Читать книгу Togakushi Legend Murders - Yasuo Uchida - Страница 8

From the Rokumu Slope behind the Zenko Temple, the winding road up the mountain gained altitude steadily. Making a wide detour around Mount Omine, it came out all at once on the Iizuna Plateau, from which point it became a level road called the Birdline, with many straightaways, cutting through a forest of larches toward the Togakushi Mountains. Ahead of them, Togakushi West Peak was already showing its mysterious face.

Tachibana had heard that this "Birdline" had been constructed along practically all of the route once followed by the so-called Old Road, which had served as an approach for worshippers to the Togakushi Shrines, and he was now whizzing along comfortably in a car on the same route up which he had fled thirty-eight years ago. Since the fall of 1964, when the Birdline was completed, Togakushi had ceased to be isolated by the surrounding mountains.

"This is the first time you've been to Togakushi, isn't it, Professor Tachibana?" asked Shimizu, who was sitting next to him.

"Uh, I was here for just a little while many years ago."

"Were you really? As a matter of fact, I thought that was a look of fond reminiscence on your face. Well then, I don't need to tell you about the place, do I?"

With a rueful smile, Tachibana realized that he must indeed have been looking sentimental.

"Anyway, you certainly are a real life-saver, agreeing to come along like this," said Shimizu for the tenth time. "When Shiraishi told me he couldn't make it after all, I was really in a spot. A clumsy oaf like myself certainly wouldn't have been welcome there alone. You'll make a much better impression. This should get us a lot of good will. Should make the sponsors pretty happy, too."

"You make me sound like a male geisha," laughed Tachibana.

"Oh no, please don't take it like that. It's your reputation that I'm counting on. It was because of that that I asked you to join me. I'm not kidding you."

"I don't mind."

"Of course, like it or not, there come times when not only the administrators, but the professors as well do have to play male geisha." But it was obvious from Shimizu's smile that he didn't dislike it too much.

T—University, where Tomohiro Tachibana taught, was at the top of the second rank of private universities, but it had established affiliated high schools all over the country and put so much effort into seeing that they all had good baseball teams that the joke was going around that its high schools would soon be taking over the nationwide high school baseball tournaments. The university had become better known for baseball than for learning.

Shimizu, the university president, held a Doctor of Science degree from Imperial University and was a scientist of undisputed reputation, but he had found his true calling as an administrator. He showed great skill in negotiation with outside organizations, and when it came to getting his own professors to do something, he was an excellent persuader. There was something about the man that made it impossible to dislike him.

Having wanted to establish an affiliated high school in Nagano City for a long time, he had jumped at the chance to scratch the back of a member of the education subcommittee of the lower house of the Diet elected from the First District of Nagano, a man named Shishido. Hearing that Shishido wanted to build a golf course somewhere in the area, Shimizu had offered his cooperation in return for assistance in obtaining permission to build the school. Now he was hurriedly responding to Shishido's rush invitation to the first meeting of the organization to promote the golf project, a meeting which was actually a party to entertain local people of influence, from whom Shishido was expecting considerable opposition.

Tachibana had been dragged along in spite of his protest that he did not even play golf. "You can't know whether you might enjoy it or not unless you pick up a club and give it a try," Shimizu had said, unconcerned. "And anyway, the enemy should be satisfied if we just put in an appearance."

Shimizu had made it sound like a picnic, an invitation that would not bear refusal. But before they arrived, Tachibana had thought the meeting was to be held somewhere in Nagano City, and evidently Shimizu had made the same assumption. It was only in the car sent to meet them at Nagano Station that they learned they were going to Togakushi. Shimizu had been quite pleased, but if Tachibana had known, he would most likely have refused the invitation, whatever the consequences. Togakushi held altogether too many bitter memories for him.

He had visited Togakushi once more, after the war, in the summer of 1947. His tuberculosis had gotten worse on the Southern Front, where it had been compounded by malaria, but just when he began to think he was finished, the war ended. After this narrow escape from death, he was late being repatriated and had to spend a long time in the hospital even after that. But as soon as he was able to get around, he insisted on going to Togakushi. He was ordered by the doctor, of course, to stay put, but he was not to be stopped, and in the end he left the hospital without the doctor's permission.

In the two and a half years since he had seen it, though, the Hoko Shrine village had changed completely. Looking up in the direction of the shrine from the bus stop at the bottom of the slope, he could not believe his eyes. The rows of priests' houses were gone without a trace, and in their stead was nothing more than a scattering of poor, barracks-type huts. He rushed frantically up the slope, only to find that the Tendoh house was gone with the rest. Of that imposing structure with the secret room in which he had hidden, not a pillar was left, only the bare, dark-red scorched foundation. That was the cruelest stroke of all.

A woman in traditional work pantaloons had come out of the hut across the street pushing a bicycle, and Tachibana ran quickly over to her. When she turned around, her face looked familiar. He remembered her as the daughter-in-law of the Otomo household, whom he had occasionally seen from a window. But she didn't recognize him. That was natural enough, since he had seldom gone out, and had stayed hidden all the while he was evading the draft.

"Excuse me," he said, "could you help me?"

"Yes?" she said.

"The house that used to be here, the Tendoh house, what happened to it?"

"The Tendoh house?" She gave him an enquiring look. "You don't know about the fire, then?"

"Fire?"

"Yes. The big fire the year the war ended. The whole neighborhood burned down."

"There was a big fire?"

"Yes." The woman's look asked what else there was to say.

"What happened to the people in the Tendoh house?"

"You mean, to Taki?"

"Well, uh, yes... there was someone named Taki, and uh..." mumbled Tachibana vaguely, before he realized that he was being so cowardly as to try to conceal his identity. Angry at himself, he spoke up. "Yes, that's right. The young lady named Taki and the elderly couple who lived there."

"You want to know where they are now?"

"If you don't mind."

The woman looked troubled. "I'm not sure, but I heard they died."

"You mean, in the fire?"

"No, no, not in the fire."

"Then when, and where?"

"I'm really not sure."

"But you do know what happened to them after the fire, don't you?" Annoyed that she wouldn't give him a straight answer, Tachibana raised his voice.

"Who are you, sir?" she asked, looking up at him.

It was Tachibana's turn to try to avoid a straight answer. "Well, I stayed here once, and I haven't been back to Togakushi for a long time, so I..."

"Well then, it's better that you don't know. I'm very sorry, sir."

With a deep bow, he hurried off, imagining he saw the light of recognition in her eyes. Tachibana the returned soldier, who had lived through all the humiliations of war, was a mere shadow of the student of two or three years earlier, but he feared the shadow might be recognizable.

He went straight up the slope to the top and began slowly climbing the stairs to the shrine, noticing along the way that the village had not been totally destroyed. The two or three houses closest to the peak had survived, as if under the shrine god's protection. And he found some solace in the fact that the giant cedars on both sides of the staircase remained.

A drum sounded to signal the beginning of a dance offering, recalling for him the summer of his first year of junior high school, the morning after his first arrival in Togakushi to stay with the Tendohs, when the sound of the drum had for some reason frightened him. Now, so many years later, each beat filled him with inexpressible emotion.

He reached the top of the stairs just as the shrine maidens were preparing to come on stage. Four young girls in white tunics over crimson pantaloons, wearing gold crowns and shaking sacred bells in each hand, came across the boardwalk and around the veranda. When they had performed their ritual worship in front of the shrine and taken their places at the corners of the stage, a flute began to play a peaceful tune. The drum beat out a monotonous rhythm and the girls shook their bells in time to it, as they spread their long sleeves and began a serene dance.

