Читать книгу Japanese Tales of Mystery and Imagination - Edogawa Rampo - Страница 8

PSYCHO- LOGICAL TEST

FUKIYA MIGHT HAVE GONE A long way in the world if he had only put his considerable intelligence to better use. Young, bright, and diligent, and the constant pride of his professors at Waseda University in Tokyo—anyone could have seen that he was a man earmarked for a promising future. But, alas, in collaboration with the fates, Fukiya chose to fool all observers. Instead of pursuing a normal scholastic career, he shattered it abruptly by committing. . .murder!

Today, many years following his shocking crime, conjecture is still rife as to what strange, unearthly motive actually prompted this gifted young man to carry out his violent plot. Some still persist in their belief that greed for money—the most common of motives—was behind it all. To some extent, this explanation is plausible, for it is true that young Fukiya, who was working his way through school, was keenly feeling the leanness of his purse. Also, being the intellectual that he was, his pride may have been so deeply wounded at having to consume so much of his precious time working that he might have felt that crime was the only way out. But are these altogether obvious reasons sufficient to explain away the almost unparalleled viciousness of the crime he committed? Others have advanced the far more likely theory that Fukiya was a born criminal and had committed the crime merely for its own sake. At any rate, whatever his hidden motives, it is an undeniable fact that Fukiya, like many other intellectual criminals before him, had set out to commit the perfect crime.

From the day Fukiya began his first classes at Waseda he was restless and uneasy. Some noxious force seemed to be eating away at his mind, coaxing him, goading him on to execute a "plot" which was still only a vague outline in his mind—like a shadow in a mist. Day in and day out, while attending lectures, chatting with his friends on the campus, or working at odd jobs to cover his expenses, he kept puzzling over what was making him so nervous. And then, one day, he became specially chummy with a classmate named Saito, and his "plot" began to take definite shape.

Saito was a quiet student of about the same age as Fukiya, and likewise hard up for money. For nearly a year now he had rented a room in the home of a widow who had been left in quite comfortable circumstances upon the death of her husband, a government official. Nearly sixty years old, the woman was extremely avaricious and stingy. Despite the fact that the income from rent on several houses ensured her a comfortable living, she still greedily added to her wealth by lending money in small sums to reliable acquaintances. But, then, she was childless, and as a result had gradually come to regard money, ever since the early stages of her widowhood, as a substitute consolation. In the case of Saito, however, she had taken him as a lodger more for protection than for gain: like all people who hoard money, she kept a large sum cached away in her house.

Fukiya had no sooner learned all this from his friend Saito than he was tempted by the widow's money. "What earthly good will it ever do her anyway?" he asked himself repeatedly, following two or three visits to the house. "Anyone can see that the withered old hag is not long for this world. But look at me! I'm young, full of life and ambition, with a bright future to look forward to."

His thoughts constantly revolved about this subject, leading to but one conclusion: He just had to have that money! But how to get it? The answer to this question grew into the web of a horrible plan. First, however, Fukiya decided that all successful plots depended on one important factor—skilful and thorough preparation. So, in a subtle and casual manner, he set about the task of getting as much information as possible from his schoolmate Saito about the old woman and her hidden money.

One day Saito casually made a remark which nearly bowled Fukiya over, for it was the very information he had long been yearning to know.

"You know, Fukiya," Saito remarked laughingly, utterly unsuspecting the foul plot that was being nursed in his friend's mind, "the old woman surely is crazy about her money. Nearly every month she thinks up a new place to hide it. Today, quite by accident, I came across her latest 'safety deposit vault,' and I must say she's exceedingly original. Can you guess where it is?"

Suppressing his excitement with an actor's finesse, Fukiya yawned and blandly remarked: "I'm afraid I couldn't even make a guess."

Saito was easily caught in the artful trap. "Well, then, I'll tell you," he quickly said, somewhat disappointed by the other's lack of interest. "As you probably know, when a person tries to hide money he usually puts it under the floor or in some secret cavity or hole in the wall. But my dear landlady's far more ingenious. Do you remember that dwarf pine-tree that sits in the alcove of the guest room? Well, that's the newest place she's chosen to hide her money—right inside the earth in the pot. Don't you think she's awfully clever? No thief would ever think of looking in a place like that."

