Pathway to Japanese Literature

Author: Edogawa Ranpo

I

It was probably a kind of mental illness.

Saburō Kyōda found the world utterly devoid of interest—no matter what game he played, no matter what profession he tried, no matter what he did.

After leaving school—though he had attended that school for barely countable days in a year—he had tried every job within his capabilities one after another, yet he had not encountered a single one that seemed worthy of dedicating his life to. Perhaps no occupation that could satisfy him existed in this world. At their longest, a year; at their shortest, about a month—he drifted from occupation to occupation. And perhaps having finally given up, he now no longer sought his next occupation, spending each dull day literally doing nothing at all.

The same went for his amusements. From card games and billiards to tennis, swimming, mountain climbing, Go, Shogi, and even various forms of gambling—every conceivable game you could name, so many they defy enumeration here—he bought something like an encyclopedia of amusements and exhaustively tried them all, but just as with his occupations, none proved worthwhile, and he was always left disappointed. But in this world, are there not such splendid pleasures as "women" and "alcohol"—pleasures that no human being could ever tire of in a lifetime? You all would doubtless say so. Yet Saburō Kyōda strangely felt no interest even in those two things. As for alcohol, perhaps it didn’t agree with his constitution—he couldn’t drink a single drop—and while he certainly wasn’t without desire when it came to women, having engaged in his fair share of dalliances, he simply couldn’t bring himself to feel that these things gave his life any real purpose.

“Rather than lingering in this tedious world, I’d be better off dead altogether.” He would often think such things. Yet even he appeared to retain the merest instinct for self-preservation, for though he kept repeating “I’ll die, I’ll die,” he had persisted like this until his twenty-fifth year without ever managing to end it.

Being able to receive a monthly allowance from his parents, he did not particularly struggle to make ends meet even without employment. Part of it may have been that very sense of security which had made him such a self-indulgent creature. So he devoted himself to using that allowance to make his life at least somewhat more interesting. For example, just as with occupations and amusements, frequently moving from lodging to lodging was one such endeavor. He knew, to put it a bit exaggeratedly, every single boarding house in Tokyo. After staying a month or even just half a month, he would immediately move on to another boarding house. Of course, during those intervals, there were times when he wandered like a vagabond. Or he even tried withdrawing deep into the mountains like a hermit. But for him—accustomed to city life—staying long in the desolate countryside proved utterly impossible. No sooner would he set out on a brief trip than, as if drawn by the city’s lights and bustle, he would find himself returning to Tokyo before he knew it. And needless to say, each time he did so, he changed boarding houses.

Now, the place he moved to this time was a brand-new boarding house called Tōeikan—so fresh that the walls were still damp—and here, he discovered a remarkable pleasure. And this story revolves around a certain murder case related to his new discovery. But before proceeding with that story, it becomes necessary to first explain how the protagonist, Saburō Kyōda, came to acquaint himself with amateur detective Kogorō Akechi—a name you are likely familiar with— —and came to develop a new interest in “crime,” which he had never noticed before—the circumstances leading to this must be briefly recounted.

The catalyst for their acquaintance came when they happened to be at the same café, where a friend accompanying Saburō—who knew Akechi—introduced them. At that moment, Saburō became utterly captivated by Akechi’s intelligent appearance, his manner of speaking, and his poised demeanor, which led him to visit Akechi frequently thereafter. Eventually, their relationship developed to such an extent that even Akechi began occasionally visiting Saburō’s boarding house for casual visits. For his part, Akechi may have taken an interest in Saburō’s pathological nature—as a kind of research subject—but Saburō himself found pure delight in listening to the various captivating crime stories Akechi shared.

The tales—of Dr. Webster, who murdered his colleague and attempted to reduce the corpse to ashes in a laboratory furnace; of Eugene Aram, fluent in multiple languages yet condemned for murder despite his groundbreaking linguistic discoveries; of Wainewright, the so-called insurance fiend who doubled as a brilliant literary critic; of Noguchi Otosaburō, who sought to cure his father-in-law’s leprosy by decocting the flesh of a child’s buttocks; and of those brutal criminals like Landru, dubbed Bluebeard, and Armstrong, who wedded and slaughtered numerous women—how these tales delighted Saburō Kyōda, who had been steeped in utter boredom! As he listened to Akechi’s eloquent storytelling, those crime narratives—like gaudy polychrome picture scrolls—would materialize before Saburō’s eyes with unfathomable allure, vivid and unrelenting.

For two or three months after meeting Akechi, Saburō seemed to have nearly forgotten life’s dreariness. He bought up various books on crime and devoted himself to reading them day after day. Among these volumes were works by Poe and Hoffmann, Gaboriau and Boileau—alongside numerous detective novels. “Ah—so there were still such fascinating things in this world?” Every time he closed a book’s final page, he would sigh deeply while thinking such thoughts. Before long he even began entertaining wild notions—that if possible, he too might attempt those dazzlingly garish games (if one could call them that) performed by crime story protagonists.

Yet even Saburō—try as he might—found himself utterly repulsed by the mere prospect of becoming a criminal. He still lacked the courage to indulge in his pleasures to the extent of ignoring the grief and insults of his parents, siblings, relatives, and acquaintances. According to those books, no matter how ingenious a crime may be, it inevitably contains some flaw somewhere, and that becomes the very starting point for the crime’s discovery; except for a very few exceptions, evading police detection for an entire lifetime appeared utterly impossible. To him, that alone was frightening. His misfortune was that he felt no interest in all things of the world, yet of all things, found an inexplicable allure solely in “crime.” And an even greater misfortune was that he could not carry out that “crime” for fear of being discovered.

After reading all the books he could get his hands on, he began imitating “crime.” Since it was mere imitation, he naturally had no need to fear punishment. It was things like this. He had long since grown tired of that Asakusa, but now he began to take an interest in it again. Asakusa’s amusement park—like a toy box upended and drenched in garish paints—was an unrivaled stage for crime enthusiasts. He would venture there and wander through the narrow, dark alleys barely wide enough for a single person to pass between the movie theaters, and the strangely desolate vacant lots behind public toilets—spaces that made one wonder how even Asakusa could have such expanses. And, as though communicating with fellow criminals, he would draw chalk arrow marks on nearby walls; whenever he spotted a wealthy-looking passerby, he would trail them endlessly, as if he himself had become a pickpocket; he would slip scraps of paper scrawled with bizarre coded messages—always detailing gruesome murders—between the slats of park benches, then hide in the shade of trees to wait for someone to discover them; and in these and other similar games, he amused himself alone.

He would often disguise himself and wander from town to town. Among the various disguises he tried—dressing as a laborer, a beggar, a student—it was cross-dressing that most gratified his morbid inclinations. To achieve this, he would sell off kimonos, watches, and the like to raise funds, purchase expensive wigs and secondhand women’s clothing, spend a long time transforming into his desired feminine guise, drape a coat over his head to conceal himself completely, and slip out of the boarding house entrance late at night. Once he removed his coat in a suitable spot, he would sometimes wander through desolate parks, other times slip into movie theaters just as the shows were ending to deliberately blend into the men’s sections, and even attempt risqué pranks. And, under the illusion created by his attire—as though he had transformed into some poison woman like Daji no O-Hyaku or Mōja no O-Yu—he delighted in imagining himself freely manipulating various men.

