Japanese Tales of Mystery & Imagination (18 page)

A crowd soon gathered, and after much effort we managed to haul him up to the street. When we stretched him out on the pavement he was still breathing, but very faintly. Someone ran off to call an ambulance, but it arrived too late: the poor masseur was no longer of this world.

Thus my plan had worked successfully. And who was there to suspect me? Had I not always been on the best of terms with the man, using his services often? Also, wasn't it I who had directed him to step aside to the left in an effort to save him from falling into the pit? With such a perfect setup, even the shrewdest detective could not have suspected even for a fleeting moment that behind my words of "kindly warning" there had lurked a coldly-calculated intention to kill!

Oh, what a terrible way to amuse oneself! And yet, how merry it was! The joy I felt whenever I conceived a new strategy for murder was akin to that of an artist inspired with a new idea for a painting. As for the nervous strain I underwent on each separate occasion, it was doubly compensated for by the overwhelming satisfaction I derived from my successes. Another horrible aspect of my criminal career was that I would invariably look back on the death scenes I had created and, like a vampire smacking his lips after a feast, relish the memory of how the innocent victims of my ruthlessness had spilled their precious life-blood.

Now I shall switch to a new chapter. The season was summer. Accompanied by an old friend of mine, whom I had already selected as my next victim, I went to a remote fishing village in the province of Awa for a vacation. On the beach we found few visitors from the city; most of the swimmers were well-tanned youngsters from the village. Occasionally, along the coast, we saw a few stray students, sketch-books in hand, engrossed in the scenery.

From every viewpoint it was a very lonely, dull place. One big drawback was that there were hardly any of the attractive girls one finds at the more noted bathing resorts. As for our inn, it was like the cheapest of Tokyo boarding-houses; the food was unsavory, and nothing, with the sole exception of the fresh raw fish they served, seemed to suit our taste. My friend, however, seemed to be enjoying his stay, never suspecting that I had purposely enticed him here for but one purpose—to murder him.

One day I took him out to a place where the shore suddenly ended in cliffs, quite a distance from the village. Quickly I took off my clothes, shouting: "This is an ideal place for diving!" and stood poised to leap into the water below.

"You're right!" my friend replied. "This is indeed a wonderful place for diving!" And he too began stripping off his clothes.

After standing on the edge of the precipice for a moment, I stretched my arms above my head and shouted in my loudest voice: "One, two, three!" And the next moment I dove head-first into the water, managing a fairly graceful swan dive. As soon as my head touched the water, however, I twisted my body into an upward curve, so that I actually allowed myself to submerge to a depth of only about four feet. I swam a little at this depth before rising. For me this shallow dive was no marvelous feat, for I had mastered the technique in my early high-school days. When I finally popped my head out of the water at a distance of about thirty feet from the shore, I wiped the water off my face and, treading water with my feet, called to my friend.

"Come on in," I shouted. "You can dive as deep as you like. This place is almost bottomless!"

Not suspecting anything, my friend quickly nodded and, poising on the edge of the cliff, dove in. He shot into the water with a splash, but did not reappear for a considerable length of time. This, of course, was no surprise to me, for I knew that there was a large, jagged rock located at a depth of only about eight feet, but quite impossible to detect from atop the cliff. I had probed this sector of the water previously, and everything had suited my plans.

As you may know, the better the diver, the shallower he dives into the water. Being an expert, I had managed to surface without coming into contact with the dangerous rock. But my friend, who was only a novice, had dived into the water to the fullest depth. The result was only natural—death from a crushed skull.

Sure enough, after I had waited for some time, he rose to the surface like a dead tunny, drifting at the mercy of the waves. Playing the role of would-be rescuer, I grabbed him and dragged his floating corpse to the shore. Then, leaving him on the sand, I ran back to the village and sounded the alarm. Promptly some fishermen who happened to be resting after a busy morning of hauling in their nets answered my call for help and accompanied me back to the beach. All along, however, I knew that my friend was beyond all earthly help. Crumpled up on the shore just as I had left him, his head crushed like an eggshell, he was indeed a pitiful sight. Taking just one look, the fishermen all shook their heads.

"There's nothing we can do," they said. "He's already dead!"

In all my life I have been questioned by the police only twice, and this was one of those occasions. As I was the sole witness of the "accident," it was only natural that they should question me. But since the victim and I were known to have been great friends, I was quickly exonerated.

"It is quite obvious," the unsuspecting police said, "that you city folks could not have been aware of the presence of that rock," and the coroner's verdict was "accidental death."

Ironically, I was even offered the condolences of the police officers who had cleared me of all possible guilt. "We are very sorry you have lost your friend" were their very words.

Inwardly, I shrieked with laughter.

Well, as I have said, if I were to recite all my murders one after another, I'm afraid there would be no end. By this time you must surely know what I meant when I spoke of perfect crimes. Every murder that I committed was ingeniously planned beforehand so as to leave no trace of evidence. Once, when I was among the spectators at a circus, I captured the attention of a female tight-rope walker who was balancing herself on a high wire by suddenly adopting an extraordinarily queer posture—a posture so queer and obscene that I am ashamed to describe it here. The result, of course, was that she slipped and crashed to her death, because it had been her special pride to walk a tight-rope without the benefit of a net. On another occasion, at the scene of a fire, I calmly informed a shrieking woman searching for her child that I had seen him sleeping inside the house. Believing me instantly, she rushed into the flames, while I egged her on with "Can't you hear him crying? He's wailing and wailing for you!" The woman, of course, was burnt to death. And the ironical part of it all was that her child had been safe and sound all along elsewhere.