As the days passed, Saito appeared to have forgotten the conversation, but not Fukiya. Having devoured Saito's every word, he was now determined to take possession of the old woman's money. But there were still certain details which had to be figured out before he could make his first move. One of these was the all-important problem of how to divert even the faintest suspicion from himself. Other questions, such as remorse and the attendant pangs of conscience, troubled him not in the least. All this talk of Raskolnikov, in Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, crucified by the unseen terrors of a haunted heart was, to Fukiya, sheer nonsense. After all, he reasoned, everything depended on one's point of view. Was Napoleon to be condemned as a mass murderer because he had been responsible for the deaths of so many people? Certainly not. In fact, he rather admired the ex-corporal who had risen to be an emperor, no matter what the means.

Now definitely committed to the deed, Fukiya calmly awaited his chance. As he called frequently to see Saito, he already knew the general lay-out of the house, and a few more visits provided him with all the details he needed. For example, he soon learned that the old woman rarely went out of doors. This was a disappointment. Day after day she remained seated in her private parlor in one wing of the house in absolute silence. If, however, sheer necessity did coax her to leave the comfort of her shell, she would first post her maidservant, a simple country girl, as a "sentry" to keep watch over the house. Fukiya soon came to realize that in the face of these circumstances his contemplated adventure in crime would be no easy matter. On the contrary, if he was ever to succeed, he would have to use his greatest cunning.

For a full month Fukiya considered various schemes, but one by one he discarded them all as faulty. Finally, after wracking his brain to the point of exhaustion, Fukiya came to the conclusion that there was but one solution: He must murder the old woman! He also reasoned that the old woman's hidden fortune would certainly be large enough to justify killing her and reminded himself that the most notorious burglars in history had always eliminated their victims on the sound theory that "the dead tell no tales."

Carefully, Fukiya began to map out the safest course of action. This took time, but through the innocent Saito he knew that the hiding place had not been changed, and he felt he could afford to make each tiny detail perfect, even down to the most trivial matter.

One day, quite unexpectedly, Fukiya realized that his long-awaited moment had arrived. First, he heard that Saito would be absent from the house all day on school business. The maidservant, too, would be away on an errand, not to return until evening. Quite by coincidence, just two days previously Fukiya had gone to the trouble of verifying that the money was still concealed in the pot of the dwarf pine. He had ascertained this quite easily. While visiting Saito he had casually gone into the old landlady's room "to pay his respects" and during the course of his conversation had ingeniously let drop a remark here and there referring to her hidden cache of money. An artful student of psychology, he had watched the old woman's eyes whenever he mentioned the words hiding place. As he had anticipated, her eyes turned unintentionally toward the potted tree in the alcove every time.

On the day of the murder Fukiya dressed in his usual school uniform and cap, plus his black student's cloak. He also wore gloves to be sure he would leave no fingerprints. Long ago he had decided against a disguise, for he had realized that masquerade outfits would be easy to trace. He was of the firm conviction that the simpler and more open his crime was, the harder it would be to detect. In his pockets he carried a longish but ordinary jackknife and a large purse. He had purchased these commonplace objects at a small general-merchandise store at a time when it was full of customers, and he had paid the price asked without haggling. So he was confident no one would remember him as the purchaser.

Immersed in his thoughts, Fukiya slowly walked toward the scene of his contemplated crime. As he gradually drew near the neighborhood he reminded himself for about the tenth time that it was essential for him not to be observed entering the house. But supposing he accidentally ran into an acquaintance before he could reach his victim's gate? Well, this would not be serious, so long as the acquaintance could be persuaded to believe that he was only out taking a stroll, as was his custom.

