Pathway to Japanese Literature

I

I sometimes wandered around various places to think up plots for detective novels, but when I didn’t leave Tokyo, my destinations were usually limited.
Asakusa Park, Hanayashiki, Ueno Museum, likewise the zoo, the Sumida River shared steam ferry, Ryogoku Kokugikan.
(That domed roof, which made me recall the panorama hall of yesteryear and drew me in.) Even now, I had just returned from seeing that Kokugikan’s so-called “Obake Taikai” (Monster Festival).
After a long time, I passed through “Yawata no Yabu Shirazu” and was able to indulge in nostalgic memories of my childhood.

Now, the story began when—due to relentless manuscript demands making it unbearable to stay at home—I had been wandering around Tokyo for about a week and one day encountered a peculiar individual at Ueno Zoo.

It was already evening, closing time was approaching, most of the visitors had gone home, and the interior had fallen into a hushed and still silence.

In theaters and vaudeville halls, it’s much the same—the Edoite temperament of fretting over the shoe locker crowds instead of properly watching the final act simply doesn’t suit my disposition.

The same holds true at the zoo.
People in Tokyo are oddly eager to head home.
Even though the gates hadn’t yet closed, the grounds were eerily deserted, completely devoid of people.

I stood absently before the monkey cage, savoring the uncanny stillness of the grounds that had been bustling just moments before.

The monkeys, perhaps because those who would tease them were gone, sat quietly, looking forlorn.

Because the surroundings were too quiet, when I suddenly sensed a human presence behind me after a while, I was startled to the point of shuddering.

He was a pale-faced young man with long-grown hair and creaseless clothes that gave him what one might call a 'rumpen' appearance, yet contrary to his gloomy countenance, he began cheerfully teasing the monkeys in their cage.

Given how he seemed to frequent the zoo regularly, he had clearly mastered the art of monkey-teasing.
Even when doling out a single morsel of food, he would first make them perform tricks to his heart's content—thoroughly amusing himself before finally tossing it their way—and this proved so entertaining that I stood there smirking while watching the spectacle endlessly.

“Why is it that those monkey creatures are so eager to imitate those around them?”

The man suddenly spoke to me.
At that moment, he was tossing an orange peel upward and catching it, repeating the motion over and over.
A monkey in the cage was also throwing and catching an orange peel in exactly the same manner as he was.

When I laughed, the man spoke again.

“Imitation is a frightening thing when you think about it, isn’t it?”
“It’s that God bestowed such an instinct upon monkeys, you know.”

I thought to myself that this man must be a vagrant philosopher.

“It’s strange when monkeys imitate others, but isn’t it equally strange when humans do?”
“God granted humans some measure of that simian instinct too.”
“That’s truly terrifying to contemplate.”
“Do you know the story of the traveler who met a giant ape in the mountains?”

The man clearly loved talking and grew increasingly voluble.
Though naturally reticent and averse to strangers’ approaches, I found myself strangely drawn to him.
Perhaps his pallid complexion and wild mane of hair had captivated me.
Or maybe I’d taken a liking to his philosophically tinged manner of speech.

“I don’t know. Did something happen with the giant ape?”

I made a point of listening to his story.

“In a remote mountain far from any village, a lone traveler encountered a giant ape.”
“And his wakizashi ended up being taken by the ape.”
“The giant ape pulled it out and came swinging it around half in fun.”
“Since the traveler was a townsman, once his only sword had been taken, he had no other blade left, so even his life was in danger.”

The peculiar scene of a pale-faced man beginning an odd tale before the monkey cage at dusk delighted me.
I chimed in with “Hmm.”

“He tries to retrieve it,” he said, “but since his opponent is an ape skilled at climbing trees—there’s nothing he can do.”
“But that traveler was quite resourceful and devised a clever method.”
“He picked up a tree branch that had fallen nearby—likened it to a sword—and demonstrated various stances.”
“As for monkeys,” his voice lowered ominously, “tragically endowed by God with an instinct for mimicry—they began imitating every gesture of that traveler…and ultimately committed suicide.”
“Why? Because when he saw that damned beast growing curious—he started vigorously striking his own neck with that branch.”
“The monkey imitated him—struck its own neck with that bare blade—and that was that.”
“Bleeding…even as blood flowed…it kept striking its neck until its life drained away.”
“Not only did he retrieve his sword—he even got himself a giant ape as a souvenir.” His laughter echoed hollowly through dusk’s stillness—“Ha ha ha…”

The man laughed after finishing his story, but it was a strangely gloomy laughter.

