large man?”

"That’s still unclear."

"Haven't you asked that man about it yet?"

"Yeah, I haven’t exchanged a single word with him since then."

I was astonished by Homura’s statement that they hadn’t conducted even a brief interrogation of the suspected man.

“Then what exactly have you been doing all this time?”

"I’d been investigating Kin’s room."

“And what did you find?”

“I’ve come across several interesting things."
"But there's still not enough evidence to conclusively pin the dagger-wielding man as the culprit."

“What kind of things?”

Homura seemed to roll the swallowed smoke deep in his throat before quietly exhaling it as a thin thread from his mouth. It was a particular mannerism he reserved exclusively for those moments when he’d discovered some insoluble riddle and was savoring the anticipation of solving it.

“I found something interesting in that room,” Homura began haltingly. “It concerns the Golden Bat. Didn’t you notice all those Bats scattered across the floor over there?”

“Now that you mention it, there seem to be five or six scattered around.”

“Not five or six. There are actually thirty-two in total. But these didn’t spill out from some fifty-cigarette case—there isn’t a single such case in that room. What existed were only those familiar empty Bat boxes. The empty boxes numbered four in total.”

“Hmm.”

“And there’s something even more interesting. That room has three ashtrays, but here’s the thing—those ashtrays have a remarkable feature.”

“You mean…”

“There’s nothing strange about matchstick stems and cigarette ash being in the ashtray,” Homura said, pausing briefly. “But there’s one thing that should logically be present yet is nowhere to be found in those ashtrays.”

“To put it plainly—there’s not a single cigarette butt lying around."
“Considering the amount of ash, there should be at least fifteen or sixteen cigarette butts—but not a single one can be found.”
“This is extremely fascinating.”

I couldn't figure out what he was talking about.

“Regarding the cigarettes, there’s another discovery I’ve made.”
“Of the thirty-two cigarettes scattered on the floor, twenty-five remained undamaged, while the remaining seven appeared to have been stepped on and flattened.”
“When I examined them, they clearly showed shoe sole imprints—we can safely conclude these were stepped on with shoes.”
“However, under normal circumstances, one would remove their shoes at the entrance before entering that room.”
“Thus, from this evidence of seven Bat cigarettes being stepped on, it would mean that someone had entered without removing their shoes at the entrance and gone upstairs as they were.”

“Wouldn’t that be him—the man with the dagger?”

“That might be the case. That might be the case, but after all, it’s about the shoe prints left on the Bats. Since it’s such a small area, we can’t clearly determine the exact shape or dimensions of the shoe.”

“I see.”

“So I have a question for you,” Homura said as he lit another Hope cigarette. “At the beginning of the incident, when you went around to the apartment’s back entrance, you mentioned glimpsing something like a human figure in the alleyway—couldn’t you tell whether that was a man or a woman?”

“Well, I can’t tell either way, you know.”

“I don’t know. If you can’t tell, then so be it—I know of another person who was likely in that room around the time of the incident.”

“Who are you talking about?”

“That is a woman. Moreover, a young woman at that,” Homura declared pompously.

“How did you figure that out?”

“There was a pillow on the bed, but when I searched, another pillow had rolled underneath it with a woman’s hair clinging to it. That’s not all. A half-open compact was found on the table. White powder lay scattered across its surface. From the powder’s distribution and the impression left by moving the compact, we could infer its owner had placed it there quite recently—so I believe you now grasp why I asked earlier whether you might have glimpsed that young woman.”

“Wait—now that you mention it…”

And so I reported on both the traces of women’s shoes I had observed at Dr. Okada’s house in a fit of irritation and about Dr. Okada himself.

"Couldn’t the young woman who apparently slept in Kin’s room be the same one who left those shoe prints at Dr. Okada’s place?"

"I think that's too much of a leap."
"But discovering the woman at Dr. Okada’s was wearing Western clothing—that’s useful."

"But does this young woman you mentioned—the one sleeping in the adjacent room—have direct ties to the crime?"

