In about four days Taguchi telephoned again. He had something he wanted Keitaro to do, but as it would cause too much trouble to have him come to his house and since speaking about it over the phone would take too much time and be even more troublesome, he had decided to send a special delivery letter in which Keitaro would be given all the particulars. Should there be anything in it Keitaro could not understand, all he had to do would be to ask Taguchi by phone. Keitaro was delighted, like someone who has hit on the right focus of the telescope, seeing clearly what had been seen but dimly before.
He remained at his desk, waiting for the letter and giving rein to his imagination. He found the figure of the woman he had seen from behind at Sunaga's gate apt to intrude into his thoughts without permission, whereupon he would suddenly become aware that he ought to be more practical; in such cases, he would, though for that moment only, rebuke his deviating fancy. And so the tantalizing hours passed.
At last the long-awaited letter reached him. He tore open the envelope, breathlessly read through from end to end of the rolled letter paper, and involuntarily uttered a low cry. For the "business" given him was even more romantic than his imagination had anticipated.
The letter was written in simple words and contained no more information than was necessary for the purpose at hand. It stated that between four and five that very day a man about forty years old would alight at Oga-wamachi from a streetcar coming from the direction of Mita. He would be wearing a black fedora and a salt-and-pepper cloak. He would be tall and lean with a longish face and a mole between his eyebrows. With these characteristics to guide him, Keitaro was to spy on the man's movements during the next two hours and then report on them. That was all the letter contained.
For the first time in his life Keitaro felt himself the hero playing a leading role in a detective story fraught with danger. At the same time, doubts arose in him as to Taguchi's intentions: whether, in order to protect his interest in society, he would dare to resort to such a surreptitious act to find out someone's weak points for some future use. When Keitaro thought about the dishonor and guilt he would feel in being used as a spy for someone, he broke out in a cold sweat. With his hand holding the letter, his body turned rigid and his eyes became fixed in a stare. Yet when he considered what he had heard from Sunaga's mother about Taguchi's character, and when he combined that information with his own personal impressions of the man, he could not feel, on the whole, that Taguchi was that ill-natured a person. And once Keitaro concluded that spying on another's personal behavior did not necessarily come from base motives, the stiffness of his muscles relaxed and set his warm blood flowing again. Regaining his composure, he could now regard the problem from the vantage point of pure interest, one free of the disgust he might feel in going against his own moral integrity.
At any rate, he felt inclined to accomplish the job in the way Taguchi had asked him to and to regard the experience as his first real contact with the outside world. Again he read Taguchi's letter, more carefully this time, reexamining it to see whether or not he would actually be able to obtain a satisfactory result only from the person's characteristics and the conditions written therein.
Of those characteristics Taguchi had described, the only one inseparably connected to the man's person was the mole between his eyebrows. But it would not be easy to be absolutely certain such a tiny mark on the face belonged to the right person, especially when, at four or five in the afternoon during this time of the year, the winter light was scant and many passengers were busily getting on and off streetcars. Indeed, great numbers of rush-hour commuters would be heading home from Marunouchi by the only line across Kanda Bridge. And there was something else. He had to take into account the streets, which would be even more congested at this time of the year-end sales when shops on both sides of Ogawamachi would be trying to attract chance customers with bunting, bands, and gramaphones, not to mention the usual electric illuminations.
When Keitaro considered these points in relation to the probability of the success of the task at hand, he felt extremely uncertain about his ability to do it alone. Nevertheless, since it was definite that the person he was to look for would be dressed in a salt-and-pepper cloak and a black fedora, there seemed to be a ray of hope. Of course he ought not to expect much of a clue only from the cloak, whatever its style might be. But since the man would be wearing a black fedora, he could easily be spotted because nearly all men nowadays wearing fedoras preferred colors other than black. If he looked carefully for this sign, he just might succeed.
Reasoning in this way, Keitaro came to the conclusion that successful or not, he should at least go to the streetcar stop. He looked at his pocket watch and found it was just one o'clock. To reach his destination half an hour before four, there would be plenty of time if he left at around three. He still had two hours. He remained in his room sitting quietly, thinking about how to put those two hours to the best use. Yet before his eyes only the congested crowds at the T-shaped concourse where Mitoshirocho and Ogawamachi met seemed to come and go all jumbled together without bringing him any plan conducive to success. The more he thought, the more his mind stuck fast to the same spot, completely unable to move. And a fear that he might never be able to meet the man he was looking for crept in to disturb him.
The thought occurred to him that he might as well pass the time walking until the appropriate hour. He put his hands on the edge of his desk and was about to rise vigorously to his feet when he suddenly recalled the words of caution the old fortune-teller at Asakusa had given him: an event would occur one of these days and he ought not to forget to bring along with him a "something." Although he had allowed the old woman's words on that occasion to almost slip out of his mind, he remembered having taken the trouble to write them down on a slip of paper and having put them in his desk drawer for future reference. So he took out the scrap and untiringly perused the phrasing: "Something which seems your own and at the same time another's, something long and short, something which goes out and comes in."
At first, as before, he could find no meaning in it, but as he read it over and over again, he began to think that if he concentrated patiently on the words, an object with these queer properties might turn up. What was more, he remembered the old diviner's advice that since the thing was in his possession, he should not forget to use it when the occasion arose. He began to think that if only he could hit on something, anything, no matter what, something having these properties within the narrow range of his own surroundings, he might be able to solve the question — and in a shorter time than he had thought it would take. He decided to make good use of the two hours before him by solving the riddle.
He began with objects around him — his desk, books, towels, cushions-and then proceeded in turn to his wicker trunk, suitcase, and socks, but already an hour had elapsed without his lighting upon anything even closely resembling the puzzle. He became irritated, confused. His thoughts rushed around the room restlessly until disregarding all restraint, they forced themselves out the door and ran wildly in every direction.