Pathway to Japanese Literature

It was the fifth morning since Harada Kizaburo and Yamada Gennosuke—two men employed at the Second Dry Dock of K Shipyard—had gone missing. Upon receiving a report that the brutally murdered corpse of one of the missing persons—Harada Kizaburo—had surfaced in waters not far from the shipyard, Aoyama Kyosuke and I threw on our warm overcoats and hurried to the shipyard. Harada Kizaburo and Yamada Gennosuke were both Kankan insects directly employed by K Shipyard—laborers who made their living repairing docked ships, scraping hulls, and repainting them. The fact that these two men had gone missing five nights prior, and despite the diligent efforts of both land and water police stations failing to yield any leads—with the case on the verge of being forgotten—meant that even half-expecting it, hearing news of the missing person’s brutally murdered corpse being discovered made our startled reaction hardly unreasonable.

After getting out of the car at the gate, we headed straight into the grounds of K Shipyard. As we rounded the corner of the office building, two massive dry dock trenches lay stretched before us against the black backdrop of an ironworks facility. Between these trenches stood a rugged cluster of cranes - their jet-black forms looming overhead - beneath which crouched a whitewashed seamen’s lodging house that appeared ready to buckle under their weight. The discovered corpse had been laid out on a rush mat in front of that building.

It appeared the postmortem examination had concluded, as the police contingent had already packed up and left. Only five or six men in navy work uniforms remained, peering pitifully at the figure of a woman—likely his wife—who clung to the corpse and wailed. Kyosuke immediately approached the corpse, disclosed the identity to the bereaved family, and began Harada Kizaburo’s postmortem examination. The victim’s corpse, clad in drab work clothes, appeared to have been submerged for a long time: the bearded face of a man around forty, along with his exposed shoulders and legs, had uniformly blanched to a pallor, the skin everywhere showing a ghastly lack of tension. Across this flesh lay deep abrasions—countless and unsparing—etched without mercy. The exposed chest bore a slender hole directly above the heart, its edges ringed with torn-out fragments of pale flesh.

“Stabbed with a scalpel, huh? This is the fatal injury.”

After finishing telling me that, Kyosuke continued examining the corpse. The face wasn’t particularly contorted, but the left side being entirely covered in freckle-like marks somehow felt unsettling. Kyosuke, being Kyosuke, brought his face close to those marks—for what purpose, one wondered—and began examining them with meticulous care. But soon flipping the corpse over, he looked back at me in exasperation. Indeed, a hole resembling one made by an iron rod being struck against it gaped hideously in the back of the corpse’s head, exposing shattered bone fragments. The corpse’s back showed deep abrasions embedded here and there, mirroring those on its front side. On the work clothes’ backside, soft black machine oil had soaked thickly down to the jacket beneath the torn outer garment, smeared as if dragged across the fabric. What truly shocked us was this: both wrists, pulled behind the back, were tightly bound with sturdy hemp rope, and the length of rope protruding from the knot’s end—as if it had been tied to something—had been violently torn away about a foot from its point of attachment. Black machine oil had soaked thickly from the wrists up to the hemp rope.

Having completed his preliminary examination of the corpse, Kyosuke quietly addressed the woman beside him. “Oh, I do apologize for the intrusion. “I’m terribly sorry to rush into this, but could you tell me about the circumstances of the night your husband went missing?” “What do you mean?” “In other words,” “The circumstances of when your husband last left the house.”

“Yes.” The woman began speaking while wiping away her tears. “That night after my husband returned home from the factory once it had gotten dark, he ate his meal and left immediately, saying there was sudden night work.” “Wait a moment,” Kyosuke said to one of the navy-blue uniformed workers standing nearby. “There was night work that evening, correct?” “No.” “There was no night work,” the laborer answered. “There wasn’t?” “Hmm.” “Since he claimed there was something that didn’t exist, there must have been circumstances he didn’t want known.” “Madam, do you have any idea what that might be?”

“There’s nothing in particular, but—”

“I see.” “So your husband went out alone, then?”

“No.” “Mr．Gen—that is，Mr．Yamada Gennosuke—came to call，and they left together.”