“Actually, I’m stuck there,” Homura said, frantically puffing on his cigarette. “I think there are aspects that suggest that woman might be the perpetrator. That can be inferred from the Golden Bat cigarettes that were stepped on. The woman must have been sleeping in that bed with Kin. Therefore, she must have taken off her shoes. I can’t grasp the motive, but based on the circumstances, the woman must have taken those Bats out of the box and scattered them after committing the crime. Therefore, by being careful, she was able to exit without stepping on the Bats. After that, the man with the dagger barged in, but since he didn’t notice the Bats scattered about, he must have inevitably stepped on them.”

“But wouldn’t that explanation still hold even if the man with the dagger had taken them out of the box?”

“That doesn’t particularly matter. Since that man already has suspicious aspects, adding cigarette-related suspicions won’t particularly hinder our search. The reason being, we must acknowledge that man possesses sufficient strength to hurl the shot put at Kin’s shoulder—not to mention he was actually witnessed emerging from that room. However, if the perpetrator is indeed the young woman, I believe the cigarettes would become considerably important evidence. While Kin was awake, she couldn’t have scattered that many cigarettes. Given we must acknowledge the man sustained grave injuries after considerable resistance, it follows that the Bats couldn’t have been left scattered so neatly without being trampled. Nor could someone have scattered those cigarettes while he slept in bed—this is evident from his grave injuries occurring far from the bed. There’s nowhere besides the bed where he could have been sleeping. Doesn’t this all lead us to conclude those cigarettes must have been scattered after she committed violence against him? Throwing a shot put isn’t some absolute feat any young woman could perform. Or can you imagine a scenario where a frail woman could hurl that shot put at someone’s shoulder?”

“Well, I don’t think that’s possible. Unless that woman had gone mad and tapped into some brute strength.”

“Gone mad? If she were mad, could she have escaped that scene so skillfully?”

“It’s not impossible!” I shouted, refusing to concede. “In a situation like this—a woman goes mad and inflicts serious injuries on Kin. Then the moment she suddenly recovers...”

“Let’s stop this. Ha ha ha,” Homura laughed with a look of exasperation.

“Mr. Homura, could you come here for a moment?”

From outside the room came the voice of Detective Inspector Ōeyama calling out.
Apparently, the investigation in the neighboring room had also been concluded.

4

The Kin Seinen murder case was unexpectedly processed with anticlimactic simplicity.
The authorities had conclusively judged the man apprehended by Homura to be the perpetrator.

What was unexpected there was that the man called the culprit was none other than Kaihara Rikizō himself.
It was only afterward, when he was dragged before the officials, that I too realized this and was startled.

Kaihara Rikizō strenuously resisted at first, insisting he wasn’t the culprit.
However, he ultimately admitted to all charges exactly as the officials had pointed out.

The motive for the crime stemmed from his extreme indignation at having a woman taken from him by Kin at Café Golden Bat.
The fact that he had carried a thin-bladed dagger without staining it with blood and instead hurled that heavy shot put to achieve his goal meant that even if apprehended later, he had intended to deny the crime on the grounds that he hadn’t yet used the dagger.
The prosecutor who had pointed this out from the very beginning was feeling rather smug.

Thus, while the case had been superficially resolved, for my part—as you might imagine—I remained deeply dissatisfied, with various questions left unexplained.

And the same was true for Homura.
That Homura had not come around for quite some time after Kaihara Rikizō’s confession—wait, was it perhaps after about a month had passed?—when he visited me in an absurdly good mood.

“Hey, where’ve you been?”

I looked up at Homura’s bluish-tinged face—freshly shaved of its beard—and spoke.

“Yeah, got tired of Tokyo and took a trip.
Actually wandered around Kobe way.
That area—Rokko, Arima, Maiko-Akashi—all great spots, y’know?”

“Oh? Could’ve invited me.”

“Though I say I was just wandering around, I was actually working as a dockhand.”

“A dockhand, you say?”

I immediately grasped Homura’s intention.
He must have been investigating something related to that incident at a port bustling with foreign steamships.

“By the way, have you been going to Golden Bat lately?”

“Well, I have been going, you know.”

“Well, you have been going—though it doesn’t seem you’ve had much success there. With both Kin and Mr. Kaihara having stopped coming all at once, the place must’ve become rather lonely.”

“Instead, some formidable successors have been flocking in.”

“Who’s that supposed to be?”