“Ha ha ha… You can’t be serious.”

When I laughed, the man suddenly became serious,

“No, it’s true.”
“Monkeys—those creatures—are born with such a tragic and dreadful fate.”
“Shall we test it?”

As he spoke, the man tossed a piece of wood that had fallen nearby to one of the monkeys and, using the walking stick he carried, demonstrated the motion of slitting his own throat.

And then—what do you know?
It seemed this man was quite accustomed to handling monkeys, for the creature picked up the piece of wood and suddenly began frantically rubbing its own neck.

“Look here—if that piece of wood had been a real sword,”
“That little monkey would be long dead by now.”

The spacious zoo grounds lay desolate, not a single soul in sight.
Beneath the thick trees’ shadows, the darkness of night had already formed gloomy patches.
A shiver ran through me for no particular reason.
The pale-faced young man standing before me began to seem less like an ordinary human and more akin to a sorcerer.

“Do you understand the terror of imitation?”
“Humans are no different.”
“Humans, too, are born with a tragic and dreadful fate—unable to resist imitation.”
“Didn’t the sociologist Tarde go so far as to try to explain all of human existence with just the two characters for ‘imitation’?”

Though I can no longer recall every detail, the young man then expounded at length on the terror of “imitation.”
He also harbored an abnormal dread of mirrors.

“Doesn’t it frighten you to stare into a mirror?”
“I think there’s nothing more terrifying.”
“Why frightening?”
“Because beyond the glass lurks another self—mimicking you like a monkey.”

I remember him saying such things.

When the zoo’s closing time arrived and the staff drove us out, we left the premises—but even after exiting, instead of parting ways, we walked side by side through Ueno’s now fully darkened woods, conversing as we went.

“I know… You’re Mr. Edogawa… ‘detective novels.’”

As we walked along the dark path beneath the trees, I was startled once more when he suddenly said that. He began to appear as a terrifying and unfathomable man. At the same time, my interest in him grew even stronger.

"I’ve been reading them avidly. Honestly speaking, your recent ones aren’t interesting, but your older works—perhaps because they were novel—I read them avidly."

The man spoke bluntly.
That, too, was appealing.

“Ah, the moon has come out.”

The young man’s words often took sudden leaps.
At times, I found myself wondering if he wasn’t actually insane.

“I wonder if today is the fourteenth.”
“It’s nearly a full moon.”
“This must be what they mean by moonlight pouring down.”
“Moonlight—what a strange thing it is!”
“I’ve read somewhere that moonlight employs sorcery—and it truly does.”
“The same scenery looks entirely different from how it did in daylight.”
“The same goes for your face.”
“A moment ago, when you stood before the monkey cage, you looked like a completely different person.”

As he said this and stared intently at my face, I too began to feel strange; his shadowed eyes and darkened lips started appearing as something eerily frightening.

"Speaking of the moon, it shares an affinity with mirrors."
"The very existence of terms like 'water moon' and phrases like 'if only the moon were a mirror' proves there's some fundamental kinship between them."
"Look at this view."

Below where he pointed, Shinobazu Pond spread out—hazy like oxidized silver and appearing twice as wide as in daylight.

“Don’t you think that the daytime scenery is the real thing, and what’s now illuminated by moonlight is merely its reflection in a mirror—a shadow within the glass?”

The young man, himself also like a shadow in a mirror—a faint, blurry figure with a pale face—spoke.

“Aren’t you searching for a plot for your novel?”
“I have a plot that would suit you—a true story from my own experience. Shall I tell it?”
“Will you listen?”

The truth was, I had been searching for a plot for my novel.
However, setting that aside, I found myself wanting to hear this peculiar man’s account of his experiences.
From the way he had been speaking up to now, I felt that it was by no means a commonplace, dull story.

“Let’s hear it. Would you join me for a meal somewhere? In a quiet room—please let me hear it slowly.”

