Pathway to Japanese Literature

Author: Makino Itsuma

1

Celestine, the proprietress of Hotel Amsterdam, startled by the waiter’s unusual demeanor as he came running down from the third floor, emerged from the front desk by the entrance.

In a rapid-fire Parisian manner,

“What are you panicking about, Paul?”

The waiter Paul, also in a characteristically Parisian manner, calmly widened his eyes,

“I took breakfast up to Third Floor, Room 14, but the door was firmly shut. No matter how much I knocked, there was no response.”

“Third Floor, Room 14? — Oh no!”
“Well, that English gentleman—Mr. Taylor—hmm, must be sleeping or something.”
“Paul, come with me and see.”

“What a troublesome Englishman!” With a click of her tongue, proprietress Celestine grabbed the knee of her hakama and led the way up the stairs.
She meant to rouse him herself.

But Taylor was always an early riser and punctilious.
What on earth happened this morning?
"I hope there hasn't been some mistake—" With this faint unease lingering in her mind, they soon found themselves before Room 14 on the third floor.

Indeed, even when they knocked hard enough to break the door, the room remained deathly silent.
Since the door was locked from the inside, Madame inserted a hairpin into the keyhole, dropped the key to the other side, and unlocked it with her own master key.

At the same moment, a terrible scream tore from Madame Celestine’s lips, and she collapsed into Paul’s arms behind her.
A ghastly scene had been waiting inside.
The two discoverers—far from entering—no sooner glimpsed it than tumbled down the stairs as if fleeing and called the nearby police.
From Lomon Street precinct came Inspector Maupert with subordinates in tow.
Guided by Madame Celestine—trembling like quivering jelly—the group clattered up to the third floor.
Madame kept shouting breathlessly.

“Il est mort, il est mort—He’s dead! He’s dead!”
“He’s dead!”

It was around 10:00 a.m. on October 8, 1906.

In Paris's Lomon Street, there was a hotel called Hôtel Damsterdamm—the Amsterdam Hotel.
The ownership had changed hands, but it continued operating under the same name.
The British jeweler Bruce Taylor had come from South Africa to Paris and lodged at this hotel on October 5, three days before the incident occurred.
Taylor was a man who had come to Paris's market to sell South African diamonds, carelessly wrapping finished stones and uncut ore in paper like pebbles and stuffing them into every pocket on his person.
It may seem careless, but this was the safest method of carrying them, and he never even removed his clothes to sleep.
In other words, he literally lived in constant company with the diamonds.

The room was Third Floor, Room 14—a spacious yet neat bedroom with two windows overlooking Lomon Street's bustling thoroughfare.
Bruce Taylor spoke no French and seldom ventured out.
Autumn Paris hung thick with clouds, dark rains frequently sweeping through its streets.
Each day found Taylor seated in a corner of the smoking room, conversing with Miniel van der Velde—the Dutch hotel owner—about matters like the Dutch Cape in South Africa through English peppered with Dutch phrases.
Though typically taciturn, Van der Velde appeared unusually voluble when engaged by Bruce Taylor.
Taylor would regularly produce his personal gem collection, laying out the stones before Van der Velde's captivated gaze.
The proprietor of Hotel Amsterdam had himself once been a diamond merchant, possessing both profound interest and seasoned expertise in these stones.

The previous evening, Taylor had gone to bed early.
At that time there were no other guests on the third floor besides Taylor in Room 14.
A quiet night passed before morning arrived on the eighth.
What they called a "Continental breakfast"—invariably coffee and croissants—was served each morning.
At his usual time waiter Paul had brought this meal to Taylor's room; but receiving no response despite repeated calls and knocks—as previously recounted—he descended to summon Madame Celestine from her front desk station thereby leading them both back up where they made their grim discovery.

Hotel Amsterdam was an old-fashioned building.
Everything about it was old-fashioned.
In the wall, a sturdy iron hook had been driven in, with an iron rod for hanging heavy window drapes placed over it.
Bruce Taylor had hanged himself using the thick braided cord meant for drawing back the curtains, dangling dead from that hook.
His face had swollen unnaturally blue, those lifeless eyes wide open and fixed in a fierce, sightless glare at the wall opposite the bed.
It was a visage of pure terror.
The scene testified to a death by hanging caused by some indescribable shock and dread—so visceral that even Inspector Maupert, who should have been accustomed to such sights, instinctively turned his face away.
Yet there could be no doubt it was suicide.
More chilling still was what this revealed about the intensity of Taylor’s death wish—or whatever compulsion had driven him to die—for he’d meticulously bent his knees and bound his ankles to his thighs with cords, suspending himself with care to ensure his feet couldn’t touch the floor.
The hook’s relatively low position and the rope’s excessive length would normally have made achieving death by hanging impossible.

