Pathway to Japanese Literature

The Vanished Man

"I wonder who the mistress of this house really is."

Whenever he passed by this house, Officer Junsa Namikawa would habitually find himself thinking that.
A small house surrounded by a wooden fence, but it was the solitary residence of a young woman renowned as a stunning beauty.
The police's door-to-door survey roster listed her as "Hirume Nanako, twenty-eight years old, occupation: pianist," but it was an unfamiliar-sounding name.
It was true that the sound of a piano could occasionally be heard, but the place was more famous for the ferocious Shepherd dog that would constantly bark its head off.

Today too, the Shepherd dog was barking its head off.
Then came a high-pitched woman’s voice.

“What did you say?!”
“A package… I don’t know anything about it! Are you threatening me?!”

Officer Junsa Namikawa involuntarily stopped in his tracks.
The voices were only intermittently audible, but what fragments reached him sounded anything but calm.
The woman’s tone carried a threatening edge that meant serious business.

The man’s voice seemed to drone on in response, too low and muffled to make out anything distinct.
They appeared to be confronting each other at the front entrance.
Once more came the woman’s voice.

“I don’t know anything!”
“What is this? You’re making baseless accusations!”
“I’ll report you to the police!”

Upon hearing this voice, Officer Junsa Namikawa, who had been outside the gate, reflexively flung the gate open with a clatter and strode inside.
He thought the solitary mistress of this house must surely have been pleased.

Yet the situation turned unexpectedly awkward.
In the entryway's earthen-floored area stood two men.

The mistress Nanako had been glaring down at the two men from inside the room in a tense standoff, but when the uniformed officer barged in, among the three people who turned simultaneously, it was Nanako who displayed more panic than anyone else.

“May I help you?”

Breathing heavily, she demanded sharply.

“I happened to be passing by when I heard someone say they’d report this to the police, so I rushed in without thinking. Is there anything I can assist with?”

“No, it’s nothing at all.”
“It was just a joke between us close associates, trying to be friendly, you know.”

“Is that so?
“To my ears, it didn’t sound like a joke…”

Officer Junsa Namikawa observed the two men.
One was a burly young man with a playboy air about him, but his suit was top-notch—clearly expensive attire.
The other was a sickly-looking, intellectual-type man with glasses, shivering as he thrust both hands deep into his overcoat pockets.
On the earthen floor lay a leather Boston bag.
For door-to-door salesmen, their clothing wasn’t bad.

“It’s nothing at all, so please take your leave.”

Having been told this by Nanako, he couldn’t very well stay any longer, so he had no choice but to cut his observations short and withdraw.

"There's something strange about this combination," he thought. "She said they were close comrades in their inner circle, but they didn’t seem that way. What could be inside that Boston bag? Somehow, it’s bothering me."

Officer Junsa Namikawa was a forty-five-year-old local legend who never rose through the ranks. Having long been drilled in that so-called sixth sense, he suddenly recalled it.

"That's it," he realized. "This must be what they call the sixth sense!"

One block ahead, turning at the alley behind the general store lay Officer Junsa Namikawa’s home. He had been making his way home looking forward to a bath and dinner, but this was no time for such comforts. Alright—time to disguise himself and give chase! He hurriedly rushed into his house.

“Get my suit and overcoat ready immediately.”
“Put off preparing dinner.”
“Hey, Yuriko, you get ready to go out too.”
“Let’s tail a suspicious character.”

Namikawa’s daughter Yuriko was also a policewoman.
Since she happened to be off-duty and at home, he had her change into Western attire, creating the appearance of an office-worker couple on their way home after closing time for the day.
When they hurriedly returned, fortunately, it seemed the two men were still at Nanako’s house.
The dog was growling low and continuously.
Apparently, the two men had gone inside.

“If they were let inside, maybe they’re not suspicious visitors after all?”

“Could be,” he said. “But we’ve come this far—let’s see how it plays out.”

Hiding in the shadows and lying in wait, the two men soon appeared outside the gate.
The playboy-type one carried that Boston bag slung over his shoulder.

The two men walked in the direction opposite to the train street, towards the desolate area.

“If they’re heading that direction, there must be a residence within walking distance.”
“Let’s nail them down.”

“Yes, let’s do that.”

The two began tailing them, maintaining a gap of about fifty meters.
Chatting idly while pretending to be ordinary pedestrians without a care in the world, they continued tailing them.
Apparently, this approach was a mistake.

