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SEICHO MATSUMOTO

The Cooperative

Defendant

Seicho Matsumoto was the first chairman of the Association of Mystery Writers of Japan. He ushered in the second period in the history of the modern Japanese detective story. His novels epitomize the contemporary themes of social problems, with emphasis on realism in the characters and in their motivations. He was the first to establish this social-detective-story genre in Japan, and his books are consistently among the best sellers of the country. He won the Detective Story Writers' Club Prize for his work titled The Face and Other Stories.

The story he gives us now is representative of his technique and thematic outlook. The victim is a merciless moneylender, the accused a young owner of a noodle shop. The crime is murder, the investigator a legal detective. The style is "documentary real-life"—with a surprise twist at the end. . . .


THE case seemed simple. . . .

On an autumn night, a sixty-two-year-old moneylender was clubbed to death in his own home by a twenty-eight-year-old man. The murderer stole a cashbox from the victim's house and fled. The box contained twenty-two promissory notes. Of these notes, the killer stole five, then threw the cashbox into a nearby irrigation pond. The murdered moneylender's house was located in a western part of Tokyo that was beginning to prosper architecturally, but at the time of the killing, the immediate vicinity was still roughly half agricultural fields.

When the young lawyer, Naomi Harajima, received word from his lawyers' association that he had been designated court-assigned counsel for the case, he did not much like the idea and was on the verge of refusing. He already had three private cases on his hands, and they were keeping him occupied.

The president of Harajima's lawyers' association argued that he would very much like him to take the case. It appeared that one other lawyer had already been appointed but had suddenly taken ill. The trial was scheduled for an early date. The court would obviously be embarrassed if no legal representative for the defendant was found.

The president said, "Besides, Harajima—this case is nothing much. Come on, now, man—at least give it the once over. All right?"

Section 3 of Article 7 of the Japanese Constitution makes provision for state-assigned legal counsel in cases where the defendant is too poor or for some other reason unable to procure legal advice (Article 36, Criminal Legal Procedural Code).

Since the state pays, the legal fee is extremely low; busy lawyers usually do not want these cases, though sometimes humane reasons for aiding a defendant enter in. The association attempts to divide these duties among its members on a rotational basis, but any attorney is free to refuse. But something must be done. . . .

Accordingly, cases like this usually find their way into the hands of lawyers who are quite young, or who are not too busy.

Because the fee is small, handling of such cases often becomes less careful than it might otherwise be.

Recently the reputation of the system has improved slightly. But actually, these men, often disinterested or very busy, may do no more than give the case a brief run-through before the trial and meet the defendant for the first time in the courtroom. Things will never be completely remedied until fees for court-assigned counsel are raised.

Harajima was urged to defend Torao Ueki in the case of the murder of Jin Yamagishi, because the work was simple. He finally agreed.

In reading the documents pertaining to the indictment, the records of the criminal investigation, Harajima learned the following things.

Originally, the victim, Jin Yamagishi, had owned a rather large amount of agricultural land. But he had sold this to a realtor. With the money accrued, he built a two-story house and immediately opened a small-scale financing business. This had happened ten years ago. At the time of the murder, Yamagishi lived alone. Childless, his wife had died three years before. Yamagishi rented the second floor of his house to a young primary-school teacher and his wife. The rent was not high, though the old moneylender had a reputation for being greedy. He was impressed because the schoolteacher had a second-dan black belt in judo. In other words, the young man would be a combination tenant and guard.

Any elderly person living alone might want protection. In this case, it was still more important for Yamagishi, since he had made a bad name by charging high interest on the money he lent. Many of his customers were small businessmen trying hard to succeed in a newly developing part of Tokyo. The neighborhood was along one of the private commuter train lines. A good location. But population growth had been slow, and business was not thriving. Some of the people who paid Yamagishi's high rates went bankrupt. There were cases in which older people used their retirement funds to open stores. They put shop and land down as security for loans from Yamagishi. He took everything when they could no longer keep up their payments.

Customers in other districts along the same train line suffered because of Yamagishi's behavior. It was not alone fear of thieves but also the knowledge of the many people who hated him that encouraged the moneylender to install the young judo expert and his wife in the upstairs apartment.

On October 15, the young teacher received word that his mother was close to death. He and his wife left that day for their hometown. The murder took place on October 18, and Yamagishi's body was discovered by a neighbor on the morning of October 19. This person found the front door open (later it was disclosed that all other windows and doors were firmly secured with rain shutters that were locked from within), entered the hallway, and immediately saw Yamagishi stretched out face down in the adjacent room. Fearful, he called out. There was no answer from the inert form.

He reported the matter to the police.

Autopsy revealed the cause of death to be brain concussion and cerebral hemorrhage, caused by a blow on the head. An area about as large as the palm of an adult hand was caved in and flattened at the back of the skull. The wound had been fatal. Yamagishi had tumbled forward and expired in a crawling position. He had apparently been struck from behind and, after falling, had crawled a short distance on hands and knees.

From the contents of the victim's stomach, it was ascertained that he had died about three hours after his last meal. Yamagishi, who cooked for himself, was in the habit of eating dinner around six. This would mean that the murder took place between nine and ten, an assumption that agreed with the autopsy doctor's estimation of lapse of postmortem time.

Nothing in the room was disturbed. In a smaller bedroom next to the one in which the corpse was discovered, a sliding cupboard door was open. The black-painted steel cashbox in which Yamagishi kept his customers' promissory notes and other documents was missing. Japanese-style bedding was spread out on the floor of this room. The top quilt was pulled partly back. The sheets and pillowcase were wrinkled but not violently disordered. This suggested that Yamagishi must have gotten out of bed and walked into the next room. He habitually retired at nine o'clock (testimony of the young teacher and his wife).

It was apparent that Yamagishi had opened the front door of the house himself, letting the murderer in. Usually the door was locked by means of a stout wooden pole forced against the frame in such a way as to make opening from the outside impossible. When the body was discovered this pole stood in the entranceway beside the door. Only Yamagishi could have removed it and opened up from inside.

Someone Yamagishi knew and who knew his habits well must have come to visit.

