Pathway to Japanese Literature

The suburban train arrived at F Station at 11:35.
The F-bound trains ran at 30-minute intervals from first to last run, and the next arrival was at 12:05.
In that case, he’d start worrying about making the deadline.

"Fifty more days..."

Bunsaku got off the train and let out a sigh.
It had been about a hundred installments since bestselling author Kanda Heitaro began writing his serialized novel for Bunsaku’s newspaper.
Until he completed the promised 150 installments, he had to make daily pilgrimages to F at the same time every day.
It took ten minutes from the station to Kanda’s house.

A young woman in Western clothes was walking ahead.

"So she’s another regular at Kanda’s place."

Bunsaku intuited.
Reaching the end of the farm road at the hill brought one to a shrine.
Climbing to the top of that hill stood Kanda Heitaro’s house.
It was an inconvenient place, with not another house in sight nearby.

At the shrine’s entrance, the woman had stopped, appearing to hesitate over something.
Bunsaku, having caught up, spoke without hesitation.

“You’re here to see Mr. Kanda, aren’t you?”

“Huh?”

“Mr. Kanda’s place is up the hill when you turn here.”

“Haah. I’m aware.”

“I see. My apologies.”

Bunsaku bowed politely, then began ascending the hill path in a fluster.
The reason was simple—the woman appeared to be twenty-one or twenty-two years old and had astonishing beauty.

“Well I’ll be damned. Since when do Kanda’s regulars include a cutie like that? She’s practically got ‘Miss Nippon’ written all over her. If there’s a textbook definition of classic beauty, it’s her—though maybe a bit too polished, a touch icy. And hell, if she’s gonna brush me off that easy, she’s got lousy taste.”

Among the lady journalists frequenting Kanda’s home, it was known to fellow reporters that there existed a beautiful magazine journalist named Hisako Yasukawa—perhaps she was that person. Though called a bestselling author, Kanda Heitaro was the kind whose works sold in the hundreds of thousands, not the sort to churn out reams every month. Therefore, getting him to write manuscripts wasn’t easy, but one women’s magazine had recently been publishing his work without fail every month. This was said to date back to when they assigned Hisako Yasukawa, a beautiful lady journalist.

“Kanda Heitaro’s another enigma of a man.”
“There’s talk he’s sexually impotent, other whispers say he prefers men.”
“But the second some knockout journalist starts delivering results, you can’t tell up from down anymore.”

When he rang the bell at Kanda’s residence, Ms. Mori Akemi appeared and showed him to the great hall.
This Western-style house had one absurdly ornate great hall with only a few small rooms attached.
Kanda Heitaro, now sixty years old, had been obsessed with karate for several years.
Between writing sessions he would practice karate katas in this hall—throwing himself about wildly for nearly an hour—before bathing.
Since Kanda often did this after finishing his newspaper manuscript, Bunsaku had witnessed these frenzied displays multiple times.
With a physique that defied his age, he would sweat like a summer downpour, stagger blindly about, yet still bark “Eii! Ya!” mid-practice.
He would then bolt straight to the bathroom.

“Karate practice just ended.”
“He’s in the bath.”

Akemi gave this explanation and guided him to one of the chairs pushed to the corner of the hall.

This person known as Ms. Mōri Akemi was originally an amateur stripper.
Since performing a striptease at a women’s college talent show that enraptured her female peers, she had gained confidence in her body and developed an ambition to go naked whenever possible to leave people awestruck.
Eventually, she learned the game of selecting famous painters to model for, outshining even the so-called greatest connoisseurs of the female form to soothe her wounded pride, until she eventually came to cohabit with the literary figure Kanda Heitaro.

Given that Kanda—rumored to be impotent or homosexual—had come to cohabit with Ms. Akemi, even the journalists found themselves temporarily perplexed. However, in the end, precisely because Kanda was impotent and homosexual, he might have been the purest connoisseur of the female form. And it was this most plausible conclusion they had reached regarding the nature of his connection with Ms. Akemi.

Since the time was always fixed, Ms. Akemi brought along the sandwiches and coffee she had prepared in advance.

“Is the manuscript ready?”

“Yes, it’s ready. It’s here.”

She took the manuscript from the mantelpiece and handed it to him.

“Much obliged. You’re always so meticulous—it’s a real help.”