When I said this, he shook his head,

“It’s not that I’m refusing your hospitality.”
“It’s not that I’m being polite.”
“However, my story is ill-suited for bright electric lights.”
“If you don’t mind, I’ll tell it here—sitting on this bench, bathed in sorcerer’s moonlight, gazing at Shinobazu Pond reflected like a giant mirror.”
“It’s not such a long story.”

I found the young man's preferences appealing. So I decided to sit beside him on an abandoned stone in the grove atop the hill overlooking that pond and listen to his uncanny tale.

II

“There was a novel by Doyle called *The Valley of Fear*, wasn’t there?”

The young man began abruptly.

“That refers to a gorge formed by steep mountains somewhere.”
“But *the Valley of Fear* isn’t limited to natural gorges alone.”
“Even in Marunouchi—the very heart of Tokyo—there exists a terrifying ravine.”

A narrow road sandwiched between high buildings.
It was far steeper and gloomier than any natural gorge.
It was a ravine forged by civilization.
It was a valley floor forged by science.
The bleak six- and seven-story concrete buildings lining both sides of that valley floor—viewed from its road—resembled natural cliffs yet bore no verdant leaves, no seasonal blossoms, no visually engaging contours. They were nothing more than colossal ashen fissures, as though literally hewn apart by axes.
The sky, when looked up at, was as narrow as a ribbon.
Neither the sun nor the moon cast its light directly for more than a few minutes each day.
From its depths, stars could be seen even during the daytime.
A strange, cold wind raged incessantly.

“In one of those ravines, I had lived until before the Great Earthquake.
The front of the building faced Marunouchi’s S Street.
The front was bright and splendid.
But once you went around to the back, you found another building standing back-to-back with it—their bleak, bare-concrete, windowed cliffs facing each other across a passageway barely two ken wide.
The so-called urban ravine refers precisely to that part.”

The rooms in the buildings were occasionally used as residences, but most were offices occupied only during the day—everyone would return home by night.
Precisely because it bustled by day, the desolation of night was beyond compare.
In the very heart of Marunouchi, it truly felt like a remote mountain valley—so silent one might suspect a bagworm’s cry.
The aforementioned rear ravine, too—at night, it truly becomes a ravine in the literal sense.

I worked as a doorman during the day and stayed in the basement of that building at night.
“There were four or five live-in companions, but I loved painting, and whenever I had free time, I’d be alone, daubing away at my canvas.”
“Naturally, there were many days when I didn’t even speak to the others.”

“Since the incident occurred in what I just called the rear ravine, I need to briefly describe that place’s condition.”
“The buildings themselves held a truly uncanny coincidence.”
“For a coincidence, they matched far too perfectly—so I suspected it might have been some whimsical prank by the engineer who designed them.”

The two buildings were roughly equal in size—both five stories—yet while their fronts and sides differed completely in wall colors and decorations, their rear sides facing the ravine were constructed identically down to the last detail.
From roof shapes to ashen wall hues to the structure of four windows per floor, they mirrored each other like photographic copies.
“Perhaps even their concrete cracks matched perfectly.”

The rooms facing that ravine received sunlight for only a few minutes each day (though that’s a slight exaggeration)—well, truly just a fleeting moment—so naturally, no tenants came. Particularly on the most inconvenient fifth floor, the rooms remained perpetually vacant. Thus during my free time, I would often take my canvas and paintbrush and slip into those empty spaces.
“And every time I peered out the window, I couldn’t help feeling eerie about how closely the building across resembled this one—as if they were photographs of each other.”
“It felt as though it were a premonition of some dreadful event.”

“And then, wasn’t it soon after that my premonition came true? At the northernmost fifth-floor window—a hanging occurred. What’s more, this happened three times over at intervals.”

“The first victim was a middle-aged spice broker who’d taken his own life. From the moment he came to rent the office space, he struck me as an odd sort of man. A merchant yet utterly unmerchantlike—gloomy, perpetually brooding over something. I’d thought he might pick one of those sunless rooms facing the ravine on the building’s backside… and sure enough, he chose that fifth-floor northernmost suite—the gloomiest space in the whole structure (though ‘remote’ sounds absurd for a building), feeling like some isolated mountain cave… and thus the cheapest two-room set.”

