Pathway to Japanese Literature

Author: Hamao Shiro

I

From the moment I boarded the train at Tokyo Station, I began to notice the man's behavior.
It wasn't just my imagination. The man was indeed staring fixedly at me and no one else.

He was a pale, thin man of thirty-four or five.
The way he was dressed wasn’t particularly shabby.
He was wearing a neat suit and a soft hat, but it seemed he had placed the hat on the shelf immediately upon boarding.
The coat was nothing particularly worth mentioning.

I had certainly seen this man somewhere before.
He seemed to know who I was as well.
He was sitting one seat across from me on the opposite side of the aisle, but continuing this battle of gazes in the not-too-crowded third-class car was by no means pleasant.

I didn’t know how far he was going, but I had to reach T City tonight.
Having to sit across from this strange man for those long hours was by no means pleasant.

When the train neared Yokohama, I moved to the vacated seat in front of me as its occupant stood to disembark, turning my back to the strange man.

At that moment, I suddenly remembered him and muttered, "Oh—"

I must have met him before.
But that sensation of being unable to recall where—that peculiar frustration—would be perfectly clear to anyone who has experienced it.

In such cases, I always make a point of quickly categorizing various people in my mind to remember them.
The first is that, due to having been a prosecutor for several years, I have met various people in government offices (and since this group is the largest), I start by trying to recall from this category.
However, I simply could not recall the strange man’s face among them.

Next, since I currently write mediocre detective novels, I often meet people from magazine publishers and others similarly engaged in literary pursuits. Moreover, these tend to be mere passing acquaintances of the most superficial sort. Therefore, as my second approach, I proceeded to search through this category of people in my mind. Yet try as I might, this strange man simply did not appear among them.

Finally, I methodically considered casual acquaintances sorted by profession, but ultimately even among these groups, the strange man's face failed to materialize.

Since I never forget the faces of friends from my school days or people I currently meet as a legal professional, it followed that this strange man didn’t belong to any of those categories.

Having no other choice, I began considering each person I’d encountered by chance one by one.
For instance, the faces of yen taxi drivers or Imperial Hotel bellboys.

Then suddenly, I finally remembered having seen this strange man on the streetcar from Shinjuku to Shiochō the night before last.

It wasn’t as if I remembered streetcar passengers without cause.
There had been ample reason for me to take notice of this man at that time.

When I had boarded the train from Shinjuku, this man got on along with me.
From then on, he spent nearly the entire time staring fixedly at my face.
Even when the conductor came to punch tickets, he kept staring at me so distractedly that the conductor had to say something to him.

At that moment, I thought, "What an unpleasant man."
In such situations, I make it a rule never to yield an inch in a battle of gazes—I glared back at him sharply.
Then, the man immediately averted his eyes.
Then, whenever I shifted my gaze elsewhere, he would promptly fix his gaze back on me—he was truly an insufferable man.

However, once I disembarked at Shiochō and stepped into the crowd there, I completely forgot about this man. Had I not encountered him again on this train now, it was a face I would never have recalled in my lifetime.

That was the man.
It was definitely that man.
That strange man was now riding the same train.

I now deeply regretted having boarded without even a single magazine.
Originally, since childhood, I had always enjoyed riding trains and gazing at the scenery outside the window—a fondness that still hasn’t left me.
Moreover, while I’m no studious type when at home, I do have a voracious reading habit, so whenever I occasionally take a train journey, I make it my custom to bring nothing and simply lose myself in gazing blankly at the scenery outside.
That is why today too I boarded empty-handed.

To be sure, I had bought a couple of newspapers at Tokyo Station, but by the time we passed Ōmori, I had already finished reading them, leaving me with nothing left to look at.
With no other choice, I gazed at the late spring scenery passing by outside while remaining keenly aware of the strange man.
Normally, even sitting like this, I would either lose myself in the view or have some interesting story idea come to mind—but ever since earlier, thoughts of that man had stubbornly clung to my head and refused to leave.

I couldn’t shake the feeling that he might try to speak to me from behind at any moment, leaving me utterly unable to settle into a calm state of mind.

The train was Train No. 33 bound for Nagoya, an ordinary-class car that had departed Tokyo Station at 11:35 AM.

A little past 1 PM, when I finally arrived at Kōzu, I bought a boxed meal and, at the same time, haphazardly purchased two or three magazines from the vendor.
By the time I was passing through the Hakone Tunnel, I had been frequently opening those magazines, but I simply couldn’t immerse myself in one particular story.

At this point, the reader might question why I was so fixated on that man with whom I had only once exchanged glares.
Truth be told, I myself wanted to articulate this urgently.
Were I able to write freely, I would have written volumes.
Yet when attempting to describe my feelings toward him, I could not help but lament my pen's inadequacy.

To state it plainly: that man possessed an utterly ordinary appearance, as I mentioned before.
Yet about him hung an indescribable miasma—something uncanny and sinister.

When I saw him on the streetcar the night before last, it hadn't been like this, but now in the train compartment, as I scrutinized him closely, I began feeling as though assaulted by a snake.
No—it more closely resembled the sensation of glimpsing a spider.
Or perhaps even the visceral memory of touching a slug.