Fifteen minutes later he arrived in front of the old woman's house. Although he had fortunately not met a soul who knew him, he found his breath coming in short gasps. This, to him, was a nasty sensation. Somehow he was beginning to feel more and more like an ordinary thief and prowler than the suave and nonchalant prince of crime he had always pictured himself to be.

Fighting to control his nerves, Fukiya furtively looked about in all directions. Finally, satisfied that he was still unobserved, he turned his attention to the house itself. This was sandwiched in between two other houses, but conveniently isolated from them by two rows of trees on both sides, thick with foliage and forming natural fences. Facing the house on the opposite side there stood a long concrete wall which encircled a wealthy estate occupying a complete block.

Slowly and noiselessly, he opened the gate, holding the tiny bell which was attached, so as to prevent it from tinkling. Once inside the yard, he walked stealthily to one of the side entrances and called out softly.

"Good morning," he called, noting with alarm that his voice did not sound at all like his own.

Immediately there was a reply, accompanied by the rustling sound of a kimono, and the next moment the old woman came to the door.

"Good morning, Mr. Fukiya," she greeted, kneeling and bowing politely. "I'm afraid your friend Mr. Saito isn't in."

"It's—it's you I wish to speak to," Fukiya explained quickly, "although the matter concerns Saito."

"Then please come in," she invited.

After he had taken off his shoes, she ushered him into the reception room, where she apologized for being alone in the house. "My maid is out today," she said, "so you must excuse me while I get the tea things. I won't be a minute." She rose and turned to leave the room.

This was the very opportunity Fukiya was waiting for. As the old woman bent herself a little in order to open the paper door, he pounced on her from behind and slowly proceeded to strangle her with his two gloved hands. Feebly, the old woman struggled, and one of her fingers scratched a folded screen which was standing close by.

After the old woman went limp, Fukiya carefully examined the damage. The screen had two folds and its surface was covered with gold flakes and a painting showing Komachi, a noted beauty of the feudal era. It was precisely on Komachi's face that the old woman had scratched in her death throes.

Fukiya soon recovered his composure, for he felt that this was too trivial to mean anything. He put the matter out of his mind and, going to the alcove, grabbed the pine tree by the trunk and pulled it out of the pot. As he had expected, he found a bundle lying in the base of the pot neatly wrapped up in oilpaper. Eagerly he undid the wrapping and grinned with satisfaction when a thick wad of paper money came to light.

Wasting no time, Fukiya took half of the money, stuffed it into the new purse that he took out of his pocket, re-wrapped the rest in the same oilpaper, and replaced the package at the bottom of the pot. He considered this move to be his master stroke, for he felt certain that it would throw the police miles off the track. Considering that the old woman was the only person who could have known exactly how much money she had hidden, no one would be any the wiser even if the amount were reduced to one half of the original sum.

Fukiyas next move was to stab the old woman carefully in the heart with the long jackknife. Then he wiped the blade on the woman's kimono and replaced it in his pocket. The purpose of this strange act was simply to make doubly sure that she could not be revived, a possibility he had often read about in crime novels. He had not killed her with the knife, for fear her blood might spatter on his clothing.

Fukiya replaced the tree in the pot, smoothed out the earth, and otherwise made certain that no clues had been left behind. Then he went out of the room. After closing the door, he tiptoed silently to the side entrance. Here, as he tied his shoelaces, he wondered if his shoes might leave tell-tale marks. But then he decided there was no danger, for the entryway was floored with cement. Stepping out into the garden, he felt even more secure, because it was a sunny day and the ground was hard and dry. Now, the only thing left for him to do was to walk to the front gate, open it, and vanish from the scene.

His heart was beating wildly, for he realized that one slip now would be fatal. He strained his ears for the slightest warning of danger, such as approaching footfalls, but all he could hear were the melodious notes of a Japanese harp tinkling in the distance. Straightening his shoulders, Fukiya strode to the gate, opened it boldly, and walked away.

Four or five blocks away from the old woman's house there stood a high, stone wall enclosing an old Shinto shrine. Fukiya dropped his jackknife and his blood-spattered gloves through a crevice in the wall down into a ditch, then walked on in a leisurely manner to a small park where he frequently went walking. Here he sat on a bench and casually watched several children playing on the swings.

