The Plum Doll

At two o'clock in the morning, the young head clerk, accompanied by an assistant clerk, was making his rounds in the dry goods section on the third floor. Every night in this shop, the head clerk, his assistant, a military policeman, a firefighter and dozens of other people on duty were made to patrol the large store from corner to corner all night long.

The spacious sales floor was deserted. Devoid of the daytime hustle and bustle, it gave them a strangely terrible feeling. Most of the lights were off. The few which remained, at the tops of stairs and at turns, dimly illuminated the aisles.

The displays on the sales floor were covered with white cloths, and the varied pale forms, large and small, tall and short, were scattered about like innumerable corpses.

The young head clerk walked along the dark aisles, keeping an eye on the shadows. His periodic halts were to withdraw the keys to the small boxes set at every important point and affix a seal to the timetable he carried.

Thick cylindrical columns stood at intervals. In the gloom they somehow gave the impression of living giants.

The assistant walked ahead of the head clerk with a lit electric torch. He acted brave, making his steps rough and trying to whistle. The sound echoed in the corners of the spacious hall, making it seem weirder than ever.

The eeriest things in the store were the life-sized "living dolls" in the center of the area where Yuzen-dyed silks were sold. Three women clad in fashionable spring costumes stood beneath a large cherry tree. Among the employees, those three dolls were called Pine, Bamboo and Plum. The staff spoke of them just as if they were living humans, talking of "Ms. Plum's sash" or "Ms. Plum's shawl." Of the three, the doll called Ms. Plum was the youngest and prettiest.

There were various episodes told concerning these decorative dolls. Rumors often circulated that a young employee at the store had fallen in love with one of them and other things of that sort. There was also talk of a man sneaking quietly into the store in the dead of night to speak and flirt with the dolls.

Because this Ms. Plum was such a beauty, it was possible that someone may really have fallen in love with her.

These dolls seemed somehow so unlike inanimate things that they gave rise to such rumors. It was suspected that they merely pretended to be so during the day, assuming the look of man-made faces, and that when night fell they sprang to life. In truth, when one of the guards stood before the dolls during the night rounds and gazed steadily at their faces, he felt as if they might suddenly break into smiles.

To the head clerk and his companion, those three dolls now appeared pitch black in the hazy light of the distant electric torch.

"Hey, when did they put a child doll like that in there? I didn't hear a thing about it." The assistant clerk suddenly halted, pulling on the head clerk's sleeve.

"Eh? A child doll? There's nothing like that here." The head clerk denied the youngster's assertion with what seemed an angry tone. He was afraid.

"See for yourself. Look, aren't Ms. Pine and Ms. Bamboo holding a child's hands?"

The youngster pointed his electric torch at the dolls. Although they could not see clearly on account of the long distance, there was certainly a child standing in the shadow of the Plum doll.

No matter how they considered it, there should not have been a child doll there. Thinking it odd, they grew excessively afraid.

"Hey, turn the switch. Turn on the chandelier overhead and see."

The head clerk wanted to cry out and run away, but he managed to hold his ground and urged the boy clerk on.

The boy clerk went to press the switch, but he was confused and so did not immediately comprehend its location. Growing impatient, the head clerk snatched the electric torch from the boy's hand and advanced, directing it at the suspicious dolls.

There was an empty space surrounded on all sides by long display tables, and in the center of this stood the three dolls. The round light of the electric torch crept along the floor, trembling with fear. One after another, the iron railing that enclosed the dolls' surroundings, the artificial lawn, Ms. Pine's feet, Ms.

Plum's feet, and Ms. Bamboo's feet entered the circle of light.

There, the round light hesitated for a moment. It shuddered as if afraid to ascertain the truth. But suddenly making up its mind, the light flew, cutting the empty air. It came to a sudden stop on a strange figure, making it look as if it were shown in close-up.

The creature wore a hunting cap on its head, some black garment on its body and was just withdrawing its hands from those of the ladies Pine and Bamboo, as the assistant clerk had said. But they understood at a glance that it was no child. Large eyes and a large nose were set in a large face, and thick wrinkles were carved around the cheeks. It was what is commonly referred to as a dwarf. Although an adult, it had only a child's stature. In the circle of light from the electric torch, it was shown in close-up from the chest upward, making a face which said "I am a doll" and not even blinking, as if participating in a tableau vivant.