“You already know, don’t you? It’s that Dr. Okada.”

“I see.”
“Is Dr.Okada going there?”
“Which woman’s he got involved with?”

“That would be none other than Cherry.”
“Cherry’s been the clear number one around here lately.”
“Kimie’s still there, but there’s no trace of her former self.”
However, she had grown gentle.
“Speaking of gentleness, ever since that incident, it’s strange how everyone’s become mild-mannered.”
“Looking back on it now, that man Kin was a brilliant genius with something demonic about him.”

“Are they still handling the cigarettes together as usual?”

“Speaking of cigarettes…” I said, not immediately grasping his meaning.
“Ah, you mean the cigarettes?”
“In that case, it’s about Café Golden Bat.”
“They’re faithfully using exactly what’s advertised on the sign.”
“Quite the clever advertising scheme they had.”
“Come to think of it, lately the women have each been putting Golden Bats into their own cases—then they all stick them in pipes and puff away in unison.”
“It’s a sight you won’t find anywhere else.”

“Hmm, I see.”
At that point, Homura cut off his words and began puffing furiously on his favorite Hope cigarettes.

“Well then—” he said, rising to his feet.
“Assuming you’ll take me to the Bat tonight after all this time, there’s somewhere I need you to come with me first.”

At that point, I followed Homura out of the house.

“Our first stop is here.”

With that declaration, he marched into Nomaya Pharmacy near the Golden Bat.

“I’d like to inspect your regulated drugs sales ledger.”
“Here’s an authorization from the Metropolitan Police Department—”

With that, Homura sat down at the storefront.
The pale-faced proprietor emerged from the back, turned to us and bowed politely, then brought out a large ledger from the room lined with rows of medicine bottles.
When Homura opened it, he saw numerous thin ruled lines across the pages, with delicate numbers written in them.

Thereupon he spread open Dr.Okada’s column and, starting from the older dates, began meticulously transcribing those precise transaction figures onto a separate sheet.

When we stepped outside, Homura strode ahead and stood at Dr.Okada’s entrance.
When we requested to be shown in, a plump maid came out, but Dr.Okada was fortunately at home.
For the first time in months, I was shown into that reception room.

“Well now, this is quite the splendid residence,” Homura remarked with great amusement.

At that moment, Dr.Okada appeared.

"Well, since then—" Homura greeted him with forced familiarity before immediately adding:
"Today I'm here in a temporary investigative capacity with the Metropolitan Police Department to examine your inventory of controlled pharmaceuticals, Doctor."

"What do you mean by 'inventory quantity of controlled pharmaceuticals'?"
"That's rather an unconventional inspection, isn't it?"
Not the slightest trace of unease showed in Dr.Okada's bearing as he spoke.
"Then shall we adjourn to the dispensary?"

Homura urged me out of the examination room.
The dispensary was located a little removed from the entrance.
As we entered, a pungent, acrid medicinal smell struck our noses.
On three high walls, shelves stacked some fourteen or fifteen tiers high held tightly packed medicine bottles of various sizes, each bearing different labels.

The regulated drugs were strictly stored in a cabinet set up in one corner.
Dr.Okada removed the lock and rattled open the door, whereupon small bottles bearing black and red labels cast an oppressive weight over us.

Homura took down each small bottle one by one from the corner, removed the lids from those that had them, scooped their contents onto a small spoon to examine, placed white paper on a balance scale to measure entire bottle contents, and meticulously inspected the seals on unopened ones—it was an exceptionally thorough inspection.
Although I had been impressed at first, I was gradually growing bored.
To escape this boredom, I thoroughly scanned the dispensary to see if there might be anything interesting.

However, I couldn’t find any particularly unusual items that stood out.
There was only one item—a large silver ball with an estimated diameter of seven to eight centimeters placed on a high shelf slightly beyond my short reach. This silver ball rested atop what appeared to be a thick black crepe cushion, emitting a dull gleam.
It appeared to have been crafted by meticulously collecting cigarette tin foil and rolling it into shape.
It seemed that even someone fond of cigarettes would need at least three or four years to create a silver ball of this size.

