Pathway to Japanese Literature

1

—E.S. breeze, hazy overcast with threatening showers.

“How many passengers are there?”

While holding a cigarette and readjusting his flight suit belt, Pilot Ikenouchi asked Engineer Saegusa, who had just returned to the office after completing an engine inspection.

“Two.”

Outside, the 450-horsepower Bristol Jupiter engine roared like a hundred thunderstorms, cleaving through the cold, still, crystalline air—thick as lake water—with its *Brrrrmmm* reverberations. Scheduled airlines prided themselves on maintaining zero cancellations across airports, departing in most weather conditions. Yet even airmen who claimed they couldn’t sleep unless flying once daily found the psychological weight differed starkly between flights with passengers and without—especially when skies turned hostile.

“Two, then.”
“Two, then. Who are they?”

But upon asking this, Pilot Ikenouchi momentarily widened his eyes.
For in the wall mirror he’d casually glanced at, the other man’s face appeared drained of blood and utterly agitated.
However, Engineer Saegusa, while facing away as he put on his flight cap, responded with forced composure.

“One is a raw silk merchant, but the other...”
After clearly hesitating, he continued, “…something about being a banker, I hear.”

The roar of the engine operated by the assistant drowned out the tremor in Saegusa’s trailing words.
Ikenouchi deeply inhaled the last of the cigarette smoke into his lungs,

“I see. Another slow day today, huh?”

and made a casual joke,

“Well then, I’ll go check on things for a moment.”

With that, he briskly left the office door behind.
But just as he was walking toward the Fokker Universal—its wings causing the green grass of the airfield to tremble as if being ripped apart—Saegusa, who seemed to have caught up from behind shortly after, called out his name.
When Ikenouchi turned around and stopped, Saegusa—in an uncharacteristically unsettled voice—

“Um, there’s something I’d like to ask you to handle during today’s flight,” he said.

“What is it?”

“Actually,” said Saegusa, gazing at his colleague with an oddly intense look, “I need you to keep close watch on the current conditions at each point along the flight route until we reach H Airfield.”

“What—”
Ikenouchi looked suspiciously at him. “If that’s all, shouldn’t you be the one properly keeping watch over it?”

“Yeah, but—”

Saegusa panicked and averted his face unnaturally, but as if rallying himself,

“Anyway, I’ll stay vigilant too—so count on me.”
“Please… just this once…”

With that final plea, he turned and sprinted toward the plane.

"That guy’s really off today"—Pilot Ikenouchi thought as he watched Saegusa’s retreating figure, though of course he had no inkling what the man’s behavior signified.

Soon they departed; the engine performed flawlessly.

The beautiful American Atlantec Corporation passenger plane, operated by crew members Ikenouchi and Saegusa who gripped its control column, began gliding across the airfield’s green grass—its slender fuselage housing two passengers: a petite man dressed like a merchant, and a portly executive-type gentleman with an impeccable beard.

“Safe travels!”

The airfield staff who had come to see them off waved afterward.
He gradually pulled back the engine lever, timing it perfectly before throwing it wide open.
With a thunderous roar, the aircraft was swept upward into the sky—the ground that had until then been tracing thick and thin line patterns shrank completely until fields, mountains, and dwellings became visible like a miniature garden, small and distinct.
They were already five hundred meters aloft.

J Village, T River, O Mountain, B Bay—the ground markers they had established out of necessity appeared within view every three to five minutes, only to vanish from sight. It was a familiar route; though the weather was poor, all in all, today’s aerial journey held no cause for concern.

“I’m going to the restroom.”

After about thirty minutes had passed, Saegusa, who had remained silent until then, suddenly raised his hips and spoke loudly into Ikenouchi’s ear, then pushed off his seat while hunched over (most people were likely aware, but the passenger plane’s interior was as described above). For thoroughness, it should be noted that an executive-type gentleman was seated in Seat A, and a merchant-like man was seated in Seat B. And he ducked through the cramped door and descended toward the passenger cabin.

Mountains, rivers, valleys, plains... and then a full ten minutes must have passed.
Saegusa returned to where Ikenouchi had twice taken out his watch to check the time.
And Ikenouchi felt an oppressive weight on his chest from the atmosphere Saegusa carried.