“Was he a neighbor?” “Yes，he lived right nearby，and since we were on very close terms，he came to pick him up.” “As they were leaving by the front gate，I secretly overheard them talking—‘That young fellow was shaking like a leaf，’ and ‘Tonight we’ll finally get to drink after so long.’” “Oh?” “You remember those details quite clearly，don’t you?”

“Yes.” “Until the day before, Mr. Gen had been bedridden from a stroke, but on that day he overexerted himself by going to work and ended up tearing a muscle in his right arm at the factory.” “With his frail body weakened by both the stroke and such injuries, and then going out drinking—even though it wasn’t my place to worry—I remember that conversation clearly.” “Thank you.” “So neither of them returned home after that?”

“Yes, that’s correct.” “Thank you.” After politely expressing his thanks and stepping away from their side, Kyosuke started walking toward the dry dock, beckoning me with a jerk of his chin.

“Well, I’m astonished. He sure killed them with damn meticulous care.”

I said while keeping close to Kyosuke. “Exactly.” “The entire body is covered in wounds.” “A stab wound to the heart and violent blunt force trauma to the occipital region—two fatal injuries inflicted on one body.” “And overlaying all that, horrific abrasions across every inch of the torso.” “This constitutes an exceptionally cruel murder.” “Naturally, the corpse was tightly bound with hemp rope as you observed, then sunk mid-sea with attached weights.” “The perpetrator’s intellectual capacity is decidedly unremarkable.” “We can state with ninety-nine percent certainty he doesn’t belong to the educated class.” “Nevertheless, when constructing hypotheses, one must still exercise due diligence.” “My initial quandary concerned the sequence of wound infliction and machine oil contamination on the victim’s body.” “Such extensive tissue damage couldn’t possibly have occurred simultaneously.” “On the contrary—each injury progression reveals an unequivocal chronological order.” “Recall the occipital contusion and severe abrasions distributed across the body.” “Compared to the cardiac stab wound, those injuries exhibited far more extensive epidermal detachment around their peripheries.” “Consider human skin—not the thin epidermis of living tissue, but the thicker dermal layer seen in cadavers.” “Would such integument peel back so readily around wound margins?” “I find that implausible.” “However, in a corpse already lifeless—one approaching putrefaction or waterlogged for days—such phenomena become credible.” “Following this logic to establish temporal priority: First, the victim expires from a single thrust of a sharp blade through the heart.”

“Next comes being bound with hands behind one’s back, weighted down, and thrown into the sea. Here, after some time passes, those fatal blunt force traumas and horrific abrasions are then inflicted upon skin that has softened somewhat. Here’s an interesting piece of evidence I observed. The front sides of both arms bound behind have abrasions, but on the back sides of the arms and under the arms—spanning from the sides of the chest to parts of the back—there aren’t even any tears in the clothing. Next, regarding those black machine oil stains—whether in their degree of dissolution or manner of soaking—they must indeed have been submerged in water for some time, but they were applied last of all the injuries. Because that oil had been smeared haphazardly—from the upper back of the coat, through tears in the jacket onto scraped skin, and even across the front side of the bound hemp rope. Well, I consider this part finished for now. Let’s go investigate the murder scene.”

With these words, Kyosuke briskly started walking toward the ironworks. I was so startled that I let out a cry. “Huh?!” “The murder scene?” “How do you know that?!” Kyosuke, who had smiled at my question, continued speaking as he walked. “Hmm. It’s nothing.” “You remember those repulsive freckles on the dead man’s left cheek, don’t you?” “The moment I saw them, I found it odd they only appeared on one side.” “Upon closer inspection, they turned out to be iron filings embedded across the surface.” “In short, those small spots we took for freckles are actually iron fragments pressed into galvanized sheet metal when the victim—after being stabbed through the heart—collapsed face-first and stiffened.” “Extending this reasoning led me to intuit the murder scene.” “It’s a lathe workshop.” “The lathe workshop must be part of that ironworks.” “Walking to the scrap dump behind it will suffice.”