The sensation of this man—who felt like some cross between a snake, a spider, and a slug—sitting about five feet behind me was anything but pleasant.
This feeling can only be left for you to imagine.

The reason I simply couldn’t immerse myself in the book lay in such circumstances.

I sat trembling with fear, wondering whether a slug-like hand would reach over my shoulder at any moment, whether a snake-like neck would stretch out toward me, or whether spider legs would come coiling around me.

When the train departed Mishima, this snake finally thrust its head clearly into view before my eyes.

II

Shortly after the train departed Mishima Station, suddenly from behind—

“Excuse me.”

When I heard the voice say this, I flinched, thinking, *It’s finally happening.*

I had been careful not to look at how that man had been sitting or what he had been doing up until then.

In fact—I apologize for the crudeness of this—when we passed Hakone, I had felt the urge to urinate, but since using this car’s restroom would require passing in front of him, I had deliberately avoided it and gone to the restroom in a rear car instead.

Therefore, I had no way of knowing what expression he had been making until now, but he had probably been staring at my head.

“Excuse me.”

When addressed, because I immediately recognized it as that man’s voice, I turned around immediately.

When I turned around, there he was already—that man—standing to my right with a grin plastered on his face.

“……”

“Isn’t this Mr. XX Sensei? I’ve actually been thinking that since earlier but—”

When inquiring someone’s name, it is customary to first introduce oneself.
I did not find this question agreeable.

“And who might you be?”

The man was still grinning.

“I am but a most insignificant country teacher… yet you are indeed Mr. XX Sensei, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I am XX, but…”

“Ah no—I had thought so myself.
“The night before last, when we met on the train, I was certain it was your face I’d seen in the magazine, but I ended up failing to mention it…… To encounter you here today by chance is truly fortunate.”

I couldn’t fathom what was so fortunate about this.

“I always make a point of reading your works, Sensei.”

“Oh, not at all—that’s very kind of you to say.”

The greatest compliment one can pay a novelist is to read their writings.
Therefore, since I had no way to verify whether he truly read them as he claimed, I gave a noncommittal reply that neither confirmed nor denied anything.

“Lately, detective novels have become quite popular—which is wonderful, don’t you think?”

“I don’t know whether it’s a good thing or not.”

This reply was, for me, an utterly meaningless remark, but the man suddenly stiffened and said.

“Sensei, do you truly believe that?”
“What are you referring to?”
“To put it plainly—do you not consider this current flourishing of detective novels to be commendable? Or rather, do you find it deplorable?”

This was a grave matter.
Given that he identified himself as a teacher, I assumed he was likely voicing opposition to this cultural trend from an educational perspective.

"You yourself just declared you're 'nothing but a country teacher'."
"When accosting someone without proper introduction and furthermore demanding their opinion, I consider it basic courtesy for you to formally introduce yourself first..."

“I must apologize for the belated introduction.”

As he said this, he took out a rather grimy case from his coat pocket, pulled out a single business card from within it, and handed it to me.

When I looked, the four characters “Toshio Aikawa” were printed on it.

“I am employed at an elementary school in XX Village several ri away from T City.”
“Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

The slug-like man here bowed stiffly once more with renewed formality.

Since I had pressed the matter decisively, the slug-like man—appearing to have had his momentum broken—fell silent for a time.

Instead, he settled comfortably into the seat before me and sat thinking about something.

The train had already passed Numazu and was running through the Suzukawa area.

While gazing at the beautiful late-spring forests and streams, I endeavored to distract myself.

At that moment, Toshio Aikawa—the slug-like man—abruptly took out a whiskey flask from his coat pocket and,

“Sensei, won’t you have one?”

he said.

I do not drink alcohol at all; moreover, since this day’s travel was unavoidable for my duties as a legal professional—and upon reaching my destination, I would need to make proper, earnest preparations for work—and above all, there was no telling what this shady man might have slipped into a drink, I flatly refused.
It was a refusal in every sense of the word.
It wasn’t a polite refusal.
I refused—outright.

The slug-like man remained utterly unfazed by the refusal,

“Very well.”

With that, he downed a glass straight himself. When I noticed, it seemed he had already been at it for a while—the eyes had grown slightly bloodshot.

“Now then, Sensei, about what we were discussing earlier…”

Once again, it was the same topic as before.

“I wish to state clearly to you, Sensei—yes, particularly to you as a detective novelist—”

At that moment, the slug-like expression vanished from the man’s face, replaced by the sharp visage of a snake rearing its head.
The slug-like man—no, he was no longer that—the snake-like man continued.

“I find it truly perplexing that someone like Sensei can write such novels.”
“It’s truly beyond comprehension.”

“By that, what exactly do you mean?”

“You were formerly a prosecutor, weren’t you, Sensei?”
“And now you’re a lawyer.”
“In any case, you ought to be a legal professional.”
“And so, for the sake of justice, you ought to always be combating injustice—that should remain unchanged.”
“That Sensei writes such detective novels that poison the world is perplexing.”
“On one hand, you have a duty to guide society correctly.”