“That’s astonishing.”
One of the detectives who had accompanied Mr. Maupert said admiringly.
“A strong-willed fellow indeed.
“When it gets unbearable，you’d think he’d just tear through this cloth binding his legs and stand up.”

Not a single one of the diamonds that should have been there was found in the suicide victim’s pockets or luggage.
The physician who performed the autopsy concurred with Inspector Maupert—there was no explanation other than suicide.
Thus, this too was settled as the British man’s mysterious suicide.

Two weeks passed.
The Taylor incident was beginning to fade from memory.
Then came a Frenchman named Carval—an acquaintance of Madame Celestine—who likewise committed suicide under identical circumstances in Third Floor, Room 14, sparking a great uproar.

In Room 14, from two days prior, a Brussels jeweler named Mr. Vallin had been staying.
Of course, they had been careful not to let Vallin hear about Taylor’s suicide, but that morning a Belgian—who had been staying there when Taylor killed himself and shared Vallin’s nationality—checked in, and through this man’s account, Vallin learned of Room 14’s tragedy from two weeks prior.
Anyone would find it creepy.
Faced with Vallin’s forceful ultimatum—either move him to another room immediately or he would leave at once, declaring “this isn’t the only hotel”—Madame Celestine became utterly perplexed.
As ill luck would have it, the hotel was fully booked.
There was no alternative.
Since he was an acquaintance, she explained the situation and asked Carval—occupying a second-floor room—to reluctantly comply.
It would be most inconvenient to lose guests.
She pleaded with him to switch rooms for her sake.
Carval, having heard about Room 14’s history, felt uneasy too. Yet being Madame Celestine’s acquaintance, he couldn’t refuse outright—reluctant internally but agreeable outwardly, he exchanged rooms with jeweler Vallin: Vallin moved downstairs while Carval took third-floor Room 14. This occurred on a Friday. By Saturday morning, Carval was found hanged identically to Taylor—a cord around his neck from the curtain rod’s iron hook.
Taylor’s suicide too had spanned Friday into Saturday.

2

Just as before, his legs were bent double as if sitting, his ankles bound to his thighs to prevent him from straightening them even if he writhed. Being a tall man, his knees nearly grazed the floor.
The discoloration of his face, the terrifying expression, and all other details were exactly the same as in Bruce Taylor’s case.

“This speaks to the power of suggestion—a strange, yet not impossible, remarkable example.”

The physician who had examined the corpse remarked.

“It’s precisely like when you peer down from the top of a tall building and feel compelled to jump, or stand by railway tracks as a train barrels toward you—that dizzying sensation of being dizzily pulled under its wheels. In the same way, the prior case acted upon this man’s psyche, making him utterly unable to resist imitating it.”

Needless to say, it was suicide.
Since it was undoubtedly a suicide, the police merely conducted routine inquiries into the circumstances before and after and withdrew.
However, Inspector Maupert alone appeared troubled—inspecting the furniture, bed, and floor while tapping the walls—but with no particular suspicious elements found, the investigation concluded there.
That day, most lodgers changed their accommodations.

Madame Celestine was sinking into the depths of despair.

“This hotel... it’s over.”
She clutched her head, her voice a sob.

“It’s over.
“With these ill-omened incidents happening one after another and such an ominous reputation spreading, no one will come to stay anymore.”
“Oh God!”
“If someone would spend a night in that third-floor Room 14, I’d gladly pay a hundred francs!”
“Someone level-headed—someone who wouldn’t dream of suicide—”

This was Madame’s impromptu strategy for the situation.
They needed someone stout-hearted to inhabit that Suicide Chamber—for indeed, Third Floor Room 14 had already gained the unwelcome nickname “Hotel Amsterdam’s Suicide Chamber,” its notoriety now filtering into the gossip of sharp-tongued Parisian street urchins—and have them physically prove through firsthand experience that the room itself posed no inherent danger to human life.
To stem the ebbing tide of guests, this became the paramount concern.
The matter demanded immediate action—thus they awaited a champion under the hundred-franc bounty, but all local men recoiled, with none volunteering for this heroic undertaking.

Among Inspector Maupert’s subordinates was an officer named Camille—one who had come to the hotel to investigate both suicide cases. Two or three days later, having caught wind of this matter, he casually made his way to Hotel Amsterdam.

He stood before the proprietress and fidgeted for a while,

“Madame Celestine, to be honest, an officer’s salary is meager.”
“That’s why I’m poor.”
“Dreadfully poor.”
“But I have military experience and consider myself quite brave.”
“After all, I spent seven years stationed at the Suva barracks in Africa.”
“I’m not scared of ghosts or demons in the slightest.”
“So, I can stay in Room 14—but that hundred francs reward is guaranteed, right?”