He had stopped, his eyes fixed on the stage, thoughts crossing time and space to see Taki once more as a child on that same stage. She had been far more graceful and beautiful than any of the other dancers. No one could compete with her for beauty as a dancer. The dance was usually monotonous, but it never seemed so when she was performing it. The other three dancers had always seemed merely to be following her lead. Taki herself would be in a sort of trance. She had once told Tachibana that she forgot everything when she was dancing.

And now he had been told she was dead. In spite of himself, he began to cry, and the shrine maidens on the stage became but a haze.

More than thirty years had passed since that last visit. Tachibana had thought that what had happened to him at Togakushi had been locked tight away in the recesses of his consciousness, along with his war memories. In the mid 1950s he had gotten his position at the university, and in 1957 he had begun a calm, uneventful marriage. He had gone neither against the trends of the times nor with them, but had spent his whole life in mediocrity. He and his wife had never had any children, probably because of the malaria he had contracted, and she had died just before their silver wedding anniversary.

Shortly before her death, she had expressed pity for him, but when he asked her why, her response had been only a faint smile. After her funeral, he had recalled the incident and wondered why it had never occurred to him before that perhaps she had known—while pretending not to—that a part of his heart was elsewhere.

* * *

The golf-course meeting was held at the largest hotel in Togakushi, the Koshimizu Plateau Hotel, a smart, three-story, North-European style building facing West Peak across the Togakushi Plateau, splendidly located with the Togakushi Ski Slope on Mt. Kenashi right behind it.

The promoters spent from 3 P.M. to about 4:30 P.M. explaining their aims. Then came a reception starting shortly after five. July had just begun, and there were not yet many visitors to the Togakushi Plateau. Toward dusk, it began to look like rain, but there were no complaints about the weather. Guests who had disparaged the hotel as a place way off in the mountains at which they could not expect a decent meal were more than satisfied by the feast of top-quality beef dishes, as well as fresh crab and shrimp from the Sea of Japan.

Shimizu introduced Tachibana to one local person of influence after another. Tachibana exchanged perfunctory greetings with all of them. But one person bothered him a little, a man introduced as the head of the Takeda Firm. Glancing at his face as they exchanged cards, Tachibana had the feeling they had met before, though the name, Kisuke Takeda, did not ring a bell. He was a man of strong features and solid build, a little over sixty, with his scalp visible through thinning hair, neatly parted on the side.

Something must have struck Takeda as well, because he looked strangely at Tachibana, and his hand seemed to be shaking as he received the card. But his greeting itself was perfunctory, which seemed to indicate that he did not, after all, think they had met. At the time, Tachibana thought they must have been mistaking each other for someone else, or had perhaps just met somewhere in passing. But later he found himself unable to forget Takeda. Something about the man kept on bothering him. From time to time during the party, he glanced at Takeda, often to find that Takeda was looking at him. When their eyes met, both of them would quickly look aside. But after several such incidents, Takeda suddenly disappeared from the party.

"Is something the matter?" asked Shimizu, coming over to fill Tachibana's wine glass. "You don't look like you're having a good time."

"Oh yes, I am," replied Tachibana, putting on a smile. "By the way, who exactly is that gentleman, Kisuke Takeda?"

"I say, you do have an awfully good eye, don't you? That fellow is right at the center of the financial world of northern Nagano Prefecture. He's got especially strong ties to Representative Shishido. Fact is, Shishido is reluctant to show himself at the head of this golf course business, so he's using Takeda as a sort of front. They say this Takeda has a lot of power behind the scenes in Nagano politics. We'd better get him on our side, too."

"I see," said Tachibana absentmindedly, gazing in the direction in which Takeda had disappeared.

The rain which began in the middle of the night of July 3rd continued until just before dawn on the 7th, when the mysterious peaks of Togakushi were once again sharply outlined against the blue sky.

At about nine that morning, five co-eds got off a bus at the Imai bus stop. They had come from Nagoya the day before last, and had been staying at a tourist house in Kinasa, shut in by the rain. Now they were finally out to take the hike they had been waiting for, though they had been told that the mountain trail might still be impassable. They wanted at least to get far enough to see the Demoness Maple's Cave.

After walking for twenty minutes from Imai, they came to the Ashitagahara information sign, located on a rise that gave a good view of the scattered houses of upland farmers. The sign said that the Demoness Maple had use to come here every morning because it reminded her of her native Kyoto. Another twenty minutes or so beyond that, walking uphill along a narrow farm road, they reached the Arakura Campground, on a pleasant plateau surrounded by white birch and larch trees. Normally it would have been covered with tents and lively with crowds of young people, but they had all been chased away by the three straight days of rain. After a brief rest in the office at the campground entrance, the five girls started out for the Demoness Maple's Cave. Just two-hundred meters along the trail was a sign which told them that this place was known as "Poison Plain" because it was here that the Demoness Maple had served poisoned sake to the enemy general, Taira no Koremochi.

"Plain, huh? Must be talking about you, Miyuki," said the girl first in line, making a malicious pun as she started out again. She took one step and fell down with a little scream.

"See? Say things like that and you get what's coming to you," said the leader, coming over to help her up.

"Over there, over there," whispered the girl, pointing at something as she reached for the hand offered.

Just twenty or thirty meters ahead of them, against the base of a thick tree, a man was sprawled as if dead drunk, in a sitting position on the bare ground. He was dressed in a well-tailored summer suit, but it had gotten all wet and hadn't had time to dry out.

The leader gasped. One by one, the other girls froze in their tracks as they reached the spot. Taking strength in numbers, though, they did not flee.

"He's dead, isn't he?" whispered one of them.

"He can't be!"

"Ssh, he'll hear you!"

But the man could not hear them. His hearing, along with all of his other senses, had long since ceased to function.

"He is dead!" declared the leader, her voice hushed.

The girl on the ground pulled herself slowly to her feet, her legs very weak.

"Don't run!" appealed the leader feebly, as one of the girls started to do so. But the rest of them panicked and followed suit. The girl who had just gotten up fell again as soon as she started down the slope. Her comrades left her sitting there covered with mud, cursing through her tears at their retreating backs.

Contacted from the campground office, the local patrolman rushed there. Reassured by the sight of him, the girls managed to collect themselves after their headlong flight and lead him and the two men from the office back to the scene. Even the mud-smeared girl, who had finally come in, sulking, joined the others at the last moment, afraid to be left alone.

The patrolman requisitioned all the rope in the office and asked the other two men to carry it. Some distance before they reached the body, he stopped everyone, then went on alone, his billy club at the ready. Having made sure the man against the tree could do him no harm, he bent over for a closer look.

The suit was certainly out of place for the scene. Though a soaked mess, it and the tie both were obviously very expensive. The man looked like he had been all dressed up for a night on the town. He appeared to be about sixty. His head was sunk on his chest and his thinning hair was hanging down over his forehead. His face, the nape of his neck, the backs of his hands—all exposed skin was blotched with death, and the odor of decay was already about him. It was obvious that he had been dead for some time.

The patrolman came back to the others and cordoned off the area by looping the rope around the surrounding trees. Leaving the two men from the campground on guard, he took the girls back to the office.

Nagano prefectural police headquarters received the first report at 10:20 A.M. Inspector Takemura was about to get into the car with his usual driver, Kinoshita, when he was stopped by Miyazaki, his superior, the head of Investigative Section One.