“Don’t joke about such things—I’ve never entertained such grandiose notions of guiding society.”

“Ah, but Sensei himself might lack personal ambition to lead society.”
“Yet what sort of legal professional devoted to justice would be without that resolve?”
“If Sensei cannot contemplate this, then Sensei lacks the qualifications to be a legal professional.”
“One who would be a legal professional must necessarily possess that very resolve.”

As could be inferred from his tone alone, the snake-like man’s intensity grew exceedingly sharp, and moreover, his arguments were—to tell the truth—remarkably sound.

I am by nature rather aggressive in debates, but partly because this opponent’s logic was quite sound, and partly because that eerie aura of his was somehow unnerving, I attempted to skillfully evade its sharp edge.

“Certainly, what you say is true.”
“However, when I write detective novels, I am by no means writing as a legal professional.”
“But I must insist that you give sufficient consideration to that point.”

“You would say that when you take up your pen to write detective novels, you’re a novelist, and when you take fees as a lawyer, you’re a legal professional.”
“Indeed, on the surface that may sound reasonable enough.”
“However, that is deception!”
“Deceit!”
“You’re trying to deceive!”

His attitude grew increasingly ferocious, and his arguments became ever more urgent.
I was in fact surprised that he was rather intelligent.

“You claim to be a novelist.”
“But under any circumstances, there can be no dispute that you remain a member of society.”
“No matter what you say, it’s unconscionable not to consider your influence on society.”
“Have you never considered this yourself?”

Thereupon, “Sensei” abruptly changed to “you,” and his snake-like man transformed into a proper social critic.

I was beginning to feel irritated.
I resolved to engage him in earnest debate.
As I was pondering what to say, he nearly emptied the whiskey bottle and spoke.

“Among detective novelists, I especially have a bone to pick with you.”

This single statement could not be dismissed.

“Why me in particular?”

“You are a legal professional. Therefore, legal issues inevitably arise in what you write.”
“Whether that makes for an interesting read is another matter entirely—”

“No—it’s hardly interesting, is it?”

I had meant to tease him just a little and knock him off balance, but he didn’t falter in the slightest.
Far from faltering, he grew more animated, gesturing wildly as he pressed on.

“The very point I take issue with lies there.”
“First off, you write about nothing but murders.”
“What’s more, the tricks behind those murder methods are almost entirely legal matters.”
“Put another way, you’re always describing the most legally secure murder methods.”
“In short, you’re writing manuals on how to kill people without facing punishment.”

“So?”

“Can’t you grasp what I’m saying? By writing those things, you’re instructing countless people in cunning murder techniques. You’re advertising that if someone kills this way, they’ll never face punishment. Suppose someone planning murder reads your work and copies it—what would you do? Have you never once considered that?”

“Surely no one would do such a thing.”

“But if there were even one such person among tens of millions, what would you say to apologize to that person and society?”
“That’s right—if even a single person like that emerges, it’s your responsibility!”

“I think such a thing is impossible.”

“No—there might be.”
“At the very least, it’s possible.”
“You can’t claim it’s impossible!”

He declared resolutely.

At this point, he was no longer the slug-like man.
Nor was he a snake-like man.
He was a ferocious tiger.
He was advancing on me head-on.
In truth, I too now regretted having pursued such a topic in this faltering manner.

“However, even if you say it’s possible and even if I assert it’s not, it’ll just end up being a pointless back-and-forth.”
“In any case, I will gratefully heed your kind advice.”

Having said this, I tried to avoid a conflict.

At this moment, Toshio Aikawa suddenly clammed up.
And then he began to gaze at me once more with that eerie face full of sinister aura.

Interpreting his sudden silence as him being briefly thrown off and falling quiet, I ended up saying something unnecessary to cut off any further debate.

“So there’s no point in pursuing this matter any further…… If you had introduced yourself properly when we met on the train the night before last, we could have discussed this at my place. What a shame.”

I said this with the intention of signaling an end to the debate and picked up the magazine beside me.

Yet, he pressed forward again with relentless persistence.

“If?
“If… yes, if I were to prove that even one person here became a murderer because of you—what would you do?”

“Of course, if you insist on making such a claim, I can’t help but believe you.”
“I don’t believe such a thing exists, but—”

“There certainly is.”
“One person—there certainly is!”

“Certainly?”
“Do you truly mean what you’re saying?”

“Of course.”
“I certainly know there exists at least one such person.”
“Sensei, I most certainly know one such person.”

Now that things had come to this, there was no escaping it.

“You’re asserting with certainty that such a person exists, then.”
“Very well.”
“In that case, you have a responsibility to provide that person’s name and inform me of it.”
“Without doing that, no matter how stubbornly you criticize me, it’s pointless.”

I could not believe that such a person existed in this world, and even if—indeed, a million times over, it’s an ‘if!’—such a murderer did exist, I thought there was no way he could possibly tell me that person’s name. So I snapped back at him, hammering it home as though slamming my words down.

This remark indeed proved effective.

