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CHAPTER 6

Weekend evenings at the Tokyo Lawn Tennis Club were usually quite relaxed. Anywhere from seventy-five to a hundred members would normally sit around, discuss the day's games, tell funny stories, eat, and quench thirsts developed as the result of hours spent chasing around on the courts. To put this in perspective, although the club boasted some of the top Japanese and foreign players in the country, more bottles of beer were typically consumed annually than cans of tennis balls.

On this Saturday evening, however, there was nothing but gloom. A couple-dozen members sat quietly, watched Captain Kawamura's methodical investigators going through their routines, and discussed Shig. Dusk had emptied the ten outdoor clay courts.

Kawamura could feel the awkwardness and tension as he walked around watching his men take measurements and photograph every conceivable feature in the clubhouse. Kawamura secretly knew that all the measurements and photographs in the world could not possibly determine what happened upstairs in the locker room, but investigative routine was well spelled out in the manual, and his superiors would expect to see the results of these labors in the file.

A foreigner, speaking English with a heavy French accent, broke the ice.

"Please, monsieur I'inspecteur, if you could tell what it is that happened to Manabe-san? He was a friend to all of us."

The other members silently looked at Kawamura.

"I am not a, mesher lonspec... ah," replied Kawamura crisply in English, "I am only a police captain."

'Then, mon capitaine, what was the circumstance in the bath?"

The other members silently looked at Kawamura.

"Our investigations are still... continuing," answered Kawamura.

To the Japanese members he added, in Japanese: "We have no clear idea what happened."

The other members silently looked at Kawamura.

"Manabe-san was a very nice man," said one of the Japanese members after a moment.