“Well—he’d moved in and been there about a week… no more than that at any rate.”
“Since he was unmarried,” continued the young man with clinical detachment, “the spice broker turned one room into a bedroom by placing a cheap bed there—each night staying alone in that gloomy cliffside chamber overlooking the ravine… A cavern-like space so remote from human habitation you’d think yourself deep in mountain wilderness.”
“Then came one moon-drenched night.” His voice lowered conspiratorially. “He fastened a thin rope to an electrical crossbeam jutting from his window… and hanged himself.”

In the morning, a road cleaner responsible for that entire area discovered the suicide victim swaying limply at the very top of the cliff far above his head, sparking a great commotion.

Why he had killed himself ultimately remained unexplained.
Even after thorough investigations, it turned out his business wasn’t failing nor was he burdened by debts; being unmarried, there were no domestic troubles—and yet it wasn’t a matter of passion either, like dying over unrequited love.

“It was a demon’s influence—we’d thought him a strange man from the start, oddly prone to gloom.”

People dismissed it in that manner.
For the first time, that was how it ended.
However, before long, the next tenant moved into that same room. Though he wasn’t staying there overnight, one evening he shut himself in, claiming he needed to work through the night on some research—only for the next morning to bring another uproar.
"He hanged himself in exactly the same manner."

Once again, the cause remained entirely unknown.
“Unlike the spice broker, this latest suicide victim was an extremely cheerful individual, and his choice of that gloomy room stemmed from a simple reason—the rent was low.”

"A cursed window opened in the ravine of terror."
"When one enters that room—for no reason at all—the desire to die arises unbidden."
"Whispers of a ghostly rumor began circulating through hushed voices."

The third victim was no ordinary tenant.
There was one brave soul among the building’s staff who declared he’d give it a try.
“He approached it with the eagerness of someone exploring a haunted house.”

When the young man continued his story that far, I felt somewhat bored and interjected.

“And did that brave man also hang himself in the same way?”

The young man looked slightly startled and gazed at my face,

“Yes.”

he answered unpleasantly.

“When one person hangs themselves, in the same place, many others hang themselves as well.”
“So does that mean it’s the terrifying nature of our instinct for imitation?”

“Ah, so you got bored, did you?”
“That’s not it.”
“That’s not it.”
“It’s not such a trivial story.”

The young man corrected my misunderstanding with a relieved look.

“This isn’t some commonplace tale of the sort you hear about haunted railroad crossings where people keep dying.”

“My apologies.”
“Please continue with your story.”

I politely apologized for my misunderstanding.

III

“The office worker spent three nights all alone in that cursed room.”
“Yet nothing happened.”
He wore an expression like he’d performed an exorcism and strutted triumphantly.
“So I told him:”
“‘The nights you slept there were all cloudy, weren’t they? The moon didn’t come out—wasn’t that so?’”

“Ah—so there was some connection between those suicides and the moon?”

I was slightly startled and asked again.

“Yes, there was.
“I had noticed that both the first spice broker and the next room tenant died on nights when the moon was clear.
“If the moon does not come out, that suicide does not occur.
“Moreover, it happens during those brief minutes when a silvery-white eerie light streams into that narrow ravine.
“It’s the sorcery of moonlight.
“And I had believed it completely.”

The young man raised his faintly pale face as he spoke and gazed at Shinobazu Pond beneath his feet, enveloped in moonlight. There lay the pond’s scenery—reflected in what he called a giant mirror—faintly white and eerily still.

“This is it.”
“This is the magical power of this mysterious moonlight.”
“Moonlight induces a dismal passion, like a cold fire.”
“People’s hearts flare up like phosphorus.”
“That inexplicable passion gives birth to, for example, the ‘Moonlight Sonata.’”
“Even those who are not poets are taught impermanence by the moon.”
“If we permit the term ‘artistic madness,’ does the moon not guide people to ‘artistic madness’?”

The young man’s storytelling somewhat exasperated me.

“So, in other words, are you saying that the moonlight caused those people to hang themselves?”

“Yes.”
“Half of it was the moonlight’s crime.”
“However, moonlight doesn’t directly drive people to suicide.”
“If that were the case, then wouldn’t it be about time we who are now bathed in moonlight from head to toe must hang our necks?”