When dealing with a bestselling author of his stature, the schedule ran with military precision—a full day’s manuscript always completed neatly by mid-morning. It would’ve been a godsend if he’d stockpiled four or five days’ worth at once, but even maintaining this daily metronome of productivity felt like a luxury too rare to grumble about.

“Hey!
“Towel!”

Kanda shouted from the bathroom.
“Coming!” Ms. Akemi called back and ran into the bathroom.
The gushing water sound that had been flowing since Bunsaku arrived finally stopped—likely because Kanda had been taking a shower all along.

“Here.”
“It’s cold.”
“It’s cold.”
“It’s cold.”
“Quick, quick!”

The one urging him in a voice that sounded cold was Ms. Akemi.
She was probably wrapping him in a towel.
Kanda seemed to dash into the bedroom while whistling.
After sending Kanda to the bedroom, only Ms. Akemi came out.

“Mr. Kanda sure loves his showers, doesn’t he?”

“That’s right.”
“He does it even in midwinter.”
“Is that why his skin stays so youthful?”

Ms. Akemi’s face clouded over.
She averted her face as if to hide it,

“You didn’t happen to see a beautiful young lady on the train, did you?”

“Ah.”
“That’s it.”
“I sure did.”
“I was with her all the way to the shrine area.”
“Who is that person?”

“Ms. Yasukawa Hisako.”

“I knew it.”
“She’s really beautiful.”

“Yes.”

Ms. Akemi’s face was gloomy.

“Is something wrong?”

When Bunsaku asked, Ms. Akemi masked her expression with a wry smile,

“No, it’s nothing.”
“It’s just that Mr. Kanda can’t wait, so he asks.”
“When she arrives, show her into the living room, he said.”
“He’s stark naked fresh out of the bath and rushing around, you know.”

“Quite the striptease.”

“That’s awful.”

At that moment, the doorbell rang, and Yasukawa Hisako arrived.
Since Akemi had long been instructed, she crossed the great hall and showed Hisako into Kanda’s living room.
The living room, bedroom, bathroom, and a small room were arranged in a row, each with a door leading to the great hall; however, each room also had connecting doors on the side, allowing one to move from the bathroom to the bedroom and from the bedroom to the living room without being seen by anyone in the great hall.
It’s no wonder Ms. Akemi’s heart was troubled.

“Ms. Yasukawa is here!”

Akemi opened the bedroom door, shouted loudly, and slammed it shut with a bang.
Then,
“Akemi!”
“Akemi!”
Kanda called out loudly from inside the room.
Akemi, with an annoyed look, stuck only her face through the door,

“Whaaat?”

Kanda droned on about something.
Akemi closed the door and returned to Bunsaku.

“Men are so tyrannical.”

“Why do you say that?”

“He calls that beauty into the next room and then tells me, ‘Go take a walk for a bit.’”

“Mr. Kanda will be fine.”

“What do you mean, ‘Mr. Kanda will be fine’?
He’s Japan’s biggest lecher, that Mr. Kanda.”

“Hmm.”

“What’s with the ‘Hmm’?
Come on, let’s get out of here.
The air’s putrid here.
Reeks of depravity.”

Akemi went outside as if to take Bunsaku’s hand.
Exactly then, they heard the noon siren sound.

“Maybe I’ll go play in Ginza with you too.”

“I’m not heading straight to Ginza, you know. First I have to make the rounds to the illustrator’s place, and then after that.”

On their way down the hill, they encountered the live-in student Kiso Eisuke pedaling up with luggage loaded onto his bicycle. He had gone out to buy groceries at the market.

“Since Ms. Yasukawa is here in the living room, you shouldn’t go to the back—I’m telling you.”

Akemi gave Kiso a warning. Then she accompanied Bunsaku to the station.

Bunsaku made his rounds to deliver manuscripts to illustrators, collected finished artwork, and arrived at the office just before three o’clock.

The moment he did, three or four reporters from the society section blocked his path,

“Where have you been skulking around until now?”

“Cut it out. I’ve been making the rounds delivering the manuscript and illustrations—no time to rest.”

“You didn’t kill Kanda Heitaro, did you?”

“Don’t try to scare me!”

“Kanda Heitaro has committed suicide.”
“But there’s also suspicion of murder.”
“Anyway—you—make yourself scarce.”

“Why?”

