by Ben Stevens
‘Of… of course, Mr. Ennin,’ stammered Captain Spillard. ‘But, for pity’s sake, if you know anything, then please say what this is right now – ’
‘I have to go and investigate something else – something of considerable importance – concerning this case first; everything must be in order, before I can act,’ returned the detective, giving a slight bow. For all his considerable reputation – and formidable ability for unarmed combat, as I’d so recently observed! – like many Japanese, he seemed slightly shy and awkward in the presence of the gaijin.
‘Well, of course, you must do as you see fit,’ declared the Captain gruffly.
‘Thank you,’ said the detective. And together with his servant, he walked towards the bridge which connects Leaving Island to the harbor.
As promised, Ennin returned as it got dark, which in Japan at this time of year is approximately seven p.m. (The sun, also, sets far quicker in the East than it does the West.) I noticed he did not have his servant with him on this occasion, though this observation hardly seemed very important.
Upon Ennin’s request, a small group of us (including Captain Spillard, and the translator Nakayama) went up to the row of rooms that are above one of the large warehouses. The residents of Leaving Island are fortunate to each have their own room, which is small but which nevertheless comprises of a bed, desk, chair, mirror and cupboard.
‘It is now fully dark, and we have made our way up here by candlelight,’ declared Ennin. ‘This is the room occupied by James Plummer we are standing outside of, you say, Captain – and that is the staircase, some twenty yards away at the end of this wooden corridor, where he claimed to have caught sight of Robert Figg?’
‘That is so,’ returned the Captain gruffly.
‘Please extinguish the candles.’
A moment of surprise, and then the Captain nodded to the two men holding the only sources of light.
‘Do as he says, lads.’
With the candles extinguished, everything was pitch-black. There was no window, here in the corridor, to provide any moonlight. It was inconceivable that Plummer could have seen Figg take the stairs, when right now I could scarce see my hand in front of my own face.
The meaning was obvious: Plummer was lying, in at least part of his story.
‘Thank you,’ said the Japanese detective softly. ‘You may light the candles again.
‘He said… he said he heard a cough, though,’ remarked the Captain. ‘Through this, he could identify Figg…’
Ennin gave one of those curious smiles of the Japanese; the one which implies deep regret, or just disagreement.
‘He had to try and invent a plausible story quickly, which, as has just been shown, can easily be disproved. But let us go back outside, and I shall present to you the real killer of Robert Figg.’
‘What?’ blurted the Captain, giving voice to my own thought; but Ennin had already started walking towards the stairs…
Outside, he further surprised the several men in his company by giving a high, penetrating whistle. Then he stood, smiling ever so slightly, as his sturdy servant presented himself, together with a delicate young woman dressed in a kimono which, I knew, immediately identified her as being one of the yujo who ply their trade in the harbor – and upon this island.
She stood, staring down at the ground, as Ennin said –
‘This is Midori. We all know her occupation. Leaving this island earlier, I went immediately to each of the ‘houses’ in a certain part of the harbor, asking the woman in charge of each house if any of her employees had made a request for a new kimono that very morning. A number of women said outright that nothing of the sort had occurred; but when one woman hesitated, I knew that just such a thing had occurred, and so pressed her for the identity of the woman who’d asked for a new kimono.
‘I was presented with Midori here, and after I basically informed her of what had happened just the previous night, she confessed everything.
‘A single bloodstain upon Plummer’s shirt, and Figg with such traumatic head injuries? No, no, Figg’s real killer – that is, Midori here – would have been greatly covered by his blood. And so, Midori had to ask for a new kimono this morning, making some excuse concerning the ‘loss’ of her old one.’
‘Wait… wait…’ gasped Captain Spillard, holding out his hand in front of him like a man vainly trying to halt a charging house. ‘Then… why the bloodstain upon Plummer’s shirt, eh? Did he put it there himself?’
‘No, I believe he was genuinely unaware of it until it was observed by the others at breakfast this morning,’ returned Ennin easily. ‘It is here that I would allow Midori to speak for herself, but she is understandably nervous being here, and has come only because she wishes to save a man from being charged with – and quite possibly hanged for – murder.
‘As for herself, I have assured her that she has no other charge to answer for except for one of self-defense.’