Why was the greedy, suspicious old man willing to get out of bed and admit someone at the hour of nine o'clock at night?

There were no reported rumors about Jin Yamagishi's masculinity. He was not prohibitively old. But perhaps because of his curious personality or stinginess, from his youth he hadn't much been interested in women. The person who called at nine that night must have been a man.

Not one of the neighbors had heard anybody knocking on the old moneylender's door or calling out to him on the night of the murder. If he had already gone to sleep, anyone who called loud enough to wake him in the inner sleeping room would have been heard. Possibly the telephone had roused him. The instrument stood on a small table in a corner of the room where he slept. The murderer could have called Yamagishi first to tell him he was coming. Yamagishi then removed the pole from the front door and waited. He must have been quite familiar with the person, if this were true. He did not know he waited for his death.

The stolen cashbox gave some hints about the killer. It contained promissory notes from the people who had borrowed from Yamagishi, plus renewals for payment of interest and other promissory contracts. The murderer obviously knew both the contents and the location of the cashbox. His purpose had been to steal the promissory notes.

Under a Buddhist shrine in the house, the detectives discovered 150,000 yen in cash. But nothing was disturbed; there was no trace of the killer's having tried to find it.

Two days after the crime, the police had arrested Torao Ueki.

One of the investigators learned that a Mr. Nakamura, while looking out of his bathroom window, had seen a man hurrying at a run down the street in the direction of Yamagishi's house. This man looked very much like the proprietor of a noodle shop near the train station.

Torao Ueki had opened a noodle shop next to the train station three years earlier. About a year ago, he had purchased some of the neighboring land and expanded and remodeled his shop, not because business was on the upswing, but because he wanted to compete with a new noodle shop in the vicinity. He had hoped that by enlarging and improving his place he would attract more customers. He did not. The number of customers decreased. But to purchase the land and make renovations, he had borrowed money from Yamagishi at a high rate of interest.

With the interest and the drop in business, Ueki was in a tight spot. But he had a hunch that, in a bit, the number of houses in the neighborhood would increase, causing a rise in daily commuters on the trains. His shop was in front of the station, an excellent location. He decided to stick it out. But Yamagishi's exorbitant interest payments were getting the better of him. He couldn't sit back calmly and wait for a brighter tomorrow. From the age of eighteen till twenty-five, he had worked in a secondhand bookshop in the center of town. The restaurant business was completely new to him.

Ueki had suffered deeply because of his connection with Yamagishi. The moneylender was merciless in exacting his due. The note had been renewed a number of times, and the interest came to four times the original loan. When the murder took place, Ueki owed Yamagishi seven and a half million yen. Yamagishi felt that if the debt rose still more, Ueki would never be able to repay, so he would assume ownership of the land and shop, which had been put up as security. This disturbed Ueki terribly and had recently caused trouble. Ueki hated Yamagishi. He told certain persons that he would like to "kill that old man!"

2

There were many other people who hated Yamagishi enough to kill him. But to be a suspect, there had to be the lack of an alibi for the hour from nine till ten on the night of the crime. The suspect had to be known to the victim and have knowledge that the schoolteacher and his wife were out of town. He had to posses detailed knowledge concerning the layout of Yamagishi's house and the exact location of the cashbox. And, judging from the brutal wound on the back of the victim's head, he had to be quite strong.

No fingerprints belonging to the killer were discovered. There were numerous other fingerprints, but they were smeared, except for some belonging to the couple upstairs. They, though, had the clear alibi of being in Kyushu at the time of the murder. The remaining prints probably were those of people who came to see Yamagishi on financial business. All the prints were old.

The killer left no weapon behind. No suspicious footprints were found, and the entrance hall was floored with concrete, so such prints were unlikely. The pole that latched the front door was considered as a possible murder weapon, yet it seemed too lightweight, slender, to have caused the fatal wound. The only prints on it were Yamagishi's. Yamagishi had been almost completely bald, and had bled little. Neither blood nor hair would be found on the weapon.

Under the eaves at the back of the house was a stack of pine logs, cut for fuel. Town gas had not yet been piped to the area. Most of the residents used bottled propane. Yamagishi, however, in his miserliness and accustomed to farmhouse ways, fired his cooking stove with wood. The pine logs had been carefully split into pieces with roughly triangular cross sections some four centimeters to a side. It seemed that several blows with such a log could cause the kind of wound that killed Yamagishi. Detectives checked the top ten of perhaps thirty bundles of firewood in the stack, but the rough surfaces made it difficult to trace prints. It was, in fact, next to impossible. There were no findings of blood or hair.

With this information on the condition of the body and scene of the crime in his mind, Harajima read the report of the confession made by Ueki:

"Must have been nearly two years ago, I got money from Jin Yamagishi. It was at a damned high rate of interest. Since that time, I suffered because of the debt. Just lately, he made a threat—said he'd auction off my shop and land; they were put up as security for the loan. Everything I had was used to buy the land and open the noodle shop. Later on, I borrowed money from Yamagishi to enlarge and improve my shop. But business didn't go so well. I thought it would be better. That and Yamagishi's crazy demands drove me to despair. Yes. I decided my wife and children, and I, would commit suicide together. But, by God, before I died, I wanted to kill that old man. It would at least be something for the sake of all the other people he brought to grief.

"October 18, I was in the Manpaiso mahjong parlor, maybe two hundred meters from the train station. From ll!aybe seven in the evening, with friends—Nakada, Maeda, and Nishikawa—playing mahjong. Lately, seeing how we don't have many customers, I leave the shop to my wife in the evening, and play mahjong or kill the time one way or the other. We played maybe three games, I think, when Shibata came in and started watching. He comes to the mahjong parlor pretty often. He wanted to join the game. I said, 'Look, I've got to run home for something. Why don't you sit in for me?' It made him happy. I left the Manpaiso at maybe nine o'clock.