“We don’t want to hand you over to other papers until we’ve finished our business here. Kanda Heitaro died around the time you were at that house. If it turns out to be murder, you’re the number one suspect.”

“I was there until noon! Mr. Kanda took a shower and was full of energy!”

“Wait, wait.”
“If you’re going to confess, do it in this room...”

And then, the rough reporters from the society section surrounded him like a criminal and forcibly pushed him into another room.

★

After seeing Bunsaku off to the station, Akemi strolled around, bought freshly laid eggs from a farmhouse, and got caught up in talking there for about twenty minutes.
She returned from her walk around one o'clock.

The live-in student Kiso was chopping firewood in front of the kitchen.
Before entering the house, Akemi followed the sound of firewood chopping and came to where Kiso was,

“Where’s Ms. Yasukawa?”
“Who knows?”

“Hasn’t she left yet?”

“I’ve been chopping firewood here the whole time, so I don’t know anything about what’s going on inside the house…”

Indeed, a considerable amount of firewood had been split and scattered.

Akemi entered the house and resolutely knocked on the living room door. The entire house was dead silent, giving her an ominous premonition, but surprisingly, Hisako’s clear reply came from inside the living room.

“Yes. Please come in.”

“Oh! Ms. Yasukawa—are you alone?”

“Yes.”

“Where is Mr. Kanda?”

“What could have happened to him? I’ve been waiting all this time…”

“Is Mr. Kanda writing the manuscript?”

“Well? I haven’t had the chance to meet him yet.”

“Since earlier?”

“Yes.”

Hisako had apparently spent that hour reading a book she had brought and had grown tired of waiting.
Indeed, the interior of the living room was exactly as it had been when Akemi invited her in.

So Akemi went to check the bedroom.
There she found Kanda lying face down, completely naked and dead.
A bath towel covered the lower half of his body.
He had been shot through the right temple with a pistol.
The pistol lay beside his hand.
The body had already cooled.

During official questioning, Hisako responded.

“While I was in the living room, I don’t recall any unusual sounds coming from the adjacent bedroom.”
“You didn’t leave the room at all during that time, did you?”

“No, I left the room twice.”

“Why?”

“Because the telephone rang.”
“Since no one else came out, I went to check—perhaps because time had passed—but by the time I went there, it had already disconnected.”

“Around what time?”

“Shortly after I arrived, I believe it was around twelve-oh-five or twelve-ten.”
“Was there no one else in the mansion at that time?”
“I didn’t see anyone.”

“About how many minutes were you away from the room?”

“It was a short while. I was only away for the time it took to jiggle the telephone and realize it was disconnected.”

“Didn’t you hear the pistol shot then?”

“I didn’t notice. Because the radio was on, I might not have heard it.”

“Was it you who turned on the radio?”

“No.”
“It had been on since I arrived.”

That radio had been switched on by Kanda himself.
Apparently, he had turned it on when starting his karate sparring practice.

Both Akemi and Bunsaku heard the radio still playing when they left.
Akemi had thought about turning off the radio before leaving but said she deliberately left it on "for their convenience."
“That’s quite generous of you.”

When the newspaper reporters expressed admiration,

“It’d be embarrassing even for me.”

She smiled suggestively—or so a certain newspaper reported.

Kiso testified as follows.

“I think I returned to the estate around twelve-oh-five.”
“Because I’d parked my bicycle in front of the shrine and was taking a break before climbing the hill when I heard the noon siren.”
“The telephone? I wasn’t aware of any calls.”
“Anyway, I tossed the baggage into the kitchen.”
“Well, I suddenly started chopping firewood, you see.”

He was twenty-seven years old.
He was a handsome young man who had been a student soldier at the war’s end.
He faced newspaper reporters’ probing questions about homosexuality but coolly deflected them,

“I’m Master’s disciple—a live-in student and just a servant.”
“I don’t know anything beyond that.”
“Huh?”
“Lover?”
“If we’re talking about Master’s lover, that’d be Ms. Akemi. Huh?”
“Ms. Yasukawa’s relationship with Master?”
“How should I know?”
“I had zero interest in Master Kanda’s private life.”

“Didn’t you hear the pistol shot?”

“If I’d known, I would’ve done something about it. After all, I’ve been faithful in my duties as a live-in student.”

“Do you have any idea what might have caused him to commit suicide?”