I thought I would ask Dr.Okada about it later and continued staring at the silver ball when I noticed something peculiar. What I noticed was a thin horizontal line running about two-thirds down from the top of the silver ball. Upon closer inspection, what had seemed like a line appeared more like a seam.

(Oh ho, could this silver ball be a fake?)

Just as I thought this and reached out my hand, something suddenly yanked my jacket hard. With a start, I looked around—the one who had yanked me was none other than Homura. Dr.Okada stood on a stepladder diligently lowering bottles of regulated drugs—being too far away for it to have been him—so the one who had yanked my jacket could only have been Homura.

At any rate, I noticed—and stopped looking at the silver ball.

"That’s enough here."
Homura addressed Dr.Okada.

“Are you done?”

“Now, if I may ask you something briefly,” said Homura as he picked up the scrap of paper where he’d been jotting numbers with a pencil and addressed Dr. Okada.
“The current inventory of Pantopon doesn’t quite correspond, does it?”

Pantopon was a morphine preparation—a refined, high-grade variety.

“That can’t be.
“Please examine it again properly.”

“Indeed, it clearly doesn’t match.
“It doesn’t match the sales quantity from Noma Pharmacy reported to the Metropolitan Police Department.”

“That’s odd.
“There shouldn’t be any shortage at all.”
Dr.Okada’s eyes shone with confidence.

“Exactly.
“It isn’t low at all.
“A shortage would be manageable, but the current stock is far too excessive...”

"What's wrong with having too much?"

"That's precisely the problem," Homura said, shooting a glance at the Pantopon bottle. "Could it be you substituted another morphine preparation instead, leaving this surplus of Pantopon? Heroin, perhaps..."

"Heroin? We don't handle such inferior products here."

"Then we'll leave things as they stand."
"There's nothing more elsewhere, I trust?"

"There most certainly isn't any."
Dr. Okada’s face bore a slightly pallid hue as he said this.

"Then, may I see the medication ledger?"

"The medication ledger?
"Yes. Since that’s in the room over there, I’ll go get it."

With that, Dr. Okada stood up; Homura signaled with his eyes for me to follow.

Dr. Okada sullenly rushed into the examination room.
He clicked his tongue with a "tsk," but when I—following close behind—bumped against the door and made it clatter, he turned around in surprise to look at me.
His face clearly bore a thick layer of unease.

The medication ledger was found immediately.
When I returned to the dispensary, Homura was in exactly the same position as before, measuring the weight of another regulated drug.

"Here is the medication ledger—"

Homura picked up the ledger and began meticulously examining it page by page.
Dr.Okada was gradually growing more irritable.
Before long, Homura snapped the medication ledger shut.

"Thank you very much."

"Are you quite finished?"

“Yes, I’ve concluded my business here.”
“Let’s take our leave at this point.”

Homura turned around, extended his hand to the marble washbasin there, and turned the faucet handle.
Cold-looking water gushed over Homura’s hands.

5

When we stepped outside, the streets were already steeped in deep night.
A pleasant breeze, coming from nowhere, chased after us and brushed against our chins as if tickling them.

We came to the bridge.
If we crossed that bridge, the entrance to Café Golden Bat would be right there.

At that moment, Homura strode briskly toward the bridge’s railing.
There, he appeared to rummage through his pockets before producing a white paper package roughly the size of two caramel boxes.
As I watched to see what he would do, the package slipped from his grasp in an instant and plunged into the river’s surface.
Homura clapped his palms together repeatedly, brushing at something insistently.

Despite being early in the evening, Café Golden Bat was already packed to capacity that night.
We finally managed to find a small table in a corner.

“Oh my, welcome!”

It was Cherry who said this as she passed by.
Holding a cocktail glass aloft, she hurried past.
From behind, her one-piece dress clung so tightly it seemed ready to burst, her body nearly visible through the fabric.

“That’s Miss Cherry, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

“In the short time since I last saw her, she’s really filled out, hasn’t she? She looks like a completely different person.”

“Yeah.”
I recalled something and felt my chest tighten.

“Well, welcome!”
Then Kimie arrived.
“Thank you for earlier…”

Kimie greeted Homura with those words.
Thinking “Well, well,” I looked at Homura’s face.