After spending considerable time in the park, he rose from his seat, yawned and stretched, and then made his way to a nearby police station. Greeting the sergeant at the desk with a perfectly innocent look, he produced his well-filled purse.

"Officer, I just found this purse on the street. It's full of money, so I thought I'd better turn it in."

The policeman took the purse, examined its contents, and asked several routine questions. Fukiya, perfectly calm and self-possessed, answered straightforwardly, indicating the place and time he had made his "find." Naturally, all the information he gave was pure fabrication, with one exception: he gave his correct name and address.

After filling out several forms, the sergeant handed him a receipt. Fukiya pocketed the receipt, and for a moment wondered again if he was acting wisely. From every point of view, however, this was assuredly the safest course to take. Nobody knew that the old lady's money had been reduced by half. Also, it was quite obvious to Fukiya that no one would come to claim the purse. According to Japanese law, all the money in the purse would become his if no one claimed it within one year. Of course, it would be a long time to wait, but what of it? It was just like money in the bank—something he could count on, something to look forward to.

On the other hand, if he had hidden the money, to await an opportune time to spend it, it would have meant risking his neck every moment of the day. But the way he had chosen eliminated even the remotest danger of detection, even if the old lady had kept a record of the serial numbers of the banknotes.

While walking home from the police station Fukiya continued to gloat silently over the masterful way he had carried out his crime. "A simple case of sheer genius," he said to himself with a chuckle. "And what a big joke on the police. Imagine! A thief turning in his spoils! Under such circumstances, how could anyone possibly suspect me? Why, not even the Great Buddha himself would ever guess the truth!"

On the following day, after waking from a sound and untroubled sleep, Fukiya looked at the morning paper, delivered to his bedside by the maid of the boardinghouse. Stifling a yawn, he glanced at the page which carried the human-interest stories. Suddenly he caught sight of a brief item which caused his eyes to open wide. The first part of the story was an account of the discovery of the old woman's body. This was neither surprising nor startling to Fukiya. But the report went on to disclose that his friend Saito had been arrested by the police as the main suspect, having been discovered with a large sum of money on his person.

Actually, Fukiya thought, this fact too was nothing to become disturbed about. Instead, the development was decidedly advantageous to his own security. As one of Saito's closest friends, however, he also realized that he would have to inquire about him at the police station.

Fukiya dressed hastily and then called at the police station mentioned in the newspaper story. This turned out to be the very same place where he had reported the "finding" of the purse. "Curse my luck!" he swore to himself when he made this embarrassing discovery. Why hadn't he selected a different police station to report the money to? Well, it was too late now to change things.

Skilfully, he expressed deep anxiety over the unfortunate plight of his friend. He asked if they would permit him to see Saito and received a polite no. He then tried to make a few inquiries into the circumstances which had led to his friend's arrest, but here again he was refused.

Fukiya, however, didn't much care, for even without being told he could easily imagine what had happened. On the fateful day, Saito must have returned to the house ahead of the maid. By that time, of course, he himself had already committed his horrible deed and left the house. Then Saito must have found the corpse. Before reporting the crime to the police, however, he must have remembered the money hidden in the pot. If this was the work of a robber, Saito must have figured, the money would surely be gone. Curious to know if his reasoning was correct, he had examined the pot and had found the money there wrapped in oilpaper. And Fukiya could easily imagine what must have happened after that.

Undoubtedly Saito was tempted to keep the money for himself. This was a natural reaction, although, of course, it was a foolish thing for him to do. Thinking that everybody would believe that the murderer of the old woman, had stolen the money, Saito pocketed the whole amount. And his next move? This, too, was easy to surmise. He had recklessly gone ahead and reported his discovery of the old woman's corpse, with the money still on his person, never suspecting that he would be one of the first to be questioned and searched. What an utter fool!