"But I didn't go home. I went over to the phone booth in front of the station and called Yamagishi. After a time, he answered. I told him I wanted to talk about him taking my property. I told him I'd managed to get together two million yen and I'd bring it with me right now. I said maybe he could postpone his claim on the land and shop, we could talk. At first he was kind of angry, interrupting, saying he'd gone to bed. Then he smoothed out, changed his mind when I mentioned the money. 'Okay, c'mon over. I'm waiting.' He sounded even impatient.

"It's about a half a mile to Yamagihsi's. After a bit there aren't many houses, only fields and two irrigation ponds. I didn't meet anybody. There are twelve or thirteen houses along by Yamagishi's. But Mr. Nakamura's house is off the street a ways, some distance. I had no idea he'd be able to see me from his toilet window. He eats at our noodle shop.

"Just like he said he would, Yamagishi had opened the door. I knew the teacher and his woman had gone to Kyushu three or four days ago. The teacher eats at the shop. He told me himself.

"Before I went to the door, I went around behind the house. I hunted around and found a chunk of wood from the pile I knew was there. Nobody was home upstairs, either—I made sure. All the windows were shuttered. No sign of light anywhere through the cracks.

"So I went to the door. I stepped into the hallway and called to Yamagishi. He came to meet me. There was a light in the other room. I held the hunk of wood behind me. It was shadowy.

"'You know, it's late,' he said. But he was grinning and didn't seem upset. He was sure as the devil thinking about the two million. 'It's okay, though,' he said. 'C'mon, in.'

"I tried to stall, thinking about the piece of wood. I said something about being sorry to disturb him so late, and all. Told him I'd managed to get together two million yen. I didn't want to leave it home for fear of thieves.

"'C'mon, c'mon,' he said, moving into the next room. He pulled two seat cushions from a stack in the corner and put them by a table. I kept the wood behind me as I stepped up into the main part of the house from the hall. The second I sat on the cushion, I stuck it underneath, behind me, and said, 'I brought the money; how's for writing me a receipt?' I figured the subject of money would keep his attention. I let him see the fake newspaper-wrapped parcel I'd fixed, bulging from my front pocket. He figured it was the money, okay. He jumped up to go into the next room, probably for blank receipts.

"I thought, this is it, and leaped up, too. In one move I smashed him on the back of his bald head with the chunk of wood. I gave it everything. He gave a hell of a yell and fell on his face. I bent down and smashed him three more times on the back of the head. He lay there on his face and didn't move. Then, to make it look like I'd been a thief and not a guest, I put the two cushions back on the pile in the corner.

"Then I went into the next room to look for the cashbox. I found it in the cupboard. I wanted to take it out and tear up the notes like he'd made me suffer, but I didn't know the combination to the lock. I decided to take the box with me. After I left the house, I put the piece of wood on the pile in back. I don't remember exactly where. It was dark. It took maybe thirty minutes, all told.

"The moon was coming up now. I went down the road a little ways, then walked off it into a clump of deep grass. I hunted around, found a large stone, and cracked the lock on the cashbox. I looked quickly through the promissory notes, took the ones with my name on them, along with five or six others. I put these in my pocket. It was hard to see, but I'd been able to make out the names in the pale moonlight. I tossed the box into the irrigation pond on my right. Then I went along to the playground of a life-insurance company, not far away, where I lit a match and burned the notes I'd been carrying in my pocket. I scuffed the ashes into the ground.

"I was plenty surprised when the police told me they had recovered the cashbox from the pond, and that my notes were still there. It turned out that Yamagishi's account book had a customer with a name like mine: Tomio Inoki. The police claimed I must've been mistaken, thinking his notes were mine, in the dark. I'd destroyed the wrong ones. Inoki's notes were missing from the box. I was very excited at the time, so it could have been like that.

"After I'd done all this, I went back to the Manpaiso, where my friends were still playing mahjong. I watched maybe ten minutes, till Nakada won the round. Then I took Shibata's place and played a round myself. None of them knew I'd just murdered a man. If I say so, I was very calm. I guess it was because I had no guilt feelings about having killed Yamagishi.

"I slept well that night. I had burned the notes. Yamagishi had no heirs. The debts would be canceled. I felt happy and relieved.

"The next day, the news of the death caused a big stir in the neighborhood. But there was no one to feel sorry about it. I felt fine when people said it was good he was gone, that he got what was coming to him.

"Two days later, I was watching television in the shop, when two detectives came. They asked me to come to the station. They had a few things to ask me. At the time, I knew it might be the end. Maybe it was wrong to kill him. But he deserved it. I made up my mind to tell the police everything. Of course, if I could, I wanted to make it look like I wasn't guilty."

Reading all this, Harajima got the impression that the case was indeed simple. It could arouse little interest in any lawyer, private or court-assigned: The best he could do would be to ask for clemency on the basis of extenuating circumstances. But as he went on with the case report, he was surprised. Ueki abruptly changed, and claimed to have nothing to do with the murder. He insisted the confession had been the result of psychological torment and leading questions, plus a promise of leniency on the part of police investigators. Of course, defendants like Ueki made this kind of claim often, especially in cases involving heavy punishment.

Just the same, from the evidence in these documents, Harajima felt reasonably sure Ueki was guilty. The written confession sounded natural and unforced. It agreed with the results of the police investigation on the murder site and environs. It did not appear to have been made under police pressure, as Ueki claimed.

Nonetheless, in front of the public prosecutor, Torao Ueki had issued another deposition containing the following information.

3

"It's true, as stated before, I was playing mahjong with Nakada, Maeda, and Nishikawa in the Manpaiso and that, after two games, Shibata took my place. It's true, I went over to the phone booth in front of the station, called Jin Yamagishi, and told him I had to talk about the securities involved in the loan. It's also true he told me he was up and waiting—and that I went to his house. The rest of the statement I made at the police station, it's untrue.

"I didn't tell Yamagishi on the phone that I'd scraped together two million yen. I could never find that much money. God. But the police kept on insisting Yamagishi wouldn't get out of bed to see me 'less I'd brought money. They claimed, if I'd just told him I wanted to see him, he'd say to wait till the next day. They said I put something in my pocket that looked like a bundle of money, before going to the house. So I thought about what they said. On the basis of Yamagishi's personality, a third person would see eye-to-eye with the police. So I agreed they were right.