The two men showed no sign of stopping.
They finally passed through Setagaya Ward and entered Shibuya Ward.
From there, where the hill began, lay a district of grand estates—though most had been ravaged by wartime bombing.
Crossing this hill brought one out toward Shibuya’s bustling streets.

For an office worker to get off the train in Setagaya and walk all the way home to Shibuya Ward was odd.
To return home to this area, one had to get off at another stop.
Officer Namikawa and his daughter exchanged glances that said We’re in trouble.

“They might have caught on,” he said. “But it’s fishy that those bastards are walking this far without taking the train. They might suddenly split up and run in two directions—when that happens, let’s tenaciously pursue the one with the Boston bag.”

“Did you bring the pistol?”
“I have it.”

They finally reached the grand estate district on the hill.
A single estate spanned thousands of tsubo in area, and among them were mansions exceeding ten thousand.
High stone walls twisted and turned endlessly, creating a desolate place where even during the day there was hardly any pedestrian traffic.
The stone walls and garden trees remained as they were in the past, but many of the mansions within the walls had burned down without a trace.

The two men turned along Ishizaka.
The moment they turned, a loud thud echoed.

“There!”

The officer and his daughter ran desperately.
Feeling self-conscious about their clumsy pursuit, they had allowed some distance to grow between them—a miscalculation that would prove disastrous.
When they finally rounded the corner, they found the playboy-type man just then hoisting the intellectual-looking man onto his shoulders to push him up over the high wall.
The moment the parent and child recognized this, the intellectual-looking man had vanished inside the wall.

Officer Namikawa took out his pistol from under his overcoat,

“Hands up! Police!”

The remaining man showed no sign of fleeing and raised his hands as if nothing had happened,

“What’s this about? I’m not a suspicious person.”

“Where’s the Boston bag?”

“Ain’t got nothin’ like that.”

The first loud thud had been the sound of the Boston bag being thrown inside the stone wall.
Officer Namikawa noticed this and found himself looking up at the high wall, torn between apprehending this man or pursuing the one who’d vaulted into the estate.
That sealed their fate.

Suddenly, his arm was struck—the moment he felt searing, fiery pain, the pistol in his hand discharged and fell to the ground. The moment he was struck in the solar plexus, he collapsed backward. At the same instant, Yuriko was struck across the face and thrown to the pavement.

Yuriko endured the pain and followed the sound of retreating footsteps with her eyes.
The man suddenly veered into a narrow path on the opposite side of the stone wall and disappeared.

About two minutes later, a patrol officer who had rushed over at the sound of the gunfire helped Yuriko and her father to their feet.
The patrol officer, having heard the circumstances,

“I see.”
“In that case, searching for the man inside this wall would be quicker.”
“Now that you mention it, there are some fierce Dobermans and Shepherds in this estate.”
“As long as those dogs are loose in the garden, that man will get himself half-killed.”
“Did you not hear any such sounds?”

However, from the moment the pistol went off with a flash and fell to the ground, all the neighborhood dogs began barking in unison.
When they heard the barking, they realized dogs filled every corner of the area—near and far.
Most critically, they couldn’t pinpoint any single dog’s voice amid the cacophony.

“It’s still eight o’clock, so let’s request permission to search the estate.”
“Since it’s the house of a Chinese man named Chen, it might be a bit noisy, though.”

They went around to the front gate and requested entry.
There was a guardhouse where a middle-aged Japanese maid appeared.
After contacting the main residence, they were unexpectedly granted permission to search the grounds with surprising ease—though true to warnings, fearsome Dobermans and Shepherds stood at the entrance, poised to pounce if anyone stepped inside.

“Would you leash those dogs?”

“Yes, I’ll leash them right now.”
“Had you left them unleashed all this time?”

“Yes, that’s right. We let them loose every night after dark.”

“So, that guy’s been taken care of.”

However, though they searched the garden thoroughly, there was no sign of the man anywhere. There were no signs of a struggle with the dogs. Only some disturbance was noticeable at the spot where he had jumped down from the wall.

“Oh? What could this be?”

Yuriko, who had been meticulously searching with her flashlight, found a small glinting object among the tree roots at the spot where the man had jumped down and picked it up.

“A gold wristwatch.”
“A ladies’ bedbug wristwatch.”
“Would a man wear a bedbug wristwatch on his arm?”