He who had pressed forward like a ferocious tiger now seemed to falter.
After mumbling incoherently, he stared at me with a terrifying face.
The early-setting spring sun, casting its weak light, was now about to sink into the mountains.

During those several minutes of eerie silence, I stared back unflinchingly at his unsettling face.
While furrowing deep wrinkles near his eyebrows, he seemed to be fighting some inner torment.

At first, I thought he was simply frustrated at having been bested.
However, it later became clear that his expression at this time had in fact revealed a far deeper anguish.
While swallowing two or three times, Aikawa suddenly began to speak.
This time, he once again abruptly adopted polite language as he spoke.

“Sensei, you are a lawyer.”
“As a lawyer, you naturally won’t disclose secrets learned from those you’ve heard, will you?”

“Of course.”
“It goes without saying morally, but legally too we’re bound not to disclose such secrets.”

To put it plainly, Aikawa seemed to agonize for some time over whether to speak or remain silent, but ultimately began to speak as follows.

“In that case, I will tell you.”
“The one person I mentioned earlier is none other than myself.”
“I am Toshio Aikawa.”

“What?”
“You?”

“Yes.
“I myself am one of those people who have been led astray by your novels.”
“I took a person’s life this winter.”
“I committed murder.”

Readers would no doubt consider it only natural that I doubted his sanity at that moment.
There was not the slightest hint of jest in his demeanor.
No, he was being utterly serious.
Therefore, I could not consider that Toshio Aikawa was mocking me.

I felt that this man was indeed insane.

So I deliberately didn’t act surprised and said with a composed face:

“Is that so.”
“Is that true?”
“……Then lay out for me in order—when and where you killed whom.”

I was certain whatever he’d say would be nonsense.
Not being a psychiatrist, I believed this approach would force inconsistencies into his story.
My lack of medical training meant I had no other way to handle such a madman then.

“Sensei, will you listen…? Then I will give you a full account.”

Aikawa, having made this preface, began his account.

Just to be safe, I looked around, but the car remained as empty as before. Moreover, his voice was drowned out by the train’s noise, ensuring no one else could hear him.

Let me add one thing first: as I listened to his account, I came to realize—sadly (or rather!)—that he was not insane at all.

III

“First, let me state this clearly.”
“About two and a half months ago—that is, in early February—I killed my own daughter, who had just turned two, with these very hands.”
“This is an indisputable fact.”

“Why did I kill my own child?”
“Because I couldn’t stand hating her.”
“Why did I hate her enough to want to kill her?”
“That’s because she was my wife’s child.”
“I called her my child.”
“However, I don’t know whether that baby was truly my child.”
“No—at the moment I killed her, I believed that even if she was my wife’s child, she was not mine.”

“Three years ago, in my hometown—which, dear reader, happens by coincidence to be the same destination I am now returning to—I married a woman.
Though it shames me to admit it, I had fallen in love with her.
She loved me too.
At least, I believed she did.

Before our marriage, though we hadn’t known each other, there appeared to be a rival.
Toshiko—that being my wife’s name—came from a strict family who had rented their second floor to a young man.
There was a Tokyo-born man named Mizuhara living in Toshiko’s house.
Having heard rumors of this man’s affection for Toshiko, the name Mizuhara had always registered in my mind as that of a romantic adversary.
This man departed for Tokyo shortly before our marriage.”

“There were various events leading up to our marriage, but since dwelling on them would become tedious, I will skip over them and proceed directly to discussing our married life. I was happy at first—so happy that I had completely forgotten about Mizuhara, who had once lived in my wife’s house.”

“However, through a chance opportunity, this happiness was utterly shattered.”
“It was nothing more than a single sealed letter.”
“One day, some time after we were married, a letter written in masculine handwriting arrived addressed to my wife.”
“Because I was opening every letter that came to my place, I ended up mistaking that one for something addressed to me.”
“Of course, this happened because the address on the envelope was written in a man’s hand.”
“What came out was a letter from Mizuhara, but since the envelope was clearly addressed in masculine handwriting, there wasn’t a single strange thing written in its contents.”

But that letter—which contained nothing strange—was inexpressibly unpleasant to me.
“Starting with the very first line—‘I hear that since your esteemed marriage, you have been living in blissful happiness’—I found it displeasing.”
“From my perspective, my wife is mine—I don’t want anyone laying a finger on her.”
“Between us as husband and wife, it was unthinkable that a letter from another man would come to my wife.”
“I am indeed a jealous man.”
After several days of unbearable unpleasantness, one night I berated and berated and berated my wife relentlessly.
“And then I questioned her about her relationship with Mizuhara.”
“At that moment, my wife finally made a terrifying confession.”
“From that moment on, I lost all my happiness.”

“Since you were a prosecutor, you must know all the ways criminals confess their crimes—how female offenders in particular admit their guilt.”
“The confession my wife made that night was indeed astonishing, but once Toshiko had resolved herself to confess, she began recounting the facts of the past with remarkable composure.”