"Actually, I simply told Yamagishi I wanted him to wait before taking possession of the securities. If I lost the land and shop, my whole family would have nothing to live on. I said I had an idea for a solution, and I wanted him to listen. He said possession of the securities wasn't really what he wanted—he'd only decided to take such a step because he didn't think there was any hope of my repaying the money. If I had some proposal, he'd consider it. He said I was to come, and that he'd leave the front door open.

"So I walked close to his house, but couldn't go in. I didn't have any damned proposal to make. I was so damned worried about the loss of the land and shop, all I wanted to do was ask him to wait. But I knew this would only make him angrier than ever. I couldn't bring myself to confront him. I felt bad. I just wandered around the neighborhood for maybe thirty minutes, then started back.

"I didn't feel like playing mahjong. I wandered around the playground of the life-insurance company, while thinking over my troubles. It's a country road. I didn't meet anybody. I must've wandered like that for an hour before I went back to the mahjong parlor. The game was nearly over. I took Shibata's place and played for a while. Since I'd done nothing wrong, I was calm. My friends testified to that. My wife says I slept well that night. After all, there was nothing on my conscience. This is really what happened that night. I'll say this about the false confession I gave earlier:

"First off, I told the police I didn't kill Yamagishi. They wouldn't listen. One after the other, detectives came into the room. They said it'd do no good to lie. Said they had all the proof they needed. According to their side, the stolen cashbox had been recovered from one of the two irrigation ponds. The combination lock was smashed. Inside, they found twenty-two water-soaked promissory notes, including mine—for seven and a half million yen. God. They said they compared the contents with Yamagishi's account book. They said promissory notes of a man named Tomio Inoki were missing. They said I'd made a mistake. Intending to steal my own notes, I'd misread the name Tomio Inoki for Torao Ueki. They said it happened because the characters used to write the names are similar. And, also, because there was only a little moonlight that night.

"Then another detective came in. He said did I know Yoshiya Nakamura? I said, sure, because he's a customer at my shop. Then he said Nakamura must know my face pretty well, and I said, sure, that's right. The detective looked real proud of himself then, as if he'd won something, and told me Nakamura had testified to seeing my hurrying in the direction of Yamagishi's house about five minutes after nine, on the night of the murder. Nakamura was looking out his toilet window. The detective was all grins. He said I probably hadn't been aware of Nakamura's watching me, but it was too late to evade. Now they had testimony of a man who'd seen me in the vicinity, the evidence of the cashbox—and my own admission of a motive. They said it was 'unshakable evidence.' God. Then they said they sympathized with me. If I'd confess, they'd have the public prosecutor release me, arrange to have the case dropped. They were very pleasant to me when they said that I probably wanted to go home to my family and my work as soon as I could.

"I tried to explain why Nakamura had seen me through the window. They wouldn't listen. They kept on promising to have the case dropped if I'd make a false confession. Well, I finally said, all right, I committed the murder. God. They were so happy they let me have cigarettes and ordered in food for me. So then I wrote a confession to their instructions. They wanted something else. A map of the interior of Yamagishi's house. So, I did that.

"Writing, I ran into problems. First, I didn't know what kind of weapon to say I used. One of the detectives said, looking at me like an owl, straight-faced, 'How about the stuff used for fuel in a stove?' I said, 'Sure, I beat Yamagishi to death with a chip of coal.' The detective called me a fool, and said, 'Stump-head. The longish stuff they bring from mountain forests. About this long.' He gestured. 'Oh,' I said. 'Split logs?' 'That's right,' he said. 'You smacked his shiny old bald pate with a hunk of firewood.' Then he said, 'C'mon, where's it kept?' I didn't know, you see. So I said, 'A corner in the kitchen.' Well, he got mad then. He shouted at me, 'No! It's a place where rain falls on it. But only drops of rain. Drop, drop, drop!' He was probably trying to be highly descriptive. 'Under the eaves?' I said. 'Right as rain!' he called out.

"But what is written in the investigation report and that first deposition makes a different impression: 'Before I went to the door, I went around behind the house, I hunted around and found a chunk of wood from the pile I knew was there. . . . So I went to the door, I stepped. into the hallway and called to Yamagishi.' It's true, the general meaning of the two statements is similar. On the end of the confession is the sentence, 'I affix my signature to certify that this transcription is identical in content to my oral testimony.'

"The detectives took me behind Yamagishi's place and asked me to show them the piece of firewood I used for the murder weapon. But I hadn't murdered anybody! I was at a loss. 'How's for this one?' asked a detective, picking a log from about the second row on top. I think he had it in mind from the start. I said, 'All right,' and it was identified as the murder weapon. Then I said, 'But there's no blood or hair on it.' They explained that there had been no exterior bleeding and Yamagishi'd been bald. So, obviously there was no blood or hair. Then, like they were making fun of me, one said, 'If Yamagishi'd bled, we'd've been forced to paint blood of his type on the log.' When I asked about lack of my fingerprints, another said, 'Prints can't be detected on a rough surface like that.' So he wrapped the log in cloth as a piece of material evidence.

"Then they asked how we'd been sitting when I killed Yamagishi. I said I'd hid the piece of wood in my hand, come in the hallway, and told him I had two million yen with me. He asked me in. I took off my shoes, stepped up into the main part of the house, and abruptly smashed him on the back of the head with the piece of firewood.

"The detectives said it was impossible. So, they had a version. Since I was a guest, Yamagishi must've taken out two cushions, like he would. When I told him I'd come to pay two million, he probably rose to go into the next room for receipt blanks. That was, according to them, when I hit him on the back of the head. They added that I'd put the cushions back in the pile by the wall to suggest the murderer hadn't been a person received as a guest. By this time, I was damned tired of arguing, and just said, 'Sure. That's how it was.' But they insisted I repeat it all, like they'd said it. So, I did that. Not very well, actually. But I did like I was told.