The pale-faced young man’s face, which appeared as though reflected in a mirror, grinned.
I could not help but feel a dread akin to a child listening to a ghost story.

“The brave office worker slept in the cursed room on the fourth night as well.”
“And unfortunately, that night the moon was clear.”

In the middle of the night, I suddenly woke up in the basement futon and, seeing moonlight streaming through a high window, was startled by something and unconsciously sat up.
And still in my nightclothes, I frantically raced up the narrow staircase beside the elevator to the fifth floor.
The loneliness and terror of the midnight building compared to its daytime bustle were beyond imagining.
A large graveyard with hundreds of small rooms.
The Roman catacombs I’d heard about.
It wasn’t complete darkness; electric lights were on at key points along the corridor, but their dim glow was all the more terrifying.

When I finally reached the fifth floor—that room—I grew terrified of myself wandering like a sleepwalker through the ruined building and began pounding on the door like a madman.
I called the office worker’s name.

But there was no answer from within.
Nothing but my own voice echoing through the corridor and fading away lonesomely...

When I turned the handle, the door opened easily.
In the room, on the large table in the corner, a blue-shaded desk lamp glowed dimly.
Even when I looked around by that light, there was no one.
The bed lay empty.
And that window stood wide open.

Outside the window, the building across was bathed in the final light of the fleeing moonlight, glowing a misty silver from mid-fifth floor to roof.
Directly opposite this window, an identically shaped window stood equally open, gaping like a black maw.
Everything was identical.
Illuminated by that uncanny moonlight, they appeared even more perfectly mirrored.

Trembling with dreadful foreboding, I thrust my head out to verify it all, but lacking courage to look straight ahead at first, peered instead at the distant chasm below.
The moonlight only grazed the uppermost part of the opposite building, leaving the ravine between them pitch-dark - an abyss of unknowable depth.

Then, I forced my uncooperative neck, inch by inch, to twist toward the right.
The building’s walls were in shadow, but the moonlight from the opposite side reflected off them, so it wasn’t so dark that the shapes of things couldn’t be seen.
As I turned my gaze inch by inch, sure enough, what I had expected appeared there.
The legs of a man wearing a black Western-style suit.
A limp, dangling wrist.
A taut upper body.
A deeply constricted neck.
A head that hung limply as though snapped in two.
The brave office worker had, after all, fallen under the lunar sorcery and hanged himself from the crossbeam of the utility pole there.

I hurriedly pulled my head back from the window.
I must have thought it would be terrible if I myself fell under the sorcery.

But then, at that moment.
As I tried to pull my head back and glanced across, from that similarly wide-open window there—from that pitch-black square hole—wasn’t a human face peering out?
Only that face was bathed in moonlight, standing out crisply.
Even in the moonlight, it was a yellowish, shriveled—or rather deformed—utterly repulsive face.
Wasn’t it staring fixedly this way?

I was startled and froze for an instant.
It was simply too unexpected.
"You see—though I may not have mentioned it yet—the reason was that..."
"There wasn’t a soul living there."

"There was a person..."
"Moreover..."
"This was no ordinary occurrence."
Perhaps I was seeing an illusion.
And perhaps...

A chill ran down my spine as if doused with icy water, yet I kept my eyes locked on the yellow-faced figure across the way. Upon closer inspection, he revealed himself to be a gaunt, slight-built man around fifty. The old man had been staring fixedly at me when suddenly—as if conveying some hidden intent—he flashed a broad grin before vanishing into the window’s darkness. How loathsome that grinning visage was! “His whole countenance seemed to transform—the face crumpling into wrinkles while his mouth alone stretched tautly sideways as though splitting at the seams.”

IV

"The next day, I asked my colleagues and even the janitor from another office, and it became clear that the building across was vacant, with not even a night watchman present at night."
"Was I really seeing an illusion after all?"

"As for those utterly bizarre suicide incidents that occurred three times consecutively without any reason, even the police conducted an investigation, but since there wasn't the slightest doubt they were suicides, things were ultimately left as they were."
"However, I couldn't bring myself to believe in logic-defying explanations."
"I can't accept such an absurd interpretation that everyone who slept in that room went mad."
"That yellow bastard's a fraud."
"He killed three people."
"On the very night of the hanging, he was peering from the same window directly opposite."
"And then he grinned with clear intent."
"There must be some terrifying secret lurking there."
"I'd become utterly convinced of that."