“I don’t have any.”
“Fundamentally, there are two types of writers—the suicidal type and the non-suicidal type—and non-suicidal writers are the people least likely to kill themselves.”

“Do you have any idea what might have caused him to be killed?”

“If we’re talking about motives for me to kill Master，I had none.”
“I don’t know about others.”

“What is your relationship with Ms. Akemi?”

Gazing curiously at the newspaper reporter’s face, he muttered.

“If we were on good terms, Master’s survival would be essential.”
“Because it’s thanks to Master that we can live under the same roof.”
“Someone like me with no survival skills couldn’t share a roof with Ms. Akemi without Master.”
“You’d think one look at Ms. Akemi’s face would make that obvious.”

“So, in the end, are you two close?”

“If I say ‘yes,’ it seems I could make the entire country believe it.”

He left with an ironic smile.

Ultimately, three suspects emerged.
They were Akemi, Hisako, and Kiso.
In contrast, Bunsaku’s testimony took on crucial significance.
However, because Bunsaku had carelessly divulged information about Hisako to his colleagues in the society department, he found himself subjected to merciless ridicule.
This was because his newspaper had boldly reported Hisako as an all-but-confirmed suspect in the following day’s edition.

"Our newspaper's reporter Yabe Bunsaku, who had gotten off the train arriving at the station at 11:35 AM that morning, noticed Yasukawa Hisako—who had come on the same train—peering into a large handbag at the base of the slope while lost in thought with a preoccupied expression, and spoke to her."

“Are you going to Mr. Kanda’s?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s go together.”

“Don’t trouble yourself.”

She answered coldly.
Hisako, who had arrived fifteen minutes late for what should have been a mere three-minute walk from there, was met by Akemi and led across the hall to the living room with a tense expression.
"Fifteen minutes minus three minutes—during those twelve minutes, what could she have been doing?"

After reading this, Bunsaku gripped the newspaper and charged into the society department desk like a bull.

“She said she was standing there dazed, hugging her handbag to her chest.”
“She never mentioned opening it to peer inside!”

“Shut your trap, rookie!”

“Cut it out.”
“I’ve eaten society department rice for three years myself.”
“You think someone could kill Mr. Kanda in twelve minutes—fifteen minus three?”
“I can prove he was alive right up until noon sharp!”

“No one’s saying she killed him during those twelve minutes.”
“What was she doing during that time? —What do you say to that?”

“Twelve minutes would pass by no matter what you were doing, I tell ya.”

“Even if there are no pachinko parlors or cafes at the bottom of the slope—so what?”
“In a place that’s nothing but fields—what could she have been doing for a full twelve minutes?”

“Alright!
“I’ll prove her innocence soon enough, so just you wait!”
“And I’ll track down the culprit while I’m at it, so just you wait!”

He flared up in anger and rushed outside.
First prioritizing calmness, when he compared articles from various newspapers, they all seemed to hold views unfavorable to Hisako—if it were suicide, it would have been during her time at the telephone.
If it was murder, then the culprit was Hisako.
The general thrust of the newspapers' arguments appeared to be that her failure to hear the pistol shot from the adjacent room defied belief.
One paper had already cast Hisako as the killer, asserting she'd anticipated an assault by the naked Kanda and shot him with a pre-prepared pistol.

Ridiculous.
How could that delicate beauty pull off such a deft maneuver?
Wasn't it reported that the Western outfit had neither a single stain nor crease?
If attacked by karate master Kanda Heitaro, only someone like a female Sarutobi Sasuke could manage such an adept response.

In any case, he had already made a hundred visits to the Kanda residence. Over time, actually meeting Kanda became exceedingly rare; generally, it was just a matter of receiving manuscripts and eating sandwiches before leaving. Yet even so, a hundred days of such pilgrimages would be enough to move even the hearts of deities. Lately, there should have been no one who passed through the gates of the Kanda residence as often as he had.

"First I need to figure out Kanda's lifestyle as a writer."
"The only one who can do that is me."

I confidently pondered this, but whether he was impotent, homosexual, or just sexually normal—I couldn't even begin to guess.
Even after a hundred days of pilgrimage, all I'd grasped was how completely I'd failed to touch upon Kanda's real life.

