Pathway to Japanese Literature

Can written descriptions and visual depictions really differ this much?
Given how witnesses described [the perpetrator] in such terms as “bushy-browed,” “squat-faced,” “unapproachable,” “thick-lipped,” and “pockmarked” (the Tsukiji Chinese Restaurant Quadruple Murder Case), those who turned this incident into comics likewise depicted her as a strikingly unattractive woman.

However, when looking at the montage photo, her face wasn’t that of a fearsomely ugly woman but rather an ordinary one you might commonly encounter in rural areas.
It might have been considered a prime example of a maid’s facial type.
Young women who’d be inconvenienced by false suspicions were likely to pop up all over the place.
However, unlike the Teigin case, there were many witnesses, and the time they had spent facing [the suspect] was long, so this photo probably closely resembled the actual person.
Ms. Ota Nariko undoubtedly couldn’t remain underground for much longer.

The impressions of the ramen-eating customer, the sushi shop owner, and the old woman at the Western goods store—each grasped distinctive features, and even we readers find them somehow striking. According to the ramen customer’s account, they asked if she had just started working there that day. When asked, she remained silent, hooking her fingers over the rim of the bowl to bring over the ramen; at the sushi shop, she spent thirty or forty minutes eating one plate of sushi with apparent reluctance, asked for the time four times, drank nearly a liter of water, and seemed to want to stay longer but left reluctantly as the shop grew busy. At the Western goods store, she apparently grabbed bills from her coat pocket—four hundred-yen notes and sixty-two ten-yen notes—and took ten minutes to count them, but finding it excessive, returned one hundred-yen note and stuffed the rest into her pocket. Since the radio was airing *Auntie Uta’s Song*, it must’ve been around 8:50—that old woman’s testimony reads like something out of a detective novel.

The testimony—or rather, memoir (Mainichi Shimbun, February 25)—of Mr.Yamaguchi, who should have seen the suspect most clearly as a delivery worker from the same shop and the sole survivor who slept on the second floor, paradoxically lacked any striking features.There was no trace of capturing Ota Nariko’s individuality.“She worked normally without any suspicious behavior, but after customers finished eating or drinking, she would always sweep the shop and take the trash all the way to the back.I told her she didn’t need to go to the back every time, but after that, she seemed to go out through the rear gate three or four times before going to bed”—this was the only peculiar action Ms.Nariko exhibited in the memoir.Yet there must have been other distinctive behaviors beyond this.He had only learned after the fact that there had been a man who visited her late, so his observations were likely ones he arrived at by cross-referencing this information.It was an observational eye that overlooked details for lack of connecting clues.After closing the shop, when he was tidying his apron, she was in the maid’s room watching the master calculate the day’s earnings, it was said.This, too, was merely an observation revived by the fact that she was a thief.

“When I started descending the stairs around 1:30 AM to use the bathroom, I heard the muffled voices of a man and woman from below. Peeking into the maid’s room, I saw a man sitting on the futon the woman had laid out—knees drawn up and facing the wall—though I have no idea when he arrived.”
“At that time, I think the two of them mentioned something about Asakusa.”
“The man’s outfit consisted of a gray overcoat, white gabardine trousers, and no necktie.”
“Since he was facing away, I couldn’t clearly discern his features, but he had a burly build with a sallow complexion, high cheekbones, and the front part of his hair permed in a permanent wave—so distinctly un-Japanese that he struck me as someone from a third country.”

Despite only stealing a glance, he claims to have observed the man’s clothing and features in great detail—does he?
A confident, self-assured assertion.
What astonishing powers of observation indeed!
He appears to have quite the penchant for fabrication.
He hadn’t been observing with his own eyes but had instead recalled or fabricated details later by cross-referencing what was necessary. The man himself might have even come to believe them as truth.

He woke around nine the next morning, but neither the maid nor the man were in the maid’s room, and the futon was neatly folded into four parts.

The previous night, when he saw a man in the maid’s room and tried to go upstairs, the woman called out, saying he was a relative asking if he could stay over; since the maid bringing men in had been overlooked until then, he replied that it would be fine if the wife approved and did not find it particularly suspicious, it is said.

It was said that the maid bringing men in or taking customers had been overlooked, but to bring a man in from the very night she began lodging there as a maid would have been an excessively brazen maneuver indeed. The only one who found nothing peculiar about this was likely none other than Mr.Yamaguchi.

However, the accomplice posed no issue. Capturing Ms.Ota Nariko alone would suffice. Once achieved, the accomplice’s identity would naturally come to light.

★

Search as I might among the women I know, I cannot find a Mysterious Woman like Ms. Ota Nariko.
It is said the master had over twenty wounds from the firewood axe, the wife seventeen, the eldest son (11) three, and the eldest daughter (10) sixteen.
In detective novel conventions, such methods are established as being a female culprit’s work.
Whether fearing their victims might revive or acting in frenzied rage—so they say—one wildly slashes and stabs.
Yet one cannot definitively conclude men never act this way.
Still, that the girl bore seventeen wounds and the boy three cannot help but suggest a woman’s handiwork.