This confession affirmed a certain fact.
She stated that she and Mizuhara had once been lovers.
“No—it was more than that.”
“Because what I had feared might be true turned out to be fact, I struggled in agony as though plunged into utter darkness.”
“I had to endure several agonizing days and nights.”
“At first, I thought that perhaps my wife was deliberately teasing me because I was so excessively jealous.”
“No—rather, I wished that were the case.”
“In front of my confessing wife, I pleaded.”
“Please tell me everything you’ve said up to now is a lie!”
“However, my wife’s confession was indeed entirely true.”
“Toshiko would only apologize for her past sins herself; she would never do such things again in the future—no, not just the future, but there had certainly been nothing of the sort since our marriage either.”
“However, since that was a mistake from before our marriage, she begs me to forgive her.”
“Sensei, what am I supposed to do when told such things?”
“Reluctant though I am, I still love Toshiko.”
“I had no choice but to forgive my wife’s tears.”

At that time, my wife was pregnant.
After my wife’s confession, I came to doubt the child in her womb.
However, in response to this, my wife vehemently insisted that my suspicions were baseless.
Every time I discussed this with my wife, I was told that.
Being told this, I felt reassured in my heart.
In the end, when doubts gnawed at my heart, I would deliberately berate my wife, becoming an unmanly, twisted version of myself who relied on her to resolutely destroy my suspicions.

Last summer, my wife finally gave birth to a baby girl. Having given her the name Hiroko, my wife loved her completely. However, from the very moment Hiroko was born—from the instant I saw her face—I somehow felt: This isn't my child. It's his. It was unfortunate. But this is the truth. The neighbors paid empty compliments about her resembling me. But no matter how I looked at her, I could see no resemblance to my face. At first, I hadn't thought she resembled Mizuhara, but whether it was my imagination or not, the area around her eyes began seeming more like his than mine.

And as days passed, her face seemed to grow more like his with each passing day.

One sleepless night, I became utterly consumed by a torrent of thoughts.
Toshiko had confessed to her past sins.
However, I forgave them.
I had no choice but to forgive.
Since Toshiko had reformed her heart, I had to bury all of the past.
This was undoubtedly painful now, but this wound in my heart would heal as the years passed.

But what about Hiroko? If Hiroko was born as a result of Toshiko’s past sin, then as long as she lived, we—Toshiko and I—had to hate each other.
At the very least, I would have to spend my entire life steeped in bitter resentment.
Moreover, Hiroko was growing day by day!
The obstacle between myself and Toshiko was growing larger day by day.

If only Hiroko would die!
That’s right—the first thing that came to my mind was: If Hiroko were to die!
That was how it began.
If Hiroko were to die, there should be nothing left between my wife and me except the past.
In other words, Hiroko’s death would be what made us happy.

After arriving at this thought, I found myself wishing for nothing but Hiroko's death.
For one thing—and this wasn't logical—Hiroko simply held no appeal for me whatsoever.
And so I came to dwell endlessly on the thought: if she were to die, if she were to die.

“It was when I happened to read your detective novels that I first conceived of killing Hiroko.”
“As I mentioned earlier, Sensei’s novels always address issues of legal evidence.”
“To avoid being legally punished when killing someone—one must simply not leave behind direct evidence. That’s what it comes down to.”
“Even if it technically violates the law, kill in such a way that one cannot be practically punished—that’s what it means.”
“I have read all of Sensei’s novels.”
“And from within them, I had grasped some certain something.”

It was exactly the beginning of this January.
During the cold snows, I had researched methods to kill Hiroko.
How should I kill Hiroko?
"How do you think I did it?"

The direct hint came from the severe malignant influenza epidemic that had struck all of A Prefecture where I lived.
At the elementary school where I worked, students began taking days off at a rate of about one more each day.
Then in my neighborhood too, infants under one year old and two-year-olds started suddenly contracting pneumonia and dying.
When I heard this, I felt with absolute certainty that the time had come.

It was a cold day in January.
Outside, a blizzard raged with about four inches of snow accumulated below.
Having waited for my chance, I spent that morning unusually holding and soothing Hiroko.
After nightfall when Hiroko had fallen soundly asleep, Toshiko asked me to watch the house and left for the bathhouse.
This was the moment.
This was the window.
I could not lose this opportunity.
Having confirmed my wife had gone out holding an umbrella, I quietly opened the back door.

Outside raged the terrible blizzard I had described earlier. I stripped off as much of Hiroko’s clothing as possible while she slept, leaving her completely naked in my arms. Walking along the eaves to avoid getting drenched, I stood motionless in the freezing cold. This was an open field—no chance of anyone passing by. And so I prayed: let this merciless chill claim the two-year-old infant even a moment sooner.

I had become pure devil. Clutching Hiroko’s near-naked body, I shuddered yet remained numb to the cold itself. As I exposed my own child to that savage Ibuki mountain wind, it felt as though no winter’s bite could touch me.

Since my wife returning would complicate matters, I went back inside the house after a short while. After dressing her again in warm clothes, I flopped down onto the floor and waited for my wife’s return, feigning ignorance.

