one hundred thousand yen transferred to general account 821-5613 of the S bank, Yumiko hurried to the counter. As she left the bank, she saw a man on the opposite side of the street. It was Akira Atsuta, chief of the business department. He was hurrying and looked pale. No need to be a detective to figure it out. He must have received one of those elegant blackmailing letters from Usami, too, and probably was on his way to do whatever he'd been asked to do.
Yumiko thought, "I wonder what Atsuta told Usami?" In her own case, it had been the kind of man-woman relationship that happens in all companies between high-ranking men and lower-ranking women.
A year before, Yumiko had fallen in love with Mr. S of the technical staff. He was married and had children. From the beginning, it was clear he had no intention of marrying Yumiko. But, he was exciting, attractive—the type Yumiko admired. She was already an old maid at thirty-three and not so pretty, either. The words S used to entice her were of the driest. Late one night, when they were in a bar, both having drunk too much, S said, "Looks like I'll have to spend the night away from home. What d'you say? Lending it to me won't wear it out."
His rude words thrilled her, and they immediately went to a hotel. They had sex until they were tired of each other's bodies. Then, Yumiko discovered herself pregnant. Handing her two hundred thousand yen for an abortion, S said, "Pretty high rent. This ends everything between us."
Then the humiliation, the suspicious hospital, and the position she had been forced to assume on the surgical table. Then a man—even though a doctor—she'd never seen before did what he liked with the part of her body he should never have touched. The scalpel, which she feared, invaded her body. While understanding she was paying for something she had done, she suffered a festering wound.
Even an old maid left on the shelf has her pride. It was to cleanse herself of the resentment she felt for S that Yumiko confessed the ugly truth to Usami. Then she received that nonchalant letter. She had no choice but to comply with his demand.
For those who received the official-looking blackmail letters, Usami's death was a shock. Nor were Yokomizo, Misumi, Matsushita, and Shibaura the only recipients. There were also Atsuta, Nakanishi, Murayama, Nakajima. . . .
All had two things in common. First, they suspected someone had murdered Usami and suffered both anger and fear at the sight of Usami's odd right-slanting script, in which the letters were written. Second, they had made up their minds to remain eternally silent about what they had confessed to him and about the way they had complied with the demands in the letters. If any one of them were pushed to extremes and mentioned either of these things, he would become a murder suspect.
4
Six months after the incident, headquarters for the Taro Usami murder case was closed. It had been a cold winter. Now it was late May, with the greenery of trees inviting the eye to rest. As the investigation dragged out, the notion that the death was suicide gained more acceptance. This further retarded the search for a solution, since it lowered morale and robbed men of the enthusiasm essential to a successful investigation. Sarcastic investigators said it bogged down because of rotten luck: the murder took place on Friday the 13th; there were thirteen suspects.
Before the final closing of investigation headquarters, there was a meeting of Takahashi, Kono, and Kimura. Kimura was eager to close headquarters. There was much work in the department, many cases, and tying up too many men on a job that showed no signs of coming to a conclusion seemed a waste. "Calling it murder must've been a miscalculation," he said with regret. Takahashi and Kono were silent, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. But Takahashi looked wretched.
Kono said, "I've no objections to closing headquarters. I don't think new facts will turn up. Still—I don't think we should give up, either. Let's simply reduce the scale of the operation. Put me in charge."
"You mean, you still don't want to give it up?" Kimura asked.
"Yeah. That's right."
"Stubborn?"
"Nope. I'm adopting a waiting policy. Let the other guy tip his hand. I think that's the way—"
"Waiting policy?"
"Yeah. Let me have Shibata and Kawanishi."
"O.K.," Kimura said. "You've got it."
Yumiko Murase, the typist with Sanei, gave notice six months after the murder. She said her mother had died and there was no one at home to look after her father, who had grown old.
It was a fact; her mother had died. Further, the only person home with her father was a third son, who was a second-year student in high school. Under these circumstances, it was hard to block her request. But she was an excellent typist, and they would have liked her to remain. Yumiko persisted, and the company accepted her resignation.
But she had said to a fellow worker, "I don't like the gloomy feeling around here. The murder isn't solved, and everybody suspects everybody else. I can't stand working in such an atmosphere." Maybe this was her true reason.
The day of her resignation, with nothing but a suitcase, she left her apartment. She had given her stereo and TV to one of the girls in the office. She flagged a taxi, and told the driver to take her to the airport. When people from the office who had come to see her off heard this, they must have thought it strange. Yumiko's home town was a small village in the mountains, three hours by train and another two by bus.
An hour later, she was on a plane. As she watched the city of F receding through the small, round window, she thought without regret, "Well, goodbye to that—"
Yumiko's home town was so small she could not tolerate it even for a day. The city of F was only a provincial town, too, where rumors were always plentiful. The plane was headed for Tokyo. A vast city of twelve million. A cold city where a corpse might not be noticed for a year by neighbors in the next apartment. A good city to hide in. "Crime." A cool smile played over Yumiko's face. She smiled with pride at the thought of the perfect crime she had committed. She touched the case in her lap, the reward. There were a lot of zeros after the first figures in the four bank books in that case. They represented the triumph of the mind.
She had come upon the notion for the crime about a year ago, at the time when there was talk of her marrying. She had begun thinking like a murder novel. Usami knew about Sand her abortion. Suppose he should demand money for keeping her secret? Yumiko knew she would probably make the utmost efforts to get that money.
When the marriage fell through, Yumiko expanded the idea. "Now—look at this. . . ." Usami was a money tree. He was just full of private secrets. For one like Usami, who would never get ahead-maybe even precisely because he wouldn't—it would be wonderful to turn all these confessions into money. Next, Yumiko thought, "If he won't do it, why don't I turn them into money myself?"
For a year she made preparations. The most difficult thing was copying Usami's strange right-slanted handwriting. It took a year to do that. The next thing was knowing how much to ask each person for. Finally, she decided to ask for more in the upper echelons of the company. This seemed in keeping with principles of social justice and with ideas of the chivalrous bandit. She would keep the text as simple as possible—and be suggestive. . . .
"A need for money has come up. Please transfer ___yen to general account 821-5613 at the S bank no later than December eleventh." She signed Taro Usami. Taking up her pen, in the letter to Kenzo Yokomizo, she wrote "five million yen." Stopping, she asked herself if this might be too much. Then, with a toss of her head, tightening her abdomen, she said, "Nope. It's a gamble. With gambling, courage is necessary."
Although she knew little about business, lately she had noticed something suspicious about Yokomizo. She did not know what it was, but she felt certain he was up to something. If it were a business secret, he would be willing to pay that much.
Finally, intelligently, she wrote a blackmail letter to herself as a coverup. She wrote in figures for one hundred thousand yen.
Total: thirty-two million one hundred and seventy thousand yen.
On the twelfth of December, she went to the bank to check the account in the name of Taro Usami. All thirteen people—including