"Next thing, they asked me how many times I struck him. 'Once,' I said. They said it wasn't enough to kill. 'How many times?' 'Six or seven.' But that was too many. If I'd hit him that many times he'd have bled more. 'Let's see,' one said. 'You just don't remember, but it's three times, right? Three times.' He spoke as if I were a child. Then he muttered, 'Three blows with a piece of firewood would make a wound like the one described in the autopsy report.'

"Then came the cashbox, breaking it open, taking the notes, mistaking Tomio Inoki's name for mine—all of that was the detectives' suggestion. They asked about the pond where I threw the cashbox. I said, 'The one to the left.' They told me to think again. 'After all, there're only two.' So, I said the one on the right. Now, if the real killer's prints could be found on that box, I'd be okay. The investigators said it was impossible to take prints from it, because it got coated with mud from the pond. According to them, I deliberately threw the box in the mud to obscure fingerprints.

"Of course, I didn't know about the ashes they say they found in the weeds in the playground of the life-insurance company. Maybe the police burned some paper like the notes on their own. You can't read printing or writing on ashes.

"I was so eager to go home, I fell into the police trap. They promised to have the public prosecutor release me and have the case dismissed, if I confessed. They said they sympathized with my motive and wanted to help me as much as they could. I believed them.

"They took me right from the jail to the detention house. The detectives said to tell the public prosecutor exactly what I'd said to them. If I said anything different, they threatened to return me to the police and start all over. 'This time, we'll really let you have it. You try denying the confession in court, we'll see you get the limit. Play it smart, Ueki.'

"They frightened me. So, I told the public prosecutor the things like they're written in the false confession. Then, finally, I found their promises about dropping the case, letting me go home, it was all a lie. I decided to come out with the truth."

4

After reading this deposition, Harajima couldn't decide whether the claim that the confession had been made under police pressure was exaggerated or true. The first confession sounded unforced, natural. But, in its way, so did the second. There were still some policemen who might resort to tactics of the kind Ueki described. As a lawyer, Harajima was tempted to lean toward the second confession.

The public prosecutor's indictment refused to recognize the second deposition, insisting on considering the confession made before the police as evidence. The constitution (Article 38) states that confessions obtained by means of coercion, torture, or threats, and confessions obtained after unduly long detention are inadmissible as evidence. Confessions given as a result of deceptive interrogation—for instance, claiming that an accomplice has admitted guilt when he has not—or as an outcome of leading questions slanted in favor of the interrogator, are to be regarded as forced. Such evidence is insufficient to establish guilt.

Defendants often plead their confessions were forced in an attempt to prove their innocence. In such cases, corroborating evidence is of the greatest importance in establishing guilt. Such evidence includes material evidence, and testimonies of third parties. It can be divided into direct and indirect, or circumstantial, evidence.

Torao Ueki had borrowed money at high interest from Jin Yamagishi. Unable to pay, he faced the threat of having his securities seized. His desire for murder was circumstantial evidence. He had no alibi for the time of the crime. Testimonies of his friends, Nakada, Maeda, Nishikawa, and Shibata, and the manager and personnel of the Manpaiso mahjong parlor, established the fact that he had left the premises at around nine in the evening and had returned at ten.

Yoshiya Nakamura testifed that, shortly after the time Ueki left the Manpaiso, he had been looking out of the window and had seen Ueki. He had not witnessed Ueki's entry into Yamagishi's house, or the murder. Therefore, his evidence was indirect.

Material evidence included the piece of firewood, and the cashbox fished out of the irrigation pond. In searching, the police had dragged the pond and recovered it. Ueki's fingerprints were not on the box. This has been explained. The following police report covers the question of prints on the firewood:

"Question: With what did you strike Jin Yamagishi on the back of the head?

"Answer: A chunk of pine log. Like they use in old-fashioned stoves.

"Question: About how long was the piece of wood?

"Answer: Maybe thirty centimeters.

"Question: Where was it? "Answer: What?

"Question: Where was the wood kept?

"Answer: Oh. Piled under the eaves behind Yamagishi's place. I'd been thinking of using it ever since I got the idea of killing him.

"Question: You mean you knew there was firewood piled in that place?

"Answer: Yes.

"Question: What did you do with the wood after the crime? "Answer: I put it back where I got it.

"Question: If we went back to where the wood is stored, could you pick out the piece you used?

"Answer: Sure, if nobody moved it.

"Question: Since the discovery of the body, the house has been in police custody. Everything's just as it was.

"Answer: Sure, then if I went there, I could pick out the piece."

In this report there are no traces of the association-game hints Ueki claimed were forced on him in the second confession. The defendant was taken back to Yamagishi's house, as the following report reveals.

"The defendant was taken behind Yamagishi's house, where he examined a pile of about thirty-five bundles of wood stacked under the eaves. He promptly picked out a piece from the second row from the top. He said, 'This is it. This is the one I used.'

"An investigator put on gloves and took the piece indicated. The defendant, too, was given gloves and held the wood in his right hand. Then he swung it two or three times to the right and left and made five or six downstrikes with it. He said, 'This is it, all right. I guess once you've used something like this, you know the feel of it, don't you?'

"In offering this evidence, the defendant was most cooperative."

Torao Ueki's efforts to help made it look almost as if he were currying favor with the police.

Harajima had not seen the full initial investigation report. He took time from his busy schedule to visit the police station. From the report, he learned that the police had narrowed their search to Ueki from the moment they received Nakamura's testimony about having seen Ueki from his bathroom window. Ueki confessed immediately after arrest. The police had been comfortably able to send in an early report.

Realizing Harajima was court-appointed counsel, the officer in charge was clearly angry when he said, "I understand the defendant's now denying his confession. What's he trying to do? It's ridiculous. The police can't be accused of using strong-arm tactics. We'd never promise to set a man free or have the case dropped if he agreed to sign a confession. We don't threaten to fight for the death penalty when a defendant denies his confession in court. When Ueki first came in here, he sat right down—told us everything about the murder, how he went in and talked to Yamagishi, how he killed him. He drew a map of Yamagishi's house, explaining it all on his own. The whole thing about the murder weapon was just as it's written up. He pointed it out to us, made a few swings with it, said he recalled the knot. He even asked us to find out if his fingerprints were on the log. He was friendly. I really don't think he could have described things so well unless he knew what he was talking about."

