My dear Mr Y——,
Please forgive my long silence. When last you wrote, you mentioned that you were ill, but, judging from the fact that the publication of Death on Gokumon Island carries on apace, I trust that it was nothing too serious. I read the monthly magazine instalments with avid interest. While there are one or two parts that seem to me a little exaggerated, I realize this cannot be helped when it comes to novel-writing. I do hope you will continue to write them. (Only, please, be gentle with me!)
Now, then. When I last paid you a visit, you said to me something along the following lines. That with The Honjin Murders you were able to write a kind of ‘locked room’ mystery, and now you would like to try your hand at a ‘faceless corpse’ one; and that if I were ever to come across such a case, you would be grateful if I would provide you with the materials. Well, my friend, and what do you suppose my very first case was after I arrived in Tokyo? Why, yes! The ‘faceless corpse’ mystery that you were hoping for. And what’s more, it was quite different from the so-called ‘faceless corpse’ formula that you described to me.
Ah, my dear Y——! I cannot help recalling that fusty old saying: that truth is stranger than fiction. At the outset of The Honjin Murders, you wrote that we ought to be grateful to the murderer for having hatched that ingenious plan. Very well! Now you shall have to sing the praises of the villain who planned this horrific ‘faceless corpse’ case. It may not have the elegance or beauty of The Honjin Murders or the triple murder in Death on Gokumon Island—in which regard you may be somewhat disappointed—and yet, in terms of the sheer blackness and bestial savagery of the killer’s plan, it is altogether in a league of its own. At least, that is my opinion; for now, though, I shall refrain from saying too much more about it. I have posted to you separately all the relevant documents and leave the rest to your good judgement. The documents are numbered sequentially, so please read them in that order. I am eager to see how you will digest the material and adapt these miscellaneous records.
Respectfully yours…
It was the spring of 1947 when this letter from Kosuke Kindaichi reached me in that little village in the Okayama countryside where I had been evacuated during the war.
Imagine my excitement as I read the letter! But then, was it truly excitement that I felt? Or was it not a sense of dread? The detective’s words had made such a strong impression on me, and I could tell that this was no ordinary case. But still, this was the ‘faceless corpse’ mystery for which I had so longed!
The documents that had been sent separately arrived three days after the letter. What follows is an account based on those documents, a record of that heinous crime and the deductions that exposed it. But before I get to that, I had better clarify my relationship with Kosuke Kindaichi.
It all came about in the late autumn of the previous year, when, in the rural village where I had been evacuated, I received an unexpected visitor.
I was poorly at the time, and all I seemed to do was sleep. On the date in question, I had spent the entire day dozing as I lay sprawled out on the futon. The others in the house had gone off to dig for yams in the fields on the mountainside, leaving me all alone. But just then, a man came clattering in.
Given that the building was a farmhouse, there were none of those smart features—a vestibule, for instance—that I had in my own home. Instead, the front door opened onto a broad earthen-floored room with an imposing shoji screen on the other side. This shoji
was awfully heavy and difficult to open and close, so it would be left ajar throughout the day. On the other side of the earthen floor there was a tatami room about twelve square feet in size, and beyond it a slightly larger sitting room, visible from the entrance through the open fusuma. It was there that I would always sleep. Because of a longstanding chest condition, I was used to keeping doors and windows open, and so, whenever I had the opportunity, I always did the same in that farmhouse, too. Hence, anybody entering would of course be sure to spot me sleeping in the back the very moment they set foot in the place.
It was dusk, and I seem to recall that I had a slight temperature. As I lay there, dozing, I suddenly sensed another person’s presence. I hauled myself over in bed and quickly sat up.
There, standing on the earthen floor, I saw a short man of around thirty-five. He had on a haori jacket over an Oshima kimono and wore a pair of hakama. His hat was perched precariously at the back of his head. In his left hand he carried an Inverness coat, and in his right, a rattan cane. Both the kimono and the haori looked rather worn, and, all told, the young man had an altogether shabby appearance, with little to redeem it.
We stared at each other for a few seconds, before I eventually called out from my bed, asking who it was. The young man grinned. He set down his cane and Inverness coat, removed his hat and slowly mopped the sweat on his brow, before asking me whether I was the owner of the house. His cool demeanour set me a little on edge, so I asked him again, and somewhat reproachfully this time, who he was. But the man only grinned once more. Then, with a slight stammer, he introduced himself: ‘I-I’m…’
He said, of course, that his name was Kosuke Kindaichi.
I shall spare you the details about how surprised, or rather how alarmed, I was to hear this, but I ought to say a few words about what the name Kosuke Kindaichi meant to me. I was, at the time, in the process of writing a novel based on what I had heard from the locals about a murder that had taken place in the old honjin in the village. The novel, moreover, was being serialized in a magazine. But the protagonist of that novel—or, perhaps I should say the protagonist of that case—was none other than Kosuke Kindaichi. Not only had I never met the man, but I had never even seen him before. And, of course, I had written the book without his permission. I had merely based it on what the villagers told me, embellishing their recollections with my own imagination. And yet, this very man had now turned up
unannounced on my proverbial doorstep. It should be little wonder then that I was both surprised and alarmed. I could feel the cold perspiration, brought on by a sense of guilt, drip from under my arms. Even when we exchanged greetings after he entered the tatami room, I was at a loss for words.
Kosuke Kindaichi watched me hum and haw, grinning before he offered at last an explanation for his visit.