I followed silently behind Kyosuke. After asking one of the workers we encountered along the way about the location of the scrap dump, we soon arrived at the rear corner of the ironworks. There lay heaps of discarded iron filings—old ones blackened by oil and new ones still gleaming silver—piled up like mountains. Kyosuke immediately put on his gloves, then stooped down beside the relatively new iron filings and began sifting through them with a rustling sound. For a while, he stirred through the entire area, but no change could be observed. Gradually, I began to feel weariness.

Kyosuke’s complexion suddenly began to flush. Indeed, when I looked at Kyosuke’s hands, a large stain tinged with brown rust had emerged atop a layer of freshly dug-out, still relatively new silvery-white iron filings. It was the stain of blood that had flowed from the victim’s heart. While I was staring intently at the bloodstain, Kyosuke picked up something that glinted briefly and drew close to my side.

“You—there was something like this here.”

Kyosuke held out before me a sharp jackknife of the finest quality adorned with ornate embellishments. Thoroughly soiled with oil from iron filings and fine powder, reddish rust resembling bloodstains had formed along the blade's edge.

“Unfortunately, with it being this soiled, there’s absolutely no way to detect fingerprints.”

Kyosuke brushed away the dust at the base of the handle with his gloved fingertips. And there, vividly engraved, appeared two Roman letters: G.Y. The moment I saw them, a deduction like a bolt of lightning flashed through my mind. G.Y.—this was the arrangement of initials when "Yamada Gennosuke" was spelled in Roman letters.

Thereupon, I immediately spoke up. “You—these are Yamada Gennosuke’s initials.” “So the culprit is Gennosuke.”

“Hmm.” “Well, pursuing that line of thinking isn’t entirely without merit,” Kyosuke said calmly, “but disregarding the alignment of numerous other conditions and concluding Yamada Gennosuke is the culprit based solely on this—no matter how you look at it, that’s a perilously risky proposition.” “First—what on earth did the victim come to a place like this to do?” “I want to consider that aspect first.” “And you—do you remember that secret conversation between the two of them that the victim’s wife mentioned earlier? The one about ‘the youngster trembling all over’ and ‘we can drink tonight after so long’?” “That conversation means a third party—referred to as ‘the youngster’—was involved between the two men that night.” “Of course, this man called ‘the youngster’ would have been younger than those two, and also—”

Kyosuke stopped speaking here and, bending down, picked up something from among the iron filings. Upon closer inspection, it was an advertising matchbook—still new and well-stocked, though soiled with oil from iron filings. Within the label’s design was written "Small Dishes: *Kanto Stew*". With a smile, Kyosuke resumed his explanation.

“And furthermore, that man I mentioned—” “He’s likely someone who traveled west recently.” “Why? Look—this advertising matchbook found by the knife says *Kanto Stew*.” “*Kanto Stew* is what we Tokyoites call oden.” “In rural areas, they often use ‘Kanto Stew’ instead of oden.” “I’ve frequently heard that term in Kansai.” “So this match having ‘Kanto Stew’ on its label proves it’s not from Tokyo.—”

“No—that’s enough.” “I get it.”

I interjected, feeling a twinge of jealousy toward Kyosuke’s deduction. Kyosuke wrapped the jackknife from earlier in a handkerchief, tucked it into his pocket along with the advertising match, and placed a hand on my shoulder. “Well then, you—let’s go search for where that thick, viscous black oil—the kind that was smeared all over the victim’s back—has spilled.”

Thereupon, I followed Kyosuke and entered the large ironworks building. Amidst rotating iron rods, belts, gears, lathes roaring like wild beasts, and giant magnets, we searched for spilled oil while being guided by a worker. But no location matching Kyosuke's deduction could be found. Dejected, we left the factory and came to a forest of cranes between two dry docks. There, when we encountered a man who appeared to be an engineer—wearing a work uniform over a suit with a large bird-hunting cap—Kyosuke promptly seized him and began his questioning.

“May I ask you something? Within this shipyard’s grounds—in the past day or two—has there been any instance of someone accidentally spilling machine oil? It’s just a minor matter—” Faced with Kyosuke’s unexpectedly detailed questioning, the young engineer looked momentarily flustered, but soon pointed at the dry dock before us and began to speak.

“In that No. 2 Dry Dock, it appears someone overturned an oil container yesterday.” “If you wish, I could show you the spot.”