★

Among forensic experts too, there were theories of suicide and murder.
The basis for the murder theory was that the bullet had entered slightly behind the temple and been fired from a diagonal angle behind.
However, this did not definitively prove that firing from this angle would be absolutely impossible for a suicide victim.

The basis for the murder theory was rather circumstantial, with the primary point being the bizarreness of committing suicide while completely naked.
Even more bizarre was the fact that the bath towel was draped over his feet.
If the culprit hadn’t placed it there after committing the crime, then the bath towel—which had been held near his chest until the moment of suicide—must have slipped down to his feet when he collapsed after shooting himself.
That was the only conclusion.

However, to commit suicide with a pistol, one must necessarily use it in one hand. If one were to consider this, holding the bath towel would require one hand, but it seems rather odd for someone about to commit suicide to pull the trigger while draped in a towel like a Daruma doll and holding it down with one hand.

If a person suffering from chronic neurasthenia were to suddenly decide to die in a daze and pull the trigger in a half-conscious state, such a disheveled death might be conceivable. But it was unthinkable that someone who had just practiced karate for nearly an hour and showered for a full ten minutes would do such a thing immediately afterward.
If he had the presence of mind to drape a bath towel over himself, he likely would have had the composure to put on clothes.
Or did he suddenly find it necessary to commit suicide?

One had to assume that situations requiring such sudden urgency—leaving no time to put on clothes—occurred more frequently in homicides than suicides. However, even this was not definitive proof of murder.

What proved even more inconsistent was that Kanda had been eagerly awaiting Hisako's visit. What could it mean that Kanda—who had made Hisako wait in the adjacent room—would commit suicide without even showing his face?

Regarding this point, Hisako made a strange claim.

“The reason I was standing in front of the shrine was because Mr. Kanda instructed me to wait there.”
“When did you receive the order?”
“The day before, around two in the afternoon, Mr. Kanda called our office.”
“He said there was something to hand over and told me to wait in front of the shrine around noon.”

“Why didn’t you wait until noon?”

“Because even though Mr. Kanda’s house was right nearby, waiting there made me feel uneasy. I felt that sneaking around as if hiding from people was improper, so as noon approached, I somehow ended up going to Mr. Kanda’s house.”

“What was ‘the thing to hand over’?”

“I thought it was probably the manuscript.”
“Because I couldn’t think of anything else.”

However, that manuscript was not in his bedroom (which also served as his study). There were no unfinished ones either. Moreover, the deadline for Hisako’s manuscript was still some time away.

Despite Hisako’s claim, Kanda’s demeanor gave no indication he had made such an arrangement.
Though he had been eagerly awaiting Hisako’s visit, there was no sign he meant to go to the promised location himself.
Had he truly intended to go, he could have done so.
By cutting his shower short, he could have made it.
Yet he leisurely took a full ten-minute shower, and even after retreating to his bedroom, made no move to dress immediately, remaining naked until his death past noon.

“Was the call that said ‘Wait in front of the shrine’ actually from Mr. Kanda himself?”

“It was Mr. Kanda himself. There’s no mistake.”

Yet no one had witnessed Kanda making the call to Hisako. Of course, such a secret call wouldn’t be made where others might overhear.

“Maybe he planned a murder-suicide but lost nerve and killed himself alone?”

Bunsaku entertained the thought, but the image of Kanda—that vigorous writer teeming with vitality—resorting to any form of suicide already felt fundamentally incongruous.

Then came one decisively bizarre occurrence. That very morning, an express mail had arrived for Takako the maid—her mother was critically ill, it claimed, demanding immediate return. Delivered at seven a.m., Takako departed around nine. Her home lay three hours away by train, yet upon arrival she found her mother perfectly healthy—and no sender could be traced for that urgent letter.

Both Akemi and Kiso had seen the express mail, but the handwriting was said to be clumsy.
Takako claimed she had left it in her room, but it was not found there or anywhere else.

Circumstantially, this was the most bizarre incident; however, proving how it connected to murder remained impossible. One could assume the culprit found the maid’s presence inconvenient, but why this posed a problem defied all comprehension.

However, the forensic pathologist supporting the homicide theory had said this.

“At the very least, Kanda was alive until 12:05 or 12:10.”
“Given the state of the corpse and autopsy results, survival beyond that point cannot be considered.”
“However, two phone calls came in between 12:05 and 12:10.”
“Doesn’t this also suggest the culprit’s deliberate scheme?”