The fact that she slashed them so wildly must have been driven by an intense fear that they might revive—but then why didn’t she visit Mr.Yamaguchi on the second floor?
Having killed four people, it would be misguided to assume she felt she had killed enough and regained her senses.
Despite having hacked at them so ferociously, they say she left neither muddy footprints nor bloodstained ones behind.
This tells us that an extraordinarily composed act—methodically erasing all traces—must have followed over an extended period.
They must have wandered through the blood-drenched room searching for valuables.
Moreover, there were no footprints, she wore no bloodstained garments, and apparently even the stolen passbook bore no blood traces.
She must have acted with remarkable coolness to clean up afterward.
What she—or he—left behind, it is said, were only fingerprints on the firewood axe.

The fact that she had neatly folded the futon into four parts before leaving must have stemmed from anxiety over whether she had dropped any evidence.
And she might have folded it before committing the crime—this too speaks to her composure.
While possessing the audacious calm to erase evidence by the bedside of the four victims she had slaughtered—and to have erased it so flawlessly at that—why did she not visit Mr. Yamaguchi on the second floor? I find myself utterly at a loss to determine.

If she had killed everyone, then perhaps she could have calmly erased the evidence. There was still another person on the second floor. As for crime, it is generally the case that the terror after committing it and the desire to flee grow more intense than before carrying it out.

In her case as well, she may have lacked the courage to kill someone on the second floor again. That sentiment is understandable—but with four murdered victims before her eyes, she would have slowly erased footprints, stolen items, and spent even more time washing blood from her body and partially laundering her clothes. These thick, straw-rope-like nerves of hers are terrifying. She probably remained confined in the house of slaughter until daybreak, when people would no longer find it suspicious.

She appeared at a sushi shop, took thirty or forty minutes to eat sushi and drank four gō of water—that part seems about right.
No matter how bold and daring you are, your throat would get dry—you know.
Killing four people is no easy task, you know.

Even so, what she was most attentive to was time.
It was time for the credit union.
She seemed to have no other concerns.
Whether there was any blood on her clothes, limbs, or hair, or whether the crime scene had already been discovered and a commotion ensued with authorities mobilizing everywhere—these would typically be matters of utmost concern, but her nerves were as thick as a submarine cable.
To dismiss her as insensitive, stupid, or idiotic misses the mark entirely.
Take a look at the characters she left on the voucher.

The first voucher read “Ramen Two, ¥100,” while another mistakenly stated “Ramen Two, ¥200,” which she had corrected; even this correction was deftly done, giving a thoroughly practiced impression. Her handwriting was calligraphic—not a crude scrawl—and she rendered even the Western-style “¥” symbol fluently. What intrigued me was her use of the character “弐” for two. Why hadn’t she used the simpler “二”? What profession regularly employs this formal numeral? Of course, it might have been this household’s custom to use antiquated characters like *ni* (弐) and *san* (参). Yet even so, her practiced mastery of writing “弐” remained commendable. No fool could produce such characters.

She shopped at the Western goods store.
More than the risk of exposing her face to others, time was the pressing concern there as well.
She took a full ten minutes to count the banknotes.
This woman’s psychology was abnormal and bold.
Despite having meticulously erased evidence from the crime scene with composed audacity, did she not grasp the immense peril of leaving far clearer traces—strolling about showing her face to neighbors, committing eccentric acts sure to draw attention and lodge in memories, inevitably linking her to the woman withdrawing deposits at the credit union?
Erasing the footprints at the scene wasn’t such a grand feat, was it?
Above all, what staggering carelessness—to calmly eliminate evidence yet leave fingerprints on the murder weapon itself, the very thing any criminal should have prioritized!

Then perhaps it was not the woman but a lone man who remained calm, composed, and bold.
The man had erased his own evidence.
The reason he hadn't paid attention to the fingerprints on the firewood axe was that it wasn't him but the woman who had wielded the murder weapon—wasn't that it?
Yet if he were such a composed man, why didn't he visit Mr.Yamaguchi on the second floor—the sole person who had seen him?
In short—could this mean he wasn't the true culprit?
Had it been that the woman—who happened to carry a firewood axe for self-defense—slashed four people in some panicked frenzy?
If the man were truly responsible, he wouldn't have left that second-floor witness alive.
After all—while many had seen her—Mr.Yamaguchi alone had seen him.

The woman who went to the credit union to withdraw 140,000 yen was told that her cheap seal was unacceptable and reportedly withdrew, saying, “I’ll come back later.”
It is unclear whether she had found the cheap seal in the crime scene and been satisfied with it or had searched for a registered seal but failed to find one; but considering how fixated she was on the credit union’s timing, she may have been satisfied that the cheap seal would suffice.

In any case, even if she was mindful of time, her utter disregard for matters such as the possibility that the crime scene had already been discovered and authorities were mobilizing, or the disadvantage of leaving behind suspicious behavior as she moved about—this demeanor, as sluggish as an ox yet driven by a willpower that rushed headlong like subterranean fire solely toward grasping money—does it not make one feel precisely that?
Or perhaps there was some secret and significant meaning to this matter of time.
Compared to this monstrous ox-like woman, Miss Samon appeared all the more human and delicate—there was simply no comparison.