The combination of the beautiful dolls and the deformed child was so exceedingly strange that anyone who beheld it would probably let out a great burst of laughter if they saw it in the daytime, under the light of the sun. But at night, the composed expression of the deformed child floating in the electric torch's dim circle of light, looking all the more insane by virtue of its composure, was felt horribly.

"Hey, who's that over there?" The young head clerk shouted boldly.

But the thing did not reply. In place of an answer the bust in the round light suddenly ceased to be visible, just as if the film of a moving picture had been cut. In other words, it had fled.

The boy clerk located the switch at last, and in a moment the area became bright. But by that time the deformed child had gone over the iron railing, passed between the display tables, and disappeared. Rows of countless display tables extended in all directions, and they had no means at all of pursuing the dwarf, who was shorter than the tables, as he fled between them.

Before long, the entire night watch gathered on the third floor due to the alarm sounded by the head clerk. Then all the electric lights were turned on, and an extremely thorough search was begun. The white cloths on the display tables were pulled off one by one, and the space beneath the tables, the interiors of the cabinets, and every nook and cranny in the store were subjected to scrutiny. Discovering that no one was hiding on the third floor, they separated into two groups, one going to search the fourth floor and above, and one going to search the second floor and below. But, to locate a single, small human in a department store crowded with such a variety of miscellaneous articles was nearly impossible.

The extensive search continued almost until dawn, but in the end it was found that not a single article had been stolen, that, other than the windows, every place a human could enter or exit was securely locked, and that there was no evidence of any person stealing in from outside.

If nothing had been stolen, then there was no fault on the part of the night watch, and no fear of a punitive cut in wages.

"It's all because that head clerk's a coward. He probably mistook something he saw." With grumblings of this sort, the search concluded unresolved.

At a predetermined time the following day, all the windows and doors of the department store were thrown open, and the usual hustle and bustle commenced.

Just to be certain, the manager called the clerks in charge of the entrances and exits and inquired whether they had seen a customer who was a dwarf, but neither on that day nor the day before had anyone remarked such a cripple. In the end, it seemed that the uproar of the previous night might have been due to nothing but a young clerk's dream.

Nothing had been stolen, and there was no way for a thief to have snuck in. Nor was there any trace of a cripple such as the one described by the young head clerk having entered the shop before closing on the previous day, or of one leaving after opening on that day (even though no one could fail to notice such a cripple). So, what the young head clerk saw must have been either his own hallucination, or else a mischief-maker among the boy clerks, meaning to startle his cowardly superior by imitating the appearance of a doll. Such speculation eventually led the discoverer, who had earned nothing but the ridicule of his coworkers, to attempt to silence the incident.

But at about noon on that same day, a preposterous disturbance occurred in the dry goods department on the third floor.

Because the dolls had just recently been redecorated, the three beauties beneath the artificial cherry blossoms drew the admiration of the whole floor, and it was mysterious that, in spite of the large crowd of people that was always gathered around them, no one noticed a thing. The idea was perhaps much too fantastic for the adults, and so it was two primary school students who made the discovery.

They wore matching school uniforms of navy serge and stood in the place closest to the railing, admiring the dolls.

"Say, this doll is awfully strange. The right hand and the left hand are completely different colors. Whoever made it sure was bad at his job," one primary school student criticized the doll's maker.

"Don't be so impertinent." The elder brother rebuked the younger, feeling consideration for the surrounding spectators. "Look here. Although the color of that hand on the side clutching the handbag is a little bad, the craftsmanship is really detailed. The craftsman certainly wasn't unskilled."

"But it's silly for there to be such a difference in feeling between the right and left. That is, although the workmanship is detailed . . . But it's still strange—even though the right hand has little wrinkles drawn on it one by one, the left hand is just carved into five fingers, without a single wrinkle or anything like that. It's all smooth. . . . And then there's peach fuzz growing on the right hand. . . . Oh, oh, that's a real human hand! It's definitely a corpse's arm!"

He shouted, excited by the unforeseen discovery. The few words "a corpse's arm" made the eyes of the spectators, who had only come to gaze at the dolls' clothing and appearances, move in unison to the appendage in question. The ghastly thing peeked out from the right cuff of the youngest doll, Plum.