The engineer said this and began leading us away. Before long, we climbed down a ladder and landed at the bottom of that large, empty dry dock. The engineer came to a position several meters away from the caisson gate blocking seawater, then turned back toward us while pointing at a section of the concrete channel floor. “This spot here, you see.—” Indeed, there at that spot remained a half-blurred pool of machine oil measuring three feet square, which appeared to have been submerged in water once. The center of that pool appeared to have been scraped away precisely by the victim’s back, revealing a whitish concrete floor that split the pool into left and right halves.

“Who spilled it?”

“It was a sailor.” “He was a sailor from the *Tenkyo Maru*—a cargo ship of Imperial Mail Steamship that had been in dry dock for repairs from five mornings ago until last night.” “It seems he accidentally spilled it while heading out to lubricate the propeller.”

“Ah, I see—” Having said this, Kyosuke seemed to grow disappointed, hanging his head and sinking into gloom, but soon—as if struck by a thought—he lifted his face with renewed vigor, “Where did the steamship called Tenkyo Maru come from?”

“It departed from Kobe,” the engineer answered.

“Kobe—?” “And its ports of call?” “Only Yokkaichi.”

“Huh? Yokkaichi?” That’s right.

Kyosuke involuntarily let out a cry and, as if suddenly remembering something, thrust his hand into his pocket. He pulled out the advertising matchbook from earlier, wiped away the grime with a handkerchief, and stared intently at the label for a moment—then soon resumed speaking with vigor. “And where is that Tenkyo Maru ship now?” “It’s currently anchored at Shibaura. Apparently due to delayed cargo loading and pressure from the shipowner, once repairs were completed after sunset last night, they immediately rushed to have it towed out of the dock by a small steam tug. Well, they say it’s scheduled for today at noon, so in about four hours, it’ll set sail.”

“Thank you.” “And you said that ship entered the dry dock five mornings ago?” “So that would be the morning when the victim went missing—in other words, the morning he was killed?” “Yes, that’s correct.” “So that means the Tenkyo Maru’s crew members were staying in the shipyard’s lodging quarters that night?” “Meaning even without night work, Tenkyo Maru crew members were present within this shipyard that night?” “Yes. Well, a few at least.” “Meaning?”

“In other words, eighty percent were at brothels—that’s what it means.”

“Understood clearly. And were there any other vessels in dry dock that day besides the Tenkyo Maru?”

“There weren’t any.”

“Thank you.” When his conversation with Kyosuke concluded, the engineer excused himself to attend to Dry Dock No. 1 and walked off toward that dock. At Kyosuke’s urging, I followed the engineer half out of curiosity.

In front of Dry Dock No. 1’s caisson gate waited a cargo ship of about a thousand tons, towed by a small steam tug. Shortly after we arrived, the valve of the upper seawater injection port on the caisson gate opened, and pure white foaming seawater began gushing into the dry dock with a terrifying roar. Next opened the large lower injection port valve—about two shaku five sun in diameter—which began slamming startled fish sucked into its flow against the concrete dock floor. As I stood mesmerized by this grimly rhythmic spectacle, Kyosuke lightly tapped my shoulder.

“You. While watching where they bring ships into dry dock, stay here and wait awhile. I’ll just go apprehend the culprit—”

With those words, Kyosuke turned and brusquely dashed out of the shipyard without so much as a backward glance at me, left stunned. Since there was no help for it, I decided to wait for Kyosuke’s return while watching the dry dock’s opening and closing operations.

Even after an hour passed and the dry dock had filled with water, Kyosuke still hadn’t returned. Even when the seawater inside the caisson gate was drained and the massive steel gate buoyantly rose above the dock’s waterline; even after that floating gate was towed away by a small boat to the open sea ahead; even as the ship hauled by the small steam tug was dragged into the dry dock where whirlpools still churned—Kyosuke still did not come. When the caisson gate had been refitted into the dock entrance and pumps began draining the seawater—now separated from the open sea—from within the dry dock, a single automobile finally entered through the front gate. I thought it was Kyosuke, but it turned out to be the Metropolitan Police Department’s car. Just as I had privately concluded that the case had grown considerably more complex, a man burst energetically out of the car door before my eyes—lo and behold, it was my close friend Aoyama Kyosuke. Before my astonished eyes, the next to appear was a dark-skinned, seaman-like young man bound securely with rope—somehow menacing and fierce. He was being guarded by two police officers.