Even the Teigin perpetrator—the moment everyone collapsed one after another—panicked utterly; lacking the mental composure to notice the large sum visible in the open vault, they simply grabbed whatever cash lay at hand and fled.
Even if this criminal had resolved to kill the employees, seeing people die before their eyes must have made them panic at reality diverging from imagination.

Our Ms. Ota Nariko had unexpectedly slaughtered four people yet showed no sign of fluster or trembling—this despite her face being known to many, wandering near the crime scene immediately afterward, concerned only with time rather than anxiety about capture.
The sheer strangeness of this peculiar single-minded fixation—obsessed solely with time—defied comprehension.
Criminals typically revisit their crime scenes with feigned innocence, but you sensed none of those common human traits in her.
She appeared devoid of that childish urge to loiter around such places like someone toying with playthings.
Even sushi—devouring nine pieces while leaving just one—was remarkable work.
Extraordinary—or should we say transcendent?

Even Kodaira, upon hearing someone approach near the scene of a rape, would panic and strangle the woman to death—though murderous, his fear was all too human and evident. But the thickness of this woman’s nerves seemed devoid of any such weakness of her own kind, rendering her nearly impossible to treat as human.

That being said, the fact that she did not inspire as much loathing or disgust as Kodaira was likely due to her lack of human qualities.
In other words, what Kodaira did—after all, if you search the depths of the human soul, it’s something recognizable—could inspire hatred, but Ms. Ota was no trifling human-like being.
If you considered her a fearsome monstrous she-beast, far from hating her, you couldn’t help but admire her imposing warrior-like demeanor.
There was no way to win against her.
She was no opponent for our kind.
Among humans, the only one who could interact with this young lady on equal terms was the monster called war.

In any case, let us trifling humans form bonds with other trifling humans.

★

I generally dislike adding superfluous explanations point by point, but since Mr. Obara Sosuke of the Tokyo News has delivered such an imbecilic critique of last month’s *The Mysterious Woman*, I shall provide supplementary remarks.

While I do believe this Obara Sosuke ranks among critics' most dimwitted specimens—given his utterly careless misreadings of authors' works used as critical foundations—such intellectual malpractice extends beyond Mr．Obara alone．
In *The Mysterious Woman*'s case，one may surgically expose these preposterous misinterpretations；with novels proper，such precision proves unattainable．
However baselessly novelists endure slander rooted in absurd misreadings，counterarguments degenerate into sophistry—mere self-defense posturing．
Thus novelists wisely let such calumnies pass unrebutted，though I deem it imperative to periodically declare critics' idiocy when opportunity permits．
As *The Mysterious Woman* uniquely enables such declarations through logical necessity，I append these elucidatory redundancies．

According to Mr. Obara Sosuke’s critique,

“Detective Ango—ensnared by hints from Yamaguchi, prosecutorial authorities, and journalism—fixates on Ota Nariko and some shadowy man; viewing the case through vulgar lenses that marvel at a criminal who didn’t kill Yamaguchi while failing to suspect Yamaguchi himself.”

he declared.

Those who read last month’s installment likely understand—had you made elementary fifth or sixth graders read that text through its most superficial interpretation, they’d naturally take it at face value exactly as written.
Which it literally was.

However, was it conceivable that those even remotely involved in literature could only read the surface-level text?
Moreover, I had never imagined such an absurd reality might exist—that people who wrote critiques for money could only parse a text’s literal surface.

To begin with, this person was disqualified not merely as a literary scholar but even as a commonsense individual or ordinary citizen—I would say he verged on being a nonsensical fool.
He was conflating the circumstances following Yamaguchi’s arrest with those preceding it.
While declaring Yamaguchi the culprit post-arrest went without saying, he seemed to operate under the belief that unless one explicitly labeled him guilty even when suspicion hadn’t yet arisen, it didn’t qualify as genuine suspicion.
Furthermore, he appeared convinced such definitive assertions were permissible.
I didn’t believe such fools were exactly commonplace, but for one to gain acceptance as a literary critic in Japan—well, that struck me as utterly preposterous.

The fact that I’ve been proclaiming “Mysterious Woman, Mysterious Woman” doesn’t mean I find the woman herself mysterious in the slightest. Where could a Mysterious Woman—a monstrous ox-like apparition—possibly exist in reality?

Even when resting at Yanagi-zushi, the woman remained solely concerned with the time for withdrawing money at the credit union, yet showed no regard whatsoever for the possibility that the crime scene had already been discovered and authorities mobilized.

Even when paying at the Western goods store, she took a full ten minutes to count sixty-two ten-yen bills, attempting to spend as much time as possible to stretch it out until the appointed hour for withdrawing money at the credit union—yet showed no regard whatsoever for the possibility that the crime scene might have already been discovered and authorities mobilized.