“Hmm—”
Homura played innocent, hiding behind a smokescreen of Hope cigarettes.

After taking Kimie’s order and waiting impatiently for her to leave, I broke the silence.

“What was that about—‘Thank you for earlier…’?”

Homura grinned wryly and stubbed his shortened Hope cigarette into the ashtray.

“You must remember,” he said, lowering his voice. “That ill-fated young man named Kin was suffering from a certain addiction.”

“You mean he had a severe morphine addiction?”

“Yes. The autopsy results sufficiently proved that addiction existed, but they also proved his morphine dependency wasn’t the direct cause of death.”

Homura plucked another Hope there.

"However, I couldn't determine at all by what means Kin had been using morphine."
"I struggled considerably to solve that and ended up having to go to Kobe."
"But I finally managed to uncover that method."
"The clue to the discovery was something I grasped when searching Kin's room."
"It was from the contents of the ashtray."

“Hmm.”

“At that time—you must remember—the ashtray contained nothing but matchstick remnants and cigarette ash, without a single cigarette butt to be found.”
"That was the initial clue."
"A smoking method that leaves no stubs isn’t ordinary."
"Even among connoisseurs, it’s the most peculiar way to smoke."
"As a lit cigarette shortens toward its end, it grows greasy."
"This part is decidedly unpleasant."
"That he would meticulously smoke it down to the filter—this raised doubts in my mind."
"So I formulated a hypothesis."
"But a hypothesis alone proved insufficient."
"To verify it, I combed through Kobe’s dockside laborers—those who harbored strange secret indulgences."
"Eventually I confirmed my hypothesis held some truth."
"Yet even then, I still required tangible witnesses."
"This compelled my urgent return to Tokyo."
"And the first person I sought out and questioned was that Kimie."

Homura once again savoringly smoked a Hope cigarette there.

"Speaking of Kimie, there was a time when she was famously known as Kin's mistress."
"After driving in that wedge, I posed my question."
"You probably learned how to make those special cigarettes from the late Kin."

"What? When you say 'special cigarettes'...?"

“That’s right. When questioned about the special cigarettes, she paled—but there was no helping it now. The wedge I’d driven in earlier had inevitably come to demand her confession.”
“Yes, that’s right,” Kimie finally answered.

There, I said.
“You place that white powder on a cigarette and light it.
That should do it, right?” Kimie nodded silently.

“How does that work?”

“Oh, this is the method of soaking cigarettes with that poison and smoking them. Opium addicts smoke pure morphine, but in their case, they mix just a tiny amount of morphine into cigarettes and smoke them.”

“What’s the method?”

“I hesitate to explain it in detail, but in any case, those drug-laced cigarettes—in this case, Golden Bats—have their cut ends looking as though they were lit once and immediately put out. That bastard Kin was smoking these rigged cigarettes.”

“Would that even taste good?”

“It has that bewitching, uniquely morphine-induced pleasurable taste.”
“However, Kin was clever enough not to keep it to himself—he secretly made the Golden Bat women smoke them too.”
“The women smoked them unaware of the rigged mechanism, but felt remarkably good.”
“So they unsuspectingly smoked cigarette after cigarette until finally becoming morphine addicts.”
“Once that happened, they absolutely had to keep smoking or suffer.”
“They must have realized the cigarettes were rigged in the end, but by then they’d reached a point of no return.”
“The women swarmed Kin demanding those Golden Bats.”
“For Kin this must have gone exactly as planned.”
“With a single Bat cigarette as leverage, he freely manipulated whichever women caught his fancy.”

“So that’s how it was—”

With a deep sigh, I vividly recalled the scene from when the late Kin had been so remarkably popular.

"This was something I'd already thoroughly questioned Kimie about."
"There was a time when Kimie turned violent, you know."
"That was around when Kin began shifting his affections to Cherry."
"Because Kimie kept complaining about it, Kin got angry and said, 'Then I won't give you the drugs like before!' trying to silence her through rationing."
"Kimie had been receiving slightly larger doses than the other women."
"That was because Kin had kept her intensely stimulated to fuel his own desires."
"But when those doses got reduced, that's why Kimie snapped at Kin like that."