However, these imitations of “crime” did satisfy his desires to some extent, and at times even sparked mildly interesting incidents that provided temporary solace. But imitations remained imitations; lacking danger—for the allure of “crime” lies precisely in its peril—they held little interest and could not keep him elated indefinitely. After just three months had passed, he gradually began to distance himself from this pleasure. And his association with Akechi, which had once so captivated him, gradually grew listless.

Two

Having thus acquainted you with Saburō Kyōda’s interactions with Kogorō Akechi and his penchant for criminal fantasies, let us now return to the main subject and proceed to recount what pleasure Saburō Kyōda discovered at Tōeikan—the newly built boarding house.

Saburō had moved into Tōeikan the very moment its construction was completed—unable to wait any longer—over a year having passed since he first became acquainted with Akechi. Consequently he had lost all interest in those imitations of “crime,” yet with nothing else to replace them, found himself utterly unable to endure the long tedious days stretching endlessly before him. When he first moved into Tōeikan, making new friends had provided some distraction, but what profoundly tedious creatures humans turned out to be. No matter where he went, they merely repeated the same ideas with the same expressions and same words over and over. Even after going through the trouble of changing boarding houses and interacting with new people, within a week at most he would sink once more into bottomless lethargy.

And then, about ten days after moving into Tōeikan, there came a certain day. Out of sheer boredom, he suddenly thought of a strange idea. In his room—which was on the second floor—there stood a single closet beside a cheap alcove. Inside, positioned precisely midway between the lintel and threshold, a sturdy shelf filled the entire space, dividing it into upper and lower tiers. He had been storing several trunks on the lower tier and keeping futons on the upper, but instead of taking out the futons each time to spread them in the middle of the room, what if he were to keep them stacked on the shelf like a bed and climb up there to sleep when drowsy? He thought of such things. Had this been one of his previous boarding houses—even if its closet contained a similar shelf—the walls would likely have been grimy or the ceiling draped with cobwebs, dissuading any thought of sleeping inside. But here, in this pristine closet of a newly built house, the ceiling gleamed immaculate white, the smoothly painted yellow walls bore not a single stain, and the entire space—perhaps due to the shelf’s construction—somehow resembled a ship’s berth, stirring in him an odd temptation to try lying there just once.

So starting that very night, he began sleeping inside the closet. This boarding house had rooms that could be locked from the inside, and with no maids barging in unannounced, he was able to continue this eccentric behavior without worry. When he tried sleeping there, it felt better than he had expected. The sensation of stacking four futons atop one another, lying back gently upon them and gazing at the ceiling looming barely two feet above his eyes held an oddly peculiar flavor. When he snapped the sliding door tightly shut and watched thread-like electric light seep through its gaps, he felt as if he had become a character from a detective novel—a sensation both delightful and intriguing. Then when he cracked it open just a sliver to peer through at his own room—imagining all manner of intense scenarios with a burglar’s mindset spying on another’s space—that too held its peculiar fascination. At times he would crawl into the closet even during daylight hours, and within that rectangular box measuring one ken by three shaku, indulge in aimless delusions while leisurely puffing on his beloved tobacco. At such times through gaps in the tightly shut sliding door would leak copious white smoke—so much that one might have thought a fire had broken out inside the closet.

However, after continuing this eccentric behavior for two or three days, he once again noticed something strange. Fickle as he was, by around the third day he had already lost interest in the closet bed and—out of restlessness—began doodling on its walls and the ceiling boards within reach while lying down. But then he suddenly noticed that one ceiling board right above his head seemed strangely loose and wobbly, as if someone had forgotten to nail it down. Wondering what was going on, he pushed up on it with his hands and tried lifting. Though it came loose upward without much trouble, the strange thing was that when he let go—despite there being no nails securing it anywhere—it snapped back into place as if on a spring mechanism, returning perfectly to its original position. It felt as though someone was pressing down from above.

Hmm—what if some creature, like a large blue serpent or something, was right above this ceiling board? Saburō suddenly felt uneasy at this thought. Yet it seemed a shame to flee outright, so he kept pushing experimentally. Not only did he feel a heavy resistance pressing back, but each time he shifted the board, there came a dull rumbling sound from above. It was getting stranger and stranger. So he resolved himself and, mustering all his strength, pried off the ceiling board to look—when suddenly, there was a clattering sound as something came tumbling down from above. Fortunately, he had instinctively leapt aside in the nick of time; had he not done so, he would have been struck by the object and suffered serious injury.

“Ugh, how boring.” However, when he saw the fallen object—having harbored no small expectation that it might be something unusual—he was utterly dumbfounded by its banality. It was nothing more than an ordinary stone block, resembling a miniature pickling stone. Upon closer consideration, there was nothing mysterious about it at all. The electricians had removed a single ceiling board to create a passage for accessing the attic and placed a stone block there to prevent rats from entering the closet through it.

That was nothing short of a preposterous comedy. But that preposterous comedy became the catalyst for Saburō Kyōda to discover an extraordinary new pleasure. For a while, he gazed at the hole gaping open above his head—an aperture resembling a cave entrance—when suddenly, driven by innate curiosity, he cautiously inserted his head into the opening and peered around in every direction. It was morning; sunlight already beat down on the roof. Countless thin beams streamed through myriad gaps into the attic's hollow space like innumerable searchlights of varying sizes, bathing the area in unexpected brightness.

First catching the eye was a thick, twisting ridgepole—like a great serpent—laid out lengthwise along the vertical axis. Though bright for an attic, visibility didn’t extend far—and given the boarding house’s elongated structure, its ridgepole was indeed long—yet it seemed to stretch endlessly into the distance, growing hazy where it receded. And branching off at right angles from this ridgepole—like the ribs of a great serpent—countless beams protruded sharply along the roof’s slope to both sides. Even that alone made for a rather magnificent view, but moreover, to support the ceiling, countless thin rods hung down from the beams, creating a sensation akin to gazing into the interior of a limestone cave.

"This is fantastic!" After surveying the attic, Saburō inadvertently muttered those words to himself. Morbid as he was, he felt no attraction to the ordinary interests of the world; instead, it was precisely such things—those that seemed trivial to normal people—that held an indescribable allure for him.

From that day on, his “attic strolls” began. Night or day, whenever he had free time, he would creep along the ridgepoles and beams like a thieving cat, muffling his footsteps. Fortunately, as the house was newly built, the attic had neither the usual spider webs nor any accumulation of soot or dust—not even a trace of rat droppings remained. Therefore, there was no need to worry about soiling his clothes or getting his hands and feet dirty. Stripped down to his shirt, he roamed the attic as he pleased. The season being just spring, even though it was an attic, it was neither particularly hot nor cold.

Three

The Tōeikan building was constructed in a layout common to boarding houses—a central courtyard surrounded by rooms arranged in a square—and consequently, the attic followed this same structure without interruption, having no dead ends. Starting from the attic above his room and making a full loop would bring one back to the area directly above his own room again. The rooms below were so securely partitioned with walls, their entrances even fitted with metal fixtures for locking—yet once you climbed up into the attic, what an astonishingly open space it presented! You could wander freely above anyone’s room. If one were so inclined, since there were spots here and there with stone-block weights similar to those in Saburō’s room, one could slip down into others’ rooms from there and commit theft. Doing it through the corridor was extremely dangerous—not only were there eyes everywhere in all directions of the square-shaped building, as mentioned earlier, but there was also no telling when other residents or maids might pass by—however, through the attic passageway, that danger was absolutely nonexistent.