Madame planted a kiss on each of the officer’s cheeks. “Oh, my brave one!”
“My savior!” she cried.
The agreement was immediately settled, and Officer Camille became a guest at Hotel Amsterdam starting that very evening.
Van der Velde, the old man, feigned nonchalance as he absently shook his head and tilted his glass of gin.
Ever since the suicides continued and guests began dwindling, the old man had done nothing but drink.

Poor Madame Celestine did not sleep a wink that night.
Countless times she climbed to the third floor and pressed her ear to Room 14’s door, but each time—reassured by vigorous snoring within—returned to her bedroom.
At least nothing seemed amiss—.
Dawn broke.

Officer Camille gulped down his coffee and was full of vigor. He thumped the table.

“Splendid!” he exclaimed. “This beats police work any day! Earning a hundred francs overnight for something like this—it’s practically unbelievable! A soft bed, a grand breakfast, cash on top—all I gotta do for work is stretch out and sleep. Hope this sweet gig keeps up awhile!”

The astonishing report that someone had stayed in Hotel Amsterdam’s Room 14 last night and that this curious individual was still alive come morning spread through the vicinity in an instant, causing people to stare in amazement as if witnessing a miracle.
The superstitious people crossed themselves mournfully,

“Oh no!”
“But today’s still Thursday, isn’t it?”
“Let them try staying Friday night too—then we’ll see if they come out of Room 14 alive come Saturday morning. That’ll be a sight to see!”

“Friday is the devil’s day.”
“The fool who dares sleep in Room 14 that night will surely go mad by midnight, succumb to an inexplicable temptation of death, and kill themselves without fail.”
“The evil spirit dwelling in that room will undoubtedly plant the idea of death into that fool’s head.”
“We’ll just watch in silence.”

They whispered such things among themselves.

The proprietress Celestine was frantic,

“Let’s seal off that room—nail the doors and windows shut. If the demon resides only there, then that’s perfectly fine. I’ve lived in this building for twenty years, and there hasn’t been a single strange incident in any other room.”

But the gossip only grew more clamorous.

“That Englishman went mad and killed himself.”
“That ghost lingers in Room 14 like air.”
“Even if you seal off the room, since it’s a ghost, it’ll freely venture into other chambers.”
“Selling the hotel and leaving would be for Madame’s own good.”

Such was the talk circulating.

In fact, Li Han-Fu—the Chinese antique dealer next door—had even approached her to discuss purchasing the hotel as a going concern for the right price, but the proprietress rejected his offer outright with a single word.
And then, throwing on her shawl and rushing to the police, she seized Officer Camille—the brave officer who had slept in the suicide room the previous night—

“Please stay in that room again on Friday night.”
“I’ll give you another hundred francs.”

Camille slapped his knee in delight.

“Certainly, Madame.
“If you give me a hundred francs each night, I’ll stay over as many evenings as you wish!”

And so, on that Friday night, Camille arrived at Hotel Amsterdam in high spirits.
It was Madame Celestine’s heartfelt dinner.
A bottle of reserved wine.
Officer Camille became thoroughly cheerful and, while giving thanks for his good fortune, ascended to third floor Room 14 at bedtime—but come Saturday morning, he hung from the window curtain hook as a corpse, in exactly the same state as the two previous suicides.

3

As previously mentioned, embedded in the wall was a sturdy iron hook that supported the iron rod from which the heavy window curtain hung.
The brave Officer Camille had wrapped the strong silk braided cord used to draw curtains around his neck and hung limply from that hook, dead by hanging.
His face had swollen bluish-black like another person's, with eyes like inorganic objects snapped wide open, their hollow gaze fixed intently on the wall opposite the bed.
It was a terrifying visage.
It showed that he had likely committed suicide due to some indescribable terror and shock.
This time too, there was no room for doubt—it was suicide.
Moreover, how intense must have been the suicidal impulse, longing, or reason he had to die—as evidence of this, Officer Camille had neatly bent his knees as if sitting down, tied his ankles to his thighs with a towel, and hung himself with meticulous care to ensure his feet wouldn’t reach the floor.
Since the hook was positioned relatively low and the rope was long, attempting it normally would leave one standing upright, rendering death by hanging unattainable.

Though handled discreetly at first, matters became impossible to contain once even an officer dispatched for surveillance committed suicide.
The newspapers sensationalized it as a ghost-hotel with a suicide chamber in the heart of Paris.
No matter how thoroughly they examined the corpses, not only were there no traces of violence, but no suspicious elements whatsoever could be found.
In the end, people concluded that the lingering atmosphere of evil spirits in that room must seize the will of those who slept there and guide them to their deaths.
A few newspapers went so far as to offer prize money for the most plausible explanations, making it a sensation not just in Paris but across all France—indeed throughout the continent.
Until then, Hotel Amsterdam on Lomon Street had been known only to locals, but it suddenly became the focus of all Paris—at that time, whenever conversation arose in the city, it revolved entirely around this suicide chamber.
It had become a sort of advertisement, but the more notorious it grew, the fewer guests stayed—business was ruined.
Madame Celestine could do nothing but weep desperate tears and fret anxiously, for precisely because this incident was so deeply tied to the spirit world, she found herself utterly powerless to salvage the establishment’s reputation.

