He continued checking the forms carefully. He leafed through a few more, and, suddenly, he almost cried out in disappointment. It was there!
"Tatsuo Yasuda, machinery manufacturer, age 42, address: Tokyo…" It was unbelievable. It could not be possible, yet there it was, right before his eyes. Mihara caught his breath. With unsteady hands he took from his bag the guest register he had brought from the Marusō Inn and placed the two documents side by side. The signatures were identical. Yasuda had crossed on the ferry.
Since this was clear evidence he had been a passenger on the ferry, it followed that his presence on the Marimo express could also be proven. Yasuda had not lied. The crack in the wall Mihara thought he had discovered was an illusion. He felt crushed. Numb with disappointment, he sat staring at the piece of paper lying on the table in front of him.
11 The Stubborn Wall
Mihara took the streetcar to Shinjuku from in front of the Metropolitan Police Board. It was past eight o'clock and the evening rush hour was over. The streetcar was almost empty. He was able to sit comfortably and cross his legs. The rocking motion of the car was not unpleasant.
Mihara was fond of streetcars. Strange as it may seem, he liked to board one of them just for the ride, without a set destination in mind. And when some problem arose to trouble him, he often chose to sit in a streetcar while he gave it thought. The slow speed and the swaying motion helped him to think. He enjoyed best a streetcar that stopped often, and that started up each time with a rattle and a jerk. He would get on one and ride to the end of the line, immersed in his thoughts.
Just as he was doing today. He was turning over in his mind what Kawanishi had told him. Yasuda had sent the Futaba Company a wire, asking Kawanishi to meet him at Sapporo Station. Yet the business was not urgent. Why, then, did he do it? Why did he have to ask for a meeting at the station? Mihara felt sure he now knew the reason. Yasuda wanted the fact confirmed that he did actually arrive at Sapporo Station on the Marimo express. He wanted Kawanishi to see him there in order to establish an alibi. An alibi? But what for? Why want to prove he was in Sapporo? Why try to prove he was not somewhere else?
Mihara was getting at the truth of something which hitherto had eluded him. He had to conclude that there was only one place that Yasuda would seek to avoid: that was Kashii Beach in Kyushu. Yasuda wanted to prove that he was not there.
He got out the railway timetable that, now, he always carried in his pocket. Assuming that the double suicide took place between 10 and 11 on the night of January 20, the first available express train to Tokyo from Hakata after the incident was the Satsuma leaving at 7:24 the following morning. At 8:44 P.M. on the twenty-first, when Yasuda appeared at Sapporo Station in Hokkaido and greeted Kawanishi, the express Satsuma would have just left Kyoto Station. Yasuda wanted to make it unmistakably clear that he was not, that he could not have been, present at the scene of the double suicide. But why insist upon it?
"Pardon me." The conductor tapped Mihara's arm to arouse him. The streetcar had reached the end of the line. Mihara got off, still deep in thought. He walked for a while through the brightly lighted streets, then boarded another streetcar. This one was bound for Ogikubo.
Presently he started pursuing a new train of thought. Yasu-da's appearance at Sapporo Station threw new light on his actions at Tokyo Station. Until this moment, Mihara had assumed that Yasuda's purpose in having the two waitresses present at the station was to see Sayama and Otoki board the train together. He now believed there was another reason. Yasuda wanted eyewitnesses to testify that he, Yasuda, had no possible connection with the double suicide. It was he who called the waitresses' attention to Otoki getting on the train with a man, and the way he said it made it appear as if he were a mere bystander, as surprised as they were by the scene. Thus alerted, the two girls looked over and saw Sayama and Otoki sitting side by side in the super-express Asakaze at the start of the suicide journey, and Yasuda, of course, was not with them. Yasuda took the Yokosuka Line to Kamakura. This was his alibi. And to support it further, he appeared at the Koyuki Restaurant the following night and again the night after. It looked as though he were underscoring the point.
The persons at the station during the four-minute train interval were not there by accident; they had to be there. Their presence was necessary and was arranged by Yasuda. Kawani-shi at Sapporo Station and the waitresses at Tokyo Station were witnesses provided by Yasuda. They were there to prove that he was not at the scene of the double suicide. Both encounters were planned by Yasuda and were tied to the events at Kashii Beach. They had served to show that he had not been present.
But they failed to convince Mihara. He was now more certain than ever that Tatsuo Yasuda had definitely been present. By planting his witnesses, Yasuda had tried to give a false impression. But he had not succeeded; his story had to be an inverted image of the truth. The night of January 20, between the hours of 10 and 11, Tatsuo Yasuda was at Kashii Beach in Kyushu at the scene of the double suicide of Sayama and Otoki. And he was in some way involved. But how, how? That was still unanswered. Yes, he was surely there, on that day and at that hour. He must have watched Kenichi Sayama and Otoki take poison and die. He was not far away from the scene, as he pretended; he was undoubtedly present. After carefully studying Yasuda's actions, it was clear that his statements were lies.
This was Mihara's conclusion. Yet, according to this assumption, Yasuda would have had to leave Hakata for the return journey by the 7:24 Satsuma Express the following morning, the twenty-first. En route, the train stops at Kyoto from 8:30 to 8:44 P.M., the very hour Yasuda was meeting Kawanishi at Sapporo Station in Hokkaido. Kawanishi was not lying; there was no doubt about that. Moreover, Yasuda registered at the Marusō Inn in Sapporo that same night about nine o'clock when the Satsuma would be speeding by the shores of Lake Biwa. How could one explain this contradiction between theory and the bald facts?
And there was yet another serious objection. Evidence that strongly supported Yasuda's statement was his signature on the passenger list of the Sei-kan ferry. This alone was enough to destroy Mihara's assumptions.
But Mihara refused to surrender to the overwhelming evidence. He held something against Yasuda that was strong enough to override these contradictions. It was his instinctive suspicion of Yasuda, his disbelief in the man's story. It was something he could not explain to others.
"Excuse me." The conductor interrupted his train of thought. The streetcar had reached the end of the line; the other passengers had already left. Mihara got off and changed to the Chūō Line which would take him back to the center of town. Yasuda was exceptionally clever, he was thinking. He had planned well, but there had to be a weak point somewhere. Where could it be?
Mihara was sitting in the train by an open window, the wind in his face. He was absorbed in his thoughts, his eyes half closed. Some forty minutes later he looked up suddenly and stared blankly at the advertisements across the aisle. Something had occurred to him. He thought again about seeing the signature of Yoshio Ishida, the X Ministry official, when he had checked the passenger register of the ferry at Hakodate.
"We know a little more now about Yoshio Ishida," said Chief Inspector Kasai. He explained to Mihara that Ishida was very sensitive on account of the scandal within the ministry and he had to act with prudence. The man could not be questioned directly. When he said he knew a little more about him he meant that he had been able to obtain information through other channels.
"We know that Ishida made the trip to Hokkaido on January 20. He left Tokyo from Ueno Station at 7:15 P.M. on the express Towada and arrived at Sapporo on the Marimo at 8:34 P.M. on the twenty-first. These are the same trains that Yasuda took." The chief had a copy of Ishida's schedule. It showed that the division chief had not left the train at Sapporo but had gone on to Kushiro. From there, he had made a tour of the eastern area of Hokkaido for which his office was responsible.