It was a strange and mysterious find.

Nanako had been killed.

The next day, Officer Namikawa, who was off duty, was still asleep past noon due to the pain from being struck in the solar plexus.
Then, he was shaken awake by Yuriko, who had come flying back.

“It’s terrible! Hirume Nanako was killed! She was killed last night. Those two are the culprits.”

Namikawa forgot his pain and leapt to his feet.

Yuriko had been struck on the jaw and cut her lip, her jaw swollen—the beautiful policewoman’s face now looked utterly wretched. She wanted to take the day off because she didn’t want anyone to see her face, but with last night’s report to make, when she went to the station, it was in an uproar over the discovery of Nanako’s murder.

“Since you’re the only one who saw the culprit’s face, they’re saying you need to come right away!”

“So they’ve decided those two are the culprits?”

“It seems they have conclusive evidence.”
“And they’ve apparently uncovered all sorts of major developments too.”
“The murdered Nanako was an unexpected heavyweight.”
“The mysterious female boss of the underworld—Miss Nankin.”

“Is that true?”

The pain in his solar plexus vanished, and Namikawa hurriedly put on his clothes.

Around that time, a large-scale smuggler of bedbug wristwatches emerged, operating primarily in Tokyo and Yokohama. This was a stunning peerless beauty. She would materialize without warning at prearranged clandestine locations, casually pull out vast quantities of bedbug wristwatches from her bag, exchange them for cash, then disappear like smoke. Two young bodyguards constantly attended her, fingers resting on pistol triggers throughout every transaction until its conclusion. They occasionally handled narcotics too. Though none knew her origins or true identity, her underworld associates referred to her as Miss Nankin. The authorities had finally succeeded in infiltrating a spy and confirmed Miss Nankin’s existence, but remained ignorant of both smuggling routes and even her residence or real name.

However, from beside the murdered Nanako’s corpse emerged a multitude of significant items that seemed set to unravel the mystery of Miss Nankin.

Nanako had been killed by having narcotics injected into her arm.
In her kimono, she lay dead peacefully as if asleep, not a hair out of place.
Were it not for the stolen goods, this might have been considered a suicide.

Yet when the police doctor examined Nanako’s corpse, he gasped aloud in shock.
Her flesh had hardened with countless injection marks covering both arms and thighs.
She was a habitual narcotics user.
From the closet emerged numerous morphine ampoules that proved it beyond doubt.

It was thought that the two culprits had likely told Nanako they would inject her with narcotics, only to instead administer something far more potent.
However, Patrol Officer Namikawa doubted that.

“It’s true Nanako did claim the two men were insiders,” he thought, “but given how they were glaring at each other and arguing in the entranceway, I can’t imagine them letting those men administer an injection or even her injecting herself right before their eyes.”

However, the various items discovered in Nanako’s small house proved both utterly unexpected and indicative of grave facts.

In the closet were several foreign-made canned fruit juices.
There was also one empty can.
Yet this empty can showed no traces or smells suggesting it had ever contained fruit juice.

There was a large tin can that seemed to have been used to ship numerous canned goods, but the number of cans retrieved from the closet amounted to less than a third of that. Moreover, the remaining canned goods could not be found in Nanako’s house. What was even more surprising was that something resembling wrapping paper from the canned goods shipment had appeared, but it showed that the package had been sent to Nanako via airmail from Hong Kong to Haneda. And indeed, as evidence that it had been sent from Hong Kong, a great number of Hong Kong-issued newspapers—apparently used for wrapping—had been stuffed deep into the closet.

But there was something even more unexpected.
From inside desk drawers, sewing boxes, and even pen cases, a total of fifty-three bedbug wristwatches had appeared unceremoniously.

Beside the corpse, Nanako’s handbag had been rummaged through and discarded, but inside it, one bedbug wristwatch had been overlooked and remained.
It seemed the culprit had likely stolen only the bedbug wristwatches that had been in the handbag and made off with them.

“So Hirume Nanako was Miss Nankin?”
“Indeed, even in death, her beauty was such that it sent a shudder through you and made you want to cling to her.”

“So of the canned goods arriving by plane from Hong Kong, about one-third were genuine fruit juice, and the remaining two-thirds were bedbug wristwatches.”

“So that explains the mystery of why the culprit brought a Boston bag.”