That is why I call her the Mysterious Woman.
However, if you read between the lines of my words, isn’t she entirely un-mysterious?
Where could such a Mysterious Woman—a monstrous ox-like creature—possibly exist?
In short, she knew that the crime scene would absolutely not be discovered until 9:30—the very time she was fixated on.
Therefore, she worried not at all about anything other than the time to withdraw money at the credit union, single-mindedly concerned solely with that.
Why did she know that the crime scene would not be discovered until then?
Because the accomplice was Yamaguchi.
Wasn’t it an exceedingly simple and clear matter?

“Even though the criminal hasn’t even been caught yet, you’re a complete fool for thinking you can declare that the culprits are Yamaguchi and Nariko.” Literary scholars are not amateur detectives; having grounds to confirm Yamaguchi and Nariko’s guilt through psychological analysis as part of their professional duty, they have merely expressed it in literary terms—a meaning distinct from boasting of achievements as an amateur detective.

I first pointed out in Yamaguchi’s written account the absence of Nariko’s individuality, the contradictorily excessive focus on male individuality, that Nariko frequently went out back to dispose of trash, that men had come late at night, that she had watched the master count sales proceeds, and so on—highlighting how his observations focused solely on the theory of a male-female accomplice theft. Moreover, these witnesses consisted of him alone, and fundamentally, no one else could see the same things. As for all other matters, his written account lacked any individuality whatsoever. Therefore, I reached my conclusion.

“However, there is no need to search for the man.”
“If you pursue Ota Nariko, there will be plenty.”
“Capture her, and who the man was will naturally become clear.”

Needless to say, this meant the man was Yamaguchi.
The subsequent detailed explanation about the Mysterious Woman served to supplement why the man had to be Yamaguchi.

That is—as previously stated—the woman remained solely concerned with the credit union’s schedule while disregarding the discovery of the crime scene precisely because the man was Yamaguchi.
Furthermore, after having killed four people, calmly erasing evidence at the scene yet failing to eliminate Yamaguchi—the sole witness who had seen the man—was inconceivable; in short, this implied that the man and Yamaguchi were one and the same.

However, one couldn’t state things so clearly while the criminal remained at large.
Even if one were to imply something, one couldn’t do so in such an obvious way that it would be immediately understood.

I had believed that with several eyewitnesses’ solid observations in this case, Ms. Nariko would soon be captured through a montage photo.
However, my sole concern was the possibility that Yamaguchi might kill the woman—should this occur, even if Yamaguchi later became emboldened and used my writings as a pretext, just as his crimes couldn’t be legally proven through physical evidence, I too would lack any material evidence to counter his pretext.
Even if one were to imply Yamaguchi’s crimes, one couldn’t do so in such a blatantly obvious way.
One had to plant foreshadowing capable of obscuring matters even if he fabricated a pretext.

Fortunately, by pursuing Ota Nariko exactly as I had imagined, the man was naturally apprehended. It’s not particularly something I should take pride in. It’s only natural.

Guessing the culprit in actual murder cases was never something literary scholars should do.
Of course, it was only natural for people to indulge in idle chatter about suspects—claiming “it’s that one” or “no, it’s this one”—as a mere hobby. But for literary scholars to treat guessing culprits as their main vocation was an utterly ridiculous and foolish notion.

First off, cases where I correctly identify the criminal are something that occurs perhaps once in ten thousand instances, and this time was precisely that one-in-ten-thousand case.

Generally speaking, ordinary crimes were random crimes—the criminal being an amorphous entity among eighty million or so Japanese people.
Unlike detective novels with their convenient setups where culprits always lurk among twenty or thirty characters—moreover, even murder scenes remained known only to authorities while newspapers relied on mere speculation.
For amateur detectives to pinpoint culprits based on such nebulous materials verged on impossibility.

This time, unusually, because the criminal wore the face of an innocent person and even wrote a memoir, I was able to notice—but this was hardly something unique to me alone.

Generally speaking, experts can each be confidently regarded as remarkable—there’s no mistake in that.
A detective is a detective.
Unlike amateur detectives, real detectives possess immeasurable experience that amateurs lack.
Undoubtedly, most detectives had suspected Yamaguchi.
However, since Yamaguchi—having calmly completed his post-crime cleanup—likely left no physical evidence, pursuing the woman’s whereabouts would have been the natural course of action.
If they captured the woman, they would naturally come to know the man—because that is how it works.
To criticize the National Police Agency for not interrogating Yamaguchi at the House of Representatives misses the point—focusing all efforts on pursuing Ota Nariko was undeniably the proper course.
Mochi belongs to mochi shops.
If left to professionals, there’s generally no mistake.
Generally speaking, the amateur detective approach of indiscriminately rounding up every suspicious individual proves most undesirable.
No matter how long it takes, I want criminals apprehended politely—that is, through logical deduction.

★

Lie detectors likely hold practically zero utility value.
I can't say whether they measure pulse or heart activity, but apparently they attempt to detect lies through some change—perhaps in heartbeat rhythm—using electrical currents.
The principle resembles association reaction experiments.
Without thoroughly studying an individual's personality, such experiments risk grave distortions, and extracting clear evidence from them would prove nearly impossible.

While instantaneous reactions might appear reliable—seeming to expose unfalsifiable human instinct—the truth is that seasoned, composed criminals could likely counterfeit such instinctual responses with ease.