If one looked carefully, one could tell by the hue of the skin, the fine wrinkles, and the soft, downy hair that it was without doubt the hand of a corpse. But the sensible adults still doubted their own eyes. They tormented themselves with the thought that such a ludicrous thing could not possibly occur.

"Hey, miss, that really is a human hand, isn't it?" The primary school student at last seized a woman and tried to make her endorse his discovery.

"Goodness gracious, no. Do things like that happen?" The woman casually denied it, but, for some reason, she stared at the hand as if to eat into it.

"There's no way, but if you want to make sure, you should go inside the railing and try touching it," a different woman chimed in, teasingly.

"I guess you're right. Well then, I'll go and make sure."

Before he had even finished speaking, the schoolboy had climbed over the railing and walked up beside Ms. Plum. His brother tried to stop him, but was too late.

"Here it is."

The primary school student pulled out Ms. Plum's right arm, and flourished it high over his head in the direction of the spectators. When they saw this, the crowd broke into a Babel of voices. The root of the arm, which had until now been concealed within the sleeve, had been cruelly severed at the elbow, and dark red, sticky blood clots adhered thickly to the cut end.

On the afternoon of the same day as the commotion caused by the Plum doll in the department store, Akechi Kogorō called at the entrance of the Yamano residence. Mrs. Yamano just happened to be in, and he was promptly conducted to the same parlor in the Western-style house. After a brief salutation, Akechi somewhat restlessly ignored the usual order of conversation and entered upon important matters at once.

"I would like Michiko's fingerprints. May I see her room again?"

"Certainly."

Mrs. Yamano went ahead as they ascended to Michiko's room on the second floor.

Compared to when he had last viewed them, both the study and the powder room were like completely different rooms, clean and put in order. Locating Michiko's fingerprints did not require much effort. First, there was worn out blotting paper on top of the desk in the study, and on it was a deep black right thumbprint. In the powder room, although the dresser, small boxes and so on had been wiped clean and not a fingerprint remained on them, there were several clear fingerprints inside the drawers of the dresser and on the various bottles of cosmetics. "Do you have any objection to my borrowing these bottles?"

"No, please take them if they will be of use to you."

Akechi removed a linen handkerchief from his pocket, and carefully placed several cosmetics containers of his choosing inside it.

Returning to the parlor, Akechi arranged those containers and the blotting paper on the table, along with a single scrap of paper. On this last object, the fingerprints of some person's hand were impressed. Akechi suddenly drew out a magnifying glass.

"Madam, please look and compare the five fingerprints on this scrap of paper with those on the blotting paper and cosmetics that were in your daughter's room. If you make them bigger with a magnifying glass, it should be obvious even to an amateur."

"My goodness," the lady paled and made as if to back away. "Please examine them yourself. I am somehow frightened. . . ."

"No, I already examined them just now, and know that both sets of fingerprints are the same, but it would be better if you, madam, would take just one look at them."

"If you have looked at them, and they are the same, then isn't that sufficient? Even if I were to look, I wouldn't understand what I was seeing."

"Is that so? . . . Then I will tell you. But, Madam, you must not be shocked. Your daughter has been murdered. These fingerprints were taken from one arm of her corpse."

Mrs. Yamano staggered and looked as if she would collapse, but hung together by the skin of her teeth. She glared at Akechi with wide eyes and spoke stammeringly.

"Then, where on earth was this corpse you speak of?"

"Ginza—in the dry goods section of a department store. This is indeed a strange case; everything about it is out of the ordinary. I mean to say that, during the night, one arm of a decorative doll in the dry goods department of that store was replaced with a genuine corpse's arm. I have an acquaintance among the police clerks who let me know at once, and he secretly took these fingerprints for me while he was at it. After that, these prints were sent to the police along with the arm, which appears to have a large ring set with a ruby on one of its fingers. I think you probably have some knowledge of that ring as well."

"Yes, it's true that she was wearing a ruby ring, but to think that Michi's arm would be found on the sales floor of a department store! It simply doesn't feel real, just as if it were a nightmare."