“Something’s off with him—”

Just then, an Avro trainer from P Civilian Airfield came flying from ahead, executed a flawless Immelmann turn, and aligned its nose precisely with the passenger plane’s left flank.

“Yo!”

“Yo!”

They waved cheerfully at each other in mutual camaraderie, but the next instant, the training plane playfully surged upward, skimmed past the passenger plane’s back, then swiftly stalled into a spin—within moments drifting a hundred meters backward as if blown away.

“We’ve finally reached the halfway point.”
Pilot Ikenouchi gripped the control stick and thought.
The area where the training plane was flying marked the midpoint of the air route connecting D and H Airfields.

For the remaining thirty-some minutes thereafter, Pilot Ikenouchi continued flying while being tormented by his strange partner’s agitated, pale, unnervingly restless complexion and demeanor.
The extremely acute mental faculties of airmen made them perceive even each other’s physical states, just as they did about engines, aircraft, and weather.

"What on earth was Saegusa’s attitude today?"
"For him—approaching the day when he could make a beautiful young lady from a good family his fiancée—each passing day should have been nothing but happiness and brightness itself!"
"And yet only this morning…"

As he kept turning these thoughts over in his mind, the white circle marking their destination—H Airfield—finally came into view through the thin clouds flowing below. He cut the engine switch and executed a skilled glide. Then, the ground swelled up rapidly as if bulging... until finally, the wheels bounced heavily against the earth.

“Well, let’s get off and rest for now.”

After bringing the aircraft to a perfect stop, Pilot Ikenouchi unfastened his seat belt and spoke to Saegusa, whose profile—suddenly gaunt-looking and face shrouded in deep shadows—appeared withered before his eyes.
And then, at that very moment—
The small door leading to the passenger cabin was violently flung open from outside, and from there came the bellowing voice of this airfield’s passenger service staff member.

“G-Good God! Mr. Kiyogorō is dead!”
“And—and Mr. Midori is missing!”

2

× City, Silk Wholesaler, Shōichi Midori, 40 Years Old, to H Airfield

× City, R Bank President, Seigorō Kiyogorō, 63 Years Old, to K Airfield (the next airport after H)

In the passenger manifest at departure Airport D, the two passengers from that morning had been recorded as described above.
Good God—those two! One had vanished mid-air en route to H, while the other lay dead with his forehead brutally crushed, drenched in blood.

Ikenouchi, Saegusa, and both crew members were detained and questioned at H City Police Station from the scene.
In response to Ikenouchi’s statement that he knew absolutely nothing about the incident, the station chief spoke in a harshly angry voice.

“Are you claiming you never once showed your faces in the passenger cabin during the flight?”
“Are you telling me you never once left your seats?”

“Unfortunately, I did not have the opportunity to look into the passenger cabin.”
“In fact, I rather regret that very fact.”

Pilot Ikenouchi declared defiantly, as if shielding his colleague.
But Saegusa, having completely lost all color in his face, stood before the station chief—who embodied severity itself—
“No—I alone went down to the passenger cabin once during the flight,” he was forced to confess.

“What for—?”

The interrogator pressed further.

“I went to the restroom.”

Saegusa trembled.

“Hmph.”
The station chief sneered.
“Then unless you submit proof that you’re not the culprit, you’ll remain the prime suspect for now. And unless Mr. Ikenouchi has a perfect alibi, he too cannot escape being a suspect.”

“Alibi?”

Ikenouchi was stunned.

“Right, the alibi.”
“First, consider this.”
“The incident occurred mid-air.”
“And there were only four individuals aboard—selected from among millions.”
“Absolutely—”
“And there was no one who witnessed the situation aboard the plane.”

“But I swear to God I didn’t leave my seat even an inch.”

Ikenouchi panicked.

“God? But we have no way to verify the truth with God. In any case—one man has vanished from on board the plane—and another has been brutally murdered.”

And the station chief once again picked up a sheet of paper and read it aloud.