When the group accompanied by Kyosuke arrived near the quay facing the sea of Dry Dock No. 2, Kyosuke—for the first time—addressed me, who had followed them in a fluster.

“You.” “Let me introduce the Tenkyo Maru’s boatswain—and the murderer—Mr. Yajima Goro.”

With that, Kyosuke presented the sailor bound with restraining ropes to me. I had still believed the culprit was Yamada Gennosuke—or rather, I had spitefully clung to the deduction I’d constructed based on the initials engraved on the knife—so when I heard “Yajima Goro,” I became somewhat agitated. But soon Kyosuke moved the bound man away from us and began speaking. “When I heard from the engineer earlier that the Tenkyo Maru had called at Yokkaichi, I suddenly remembered something—not the side of that advertising matchbook labeled ‘stew (kantodaki),’ but the back of its label. Jumbled there in tiny print were several katakana characters starting with ‘Yo.’” “So I promptly took it out and wiped off the grime—” Kyosuke held out the matchbook before my eyes as he spoke. “Look. Under the shop name ‘Kanpachi,’ it’s written small here—‘Adjacent to Yokkaichi Hall,’ see?”

“Hmm.”

I nodded vigorously. “So I developed my reasoning this way—that a Tenkyo Maru crew member carrying this matchbook encountered the two missing men that night at the iron scrap dump behind the lathe workshop.” “Now then, listen here.” “Yamada Gennosuke had paralysis and should’ve had an injury on his right arm.” “Do you think that Yamada could’ve stabbed Kizaburo’s heart that cleanly?” “That’s a tall order.” “So when I left here earlier, I went straight to Yamada’s family and confirmed he was right-handed.” “But here’s the kicker—until three years back, both Kizaburo and Yamada had been sailors on the Tenkyo Maru.” “With that certainty, I headed out to Shibaura and took action.” “Simple enough.” “I met the Tenkyo Maru’s captain before departure and had him check how many crew members had G.Y. initials.” “Turned out there were two: Chief Clerk Yagi Minoru and this boatswain here—Mr. Yajima Goro.” “Now, Clerk Yagi’s pushing fifty.” “But Boatswain Yajima here? So skilled even the captain marveled—yet still a twenty-nine-year-old ‘young buck’ by their standards.” “So I arranged a quiet meet with Mr. Yajima and floated the idea of buying that jackknife.” “Soon as he saw the knife, he went white as a sheet and shoved a hundred-yen bill at me, hand shaking.” “Instead of taking the cash, I had him trussed up proper.” “Professor, I might’ve gotten a bit theatrical there.” “Nothing worth mentioning though.”

Kyosuke said that and, laughing, rolled up his right sleeve to show me. Around the base of his wrist was wrapped a white bandage, faintly stained with red blood.

“Then what on earth happened to Yamada Gennosuke?” I asked while gulping down saliva. “Well, that’s just it—” Kyosuke turned around and walked over to where Yajima Goro had been kept at a distance. Without so much as a glance at the nearby officers, he addressed him thus:

“Mr. Yajima.” “Now then—out with it cleanly. Kindly tell us.” “About Yamada Gennosuke’s corpse—where exactly in this sea you carried it off and sank it, right?” “Probably the same place as Harada Kizaburo, I suppose?” “……” Yajima remained silent and glared at Kyosuke. “You can’t say it, can you?” “Oh?” “Then there’s no help for it.” “I’ll show you where that place is.”

Kyosuke dashed off toward Dry Dock No. 1 with a calm expression and soon returned with one diver who had just finished the installation work on the docked ship. The diver came to the quay near where we were standing, spent some time receiving instructions from Kyosuke, then soon summoned two workers. After having them prepare hoses and pumps, he promptly lowered a ladder down the quay and entered the sea directly before our eyes. After about ten minutes, countless bubbles rose to the surface of the sea alongside jet-black muddy water slightly to the left of where we stood, about three meters away from the gate ship of Dry Dock No. 2.