Moreover, here, peeking at others' secrets was entirely at one's discretion. Though newly built, it was a cheaply constructed boarding house—gaps riddled the ceiling everywhere, unnoticeable from within the rooms below but surprisingly large when viewed from the dark attic above. In rare spots, even knotholes gaped open.

When he discovered this attic—a premier stage—the criminal proclivity that Saburō Kyōda had somehow forgotten came surging up once more in his mind. On this stage, he could undoubtedly perform "mock crimes" far more stimulating than those he had attempted back then. The thought made him unbearably giddy. How on earth had I failed to notice until today that such fascinating possibilities lay right under my nose? Roaming through the dark world like a demon, peeking one after another at the secrets of the nearly twenty residents on Tōeikan’s second floor—that alone was already more than enough to delight Saburō. And for the first time in a long while, he even felt a reason to live.

Moreover, to make these "attic strolls" all the more thrilling, he made sure to start by dressing the part of an actual criminal from head to toe. A form-fitting dark brown woolen shirt with matching long underwear—though he would have preferred a jet-black top like that female bandit Protea from the silent films he’d once seen, but having nothing of the sort in his possession, he resigned himself—tabi socks on his feet, gloves covering his hands—though the attic’s rough-cut timber posed little risk of leaving fingerprints—and in his grip, rather than the pistol he’d craved but lacked, he settled for carrying a flashlight.

Late at night—unlike daytime—the amount of light filtering through was exceedingly scant. Moving through darkness so thick he couldn’t see an inch ahead while taking care not to make the slightest sound, he crept slowly and stealthily along the ridgepole in that guise. Then something about it—the sensation of having become a snake slithering around a thick tree trunk—made an uncanny sense of dread well up within him. Yet that very dread—by some twist of fate—thrilled him to the core with delight.

In this way, for several days, he continued his "attic strolls" in a state of euphoria. During that time, as expected, various incidents occurred that delighted him—events that alone could fill an entire novel. However, since these matters bore no direct relation to the main story, they were regrettably skipped over, with only two or three examples briefly mentioned.

How peculiarly fascinating peering from the ceiling could be was something that those who had not actually tried it themselves would scarcely be able to imagine. Even if no particular incident were occurring below, merely observing humans who—believing themselves unwatched—laid bare their true natures was thoroughly fascinating. Upon closer observation, he discovered to his considerable surprise that certain people’s behavior and demeanor—even their facial expressions—changed completely depending on whether others were present or they were alone. Moreover, unlike the usual horizontal view from the side, peering down directly from above—owing to this difference in viewing angle—even an ordinary room strikes one as a rather peculiar scene. For humans, the tops of their heads and both shoulders; for bookshelves, desks, chests of drawers, and braziers, only their upper surfaces are primarily visible. And the walls are nearly invisible; instead, behind every object, tatami mats spread out expansively.

Even when nothing was happening, on top of such inherent interest, there often unfolded scenes that were comical, tragic, or downright horrifying. Scenes unfolded where a company employee who routinely spouted radical anti-capitalist rhetoric would—when unobserved—repeatedly take out his freshly received promotion notice from his briefcase, gaze at it adoringly, then tuck it away again; where a stock trader who flaunted his wealth by casually wearing sleek silk crepe kimonos daily would, upon retiring, meticulously fold those same garments with feminine care—even laying them beneath his futon—and upon spotting stains, painstakingly lick them clean (they say saliva works best for small blemishes on silk); where a pimpled college baseball player, displaying timidity unbefitting an athlete, would fidget restlessly—placing a note for the maid atop his finished dinner tray, retracting it, then replacing it again; and where some residents even audaciously brought in prostitutes(?), performing such indecent acts too lurid to commit to paper—all observed freely, without restraint.

Saburō also took an interest in studying the emotional entanglements between lodgers. The way the same person would shift their attitude depending on whom they faced—there were those who, having just exchanged smiles in conversation moments before, would enter the neighboring room and rail against that same person as though confronting a mortal foe, and others who, like bats, would spout whatever suited their convenience wherever they went, only to stick out their tongues mockingly once out of sight. And when it came to female lodgers—for there was a female art student on Tōeikan’s second floor—his interest grew even keener. It was far from a mere “love triangle.” Not only were these pentagonal and hexagonal entanglements visible as if held in one’s hand, but even the true intentions of the individuals—unknown to any of their rivals—were laid bare solely to the outsider “Attic Stroller.” In fairy tales there exists a magic cloak of invisibility; Saburō in the attic might as well have been wearing such a cloak.

Moreover, if one could have removed the ceiling boards of others’ rooms, sneaked inside, and played various pranks, it would have been even more fascinating—but Saburō lacked the courage for that. For there were escape routes weighted with stone blocks—approximately one every three-ken intervals—identical to those in Saburō’s room, making infiltration effortless. Yet there was no telling when a room’s occupant might return, and even otherwise, with all windows being transparent glass-paned shoji, detection from outside remained a risk. Moreover, during the process of prying up ceiling boards to descend into a closet, sliding open fusuma doors to enter the room, then clambering back up the closet shelves to return to the attic—complete silence could never be guaranteed throughout. If noticed from the hallway or neighboring rooms, that would spell immediate ruin.

Now, it was late one night. Having completed a full circuit of his "stroll," Saburō was moving from beam to beam to return to his room when he suddenly discovered a faint gap in the ceiling—one he had never noticed before—at a corner of the wing directly across the courtyard from his own quarters. It was about two inches in diameter, cloud-shaped, with a thread-thin ray of light leaking through. Wondering what it was, he quietly turned on his flashlight and examined it to find a rather large wooden knot—more than half detached from the surrounding board, barely connected at the remaining half—narrowly avoiding becoming a knothole. If pried even slightly with a fingernail, it would come off without any trouble. There, Saburō looked down through another gap to confirm that the room’s occupant was already asleep, then—taking care not to make a sound—finally managed to pry it off after considerable time. Conveniently, the resulting knothole was cup-shaped and narrower at the bottom, so as long as he simply pressed the wooden knot back into place, it wouldn’t fall through—allowing such a large peephole to exist there undetected.

Thinking this was a handy setup, he peered down through the knothole. Unlike the other gaps—which, though long vertically, were inconveniently narrow at just a few millimeters wide—even the narrower bottom part of this hole measured over an inch in diameter, allowing him to easily survey the entire room. At this point, Saburō had inadvertently made a detour to peer into the room—which, by chance, belonged to none other than Endō, a dental school graduate currently working as an assistant at some dentist’s office and the resident Saburō detested most among all those at Tōeikan. That Endō, with his revoltingly flat face—now grown even flatter—lay sleeping right beneath his eyes. Seeming an absurdly meticulous man, his room was more neatly organized than that of any other resident. The position of stationery on the desk, the arrangement of books in the bookshelf, the precise laying out of bedding, the unfamiliarly shaped alarm clock—likely an import—placed by the pillow, the lacquered cigarette case, the colored-glass ashtray: every item testified to their owner being a man of fastidious cleanliness, the sort of neurotic who would pick at a box’s corners with a toothpick. Moreover, Endō’s own sleeping posture was truly well-mannered. The only thing that clashed with these scenes was that he lay there with his mouth wide open, snoring like thunder.