However, about a week later, I made an astonishing discovery.

One day, as I was walking back from an errand along the main street facing that vacant building, my attention was caught by a gentleman briskly ascending—almost hopping up—the stone steps of one particular office among the old-fashioned small brick rental buildings styled like row houses next to it, labeled something like Mitsubishi Building No. X.

He was a slightly stooped old gentleman of small stature wearing a morning coat, but something about his profile struck me as familiar, so I stopped and stared intently—whereupon the gentleman, wiping his shoes at the office entrance, suddenly turned toward me.
I felt a shock that stole my breath.
Because this distinguished old gentleman was the exact image of the yellow-faced monster that had peered from the vacant building’s window that night.

After the gentleman had disappeared into the office, when I looked at the golden sign there, it read "Mera Eye Clinic, Medical Doctor Mera Ryōsai."
I stopped a driver who was nearby and confirmed that the one who had just entered was none other than Dr. Mera himself.

How was one to interpret this bizarre fact—that a man holding a doctorate in medicine had crept into a vacant building at midnight and even grinned at the sight of a hanged man?
I could not help but feel an intense curiosity.
From then on, I discreetly endeavored to gather as much information as possible from people about Mera Ryōsai's background and daily life.

Despite being a doctor of longstanding repute, Dr. Mera remained obscure in society and appeared rather inept at financial matters—so much so that even in old age, he practiced from such rented offices. Yet he was an utter eccentric, treating patients with peculiar brusqueness; at times he even seemed bordering on madness.
It emerged that he had neither wife nor children, having remained unmarried throughout his life, and still used that office as both workplace and residence where he ate and slept.
Furthermore, I learned through hearsay that he was an insatiable reader, rumored to possess multitudes of books beyond his specialty—antiquated philosophical tomes alongside volumes on psychology and criminology.

“In the back room of that examination room—you see—inside glass cases were prosthetic eyes of every conceivable shape lined up in rows; those hundreds of glass eyeballs were glaring fixedly this way.”
“When prosthetic eyes were lined up like that… it was really creepy… you know?”
“And then… why would an eye clinic need such things? Skeletons and life-sized wax dolls—two or three of them—were jutting up there.”

A merchant from my building told me about the strange experience he had when receiving treatment from Dr. Mera.

From then on, whenever I had free time, I did not neglect to keep watch on Dr. Mera’s movements.
On the other hand, I occasionally peered into the fifth-floor window of the vacant building from my side, but nothing out of the ordinary occurred.
The yellow face never appeared again.

Dr. Mera was undoubtedly suspicious.
That yellow face peering from the window across that night could only have been Dr. Mera.
But in what way was he suspicious?
Even if we assumed those three hangings weren't suicides but murders plotted by Dr. Mera, when I tried considering why or by what means, I hit an impenetrable wall.
Yet despite this, I remained utterly convinced Dr. Mera was behind those incidents.

Every single day, I thought of nothing else.
There was even a time when I climbed up the brick wall behind Dr. Mera’s office and peered through the window into his private room.
In that private room were placed such things as skeletons, wax dolls, and glass cases of prosthetic eyes.

But no matter how I tried, I couldn't comprehend it. From the building across that ravine—how could anyone manipulate the people in this room at will? Hypnosis? No, that wouldn't work. I'd heard that grave suggestions like commands to die remained utterly ineffective.

However, about half a year after the last hanging, an opportunity to confirm my suspicions finally arrived.
A tenant had been found for the infamous cursed room.
The tenant was someone from Osaka who had not heard a single suspicious rumor, and since, for the building’s office, it was a matter of earning even a little rental income, they said nothing and rented it out.
They likely never imagined that now, half a year later, the same thing would happen again.

However, at least I was absolutely convinced that this tenant would also surely hang himself.
And somehow, through my own power, I wanted to prevent it beforehand.

From that day on, I set aside my work and focused solely on monitoring Dr. Mera’s movements.
And finally, I had sniffed it out.
“I had uncovered Dr. Mera’s secret.”