"Takemura, you ride with me, will you?"

"Oh? Are you going too, sir?" Takemura thought it strange that the head of Section One himself should be going out on the first report of the discovery of a body. Something must be up, he figured, but he got in beside Miyazaki without asking what.

As soon as they started, Miyazaki got on the radio to Nagano Central Station, in whose jurisdiction the body had been discovered. "Get this to all investigators headed for the scene in Imai, Togakushi Township. When they get there, they are not to approach the body, but are to see to it that the area is not disturbed. Under no circumstances is anyone to do anything until Inspector Takemura and I arrive."

The bewildered Takemura finally asked, "Something up?"

"Yeah." Miyazaki's long, narrow face became even longer and narrower as he pursed his lips and wrinkled his forehead in a deep frown before continuing. "You see, this body that's been found in Togakushi, there's a possibility that he may be a VIP."

"A VIP? Who?"

"We're only going by his age and the clothes he's wearing, but there's probably no mistake."

"Oh?"

"We think it's Kisuke Takeda."

"Takeda!" exclaimed Takemura. "You mean, the Kisuke Takeda?"

Even Takemura, unfamiliar as he was with politics and finance, had heard of Takeda, one of the top two or three businessmen in the northern part of the prefecture, a man who was sure to have his hand in any big real estate deal there. Takemura recalled hearing that Takeda had recently been involved in the promotion of a golf course near the Togakushi Ski Slope, and he supposed also that the man must be active behind the scenes in politics.

"Then there's been a missing persons search request out for Takeda?" continued Takemura.

"Yes, unofficially."

"But we haven't heard a thing about it where I am."

"That's because the chief decided that only the department heads and me and the head of Section Two needed to know. Of course, it looks like the head of Section Two had to put several people on it to begin making private inquiries."

"Which means, in other words, that we're going to have to work with Section Two on the murder, I take it?"

"Now let's not get ahead of ourselves! We don't know yet that it is a murder," said Miyazaki hastily.

* * *

It was on the morning of July 5th that the prefectural police had been informed of Kisuke Takeda's apparent disappearance. At home that day, Chief Shoichi Nagakura had received a telephone call from Governor Masagi, requesting that he pay a visit to the governor's mansion on his way to work, on a matter of the greatest urgency. The subdued voice had sounded quite unlike that of the normally frank, unaffected governor. Guessing it would take a while, Nagakura had a scheduled conference put off an hour.

He had hardly expected to find Representative Hirofumi Shishido at the governor's mansion. Shishido was a member of the ruling party, but not someone Nagakura thought much of. He was the very picture of a man one respected out of fear alone, a man not only publicly active in politics, but rumored to wield considerable power behind the scenes as well.

"Ah, Chief Nagakura, terribly sorry to have called you out so early in the morning." It was Shishido, all smiles as he stood up with extended hand, who greeted Nagakura in the reception room. For Shishido, that was hardly imaginable behavior, and Nagakura was on instant guard.

"Then this matter concerns Representative Shishido?" asked Nagakura, looking past Shishido to Governor Masagi just behind him.

"No, it doesn't, really," replied Masagi, "but Representative Shishido thought it would be better if we got you here."

Masagi would be seventy-two this year. Now past the middle of his fourth term, he was a mainstay of prefectural politics, widely supported by conservatives and liberals alike. Blessed by nature with an elegant head of silver hair, a strong, well-tanned face, and a tall muscular build, he added to those charms a reputation as a man of integrity, who could be counted on to be fair to everyone.

Shishido, on the other hand, was a man of such a different stamp that Nagakura could not imagine what he was doing there. Although he could not have been much past sixty, he looked as old as Masagi actually was. Of short build, with a considerably receded hairline and deep wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, he spoke suavely, but there lurked about him something so ominous that even his smile was chilling. He was a man quite capable of parting from someone with a smile and then making contemptuous threats behind the person's back.

"Actually, you see, I just heard about this myself last night," said Shishido softly, leaning forward as Nagakura sat down on the sofa, "but it seems that Kisuke Takeda has been missing since the night before last."

"Takeda? Missing?" said Nagakura hesitantly, wondering about the other man standing behind Shishido. "And this gentleman is... ?"

"Oh, don't worry about him. This is Izawa, Mr. Takeda's secretary. It was he who told me the news. Oh yes, Izawa, I guess it would be better if you told the Chief all about it yourself," said Shishido, giving his chair facing Nagakura up to Izawa and sitting himself down deep in the sofa beside Nagakura.

Nagakura could tell that Izawa was extremely tense, apparently not just because he was in the presence of three big shots, but with genuine concern about his employer's disappearance.

"Er, uh, where should I begin?" asked Izawa. As Takeda's secretary, he had to be a capable man, but his voice was shaking pitifully.

"Well, just tell me everything in order from the beginning," said Nagakura. "When did Mr. Takeda disappear, and where did he disappear from?"

"He hasn't been seen or heard from since he left the Koshimizu Plateau Hotel in Togakushi around 7 P.M. on the evening of the 3rd."

"You were in Togakushi with him, then?"

"Yes, for a meeting and party from three that afternoon, to get preparations started for the construction of the Togakushi Plateau Golf Club. The first hour and a half or so was spent in presenting the aims of the builders and the plan for the layout of the course. Then, after a short break, a dinner party began a little after five. Some time after it began, though, Mr. Takeda said he wasn't feeling too well and was going to his room. I went with him as far as his door, but he said he would be all right and I should return to the party. I confirmed the next morning's schedule with him briefly, and then joined the party again. That must have been a little after six. That's the last time I saw him."

"Did anyone else see him after that?"

"Yes, the desk clerk said he saw him leaving the hotel a little before seven, so I guess the desk clerk must have been the last person to see him."

"Did he go out alone?"

"Yes, apparently."

"Do you have any idea where he might have been going?"

"None at all, I'm afraid."

"Had he said anything about going out?"

"No, not a thing."

"So when did you realize that something was wrong— that he had disappeared, I mean?"

"He was supposed to come down to the restaurant at eight the next morning. When he didn't, I waited thirty minutes and then phoned his room, because he had an appointment that required leaving the hotel by 8:50 at the latest. But he didn't answer the phone, and that's when I began to think that something must be wrong. Of course, it never occurred to me then that he could have just disappeared. I was afraid he might have been taken so ill that he collapsed, so I hurried up to his room, but it was empty."

"What did you do for a key? Wasn't the door locked?"

"No, it wasn't. His key was lying on the table."

"Then that means he must have left the hotel without bothering to lock his door, right?"

"Yes, but all he ever kept in a hotel room were personal effects. Anything else, like papers and so on, he always left with me in an attache case. He never kept anything with him that he couldn't put in his pockets, so I don't think he would have worried about locking the door."

"I see. Go on, please."

"After that, I asked the desk clerk whether he had gone out, and I was told that he had been seen going out the night before, but not coming in again. So I had to assume that he had spent the night elsewhere, and all I could do was wait for him. But he never came back." Izawa finished with head bowed, as if in apology.

"And that's the story," said Shishido unhappily. "I wouldn't have thought anything could be seriously wrong myself, but Izawa tells me nothing like this has ever happened before, and he's terribly worried. So I thought it best we consult the police, and Governor Masagi agrees."

"By 'seriously wrong,' may I take it you are referring to the possibility that Mr. Takeda may have been the victim of some kind of crime, Representative Shishido?"