This business of Ueki being "friendly" made Harajima frown. Sometimes defendants cooperate with the police so they can be sent to the detention house quickly. Once there, they change their tune, claiming what they said for the police was made under duress. Maybe this was how Ueki figured things. Still he might pretend friendliness, believing the police would free him and drop the case. He certainly had cooperated.

The trial was drawing near. Stealing time from other cases, Harajima made a trip to the detention house to talk with Ueki.

Ueki was tall, reedy, with a pale, femininely gentle face. Both his shoulders and eyebrows slanted downward, giving him a kind of parallel semblance of rejection. Thin-lipped, he had a tight, narrow forehead, but he was quite polite when he met Harajima, expressing respect and gratitude that the lawyer was representing him. Especially since there was no fee. There was a certain meekness about Ueki, though none of this was in his words.

Harajima was of two minds about the man. Could such a weak-looking fellow commit murder? Still, that girlish face might conceal brutality and cunning. Although he had looked into the eyes of hundreds of defendants, Harajima wasn't always able to tell whether they were sincere.

"Torao, I've taken your case. You want the right kind of defense, you'll have to be completely frank."

"Sure, yes—understood."

Harajima hesitated, then said, "Do you still claim your first confession was a lie?"

Ueki was quick, direct. "Absolutely. Damn it, I was tricked by the police."

"Then, it's true, about the leading questions, all that?"

"Yes, yes—"

"They claim you cooperated with them, went so far as to point out the firewood to the investigators."

Ueki shook his head. "That's not so. It's like I said in the second deposition. The detectives told me just what to say."

"You'll testify to that?" "Certainly."

"Okay, then. We'll work out a defense on those lines."

Ueki's tone changed. "Mr. Harajima? I can prove the confession I made was forced from me."

"Prove?"

"Yes."

5

A smile touched Ueki's lips. "I thought of it last night in bed. I'm sure it's because you've been chosen to defend me—God graciously jogged my memory."

Harajima sighed. "What d'you mean?"

"Sure. It's about what happened before I'm supposed to have killed the old man. I heard he was on his face, turned in the direction of the next room. Lying there, like that, I mean. When I first talked with the police, I made it up that after Yamagishi'd seen me, he said a couple of words, then invited me in. That he turned to go into the other room. This is when I said I hit him with the log. Well, the police said that story wasn't any good. They kept insisting I must've sat on a cushion Yamagishi pulled out for me. Then I'd put the cushion back after the murder. So it'd look like the crime was by someone who broke in, not by a guest. They kept at it, and finally I went along. But listen—the truth is Jin Yamagishi never offered cushions to people who came to borrow money. I was there a lot and he never gave me one. You'd have to know him. Must've been like that with everybody, I bet. You can ask around."

"Why'd he have the pile of cushions in the corner?"

"For show, see? None of his customers ever sat on one. If they sat down, they'd stay too long. He liked us to leave right away, after he'd forced his conditions on us. Okay, if the talk lasted a while, then he might maybe show some kind of human feeling. Of course, that's not saying he didn't give a cushion to ordinary visitors. The detectives didn't know this."

"You have any other proof?"

"The cashbox, Mr. Harajima. I didn't know where it had been found. They said something about 'water,' so I remembered the irrigation ponds. But when I said the one on the left, they called me a fool. So I told them the one to the right. That's in the deposition I made after meeting the prosecutor. Damn it, Mr. Harajima, the fact my promissory notes were still there, in the box, should prove I didn't kill him. They said I misread Inoki for Ueki. But, hell—now, would somebody who'd murdered to get those notes back fail to check the names on them? The police said it was dark. But I'm supposed to have burned five notes in the playground a little later. This means I had matches, right? I could've checked the names when I struck a match. Anyway, my prints weren't found on the cashbox."

"Well. Anything else?"

"Yes. It's important, too. How about this—does the hunk of wood used as the murder weapon match the wound on Yamagishi's head?"

"How d'you mean?"

"Listen, I read the medical report. A copy, that is. There was a flattened spot on the back of Yamagishi's skull, maybe the size of a human palm. The bone was dented in. The log the detectives made me select was triangular, Mr. Harajima—in cross-section, I mean—about four centimeters wide on a side." Ueki shook his head. "I just don't think three smacks would leave something like that. I mean, the fractures would've been uneven. He must've been hit with something larger, once." He blinked. "Naturally, it's only my guess. But, still, you might check it."

Ueki had been speaking quietly, but with an undercurrent of hope.

Harajima took a taxi home from the detention house. On the way, he thought over what Ueki had said, and could not help becoming excited. Finally, he concluded Ueki's words had considerable significance.

Back at the office, he read the case record over with a different eye. He saw that when the viewpoint alters, so does the impression one gets from the materials. Other possibilities hadn't been investigated. Ueki had confessed, immediately upon arrest. The police had relaxed and consequently were careless about making certain of their evidence. Happy over success, they'd been lax in their very first investigations.

Harajima questioned some ten customers of Yamagishi's about the cushions. He learned that the moneylender never provided them with one when they were at his house. From the young teacher upstairs, however, he found that Yamagishi did, indeed, give courteous hospitality to those who visited on other than business. He seemed to enjoy sitting and chatting. Other associates of Yamagishi attested to this.

The police had considered it only common sense to assume Yamagishi brought out cushions for customers. They required the suspect admit doing this—returning the cushion to the pile after the murder—to suggest the act had been committed by a thief.

Next, Harajima took the coroners' report to a friend who was a doctor of forensic medicine, and asked his opinion.

"It's supposition, remember," the doctor said. "But to make a wound of the kind that killed Yamagishi would require a single blow with a weapon more than eight centimeters wide." Shaking his head, he said, "It's odd the police don't see this. But, of course, they place more importance on their own intuition and experience than on what we say. They think our reports little more than reference material." He made a clucking sound with his tongue. "They actually look down on us doctors," he said, smiling quickly.