But wait, Fukiya reasoned further, Saito would certainly put up a desperate struggle to clear himself of suspicion. Then what? Would his statements possibly incriminate him, Fukiya, in any way? If Saito just kept insisting that the money was his, all might be well. But, then, the fact that the amount was exceptionally large—much too large for a student like Saito to possess—might give the lie to such a statement. The only alternative left for Saito would be to tell the truth—the whole truth. This would lead, by clever cross-examination on the part of the prosecutor, to the revelation that Saito had also told Fukiya where the old lady had hidden her money.

"Only two days preceding the day of the crime," Fukiya could even hear Saito telling the court, "my friend Fukiya conversed with the victim in the very room in which she was murdered. Knowing that she had that money hidden in the tree pot, could he not have committed the crime? I also wish to remind you, gentlemen of the court, that Fukiya has always been notorious for being financially hard up!"

Although feeling decidedly uncomfortable after this soliloquy, Fukiya's optimism soon conquered his initial dismay. Emerging from the police station with a perfectly blank look on his face, he returned to his boardinghouse and ate a rather late breakfast. While eating, his original bravado returned, and he even made a point of telling the maid who served him about several aspects of the case.

Shortly after, he went to school, where he found, both on the campus and in the classrooms, that Saito's arrest as a suspect in the murder case was the main topic of conversation.

The investigator placed in charge of this sensational case was District Attorney Kasamori, noted not only as a man with excellent legal training, but also well known for valuable accomplishments of his own, especially in the field of psychological research. Whenever he came across a case which could not be unraveled by the standard methods of crime detection, he employed his fund of psychological knowledge with amazing results. With a man of Kasamori's reputation taking in hand the case of the old lady's murder, the public immediately became convinced that the mystery would soon be solved.

Kasamori too was confident that he could ultimately crack the case, no matter how complex it appeared at this early stage of the investigation. He began with a preliminary check of everything connected with the case, so that by the time it reached a public trial every single phase would be as clear as daylight. As the investigation proceeded, however, he found the case more and more difficult to handle. From the outset, the police kept insisting that no one but Saito could be the guilty party. Kasamori himself admitted the logic of the police theory, for, after all, every person who had been even remotely connected with the murdered old woman had been investigated and cleared of suspicion—every one, that is, except her student lodger, the hapless Saito. Fukiya too had been among those who had been questioned, along with creditors of the old woman, her tenants, and even casual acquaintances, but he had quickly been eliminated.

In the case of Saito, there was one major point which worked to his great disadvantage. This was that he was extremely weak by nature and, completely terrorized by the stern atmosphere of the court, he was unable to answer even the simplest questions without first stuttering and stammering and showing all the symptoms of a man with a guilty conscience. Furthermore, in his excited state, he often retracted his previous statements, forgot vital details, and then tried to cover up by making other contradictory remarks, all of which tended only to incriminate him further and further. Simultaneously, there was another factor which tortured him and drove him to the verge of insanity. This was the fact that he was guilty of having stolen half of the old woman's money, precisely as Fukiya had theorized.

The district attorney carefully summed up the evidence, circumstantial as it was, against Saito, and pitied him deeply. It could not be denied that all the odds were against him. But, Kasamori asked himself again and again, had this weak, blubbering fool been capable of committing such a vicious, cold-blooded murder? He doubted it So far Saito had not confessed, and conclusive proof of his guilt was still lacking.

A month went by, but the preliminary probe had not yet been completed. The district attorney became decidedly annoyed and impatient at the slow pace of the investigation.

"Curse the slow-grinding wheels of the law!" he exploded to a subordinate one day, while rechecking his documents on the case for what was probably the hundredth time. "At this rate, it'll take us a thousand years to solve the case." He then strode angrily to another desk and picked up a sheaf of routine documents filled out by the captain of the police station in whose jurisdiction the murder of the old lady fell. He looked casually at one of the papers and noticed that a purse containing ninety-five thousand yen in thousand-yen notes had been found at a spot near the old lady's house on the same day of the murder. The finder of the money, he further learned from the report, was a student, Fukiya by name, and a close friend of Saito's, the key murder suspect! For some reason—possibly because of the urgency of other duties—the police captain had failed to submit his report earlier.