"Er, uh, well, I wouldn't like to put it quite so directly myself, but yes, I guess you can take it that way."

"Do you know of anything in Mr. Takeda's affairs that would suggest that possibility?" asked Nagakura, turning back to Izawa.

"No, I don't. Nothing at all."

"If that's the case, we can act on that assumption. For instance, he might have been involved in a traffic accident. But if there are any indications whatsoever, then we will have to consider the possibility of a premeditated crime. Now how about it?"

Izawa was ill at ease, the perspiration beginning to appear on his forehead. "Well, uh, I still can't think of. . ."

"I'm sure there are some things that Izawa just doesn't know about his employer," interposed Shishido with a smile, to relieve the tension. "I'm afraid Mr. Takeda was no saint, and when you're in business, you can't help but make a few enemies. Some people just take things the wrong way, so it's always possible that somebody had a grudge of some sort."

"Then do you know of any particular possibilities, Representative Shishido?"

"Me? No, no, if Izawa can't think of any, how would I know? I've been acquainted with Mr. Takeda for a long time, but I really don't know that much about him."

"I see." Nagakura sat up straight. "Well, I'll send out orders right away for a search all over the prefecture."

"I'm afraid that won't do, Chief Nagakura," said Governor Masagi. "Representative Shishido thinks the investigation should be kept secret for the time being, and I agree with him. After all, it's hardly been two days, and what if Mr. Takeda suddenly turns up after we've made a big thing of it? Besides, I do think we'd better be awfully careful, just in case he's been kidnapped for ransom, you know."

"You think there is that possibility?" Nagakura frowned, gazing up at the ceiling with his keen eyes. Turned forty-six this year, he had been one of the most promising members of his graduating class at Kyoto University. In a sense, his stint as chief of the Nagano prefectural police was a test, on the results of which his future career would depend.

Unlike the self-governing regions of Tokyo, Osaka, and Kanagawa, with all their big cities, Nagano Prefecture may be thought to be simply a peaceful region blessed with natural beauty and made for tourism, but there are in fact quite a few difficulties involved in its administration. For one thing, there is the great area it covers, fourth in size behind Hokkaido, Iwate, and Fukushima. Moreover, there are differences in the living conditions in the three distinct areas of the northern, central, and southern parts of the prefecture, differences which sometimes give rise to conflict.

In addition, no other prefecture is contiguous to so many others—eight of them, in fact: Niigata, Gunma, Saitama, Yamanashi, Shizuoka, Aichi, Gifu, and Toyama. Thus anyone using a car to commit a crime can cause the police a lot of trouble. Three years ago, for instance, there had been a series of kidnap-murders of female office workers, masterminded by a woman, in which the kidnappings had taken place and the bodies had been left in various places in the three prefectures of Toyama, Nagano, and Gifu, necessitating a widespread investigation with which sectional rivalries had seriously interfered.

With all of the tourists flowing in, the majority there for mountain climbing, there is a never-ending string of mountaineering accidents to be dealt with, too. Nagakura's predecessor, who had suffered through the series of kidnap-murders, had been quite right in telling him, after turning over his duties, that this was an uncommonly troublesome place.

Nagakura thoroughly agreed. And this case would involve one of the most prominent people in the prefecture. He had a premonition that it was going to turn into a big mess. "I don't think there's much chance that he could have been kidnapped for ransom," he said, half to convince himself. "If he had been, we should have been contacted by the kidnappers by now."

"I suppose not," agreed Masagi, "but if not, then what could have happened to him?"

"Well, what bothers me is that he left the hotel of his own accord. If his disappearance is somehow connected with his departure from the hotel, or else, if perhaps he engineered it himself, then..."

"What do you mean?" broke in Izawa, offended. "Are you suggesting that he's absconded with something?"

"No, I didn't say that. But what if he just got tired of work and decided to take off somewhere for a rest for two or three days without telling anyone?"

"I can assure you that Mr. Takeda would never have done a thing like that."

"That's right. He wouldn't," agreed Shishido. "He just isn't the kind of person who would do such an irresponsible thing."

"Then I'm afraid the police will have to assume the worst," said Nagakura, in as casual a tone as possible, which nevertheless caused Izawa to begin trembling. Shishido shook his head most unhappily.

After leaving the governor's mansion and returning to the police station, Nagakura immediately summoned his top-ranking officers and explained the situation to them, ordering a secret investigation to be conducted by Section Two, and instructing his men to be prepared for the worst. At the meeting, he had made a point of telling Miyazaki that if they should be unfortunate enough to discover the worst, he should be sure to put his very best man in charge of the on-site investigation.

"And that's why I want you on this case," said Miyazaki, trying to make it sound like he was doing Takemura a favor.

"Oh," said Takemura, pulling a long face.

"What's this? You look like you don't much want it."

"I don't. I don't know the first thing about business or politics."

"You can leave that end of it to Section Two. But you're my ace detective, and I've been keeping you on hold for this, because I need somebody who can hustle."

Now that he thought about it, Takemura realized that he and his men would normally have been assigned to the couple of cases that had come up in the last day or two, but instead they had been twiddling their thumbs over a little desk work on some old cases. He could tell by Miyazaki's tone that he did not want Section Two to solve this one first. To be beaten out by Section Two on a murder case would put Miyazaki in an awkward position. An administrator had to worry about a lot of things, and Takemura could sympathize with him.

"Okay, I'll do my best," said Takemura, this time with a little enthusiasm.

* * *

The river which flows south along the west side of Nagano City to its confluence with the Sai near Kawanakajima has the beautiful name of Susobana, and the river itself is still beautiful too, with fantastic crags jutting out everywhere along its course, and seasonal changes still visible in the folds of mountains along its western shore. This is in spite of the arched dam completed across its upper reaches in 1969 and the large-scale housing developments appearing in the mountains along its western shore, resulting in a decreased flow and poorer quality water.

At the northern edge of Nagano City, the river makes a sharp turn to the west and extends in a practically straight line toward the Togakushi Mountains, where lies its source.

The police car with Miyazaki and Takemura followed the national highway upstream from this bend for about fifteen kilometers, the river flowing faster and the valley getting deeper all the way, to the confluence with the Kusu River flowing in from the north. From this point, scattered farmhouses were visible on the surrounding hills. Now called Tochihara and located in Togakushi Township, it was once known as Shigarami Village, supposedly taking its name from the shigarami, or weir, that legend has it the demoness Maple built there to keep out the enemy forces.

Leaving the national highway at Tochihara and heading north for about two kilometers to the village of Imai, they reached the scene at 11 A.M. The path up the mountain had been closed, and a crowd of investigators, early-bird reporters, and curious spectators were gathered at the barricade.

The reporters peered into their car as it pulled up, amidst such comments as "Hey, the head of Section One is here himself!" "And Inspector Takemura too!" "Must be somebody important dead up there!" Takemura had to give them credit for their intuition.

An area of radius fifty meters from the site had been roped off, and uniformed and plain-clothes police were waiting outside it. From among them, Chief of Detectives Tsuneda of Nagano Central Station approached.

"You got here fast," said Tsuneda. "We just arrived ourselves. Do you want the CID men to begin right away?"

"Yes, but could you have them first open a path to the body, so we can get over there to identify it?" requested Miyazaki.

"Sure."