It would seem that one of the detectives had simply decided the murder weapon should be a split log, lacking anything else suitable. The excitement of conducting an investigation immediately after Ueki confessed probably accounted for much of the laxity. It was different from times when a criminal left so much evidence behind that it confused the police with its very abundance. Nothing was as open to error or powerful prejudice as the educated hunch of an over-confident detective.

Harajima had some notes about this, right on his desk, taken from Ascertaining the Facts, by the Judicial Research and Training Institute. It was interesting, and a parallel: "There have been many cases in which police officers, operating on the basis of a preformed notion, have failed to take into consideration facts that remove suspicions and have used undue methods to force confessions. Almost all judges with long experience have encountered one or two such incidents. Written works on criminal matters often refer to cases of the kind. For instance, mention is made of police officers who carelessly and hastily overlook facts that prove innocence. In addition, there are remarks to the effect that there is much falsehood in confessions made before police."

Harajima became enthusiastic. This very case might just be a stroke of good luck. In court, he called the forensic medical expert to give an opinion about the wound. As new witnesses, he summoned several persons who had associations with Jin Yamagishi. He questioned the four police officers who had interrogated Ueki. They all testified that the confession had been given willingly.

— Did you tell the defendant, Mr. Ueki, "We know you killed Yamagishi. You won't get off now. But, if you confess, we'll let you free and get the public prosecutor to drop the case"?

— Witness A: Listen, I never said anything like that.

— In order to prompt a confession, did you allow the defendant to smoke as much as he ITked in the interrogation room? And after the confession, did you order food for him on three occasions?

— Witness B: It's customary to allow a defendant two or three cigarettes during questioning. This isn't to "prompt a confession." We ordered food once.

— During questioning, did you instruct the defendant with hints about having to put the cushions back in the original place?

— Witness C: No. He told us that, offered it on his own.—Did you suggest the firewood, exhibit one, as the murder weapon? And, did you lead the defendant to select the log shown here—and to say he struck the victim on the back of the head with it, three times?

— Witness D: Of course not. He confessed all that himself. He chose that piece of wood himself. He said, "This is it," or something, and swung it around. Then he said, "No mistake about it." He was very cooperative.

Ueki was quite disturbed, indignant, about the testimony of these men during cross-questioning.

"See? They said what I told you. How the devil can they lie like that? Just to make themselves look good. They don't give a damn about who's guilty."

There was a deadlock. The police officers strongly denied

Ueki's accusations.

Three months later, the verdict was handed down. Not guilty, for lack of sufficient evidence.

The verdict was reached for the following reasons:

1. The piece of wood presented to the court as the murder weapon is four centimeters wide at the broadest point. According to testimonies of the autopsy doctor and one other, flattening of the victim's skull would require a weapon at least as wide as an adult palm, eight or nine centimeters. (A report by an expert from a large medical university confirmed this.) Therefore, the pine log offered as evidence cannot have been the murder weapon.

2. Fingerprints of the defendant were not found on the piece of pine log, nor on the cashbox belonging to Jin Yamagishi.

3. According to the confession, the defendant took five of the twenty-two promissory notes from the cashbox. He took these to the playground of a life-insurance company some two hundred meters from the irrigation pond and burned them. Among notes left in the box were those in the name of the defendant, Torao Ueki. It was assumed, after investigation, that the five notes burned had been in the name of Tomio lnoki. The judicial police insist that, in the dark, the defendant must have misread the name Tomio Inoki as his own, Torao Ueki.

This seems likely, but the defense attorney's insistence is also convincing: if the defendant is in fact the murderer, then recovery of the notes would have been his primary concern. He would have made certain he had the right ones.

4. Examination of the written confessions reveals no trace of coercion or undue detention by the judicial police to force the defendant to confess. However, there is an impression that deception and leading questions were employed. The series of depositions submitted by the defendant to this court strongly claim such methods were used. This is not enough to convince the court that the crime was not committed by the defendant. The defendant is unable to account convincingly for his actions and whereabouts for the hour from the time he left the Manpaiso mahjong parlor to the time when he returned. There is doubt because Yoshiya Nakamura testifies to having seen the defendant near the victim's house around that time. This substantiates the first confession.

5. This court has considered the evidence, and come to the following decision. The court concludes that there is insufficient evidence of guilt and, in accordance with Article 336 of the Criminal Actions Law, pronounces a verdict of not guilty.

6

A year passed. Naomi Harajima was in the habit of reading legal volumes during his free time. One night, as he glanced through Studies of Not-Guilty Verdicts by the English judge James Hind, his eyes locked on an arresting section. He sat bolt upright in his chair. He read on and experienced an unpleasant thumping in his chest.

In 1923, Peter Cammerton, a worker in a sail factory in Manchester, England, was arrested and charged with murdering a wealthy widow, Mrs. Hammersham, and then setting fire to her home. Because he was in need of money, Cammerton planned to kill her and steal whatever he could. Going to her house around seven in the evening, he struck her several times in the face with an iron rod, about fifty centimeters long. He then strangled her with his leather belt, took one hundred and fifty pounds in cash, along with some jewelry from her room, and fled.

To conceal traces of his act, he returned about nine in the evening, intending to burn her house. Lighting a kerosene lamp, he placed it on a book atop the bureau. Half of the lamp-base projected over the edge of the book. The lamp leaned because of unstable support. On the floor, he piled waste paper and clothing, which would ignite when the lamp fell. The fire would spread to the entire house. He knew the lamp would tumble when a freight train passed on tracks behind Mrs. Hammersham's house in the next hour. The ground and house foundation trembled whenever a train came along. Three hours later, the house was in flames. Firetrucks raced to the scene. They were unable to extinguish the blaze.

Peter Cammerton was arrested soon after. He confessed, but later denied his confession. He was pronounced not guilty through lack of evidence.

Was Peter Cammerton, in fact, the person who robbed and killed the woman and set fire to the house?

There were no fingerprints or other objective evidence to link him with the crime. More, there was little circumstantial evidence to establish his guilt. Many of his friends testified that he had said and done nothing unusual between the time of the crime and his arrest. On the day of the murder, he had taken a pleasure trip to London. He returned eagerly to Manchester, knowing full well he would undergo a police investigation. This spoke in his favor.