Five

“On the evening of the third day after the person from Osaka had moved in, while keeping watch on Dr. Mera’s office, I did not fail to notice him sneaking out on foot without his medical bag, as if avoiding being seen.”
“Of course I followed him.”
Then Dr. Mera unexpectedly entered a renowned tailor shop inside a large building nearby, selected a single suit from among many ready-made items, purchased it, and returned directly to his office.

Even if he were a doctor with little practice, there was no reason for Dr. Mera himself to wear ready-made clothes.
Even if they were clothes for a student assistant, there was no reason for Dr. Mera himself to go out stealthily to purchase them.
This was suspicious.
What on earth could he need that suit for?
I stood for a while glaring reproachfully at the entrance where Dr. Mera had vanished, when it struck me—as I mentioned earlier—to climb the back wall and spy into his private room through a gap.
Perhaps I might catch him engaged in some activity there.
No sooner had this thought arisen than I found myself already sprinting toward the rear of the office building.

I climbed over the wall and peered in quietly—and sure enough, Dr. Mera was in that room. Moreover, I could clearly see that he was doing something truly bizarre.

“What do you think that yellow-faced doctor was doing there?
As for the wax doll—you see, it’s the life-sized one I mentioned earlier—
he was dressing it in the suit he’d just bought.
Hundreds of glass eyeballs were staring fixedly at it.”

“To you, a detective novelist, having heard this much, I suppose everything has become clear by now.”
I too had realized it in that moment.
And I found myself utterly astonished at the elderly physician’s grotesquely ingenious scheme.

“The ready-made suit they dressed that wax doll in—why, from its hue down to the striped pattern, wasn’t it an exact replica of the new tenant’s suit in that accursed room?
Dr. Mera had combed through piles of ready-made garments to procure it.”

"I could no longer afford to hesitate.
As it was precisely a moonlit night, that dreadful incident might occur this very evening.
I had to act—I simply had to act.
I paced about restlessly, raking through my thoughts.
Then—with a start—I conceived a plan so brilliant it astonished even myself.
I believe if I were to explain it to you now, you’d surely clap your hands in admiration."

I completed all my preparations, waited for nightfall, and then, carrying a large cloth-wrapped bundle, made my way up to the cursed room.
Since the new tenant had returned home in the evening, the door was locked, but I opened it with a prepared spare key, entered the room, sat down at the desk, and pretended to begin my nighttime work.
The familiar blue-shaded desk lamp illuminated my figure impersonating the room’s tenant.
Since one of my colleagues had a suit with a striped pattern very similar to that person’s, I borrowed and wore it.
Needless to say, I took care to part my hair in a way that resembled that person’s.
And, with my back turned to that window, I remained perfectly still.

Needless to say, this was to inform the yellow-faced man in the window across that I was there, but from my side, I took care never to turn around, adopting a method that gave him ample opportunity.

Had I been doing that for three hours?
Would my imagination indeed prove correct?
And would my scheme succeed?
Those were truly endless, heart-pounding hours.
Turn around now? Turn around now? I could bear it no longer—my neck twitched toward the window countless times.
But at last, the moment came.

The wristwatch pointed at 10:10.
Hoo, hoo—an owl’s cry came twice.
Ah—this was the signal. The owl’s call—a device to make one peer out the window.
If an owl cried in central Marunouchi, anyone would have felt compelled to look.
Once I grasped this, I didn’t hesitate. Rising from my chair, I approached the window and slid open the glass pane.

The building opposite glowed silver-gray under full moonlight.
As I’d told you earlier, it was an exact replica of this building’s structure.

What an uncanny feeling this was.
"By explaining it like this, you could never understand that maddening sensation."
Suddenly, it felt as though an absurdly large mirror wall had formed before me, filling my entire field of vision.
There in that mirror appeared an exact reflection of this building.
The structural symmetry combined with moonlight's sorcery created this illusion.

The window where I stood faced directly forward.
The glass pane remained identically open.
Then regarding myself... Wait—this mirror behaves strangely.
"Is it only my figure being excluded from this reflection?"
...Such thoughts suddenly possessed me.
I couldn't resist their pull.
Here lurked a hair-raising trap.

Hmm? Where had I gone?
I should certainly have been standing here by the window like this—and yet…
I frantically scanned the windows across the way.
I couldn’t help but look.