Tsuneda set his men immediately to checking a path to the body for footprints and such. The work went unexpectedly fast, because there was practically nothing worth looking at. The whole area was forest, with weeds covering the ground, and there were signs of trampling, but nothing like an identifiable footprint.

"It's no good," said Inspector Kojima of CID, going in and motioning to them to follow. Kojima was a veteran, referred to by the venerable title of "old," and with his white hair and the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, he did indeed look like he had quite a few years on him, but the truth was that he was in his middle forties. Takemura had known him since the case of the dismembered corpse three years ago, and in spite of the difference in their ages, the two were quite congenial.

Avoiding the plaster that had been poured here and there, the group walked over to the body. Miyazaki kneeled down beside it for a good look.

"There's no mistake," he said with a sigh.

"It's Takeda?" asked Takemura.

"That's right. Kisuke Takeda," replied Miyazaki without turning around.

"Kisuke Takeda? You mean, the Takeda!" said Tsuneda and Kojima practically as one, looking at each other. Now they understood why Miyazaki was there in person.

"Okay, get started with your inspection. I've got to report in," said Miyazaki, rushing down the slope.

Shortly thereafter, the medical examiner arrived. "He's been dead for three or four days," judged the experienced doctor right off, after pressing the purple-spotted skin.

"That would mean he was dead by July 4th, right?" said Takemura.

"Mhm. Taking into consideration the temperature and humidity in these parts, that should be about right, but we won't know any more until after the autopsy."

"I don't see any external injuries. What did he die of?"

"Poison," said the doctor without hesitation. "It's a little hard to tell because he's so wet, but I'm pretty sure it must have been cyanide."

Suicide or murder, the body could hardly have been there for three or four days, so someone must have left it there. Wondering why anyone would have taken that trouble, Takemura looked around. The only building nearby was the campground office. The older of the two men who worked there was waiting beside the rope, probably at police request. Moving a little away from the body, Takemura beckoned to him.

This man was a permanent employee of the Togakushi Township government, and the other was a college student working for the summer. Both were natives of Togakushi, and the younger man was expecting eventually to fill a permanent position, too, when one became vacant.

Naturally, the man waiting was nervous, but he looked to Takemura like a normally outgoing person. Giving him a cigarette and lighting it for him with a match, Takemura opened with, "Is this campground always so quiet?"

"Oh no, it's usually very crowded in season, but we haven't had any campers since the day before yesterday because of all the rain."

"Have the two of you been in the office all the time?"

"Yes, we live there. We're on duty around the clock."

"And you didn't know there was a dead body over there?"

"No, we had no idea, until the girls told us."

"But that place is on the trail up the mountain, isn't it? I should think anyone climbing the mountain would have seen the body right off."

"Probably so. In fact, it wouldn't have had to be someone going up the mountain. We take a look around the campground from time to time ourselves, and if the body had been there when we did, we couldn't have missed it."

"When's the last time you took a look around?"

"I think it was around two yesterday afternoon. We only checked to make sure no campers had come in, and then we went right back to the office. But if that body had been there, I'm sure we'd have seen it."

"Since the road passes right in front of the office, I guess you would have noticed if anyone had gone by, wouldn't you?"

"Well, when there are a lot of campers and mountain climbers, we don't take note of every single one, but on a leisurely day like yesterday, I think we would have noticed. But I wouldn't guarantee it. Of course, no matter what chance there might be that we could have missed it, I can't believe that anybody who knew this office was here would have wanted to carry something like that past it. I mean, how could he be sure we wouldn't see it?"

"How about at night?"

"At night? Well, I guess we might have missed it then. But it gets pitch dark around here, and it was especially dark last night. It could have been done with a flashlight, but we would probably have seen the light."

"But the fact is, you didn't see anything, so I guess you must have been sound asleep."

"I guess so. Then you think the body was brought here last night?" said the campground attendant, with an uneasy shake of the head. "But why would anybody have wanted to bring it out here?" The same doubt had occurred to him as to Takemura.

Miyazaki returned. The chief of detectives at headquarters had ordered another meeting of administrators. "He doesn't want it let out that we've identified the body until we get back. It sounds like he got that request from above," Miyazaki told Takemura.

"They're interfering with our investigation!" grumbled Takemura, disgusted. "We have identified him. What's with these financiers and politicians?"

"Take it easy, now! They must have their reasons. There are probably a lot of things they have to take care of before the information gets around."

Miyazaki made a very brief, formal announcement to the reporters at the campground office. "The victim has not been identified. The body is that of a male, about sixty, who appears to be of the senior executive type. We believe he has been dead for three or four days. Cause of death was apparently poisoning, but we won't know anything for sure until we get the results of the autopsy."

He barely had time to take a breath before being swamped with questions.

"Then is there a strong possibility of murder?"

"We can't say yet whether it was murder or suicide."

"But this is a pretty strange place for someone to be found dead."

"You're right, of course. That's why we're here."

"Aren't you evading the question, sir? Tell us, is there a strong suspicion of murder, or not?"

"You can tell your readers that we are investigating the possibilities of suicide and murder both."

"Our editors will have our heads for an article like that!"

There was a burst of laughter. Realizing that they were not going to pin Miyazaki down any further, the reporters turned their attention to the girls who had discovered the body, and then went off to send in their articles. Miyazaki relaxed a little, knowing that at this point they would have to treat the case like any other discovery of a body, and it would make no more than a little stuffing for the evening papers.

After Miyazaki had accompanied the body down the hill, investigation of the vicinity began in earnest. More than one hundred men, some with dogs, went into the bamboo-grass brush still soaked with rain and dew to look for clues. For any case, the initial search was always the most important, and the one to which the most energy was devoted. It was also the most primitive, there being no other way to do it than by using a human sea of investigators.

Detectives from Section One were dispatched to question residents of the surrounding villages. The road leading to the Arakura Campground was from the village of Imai at the bottom of the hill. There were fields along the way, but the closest house was one kilometer away. The road was unpaved and wide enough for only one car. Since the men in the office had not heard a car, it was assumed that someone must have parked some distance away, then carried the body into the campground on foot. It was estimated that no matter how hard it might have been raining, the car could not have come closer than three hundred meters without being heard. That would mean that someone must have carried the body, already smelling of decay, a considerable distance, which in itself would make the case a bizarre one.

Nothing important was being found near the scene of the discovery, and neither were the detectives having much luck with their questioning of residents in the surrounding villages. They were unable to find anyone who had heard a car, even though it must have been the middle of the night, and of course there was no such thing as an eyewitness. Leaving the remaining search to his men, Takemura headed for the Koshimizu Plateau Hotel with Kinoshita, his regular driver.

At about that time, Chief Nagakura was holding a most unusual press conference at the Nagano Central Station. Since press notifications had been carefully prepared and sent around beforehand, practically all of the mass media were there, along with four television cameras.

With Nagakura were his chief of detectives, Tsukamoto, the head of Investigative Section One, Miyazaki, and Kisuke Takeda's secretary, Izawa. A lot of reporters recognized Izawa, but none of them had any idea why he was there, which created considerable curiosity right from the start. When they finally learned the identity of the body, even hardened reporters were appalled by the news of Kisuke Takeda's unnatural death.