Saburō frowned as though gazing at something filthy and stared at Endō’s sleeping face. His face was, in a way, beautiful. Indeed, just as he himself boasted, it might well be a face that women found appealing. But what a drawn-out, interminably elongated arrangement of features. Thick hair; a face that was overall long yet paradoxically crowned by a narrow, Fuji-shaped forehead; short eyebrows; narrow eyes; crow’s feet that seemed perpetually crinkled in laughter; a long nose; and an unusually large mouth. Saburō found this mouth utterly displeasing. Forming a step below the nose, the upper and lower jaws jutted bulkily forward, presenting a grotesque contrast against his ghastly pale face as the large purple lips lay open. And whether due to hypertrophic rhinitis or not, his nose was perpetually congested, forcing him to breathe through that large mouth left agape. The fact that he snored even while sleeping must also have been due to his nasal condition.

Whenever Saburō saw Endō’s face, an inexplicable tingling itch would creep up his back, filling him with the urge to suddenly strike those flat, featureless cheeks.

IV And so, as he gazed at Endō’s sleeping face, Saburō suddenly conceived a peculiar thought. The thought was that if he were to spit through that knothole, wouldn’t it neatly enter right into Endō’s gaping mouth? For his mouth was positioned as if custom-made, directly beneath the knothole. Out of morbid curiosity, Saburō pulled out the string from his fundoshi that he wore beneath his loincloth, dangled it vertically over the knothole, and pressed one eye against it as if aligning a gun’s sights. To his astonishment, a strange coincidence revealed itself. The string, the knothole, and Endō’s mouth aligned perfectly into a single point. In other words, he realized that if he were to spit through the knothole, it would undoubtedly fall right into his mouth.

However, since he couldn’t very well actually spit on him, Saburō pressed the knothole back into place and was about to leave—but at that moment, a terrifying thought suddenly flashed into his mind. Involuntarily, in the attic’s darkness, he turned deathly pale and began trembling uncontrollably. It was indeed the thought of murdering Endō—who bore him no grudge whatsoever.

Not only did he bear no grudge against Endō, but they had not even known each other for half a month yet. Moreover, since their move-in had coincidentally fallen on the same day, they had merely visited each other’s rooms two or three times as a connection, with no particular deep interaction between them. Now, as to why he had come to consider killing Endō—while it’s true that Endō’s appearance and mannerisms, so repulsive they made him want to strike him, played some part—Saburō’s primary motive lay not in the man himself, but in the sheer fascination of the act of murder. As I have explained, Saburō’s mental state was profoundly deviant, harboring what could be called an addiction to criminal acts—and among those crimes, it was murder that most captivated him. Thus, the emergence of such thoughts was by no means accidental. Up until now, even if murderous impulses had often arisen within him, he had never once considered acting on them out of fear of the crime being discovered—that was all.

However, in Endō’s case now, it seemed entirely possible to commit murder without arousing suspicion and without fear of discovery. As long as there was no danger to himself, Saburō did not concern himself with such considerations—even if the victim had been a complete stranger. Rather, the more cruel the act of murder became, the more his abnormal desires were satisfied. Now, why was it that only in Endō’s case would the murder go undetected—or at least why did Saburō believe so? This was due to the following circumstances.

It was about four or five days after moving into Tōeikan. Saburō had gone out to a nearby café with a fellow resident he had recently become acquainted with. At that time Endō too had come to the same café. The three of them gathered around a table to drink—though Saburō, who disliked alcohol, had coffee—and all became quite cheerful before returning together to the boarding house. Somewhat drunk from the alcohol he’d consumed, Endō insisted “Please come to my room,” and forcibly dragged the two into his quarters. Endō, carried away in his excitement, paid no heed to the late hour—summoning the maid to make tea and continuing his romantic boasts from the café.—It was from that night Saburō began to detest him—At that moment Endō—running his tongue over his bright red swollen lips—proudly declared the following.

“With that woman, you see, I once attempted a lovers’ suicide. “Back when I was still in school—you see, mine was a medical school, right?” “Getting the poison was no trouble at all, you see.” “So I prepared just enough morphine for the two of us to die painlessly—listen to this—and we set off for Shibahara.” As he said this, he unsteadily stood up, went to the closet, rattled open the sliding door, retrieved an extremely small brown bottle—about the size of a little fingertip—from beneath a suitcase piled inside, and presented it to his listeners. Inside the bottle, at the very bottom, was a mere speck of some glittering powder.

“This is it.” “This tiny bit is enough to kill two people, you know.” “…But you all, don’t go talking about this, you hear?” “…to outsiders.” And though his romantic boasts had droned on endlessly at the time, Saburō now unintentionally recalled that poison. “Drip poison through the attic’s knothole and commit murder!” “What an outlandish, brilliant crime this is!”

He was utterly ecstatic over this brilliant scheme. Upon closer examination, one would realize this method was merely dramatic and sorely lacking in feasibility. Moreover, there should have been any number of simpler ways to commit murder without such elaborate lengths. But he, bewitched by this aberrant idea, had no room left to consider anything else. And in his mind, only convenient rationalizations about this plan kept surfacing one after another.

First came the need to steal the poison. However, that posed no difficulty. If he were to visit Endō’s room and engage him in conversation—sooner or later he’d likely excuse himself for the restroom or some such pretext. All he needed during that interval was to retrieve the small brown bottle from that familiar wicker trunk. Since Endō didn’t constantly check its depths anyway—two or three days might pass before any absence registered. Even should someone notice—since mere possession of such poison was itself illegal—it wouldn’t become public knowledge; moreover—if executed skillfully enough—none could ever trace its disappearance.

Wouldn't it be easier to sneak in through the ceiling instead of doing all that? No no—that was dangerous. As he'd noted earlier, there was always the risk of the room's occupant returning unexpectedly or being spotted through the glass-paneled door. Moreover, Endō's ceiling lacked that stone-weighted escape route like the one in Saburō's room. Absolutely unthinkable! How could anyone manage something as perilous as prying up nailed-down ceiling boards to sneak through?

Now, all he had to do was dissolve the powdered drug he’d obtained in water and drip it into Endō’s large mouth—constantly hanging open due to his nasal ailment—and that would be that. The only worry was whether he would swallow it properly, but well, that was no problem either. Because the poison required only an extremely small amount—if dissolved at high concentration—a mere few drops would suffice. If he were in deep sleep, he likely wouldn’t even notice. Even if he did notice, he probably wouldn’t have time to spit it out. Moreover, Saburō knew full well that morphine hydrochloride was bitter, but even so, the quantity was minimal, and if he mixed in some sugar beforehand, there was absolutely no risk of failure. After all, nobody would ever imagine poison raining down from the ceiling—in that critical moment, Endō would have no chance of realizing what was happening.

However, would the poison work as intended? Could it be that due to Endō’s constitution—whether the dosage was too much or too little—he might merely writhe in agony without dying? This was the problem—admittedly, it would have been deeply regrettable if that occurred, but there was no risk of danger to Saburō himself. This was because the knothole had originally been properly covered, and moreover, no dust had yet accumulated in that part of the attic. Therefore, no traces would remain. Fingerprints had been prevented with gloves. Even if it were discovered that poison had been dripped from the ceiling, there would have been no way to determine who had done it. Moreover, given that it was common knowledge that he and Endō had no relationship involving resentment in their recent interactions, there was no logical reason for suspicion to fall on him. No—even without considering that far—Endō, in the depths of sleep, wouldn’t have discerned the direction from which the poison had fallen.