In other words, the true meaning of that theory was that he had been shot dead during the time when the calls came in—from 12:05 to 12:10—and that these calls were part of a deliberate plan.

However, there was no one other than Hisako who heard that phone call. Since there was no one else to hear it, Hisako must have answered; but assuming these calls occurred between 12:05 and 12:10, Kiso should have at least heard the second one.

When Akemi and Bunsaku left through the front entrance, the noon siren sounded.
The two passed Kiso while descending the slope.
That distance was about a two-minute walk.
Kiso pushed his bicycle up the slope, but even accounting for the uphill path, he should have arrived home in three or four minutes.

The telephone was installed near the kitchen in the great hall, and it was normal for Kiso—chopping firewood just outside the kitchen doorway—to hear it.

"I climbed the slope at my usual pace while pushing up my bicycle," he said. "Judging from when I heard the siren in front of the shrine, I might have reached the back entrance around 12:05 or 12:06. However, I couldn’t hear any phone sounds while bringing in and chopping firewood. Right now, you’re all anticipating the phone ringing, so you can hear it. But when I’m mindlessly chopping firewood, it’s a different story."

Kiso thus explained this to the people conducting the on-site verification.

At that moment, Akemi seemed to jolt with realization. She peered at Kiso and spoke.

“Hey, Mr. Kiso. The phone rang for so long and twice—why didn’t Mr. Kanda answer it, I wonder? Mr. Kanda hates nothing more than letting the bell ring for a long time, you know. If the bell rang more than three times while we were there, he’d fly into a rage and start yelling. Otherwise, he’d come rushing out like a madman and yank the receiver off.”

Then Kiso replied as if he found the whole thing utterly absurd and unbearable.

“As for that sound, it’s utterly fishy.”
“I can’t figure out why the radio was playing at such an hour.”
“The radio Mr. Kanda listens to is mainly for sports and occasionally news; at other times, the household radio might as well not exist.”
“That said, there may have been coincidences and whims in the past.”
“Even if that day just happened to be one of whims, this is still one of the day’s abnormalities.”

According to Akemi’s recollection, this radio was one that Kanda would switch on when he began practicing his karate forms; and according to Bunsaku’s memory as well, it seemed to have continued playing from the time he arrived until he left.
At least, there was no memory of anyone having stopped or turned it off once.

Kiso said.

“Normally, I would go inside and turn off the radio, but since I’d heard Ms. Yasukawa was coming that day, I assumed there must be some purpose for it being on and left it alone.”
“I knew the radio was on, of course.”
“It was an abnormality, after all.”

There as well, another abnormality had been added, but it still did not constitute definitive proof of murder.
The remaining problem was just about whose pistol it was.
The fact that Kanda possessed a pistol was unknown to both Akemi and Kiso.

“Every drawer in Mr. Kanda’s bedroom, the deepest recesses of the closets—I know even things Mr. Kanda himself isn’t aware of, you know.”
“This pistol is not ours.”

Akemi asserted.
However, there was also no definitive evidence to support that assertion.

However, each newspaper, as if by prior agreement, refused to relinquish suspicion of murder.
Whether suicide or homicide, it was strange that Hisako didn't hear the gunshot.
If murder, there might have been a scheme to mask the gunshot, but such artifice would be impossible in a suicide.
Therefore, they considered the unheard gunshot as evidence of homicide.
And beneath this reasoning, they appeared to have broadly settled on Hisako as the culprit.

“Damn them! It might be murder, but to pin it on Hisako Yasukawa—” Every time Bunsaku read the newspapers, he flew into a rage—but try as he might, he couldn’t find any way to prove her innocence.

So he decided to visit his old friend Dr. Kose and ask for his opinion.
The two of them were literary youths who had once published a literary coterie magazine together—and moreover, literary youths themselves.

★

“I thought it was about time you came. Your brain alone won’t crack this,” said Dr. Kose, welcoming Bunsaku in high spirits.

“Well, have a seat.”

“In preparation for your visit, I collected clippings about the incident from all Tokyo newspapers, but there are gaps in the reporting—as if they colluded.”
“Your newspaper in particular is terrible.”
“They seem utterly convinced your testimony is rock-solid.”

“Isn’t that obvious? I saw it with my own two eyes on site.”