"You're quite right, but there's no mistaking that this is reality. This incident will be fully reported in the evening paper before long, and sooner or later even the police will think to tie it to your daughter's case. In addition to sorrow, this matter may bring about some exceedingly troublesome problems for your family."

"Oh dear, Mr. Akechi, what should I do?" Mrs. Yamano, eyes filling with tears, a kind of queer, strained expression on her face, spoke as if clinging to Akechi for support.

"There is nothing we can do but swiftly locate the criminal and take back your daughter's body. Even the police should be sufficient to investigate this case, and they may be surprisingly quick to reach a solution. Aside from that, has your husband returned home?"

"Yes, he got my telegram and returned the day before yesterday, but he's terribly fond of Michi, so when I told him about the piano and the rest of it, he got discouraged that she was probably already dead and became practically an invalid, withdrawing to his bed chamber and refusing to meet with anyone. Because of this, I've been at a loss whether or not to inform my husband of our discussion for some time now."

"You mustn't tell him, I suppose. It sounds as if your husband's despondency is terrible. I wonder if he could see me today?"

The lady appeared hesitant to speak. "Well, he was told of your presence some time ago, but he wishes you to excuse him for today."

"Then I will take my leave, but first I will make a brief report

of my investigations up to today." Akechi thought for a moment and then continued. "First, the whereabouts of that sanitation worker—the one I said may have concealed your daughter's body in the garbage and carried it off. I spent the whole next day finding out as much about him as I could. Somehow or other, I managed to track him as far as the east end of Azuma Bridge by drawing out the memories of a variety of people. But after that, whether he crossed the bridge, or whether he took the riverbank and went toward Umaya Bridge, or else turned left toward Narihira Bridge, I have tried all possible means and still don't know. Even now, one of my subordinates is conducting an investigation in that direction, but there is still no word from him.

"There is also the driver, Fukiya, of your household." Akechi smirked at something and kept his eyes on the lady's face. "It seems that you have been concealing something, madam. I do not think it unreasonable of you, but if pressed I would say that concealing a thing only encourages people's inquisitiveness. I conducted an investigation into Fukiya at once, and I have probably been able to gain an even fuller knowledge of the situation than you yourself. The relationship between your daughter and Fukiya appears to have been serious on both sides, but if I had to choose between them I would say that your daughter was the more enthusiastic. I think you were most likely aware of this as well. What you may not know is that, before your daughter, Fukiya had been with the maid, Komatsu. (She was the woman who discovered your daughter's room empty that morning, wasn't she?) And his relationship with this Komatsu had been quite a serious one. In other words, there was something like a love triangle.

"It looks as if there is some meaning in Fukiya requesting leave to return to his hometown at just about the time of your daughter's disappearance, just as your husband thought. So, I took the same path as your husband and tried following Fukiya. I investigated all of his movements since the second of April. As a matter of fact, he begged leave of your husband on the third, and that evening he boarded a train for his home town of Osaka. At that time he was alone, with no female traveling companion or anything of the kind, as many witnesses have gathered their voices to testify, although many of them were people in the same business.

"Did your husband not meet with Fukiya in Osaka? It is unfortunate that I am unable to see him and inquire into the circumstances of their meeting, but Fukiya most likely has no connection at all to your daughter's present calamity, although I suppose he may know something." Akechi gazed steadily at Mrs. Yamano as he spoke. The lady only paled, was moved to tears, and hung her head in shame. Akechi was unable to read anything in her expression.

"If one were to go only by appearances, the maid Komatsu would now be the prime suspect." Akechi lowered his voice still more. "As far as she was concerned, your daughter was a rival in love. In addition, as a maid she could enter and leave your daughter's room at any time without being suspected, and she was also the first to discover that your daughter was missing. And if we cannot take it as strange that since that time she has claimed to be ill and secluded herself in her room, then there is nothing we can take as such."

"No, if that's all there was she would never do such a dreadful thing," Mrs. Yamano grew flustered and interrupted Akechi. "She is an unfortunate girl. Both of her parents were gone and she had just been sold to a dreadful place by an awful uncle when my husband got wind of it and rescued her. It has been four years since then, and in that time we have reared her, treating her just as if she were our own daughter. That girl feels herself awfully indebted to our family. It was practically her favorite phrase to say that if it were for my husband's sake she would not even regret laying down her life, and she works diligently for us. And she is a girl of quite a gentle disposition, so she would never do anything to Michiko no matter what the circumstance might be."