“Ah, so then perhaps—” I began to say, but reconsidered. “Where had Kin been getting that morphine anyway?”

“That was the problem, but I investigated this in Kobe as well. That was heroin smuggled in from certain quarters. When Kin obtained it, he apparently learned that particular usage method at the same time.”

“So he had stockpiled quite a lot then. But we never heard about such things coming out of Kin’s room, did we?”

"That's right.
'Therein lies an interesting problem,' Homura smiled with evident delight.
'Everything will become clear in time.'"

At that moment, Kimie came bringing beer.

“I’m terribly sorry.
“As you can see, we’re packed tonight—things aren’t running smoothly.”
“Well now—”
“This is the first time we’ve been so busy since the Golden Bat opened.”
With that, Kimie pressed a white finger to her temple.

“Must be because your service is too good,” Homura sneered.

“How about—” Kimie lifted the beer bottle and poured frothy white foam into Homura’s Western-style glass.

Just then, from the shade of the palm plant placed at the entrance, I thought I saw a man peering in our direction.
At first glance, I couldn’t recall who it was, but then an unfamiliar woman who had come over to Kimie—
“O-san.”
I heard her say in a small voice.
So I realized that Dr.Okada had come into the Golden Bat.

6

For some reason, from then on Homura started coming to my place nearly every evening. He would come and, with the regularity of a stamped seal each night, invite me to go out to the Golden Bat. Such things had continued for nearly a week when... That night too, Homura and I were ensconced in the Golden Bat's box seats. That day felt different from usual—I noticed an odd atmosphere hanging over the café—but never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that very night would see the Hall of Carnal Desires known as Golden Bat slam its great doors shut forever.

Indeed, this was the very night of the famous “Golden Bat Incident.”

“There’s something I don’t quite understand,” I called out to Homura in a carefree tone, being no god myself.
“According to you, Kin had been making the women here into morphine addicts by giving them cigarettes laced with drugs. But even now that he’s dead, they’re going about so calmly without showing any addict-like symptoms—that doesn’t quite add up.”

“I see.
“And what exactly are you getting at?”

“What I mean is, since they’ve had their morphine supply cut off by Kin, they should be showing withdrawal symptoms to some degree—acting violently or having convulsions.”
"Yet everyone seems unexpectedly fine—I wonder what the reason could be?"

“Well, I must admire how your detective’s eye has greatly improved of late,” Homura said, his expression turning serious.
“However, I cannot yet give that answer myself."
“Well, just wait a little longer.”

Just then—unusually—Cherry came bearing glasses of Western liquor during our turn to be served.
Silently arranging the whiskey before us,
she said to me: “Excuse me—might I borrow your presence for a moment?”

“Huh?”

“There’s something I need to discuss with you.”

My face turned crimson.
Before my eyes, Cherry’s pure white, plump, bare upper arms squirmed as if they were living creatures of their own.

“Just go,” Homura said.

“Well, just for a moment—”

I stood up, my heart racing.
Clinging close to the trail of her tormenting scent, Cherry led me to the unmanned piano.

“What’s this about?”
I asked.

“You know what I’m talking about—”
I noticed Cherry’s face was now filled with a sinister air.

“You’d better return it soon, or else.”

She said something I hadn’t anticipated.

“Hurry up and return it.”
“Wh-what are you talking about?”

“Playing innocent like that isn’t manly of you.”

“Wh-what the hell?”

“If it’s come to this, I’ll spell it out—you stole something from Dr.Okada’s place earlier, didn’t you?”

“What are you saying?”
With shock and anger, I involuntarily raised my voice.

“See? You’re blushing because you’re guilty.”
“I won’t make trouble—go home right now and bring that medicine to my place.”
“It’s better this way.”
“I’ll make things right with Dr.Okada for you, okay?”

When she mentioned "medicine," I began to understand.

“Alright, I’ll think about it.”

“Don’t just think about it. You need to hurry up or there’ll be trouble.”

“Alright, fine. Let me think about it for a bit.”
“Let me think for a bit.”

“You’re talking about money, aren’t you? If it’s just a little money, I could even give it to you myself.”

“Don’t be absurd…”

With that, I returned to my seat.
Homura let Hope-brand smoke billow thickly from his cigarette while rolling his eyes restlessly.