Rather than that, allowing them time to think and having them write a memoir would result in a higher likelihood of revealing their slip-ups—since they’d devise methods that seem logically sound to deceive—and the manner of their exposure would become clear.
However, in cases like Yamaguchi’s—where the very person who discovered the incident was the perpetrator—that’s one thing, but with other suspects, once they claim to have no connection to the incident and present some kind of alibi, that’s the end of it.
Even if you make them write a memoir that doesn’t intersect with the incident, you won’t find a lead.
For example, even if someone were to expound on their state of mind by embedding Mt. Fuji or Buddha or whatnot into a thirty-one-syllable poem, as in Mr. Hirasawa’s memoir, a detective would have no means to handle it, I tell you.

Now that Yamaguchi had been confirmed as the culprit, his memoir appeared to offer various materials worth examining.

Looking back now, it seems utterly absurd—Yamaguchi had claimed it was Asakusa across from Shinjuku to throw them off the woman’s trail.
Looking back now, determining that Shinjuku lay opposite Asakusa was simple enough, but at the time, it had been impossible.
Whether it was Shibuya, Shinagawa, Ikebukuro, Ueno, or some other random location—there had been no way to tell.

However, the mention of Asakusa in this memoir would have served as material for word association tests during Yamaguchi’s lifetime. Yet even here, such tests involve individual differences that prevent definitive conclusions through any fixed formula. Moreover, since the very issues requiring clarification reside within those individual differences themselves, we may safely assume that absolute answers will never materialize. While it might appear that his reference to Asakusa—meant to obscure Shinjuku—could be detected through psychological testing, I believe this would in fact prove nearly hopeless. In detective novels, such feats are possible not only because the tests are overly contrived but also because “definitive judgment” exists as a narrative conceit; however, in reality, one can never conclusively determine guilt until other evidence identifies him as the perpetrator. This stems from inherent vulnerabilities in the examiners’ psychological disposition that resist categorical judgments.

This differed from university psychology laboratory experiments.
After all, determining whether someone was a murderer had to be done before eighty million Japanese witnesses—the weight of responsibility changed entirely.
The burden of this responsibility weighing on investigators manifested as a fatal weakness that cast doubt on every definitive judgment.
This proved an inescapable reality.

That said, while it might have been acceptable internally for Mainichi Shimbun to conclude “Yamaguchi is not the culprit” or for Asahi Shimbun to initially assert “Yamaguchi seems to be the culprit,” explicitly stating such conclusions in print was dangerous in many respects. First and foremost, they deserved censure for their recklessness.

Whether newspapers ought simply to report facts or publicly declare someone like him guilty or innocent had long been debated, but it remained certain that such actions more often spread harm than good. Newspapers engaged in such acts primarily out of ambition—ambition to compete and triumph over rival outlets—but the result saw one adopting the suicide theory for President Shimoyama while another championed the murder theory. Now, occasionally such antics might have been excused as harmless flair, but the basis for these inferences proved flimsy and frivolous to the extreme. Perhaps this very frivolousness was what passed for journalism. What fluttered as lightly as a feather in the wind was neither man nor woman—it might well have been the heart of a journalist.

Every case has its inherent limitations.
For example, in the Shimoyama case, whether it was possible to definitively determine suicide or homicide based on animal experiment results constituted the primary limitation.
We live in a modern age long after civilization and enlightenment began, but science could not be considered omnipotent.
They would crush animals to death.
They examined how the bloodstains splattered.
They examined how they were crushed and severed.
It should have been absolutely impossible to conduct under identical conditions—and yet could it yield an absolutely definitive answer or not?

As I knew nothing about the experimental method itself, its results, or its conclusions, I could say nothing definitive—but imagining it, I was half-convinced and half-doubting. Might it not have been that even with modern scientific methods, a conclusion arose declaring one could not definitively determine whether it was suicide or homicide? Yet if one could have definitively pronounced it suicide or homicide, that would have been splendid beyond compare. The above constitutes the first limitation.

However, as for the Shimoyama Incident—even its first limitation had yet to be elucidated.

All detective work must first clearly discern and confront such limitations.
If clarifying those limitations takes time, then the problem becomes straightforward.
Suicide or homicide—one pursues both lines of inquiry.
Neither possibility should be hastily concluded.

In Hachibotei’s case too，there were multiple limitations.
That the culprit was a male-female accomplice constituted the first limitation.

Ota Nariko was the culprit recognized by all.
Because she came to withdraw the money from the credit union using the stolen passbook.
And there were many witnesses to the fact that she had moved into Hachibotei from that very day.
However, the claim that Ota Nariko had a lover and that it was a joint crime by two people lacked any witnesses other than Yamaguchi.
However, given that Yamaguchi acknowledged this, there was absolutely no mistake in the male-female accomplice theory.
Because if the man described in Yamaguchi’s testimony were fictitious, then Yamaguchi himself would be the culprit.
The above constituted the first limitation.

The second limitation was the fact that Ota Nariko appeared at Yanagizushi around 8:30, at the Western goods store around 9:00, and at the credit union around 9:30.
And it was an inhuman contradiction that she made every effort to loiter as much as possible near the crime scene in order to wait for the time to withdraw money from the credit union.