When they expanded their investigation to include even Haneda Customs and deliverymen from related agencies, they found this package had been delivered to Nanako that same morning.
However, it was discovered similar packages had arrived from Hong Kong five times total starting about four months prior.

Still, Patrol Officer Namikawa felt something didn’t quite add up.

“When I involuntarily stopped,” he said, “Nanako shouted these words.”
“A package… I don’t know anything about that… Are you threatening me? —That was roughly what she meant.”

“In other words—since *the culprit* knew about *the bedbug wristwatches’* arrival and came *to retrieve them*, *she* must’ve tried *to deceive them* by claiming *such a package* hadn’t arrived yet.”
“That’s the very reason Nanako was killed.”

When stated like that, everything seemed to align perfectly.
However, for some unprovable reason, a sense that something was wrong somewhere clung stubbornly to Namikawa’s mind and refused to leave.
Then something emerged that partially substantiated that his hunch wasn’t entirely baseless.

Only the Namikawa father and son had seen the culprit, but based on their impressions, a composite sketch was created.
Though questionable due to Patrol Officer Namikawa being its sole witness regarding the intellectual-looking man with glasses, their combined observations gradually formed such an accurate likeness of the playboy-type youth that both investigators emphatically declared its striking resemblance.

When shown this composite sketch to Katsumata—a businessman who had been Nanako’s patron until about half a year prior—

“As for this man, I saw him coming and going to Nanako’s place three or four times.”

“Your partner was with you, wasn’t he?”

“No, what I saw was always just this man alone.”

“What business did he have coming and going?”

“In fact, it was upon realizing this that I gradually resolved to part ways with Nanako—this man had been coming to push morphine on her.”
“Since morphine was her lifeline, it can be said Nanako had reached a state where she couldn’t live without this man.”

“So, a lover then.”

“No.”
“At least while I was her patron, there was no indication this man was her lover.”
“When I say Nanako couldn’t live without him, I mean morphine was her lifeline.”
“And from what I observed, their relationship seemed strictly business.”

“What were Ms. Nanako’s living expenses?”

“The fixed stipend I provided was fifty thousand yen monthly—with extras, perhaps seventy or eighty thousand. But she economized even on household help for her morphine costs, always barely making ends meet.”

With this testimony, their previous assumptions had begun to look dubious. Someone of Miss Nankin’s stature shouldn’t be scraping by like that. The amount she was estimated to have earned up to that point likely exceeded 100 million yen.

Admittedly, Miss Nankin had only surfaced on the smuggling line about five months prior—after Nanako’s separation from Katsumata—yet even now, Nanako’s closet contained nothing noteworthy aside from canned fruit juices and morphine ampoules. For a beauty who should have treated her wardrobe as her lifeline, there were no clothes to speak of—the kimono she wore resembled a lone set. It appeared she had even sold off her piano, leaving no trace of it whatsoever. It was unthinkable that Miss Nankin—while trafficking narcotics herself—would be scraping by after selling off all her possessions to fund her drug habit.

“It looks like your hunch was right, Dad. I think there’s a hidden underside to this case that hasn’t surfaced yet.”

When Yuriko said this to him, Namikawa flushed sheepishly.

“I’m not confident my hunch was right. It’s just that I feel something’s off, but I can’t figure out what exactly is off about it, Ah.”

“Shall I tell you what’s strange?”

“Hmm.”

“The mystery of why the culprit who leaped into Mr. Chen’s estate wasn’t attacked by the ferocious guard dogs.”
“I looked into the Chen family’s Dobermans and Shepherd dogs.”
“They’re exceptionally well-trained dogs that underwent over a year of training at a police dog training center.”
“Additionally, inside they keep Boston Terriers and Boxers—small but fierce breeds.”
“It’s such a fearsome place that strangers can’t even set foot inside that estate.”

“Since the garden’s large, dogs in one corner probably wouldn’t notice something happening in another corner.”

“That might be how it is, but…”

Yuriko eventually called out brightly.

“I’ll just take the chance.”
“My intuition feels vague too, but I can’t shake this feeling that we can’t just abandon it.”
“I’m going to storm into the Chen residence.”

The swelling on Yuriko’s face had apparently subsided, restoring her girlishly cute appearance from before.

Beauty and Grace

Yuriko went in ordinary Western attire befitting a daughter, but she did not conceal her status as a policewoman.

“Regarding a suspect from an incident who fled into this estate the other night and remains missing, I’ve come to request your cooperation—I would like to meet with the master.”