“What’s wrong?”

There, I reported to him about Cherry’s unexpected accusation.
After that, I added.

“They say I stole the medicine, but if that’s true, wouldn’t they have told you about it instead?”

“Yeah. That’s about you. That’s why I tugged at your sleeve and warned you back then, didn’t I?”

At that moment, I remembered that Homura had tugged my sleeve.
That’s right—at that moment, I had been captivated by the silver ball.
It was a silver ball with a thin groove along its side.
Ah, so that meant… the silver ball had contained the drugs.

That was the moment.

A person came clattering and lunged at our table.

“Hey, thief!”

The man who suddenly thrust his face over the table was none other than Dr.Okada.
It was undoubtedly Dr.Okada, yet none of his usual gentle demeanor remained—his hair stood on end, his face turned deathly pale, his eyes were bloodshot, and his thin arms thrust forward quivered uncontrollably.

“Return it! I said return it—why won’t you return it?!”

I stood up.

“Damn it—your silence means you don’t intend to return it! Alright, I’ll kill you!”

When he roared this, Dr.Okada immediately whirled around and grabbed the nearby potted palm tree. His slender arms lifted the heavy potted plant—which must have weighed fifty kilograms—with ease, as if ready to swing it overhead.

“Look out! Run!”

Homura pulled my arm.
I dodged in a flash and broke into a frantic run.
Somehow, behind me, I heard a tremendous CRASH of something breaking—but I think it was probably the sound of the potted plant Dr.Okada had let go of shattering into pieces.

＊ ＊ ＊

Homura and I finally hailed a roving taxi and tumbled into it.

“Good grief, I was terrified—”

I still couldn’t stop trembling.

“That’ll do,” Homura said nonchalantly.
“That went exactly according to the script.”

“So this ‘script’—you actually anticipated such a scene?” I retorted incredulously.

“That’s true, but I didn’t think it would go so smoothly.
“There’s one matter here where I must bow my head to you…” He paused briefly before continuing, “You once said something about Kin’s murderer—that ‘the culprit was deranged. They used brute strength to kill Kin, then regained their senses and fled immediately after.’ To that, I must manfully apologize.”

“So you mean…”

“I’m talking about Dr.Okada’s extraordinary strength here.”
“That kind of power only emerges when someone’s mind has snapped.”

“So was it Dr.Okada who threw the heavy shot put at Kin and inflicted those grave injuries?”
“In a little while, who the culprit is should naturally become clear.”

It was three days later that we learned who the real culprit was.
Golden Bat’s Cherry—that was the real culprit.

This caused some people considerable bewilderment.
Because first and foremost was the question of how a fragile woman like Cherry could have hurled that heavy shot put onto Kin’s shoulder.
Then came the second doubt: that no sufficient motive for her to kill Shingyaku Kin seemed likely to be found.

However, through their confessions, everything became clear.
I had just used the plural term 'they' in reference to them, but in reality, the women of the Golden Bat had all departed following that night's incident.
Instead of placing Western liquor on trays, they were now laid out upon white beds.
It was a scene of confinement within a certain internal medicine ward.

From her bed, Cherry confessed everything to the examining magistrate in broken fragments.

Around the time Kin sustained those grave injuries, Cherry had advanced a step beyond Kimie and secured his affections.
As previously stated, Kin had been ensnaring the women with cigarettes laced with narcotics.
The stockpile was a bag of heroin—a morphine derivative—that Kin had secretly hoarded.

Yet one day this crucial stockpile disappeared from Kin’s room.
It was a major incident—a matter of life and death.
He combed through the room like a madman, but the heroin simply wouldn’t turn up.
As withdrawal symptoms gradually set in, he summoned his regular physician Dr.Okada and begged for medication.
From then on he had to plead desperately with Dr.Okada countless times daily.
Yet being an addict, he could live in an unclouded state indistinguishable from normalcy for several hours after each dose.

However, a troublesome matter arose.
It was that Kin had run out of Golden Bat cigarettes laced with narcotics to give to the women he had been supplying all along.
Among the women, the one struck by the most terrible torment was indeed Cherry.
Cherry, precisely because she had been receiving Kin's favor at that time, had seen her dosage rise to an enormous amount.
Therefore, Cherry went to Kin and begged him for heroin.