Another example I could give is the time I saw a girl on the point of trying to decide whether or not to commit suicide by leaping into a river. At the crucial moment, when she had nearly decided to abandon her attempt, I shouted: "Wait!" Caught by surprise, the girl became flustered and, without any further hesitation, dived into the water and was drowned. This, again, was another demonstration of how one seemingly innocent word can end a person's life.

Well, as you may have realized by this time, there is practically no end to my stories. For another thing, the clock on the wall reminds me that the time is getting late. So I'll conclude my narration for this evening with just one more example of how I killed without arousing any suspicion—only this time it is mass murder of which I'll speak.

This case took place last spring. Perhaps you may even remember the report in the newspapers at that time of how a train on the Tokyo-Karuizawa line jumped the tracks and overturned, taking a heavy toll of lives. Well, that's the catastrophe to which I refer.

Actually, this was the simplest trick of all, although it took me a considerable length of time to select a suitable location to carry out my plot. From the very start, however, I had believed I would find it along the line to Karuizawa; this railway ran through lonely mountains, an ideal condition for my plan, and besides, the line had quite a reputation for frequent accidents.

Finally I decided on a precipice near Kumano-Taira Station. As there was a decent spa near the station, I put up at an inn there and pretended to be a long-staying visitor, bathing in the mineral waters daily. After biding my time for about ten days, I felt it would be safe to begin. So one day I took a walk along a mountain path in the area.

After about an hours walk I arrived at the top of a high cliff a few miles from the inn. Here I waited until the evening shadows fell. Just beneath the cliff the railway tracks formed a sharp curve. On the other side of the tracks yawned a deep ravine, with a swiftly-flowing stream in the mist beyond.

After a while the zero hour I had decided on arrived. Although there was no one there to see, I pretended to stumble and kicked a large rock which had been lying in such a position that this was enough to roll it off the cliff, right down onto the railway tracks. I had planned to repeat the operation over and over again with other rocks if necessary, but I quickly perceived with a thrill that the rock had fallen onto one of the rails, just where I had wanted it.

A down train was scheduled to come along those tracks in half an hour. In the dark, and with the rock lying on the other side of the curve, it would be impossible for the engineer to notice it. After I had thus set the stage for my crime I hurried to Kumano-Taira Station—I knew the walk would take me over half an hour—dashed into the stationmaster's office, and blurted out: "Something terrible has happened!"

All the railway officials looked up anxiously and asked me what I meant.

"I'm a visitor at the spa here," I said, breathing heavily. "I was taking a walk a short while ago along the edge of the cliff above the railway line about four miles from here. Accidentally I stumbled and kicked a rock off the cliff down onto the tracks. Almost immediately I realized that if a train passed there, it would be derailed. So I tried desperately to find a path down to the spot so as to remove the rock, but as I am a stranger in these parts, I could find no way down. Knowing there was not a moment to be lost, I came here as fast as my legs could carry me to warn you. Surely you people can do something to avert a catastrophe."

When I had finished talking the stationmaster paled. "This is a serious matter," he gasped. "The down train just passed this station. By this time it must already have reached that spot!" This, of course, was exactly what I had expected to hear.

Suddenly the phone rang, but even before anyone picked up the receiver, I knew what the report would be. Yes, the worst had happened! The train had jumped the tracks, and two of the coaches had overturned.

Soon I was taken to the village police station for questioning. But my deed had been perpetrated only after long and careful deliberation, so I had all the answers ready. After the interrogation I was released. I had, of course, been severely admonished, but that was all.

So, with just one rock, I had succeeded m taking the lives of no less than seventeen persons in just that one "accident."

Gentlemen, the grand total of the murders I have so far committed numbers ninety-nine. Rather than being penitent, however, I have only become bored with my festival of blood. Today I have but one desire, to make the score an even hundred. . .by taking my own life.

Yes, you may well knit your brows, after hearing of all my cruel acts. Surely not even the devil himself could have surpassed me in villainy. And yet, I still insist that all my wickedness was but the result of unbearable boredom. I killed—but only for the sake of killing! I harbored no malice toward any of my victims. In short, murder was, for me, a sort of game. Do you think I am mad? A homicidal maniac? Of course you do. But I do not care, for I believe I am in good company. Birds of a feather, you know. . . .

On this cynical and insulting note the narrator concluded his disgusting story, his narrow, bloodshot eyes gazing suspiciously into ours.

Suddenly, on the surface of the silk curtains near the door, something began to glitter. At first it looked like a large, silver coin, then like a full moon peering out of the red curtains. Gradually I recognized the mysterious object as a large silver tray held in both hands by a waitress, magically come, as if from nowhere, to serve us drinks. For a fleeting moment I visualized a scene from
Salome,
with the dancing girl carrying the freshly severed head of the prophet on a tray. I even thought that after the tray there would appear from out of the silk curtains a glittering Damascene broad-sword, or at least an old Chinese halberd. Gradually my eyes became more accustomed to the wraith-like figure of the waitress, and I gasped with admiration, for she was indeed a beauty! Without any explanation, she moved gracefully among the seven of us and began to serve drinks.

As I took a glass I noticed that my hand was trembling. What strange magic was this, I pondered. Who was she? And where did she come from? Was she from some imaginary world, or was she one of the hostesses from the restaurant downstairs?

Suddenly Tanaka spoke in a casual tone, not at all different from the voice he had used to tell his story—but the words he uttered startled me.

"Now I will shoot you!" were the very words he spoke, having first drawn a revolver from his pocket and aimed it at the girl.

The next instant our cries of surprise, the explosion of the revolver, and the piercing shriek of the girl all seemed to merge. All of us leapt from our seats and lunged at the madman. But then we stopped in our tracks. There, before our eyes, was the woman who had been shot, alive and well, but with a blank look on her face.