Autopsy Report

Name: Seigorō Kiyogorō

Case: Died aboard Passenger Plane JXAC, Seat No. 3, during flight.
Upon examining the corpse, the fatal wound was identified as a single injury to the forehead spanning approximately fist-sized dimensions, with the skull shattered and brain matter exposed.
Confirmed as homicide.
The murder weapon was determined to be a heavy blunt instrument, with the act concluded to have been carried out via a single forceful strike that exploited the victim's unpreparedness.
The victim died instantly.

“No matter how you look at it, Mr. Kiyogorō was murdered. Given that the suicide theory doesn’t hold up at all based on the victim’s condition, there must necessarily be a perpetrator in this case—and the suspects can only be you two and Mr. Midori, who vanished from the plane.”

Alibi!
Alibi!—Ikenouchi’s mind reeled.
How could any alibi possibly hold up in that cramped mid-air cabin?!
But at that moment, like a divine revelation, a brilliant idea flashed into his head.

“Chief!
“I have a solid alibi.
“From the moment we departed D Airfield until arriving at H Airfield, I closely observed every detail of the scenery along our flight path.
“I can clearly testify to precisely when we passed through each location and what conditions were present there.
“This would have been impossible had I left my seat even for a minute.
“I will describe the conditions at each point along our route as seamlessly as unrolling a scroll—without a single minute’s gap.
“And I would consider it fortunate if I could have each detail verified with every location to prove the veracity of my testimony.”

The officials did not deem such a request improper given Ikenouchi’s position.
Ikenouchi meticulously testified in a separate room about every detail of the terrain visible from the flight path, leaving nothing unmentioned.
Fortunately, owing to the overcast conditions that day, the plane had been flying between 200 and 500 meters altitude, enabling him to describe even the color of a kimono worn by someone angling in the river with perfect clarity.
The compiled record was promptly telegraphed or telephoned to relevant authorities for verification.

In the meantime, the following information had been collected at H Police Station, and detailed physical evidence items had been discovered. This had become crucial material that significantly narrowed down and cracked open the case. First, the officials who had returned after conducting a meticulous inspection of the aircraft’s interior compiled all their findings and reported as follows.

“—No object resembling a murder weapon was found within the aircraft. Furthermore, the folding briefcase among the victim’s belongings had been left open and discarded, with all contents except for a few documents removed and their whereabouts unknown. Additionally, in the restroom, the window had been opened, and one cushion-type parachute stored there was missing.” Finally, they added the discovery of what should have been the most crucial piece of evidence—a crumpled communication slip from the passenger cabin.

Written in the victim’s own hand were these scribbled words:
“Engineer Saegusa of this plane has threatened to kill me. Please protect me out of consideration for our being fellow passengers. I will repay you.”

What kind of information had been gathered next?

Namely,

1. The corpse of Shōichi Midori was discovered in a corner of N Field.
He fell to his death from the airplane.
An unopened parachute was discovered nearby.
On the corpse, there were no belongings (other than his own possessions) whatsoever.
A nearby farmer discovered it and filed a report.

1. The deceased Shōichi Midori had entrusted a letter to an airport employee before departure from D Airfield, attempting to have it mailed.
2. The airport employee had kept it as received but opened it in the presence of police officers upon notification of the incident.
3. It was addressed to a household in A City and constituted a suicide note stating his intent to end his life due to business failures, written as having chosen jumping from the airplane as the method of suicide.
4. This information came via long-distance call from D Airfield.

1. Through interrogation, it was revealed that the victim, Mr. Kiyogorō, had been urgently heading to K City on important business matters while carrying over 50,000 yen in cash.
(Same telephone call)

3

The interrogators now had no choice but to suspect Engineer Saegusa as the legitimate perpetrator.

“Didn’t you threaten to kill Mr. Kiyogorō?”

Saegusa changed his expression as if to say, “How did they know that?”

“...”

“What kind of relationship do you have with Mr. Kiyogorō?”

“I suppose you could say we’re adversaries...”
Saegusa answered quietly, as if resigned.

“My family and Kiyogorō are related by marriage, yet despite that, my family was driven to bankruptcy through his malicious schemes and plunged into utter misery.”