At this time when spiritualism and spirit communication were flourishing, various researchers in those fields and medium-like figures flocked one after another to Room 14 of the Amsterdam Hotel—the scene of these events—to attempt conversations with the ghost presumed to be frantically haunting there. Needless to say, all such attempts ended in failure; not a single soul managed to approach this mystery—its truth.
As days passed, new incidents began occurring daily.
A political season arrived.
Newspapers devoted the majority of their pages to reporting on political upheaval.
"The Mystery of the Suicide Chamber" had begun fading from the fickle public’s memory, almost without their noticing.

There was a young medical student named Ricardo GaliBaldi—a name both absurdly grandiose and foolish.

He was a poor young man with no acquaintances of note in the vast city of Paris.
He had come from the countryside and was studying desperately to obtain his medical license.

Madame Celestine, who had once been plump, rosy-cheeked, and full of vigor, had now turned sallow and gaunt, irritable and prone to tears—it was at this point that young Ricardo GaliBaldi made his unexpected appearance.
In a mumbling tone, he requested permission to investigate the mystery of the suicide chamber and asked for her cooperation.
At first, Madame kept shaking her head refusing to listen, but young GaliBaldi persisted with such insistent confidence in his plea—and since he claimed to have already formulated a theory and calculations—her faint curiosity stirred. In her desperation akin to a drowning person grasping at straws, Madame Celestine consequently directed this youth with the valiant-sounding name to Inspector Maupert at the Lomon Street Precinct.

“The key to Room 14 has been in police custody since then.”
“Since no one may enter that room, you must first obtain permission from the inspector in charge.”

Madame accompanied GaliBaldi to present herself at the police.

And now—with sudden abruptness!—the scene shifts here to Tokyo-Shina in the Far East.
The scene shifts abruptly.

But before that, let us examine this so-called "Suicide Hotel" at the heart of the matter a bit more closely.

Hotel Amsterdam on Lomon Street in Paris was an old, small 18th-century-style building.
As evident even in photographs, it stood on the corner of Lomon Street, with four windows per floor facing the thoroughfare.
It was a white stone five-story structure.
As was typical in the architecture of Paris’s working-class districts at that time, even its low attic contained several rooms with windows aligned in rows.
The neighboring building housed a Chinese-operated Oriental art and antique shop; though not an upscale area, Hotel Amsterdam had long been favored by certain business travelers for its quiet atmosphere and reasonable rates.
Stepping out onto the main boulevard would reveal several palatial gilt hotels.
Yet travelers had valued Hotel Amsterdam’s old-fashioned rooms and modest prices—so much so that until “Third Floor, Room 14” gained notoriety as the “suicide chamber” across Paris, throughout France, indeed all Europe, the establishment had enjoyed considerable popularity.
The clientele consisted mainly of jewelers from Antwerp in Belgium and Amsterdam in the Netherlands—the latter city holding a near-monopoly over global diamond markets—making diamond brokers the majority of its lodgers.
This stemmed from proprietor Miniel van der Velde’s Dutch origins and former diamond trade connections, though in practice the lively and charming Madame Celestine single-handedly managed all hotel affairs.
Madame herself tended toward plumpness—a talkative, meddlesome woman of passionate temperament typical of Paris’s working-class quarters. The hotel’s vaunted home cooking owed its reputation to her personally directing operations from the kitchen.
Having been widowed by her first husband and inheriting both this hotel business and a substantial estate, she soon married one of her regular patrons—a man who frequently traveled between Paris and Antwerp transporting diamonds.
Miniel van der Velde had set his sights on both this property and its widowed proprietress, insinuating himself as live-in husband into the vulnerable chambers of Madame Celestine’s ample heart.
Upon becoming master of Hotel Amsterdam, he relegated all responsibilities to Madame while basking in complacent idleness.
He cultivated indolence as an art form, dawdling through interminable days.
Planting his ponderous frame in the parlor chair beside the front desk from dawn till dusk, he puffed incessantly on slender black cigars.
He kept a bottle of cheap wine within arm’s reach, swigging from it like a parched fish gulping water.
After their marriage he seemed transformed into another man entirely.
His sole clandestine pleasure became daily pilgrimages to Rue de la Paix—Paris’s most exclusive shopping district—where he would covetously study magnificent diamonds displayed at Cartier and Boucheron. At the hotel he perpetually wore the expression of one chewing bitter insects while maintaining sullen aloofness.
Yet despite this transformation, for several years the hotel had sustained its former prosperity—until abruptly acquiring that unwelcome epithet: “Suicide Hotel.”