I had thought the effects of this devilish method would manifest immediately. But even when the next day came, there was nothing particularly wrong. The next day, the snow had stopped, but the cold had intensified even more. On this night, taking advantage of a similar opportunity, I once again exposed Hiroko to the cold wind using the same method. I had considered leaving her on the snow as well, but I abandoned this idea, fearing that even frostbite might leave evidence.

The two attempts finally succeeded.
Hiroko developed an extremely high fever starting that night.
I naturally understood the reason, but since my wife didn't seem to grasp it initially, the doctor ultimately didn't arrive until evening.

It was naturally I who went to summon the doctor.
At this juncture, there was no avoiding calling a physician.
The arriving doctor promptly diagnosed it as influenza.
"It wasn't at all strange for my child to catch this disease spreading through the prefecture."
The doctor further cautioned that Hiroko was in grave condition and developing pneumonia, then instructed me in compress techniques before departing.

While deliberately applying incomplete compresses, I went to the doctor’s house afterward to fetch medicine. I had wanted to take as much time as possible, but since that would have seemed unnatural, I hurried at a reasonable pace for the round trip. Yet this precaution of mine proved unnecessary—for when I returned home, Hiroko’s condition had already deteriorated severely.

That midnight, unable to bear watching Hiroko suffer any longer, my wife begged me to go fetch the doctor. I rushed over and knocked at his gate, but fortunately—truly fortunately, though such phrasing belongs solely in a devil’s lexicon—the doctor was away attending another urgent case. He finally came around noon the following day, by which time Hiroko was already beyond all hope.

Amidst my wife’s tears, Hiroko finally drew her last breath.
“I believe the death certificate stated acute pneumonia.”
“No one suspected a thing.”
The incident concluded with a modest funeral.

“Sensei, I carried out the perfect murder in this way.”
“Moreover, in this entire world, not a single person suspects me.”
“I did exactly as you taught me.”
“I killed a person!”
“But I won’t be punished!”
“It is.”

The man who called himself Toshio Aikawa let out a sinister smirk as he said this.
As I listened to his story, I came to recognize a certain truth within it.
But at the same time, I also felt that everything was far too meticulously planned.
If he were indeed the perpetrator as he claimed, this would be no ordinary matter.

I had never written about a murder method like the one he used to kill his daughter in any of my novels.
He himself asserted that the direct inspiration had come from influenza.
Yet according to his account, the root cause appeared to lie in my trivial novels.

To test the truthfulness of his story and the extent of his sanity, I forced myself to feign composure and posed this question.

“I see. That’s a horrifying story.”
“Your account is monstrous.”
“Since you yourself confess the crime, I’ll refrain from doubting you now.”
“But there’s one point I must clarify.”
“Haven’t you essentially succeeded in your criminal objective?”
“Hasn’t the obstruction between you and your wife been eliminated?”
“Moreover, as you yourself state—not a soul in this world suspects you.”
“If that’s truly the case, shouldn’t you be expressing gratitude to me?”
“Your child turned to bones over two and a half months ago.”
“No one would suspect anything at this stage.”
“Then why have you been denouncing me all this time?”

At this moment, he suddenly glared with terrifying intensity again.
Then, while clutching his own hair as if in agony, he let out a guttural groan.

Startled, I looked around, fearing someone might suspect something, but fortunately, no one seemed to have noticed.

“That’s it!”
“That’s why.”

“The reason I resent you is—! You taught the methods of crime. You clearly taught murder. But you never taught me how to abandon my conscience! Ah—this life after killing someone... I can’t bear it. It’s agony. If I don’t cast off my conscience, I can’t go on living. What’s worse, even though I did everything perfectly, I feel detectives chasing me every day. Hiroko’s—that little Hiroko’s—hands keep reaching up from the soil, pointing at me. Why won’t you teach me how to abandon this feeling? What? Will you let someone suffering this much for your sake die before your eyes?”

As he said this, Aikawa suddenly grabbed my right hand.

By nature not very daring, I leapt up in shock.
Since he was the kind of man who would declare himself a murderer, there was no telling what he might do.
I forced myself to appear composed as I brushed off that hand, then gazed at him warily, wondering what he would do next.

However, he thrust his brushed-off hand into his right pocket, then pulled out a fresh bottle of whiskey and gulped it down.

“From you I learned only murder, but was not taught to cast aside conscience or fear—this is my daily existence now.”
“I can’t live without this. …Even at home, it’s like this every day.”
“That fool of a wife actually thinks I’m drowning in drink from the grief of losing Hiroko!”

Having said this, he suddenly collapsed onto the seat and, just like that, closed his eyes and began to sleep.

The fatigue after the excitement must have overcome him.

Finally feeling relieved, I quietly moved to the seat across from him, taking care not to wake him.
While gazing at the dark scenery outside, I imagined various aspects of this terrifying story.
If this were true, I was sitting next to a murderer.
Yet part of me couldn’t help thinking, “But surely not...”

As I sat alone thinking about various things like this, the train arrived at F Station, one stop before T Station.
Then Aikawa abruptly sat up, but upon seeing that I had moved seats, he came over again and said.