After finishing reading the report, Kasamori's eyes lit up with a strange glow. For a full month now he had felt like a person fumbling in the dark. And then came this information, like a thin ray of light. Could it have any significance, any bearing on the case at hand? He decided to find out without delay.

Fukiya was quickly summoned, and the district attorney questioned him closely. After a full hour's questioning, however, Kasamori found he was getting nowhere. Asked as to why he had not mentioned the incident of his finding the purse when he had been interrogated previously in connection with the murder, Fukiya maintained calmly that he had not thought the matter to have any bearing on the case.

This reply, given straightforwardly, sounded most reasonable, for the money believed to have belonged to the old lady had been found in Saito's possession. Naturally, therefore, who could have imagined that the money found on the street was also a part of the old lady's property?

Nevertheless, Kasamori was deeply puzzled. Was it nothing but a mere coincidence that the very man who was a close friend of Saito's, the leading suspect, the man who, according to Saito's testimony in court, had also known where the old lady had hidden her money, had picked up so large a sum at a spot not far from the place where the murder had been committed? Here, indeed, was a conundrum worthy of the mind of a master sleuth.

Struggling angrily with the problem, the district attorney cursed the unfortunate fact that the serial numbers of the banknotes had not been recorded by the old woman. Had they been recorded, it would have been a most simple task to verify whether the money found by Fukiya was part of the same loot.

"If only I could find one single clue," he kept repeating to himself.

In the days that followed, Kasamori revisited the scene of the crime and talked to the victim's relatives, going over the same ground again and again, but all to no avail. He had to admit that he was up against a wall, with not a single tangible clue to follow up.

So far as he could see, the only possible way in which he could explain the episode of Fukiya's finding the purse was that the man had stolen half of the old lady's savings, left the remainder in the hiding place, put the stolen money in a purse, and pretended that he had found it on the street. But was it really possible that such a fantastic thing could have been done? The purse, of course, had been subjected to the closest scrutiny and placed under a microscope for even the faintest of possible clues, but all these efforts had proved negative. Also, according to Fukiya's own statement, he had taken a walk on the day of the murder; in fact, he had even admitted that he had passed the old lady's house. Would a man who was guilty be so bold as to make such a dangerous admission? And then, what about the weapon which had been used to stab the old woman? The entire house and garden as well as the surrounding area within a large radius had been searched with a fine-tooth comb, but there was not a trace of it.

In the absence of conclusive evidence to the contrary, Kasamori felt that the police were justified in pointing to Saito as the most likely suspect. But then again, the district attorney reasoned, if Saito could be guilty, so could Fukiyal Thus, after an investigation which had stretched out to a full month and a half, the only point which had been established was that there were two possible suspects, but without a shred of concrete evidence to convict either.

Reaching this impasse, Kasamori decided there was still one other method he could use in his attempt to break the case. This was to subject the two suspects to a psychological test—a method which had been useful in the past.

When he had first been questioned by the police, two or three days after the murder, Fukiya had learned that the district attorney who had been put in charge of the case was the noted amateur psychologist Kasamori, and the information filled him with panic. Cool and collected as he had been until then, he soon came to dread the very sound of the district attorney's name, especially after he had been summoned a second time and questioned by Kasamori himself. Supposing, just supposing, he were to be subjected to a psychological test. What then? Would he be able to hold his own in the face of such an experiment, the nature of which he knew absolutely nothing about?

The shock of this possibility was so stunning that he became too uneasy to attend his classes. He remained in his room, on the pretext of illness, and tried desperately to figure out how he could match wits for wits. Of course, there was absolutely no way of anticipating the form of psychological test that Kasamori might employ. Fukiya, therefore, applied all the test methods he could possibly imagine on himself in order to discover the best possible way to circumvent them. Since a psychological test, by nature, was a method applied to reveal all false statements, Fukiya's first thought was that it would be utterly impossible to lie his way out of such a test.