The records of this incident—dubbed "The Suicide Chamber of Hotel Amsterdam on Lomon Street"—are detailed in the 1907–1908 Paris edition of Chronique des Taibunaux: Compte rendu des proces en Correctionelle.

Now, this was Ricardo GaliBaldi—a young and valiant medical student bearing an absurdly grandiose name—who resolved to explore the suicide chamber, a phenomenon deemed inconceivable in civilized society.

He was a poor young man from the countryside who had come to the vast city of Paris with no acquaintances of note, studying desperately at the Sorbonne to obtain his medical license.

Madame Celestine, who had once been plump, rosy-cheeked, and full of vigor, had now turned sallow and gaunt—fretful, irritable, and prone to tears. It was at this juncture that young Ricardo GaliBaldi made his ethereal appearance.
In a mumbling tone, he declared his wish to investigate the mystery of the Suicide Chamber and entreated her permission and assistance.
First came Bruce Taylor, the British jeweler; next was Carval; third was Officer Camille—the mummy hunter transformed into a mummy himself—and within this brief span, three suicides had occurred successively under identical circumstances, cementing Third Floor, Room 14’s infamy as the all-too-notorious “Death Chamber.”

At first, Madame kept shaking her head at even young GaliBaldi’s impassioned proposal and refused to listen at all.

4

However, as he pleaded with such insistent confidence—and since he claimed to already have a theory and well-formed plan in mind—even Madame Celestine’s faint curiosity stirred. In her desperation akin to a drowning person grasping at straws, she thus directed the youth bearing that valiant-sounding name to Inspector Maupert at the Lomon Street Precinct.

“The key to Room 14 has been in police custody since then.”
“Since no one may enter that room, you must first obtain permission from the inspector in charge.”

Madame Celestine accompanied GaliBaldi to the police.

Ricardo GaliBaldi—a name combining philosopher and fiery general, in short, an outrageously heroic appellation.
This name alone didn’t reassure them, but after heated debates and desperate entreaties at the police station, they finally conceded: “Very well—if you insist so adamantly, proceed with your attempt.”
Yet since he would be entering alone that suicide chamber everyone feared, even Inspector Maupert grew deeply concerned.
Deeming this no trivial matter, he implemented thorough precautions beforehand.
First came a meticulous medical examination for the wryly smiling “hero” GaliBaldi—conducted with formal courtesy.
They’d devised such measures precisely because they suspected mental instability—questioning whether he possessed sufficient psychological resilience to withstand supernatural stimuli, or if he might succumb to spiritual temptations at minor disturbances—in essence, whether his character harbored suicidal proclivities. Yet the physician refuted all concerns, testifying that young GaliBaldi enjoyed rare physical vigor and could be trusted as a man of considerable strength.
Thus they affixed their seal of approval: this youth would confront the suicide chamber’s mystery, expose its truth, and emerge victorious.
With redoubled caution, a direct police telephone line was urgently installed in Room 14 that very day.
This allowed summoning Inspector Maupert instantaneously if needed.
Stringent orders went to switchboard operators—merely lifting the receiver would connect directly to the inspector’s desk phone, unleashing an ear-splitting bell—such was their scheme.
The inspector vowed to sprint headlong to the hotel upon receiving any call.
Should Maupert be absent, detectives on-site stood ready to charge forth immediately.
Amidst this extravagant fuss, young Ricardo GaliBaldi permitted himself a faint sardonic smile,

“There’s no need for such precautions.”
“I’m perfectly fine.”
“I already have a general theory about this matter.”
“Would I kill myself? You needn’t worry about that in the slightest. Please leave me undisturbed in Room Fourteen until this case is settled.”
“With Madame Celestine’s reward and the newspaper’s prize money combined, I intend to marry my Georges and live happily ever after.”
“This scheme was conceived precisely to obtain those funds.”
“Moreover, since I’ve formulated a concrete hypothesis that requires field verification, I shall soon elucidate this suicide chamber mystery—transforming it from an enigma into plain fact before your very eyes.”

He was a dependable Mr. GaliBaldi who lived up to his name.
Triumphantly advancing into Hotel Amsterdam, he took up position in Third Floor, Room 14.
This occurred on Monday, and from then on each day—twice during daylight and once in the evening—the ever-vigilant Inspector Maupert placed calls to the valiant investigator’s room,

“Hello, Mr. GaliBaldi? So, has anything unusual happened there?”

“Good day. Everything is peaceful and uneventful,” Mr. GaliBaldi replied in a nonchalant voice.

“Madame prepares splendid feasts three times a day for me, and on top of that, there’s plenty of unremarkable old wine. Thanks to that, I’ve put on weight.”