‘That remains to be seen,’ said the Captain curtly. ‘If what you’re saying is true, she killed one of my men, after all...’
‘Put simply, what happened was this,’ continued Ennin, as though he’d not even heard the Captain’s words. ‘Midori came here last night, to – well, we know the reason. She met up with Figg, by chance, in one of the warehouses, but soon found that she’d got what might politely be called a ‘rough customer’. Further details are as unnecessary as they are unsavory, but Figg made demands which she found wholly unacceptable; and upon her refusal to ‘oblige’ him, he began to get violent.
‘Beside herself with fear, she grabbed the nearest weapon to hand – that club-like length of wood that was later observed – and struck Figg, repeatedly. She did not mean to kill him, but he was such a large man, and you see for yourselves how slight she is…
‘Then, hurriedly leaving the warehouse, she quite literally ran into Plummer – who’d come down here for much the same reason as Figg. This explains the bloodstain upon Plummer’s shirt, I believe, for as she impacted with him, a little of what was staining her kimono went onto him.
‘She expected that she would be restrained, and that this young foreign man would set up a cry of ‘murder’. She was therefore greatly surprised when, after a few moments spent checking the dead body of the fighter by candlelight, he indicated to her that she should just leave.
‘This she did.’
‘So Plummer lied about seeing Figg on the staircase out of shame because he was going to try and find a prostitute himself,’ said the Captain roughly. ‘But why frame himself for a murder he didn’t commit – why risk being hanged?’
‘For the answer to that,’ said Ennin, ‘maybe we should go and ask Plummer himself…’
Now that it was clear the young man was not, in fact, Figg’s assassin, he was let out of the small cell and taken into the dining hall, where he was seated and a mug of something strong and comforting placed in front him.
‘Why frame myself?’ he said, with a shrug. ‘Lord knows... Maybe I just couldn’t accept the fact that someone had killed Figg other than me – for I could quite easily have committed that crime! But when I saw that little woman there, and guessed what had taken place and why she’d struck him so cruelly, I could no more have caused her to be nabbed for the crime, than I could have sailed to the moon.
‘So I just indicated that she should go, which she did readily enough – while looking rather perplexed, I have to say – and I immediately returned back to my room. I thought the killing of Figg would remain a mystery – but, of course, I failed to notice that bloodstain upon my shirt, undoubtedly caused when the young woman ran into me.
‘Once that was noticed, there seemed to be no way to get myself out of the mess other than by giving up the woman, and that I just wasn’t prepared to do. Besides, who would now believe me, after I’d let her go before? Seemed the best I could do was to invent some sort of story about Figg and me fighting beforehand, thus giving me some claim for ‘self-defense’, but, I have to say, I d
idn’t really think this would save me from the gallows…
‘Only, please don’t say that woman’s going to swing for this crime…’
‘That woman’ had already been sent back over the bridge.
‘We have a different method of execution, here in Japan,’ said Ennin. ‘The sword as opposed to the rope... What the woman did will be reported to the daimyo of this region, but I do not expect the matter will go any further. It was a clear-cut case of self-defense, after all…’
‘She didn’t seem to hold back with that length of wood, in any case,’ harrumphed Captain Spillard; but I knew that it was clear to him, as it was to us all, that this was firmly the end of a somewhat regrettable matter.
‘Of course, I had to quickly make up a story as to why I was out there, in the warehouse, in the first place,’ said Plummer. ‘I gather Mr. Ennin – to whom it seems I quite possibly owe my life – quickly proved my lie there, though, I have to say, I hardly think that this was the most challenging test of his powers…’
The young man was clearly exhausted after all that had happened, and once he’d gone to bed Ennin left the island with his servant – and on this occasion, even Captain Spillard managed to say ‘Arigato’ (‘Thank you’) to him, for all that he’d done.
Strangely, this incident did much to improve relations between the Englishmen on Leaving Island and the Japanese locally. (Relations which had been slightly strained, ever since the previously-mentioned incident of the samurai and the English sailors.)
It became widely-known that Plummer-san (as the Japanese now refer to him) had risked almost certain death, through his determined attempt to keep the real identity of Figg’s killer a secret. So that he, at least, can sometimes leave the island, and walk freely around the harbor area, where – his face being so well-known – he is treated with respect and courtesy by everyone he encounters.
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