At that moment, a terrifying beast-like growl sounded near our ears. Turning around, there was Yajima Goro, his nose tip drenched in sweat, turning deathly pale as he clenched his lips and stamped his feet in frustration. Kyosuke smiled and cast his eyes out to sea once more.

After about five minutes, the diver returned beneath the ladder. Upon looking, one could see he carried on his back a corpse with both arms bound behind it in the same manner as Harada Kizaburo. “Ah! It’s Gen-san.” One of the workers who had been operating the pump let out a shout in a bizarre voice.

Yajima slumped forward and sank to the ground where he stood. Yamada Gennosuke's corpse bore none of the bruises or abrasions that had marked Harada Kizaburo's body. Only an identical stab wound showed above the heart. "There was a massive old iron gear serving as a weight." "We couldn't haul it up at all, so we cut the rope halfway through." "Come to think of it, there was another rope torn off midway still attached to the weight—I expect Mr. Harada Kizaburo's corpse had been lashed to that one——"

Having finished the work, the diver said that and took a deep breath. Kyosuke placed his hand on Yajima’s shoulder and, “You.” “I have one more question.” “When you met them behind the factory, why didn’t you settle things peacefully and instead do such a terrible thing?” At Kyosuke’s question, Yajima sharply raised his face and began speaking in a desperate, high-pitched voice. “Now that it’s come to this, I’ll spill everything!” “Until three years ago, those two were crewmates with me on the Tenkyo Maru.” “This was back when the Tenkyo Maru was still new and making expeditions to South China.” “There was this bastard Kakinuma—the previous captain—who’d grabbed a pile of cash like Judas. On a stormy night, I threw him overboard and took every last yen. Then those two sniffed it out.” “That night they came whining about him and tried to shake me down.” “So I got rid of them.” “That’s all there was to it.”

“Well, thank you for everything.”

Kyosuke said that and signaled to the officers with his eyes.

Kyosuke began to speak while gazing at the oppressive winter sea. “You’re asking how I knew Gennosuke had also been killed? Well, you see—I pieced together the circumstances and made an almost intuitive deduction.” “Then you’d ask why the location where Gennosuke’s corpse had been sunk was so easily determined.” “The explanation lies in simply outlining the entire process through which Harada Kizaburo’s corpse—murdered alongside Yamada Gennosuke—was discovered this morning.” “In other words, the two corpses stabbed to death behind that ironworks factory were transported here, had weights attached, and were thrown into the sea.” “Right beside the gate ship of Dry Dock No. 2.” “Then four days passed, and it was last night.” “The Tenkyo Maru, having completed its repairs, had to bid farewell to K Shipyard and make haste to Shibaura.” “There, the undocking operation began.” “The sluice gate’s water intake port of Dry Dock No. 2 began sucking seawater into the dock with terrifying force once the valve was opened.” “Then what happens to the corpses that had been weighted down and sunk into the sea near the sluice gate, gently undulating like kelp due to the length of their ropes?” “It’s no different from startled fish.” “Sucked into a two-and-a-half-foot diameter iron hole with terrifying force while being battered into a mass of wounds, then slammed against the concrete dock bottom.” “On that very day, the sailors of the Tenkyo Maru were carried over the machine oil they had accidentally spilled, driven by the force of inertia.” “Soon after the dry dock filled with water, the sluice gate was opened and the Tenkyo Maru was towed out by a small steam tug.” “Due to buoyancy adjustments, Kizaburo’s corpse—which had been clinging to the ship’s hull—was carried out as it was and ended up drifting into the open sea.” “Of course, the reason Gennosuke’s corpse didn’t meet such a fate must have been influenced by factors like the distance between the corpse’s position and the water intake port, or differences in the length of ropes tied to weights——”

Kyosuke finished speaking and threw his cigarette butt into the sea. "So essentially, the motive for this case was those two blackmailing Yajima and him refusing to settle things peacefully." "How on earth did you figure that out?"

I posed the final question. “Ha ha ha ha! Even I had no clue about that bastard’s motives until Yajima confessed.” “Just by considering the circumstances, I merely set a trap by asking why he hadn’t settled things peacefully—that’s all.”