This was the self-serving rationale Saburō had devised both in the attic and after returning to his room.

The reader had likely already noticed that even if all the aforementioned points were to proceed smoothly, there remained one critical flaw beyond them. Yet, strangely enough, he remained completely unaware of this until he finally set his plan into motion.

5

Saburō, having waited for an opportune moment, visited Endō’s room about four or five days after that. Of course, during that time, he had repeatedly thought through this plan and had been able to determine that there was absolutely no danger. Not only that, he had also added all sorts of new refinements. For example, his scheme regarding the disposal of the poison bottle was also among them.

If he could successfully kill Endō, he had decided to drop the bottle down through the knothole. By doing so, he would gain a double advantage. On one hand, this eliminated the need to conceal the bottle—which would become crucial evidence if discovered—and on the other, if a poison container lay beside the corpse, everyone would inevitably conclude Endō had committed suicide. Furthermore, the fact that this bottle belonged to Endō himself would surely be proven by the man who had once listened to Endō’s amorous boasts alongside Saburō. What proved additionally convenient was that Endō went to bed every night after meticulously securing his room. Not only the entrance but even the windows were fastened from within using metal fixtures, rendering it utterly impossible to enter from outside.

Now, on that day, Saburō engaged in a lengthy conversation with Endō—whose very sight nauseated him—using tremendous willpower. During their conversation, an extremely dangerous desire arose within him—to subtly hint at his murderous intent and frighten the other person—which he barely managed to suppress. “Within a few days, I’ll kill you in a way that leaves absolutely no evidence. You being able to chatter away like a woman like this won’t last much longer.” “You’d better chatter away while you still can.” Saburō gazed at the other man’s ceaselessly moving, oversized lips while repeating such thoughts in his mind. The thought that this man would soon become a bloated blue corpse filled him with unbearable glee.

As they were engrossed in conversation, just as expected, Endō got up to go to the restroom. It must have been around ten o’clock at night when Saburō, after vigilantly checking his surroundings—including thoroughly inspecting outside the glass-paned window—silently yet swiftly opened the closet door and retrieved the familiar medicine bottle from the trunk. Since he had carefully noted where it was placed beforehand, searching for it wasn’t difficult. But even so, his heart pounded, and cold sweat streamed from his armpits. To tell the truth, the most dangerous part of his current plan was this task of stealing the poison. For some reason, Endō might unexpectedly return, and there was no telling whether someone might catch a glimpse. But regarding that, he had reasoned as follows. If he were caught—or even if not, if Endō discovered the missing medicine bottle—that would soon become apparent if one paid close attention. After all, he had the “weapon” of his ceiling peephole—all he needed to do was abandon the murder if necessary. After all, merely stealing poison wouldn’t amount to any serious crime.

Be that as it may, in the end, he managed to obtain the poison bottle without being noticed by anyone. Then, shortly after Endō returned from the restroom, he casually brought their conversation to a close and returned to his own room. Then, after drawing the curtains tightly over the windows and securing the entrance door, he sat down at his desk and, with his heart racing, pulled out a neat little brown bottle from his pocket to gaze intently at it.

MORPHINUM HYDROCHLORICUM(o.g.)

It was probably written by Endō. On the small label were inscribed these characters. He had read about morphine hydrochloride in pharmacology books and knew something of its properties, but this marked his first encounter with the actual substance. That must be what they call morphine hydrochloride. When he held the bottle up to the lamp and peered through it, a scant half-teaspoon of white powder glittered cleanly and brilliantly. He found it strange almost to the point of wonder—could something like this truly kill a human being?

Saburō, of course, had no precise scale to measure it with, so regarding the quantity, he had no choice but to trust Endō’s word. However, even though Endō had been drunk at the time, his demeanor and tone of voice did not seem at all unreliable. Moreover, since the numbers on the label matched exactly twice the lethal dose Saburō knew of, there could hardly be any mistake.

Thereupon, he placed the bottle on the desk, arranged prepared sugar and water beside it, and began earnestly mixing the substances with the meticulousness of a pharmacist. The boarding house residents all seemed to have gone to sleep, and the surroundings were steeped in profound silence. As he carefully dripped water soaked onto a matchstick—drop by drop—into the bottle amidst this silence, his own breath began to resound with an eerie, monstrous intensity, like the sigh of a demon. Ah, how immensely this must have satisfied Saburō’s perverse inclinations. Frequently, there would materialize before his eyes the terrifying figure of that ancient tale’s witch—grinning malevolently as she stared into a pot of poison bubbling and boiling in the darkness of a cavern.

Yet, at the same time, from that moment onward, an emotion resembling terror—one he had never anticipated—began welling up in a corner of his heart. And as time passed, bit by bit, it began to spread.

MURDER CANNOT BE HID LONG, A MAN'S SON MAY, BUT AT THE LENGTH TRUTH WILL OUT.

That eerie Shakespearean phrase he had memorized from someone’s quotation blazed with a blinding glare, searing into his brain. Despite being so utterly convinced this plan held no flaws, he found himself helpless against the anxiety swelling moment by moment.

To kill someone bearing no grudge against you, purely for murder’s thrill—could this be the work of a sound mind? Have you been possessed by a demon? Have you gone mad? In all honesty, doesn’t your own hollow soul terrify you?

For a long time, unaware of the deepening night, he sat lost in thought before the poison bottle he had finished preparing. "I should abandon this plan once and for all." He must have been on the verge of making that resolution countless times. But in the end, he simply could not bring himself to relinquish the allure of murder.

However, as he tossed and turned between these thoughts, a fatal realization abruptly flashed through his mind.

“Hm-hm-hm…”

Suddenly, Saburō—finding it unbearably amusing yet mindful of the sleeping stillness around him—burst into laughter.

"You idiot. What a magnificent clown you are! To concoct such a plan with such deadly seriousness. Has your paralyzed brain lost even the capacity to distinguish chance from necessity? Just because Endō’s gaping mouth was once directly beneath that knothole, how could you possibly know it would align there again? No—rather, isn’t that utterly impossible?"

It was an utterly absurd mistake. His plan had already succumbed to a grand delusion from its very conception. Yet even so—how could he have overlooked something so glaringly obvious until now? One must indeed call it strange. Was this not proof that his brain, with all its pretentious intellect, harbored some fundamental flaw? Be that as it may, this revelation left him profoundly disappointed on one hand, while simultaneously filling him with an odd sense of relief.

“Thanks to that, I no longer have to commit the terrible murder.” “Whew, I’m saved.”

That said, from the very next day onward, whenever he went on his "attic strolls," he would lingeringly open that familiar knothole and never failed to monitor Endō’s activities. This was partly due to anxiety that Endō might notice the stolen poison, but it could not be said he did not yearningly await the chance—however improbable—for Endō’s mouth to lie directly beneath the knothole again, just as it had before. In fact, he had never once removed his poison from his shirt pocket during any of these "strolls."