“The master’s away on business in Taiwan at present.”

“Is there someone acting as his proxy?”

“There’s the young miss, but whether she’ll agree to meet you…”

“Are there no other family members?”

“There’s no wife, and no young master either.”
“The males here are just dogs for now.”

“Please do ask Miss to agree to meet with me.”

“I can’t stand cops, but well—since she’s a woman—I’ll pass her along.”

However, permission was granted surprisingly easily, and she was ushered into the estate.
This house too had been burned down in the war, and Mr. Chen had leased the land to erect a neat, compact Western-style mansion.
The number of rooms was about ten, and compared to the garden, it wasn't such a large house.

Led into the parlor, Yuriko involuntarily caught her breath at Miss Chen’s beauty.
Her cheeks flushed naturally as she fumbled through her unpolished English,

“This is rather sudden, and I do apologize.
“I’m a policewom—”

As she began to say this, Miss Chen smiled warmly and—

“Please speak in Japanese.
“I’m quite skilled in Japanese—as much as any Japanese person.
“Because I was raised in Japan.
“You’re really a policewoman?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“My, what an adorable policewoman!
“Have you ever caught a male criminal before?”

“No, not yet though.”

“You must have been worried coming alone into a Chinese estate with ferocious dogs prowling about.”

“Yes. That’s why—when I met you, Miss—I was so dazzled.”

“How clever of you.”
“I’ll answer anything within my ability, so please state your business.”

“Regarding the suspect who fled into this estate the other night and remains missing—I can’t understand why the Dobermans and Shepherd dogs that should have been patrolling the garden let the intruder slip by.”

Miss Chen nodded as if in full agreement.

“That really is a curious thing, isn’t it? But it seems dogs aren’t as smart or perceptive as strangers might imagine. That’s the owner’s view.”

“If it were a man who regularly visits your household, would the dogs let an intruder pass?”

“If they were particularly close to the dogs, you see? But speaking of men familiar enough for the dogs to overlook—there’s likely no one besides my father.”

“Isn’t your Father currently in Japan?”

“Yes. Father has been in Taiwan for six months now. But in these chaotic times, international people do tend to be rather elusive, don’t they? Perhaps he might have returned to Japan without my knowledge. If Father were that intruder, he’d be around sixty years old—a silver-haired gentleman of about five feet five inches.”

“The suspect is said to be around thirty years old, with a height of approximately five feet three inches or shorter.”

“Then it’s not Father. Regardless of height, his age probably wouldn’t be questioned anyway.”

“Did you notice any signs of someone intruding into the estate that night?”

“It seems I hadn’t particularly noticed anything until you began searching through the garden.”
“I was engrossed in reading, you see.”

“What about after we left?”

“Well.”
“No, there wasn’t anything like that either.”

Yuriko’s questions had run their course at that point.
With such a pure and lovely young lady before her, any further questions about an elusive criminal would be futile.
Yet in the end, she mustered extraordinary courage and resolutely asked.

“You must think this question terribly impolite, but given your earlier mention of ‘chaotic times,’ I beg your forgiveness.”
“The truth is, the suspect who fled into this estate is wanted for smuggling.”
“When speaking of smuggled goods, common sense dictates that before reaching Japanese hands, one first considers foreigners.”
“The reason I visited your household was because I had expectations tied to that.”
“Having met you, Miss, I lost that expectation, but just to be certain, please allow me to ask.”
“To be honest,”
“Isn’t your father involved in smuggling operations?”

There’s such a thing as being too honest.
To others she couldn’t have spoken so bluntly—but precisely because Miss Chen was so breathtakingly likable that it stole one’s breath away—she had grown overly familiar and found no other way than to state it outright.

Miss Chen blinked her eyes like a pigeon startled by a bean gunshot but glared gently at Yuriko,

“Even if it were true—that ‘yes’—no one would ever say such a thing.”
“Oh! Why ever would you suddenly ask such an audacious question?”

“Well, that’s… it’s because of what you said earlier.”
“In these chaotic times, international people do tend to be rather elusive.”

“How perceptive you are, Japanese policewoman.”

“So… it’s true after all? Oh! I’m sorry.”

“There’s no need to apologize. In these chaotic times, international people coming to work in other countries likely have no other trade anyway. Your hunch might be correct, but smuggled goods range from best to worst. There might even be smuggling that governments or other forces secretly encourage.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s quite all right.”
“So if Father were involved—what then?”
“That’s enough.”