Truly, days passed without incident, and Madame Celestine sighed in relief. Every three to four hours, Madame Celestine’s thoughtfully arranged offerings—some new unusual food or drink each time—were delivered to Mr. GaliBaldi in Room 14. After bringing in a hefty number of books, GaliBaldi spent the entire day reading. In the morning, while the maid cleaned the room, he went out for a walk to Lomon Street. On his way back, he would always stop by the police station and meet with Inspector Maupert. Declaring that the mystery was as good as solved, GaliBaldi was triumphantly chatting and laughing.

Then came Saturday.

The suicides in Room 14 were known to occur from Friday into Saturday—a night of terror.
Twice in the early evening, Inspector Maupert rang the direct line,

“Hello, Mr. GaliBaldi? — It’s Friday, isn’t it.”
“So, has anything unusual happened?”

Each time, Ricardo GaliBaldi’s cheerful voice came sliding through the receiver to answer.

“Good evening—everything’s perfectly calm.”

But Madame Celestine—who had been driven by anxiety, thinking “If he’d made it through last night, we’d have been past this...”—startled by waiter Paul’s frantic appearance as he came hurtling down from the third floor, darted out from the front desk beside the entrance.

“Again—? Paul!”

Paul’s lips turned deathly white, as if biting back his own words,

“It seems it’s happened again!”
“I just took breakfast to Room 14, but the door was firmly shut—no matter how much I knocked, there was no response—”

“O God—God above!”

The typically composed proprietress, though panicking like one possessed, bounded up the stairs in a single leap with Paul following close behind. At any rate, she meant to see for herself. Soon they stood before Room 14 on the third floor. It was deathly quiet indeed.

As she flung open the door and rushed in, a terrible scream burst from Madame’s lips, and she collapsed into Paul’s arms behind her.
For the fourth time, a gruesome scene had been lying in wait for her within the room.
The two discoverers did not even enter the room—no sooner had they glimpsed the scene than they tumbled downstairs as if fleeing and immediately rushed to report to Inspector Maupert.
Without a moment’s delay, Inspector Maupert arrived with his subordinates and surrounded Madame Celestine—who was trembling like gelatin dessert—then the group rushed up to the third floor with thundering footsteps.
Madame continued shouting breathlessly.

“He’s dead!”
“Mr. GaliBaldi!”
“He’s dead!”

Two windows overlooked the bustle of Lomon Street.
It was a spacious, moderately tidy Room 14.
The room was of old-fashioned construction, with a sturdy iron hook driven into the wall and a heavy iron rod hung from it to hold the curtains.
The valiant young Ricardo GaliBaldi had hanged himself with the strong braided cord used to hold back the curtains and dangled dead from that hook.
His face had swollen blue like that of another person, the eyes now inorganic objects gaping wide open as they fixed an unseen glare upon the wall opposite the bed.
It was a terrifying visage.
This showed he had died by hanging due to some indescribable terror and shock, leaving no room for doubt it was suicide.
Moreover, how overpowering must have been the suicidal impulse—as evidence, Mr.GaliBaldi hung there with knees neatly bent as if seated, ankles tied to thighs, carefully positioned so even thrashing legs couldn’t reach the floor.
As had been stated repeatedly, because the hook was positioned relatively low and the rope attached to it was long, under normal circumstances one’s height would not allow achieving death by standing suspension.

The direct line to the police had its indoor wiring severed.
Because dinner had been brought to the room, the sharp carving knife that accompanied it lay on the floor.
Caught on its blade were strands of silk thread from the telephone cord's insulation.

This made four—all had committed suicide on Friday nights in this Third Floor, Room 14.

"Suicide"—?
Inspector Maupert now tilted his head seriously for the first time and—while stationing an officer at the room’s door to transfer control of Room 14 to the police—simultaneously urgently requested the dispatch of his superior, Monsieur Dufresne of the Paris Police Department.

When Chief Inspector Dufresne rushed to Hotel Amsterdam, he found Inspector Maupert crouched over the pale, silent death mask of Ricardo GaliBaldi, muttering through clenched teeth.

“This is not a suicide! Absolutely not a suicide!”

Chief Inspector Dufresne, who had entered the room, called out from behind.

“Well, well—if it’s not suicide…?”

“Ah, oui!
“Monsieur Dufresne!”
Inspector Maupert turned around, his excitement palpable as he lunged forward. “This is absolutely not a suicide! I believe something dreadful—a terrifying crime—is lurking beneath this!”

Over Chief Inspector Dufresne’s shoulder, the face of Dr.Belchon—the forensic medical examiner from the Metropolitan Police Department who had come with them—peered in, and he quietly and firmly affirmed Inspector Maupert’s words.