It was unknown when the incident would be discovered.
Her face had been seen by various customers, and above all, her face had been thoroughly memorized by Yamaguchi.
If she were to encounter Yamaguchi on the street, that would be the end of it—yet why was there no trace of fear toward this possibility? Moreover, she must have known Yamaguchi was still alive.
There were only two answers.
The first was that her accomplice was hiding somewhere in Hachibotei to kill Yamaguchi if he woke up and rose.
The second was that the accomplice was Yamaguchi himself.

If there were a man other than Yamaguchi who remained at Hachibotei with the intent to kill Yamaguchi should he wake up before Ota Nariko withdrew the money, then it would be natural for them to kill Yamaguchi and withdraw. Because if the criminal were calm and bold enough to take the risk of lying in wait until around nine o'clock to kill Yamaguchi should he wake up—all to successfully withdraw 140,000 yen—they would neither forget nor fail to act on the obvious conclusion that killing Yamaguchi would be safer. The only one who saw his face was Yamaguchi. Regarding Ota Nariko as well, the one who could provide the most damaging testimony was Yamaguchi. If they were keeping watch over Yamaguchi until withdrawing 140,000 yen, then they must have been doing so to kill him. The reason I repeatedly asked in last month's issue, "Why didn't the man kill Yamaguchi?" is this.

Ota Nariko appeared at the credit union at 9:30; Yamaguchi appeared at Tsukishima Police Station at 9:30. Even considering this temporal coincidence, the notion that a third man had been keeping watch over Yamaguchi became chronologically untenable. What definitively corroborated this reasoning was Yamaguchi’s memoir published in the Mainichi Shimbun. The journalists—immersed in the whirlpool of events themselves and even meeting Yamaguchi directly—appeared to have missed the truth glaringly laid bare before them.

I wrote "The Mysterious Woman" because it was a rare case where one could reliably deduce the culprit through psychological analysis alone.

Such things are hardly ever encountered.
For an amateur to correctly identify the perpetrator without even visiting the crime scene occurs perhaps once in ten thousand instances.

Immediately after the incident, the Asahi Shimbun came asking who I thought the culprit was, but I refused.
At that time, we had not yet reached a point where such clear deductions were possible.
What state was the crime scene in? Were there footprints? Had someone washed themselves in the kitchen or left traces of blood cleanup? None of this was known.
Without understanding such matters, deduction proves impossible.
However, judging from circumstances reported in the papers, I merely added that the individual Asahi suspected did indeed appear suspicious.
For amateurs to deduce perpetrators immediately following incidents borders on absurdity.
All keys to the case lie at the scene.
Without seeing that—let alone some amateur affecting informed airs—the effort becomes meaningless.
Since this will keep recurring, let me state clearly now: seeking Detective Ango's deductions right after an incident proves futile.
I will not answer.
No, I cannot answer.
Because I lack the capacity to answer.

I cannot match a real detective, but compared to many amateurs, I did possess the discernment befitting a crime novelist.
Where that difference manifested most clearly lay in how I had almost always accurately discerned each case’s inherent individuality and limitations.
Take when Ota Nariko was apprehended and Yamaguchi identified as the culprit—the public raged, demanding why Yamaguchi hadn’t been suspected earlier.
This epitomizes amateur thinking.
This case hinged entirely on pursuing Ota Nariko.
Do that, and the man would naturally come into focus.
They should have pursued Ota Nariko single-mindedly instead of fixating oddly on Yamaguchi.
To their credit, the Metropolitan Police Department did exactly that.
Only journalists clung persistently to Yamaguchi.
All while believing him innocent.
Their discernment proved thoroughly flawed.
Because they failed to grasp the case’s individuality and limitations.

Five years ago, when I first wrote a detective novel, I visited Dr. Asada Hajime’s laboratory and requested that he impart some knowledge of forensic medicine to me.
Dr. Asada was a man of remarkably impartial judgment, less prone to slanted thinking.
It was through this concrete example that I came to understand how such inherent qualities are essential for forensic scientists and detectives—this, above all, has left the deepest impression on me.

You may think all scientists should be like that, but no, no—isn't it natural that groundbreaking scientific work stems from biased thinking?
Detective work isn't like that.
Its boundaries are clearly drawn.
There's no room for originality.
Detective work has no originality.
It resembles clinical practice.
All it requires is an impartial eye with minimal bias.
I maintain this very eye should underpin newspaper reporting too, yet Japanese papers fundamentally lack it—
either recklessly blind like Ms. Ota Nariko, or desperately craving distortion.
An eye forever evading facts within its grasp.
A malady no eyedrops can remedy.
Originality has no place in reporting; one must never skew.

★

I stated that detective reasoning and scientific originality differ, but science too engages in reasoning akin to detective work up to a certain point.
I was made to realize this to an unbearable degree in a train on the Joban Line this March.

I had planned to include “Tadamigawa Dam” in the summer season of *Ango’s Japanese Geography*, which I was serializing in Bungeishunju.
When I made the plan, I was full of vigor, but I would have to wander through uninhabited mountains for at least a week.
I’ve already grown old.
Last month, for that *Japanese Geography* series, I went to Sendai and just climbing the mountain of Aoba Castle’s ruins wore me out.