Yuriko covered her mouth, suppressing a laugh that threatened to burst out as she stood up.

“I may come asking strange questions again—would you meet with me?”

“Yes yes… Come whenever you like.” Miss Chen’s cultured voice carried an ironic lilt. “Not just for official police business.”

“Thank you.”

Yuriko rushed outside excitedly, completely absorbed.

When she began walking toward Shibuya Station, she was called from behind.
It was her father.

“I was worried, so I kept tabs from the shadows.”
“How’d it shake out?”

“I’ll tell you once we’re home.”

Yuriko took her father’s hand and walked with flushed cheeks, swinging it like a child on a school outing.

Father’s Deduction

After returning home, Yuriko recounted to her father what had transpired at the Chen residence.

Father listened to Yuriko’s story with a genuinely surprised look, but then suddenly muttered forlornly.

“Women are like that, I guess.”

“How come?”

“Even someone as steady as you can get so carried away once you lose your cool—that’s what I mean.”
“I mean…”
“You must’ve gone out there dead set on answers.”
“Starting from that ‘brilliant’ question about why the guard dogs didn’t attack the intruder—”

“Calling it ‘brilliant’—oh Dad, you’re mocking me.”
“You’re the one who said if someone jumped down on the opposite side of where the dogs were stationed, in such a sprawling estate, they might not notice—even though you said that yourself!”

“I did say that.”
“But then I realized something.”
“Seems your question might’ve actually been getting closest to the mark.”

“Rather, it had completely missed the mark.”
“If things seem too plausible-sounding, there’s a danger we’ll forget the crucial reality of coincidence.”

Father shook his head forlornly.

"I was so worried about you that the whole time you were inside the Chen residence, I kept thinking about this case—not for the investigation's sake, but yours."
"That's how I noticed something terrifying I'd been too caught up to see before."
"And after hearing your account, that conviction only grew stronger."
"Come on now."
"Let's go confirm what I believe."

"Where are we going?"

“Don't worry.”
“It's not the Chen residence.”
“We're going to the police.”
“And there's something I want to show you.”

Father and daughter went to the police.
And where Father took his daughter was before the evidence from this case.

“There are fifty-five bedbug wristwatches here.”
“Fifty-four came from Nanako’s house, but one was picked up at the spot where the criminal jumped down within the Chen estate.”
“Can you tell which one it is?”

“I can tell. It’s the one with the wristband.”
“That’s right.”

Next, Father took out the victim's crime scene photos and showed them to his daughter.

“Take a look at this photo.”
“Do you notice anything?”

It was Nanako’s peacefully deceased upper body.
Since she had died from an injection, the sleeve of her left arm was rolled up near the shoulder, but there was nothing particularly unusual otherwise.

“Doesn’t look like there’s anything particularly noticeable.”

“Alright, next up—this one.”

Father opened the bound witness statements and located a specific section.

“Read this part here.”

It was the testimony of a nearby watch dealer.
According to it, that afternoon Nanako had come to sell one bedbug wristwatch.
With the money from selling it, she had then bought a watch wristband and returned.
The watch dealer testified that since she had sold a watch, there should have been one extra unnecessary wristband; yet because she had come back after buying a wristband, he found it extremely peculiar.

“Well... The watch dealer must have found it strange, don’t you think?”
“Don’t you find it strange?”
“But she bought it because she didn’t have one, right?”

“Of course. Look—isn’t that wristband wrapped around Nanako’s left arm along with the bedbug wristwatch when she was injected?”

“I suppose so.”

“Then, what about this bedbug wristwatch?”

Father said this while pinching the band of the bedbug wristwatch he had picked up at the Chen residence and dangled it before her.
Yuriko’s complexion gradually paled.
Yuriko involuntarily gripped the edge of the table tightly.

“So what are you saying, Dad?”

“Quit being stubborn.”

Father returned the bedbug wristwatch with the wristband to its original place.
The fifty-four discovered at Nanako’s house were watches alone, with no wristbands attached.