Cammerton confessed to the police, but later denied the confession, claiming he had been coerced into making it. The court uncovered no foundation for coercion and ruled the confession acceptable as evidence.

But close examination of the confession, in comparison with other evidence, revealed serious discrepancies. In the confession, he said Mrs. Hammersham first opened the door only a crack. He had waited to strike her with the iron bar when she put her whole face out of the door. Two days after, he claimed she invited him into the house and that they sat opposite each other and talked. He waited for her to be off her guard and then struck her.

When he struck her was a point of major importance. Cammerton would not forget such a major action. Why would he lie? This conflict of statements was difficult to understand.

At first, Cammerton said he struck Mrs. Hammersham once in the face with the iron bar. Two days later, he said it had been twice. One week later, he claimed he struck her with all his might once and that, as she lowered.her head, he hit her again four or five times. A medical expert said the condition of the bones in the victim's face verified the assumption that the attack really consisted of only one blow.

So, what Cammerton said later also did not agree with his original confession. Lapse of memory was unthinkable. Increasing the number of times he struck the victim could scarcely be to the defendant's advantage. Still, there was little reason to suspect him of deliberately falsifying. All of this cast serious doubt on the veracity of the initial confession.

Immediately upon arrest, the police confronted Cammerton with the steel rod and asked if he'd ever seen it. He said he thought his fingerprints would be on it. He seemed to recall the rod, but there had been several where he picked up the weapon. He could not be certain. Holding the rod, he placed it under his right arm, measured its length, and finally said there could be no mistake—it was the one he had used.

The wound in the victim's face was measured and found to be three times as wide as the rod (2.5 centimeters). This meant that the rod could not be the murder weapon. Why had Cammerton claimed it was? Would the real killer be unable to recognize his weapon? The fact that Cammerton claimed the rod as the weapon and also mentioned fingerprints awakened the possibility that he identified the weapon to please the police, even though he knew it was unrelated to the crime. Why would he do this?

Investigations failed to reveal traces of the kerosene lamp on the floor by the bureau. If it had been there, even though it may not have started the fire, it could scarcely have been overlooked. Had there been no lamp? Many questions remained unanswered. The judge pronounced the defendant not guilty, due to insufficient evidence.

Finished reading this passage, Harajima felt as if the words on the page had leaped out and struck him in the face. The two cases closely resembled each other. Coincidence? It was too close for that. A strong gut feeling told him Torao Ueki had read the same book.

From eighteen to twenty-five, Torao Ueki had worked in a second-hand book store, opening the noodle shop only after getting married.

Harajima checked a copy of the case record, found the name of the book store. He then called a book collector friend, and learned the store specialized in legal volumes. They would certainly have Hind's Studies of Not-Guilty Verdicts, which had been translated into Japanese before World War II. As an employee of the shop, Ueki would have had ample time to read it.

It is not easy for a criminal to escape the police. Many criminals have been executed or imprisoned because they have become entangled in their own clever subterfuges. Those who do escape detection often lead lives of anxiety and suffering in some ways worse than a long prison sentence. The ideal thing is to allow the police to make an arrest, then be declared not guilty. When he decided to kill Jin Yamagishi, the moneylender who had caused him much grief, Torao Ueki must have considered this and recalled the volume he once read in a second-hand bookshop.

In the Manchester case, Peter Cammerton claimed that a piece of iron rod the wrong size was the murder weapon. Believing him, the police admitted the wrong item as evidence. Ueki had done the same thing with the firewood. After his arrest, Cammerton identified the iron rod, measured its length under his arm, and suggested his fingerprints would be on it. Ueki had done something very similar with the piece of wood. Learning much from the English murder case, Ueki made self-incriminating statements in his confession, which he later denied. He then created the impression that the confession was made under police pressure.

As the inspector said, Ueki had been cooperative and friendly. The police fell for this and were too pleased with the way things were going to substantiate their evidence. Both Cammerton and Ueki changed the number of times they claimed to have struck their victims. In each case, only one blow had been used. Ueki's knowledge of Yamagishi's habit of never offering cushions to business customers was put to his own advantage when he said he'd been offered such a cushion and had returned it to its corner pile. He had employed the trick of leaving his own promissory notes in the cashbox to convince police he would not have done so if he'd been the murderer. It made no difference that the notes weren't destroyed. Yamagishi had no children, no relatives for heirs. At his death, all debts would be canceled.

What would the police think if they knew Harajima's notions of the truth? In court, when Ueki indignantly accused them of coercing a confession, tricking him with leading questions, bribing him, why had the police allowed it to end in a draw? Had they given up before Ueki's tremendous brass? It was true, when he observed the staunch courage with which Ueki testified, Harajima had become convinced the confession had not been freely given.

Harajima was very nervous. He paced back and forth in his study. At length, trying to calm himself, he removed a slender volume from the bookshelf and thumbed through the pages.

"Never judge the truth or falseness of a defendant's confession on the basis of the excitement he shows in making depositions about the crime, or by the courage with which he faces police witnesses in court. Make judgement on the basis of (1) whether the content of the confession agrees with known facts, (2) the personality and nature of the defendant, and (3) the motive that may have induced him to confess. But, after thorough investigation of all evidence, if there is no trace of the defendant's attempting to obscure the uncovering of the truth about his confession, do not be deceived by distinctive character traits or by the falseness of a servile personality into believing the confession has been forced. (Special Criminal Report of the Superior Court, March 16, 1944. Kanazawa Branch, Nagoya Superior Court)"

Ueki's whereabouts are unknown. After the trial, he sold his shop and land to a realtor for a good price, and went away. He did not come to thank Harajima. He phoned, instead: "Can't thank you enough, for getting me out of a tight spot. Mr. Harajima, you're tops. The only thing is, I'm embarrassed having to call on your services without paying you." After a few more inconsequential words he was gone.

If Torao Ueki were killed in a traffic accident, it would be no more than just punishment, or perhaps divine retribution. This, however, is somehow unlikely.


Ellery Queen's Japanese Golden Dozen

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