“Relate the circumstances that have transpired between you and Mr. Kiyogorō since this morning."
“Of course, your claim that you went to the restroom during the flight is a lie—you went to meet with Mr. Kiyogorō, didn’t you?”

“...”
Saegusa remained silent for a while, then opened his mouth as if resigning himself and said dejectedly, “Perhaps that may be the case,” adding, “But that lie was only told out of fear that the case would become complicated.”
“Because what I did and this incident should be completely unrelated.”
“The truth is, until I encountered him at D Airfield this morning, I had no idea Kiyogorō was among the passengers.”
“When I saw Kiyogorō’s face, I turned crimson.”
“I was struck by a boiling excitement in my chest.”
“Kiyogorō also seemed frightened.”
“As I mentioned earlier, I harbored intense resentment toward Kiyogorō, and given that my impoverished family was in a position to demand—legally speaking, at least—significant economic concessions from him, I decided to broach the matter during this chance encounter.”
“However, when I went to the passenger cabin—whether fortunately or unfortunately—the other passenger, Mr. Midori, seemed to have gone to the restroom and was not there.”
“So, without any hesitation toward those around me, I began speaking bluntly to Kiyogorō, but as expected, he merely sneered at my agitation and made no proper effort to engage.”
“That ended up fueling my agitation and led me to make what sounded like a threat.”

“Did you say you’d beat him to death with a hammer?”

“No—if you persist in treating me with such devilish hostility, then I’ll turn into a devil myself. Fortunately you have high blood pressure and a weak heart—so I’ll raise the plane’s altitude to about four thousand meters and give you altitude sickness to take your life,” I threatened. “Just then, Mr. Midori came out from the restroom, so I returned to the cockpit.”

—Saegusa’s testimony flowed without hesitation. However, they could do nothing about the complete lack of any corroborating evidence to substantiate his testimony. The officials, seeking to extract the fullest possible truth from the tangled superficial details of the case, formulated the following plausible hypotheses.

A: If Midori is the perpetrator

He had resolved to commit suicide due to business failures but, upon discovering a large sum of money in a fellow passenger’s bag mid-flight, seized the opportunity presented by Saegusa’s threat against Kiyogorō to commit the crime himself, stole the money, and feigned suicide by jumping from the plane as planned. However, his inadequate knowledge of parachutes led to his tragic death (though in this scenario, the suspicious detail remains that his corpse carried no money).

B: If Saegusa is the perpetrator

Saegusa bludgeoned Kiyogorō to death after Midori’s suicide.
Or, after bludgeoning Kiyogorō to death, he pushed Midori from the plane.
However, even in this scenario, the whereabouts of the money remain unknown.

C: If Ikenouchi is the perpetrator

Strictly speaking, Case C might be inconceivable.
The reason being that Ikenouchi and the victim were people with absolutely no connection to each other.
Admittedly, if one posits money as the motive, a rationale can be established; however, should Ikenouchi be involved in the crime, he would either be Saegusa’s accomplice or co-conspirator.

However, while the police were thus investigating the case, the long-distance calls that had been coming in from various locations in response to their requests had steadily established Pilot Ikenouchi’s alibi. In the end, they could not help but confirm that Ikenouchi, while he might have been mentally involved in the incident in some capacity, was not the direct perpetrator. And finally, the culprit had been narrowed down to the remaining two individuals. In other words—Case A or Case B—?

4

Ikenouchi gained both the time and mental space to thoroughly consider the case now that he was alone.
Then within him welled up a sense of responsibility that he absolutely had to solve this mystery through his own efforts.
Though it might be fateful—I am the only uninvolved person present at the incident scene. If I don't solve this, who possibly could?
More than anything—and moreover for my own sake—I have an obligation to rescue dear Saegusa from false charges.
I believe him absolutely.
That pure morality flowing only among airmen who risk their lives together would never permit such a crime!—Ikenouchi meticulously turned over his thoughts.
Then another idea suddenly occurred to him—the training plane from P Civil Airfield they'd encountered mid-flight.
"That's it! In the sky, at minimum, those who could know our plane's interior situation besides ourselves would be that aircraft's crew!"