Dr. Kose didn’t argue back because Bunsaku was glaring fiercely.

“What all the newspapers are missing is an investigation into the events leading up to your arrival at the Kanda household.”

“What happened before I arrived is irrelevant.”
“Because Mr. Kanda Heitaro was alive right up until the moment I left.”

“No, no. Regardless of whether he was alive or dead, everything that happened after the abnormality occurred at the Kanda household must be thoroughly investigated.”

“What abnormality?”

“For example—the radio.”
“Then comes the letter sent to the maid.”
“And beyond that—the phone call from Mr.Kanda to Ms.Hisako.”
“Since that call occurred at two o’clock on the day before the incident—at minimum—we must trace back to that time and conduct meticulous investigations into all parties’ subsequent movements.”

“You’re quite the idle detective, aren’t you?”

“Only one newspaper bothered to verify the alibi of where Kiso—that live-in student—went shopping that day.”
“According to their report, Kiso rode from F Station to a market at Q Station about seven ri away to buy Western tobacco, liquor, and other items.”
“The photo shop where he bought film gave this testimony:”
“‘Mr. Kiso arrived around eleven o’clock.’”
“‘He stuffed both developed film and new rolls into his pocket, wasted four or five minutes on small talk, then left by bicycle.’”
“The distance between Q and F is thirty to forty minutes by bike.”
“A keirin racer might blast through it in under twenty minutes, but under normal circumstances, we can accept Kiso was shopping at Q Station when he claimed.”

“The questionable part about Kiso’s actions is how many minutes passed after he passed us on the slope.”

“That’s something all the newspapers have thoroughly discussed.”
“I’m currently devising the investigative oversights in all the newspapers—though since those oversights are likely your own as well, questioning you probably won’t yield anything useful.”
“Tell me about what happened after you got off at F Station at 11:35.”

“Apart from exchanging words with Yasukawa Hisako in front of the shrine, there was nothing out of the ordinary on the road.”

“At the Kanda residence?”

“When I pressed the doorbell, Ms. Akemi appeared and showed me to the hall.”
“Ms. Akemi took the manuscript from the mantelpiece for me, brought a sandwich and coffee, so the two of us ate them…”
“Ms. Akemi too?”

“Exactly.”
“That’s just how it is every day.”
“Since Mr. Kanda’s mealtimes are irregular and don’t align, Ms. Akemi waits for me so we can have sandwiches and coffee together.”
“Normally the maid would bring it, but that day Ms. Akemi herself brought it, and we sat facing each other.”
“About ten minutes later, just as we had nearly finished the sandwiches, Mr. Kanda shouted ‘Towel!’ from the bathroom, so Ms. Akemi rose from her seat.”

“She was with you until then, right?”

“Exactly.”
“Except when she got up to get the sandwich from the kitchen.”
“Now, Mr. Kanda turned off the shower and received a towel from Ms. Akemi, and…”

“Were you watching?”

“Idiot! Does anyone actually peek into other people’s bathrooms?”
Mr. Kanda whistled and dashed into the bedroom while Ms. Akemi returned to the hall.
At that moment, Ms. Akemi asked with a sullen face whether I’d been with Ms. Yasukawa on the train since Mr. Kanda was getting impatient.
Just as I thought that must be the beauty Miss Yasukawa, Miss Yasukawa arrived.
Ms. Akemi showed Miss Yasukawa into the parlor.
“At that very moment, Mr. Kanda in the bedroom called out loudly to Ms. Akemi, so she stuck just her head through the door.”

“Just her head through the door, huh?”

“Exactly.”
“Mr. Kanda told Ms. Akemi to go out for a walk.”

“That’s a terrible thing to say.”
“So you heard that too, huh?”

“Because the voice was low, I couldn’t make it out clearly, but Ms. Akemi slammed the door shut, came back fuming, and hustled me outside.”
“Then came the noon siren.”

“In other words, you didn’t meet Mr. Kanda, did you?”

“Out of a hundred days, I had the honor of meeting him about thirty times.”
“He’s averse to socializing under his public persona.”

“So you weren’t ‘Chigosan,’ then?”

“Oh, come on.”