5

Dr. Alphonse Belchon was then spoken of as the god of detective science and truly a national treasure of France.
This man’s detective tales were as numerous as mountains, and the “Suicide Room Incident” was but one among them; yet it was Dr. Belchon who established what is now professionally termed anthropometry—a field he separated from general anthropology—as a distinguished branch of forensic medicine.
Thus, the current photographing methods for criminals and former convicts adopted by police forces worldwide, along with their card-based classification and preservation systems—both of which Dr.Belchon published in 1907 based on his anthropometry—are widely known as the Belchon Method.
Moreover, it was none other than his completion of the fingerprint method—which brought about a major revolution in modern criminal investigation—that stands as Dr.Belchon’s achievement most worthy of bold emphasis.
Indeed, it is said that with the arrival of Alphonse Belchon, police work and detective techniques worldwide underwent a complete transformation.
Moreover, in actual investigations, he delivered swift and decisive verdicts grounded in scientific reasoning and was a man of considerable eccentricity.
In 1875, Dr.Belchon devised an anthropometric method called Berchonage. Shortly thereafter, he assumed the position of head of the Identification Section at the Paris Police Department. Then, in February 1888, this Berchonage method was first accurately adopted as a personal identification technique and came to be applied everywhere around the world as a tool in that field.
At that time, Paris was not only the political center of Europe but also a dumping ground for humanity’s refuse and a den for every crime. Yet when Dr.Belchon assumed the role of head of the Identification Section—later as a consultant—criminals at last began to retreat from view. Even a cursory examination of the statistically rising achievements in crime prevention and arrests would suffice to discern how remarkable were the research and activities of Dr. Alphonse Belchon, this titan of forensic medicine, and how deeply he was feared by the criminal underworld.

Now, Dr.Belchon appeared in Hotel Amsterdam’s third floor, Room 14, emerging as a central figure in the Suicide Room Incident.

The full spotlight of Parisian journalism, with even greater interest and concern than before, once again became concentrated on this modest hotel in Lomon Street.

This time’s death had been declared not a suicide.
No—it was now determined that none of the previous cases had been suicides either.
It was pronounced not suicide, but murder.
“Lomon Street’s Suicide Hotel” and “Hotel Amsterdam’s Suicide Room” were all at once renamed “Murder Hotel” and “Murder Chamber,” thereby growing more notorious—yet in any case, the one beyond salvation remained poor Madame Celestine.
The ghost story had transformed into a crime, but the nuisance persisted unchanged.
It was worse than before.
Her business had already collapsed; weeping bitterly, she sank into a depression-like state of contemplation, wondering what on earth she should do.

Dr. Belchon personally took command of the investigation.

Numerous crime scene photographs were taken; the knife suspected of having been used to sever the telephone line was sealed and urgently dispatched to the Identification Section for analysis.
Dr. Belchon appeared uncharacteristically moved by the corpse of the young GaliBaldi,

“What a pitiful thing has been done,” he kept muttering.
“Did he come here trying to obtain marriage funds? — What a pitiful thing has been done.”

As Dr. Belchon quietly lifted the corpse, Inspector Maupert unfastened the curtain cord that had been tightly embedded in its neck.

Dr. Belchon said,

“Look here,” he said, comparing the purple mark on the neck with the cord by pointing at them. “The widths differ.”

In fact, when they precisely measured both widths—the mark on the neck and the cord—it became clear that the ligature furrow from the strangulation was approximately five millimeters narrower than the curtain cord from which he had been hanging.

Dr. Belchon explained,

“They strangled him with a thinner cord first, waited until he went limp, then bent his knees to tie his ankles to his thighs, and finally used the curtain cord to hang him and stage it as a suicide by hanging.”

At the time, there was a formidable operative named Banister stationed in Paris by the renowned American private detective agency Pinkerton Agency. He had an office on Scrib Street and handled international cases under orders from headquarters, but this Banister had been mobilized particularly at Dr. Belchon’s earnest request and secretly checked into Hotel Amsterdam under the guise of an American jeweler. After police surgeon Leblanc performed an autopsy on Ricardo GaliBaldi’s corpse and conclusively proved it to be a case of strangulation disguised as suicide, Dr. Belchon came to suspect Chinese man Li Han-Fu—who ran an Oriental antique shop adjacent to the hotel.

Some time earlier, there had been an incident where Charles Langham—a diamond merchant from London’s Hatton Garden—came to Paris and allegedly committed suicide by throwing himself into the Seine River. However, when investigators looked into it, it appeared not to be a suicide after all; beneath the surface of the case flickered the name of Li Han-Fu, a Chinese art dealer in Lomon Street. Coincidentally, around this same time from an entirely separate angle, the Metropolitan Police Department’s attention had also begun turning toward this Chinese man.
However, Dr.Belchon viewed someone like Li Han-Fu as nothing more than a pawn.
The leader of this criminal gang was undoubtedly none other than Hanoi Shan—that notorious madman criminal who hailed from French Indochina (Tonkin).