“I’m done with Tadamigawa!”

At the ruins of Aoba Castle’s Honmaru, I resolutely declared this to the Bungeishunju reporter. Furthermore, when I climbed about two hundred stone steps at a place called Shiogama Shrine, “I’m done with mountain climbing for good!” I firmly reiterated.

But what a strange thing it was.

When I boarded the Joban Line train returning from Sendai, I ended up sharing the same car as Professor Nakaya Ukichiro.

This may be a roundabout way to put it, but I was unaware that Professor Nakaya Ukichiro was an authority on dams and served as chief advisor involved in dam construction projects nationwide.
Tadamigawa was naturally included in this purview.
His current trip to Tokyo was for inspecting the Shinano River Dam, after which he was scheduled to visit Tadamigawa in early April.

“April’s Tadamigawa would make climbing impossible for an amateur like you.”

With that, Professor Nakaya lightly teased me—the one who had thrown in the towel at Aoba Castle—but,

“However, you really must see Tadamigawa for yourself.”
“There are various problems there.”
“Since I plan to go again in July, let’s go together then.”
“They should be conducting experiments using isotopes to study how rocks move during floods.”
“It takes ten days to see everything.”

Ten days—that’s a third of a month.
I’d also have to plan to set aside three or four days afterward.
But I’m not the sort of storyteller who’d pass up such a rare chance to accompany Professor Nakaya—a true authority—and receive his explanations.
Instantly filled with fierce resolve, I made a firm promise for the July trip.

The Professor had formulated a plan to build dams all over Japan. After Tadamigawa would come Kishū. Then Yakushima, in that manner. I too had maintained this curious habit since long ago—whenever I found myself enjoying the mountains, through some twist of causality, I would start thinking of dams. In the depths of Yugawara lay a hot spring resort called Hirokawara. There were only three inns. Two mountain streams converged there and flowed down toward Yugawara. I occasionally worked at an inn called Kamata there in Hirokawara. The Hakone mountains extended to Hirokawara and Yugawara, encircling them before ending at the sea—but if one were to block that area with a dam just about a hundred meters high, a sizable artificial lake would form, I tell you. Red pens, blue pens—if they vanished into the lake’s depths, I wouldn’t mind one bit, I tell you. Oku-Yugawara was a rainy place, I tell you. As I glared at the rain, I considered damming the river flowing below me at the mountain’s exit. When it came to mountains, converting them into lakes was more pristine than having people toil tirelessly on barren land, I tell you. It formed both the basis for creating resources and the basis for respecting humanity. There was no need to merely cultivate ancestral barren lands out of habit, I tell you.

However, when Professor Nakaya said he would build a dam on Yakushima, I was taken aback.
I have never been to Yakushima myself, but in the early 1700s—around the time Arai Hakuseki held political power—there was an Italian missionary from Palermo named Giovanni Battista Sidotti who smuggled himself into Japan prepared to die.
This incident is detailed in Hakuseki’s *Seiyō Kibun*.
Sidotti first set foot on Japanese soil at a place called O-no-ma in Yakushima.
Looking at modern maps, there appears to be a mark indicating a hot spring there.
No such mention exists in contemporary records.
After traveling about four kilometers into the mountains from there, he was discovered and captured by villagers at a place called Matsushita.
To research Sidotti’s case, I had acquired some knowledge of Yakushima through books and maps.

At the center of this island soared Miyanoura-dake, Kyushu’s tallest peak—a mountain nearing two thousand meters in height. The island, nearly circular with this mountain at its heart, had almost no flatland to speak of.
Indeed, this island’s rainfall was the highest in Japan.
Thanks to that tremendous rainfall, the entire mountain was said to be covered in a dense forest of giant Jindai-sugi cedars.
However, to build a dam on an island shaped like an overturned bowl—what could this mean?
“Is there really such an ingenious method?”

When I asked this question in utter astonishment, Professor Nakaya’s reply was remarkably straightforward.

“It’s simple, you know.”
“You wrap bands around the mountain.”
“In multiple tiers.”
“You collect all the rain from the slope and drop it downward.”
“You let it drop sequentially from the upper band to the lower one, you know.”
“Compared to ordinary dams, it actually costs less.”
“Even if we call them bands, there’s no need to completely surround the mountain.”
“You only need to have bands applied to the mountain’s ridges, you see.”

I was astonished at that time. However, I was also profoundly disappointed. I lamented my own ineptitude, indeed.

Science is, up to a point, deduction—this is what I meant, you see. This differs from an original idea like the theory of relativity, you see. It is precisely the domain of deduction, you see. Or perhaps it’s a product of deductive insight akin to devising the method for a locked-room murder, I tell you.

However grand in scale this idea seemed compared to deductive reasoning—I tell you—it had never once crossed my mind to playfully entertain dam designs that involved wrapping bands around all of Yakushima. Upon reflection, such methods precisely constitute experts’ blind spots—the very things an amateur detective would most likely notice. While science may daunt amateurs, matters of this level remain within their grasp. Yet having utterly failed to conceive it myself, I could only lament my own ineptitude.