VI

One night—it had already been about ten days since Saburō had begun his "attic strolls." For ten days straight, he had crawled around the attic multiple times each day without ever being noticed—his efforts were no ordinary matter. Meticulous care—such a commonplace phrase could hardly convey it.—Saburō was once again prowling the attic above Endō’s room. And with a feeling akin to drawing a sacred lot—would it bring fortune or calamity?—he wondered if today might finally yield good luck. Praying to God that he might receive a favorable omen, he opened the familiar knothole.

Then—ah—could his eyes be deceiving him? There, in precisely the same position as when he had seen it before, was Endō’s snoring mouth—directly beneath the knothole. Saburō rubbed his eyes and looked again repeatedly, even removed the cord from his undershorts to measure by eye, but there was no mistake anymore. The cord, the hole, and the mouth were indeed aligned in a perfect straight line. He barely managed to suppress the cry that nearly escaped him. The joy that the moment had finally arrived and the indescribable terror on the other hand—these two emotions clashed together, and in the grip of this bizarre excitement, he turned deathly pale in the darkness.

He took the poison bottle from his pocket and, steadying his hands—which had begun trembling of their own accord—removed the stopper. Using the cord to gauge his aim—oh, that indescribable feeling in that moment!—he let several drops fall: drip... drip... drip. That was all he could manage. He immediately shut his eyes.

“Did he notice? He must have noticed.” He must have noticed. “And at any moment now—oh, at any moment now—what a loud cry he would let out!” If his hands had been free, he felt such an urge to cover his ears that he might have done so.

Yet despite all his anxious precautions, Endō below didn’t utter so much as a grunt or a sigh. He had definitely seen the poison fall into his mouth—there could be no mistake about that. But what was the meaning of this silence? Saburō tentatively opened his eyes and peered through the knothole. Then, Endō worked his mouth in a mumbling motion and made a gesture of rubbing his lips with both hands—just as he had finished doing so. Once again, he fell fast asleep, snoring loudly. How true it was that "the doing proved easier than the dreading." Endō, still drowsy, remained completely unaware that he had swallowed the terrible poison.

Saburō stared fixedly at the pitiful victim’s face without moving a muscle. How interminably long it felt—though in reality less than twenty minutes had passed—it seemed to him as if he had been doing so for two or three hours. Then, at that moment, Endō suddenly opened his eyes. And then, half-raising himself, he looked around the room with a thoroughly puzzled expression. Perhaps feeling dizzy, he shook his head, rubbed his eyes, muttered incoherent nonsense like delirious ramblings, and made all manner of maddened gestures—yet despite this, he finally settled back onto his pillow, only to now begin tossing and turning violently.

Before long, the strength of his tossing and turning gradually weakened, and just as he seemed to stop moving altogether, in its place, a thunderous snore began to resound. When he looked, the face had turned crimson as if drunk on wine, with beads of sweat gushing from the tip of the nose and forehead. Within the sleeping man’s body, a terrifying life-and-death struggle might now be taking place. When he thought of that, it was as if every hair on his body stood on end.

After some time, that once-crimson complexion gradually faded to paper-white, and in the blink of an eye, began turning bluish-gray. Then, before he knew it, the snoring had ceased, and indeed, the frequency of his inhalations and exhalations began to diminish. [...] When suddenly the movement in his chest stopped—leading him to think this was finally the end—after a while, as if remembering something, the lips would quiver once more, and a dull breath would return. Such a thing repeated itself two or three times, and that was the end of it... He no longer moved. On the face that had slipped limply from the pillow floated a smile of a kind utterly separate from those of our world. He had finally become what they call a "Buddha."

Holding his breath, gripping his sweaty hands, and staring at the scene, Saburō finally let out a sigh of relief. He had finally become a murderer. And yet, what an effortless way to die that had been. His victim had died without so much as a scream—without even a look of agony—all while snoring.

"What the... So murder’s just this anticlimactic?" Saburō ended up feeling inexplicably disappointed. In the realm of imagination, murder had been the ultimate fascination—yet when actually carried out, it proved no different from any other everyday occurrence. In this state, I could still kill any number of people. Even as he entertained such thoughts, however, an indescribable terror began creeping into his hollowed-out heart.

In the pitch-black attic, amidst monstrously intersecting ridgepoles and beams crisscrossing in every direction, Saburō suddenly grew disgusted by his own figure clinging to the ceiling like a gecko, staring down at a human corpse below. A strange chill crept down his neck, and when he strained to listen, he could almost hear his name being called somewhere—slowly, relentlessly. Involuntarily tearing his gaze from the knothole, he scanned the surrounding darkness—likely an aftereffect of having stared at that bright spot too long. Before his eyes swarmed large and small yellow rings that appeared and vanished in succession. As he stared fixedly at them, Endō’s grotesquely large lips seemed poised to dart out from behind those luminous circles.

But he had carried out exactly what he had initially planned without fail. Dropping the poison bottle—which still contained a few drops of poison liquid—through the knothole; plugging the resulting hole; checking with a flashlight whether any traces remained in the attic; and once confirming there were no oversights, he hurriedly made his way along the ridgepole and returned to his room.

“At last, it’s done.”

With both his head and body strangely numb and an uneasy mood that felt like he might be forgetting something crucial, Saburō deliberately intensified these sensations as he began dressing inside the closet. But at that moment, he suddenly realized—the matter of what had become of that fundoshi cord he'd used for measuring. Could he have left it there? With that thought, he frantically patted around his waist area. Nothing seemed to be there. He grew increasingly panicked and searched his entire body. Then—why had he forgotten this?—there it was, properly tucked in his shirt pocket! Whew, what a relief. As he started pulling out the cord and flashlight from his pocket, he froze in shock—another item remained inside. ...The small cork stopper from the poison bottle lay within.

When administering the poison earlier, he had deliberately placed the stopper in his pocket, thinking it would be disastrous to lose track of it later. However, it appeared he had forgotten about it entirely and only dropped the bottle down below. Though small, leaving it as it was would become the source of the crime’s discovery. Steeling his fearful heart, he had to return once more to the scene and drop it through the knothole.

That night, Saburō went to bed—by then, he had stopped sleeping in the closet for safety reasons—at around three in the morning. Even so, keyed up as he was, he simply couldn’t fall asleep. If he could forget something as crucial as dropping the stopper, there might have been other oversights. At that thought, he could no longer remain composed. There, forcing his disordered mind to calm, he methodically retraced each action of that night in sequence, scrutinizing whether there had been any oversights. But, at least in his mind, he could discover nothing. No matter how he considered it, there was not the slightest oversight in his crime.

He kept thinking this way until daybreak finally came, but when he began hearing the footsteps of early-rising boarders walking through the hallway toward the washroom, he abruptly stood up and started preparing to go out. He dreaded the moment when Endō's corpse would be discovered. What attitude should he assume when that happened? If there were any odd behavior now that might invite suspicion later, it would spell disaster. He concluded that staying out during that time would be safest—but wouldn't skipping breakfast make him appear even more suspicious? "Ah! Right—what am I doing being so careless?" Realizing this, he burrowed back into his bedding once more.

How Saburō spent those roughly two hours until breakfast in anxious trembling! Fortunately, nothing occurred until he hurriedly finished his meal and fled the boarding house. When he left the boarding house, he wandered aimlessly from town to town with no particular destination in mind, simply to pass the time.

7

In the end, his plan succeeded splendidly. When he returned from outside around noon, Endō’s corpse had already been cleared away, and the police inspection had been fully completed. As expected, he heard that not a single person suspected Endō’s death to be anything but a suicide, and the relevant authorities had conducted only a perfunctory questioning before promptly leaving.