“Sensei, how far are you going?”

I simply uttered a single word:

“T Station.”

I answered.

“T City?”
“That’s truly a coincidence.”
“Let’s get off together.”
“I’m getting off there too.”
“Please walk with me.”
“The detectives are definitely watching me.”

“There’s no way that’s true.”

“No, I have that feeling.”
“That’s definitely how it is.”
“That Hiroko bitch is saying that from the grave.”
“She must have told the police.”
“Hey, please walk with me.”

I realized that silently nodding would have been the wisest course of action at this point; keeping my head motionless, I remained silent as I looked at him. This was because I judged that saying anything further would only provoke this man’s madness-like behavior all the more.

While the two of us sat facing each other in silence, the train finally arrived at T Station.

IV

Dear readers, had this been one of my usual detective novels, I would have concluded the final chapter in the following conventional manner.

When the train arrived at T Station, Toshio Aikawa—who had been making strange faces until then—suddenly adopted a clear, cheerful tone, put on a bright smile, and grasped my hand.

“Mr. XX, what did you think of everything I’ve told you so far!”
“Of course, all that was nonsense.”
“I don’t even have a first wife yet.”
“Since I’ve always been an avid reader of your novels, I tried telling such a story to relieve your boredom.”
“The day before yesterday we happened to meet by chance in Tokyo, and today we’ve unexpectedly met again.”
“How was it? The execution?”
“Ahahaha! Farewell!”

Leaving behind me, who stood dumbfounded, he briskly exited the train car.

Readers may have anticipated such an ending.
I too had not been without expecting such an ending.
I even considered whether I might have been thoroughly duped.
Therefore, had he stood up straight, I would have struck first before being attacked,

“Hey, thank you—that was an excellent performance.”
“Thanks to you, I wasn’t bored at all.”
“I’ll promptly publish your masterpiece.”

And this was what I had intended to say.

However, the truth is that reality rarely unfolds as neatly as a detective novel.

When we arrived at T Station, he did stand up but then clung to me as if perpetually afraid of something.

I solicitously drew him close and disembarked from the train, but after taking three or four steps along the platform, I nearly cried out involuntarily.

Though appearing casually nondescript, my experience as a prosecutor who had dealt with detectives enabled me to spot two plainclothes officers several paces ahead—illuminated by station lights—affecting not to watch us while walking in the same direction.

If that was the case, then his crime had indeed been entirely real.

Crossing the bridge toward the ticket gate, we—though it was truly regrettable to refer to ourselves as “we” in this situation—walked there without incident.

However, as we approached the ticket gate, the two detective-like men came flying like birds of prey and blocked both Aikawa’s front and rear—which meant my front and rear too.

The corpse-like pallor that transformed Aikawa’s face in that instant remains before my eyes even now.

The detectives suddenly took out a business card, showed it to Aikawa, and whispered a few words in a low voice. They had probably revealed their identities.

The next instant, Aikawa tried to bolt out like a fleeing hare, but upon realizing escape was impossible, he suddenly pointed at me and screamed like a madman.

“It’s this man! The real culprit is this man!”
“It’s this man who really killed my child! There’s no mistake that I did the deed,”
“But really, this guy’s the one who taught me!”

The two detectives looked at me again, but
“Who are you?”
“What is your relationship with this man?”

they asked.
I had no obligation to answer this, but given that Aikawa’s scream was more than sufficient to draw a crowd, and wanting to avoid complications from prolonging the situation, I swiftly produced my professional business card and—

“I was planning to go to the police anyway. Since I intend to meet with the police chief. I have absolutely no connection to this man, but in any case, if you have business with him, I’ll come along to the station by taxi as well. Having him scream in a place like this is more than I can bear, so...”

What power my business card did or did not impart to the detectives was beyond my knowledge.
I don’t know what they made of my relationship with Aikawa (they may have taken him for my client and me for his attorney), but in any case, they seemed to have no objection to my proposal; once outside the station grounds, they quickly hailed a taxi for us, surrounded Aikawa along with me among our group of three, forced him inside together—and thus we barely escaped becoming a public spectacle at the station.

Inside the car, Aikawa alone was ranting like a madman.

“What a terrible thing.
“But now that it’s come to this, my mind’s at ease.
“That brat Hiroko finally went and accused me... It’s pneumonia.
“That she died!
“It was right there in the death certificate, wasn’t it?
“All I did was make her get pneumonia.
“How about it, detectives? I put her out in the snow and made her sick.
“A brilliant murder method, isn’t it?
“All of this too—I learned it from this teacher (pointing at me), you know.
“I’m a murderer.
“But this teacher’s the one who put him up to it!
“Detectives, do your job properly!”

After being apprehended, he—as is common with criminals—seemed suddenly relieved and began to ramble incessantly.

I, of course, did not speak—nor did the two detectives utter a word.
The car arrived at the police station as it drove through nighttime T City.

Here, I was of course temporarily separated from Toshio Aikawa.
Because I had a letter of introduction addressed to the police chief from a certain judicial official in Tokyo, I was shown to the chief’s office with considerable courtesy.
The police chief was not in the room at that time.
From somewhere, Aikawa’s voice could still be heard, roaring as before.