“Your intuition is splendid.
I remember the words you muttered the moment you picked up this watch in Chen’s garden that night.
‘A man with bedbug wristwatches—that’s odd,’ you muttered.
However, the next day, Nanako’s corpse was discovered, and bedbug wristwatches appeared in such numbers that they seemed to rot the room.
Because of this, the peculiarity of the bedbug wristwatch found within the Chen residence suddenly diminished, and everyone casually came to assume it was only natural for one or two bedbug wristwatches to be dropped wherever the criminal had walked.
Of course, I too had been like that.
Finally, today, I noticed that only the bedbug wristwatch picked up there has a wristband attached.”

Yuriko shouted impatiently.

“So what are you trying to say?”

Father's face tightened.

“That’s no attitude for an officer.”
“So it goes without saying—you know this full well.”
“The one who fled into Chen’s garden was unquestionably a woman dressed as a man.”
“The criminal didn’t drop a stolen bedbug wristwatch—it was her personal belonging, the very one she wore on her wrist.”
“With Nanako’s own bedbug wristwatch still fastened to her arm, there’s no other possible conclusion—don’t you agree?”

“A wealthy young lady wouldn’t need to kill people and steal things, would she?”

“I considered that too.”
“But it’s precisely because you’ve been so dazzled by Miss Chen’s beauty that I gained a new lead.”
“Isn’t Miss Nanking said to be a peerless beauty?”
“How about it?”
“So—aren’t you starting to get it even a little?”

“I’m not even starting to get it.”

“Alright, alright.”
“You’ll understand soon enough.”
“Anyway, I’m the only one who saw the face of the man who fled into that estate.”
“No matter how much darkened greasepaint they’ve smeared on or what glasses they wear—if I get to inspect them up close, I’ll know.”

Miss Chen's Confession

Detective Namikawa had told only his daughter about his theory but had not yet confided in anyone else. Confiding in these warhorses required utmost caution—if his hunch proved right, it would become the most resounding success of his career. For him, this was the greatest case since birth; the more he pondered it, the more his mind churned with anticipation. Pressing down his fluttering heart, he paced aimlessly through the police station while painstakingly crafting his strategy.

During that time, he failed to notice that his daughter’s figure had vanished somewhere.

Yuriko had slipped out of the station unnoticed and was already seated facing Miss Chen in the entrance of the Chen residence.
She had arrived there half in a daze.

Even Miss Chen had turned pale.
Yet when Yuriko finished explaining her father’s deduction, Miss Chen quietly took her hand and gripped it.

“Thank you.”
“Ms. Yuriko.”
“Truly, I’m glad.”
“Even my own mother never cared for me like you have, Ms. Yuriko.”

Because Miss Chen teared up, Yuriko also teared up,

“So... it was really true?”

“Oh my, you rushed here even though you knew full well.”
“Miss Nanking is indeed me.”
“And the accomplice who killed Ms. Nanako is indeed me.”
“My father is in Hong Kong, not Taiwan.”
“And we were transporting bedbug wristwatches and narcotics into Japan.”
“As our smuggling routes were gradually being uncovered and becoming troublesome, we devised a new method.”
“It was about finding drug addicts and using narcotics as bait to turn them into temporary receivers for smuggled goods.”
“Ms. Nanako was one of those recipients.”
“However, that day, she secretly opened the cargo, learned its contents, and blinded by greed, denied its arrival.”
“Eventually, when the narcotics were running out, my associate injected her as he had occasionally done for Ms. Nanako before, but he—terrified that her defection would expose our new smuggling route—ended up killing her by administering an excessive dose without her realizing it.”

Miss Chen had regained her composure.
And then, even managing to smile, she continued speaking.

“I served as my father’s partner and controlled hundreds of millions of yen—but when he returned to Japan this time, I meant to kill him.”
“In these chaotic times, my heart turned to stone.”
“I wanted to amass wealth and exact revenge.”
“I had to take vengeance on those who tormented me and those who didn’t—but most of all, on my father.”
“Because he isn’t my father.”
“He’s my husband.”
“I’m one of those women bought with money as a concubine.”
“And I’m Japanese.”

Miss Chen tightly gripped Yuriko’s hand and stood up.
Then she smiled.

“Please let me bury my Japanese name and true identity with me forever in the grave.”
“I will now write a confession identical to what I’ve just said and die, but I refuse to write that I’m Japanese and his wife.”
“Pride forbids it.”
“Though I’ve confessed only to you, if I were to die while deceiving even you, I couldn’t endure the loneliness beyond death.”

Leaving Yuriko frozen in bewilderment, Miss Chen ascended the stairs to her room with quiet steps.