Then, with a start, I discovered my own shadow.
However, it was not within the window.
It was upon the outer wall.
From the electric wire's crossbeam - myself hanging by a slender cord.

Ah, so that was it.
I was there.

"If I describe it this way, it might sound ridiculous."
"That feeling defies explanation."
"It is a nightmare."
"Yes."
"That sensation in nightmares—though you mean to resist, you inevitably succumb."
"Imagine gazing into a mirror—your eyes wide open—yet your reflection’s lids remain shut."
"Wouldn’t you too be compelled to close your own eyes?"

“And so, to align with the mirror’s shadow, I couldn’t help but hang myself.
On the opposite side, I myself was hanging by the neck.
Moreover, the real self couldn’t remain standing there composedly without being drawn into it.”

The appearance of hanging didn’t look the least bit frightening or grotesque.
“It’s simply beautiful.”

“It’s a painting.
“I too felt an impulse to become part of that beautiful painting.”

If there had been no assistance from the moonlight’s sorcery, Dr. Mera’s phantasmal trick might have been utterly powerless.

“Of course you must already understand this,” he continued, “but Dr. Mera’s trick was nothing more than dressing that wax doll in clothes identical to those of this room’s occupant, attaching a wooden piece to the same spot as this crossbeam for electric wires, and making it swing there with a thin cord.”

The completely identical buildings and the uncanny moonlight imparted a tremendous effect to it.

The horror of this trick was such that even I, who had known about it in advance, carelessly hooked one foot onto the window frame and only realized with a start.

While fighting that terrible anguish akin to waking from anesthesia, I opened the prepared furoshiki bundle and stared fixedly at the window across the way.

What an interminable few seconds—but my prediction had hit the mark. To check on my condition, that yellow face—in other words, Dr. Mera—suddenly peeked out from the window across the way.

I had been lying in wait. How could I not seize that fleeting moment?

I lifted the object from the furoshiki with both hands and perched it atop the window frame, settling it into place.

“Do you know what that was?
“It was a wax doll after all.”
I had borrowed a mannequin from that tailor’s shop

and dressed it in a morning coat beforehand.
“The same sort Dr. Mera always uses.”

At that moment, moonlight reached deep into the ravine’s depths—its reflection turned this window pale, making every shape starkly visible.”

I stared at the monster in the window across with the resolve of a duel to the death.
"Damn it! Again and again?" I seethed inwardly, gritting my teeth.

And then—wouldn't you know it?
"Humans, it turns out, had been bestowed by God with the same fate as monkeys."

Dr. Mera had fallen victim to the very trick he himself devised.
The small-statured old man, miserably enough, shakily stepped over the window frame and sat down there in the same manner as the mannequin on this side, did he not?

“I was the puppeteer. If I stood behind the mannequin and raised my hand, Dr. Mera across the way also raised his hand.”

If I swung my leg, Dr. Mera swung his as well.

“And then—what do you think I did?”

“Ha ha ha… I committed murder.”

I pushed the mannequin sitting on the window frame from behind with all my strength.
The mannequin clattered noisily and vanished out the window.

Almost simultaneously, from the window across as well—like a shadow of this side—the old man in a morning coat whooshed through the air and plummeted down, down into the distant ravine depths.

And then, a crunching sound—like something being crushed—faintly reached me.

………………Dr. Mera had died.

Laughing that ugly laugh reminiscent of the yellow-faced doctor’s from that night, I hauled in the cord gripped in my right hand.
Smoothly following the cord’s pull, the borrowed mannequin doll crossed back over the window frame into the room.

“Had I dropped it below and incurred murder suspicions, that would’ve been disastrous.”

Having finished his tale, the young man fixed me with a stare, wearing a chilling smile identical to the yellow-faced doctor’s.

“The motive for Dr. Mera’s murders?”
“That need not be explained to a detective novelist such as yourself.”
“To one who knows full well that people commit murder for murder’s sake—even without motive.”

While saying this, the young man stood up and briskly walked away, his face showing no sign of having heard my attempts to stop him.

I remained seated on the abandoned stone, bathing in the streaming moonlight that poured down, vacantly watching his figure disappear into the haze without moving.

I wondered uneasily—had even my encounter with the young man, his tale, or the young man himself been nothing but uncanny illusions produced by his so-called “moonlight’s sorcery”?