But for Kin, the Golden Bat cigarettes laced with heroin were something he had almost no reserves of.
If he gave them to someone else, he would immediately have to writhe in hellish agony.
Thus even faced with his beloved Cherry's desperate pleas, he had resolutely refused to give her the Bat.

When Cherry was rejected, she could no longer contain herself.
She absolutely had to get her hands on that drug.
Even resorting to violence, even committing murder...
She had completely lost her mind and lifted that heavy shot put overhead.
While fleeing around the room to escape this unexpected danger, Kin was finally struck by the iron shot put from Cherry.
And thus he met such a miserable end.

Now then, Cherry crawled frantically around the room searching for cigarettes laced with the magic drug.
Finally discovering where the cigarettes were hidden, she obtained eight special Golden Bats.
There, she voraciously smoked those cigarettes.
As she smoked, the drug's effects gradually manifested, and she regained her equilibrium.
It was then that she quietly fled the scene.
(When Kaihara Rikizō infiltrated with murderous intent, Kin had already sustained grave injuries.)

Cherry fled outside, but there she was caught by Dr. Okada, who had been walking the late-night streets.
Rather than being caught, it would be more accurate to say she had been rescued.
Dr. Okada, perceiving Cherry’s unusual state from this, fortunately took her back to his own carefree bachelor home.
How their relationship developed thereafter goes without saying.

Now then, who on earth stole the bag of heroin that had been at Kin’s place?
This remains unclear to this day, but according to Homura’s theory, Dr. Okada—who had been frequently summoned to Kin’s place—might have secretly seized it when Kin let his guard down.
In addicts of that sort, such lapses in vigilance were undoubtedly common.

Dr.Okada had misused the stolen magic drug, employed the same methods as Kin, and reigned over Café Golden Bat.
Fortunately, being a doctor, he became exceptionally skilled at administering medication to the addicted women thereafter.
That was why the women did not look like addicts.
But in the end—whether through fate’s cruel jest or divine punishment—Dr.Okada lost his magic drug until he himself finally lost his sanity like Kin had, while the women too were cut off from their medication and came to be discovered en masse as addicts by the authorities.
Among them, Cherry’s addiction symptoms were diagnosed as nearly fatal.
But who on earth stole the heroin from Dr.Okada’s possession?
It had been substantiated by Homura’s investigation that Dr.Okada, since obtaining heroin, had been using this inferior product in place of Pantopon to deceive the world.
To tell the truth, Homura never mentioned this matter, but on the night we went to investigate Dr.Okada’s place, he threw something—a white paper package—from the bridge beside the Golden Bat into the river below. I cannot help but think that must have been the heroin from Dr.Okada’s clinic.
That silver ball that had been on the high shelf must surely have been something like a bonbon container that splits open down the middle.

Kaihara Rikizō was found innocent and released.

However, Dr.Okada had vanished since that night—his whereabouts remained unknown.
To recount later developments: approximately three months afterward, Homura reportedly glimpsed someone resembling him beneath Tennōji Station’s railway overpass in Osaka.
The man’s pallor appeared alarmingly haggard; even when addressed directly, witnesses claimed recognition dawned slowly.
Dr.Okada was said to still occupy a hospital room somewhere, undergoing dogged treatment.
True to his medical training—the staff reportedly marveled—he pursued recovery with clinical rigor.
Yet how could a physician who knew morphine’s perils better than anyone succumb to its thrall?
This paradox lingers as the tale’s most compelling enigma.

Regarding that matter, my friend Homura Sōroku had been very eager to know, but he once claimed to have extracted the information from Dr.Okada himself and secretly told me.
Whether it’s true or false, I don’t know, but "...Dr.Okada reportedly discovered addiction symptoms manifesting on his own body despite having no recollection of using morphine himself.
Why did addiction occur when he hadn’t injected, smoked, or ingested anything?
The answer lies in one thing alone.
‘As they say—the mucous membrane’s little jester act.’"

The moment he said that, for some reason, Cherry’s voluptuous, bewitching figure rose vividly before my eyes.