Takeda was, by title, the president of the Takeda Firm, on the surface a small company of twelve employees with a main office in Nagano City, a branch office in Matsumoto City, and assets worth twenty million yen. It was supposed to be dealing in real estate, metals, and some other business, but even the tax people couldn't keep track of all its dealings. It was affiliated with five other incorporated companies at various locations, each independent, with its own president, but all shadowy. In a word, most were probably ghost companies. Hardly any of them did any regular business of note, but often one would suddenly pop up in some real estate deal worth ten or twenty billion yen. Popular opinion had it that all of them were fronts for the Takeda Firm, but nobody could put his finger on the exact connection, and there were other, even more mysterious companies continually being created and dissolved.

Kisuke Takeda had done a skillful job of operating an organization whose dealings were impossible to trace. It was said that he could do as he liked anywhere in Nagano Prefecture, but that was about all that anyone not close to him could say. Everyone was aware, however, that he had been a real power behind the political and financial scenes of Nagano Prefecture, and that his death would result in some major changes. One did not have to be particularly knowledgeable to realize that Takeda's murder would break open a beehive.

Chief Nagakura described the facts of the case to the assembled reporters: Kisuke Takeda had been missing since July 3rd; his body had been found this morning in the Arakura Campground outside Imai in Togakushi; cause of death was cyanide poisoning; there was some suspicion of murder, and so on. The chief made a point of extending his sympathy to the bereaved and promising every possible effort toward a rapid solution of the case. As soon as he finished, he was swamped with questions, but he quickly turned over the floor to Miyazaki, who was to bear the brunt of the questioning.

Miyazaki was an old fox at this, and if the truth be known, he rather enjoyed it. The reporters were mainly concerned with finding out just how strong was the possibility of murder, and if it was murder, where were the police directing their suspicions, and did they have any particular suspect yet? Also, what sort of motives were they considering? Since Chief Nagakura had so far avoided a clear declaration that the case was being investigated as a murder, however, Miyazaki had a good excuse for avoiding discussion of any theories based on that premise. As a result, there was no real substance to the exchange between him and the reporters. The only juicy information they got was that Inspector Iwao Takemura had been put in charge of the case, and their cheers for the master detective were half in desperation.

"If you're sending Takemura up against it, doesn't that mean it must be a pretty difficult case?" came the tricky question. Since the case of the dismembered corpse, Takemura had fast been making a reputation for himself. The raincoat that had become his trademark had even led to his being called the "Columbo of the Japanese Alps," a name which fit his appearance perfectly. One of the reasons for his popularity was that he had not tried to improve that appearance even after receiving a double promotion, raising him to the rank of inspector in one leap.

"Well, no help for it," grumbled one of the reporters. "We'll just have to make tomorrow morning's headline Takemura On The Case.'"

"Togakushi Shrines" is the collective name given to three independent shrines, the Hoko Shrine, the Middle Shrine, and the Inner Shrine, each dedicated to a different god. The Birdline toll road, which runs out of Nagano City across the Iizuna Plateau, comes out on an ordinary road just short of the Hoko Shrine. About one kilometer further up that road is the Middle Shrine, whose surrounding village used to mark the extent of settlement in Togakushi. The area beyond, as its name Koshimizu-ga-Hara or Water-Crossing Plain implies, used to be covered with bamboo shrubs and swampy areas of skunk cabbage. But backed by craggy West Peak of the Togakushi Mountains, the entire stretch is blessed with beauty all year round, making it not only ideal for sanitoriums and mountain villas, but also giving it potential for large resorts. Thus, in recent years, the stretch of plateau beyond the Middle Shrine and up to the Inner Shrine has been rapidly developed with villas.

In spite of the nationwide craze for the development of such resorts, however, the Togakushi Plateau—except for its paved roads and ski lift—has not been subjected to any remarkably large-scale development. Thus it retains the strong image of a secluded country place, and that in itself makes it thoroughly attractive to big investors.

As Takemura and Kinoshita drove by the Middle Shrine, they saw from their cream-colored compact several tour busses and a considerable number of private cars parked in the square in front. The Togakushi Plateau, quiet for a while, would rapidly be getting lively again, and there were a lot of local young people hard at work cutting the bamboo brush beside the road. A little way out of the Middle Shrine village, Kinoshita turned right, shortly after which they passed through the stretch of villas and then saw the white building of the Koshimizu Plateau Hotel at the bottom of the ski slope.

When Takemura showed his badge, the desk clerk paled. Although it was obvious from his manner that the police had been expected, they were nevertheless kept waiting for nearly an hour in the coffee shop on the first floor. Kinoshita, young and impatient, kept getting up to go press the clerk, but each time the clerk asked them to wait just another moment.

Around them in the coffee shop were three groups of noisy students. Perhaps it was a feeling of freedom that made them so loud as to spoil the quiet so hard to come by.

"I wonder where those kids get the money to play around with," said Kinoshita in disgust. "I suppose they must have sponged it off their parents, but I don't see why their parents stand for it."

"Now, now," laughed Takemura, "you're jealous."

"No I'm not. I just feel sorry for their parents. They worked hard for that money."

"Maybe their parents don't mind. They might be happy to have the kids enjoying themselves."

"You think so? That might be all right if the kids did as much for their parents as the parents do for their kids, but filial piety is out of style nowadays."

"Oh, I don't know about that. I hear you've got a reputation for being a filial son."

"I try. But my parents didn't do all that much for me. I mean, the parents of these kids aren't likely to get much in return. That's what they don't understand, the fools!" Kinoshita was really angry, and not just because he was tired of waiting.

He was a good man, thought Takemura, with a pleased smile. Twenty-four years old and dressed in a windbreaker over a long-sleeved sport shirt, Kinoshita quite resembled the other, more modern youths in the place, but hearing him talk about old-time filial piety made Takemura decide that the closed society of the police must do something good for a young man.

Takemura himself was even more of an anachronism. Having no formulated ethics, no religion, and no concept of ideology, he had not chosen a police career out of any strong desire to guard the Establishment or for any lofty ideal of protecting the public peace and welfare. He had done so out of a need to eat.

He had graduated near the top of his high school class, but family circumstances had forced him to give up the idea of going on to college. Together with his teachers' regrets, however, had come the suggestion that his excellent high school record would open up the path to success with the police. Influenced as well by the same TV detective dramas that influence most boys who eventually join the police, he had taken the suggestion, and found in a year or two that he had undergone an undeniable and remarkable change, and been given a purpose in life.

The police organization has incalculable effects in the molding of individuals. After the superficial mold is removed, though, personal ability, effort, and more than anything else, special aptitudes count most. In particular, a good detective needs deductive powers and imagination. Iwao Takemura, a man blessed with just those talents, was meant for the job. When he found himself on a challenging case, his excitement was like that of a hyena licking his chops before some delicious prey. He would forget everything else, not satisfied until he had seen it through to the bitter end. It was not infrequently that enthusiasm led him to ignore his position as inspector. That job was supposed to be mainly managerial, but he continued to operate the way he had always done, behaving like a staff detective— sometimes an eccentric one.

A raise and a very nice place to live had come with his double promotion, but this had not made him conceited. He did not own a car, nor would he even buy a new raincoat. At the height of summer, of course, he didn't carry his raincoat, but he did refuse to give up his rumpled white shirt and tie. He had taken just one look at the sport shirt and string tie his wife Yoko had bought him—"just for midsummer," she had said—and stuffed them into a drawer. "You really ought to try wearing something different once in a while," pleaded Yoko, who had been pleased with her purchase. But Takemura had evaded the issue with, "Don't be ridiculous. A man can't go around wearing any old thing just because his wife tells him to."

* * *

It wasn't so very hot, but when the hotel manager finally showed up, his face was covered with perspiration.