Before long, the police chief appeared, so I related in detail the various matters I had come to discuss today.

After a while, a man who appeared to be the judicial officer came out and exchanged whispers with the police chief. When the judicial officer left, the police chief, wearing a smile, said to me:

“By the way, I hear you came here today with a man named Aikawa.”

“Even if we were together, he’s a man I don’t know at all, I tell you. When we got into the same car, he suddenly started talking to me out of nowhere, so I ended up humoring him just to stave off boredom. But at the station, I had quite an ordeal. He asked me to walk with him, so I did. He’s not just a bit of a nutcase, is he?”

“Oh? Is that so? You have absolutely no connection?”

“Of course, if you suspect some sort of complicity between us, I must beg to decline.”

Of course, this was half-intended as a joke, but I immediately realized that my use of the term “complicity”—a word predicated on criminality—had been somewhat careless on his account.
Sure enough, the Police Chief proceeded to say this in a tone that was half-joking.

“Oh, of course I don’t think anything of the sort.”
“However, I hear he confessed quite a number of things to you.”

Though it was clear these words weren’t meant to implicate me, as a legal professional I couldn’t afford to take them at face value.

“Yes, he was saying some strange things.”
“Well, it’s all nonsense.”
“Isn’t he a lunatic?”

When I answered in this way, I then proceeded to pose a question myself.

“What on earth are you saying happened?
“That man?
“What exactly is he suspected of? Though of course, it’s not my place to pry into such matters.”

The police chief answered cheerfully.

“Since this concerns you directly, I see no need for concealment.”
“Moreover, given the considerable inconvenience we’ve caused you, it seems appropriate to explain matters fully.”
“To put it plainly—yesterday, that man’s wife was found dead in their home.”
“Superficially, it resembles suicide.”
“Naturally, suicide remains a plausible interpretation.”
“She’d recently lost a child and reportedly suffered profound despair.”
“However—though it’s premature to elaborate—there are peculiarities: no suicide note exists, among other anomalies.”
“We’ve therefore initiated a homicide investigation.”
“That man stands among the suspects.”
“While the body was discovered yesterday, the time of death—assuming murder—dates to the night before last.”
“The autopsy findings have corroborated this timeline.”

The police chief’s words came as a complete surprise to me.
For a moment, I stood there dazed.
Still, I felt relieved I hadn’t uttered anything careless.
At the same time, something occurred to me immediately.

“In that case, that man is innocent.”
“Because I certainly saw him around ten o’clock the night before last in Yotsuya Ward, Tokyo.”
“I can substantiate his alibi.”
“I am prepared, at least, to testify in court.”

“Well, well, is that so?”

“Of course, I won’t lie.”
“Ah, I was simply wondering whether there might be any mistake in what you saw.”
“There is certainly no mistake.”

At this moment, the judicial officer came again and exchanged whispers with the police chief.

When they finished, the police chief said to me with his smile still intact.

“It seems Aikawa has fully confessed to killing his own child.”
“According to what the judicial officer heard, it appears to be a genuine confession.”
“And apparently, he harbors some intense grudge against you.”
“He says he wants to meet you again—will you see him?”

The police chief’s words carried both an expectation that I would naturally refuse and a considerate implication that declining would be preferable since no meeting was necessary.

“I’ll meet him here provided there’s no danger.”

“I will assume responsibility for that.”
“Then we’ll arrange the meeting.”

The police chief double-checked with me once more before giving another signal to the judicial officer.
The judicial officer stepped out of the room but soon reappeared.
Following behind, Aikawa appeared, escorted by two detectives.

He repeated that horrific crime story he had told me in the train car before the police chief and others.
In the end, he showered me with every manner of abuse.
This was simply a more vulgar rendition of what he had said to me in the train car.

The police chief, I, and the judicial officer could do nothing but listen with bitter smiles.

When his words finally came to an end, I turned to the judicial officer and posed my question for the first time.

“Of course, you haven’t yet informed him on what suspicion he was summoned, have you?”

The judicial officer nodded as if to affirm it.

“There’s nothing to say—before we’d even said anything, this is how he ended up.”
“From the beginning, Aikawa has been talking non-stop all by himself.”

After saying this, he suddenly turned to Aikawa and asked in a stern tone.

“Hey, where were you the night before last?”

This question came as a complete surprise to Aikawa.
He appeared to be struggling for a moment to comprehend its meaning.

He remained silent and stared blankly at the judicial officer.

“Your wife was killed at home the night before last.”
“So if you can’t clearly state where you were the night before last, you’re in trouble, you know.”
“We know you boarded an upbound train the morning of the day before yesterday.”
“Where were you?”
“That’s exactly what we want to know.”
“That’s why we called you here.”

The face Aikawa made upon hearing these words—I doubt I will ever be able to forget it.

It was because that expression defied description—too complex, too wretched, and too desolate.

(Published in *Hanzai Kagaku* [Crime Science], November 1930 Issue)