Содзи Симада - Murder in the Crooked House

“I finished talking, Noma’s eyes were glistening. ‘Let me use my final bullet on this Yamada,’ he said. ‘Then you’ll be able to marry that woman. I don’t have long on this earth, but in return, promise me that when that bastard finally has something worth losing, you will get rid of him for me.’ It was a heartbreaking appeal from a close friend.

“I didn’t know what to do. If I got rid of Yamada, then I would be free to marry Tomiko and eventually take over Murata Engines. And however I looked at it, it wouldn’t only be beneficial to me, but to my boss and to Tomiko too. I was young and hard-working, and I believed I had a lot of talent. I thought it would be crazy for me not to be given the opportunity to work the way I knew I could. I was sure I could expand the company—I had already developed concrete plans as to how I would achieve this.

“It would get tedious for me to describe every single bit of my thought processes back then. Suffice it to say, Yamada died, and together with my beloved Tomiko, I was eventually able to run Murata Engines.

“It was a time where demobilized soldiers wandered around in the ashes of post-war Japan, where children starved to death every day, and often no one could help.

“I worked like a dog to build up the little backstreet workshop into the Hama Diesel you know today. And I’m very proud of all the work I’ve done. But in the breast pocket of every jacket I’ve ever worn, I’ve kept the old photo that Noma gave me of his commanding officer, along with his address on a scrap of paper. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that the officer in question was Eikichi Kikuoka.”

Kozaburo stopped for a while. I stole a glance at Kumi Aikura. Her expression didn’t reveal anything.

“I heard through the grapevine that Kikuoka’s company’s fortunes were improving, but I had no intention of contacting him. My own company was doing really well, my overseas investments were succeeding and the time spent with Noma back in my youth began to feel like a distant bad dream. I wore expensive clothes and sat in my president’s office, and the path I walked, the chair I sat in, were so different from back when I was poor that I felt as if I now lived in a completely different world. I never wanted to go back to having nothing. I almost got away with telling myself that my current status had been earned by my hard work alone. But the truth is, if Yamada hadn’t died, Murata Engines would still be a backstreet workshop, and I would still be a humble factory worker. It took the death of my wife for me to admit this to myself.

“But bad things do happen to those who do bad things. My wife didn’t die of old age… She died of an illness, much too young. The cause remains unclear. But with her death I felt Noma’s demand that I should hurry up and keep my promise.

At that time, Kikuoka’s company was doing rather well. I got in contact with him in a perfectly normal way. For him, to hear from me must have felt like a sudden windfall.

“And after that I think you all know what happened. I retired, and built this eccentric mansion. I suppose you all thought that it was the whim of a crazy old man, but in fact I designed it with a very specific purpose.

“I committed a crime, but something good came out of it. I realized yesterday when I was listening to Wagner. I’ve spent my whole life keeping that secret inside, while around me the lies have been building up and hardening until it was as if I’d been fixed in cement. There have been ‘yes-men’ jostling for position around me, and all the flattery they’ve heaped on me has set my teeth on edge. But now I’ve managed to smash through that false protective layer I’d built up, and I’m feeling like I did back in my youth—finally, truth and honesty have returned to me. You said something about Jumping Jack the other day?”

“Yes, the doll,” said Kiyoshi.

“That’s not Golem. It’s me. The last twenty years of my life I’ve been nothing but a kind of doll. I was only creative right in the beginning, after that I was nothing but a snowman. Long ago people were impressed by my work, but I haven’t done anything creative for years.

“Just for a moment, I believed I could be my old self again. Pure-hearted, honest, with close friends, that brilliant young man of long ago. That’s why I kept my promise. It was a promise made forty years ago, by a version of me that I admired.”

Nobody spoke. Perhaps they were contemplating the true meaning of success.

“If it were me, I wouldn’t have done it.”

It was Michio Kanai who spoke. I saw his wife poke him in the ribs to try to make him stop, but he ignored her. Perhaps he thought this was his opportunity to show what he was made of.

“I don’t think I would have been so faithful to my old friend. Society is full of deceit. I mean that people deceive each other all the time. I don’t mean this entirely in a bad way. Cheating is a kind of art, particularly in the working world. A salaryman has to spend half his working life lying. I mean this in all seriousness.

“Take, for example, a doctor. He has a patient with stomach cancer, but he tells him that it’s an ulcer. Can you blame him? The patient will die in the end, but he’ll believe it’s because the ulcer got worse. He’ll die relieved that he never was unlucky enough to suffer from a terrifying cancer.

“It was the same with Mr Hamamoto’s friend. He was able to believe that his good friend would destroy the evil brute for him, and so he died a peaceful death. What’s the difference between Mr Noma and the cancer patient? Mr Hamamoto had to become the president of Hama Diesel and so he did. There were no losers in this scenario.

“I was forced to show respect to Kikuoka. How many times did I dream of strangling that dirty, lecherous old man? But, as I said before, society is full of deceit. And in Kikuoka’s case, I planned to use him, profit from him, suck him dry before he died. That was to my benefit. That’s what you should have done. Anyway, that’s my opinion.”

“Mr Kanai,” Kozaburo replied, “this evening, I am sensing everyone is… how should I put it…? Lacking in outrage. In fact, sympathetic to me. It’s something I never used to feel back there in my company president’s office. You may well be right. However, I should emphasize that Noma didn’t pass away peacefully in hospital. He died in a prison cell, wrapped in a flimsy blanket. When I think of that, I can’t bear the thought of spending the rest of my life sleeping alone in a luxurious bed.”

Night had somehow slipped away and the sun was already up. The wind had died down and outside was completely quiet. There were no more snowflakes tumbling from the sky, and the section of deep blue sky outside the salon window hadn’t a single cloud.

The guests sat for a while, then gradually, in groups of two and three, got to their feet, bowed to Kozaburo, and went off to their various rooms to prepare to put an end to this extraordinary winter holiday.

“Mr Mitarai, I just remembered,” said Kozaburo.

“Hmm?” said Kiyoshi, in his habitual flat tone.

“Did you work that one out too? The flower bed puzzle I set for Togai and the others? Did they tell you about it?”

“Oh, yes, that.”

“Did you solve it?”

Kiyoshi folded his arms.

“That one… No, I didn’t get it.”

“Oh, that’s not like you! Well, if you didn’t work that one out, then I wasn’t totally defeated after all.”

“Isn’t it better that way?”

“If it’s just some misplaced sense of sympathy on your part though, I’m not at all impressed. That wouldn’t bring me any satisfaction at all.”

“All right, then. Would you detectives be up for a little morning stroll to the top of the hill?”