He was on his way back, he said, from Gokumon Island, a small, isolated spot in the Seto Inland Sea, but before going there, he had paid a visit to a patron of his, a certain Ginzo Kubo, from whom he had heard, much to his surprise, that somebody was writing a novel about him. He had, it transpired, read the novel himself, so, before leaving for the island, he had sent a letter to the magazine, asking for the address of the author, and now, having found the reply waiting for him upon his return, he had made a beeline for the village.
‘I’ve got a bone to pick with you,’ he said, smiling amiably.
Hearing the jovial tone in his voice, I finally relaxed. Not only was there not a hint of malice in his words, but there was even a certain affection. Emboldened by this, I asked what he thought of the novel. It was rather presumptuous of me, I must admit, but once again he grinned and said that he thought it was ‘spot on’. He said he was flattered that I had painted him in such a complimentary light, but, ‘If I could suggest one thing,’ he added, ‘it would be that you write a little more about what a handsome devil I am!’
He roared with laughter as he scratched the bird’s nest of hair atop his head. And so, in short, we hit it off splendidly.
Kosuke Kindaichi stayed with me for three nights, during which time he told me all about his most recent case on Gokumon Island and, moreover, gave me his blessing to write about it. In other words, he adopted me as his official biographer.
Over the course of those three days that he spent with me, we discussed all manner of things having to do with detective novels, and it was then that I broached the subject of the so-called ‘faceless corpse’ murder. I recall telling him that around twenty years ago I tried to classify all the detective stories in a certain magazine. The magazine is long gone now, so I cannot say with certainty, but I seem to recall observing that the ‘double role’ type, the ‘locked room’ type and the
‘faceless corpse’ type were among the most common ones. Two decades have passed since then—a time in which detective novels have come on by leaps and bounds—but it is interesting to note that to this very day those three archetypes still occupy the top spots in detective writing.
If you scrutinize these three archetypes, you will soon realize that there are significant differences between them, however. That is to say, the ‘locked room’ mystery and the ‘faceless corpse’ are challenges set for the readers, who will recognize, almost as soon as they open the book, what kind of mystery awaits them. Yet, the same cannot be said of the ‘double role’ type. This, instead, is a trick that must be kept secret right until the very end, and, if the readers suspect that the novel is of this kind, then the author has lost the game. (Naturally, in all manner of detective novels, the culprit will seem like a good person, so, while this is a kind of ‘double role’, it is distinct from the ‘double role’ type of which I write here.)
In that sense, the ‘double role’ type is very different from the ‘locked room’ mystery and the ‘faceless corpse’, but then those two other types are also very different from each other. This is because the ‘locked room’ type always presents the same problem, only with an infinite number of solutions; or perhaps I should say that, with this type, what both the author and the reader are interested in is how many different solutions can be offered for the same problem.
That is not true of the ‘faceless corpse’ type, however. If ever you come across a case in a detective novel in which the face of the body is unidentifiable—that is, a case in which a face has been horribly mutilated, or in which a head has been severed, or in which a body has been discovered in the ruins of a fire that has rendered the features unrecognizable, or even, come to think of it, one in which the whereabouts of the body itself is unknown—in such cases, you can be reasonably sure that the victim and the perpetrator will have switched places. In other words, in most ‘faceless corpse’ cases, Person A, who is believed to be the victim, will in fact be the murderer, while Person B, who is thought to be the murderer—and who has apparently absconded, of course—will turn out to be the deceased, i.e. the victim. This, with few exceptions, has been the solution offered in most detective novels that have dealt with this theme until now.
‘Don’t you find it odd?’ I said, with a look of triumph on my face, after setting all this out. ‘One of the most important conditions for
the appeal of a detective novel is the unexpectedness of the ending, yet in every instance of the “faceless corpse” type, the victim and the murderer always trade places. Effectively, from the very outset, the reader always knows who the murderer is. This is a real problem for the author. And yet, despite its disadvantages, most crime authors feel drawn to tackle it at least once in their career. Such is the allure of this problem.’
‘So, what you’re saying is,’ said Kosuke Kindaichi, ‘that whenever there’s a “faceless corpse” in a detective novel, you can be sure that the victim and the culprit will be confused?’
‘Exactly. There will be the odd exception to this rule, but it would appear that authors find the formula of switching more interesting.’
‘Hmm,’ said Kosuke Kindaichi, as he paused to think. ‘But it isn’t an incontrovertible fact that this formula is more interesting than the exceptions to the rule, is it? That’s simply the case with the novels that have been written until now. It’s not inconceivable that someday there’ll be an even more interesting “faceless corpse” novel in which the victim and the culprit haven’t switched places.’
‘That’s just what I’ve been thinking!’ I said, leaning forward. ‘Say, Kindaichi-san, have you handled any cases like this, ones where the truth has proved stranger than fiction? I may be only a humble writer of detective stories, but one day I’d like to take up this theme and surprise all those mystery buffs with an ending that goes beyond the usual formula.’
As I pictured it, I was practically frothing at the mouth with excitement.
‘Well, now, let me see,’ said Kosuke Kindaichi, grinning. ‘I don’t believe I’ve ever come across anything of the kind before. But please don’t be discouraged. All sorts of things do happen. And the world is full of the most inventive people. So, I could well stumble upon a case that fits your aim at any moment. If I do, I promise to let you know about it straight away.’
And so he did, keeping his promise to me.
I shall spare you the details of how thrilled I was when that package arrived, and how I shuddered as I read those documents; otherwise, you readers will start to lose your patience with this rather longwinded
introduction of mine.
But there is one more thing that, with your indulgence, I should like to add. As Kosuke Kindaichi mentioned in his letter, these documents were truly a collection of all kinds of records, and I agonized over how best to handle them. I considered laying them out in order, as is often done in foreign novels, ...
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