Ikenouchi notified the police of the matter and had them make a long-distance inquiry to P Airfield.
The reply was as follows.

“We encountered the passenger plane at 11:24 a.m.”
“At that time, in the cockpit, the pilot and engineer were seated, and in the passenger cabin, two passengers had opened a window and were watching the training plane.”

Upon receiving the report, Ikenouchi forgot himself and shouted Banzai! in his heart.
Of course, Midori’s corpse had been discovered on N Field near H Airfield rather than P Civil Airfield, so it wasn’t strange that Midori was still on the plane at that time—but what exactly did it mean that Kiyogorō had been properly alive then?
The time when Saegusa left under the pretext of going to the restroom had been around 11:10 a.m.
He had returned precisely at 11:20 a.m.
And it was at 11:24 a.m. that it came alongside the training plane.
The passenger plane passed over N Field around 11:32 a.m.
If that were the case, Kiyogorō’s brutal murder had occurred after Saegusa had returned to the cockpit—and since Saegusa never left the cockpit again after that, he couldn’t possibly be the one who killed Kiyogorō!

“Anyway, Saegusa didn’t betray my expectations”—Ikenouchi leapt for joy. But how could he prove that to the people on the ground? Ikenouchi had no choice but to think it through.

The next day.

Ikenouchi, under tension yet unable to conceal his joyful expression, responded to the summons from H Police Station.
This time, the other party was a prosecutor.

Ikenouchi stated the following with a thoroughly confident attitude.

“Currently there are two suspects.”
“However, in truth Saegusa is not the perpetrator—though regrettably he lacks an alibi and cannot prove it.”
“Yet if we advance this investigation from another angle, I believe it may naturally yield proof.”
“Then how should we proceed?”
“That is to say—why did Mr. Midori die?”
“The station prioritizes the suicide theory over homicide, but considering Mr. Midori boarded intending suicide yet no stolen money was found on his corpse, we cannot wholly dismiss the first theory.”
“But would anyone committing suicide bring a parachute?”

“Well, if you posit that a third party threw the parachute right after that man for some reason, it can’t be said to be impossible.”
“From that perspective, the second homicide theory also gains significant credibility.”
“In other words, it’s entirely plausible that someone could have pushed him off and then immediately dropped the parachute afterward.”

The prosecutor could vividly picture the scene as it unfolded at that moment.
When viewed from the training plane earlier, both passengers had still been alive.
Yet at N Field—which they had flown only a short distance beyond—Midori already lay dead from his fall.
No one could have inferred that a major struggle between both passengers had occurred within that brief interval.
The two must have been colluding anyway…
Therefore, Midori’s death seemed unquestionably to have occurred first.
If suicide, it could have been done while Kiyogorō remained unaware; if homicide, luring him alone to the restroom without Kiyogorō’s knowledge and pushing him from there wouldn’t be impossible.
In any case, the crime clearly involved a single decisive strike executed once the nuisance was removed—taking advantage of lowered vigilance.
With an obstacle present, how could anyone have performed such an efficient killing?

“But Prosecutor,” Ikenouchi said, raising his eyebrows upon hearing the prosecutor’s words. “Wasn’t it that the parachute was found right beside the corpse? At that time, the plane’s speed was approximately 120 miles per hour. Therefore—yes—converted to speed per second*, that would be approximately one *chō*. If, as you posit, a third party threw the parachute after pushing Mr. Midori off, then by all means there should have been a distance of one or two *chō* between the corpse and the parachute. That Mr. Midori definitely carried the parachute when he jumped is confirmed by the evidence at the scene revealed afterward.”

“Then, wouldn’t that mean Mr. Midori was neither a suicide nor a homicide?”

“That’s correct. I believe that while it is certain Mr. Midori intended to commit suicide and devoted himself during the flight to preparing for that jump, he abruptly underwent a psychological shift that made him abandon the act. Before that, he had unexpectedly discovered the parachute and attempted to stage a farce using it—only to fail.”

“So you’re saying that theory of yours—that Mr. Midori was the one who killed Mr. Kiyogorō?”