The reason why Endō had committed suicide remained entirely unclear, but based on his usual conduct, everyone agreed it was likely due to a matter of unrequited love. In fact, evidence had even emerged suggesting he’d recently been rejected by a woman. “Well, all that ‘heartbroken’ talk was just a habit for a man like him—it didn’t really mean much. But with no other cause apparent, they ultimately settled on that explanation.”

Moreover, whether there had been a cause or not, his suicide stood beyond all doubt. Both entrance and windows had been locked from within, the poison vessel lay by his pillow—and since this was known to be his possession—there remained simply no angle from which to harbor suspicion. Not a soul raised such preposterous doubts as whether poison might have been dripped through the ceiling.

Even so, still unable to feel entirely at ease, Saburō spent the day on edge. Yet as one day passed, then two, he not only gradually calmed down but even found room to take pride in his own handiwork. "What do you think of that? I'm something else. Look! Not a single person here realizes there’s a terrifying murderer in one of the rooms of this very boarding house."

He thought that with things going this way, there was no knowing how many hidden, unpunished crimes existed in society. "The net of heaven may be vast with loose meshes, but nothing escapes it"—such phrases must surely be nothing more than ancient propaganda by those in power or superstitions among the common people. In truth, he reasoned, any crime could remain undetected forever if executed skillfully enough. He even began thinking along such lines. Though admittedly at night, visions of Endō's deathly countenance would flicker before his eyes, filling him with an uncanny dread—so much so that since that night, he had discontinued his habitual "attic strolls." Yet this was merely a mental fixation that would fade with time. As long as the crime remained undiscovered, wasn't that sufficient in itself?

Now, it had been exactly three days since Endō died. Saburō had just finished his evening meal and was humming while using a toothpick when Akechi Kogorō—whom he hadn’t seen in some time—suddenly came visiting.

“Hey.” “Long time no see.” They exchanged greetings in this friendly manner, but Saburō, given the circumstances, couldn’t help feeling somewhat unsettled by this amateur detective’s visit.

“I hear someone drank poison and died at this boarding house.” Akechi, upon sitting down, immediately broached the subject Saburō had been trying to avoid. Undoubtedly he’d heard about the suicide from someone and—conveniently finding Saburō at the same boarding house—had come visiting out of his innate detective curiosity.

“Ah, Makibi𣵀, you see. “I wasn’t around during all the commotion, so I don’t know the details, but it seems to have been the result of a love affair.”

Saburō, trying not to let on that he wanted to avoid the topic, answered while putting on a face that feigned his own interest in it.

“What kind of man was he, anyway?”

Then immediately Akechi inquired again. For some time after that, they continued exchanging questions and answers about Endō’s character, the cause of death, and the method of suicide. At first Saburō had answered Akechi’s questions nervously, but as he grew accustomed, he gradually became more careless—until he even began feeling like mocking him. “What do you think?” “Could this actually be a homicide?” “Not that I have any particular basis for it—but doesn’t it often happen that what you were certain was a suicide turns out to be a homicide?”

"How about that? Even the great detective wouldn’t be able to figure this one out," Saburō jeered inwardly, venturing to say such things.

That was unbearably delightful to him.

“That’s something I can’t really say.” “To tell the truth, when I first heard about this from a friend, I also felt the cause of death was somewhat ambiguous.” “I wonder—would it be possible to go see Mr. Endō’s room?”

“No problem,” Saburō answered rather triumphantly. “In the next room there’s a friend of Endō’s from his hometown—he’s been entrusted by Endō’s father with keeping his belongings. If I mention you, he’ll gladly show them to you.”

Then, the two of them decided to go see Endō’s room. At that moment, as Saburō walked at the head of the corridor, he was suddenly struck by a peculiar sensation.

“For the criminal himself to guide the detective to the murder scene—has there ever been such a thing in all of history?”

He barely managed to suppress a sly grin. In his entire life, Saburō had perhaps never felt such triumph as he did at this moment. "Attaboy, Boss!" he felt like giving himself such a cheer—so exemplary was his villainy.

Endō’s friend—a man named Kitamura who had testified that Endō had been heartbroken—was well acquainted with Akechi’s name and obligingly opened Endō’s room for them. Endō’s father had come from his hometown and completed the provisional funeral arrangements only that afternoon, leaving his belongings still unpacked in the room. The discovery of Endō’s unnatural death had apparently occurred after Kitamura left for work. Though unaware of the exact circumstances at the moment of discovery, he provided a fairly detailed explanation by piecing together what he had heard from others. Saburō, too, regarding that matter, proceeded to prattle on about rumors and such, playing the part of the perfect outsider.

Akechi, while listening to the two men’s explanations, was surveying the room here and there with a professional’s scrutiny when—suddenly noticing the alarm clock placed on the desk—he began gazing at it for a long time, as though struck by some thought. Perhaps the unusual decoration had caught his eye.

“This is an alarm clock, isn’t it?” “Yes, that’s right.” Kitamura answered volubly. “It was Endō’s pride and joy. He was such a meticulous man—every night without fail, he would wind this up to ring at six in the morning. I always used to wake to the sound of its bell from the neighboring room. It was the same on the day he died. That morning, since it had rung as usual, I never imagined such a thing could have happened.”

Upon hearing this, Akechi ran his fingers through his long, tousled hair, showing an intensely focused demeanor. “There’s no doubt the alarm rang that morning?”

“Yes, there’s no doubt about that.” “Did you mention that to the police?”

“No… But why do you ask such a thing?” “Why? Because it’s strange, don’t you think? For someone who resolved to commit suicide that night to have wound the alarm for the next morning—” “Now that you mention it, that does seem odd.” Kitamura, in his carelessness, had apparently failed to notice this point until now. Moreover, he still didn’t seem to fully grasp what Akechi was implying—though that wasn’t unreasonable. The locked entrance, the poison container lying beside the body, and all other circumstances had made Endō’s suicide appear beyond doubt.

However, upon hearing this exchange, Saburō felt a shock as though the ground beneath his feet had suddenly begun to crumble. And he couldn't help but bitterly regret his own foolishness in bringing Akechi to this place.

Akechi then began investigating the room with even greater meticulousness. Naturally, he wouldn’t overlook the ceiling. He proceeded to tap each ceiling board one by one, testing them as he checked for any traces of human entry or exit. However, to Saburō’s relief, even the astute Akechi appeared not to have noticed the novel trick of dripping poison through the knothole and resealing it exactly as before; having confirmed that none of the ceiling boards had been removed, he conducted no further probing.

Well, in the end, that day ended without any particular discoveries. After finishing his inspection of Endō’s room, Akechi returned to Saburō’s place, exchanged some casual conversation for a while, and then left without incident. However, I cannot omit recording that during this casual conversation, the following exchange occurred—for though it may appear utterly trivial at first glance, in truth, it holds the most crucial bearing on the conclusion of this tale.

At that moment, Akechi, while lighting an Airship he had taken from his sleeve, said this as if suddenly struck by a thought.

“You haven’t smoked at all since earlier—have you given it up?”

When this was pointed out, indeed, Saburō realized he hadn’t smoked a single cigarette in the past two or three days—despite his usual fondness for tobacco—as if he had completely forgotten about it. “That’s strange. I’d completely forgotten about it. And even though you’re smoking like that, I don’t feel the slightest desire for it.”