"I'm terribly sorry to have kept you waiting so long," he said, bowing and scraping. "I'm Takano, the manager."

"Well, you must have had quite a time preparing for this meeting," replied Takemura, unable to resist the sarcasm. "I'm sure you were very worried about Mr. Takeda."

"Er, uh... oh yes, yes, you're right, of course," mumbled Takano, flabbergasted. He was a short man of about fifty with a pleasant, round face, which expressed clearly his total loyalty to his job.

"We need to ask some questions concerning Kisuke Takeda's death. I wonder if you'd mind calling the desk clerk who was the last person to see him?"

Takano hurried out and came back with a young man named Aibara, a tall, slim, handsome fellow. He sat down quite properly, facing Takemura.

"According to your statement, it was a little before 7 P.M. that you saw Kisuke Takeda going out. Is that correct?"

"Yes, that's correct."

"Was there anyone else at the desk with you at that time?"

"No. There was somebody in the office behind the desk, but as a rule, unless we're serving guests, we usually keep only one person on the desk at a time."

"All right then, since you were the only one to see him go out, I want you to consider your answer very carefully: are you absolutely sure that it was Kisuke Takeda you saw?"

"Yes, absolutely."

"Did you know Mr. Takeda on sight?"

"Oh yes. He had stayed here several times since this spring, and besides, I had heard that he was a big stockholder in the hotel."

"Oh really?" Takemura looked at the manager for confirmation.

"Yes," confirmed Takano, "Mr. Takeda owned a lot of stock in our parent company, the Kawanakashima Tourism Development Corporation."

"Then I don't guess you could have mistaken him for anyone else. Okay. Now, did you notice anything at all peculiar about him as he went out?"

"No, nothing in particular. I bowed to him as usual, but I didn't notice anything strange."

"Did you see what he did when he got outside?"

"No, I'm afraid not. But I did hear afterwards that the driver of the vehicle we use to pick people up and take them to the station had seen a gentleman walking west along the road in front of the hotel. He saw him from a distance, but he was reasonably sure it was Mr. Takeda."

"But not certain?"

"No. It was a dark cloudy night, and the driver only caught a glimpse of him from a distance while taking a break. He said he wasn't certain."

"But the time checks, is that correct?"

"Yes, just about."

"You say the man was walking west. Could you be more specific?"

"Well, as you know, our hotel is more or less at a dead end, and the main road going away from here heads southwest toward the Middle Shrine. But there's another little road, an unpaved forest road running due west from in front of the hotel. About three hundred meters from here, it crosses an old road called the Echigo Road, and another three hundred meters beyond that, it comes out on the new road, right at the entrance to the Inner Shrine, where there's a parking lot and a restaurant. But this forest road is covered with loose gravel and not many people use it even during the day, so the driver remembers thinking how strange it was someone should be using it at night."

"If it was Mr. Takeda he saw, do you have any idea where he could have been going?"

"Well, er..." The desk clerk looked at the manager in embarrassment. The manager blinked his eyes rapidly, signaling him to be careful how he answered.

Disgusted, Takemura hurried the young clerk for an answer. "Come on, now. It can't be that big a problem! Just tell me what comes to mind."

"Well, I guess he must have been going out for a stroll."

"Oh, sure. But when he didn't come back, didn't it occur to you that he was gone too long for a stroll?"

"Yes."

"And what did you think of then?"

"What did I think of? Well, I don't really..."

"Just tell me whatever occurred to you at the time. For instance, did you think he might have been going out to meet someone, or something like that?"

"Yes, that's what I thought."

"Then, had he done the same sort of thing when he was staying here before? Going out alone like that?"

"Yes, I believe he had."

"About how many times?"

"Maybe two or three, I think."

"Could it have been more than that?"

"I guess so."

"Had he ever stayed away all night before?"

"No, never. He always came back the same evening."

"You seem awfully sure of that, but I've been told that Mr. Takeda was in the habit of leaving his key in the room. If that was the case, how could the desk clerk be sure he had returned?"

"Because he had to pass the front desk on his way in, and we would most likely see him."

"Most likely? You mean you could have missed him?"

"Well, that's possible, if the clerk had to leave the desk for some reason. But in the morning, there are always two people on the desk to handle check-outs, so if he had come in from outside then, he could hardly have passed by without being seen."

"In other words, if he tried to come in the next morning, his evil deeds would come out, eh?" said Takemura with a conspiratorial grin.

"Yes, they would that," said the young clerk, finally relaxing.

"Thank you," said Takemura. "Well, I hope you'll forgive me for pressing you so hard with questions, but that's my job, I'm afraid."

"Oh, don't apologize! I happen to be a mystery fan. I love mystery novels and TV mysteries, and I've always wanted to see a real detective at work!"

"Oh really? How nice! My wife likes mysteries, too. When that TV program, 'The Mystery,' comes on, she doesn't even know I'm there."

'"The Mystery?' Why, I never miss one of those!"

"You don't? Then did you see last week's story, 'The Tragedy of the Red and Black?"'

"Oh yes, of course! That was a good one, wasn't it? It had quite a twist to it. My friend and I were trying to guess who the murderer was, but we never did figure it out. But I'll bet you did, didn't you, Inspector?"

"No, no, I didn't figure it out either," laughed Takemura, while Kinoshita stood by wondering what was so funny to everyone.

Having finished with the desk clerk, Takemura asked the manager, Takano, to show him Takeda's room. As he started to follow Takano up the stairs, however, Takemura suddenly stopped. "Doesn't the hotel have an elevator?" he asked.

"No, I'm terribly sorry, I'm afraid it doesn't," said Takano, a man too easily embarrassed. He came back down the two or three steps he had ascended, bobbing his head in apology. "This area is designated as a scenic zone, and regulations prohibit buildings that stand more than ten meters high. If we installed an elevator, we'd have to have a room for the mechanism above the third floor, and that would put us over the limit."

"I see. Well, it's better for the health, anyway."

Takemura went up the stairs carefully, step by step, looking down at his feet. The staircase was wooden, the plain woodwork exposed in keeping with the North European style of the place. As soon as they reached the third floor, he turned back and went down the stairs again, leaving Kinoshita and Takano standing at the top looking puzzled. When Takemura came back, Takano told him Kisuke Takeda had always stayed in the same third-floor suite. Apparently it was hardly ever given to ordinary guests.

"The hotel was completed the year the great alpine events were held at the ski slope here, and the very first guest in this suite was the Imperial Prince," boasted Takano, as he opened the door.

The suite consisted of two adjoining Western-style rooms, the outer a parlor and the inner a bedroom. For a big hotel in Tokyo, that would not be rare, but it was quite something for these parts. There was plush carpeting, thick cloth wall covering, a rather tawdry chandelier, and a parlor suite that was probably Danish. Takemura walked around the room making sighing sounds, putting his face close to everything, as if trying to taste and smell it.

There were two three-quarter-width double beds in the bedroom, which Takemura found considerably more tasteful than the living room. He opened the door just to the right of the entrance to the bedroom and found a spacious vanity with washbasin, and adjacent to it a toilet and a bathroom. Just add a kitchen and it would make a considerably finer place to live than his own.

"I wonder if I could see the person who cleaned this room the next day?" asked Takemura, turning to the manager.

"Just a moment, please," replied Takano, picking up the phone. In hardly any time at all, a man in his forties appeared, and Takano introduced him as a Mr. Ohta, the person in charge of cleaning.