"That's so. I agree that Komatsu isn't the sort of woman to do such a thing." Akechi mussed his hair with his fingers. "I only said that appearances are such as to pin suspicion on that woman. I know very well that Komatsu is innocent, but she may still know something. I went to her bedroom the other day and put a number of questions to her, but whatever I asked she only said she didn't know. She would not even raise her head. When I asked forcefully, she finally burst into tears. I'm certain that she has some sort of secret."

Akechi peered into Mrs. Yamano's pale face, as if determined not to miss even a subtle shift in her expression. Keeping his manner ordinary, he proceeded to the next topic of conversation.

"A strange cripple appears to be connected to this case, one of those commonly called a dwarf. You wouldn't happen to know such a person, would you? Although you've probably heard already, Kobayashi says that he saw such a person the other night, and the same dwarf seems to be somehow involved in this incident at the department store. A clerk claims to have seen him in the middle of the night, crawling like a worm beside a doll called 'Ms. Plum.'"

"My goodness." Mrs. Yamano shivered as if with genuine discomfort. "When I heard the story from Mr. Kobayashi, I thought that he must have made some mistake, but, well, there really is such a cripple, then, in spite of everything? No, I don't know a thing. Except for when I was small and saw one at a show, I haven't seen anything like a dwarf in my life."

"I suspected it would be so." Akechi continued to look into the lady's eyes. "There's something odd about that story. Kobayashi certainly saw the dwarf enter Yōgen Temple, but he says that there is no such person in the temple and that the people of the neighborhood have never seen one.

"The same thing has happened again this time," Akechi continued. "In spite of the clerk seeing the dwarf in the middle of the night, there is no indication of such a cripple entering or leaving the store on either the preceding or the following day. There's no trace of him breaking a window to get in and out, either. He seems to disappear every time, as if vanishing into thin air. I wonder if there mightn't be some meaning in that."

Akechi knew something. He knew, but he affected an air of innocence, appearing as though he were merely exchanging frivolous conversation. Perhaps he had made a plan and been acting out a drama from the first.

"The most mysterious point in the current incident, although I think that you, madam, are particularly aware of this, is that the criminal should attempt to lay bare his own crime before the public. What Kobayashi saw, that incident of the leg in Senju (although that may be an entirely separate case), and these happenings in the department store all look as if the criminal wishes to tell the world that a horrible murder has been committed. Especially today's case, in which he even went so far as to leave the ring in its proper place. Doesn't that seem as if he is advertising: 'This is Michiko Yamano's arm'? A murderer who wishes to advertise his own crime is utterly unimaginable. Unless he were a fool or a madman—no, even if he were—he would never do something so reckless. And attaching the arm of a corpse to a decorative doll in a department store without revealing himself to anyone is not a feat that a fool or a madman could perform. Taking this into account, there must be some deep scheme behind these happenings, which appear absurd at first glance." Akechi cut his words off there with a sigh and gazed at Mrs. Yamano's pale face. He sat staring motionlessly like that for an unnaturally long time.

Conscious of the keen glint in Akechi's eye, Mrs. Yamano trembled, her eyes still cast downward in shame. Her consciousness was distorted by an excess of terror and she appeared unable to speak.

"So, if this affair has been carried out according to some deep plan, it can have only one meaning. In other words, the criminal is elsewhere. Whoever exposed a part of your daughter's corpse to the public eye is not the criminal, and he is employing such startling methods in order to threaten the true criminal. He is adopting extreme measures for some purpose of his own. Surely the thing can be conceived in that way?"

At that moment, Mrs. Yamano raised her head with a gasp of surprise and stared at Akechi. The two remained silent, glaring steadily at each other. They exchanged glares, terrible glints in their eyes, as if each were penetrating the breast of the other. But in the next instant, Mrs. Yamano laid her face on the table and burst violently into tears. No matter how she tried to suppress it, a breast-piercing, shrill voice leaked out between her sleeves. Her small shoulders heaved violently. At the nape of her white neck, straggling hairs tangled and shook seductively.