However, wrapping bands around Yakushima to capture all that enormous rainfall—now that was quite an idea, I tell you.
It was certainly feasible and indeed did not seem to require an enormous cost.
In thinking dams must be vertical walls blocking water—there lay the amateur’s pitiful blind spot of never considering bands.

This matter taught me a significant lesson.
Was my thinking constrained by some fixation?
Every time I contemplated something, I realized I must subject it to such doubt.
Though until then I’d always prided myself on maintaining basic skepticism, my confidence had shattered.
I saw I must probe deeper with my doubts.

Reading Yamaguchi’s written account now, I can grasp his character quite well, I tell you. When he thought to go buy geta and opened the sliding door of the four-and-a-half-tatami room, a voice called out “Tsune-chan,” and startled, at his feet lay Kiko-chan, covered in blood—this passage is his greatest masterpiece among lies. This is no mediocre lie that anyone could come up with. However, if one were to tell such a lie, it would be natural to first rush to a doctor or call a doctor before running to the police—but he hadn’t calculated that far. Yet even if he had rushed to the police instead of a doctor, it wouldn’t necessarily be impossible to view that as a contradiction. When people panic, they can’t always act in such a coherent manner. Rather, the fact that his panicked actions lacked coherence might give the impression that he is not the culprit.

However, that was from the detectives' perspective; the liar themselves ought to have acted with more planning and logical consistency by nature.
The reason Yamaguchi lacked such a logically sound plan was likely because he didn't possess the complex mind of an intellectual criminal.
He had a simple mind, I tell you.
The reporters who had interacted with him were probably tripped up precisely there.

“They were talkative but kind-hearted—the master and mistress.”
“They really doted on me.”
“When I had a cold until two or three days ago，they went out of their way to call a doctor for me.”
“At that time，I was truly happy.”
“During the New Year’s holiday，I took Moto-san (the murdered eldest son，age 11) to Asakusa and showed him a movie and the circus.”
“Moto-san seemed truly happy that it was his first time seeing the circus.”
“I would often go out for coffee with Kiko-chan (the murdered eldest daughter，age 10)，and she often acted affectionately toward me.”

To view it solely as lies intended to cover up the crime was misguided.
There appeared to exist a distinct type of person capable of such expressions.
The sort who, while tearfully telling people things like "My dear father and mother who cherish me," would beat and kick those very parents.
A simple-minded and quick-tempered type, yet oddly sentimental and tenacious—thoroughly mediocre.
This itself was by no means a criminal type.
It was precisely the sort you could find anywhere, I tell you.

I do not view Yamaguchi as having an abnormal personality.
The essence of Yamaguchi, it was said, lay in his anxiety to avoid losing his omnipotence, his lack of confidence, and his inferiority complex.
(Weekly Asahi) However, that is something everyone possesses.
And upon violently discarding the kimono of social decorum, he suddenly flew into a reckless rage, hitched up his hakama, and took a defiant stance.
That too was something everyone harbored.
In Yamaguchi’s case, while his abnormal personality was said to stem from how glaringly those traits manifested, I believed this too contained impulses anyone might act upon given circumstance.

As a literary man, I cannot think otherwise.
It is not that a common type of person abruptly engages in such actions.
There had been a particular course that led to that point.
A novel is also about writing such a course.
What emerges there is merely ordinary people having become so due to particular circumstances, leading to the conclusion that abnormal personalities hardly exist.

I find it strange that people only read and quote works by Goethe, Nietzsche, and Dostoevsky—all of whom had mental illnesses. Why do they not closely study Chekhov—the one who wrote about the most ordinary people, who depicted both mundane and abnormal deeds of sound, ordinary individuals? The writer who captured real humans must be Chekhov. No one has portrayed human ordinariness with such clarity and simplicity; shift your perspective slightly, and it’s as though he declares all ordinary people mad with abnormal personalities. Chekhov stands as history’s supreme knower of humanity. Humans cannot exist severed from their environment. Though it may seem psychiatrists mustn’t view patients divorced from surroundings, they typically examine only illnesses while ignoring context—for patient and disease types can be discerned without environmental consideration. Illnesses can be cured without understanding humans. Among psychiatrists, only Freud truly grasped human nature, I tell you.

However, the professor of psychiatry at Tokyo University told me:
“Psychoanalysis isn’t a discipline for curing illnesses.”
This was indeed precisely correct.
When it comes to methods for curing what ails psychiatric medicine itself, I must say Dr. Uchimura’s approach strikes me as more valid than Freud’s.
Within such confines, psychiatrists need only understand diseases—not human beings.

Yet in cases like the Happotei Incident, I find psychiatrists ill-suited to explain perpetrators.
They may comprehend illnesses, but grasp humanity? Not a whit, I tell you.
Such explanations must be Chekhovian in essence—unless one examines environment and human as an indivisible whole, their true nature will forever elude capture.

As for the question of how far Ms. Ota Nariko had cooperated, Detective Ango had absolutely no clue.