Ohta, a man of even smaller build than Takano, looked the strictly honest and steadfast type.

"Did you check this room the morning after Mr. Takeda was here?" asked Takemura.

"Yes. This is a special room, so I always clean it myself."

"Oh good. That will make this faster. Now then, may I assume that Mr. Takeda had not used the bed or bathroom?"

"Oh no. He had used them."

"He had?" Takemura's expression stiffened, as did Kinoshita's. "Then you mean he had taken a bath and laid down?"

"Yes, I think so. The bathtub and a towel were wet, and the bar of soap had been used. And the sheets and pillow looked like they had been lain on, and the robe had been worn."

"Which would mean that Mr. Takeda had taken a bath, then put on the robe and taken a rest on the bed, right?"

"Yes, that's what it looked like."

"But we were told that he returned to his room a little after six and went out again a little before seven. That's only thirty or forty minutes. An awfully short time to have gotten undressed, put on a bathrobe, taken a nap, and even a bath, don't you think?"

"Yes, you're right, of course, but since that is what he actually did..." Ohta looked a little upset. Short time or not, a fact was a fact, and he obviously couldn't see the point in questioning it.

"By the way, has anyone used these rooms since Mr. Takeda was here?"

"No, nobody."

"Okay. Mr. Takano, I'm sorry about this, but could I ask you to see that the rooms are not used for a little while? We'll have some men from CID here in the next day or two."

Pulling a pair of gloves out of his pocket and putting them on, Takemura opened the drawer of the desk against the living room wall. It contained stationery with the hotel letterhead, picture postcards, a brochure, a hotel information folder, and so on. Holding the blank letter paper up to the light, he could see faint impressions of writing.

"Mind if I borrow this?" he asked, handing the paper to Kinoshita. "By the way, was the room next to this one occupied that evening?"

"Yes, it must have been. We were full up with people connected with the golf course. Those from Nagano City went home that evening, but most of those from farther away spent the night in Togakushi. There were so many that we couldn't put all of them up ourselves, and we had to find rooms at other hotels in the vicinity, so I hardly think we could have had any vacancies."

"In that case, I'll ask you to give me the name and address of the occupant of that room when we go downstairs." Takemura kept his hands busy as he spoke, opening the big thick cover of the information folder. It began with the usual stipulations about conditions of stay, followed by information about hotel facilities, a diagram of emergency escape routes, a description of the restaurant and coffee shop, ski information, and so on—the usual content.

"Wow, this looks delicious!" he exclaimed gluttonously, his mouth really watering as he looked at the picture of a meal on the restaurant menu. "Is the meal on this cart for one person?"

"No, I believe it's for two."

"I should hope so! It doesn't look like one person could eat all that, does it? Still, even for two, that's quite a meal! I suppose this is a picture of one of these stews over here?"

"Well, I don't know if we could really call it a stew or not. Actually, it's a fondue. There's melted cheese in that pot, and the meat and vegetables and shrimp and everything on these skewers are dipped in it to cook. I don't know whether you'd call it boiling or deep-frying, but anyway, that's how it's eaten."

"Oh, so this is what they call fondue! I'd heard of it, but I never saw it before. Then, it's served on a cart, like this? Hey, that's great! I'll have to bring my wife here one day to try it. But I'll bet it's expensive, isn't it?"

"Well, yes, I'd say a meal the size of the one in this picture would be quite expensive, but of course, this is only a sample. I'm sure we could prepare something to fit your budget."

"Really? A sample? I suppose it would have to be. It really looks terrific! There's shrimp and scallops, and good beef, and I guess the wine is imported?"

"Yes, it is," replied the manager, his smile wearing somewhat thin. This detective was certainly taking his time. Even Kinoshita was looking a little tired.

"Wait a minute, though," said Takemura, inclining his head. "If you use this cart for room service, how do you get it up here? You'd have an awful time getting it up the stairs, like a portable shrine, wouldn't you?"

"Oh, there's no problem there. We have a dumbwaiter to bring the cart up, meal and all, from the kitchen."

"Oh, you do? Well, that's a relief. That means you can bring it up still aboil. Well, it sure does look delicious."

"It's just about dinnertime. Would you like to try some? We'd be happy to prepare it for you."

"No, no, don't worry about us. We were planning to stop at the Middle Shrine for some homemade buckwheat noodles on the way back. But I would appreciate it if you could show me that dumbwaiter."

Takemura's interest had jumped to something else. Kinoshita, always with him, should have been used to it, but he still sometimes wondered how some of the things the Inspector chose to stick his head into were possibly going to be of any use to him.

When they left the room, Takemura's attention fixed on the emergency door at the end of the corridor. "I suppose that door can be opened at a touch even at night?"

"Yes, from inside."

"Then anyone who wanted to could just slip out in the middle of the night?"

"No, not so easily. When the door is opened, a buzzer sounds in the office behind the front desk."

"Oh really? You think of everything, don't you? Then nobody can get out without paying his bill." Takemura sounded quite like he was planning to try it himself.

They went back along the corridor toward the stairs. In a recess to the right just past the stairwell were drink machines. Beyond them was a small area marked off with a sign that read "Employees Only Beyond This Point," where there was an opening in the wall for the dumbwaiter, which looked about half the size of an elevator in width and height, with a door that opened and closed vertically.

"Could you show me how this works?" asked Takemura, excited.

"Well then, why don't we try it with that?" said Takano, pointing to a big laundry cart. He looked rather like a showman as he pushed the button to summon the dumbwaiter. "When it's in use, this lamp lights up and the dumbwaiter won't respond to the button elsewhere."

When Takano pushed the button, the "In Use" lamp lit up simultaneously with the sound of a motor starting somewhere below. In a surprisingly short time, the motor stopped, and the door opened. The compartment behind the door was a little over a meter deep. Takano pushed the cart in. There were buttons inside for each of the three floors. He pressed the button marked "1" and started walking away immediately.

"Now we've got to go down and take out the cart," he said. Right beside them was a crude staircase for employees only. Takano started down it at a rather rapid pace.

"Wouldn't it be easier just to ride down with it?" suggested Takemura.

"That's against the law. I hear somebody once got killed in Chiba Prefecture or somewhere, riding on a food-service dumbwaiter."

When they reached the first floor, the laundry cart was already waiting for them behind the open dumbwaiter door.

"Gee, that's convenient!" exclaimed Takemura, impressed, turning to Kinoshita for agreement. "Don't you think so?"

"Yeah," mumbled Kinoshita.

* * *

When they left the hotel, the sun was already low, and the evening breeze felt almost chilly. The mysterious West Peak looked purple in the remaining light, towering over the plateau that seemed like an expanse of sea. One could imagine that gods, or more likely evil spirits lived there.

"Drive down that road, will you?" Takemura told Kinoshita after they got into the car. He was pointing to the gravel road that headed west, the one someone resembling Kisuke Takeda had been seen walking down. "Take it slowly."

Takemura looked all around him as the car moved slowly along, with the sound of gravel shooting out from under the tires. "There's nothing at all out here, is there?" he said.

Ahead of them to the right was a wasteland covered with bamboo brush, out of which grew an occasional low tree. To the left was a luxuriant forest of beech, oak, and larch, through which could be seen flickering lights that Takemura guessed must be coming from the villas. As the desk clerk had told them, they soon came to an intersection with another gravel road like the one they were on.

"This must be the old road," said Takemura.