At that point the door opened, and the houseboy came in. Perceiving the alarming nature of the situation, he looked as if he were about to retrace his steps but changed his mind and came closer to the table. He too appeared to be extremely agitated about something.

"Mistress," he nervously appealed to the lady, "a terrible thing has come."

The lady at last suppressed her tears and raised her face.

"This parcel arrived just now." The houseboy placed the long, thin, wooden box he held on the table and glanced in Akechi's direction.

The parcel was a plain wooden box, securely nailed shut, but the houseboy appeared to have forced it open. Half the lid was cracked, and something wrapped in oil paper protruded from within.

The long, thin, wooden box had been in with the first afternoon post. Although there was no sender's signature, Yamaki, the houseboy, had calmly opened the lid, thinking that it must nonetheless be a gift from someplace. (In the case of things other than sealed letters, such as parcels and publications, it was the custom in this house for the houseboy to open the package and then present the contents to the master.) But when he caught a glimpse of the thing inside, Yamaki turned pale. He did not know how best to deal with this. He hesitated to startle his ill master, but he could not leave it in silence, either. Then he had suddenly remembered that the amateur detective Akechi Kogorō was visiting and was at that moment in the parlor. In any case, he brought the parcel to where the lady and Akechi were.

Akechi removed the oil paper-wrapped item from within the box as he listened to the houseboy's explanation and carefully peeled back the wrapping. A human arm, turned the purplish brown color of paper treated with astringent persimmon juice, emerged from within the oil paper. It had been severed completely at the elbow, and black blood had solidified on the cut end. An unbearable stench assailed the nose.

"You, please take your mistress over there! It's better that she not see this," Akechi shouted, quickly thrusting the parcel back inside the box.

Mrs. Yamano, however, had seen everything. She stood up with an expressionless face, her eyes fixed on a single point. Her face was so white it seemed on the verge of becoming transparent.

"You, quickly!" Akechi and the houseboy supported Mrs. Yamano together. The lady no longer had the strength to stand. Still silent, she departed for the Japanese-style room supported by the houseboy's arms.

Once the lady was gone, Akechi opened the parcel again, took out the thing inside, and gazed at it a while. The skin seemed that it would come loose and peel off if he did not take great care. It was the left forearm of a young woman, and looked as if it might form a perfect pair with the thing that had been exposed to the public eye in the department store.

Taking down an inkstone case from a shelf and making some ink, he carefully lowered the five half-rotted fingers onto a notepad and took their prints. Then, he wrapped the arm up again, shut it inside the box as before, and placed it in a corner of the room where it would not be noticed. Needless to say, he made a minute inspection of the wooden box, the wrapping paper, the inscription of the recipient's name on the lid of the box, and so on without neglecting even a single spot.

After that, he opened the handkerchief into which he had earlier placed Michiko's cosmetics, extracted its contents, and compared the fingerprints remaining on the containers with those reproduced on the notepad by peering through a magnifying glass.

"Just as I thought." With a sigh, he addressed himself in a low voice. He knew that the forearm inside the box was Michiko's without a doubt. After that, perhaps thinking of something he had overlooked, Akechi ascended the stairs to Michiko's room once more and busied himself for a while. When he finally descended again, Yamaki, the houseboy, was waiting for him.

"The mistress has sent me to ask you to see yourself out if your investigation is concluded and to kindly take care of contacting the police."

"Ah, is that so? Please convey to her that she need have no worry on that account. But would your master be able to see me? Even a moment would do."

"No. I know it seems terribly rude, but because the master's nerves have become extremely sensitive owing to this affair of the young mistress, he says that he wishes to keep news of the matter from reaching his ears as much as possible. Everything is being kept secret from him, so at the moment he wishes to avoid meeting with anyone if at all possible."

"Is that so? In that case, I will be going. Please take great care to keep this box preserved somewhere. Someone from the police should come by for it sooner or later. So until then avoid handling it as much as possible." Akechi carefully pocketed the handkerchief bundle containing the cosmetics and rose to leave.

Yamaki and Oyuki the maid escorted him as far as the entryway. As they passed through a dim portion of the corridor, Oyuki passed a small scrap of paper to Akechi. Yamaki, walking ahead of them, did not notice a thing.