In French Indochina (Tonkin), there was a governor named Hanoi Shan—a tall, athletic, distinguished gentleman. Though a native inhabitant, he had been a kind-hearted man of character who commanded the complete trust of the provincial citizens—yet this same man would later become L'Araignée ("The Spider") in Paris, a genius yet brutal career criminal whose very name made Parisians recoil in terror.

This occurred during his time in his homeland of French Indochina (Tonkin).

His Excellency Governor Hanoi Shan had gone out on an elephant hunt.
In some ill-fated moment, he was ensnared by the trunk of an elephant driven into a maddened fury, swung through the air, and then slammed repeatedly against tree trunks.
He did not die, but for his own sake and the world’s, it would have been better had he perished.
From this terrible shock, Hanoi Shan ultimately never recovered.

Remaining a crumpled mass of flesh like a rolled-up futon, he spent several months at a French hospital in Saigon.
Thanks to the doctors’ efforts, his life had barely been preserved—but the Hanoi Shan who emerged from the hospital was no longer the imposing, handsome governor that he himself and others had once known.
The reborn Hanoi Shan was a cripple with a simian posture, unbearable to look upon twice.
He was a monster.
His face—eyes, nose, and mouth all jumbled together—sat above a spine bent as if snapped in two, his rope-thin arms dangling limply.
He spread his clubbed legs apart and walked with a frog-like gait.

The people of his hometown knew they ought to feel sympathy, but when confronted with Hanoi Shan—now transformed into too grotesque a monster—disgust inevitably rose first. Alongside his own wretched appearance, the current attitude of his fellow villagers—particularly the women who had once vied to show him favor—only drove Hanoi Shan further into violent, self-destructive despair. Some accounts claim that this calamity not only ravaged Hanoi Shan’s physique and appearance but also utterly transformed his character, driving him to madness by this point; regardless, the former Governor Hanoi Shan whom people had known was dead, and a new Hanoi Shan had been born. This Hanoi Shan, deformed beyond recognition, poured every fiber of his deranged heart into hating the physician who had worked so hard to save his life. He cursed the world. And so, he abandoned his homeland and fled to Paris.

His greatest purpose in coming to Paris had been his fervent hope—if possible—to receive a second surgery from a renowned physician that might heal his curved spine, but no doctor dared attempt such a major operation.
Hanoi Shan’s fate had reached its ultimate impasse.
Eaten away by anger, despair, and hatred gnawing at his mind, he had become utterly transformed as a human being.
Before anyone realized it, he had vanished—yet at that very moment, Hanoi Shan simultaneously emerged in another stratum of society as an entirely different entity.
As mastermind of a criminal syndicate, his name swiftly rose to notoriety; the cunningly vicious crimes devised by this Oriental madman’s mind rapidly became Paris’s terror.
Hanoi Shan the Spider—every soul in Paris knew this entity lurked somewhere within their city’s shadows.

The establishment that caught Hanoi Shan’s eye—as previously mentioned—was Hotel Amsterdam on Lomon Street, which had become the regular lodging for Dutch and Belgian jewelers.
He had the Chinese man Li Han-Fu open an antique shop in the immediate neighboring building.
After doing so, he spent a long time working undetected to secretly construct a passage between the third floor’s Room 14 and the shop, opening a hidden door in the wall to allow free passage.

Late at night, after confirming that the lodger in Room 14 was sound asleep, he would quietly dispatch several subordinates to strangle the victim, steal diamonds and other belongings, bend the corpse’s legs to hang it from the window’s iron hook, and skillfully stage it to appear as a suicide.
All four victims—from Bruce Taylor to Ricardo GaliBaldi—had been killed using this method. As for why they had exclusively chosen Friday nights, it was said they likely sought to amplify the horror of the “suicide chamber” legend by linking it to the Western superstition that Fridays were ill-omened days—pursuing this macabre branding to its gruesome conclusion.

Of course, the hotel’s proprietor Miniel van der Velde had received his share and acted as an internal cell, maintaining communication within the hotel.

They must have planned to make Madame Celestine abandon her business, have Li Han-Fu ostensibly purchase it, and then completely operate this "Suicide Hotel" with their own hands.

Now, this Friday at midnight—

As Banister—the seasoned American operative—lay on the bed in third-floor Room 14, feigning sleep with a Colt automatic pistol and flashlight clutched to chest, a section of the wall slid open soundlessly, quietly disgorging dark figures into the room.

In the outer hallway was a squad of detectives led by Chief Inspector Dufresne, Dr.Belchon, Inspector Maupert, and others.
Soon came a struggle.
A gunshot.
Shouts—finally nine were arrested, but four of them were Chinese including Li Han-Fu.
They were all underlings, and Hanoi Shan—the crucial target—was nowhere to be seen.