“No, please wait a moment.”
Ikenouchi took out his watch and said, “That should be proven by others very soon."
“Depending on that report, I may not know how to handle the case—but I think it will probably be resolved as expected.”

“You, then, seem to interpret that in any case, Mr. Kiyogorō died before Mr. Midori, don’t you?”
“If Mr. Midori were to jump from the plane first, then according to your claim, the culprit who murdered Mr. Kiyogorō would be nowhere to be found.”
The Prosecutor finished listening to Ikenouchi’s words magnanimously and said:

“No, I consider it absolutely impossible that Mr. Midori jumped from the plane before Mr. Kiyogorō’s death.”
“The diversion of Mr. Midori’s mindset from suicide was undoubtedly because he found himself in a position to secure Mr. Kiyogorō’s money for himself.”
“There’s simply no other possible explanation—”
“But without any reason, why would Mr. Kiyogorō willingly hand over such a large sum to Mr. Midori…”

“Then, after all, the culprit who killed Mr. Kiyogorō is…”

—Just at that moment, a police staff member appeared courteously.

“We’ve just received notification from N Police Station that the farmer who discovered and reported Mr. Midori’s corpse yesterday has come forward to the police again, confessing that he embezzled and concealed this amount of cash from the corpse’s pocket and has reportedly turned in the sum of fifty thousand yen.”

“I see!”
The prosecutor nodded, and Ikenouchi’s face brightened with clear relief as if a major obstacle had been removed.
At that very moment, the desk phone rang.

“Ah, right.”
The prosecutor responded to the person on the phone.
He listened with intermittent hums but, wearing a doubtful expression, passed the receiver over to Ikenouchi.

“A long-distance call from P Civil Airfield.”
“They’re saying something I can’t quite grasp.”

Thus it was:
“Following your notification, we conducted a thorough inspection of the Avro training plane that flew yesterday morning and discovered one rivet affixed to its wheel axle had come loose.”
“The loss clearly occurred during yesterday’s training flight.”

“Prosecutor, I’ve identified the culprit.”
“It was a small steel rivet that had come loose from the training plane and flown off.”

Ikenouchi shouted as he slammed down the receiver.
“I’m glad my prediction proved correct.”
“Mr. Midori likely witnessed Mr. Kiyogorō’s accidental death and suddenly conceived malicious intent—not knowing divine judgment was imminent…”

5

“Well, I really did panic.”

Walking across the grass of H Airfield on a clear morning, Ikenouchi said to Saegusa as they walked side by side toward the passenger plane, its propeller whirring.
“The situation really isn’t in your favor.”
“But what I couldn’t imagine, no matter how hard I tried, was the murder weapon.”
“Even if you were unrelated to the incident from my perspective, I cannot conceive that Mr. Midori harbored murderous intent toward Mr. Kiyogorō before boarding the plane.”
“Because the two were complete strangers who had met for the first time at the airport.”
“Therefore, it’s unthinkable that Mr. Midori could have concealed the murder weapon on his person, while at the same time, there was absolutely nothing within the narrow cabin that could have served as such a weapon.”
“Of course, everyone knows Mr. Kiyogorō had no belongings other than his briefcase.”
“In the end, I had no choice but to expand my imagination to the utmost.”
“Namely, I couldn’t help but recall an incident said to have occurred in the Netherlands in 1928—where a part from a passing aircraft flew off and injured the pilot of another aircraft.”
“And I immediately inquired at P Civil Airfield whether that idea was correct.”

The two men exchanged glances and smiled.

"But, Saegusa," Ikenouchi continued. "What was fortunate was that I had a perfect alibi. If I hadn't been able to establish that alibi, who knows what dreadful consequences we might have faced? But after all, that too was precisely because you had asked me for that favor before leaving D. Just what were you scheming when you made such a request of me?"

Saegusa’s face suddenly flushed as he answered.

“Reiko-san (his fiancée) had gone on a motor trip with Shinzō-kun (her brother) since the day before.”
“They were supposed to spot our plane somewhere that day and wave a flag from the ground—that was the arrangement.”
“I was meant to be monitoring that, but since I encountered Kiyogorō, I had to ask you to take care of it instead...”

(“Detective”
November 1931)