“Since when?” “Come to think of it, I haven’t smoked for two or three days now.” “Right—since I bought this Shikishima here on Sunday, that means I haven’t smoked a single one in three full days.” “What on earth is wrong with me?” “Then that’s exactly since the day Endō-kun died.”

When he heard this, Saburō involuntarily gasped. However, since he couldn’t possibly imagine any causal relationship between Endō’s death and his own abstinence from smoking, he had simply laughed it off at the time. Yet upon later reflection, it became clear that this was by no means an insignificant matter to be dismissed as a joke. —And strangely enough, Saburō’s aversion to tobacco persisted ever after.

Eight

Saburō, for the time being, found himself vaguely troubled by that alarm clock matter, unable to sleep restlessly at night. Even if it were discovered that Endō’s death wasn’t suicide, there should not be a single piece of evidence that could point to him as the culprit—so one might think there was no need for such worry. Yet the mere thought that Akechi knew left him unable to feel at ease.

However, about half a month passed without incident. The Akechi he’d been worried about never came back after that. “Well, well, is this finally the grand finale?” Thereupon, Saburō finally began to let his guard down. And though he was sometimes troubled by terrifying dreams, by and large, he was able to spend pleasant days. What particularly pleased him was that ever since committing that murder, all sorts of amusements he’d previously found utterly uninteresting had strangely begun to seem enjoyable. Therefore, these days, he would leave the house almost every day and go out and about.

One day, after staying out late yet again and returning home around ten o'clock, Saburō decided to turn in for the night. It was when he absentmindedly slid open the closet door to take out his futon. “Gah!”

He suddenly let out a terrible scream and staggered back two or three steps.

Was he dreaming? Or had he gone mad?

There, inside the closet, hung the severed head of the dead Endō—his hair disheveled, dangling upside down from the dimly lit ceiling. Saburō first tried to flee and reached the entranceway, but doubting whether he might have misperceived something outside, fearfully turned back and cautiously peered into the closet once more—only to find not only had he not been mistaken, but this time the head suddenly grinned at him.

Saburō screamed “Gah!” again, leapt to the entrance, slid open the shoji, and tried to bolt outside in one frantic motion.

“Kyōda-kun. “Kyōda-kun.”

When he saw that, a voice from inside the closet began frantically calling Saburō’s name. “It’s me.” “It’s me.” “You don’t have to run away now.” Since it was not Endō’s voice but rather a familiar one from outside, Saburō finally halted his flight and, trembling with fear, turned to look— “My apologies.”

As he spoke, descending from the closet ceiling in the same manner Saburō himself had often done before was none other than Kogorō Akechi. “I must apologize for startling you.” Akechi, now dressed in a Western-style suit after emerging from the closet, said while grinning. “I simply tried imitating you.” That was indeed a reality far more terrifying than any ghost—a truth all the more dreadful for its concreteness. Akechi had undoubtedly realized everything.

Saburō’s state of mind at that moment was truly indescribable. Every conceivable matter spun like a windmill through his head, leaving him with no option but to stare vacantly at Akechi’s face—no different from those blank moments when his mind held not a single thought.

“Let’s cut to the chase—this is your shirt button, isn’t it?”

Akechi began in a thoroughly businesslike tone. Holding a small shell button in his hand, he thrust it out before Saburō’s eyes, “I checked with the other boarding house residents, but none of them have lost a button like this. “Ah, that’s from your shirt, isn’t it? “Look—the second button has come off, hasn’t it?”

Startled, he looked down at his chest and saw that one button was indeed missing. Saburō had not noticed in the slightest when exactly it had come off. "The shape matches—no mistake there. By the way, where do you think I found this button?" "It was in the attic—right above Endō's room."

Even so, how had Saburō managed to drop a button and not notice? Moreover, shouldn’t he have thoroughly checked with the flashlight back then?

“You’re the one who killed him, aren’t you? Endō-kun?” Akechi, grinning innocently—a demeanor that felt all the more unnerving in this situation—peered into Saburō’s eyes, brimming with helplessness, and delivered his final blow. Saburō thought it was all over. Even if Akechi were to construct some clever deductions, as long as they remained mere deductions, there would still be ample room for rebuttal. But being confronted with such unexpected evidence, there was nothing one could do.

Saburō stood rooted in place with a childlike expression on the verge of tears, remaining silent for what felt like an eternity. Before his eyes, which occasionally grew dim and hazy, strangely enough, events from the distant past—such as those from his elementary school days—would surface phantom-like.

About two hours later, they remained exactly as they were—having sat facing each other in Saburō’s room all that time without even shifting their posture. “Thank you for opening up the truth.” It was Akechi who finally spoke. “I’ll never report you to the police or anything like that. I just wanted to confirm whether my judgment was correct.” “As you know, my interest lies solely in ‘knowing the truth,’ so anything beyond that truly doesn’t matter.” “Besides, there’s not a single piece of evidence for this crime.” “The shirt button… Hah… That was my trick.” “I thought you wouldn’t accept it unless there was some evidence.” “When I visited you before, I noticed your second button was missing—so I decided to make use of it.” “Oh, I got this from a button shop.” “No one pays attention to when buttons fall off, and since you were agitated anyway, I figured it’d work.”

“As you know, my suspicion about Endō-kun’s suicide began with that alarm clock. After that, I visited the superintendent of this jurisdiction’s police station and heard detailed accounts of the situation at the time from a detective who had conducted an inspection here. According to his report, the morphine hydrochloride bottle had been rolling inside the tobacco box, its contents spilling onto the cigarettes. The police didn’t pay particular attention to this, but when you think about it, isn’t it quite strange? By all accounts, Endō was an extremely meticulous man—someone who’d even laid himself properly on the floor to die. For such a person to not only place the poison bottle inside a tobacco box but also spill its contents… it feels somehow unnatural, don’t you agree?”

"This deepened my suspicions further, but what I suddenly noticed was that you had stopped smoking since the day Endō died. Don’t you think it’s a bit odd for these two things to coincide by mere chance? Then I remembered how you used to take pleasure in simulating crimes. You had a perverse criminal inclination." "I’ve been coming to this boarding house frequently since then and investigating Endō’s room without your knowledge. Since it became clear the criminal’s access route wasn’t through the ceiling exterior, I decided to monitor residents through your so-called ‘attic strolls.’ Particularly above your room—I often crouched there for hours on end. And I witnessed every moment of your agitated state in full view."

“The more I investigated, everything pointed to you.” “But unfortunately, there wasn’t a single piece of solid evidence.” “So here’s the thing.” “I was the one who devised that little charade—hahaha!” “Well then, I’ll take my leave now.” “We probably won’t have the pleasure of meeting again.” “Why? Because you’ve already resolved to turn yourself in.”

Saburō no longer felt any emotion toward this trick of Akechi’s. Unaware of Akechi’s departure, he wondered, “What on earth does it feel like to be executed?” He was simply sitting there, vaguely lost in such thoughts. He thought he hadn’t seen where the poison bottle had fallen when he dropped it through the knothole, but in reality, he had indeed witnessed even the poison spilling onto the cigarettes. And that fact, having been repressed into his subconscious, had mentally caused him to develop an aversion to cigarettes.