“Hey.”
“You.”
“The newspapers are sensationalizing Mr. Kanda Heitaro’s sex life with colorful stories, but in reality, it’s all just conjecture.”
“Moreover, people seem to take it for granted that Mr. Kanda is a spendthrift with not a penny saved—but while his dietary habits and sex life may seem mysterious to outsiders, could such a lifestyle really burn through his entire ten-million-yen annual income?”
“Even though he’s famously stingy, isn’t it strange that he has not a penny saved?”

“A hedonist’s life is just like that.”

“But Miss Hisako Yasukawa says.”
“The only private conversation she received from Mr．Kanda was that phone call the day before the incident，you know．”
“Despite their frantic investigations，the newspapers haven’t succeeded in uncovering any hidden aspects of her private life．”
“On top of that，Mōri Akemi’s also claiming she doesn’t have any other lovers．”

“Affairs are things you keep hidden from others. Especially from your wife.”
“Especially from your wife.”

“You’re all overlooking the most crucial thing of all.”
“The more you scrutinize Miss Yasukawa Hisako, doesn’t it only make the true nature of that lovely young lady clearer?”
“Why won’t you fully trust Miss Hisako?”
“A major part of that reason is your very presence.”
“You don’t seem to realize it yourself, but the primary reason all the newspapers suspect Miss Hisako Yasukawa is because a certain reporter named Yabe Bunsaku has provided an unshakable testimony covering the period from 11:45 to noon.”

“I fully acknowledge that.”
“Just because I mentioned her standing in front of the shrine—”

“No, that’s not it.”
“From when you arrived at the Kanda residence—in other words, from 11:45 until noon.”
“You did not see Mr. Kanda.”
“But both you and everyone else remain convinced that you saw Mr. Kanda.”

“Mr. Kanda was indeed alive.”
“I heard that voice clearly.”

“Indeed.”
“Indeed.”
“You heard the voice.”
“And the whistle and the shower’s sound too.”
“Yet Miss Yasukawa Hisako insists she didn’t hear the pistol shot.”
“All anomalies that day concerned sound.”
“The radio was sound.”
“Visually, there were no abnormalities.”
“If we were to fully trust Miss Yasukawa, what conclusion would emerge?”
“Namely—no matter how much radio noise there was—she couldn’t have missed hearing a pistol shot from the adjacent room.”
“She didn’t even fail to catch the telephone’s ring in the hall.”
“How could there be any moment—any moment at all—when she’d miss hearing that adjacent pistol shot?”
“Doesn’t that make the conclusion clear?”
“The pistol wasn’t fired after her arrival at the Kanda residence.”

“Even while I was in the hall, I wouldn’t have heard any pistol shot.”

“If that is the case, then the pistol must have been fired even earlier.”

“But Ms. Akemi was talking with Mr. Kanda, wasn’t she?”

“The culprit has to be someone who can converse with the dead.”
“Lately, tape recorders have been spreading like a bad epidemic to every corner of the country, you see.”
“If you mask it with radio static, using a tape recorder to substitute for an actual voice isn’t so difficult anymore.”

Dr. Kose gently said to the dumbfounded Bunsaku.

“Hey, you. While you’ve been mustering your resolve for that refined Miss Hisako Yasukawa, why didn’t you place complete trust in her testimony? That’s reporter’s arrogance for you. Because you’re convinced your own experiences are infallible. Love is akin to God, you know—in that instant when it flares up brilliantly. Had you trusted Miss Yasukawa as you would a deity, had you realized her testimony outweighed your own experience, you’d have solved this case’s riddle without breaking a sweat. Finding the true culprit and genuinely falling for a woman—they’re remarkably similar pursuits. All truths ultimately share the same essence. Which is why I’m far too occupied paying homage to beauties rather than playing detective.”

With that, Dr. Kose left Bunsaku behind, grabbed his hat, and dashed off to Ibiki.

Akemi’s crime was exposed through Bunsaku’s subsequent efforts.
She had been plotting to kill Mr. Kanda and seize his entire fortune ever since she discerned he had begun developing feelings for Hisako Yasukawa; upon learning Mr. Kanda had made a call summoning Hisako, she sent the maid and student away, killed Mr. Kanda—who had bathed over an hour before Bunsaku’s arrival—then used a pre-prepared tape recorder to make it appear the murder occurred after noon, thereby skillfully crafting her alibi.

Despite Bunsaku's earnest efforts, it appears he regrettably failed to develop his dealings with the delicate beauty.