by Ben Stevens
The woman nodded, and then said –
‘Maybe you think I am now making a case for myself, but I do not believe that I would have seen the merchant named Akiyama be wrongfully convicted and executed for the murder of my mother – no matter how shamefully he treated her over the years.
‘But I did want him to suffer somehow – to believe almost to the last moment that he was going to die – as some sort of revenge for all that my poor, devoted mother endured at his hands.’
‘What… What is this?’ demanded the magistrate.
‘Read the letter,’ said Holmes. ‘This one, lying upon the table.’
As the magistrate picked up this letter, Holmes looked meaningfully at him and added –
‘Rinko Aoki should certainly receive some sort of punishment for her deception… On the other hand, she has recently suffered the loss of her mother, so that perhaps a short period of imprisonment would be sufficient. Certainly nothing more than this.’
The magistrate did not answer, instead focusing his attention upon that letter. He held it in such a way that I, stood close beside him, was able to read it too.
My dear Rinko (the letter read) –
By the time you read this, I will be dead. You knew I was to shortly die anyway, the doctor telling me that there is certainly a cancer growing inside of me. I have tolerated the pain this cancer gave me as well as I can and yet… Death, at least, will mean I no longer have to suffer that.
You have never approved of the man I have been seeing since the time you were very young; ever since the death of your father, in fact. And it is true that he has beaten me and been unspeakably cruel on so many occasions. And yet, for all of that I still loved him. Until I recently (very recently) discovered that he has begun seeing another woman. This I cannot forgive.
So for just this reason alone, I have taken steps to ensure that Akiyama the merchant’s wealth will shortly become yours. I will die knowing that my beloved only child, now parentless and without any other relation, will at least not have any financial worries in the years to come.
All you need now do is this –
Go to the top of the cliff that is beyond the small temple and the cemetery nearby. There you will find the end of a length of rope that has been weighted down with a rock. Pull on this rope, and within a minute or so you will bring up a knife and a pair of shoes tied to the other end. These objects – particularly the knife – will be bloodstained. I am sorry. Yes, it is this knife I used to end my own life, first tying it to this rope, the other end of which is hanging just a couple of feet above the riverbed that is below the overhanging cliff.
The shoes… Well, you need not concern yourself about these.
Recover these items, Rinko, taking great care not to be seen by anyone, and hurl them in the sea somewhere. Return to our house – or rather your house, as it is now – and await to be informed of my death. Affect the suitable level of grief, as well as surprise at the events which follow next…
My daughter, I beg you to recover from whatever sadness or shock this letter has caused you, and to do at once as I have requested. Time is most important.
With all my love,
Mama.
‘The way you reacted to the news that Akiyama had been arrested contrasted strongly with your almost sullen character of before,’ Holmes informed the young woman. ‘You could not play the part well; it did not sit easily with you.’
‘No,’ nodded the woman. ‘But as I say, still I wanted him to suffer, for all he had done to my mother.’
‘You nearly caused an innocent man to be found guilty of murder, and so to be –’
‘Yes, this we already know.’ Holmes curtly cut through the magistrate’s indignant (although also, it seemed to me, somewhat affected) bluster. ‘I would feel rather more sympathetic towards Akiyama – at the way this young woman’s mother planted ‘clues’ to frame him for ‘murder’, shortly before taking her own life – if it hadn’t been made abundantly clear to me just what sort of man he is.
‘So, as I say, this young woman should receive nothing more than a token punishment – is that clear?’
‘As you like, Holmes-san,’ nodded the magistrate sullenly. ‘You may be a foreigner, but I am aware of the fame you already have in Japan. So, I shall act in accordance with your wishes.’
Without another word, Holmes left the house. I followed him outside, and we began walking.
‘Together, Yoshida-sensei, we’ve faced murderous monks and enraged bare-knuckle boxers, to make reference to just two of our cases,’ mused Holmes, after a while. ‘And yet, give me any of these before the greatest danger of all…’
‘And that is…?’ I prompted.
‘A woman scorned,’ replied Holmes, with a gentle sigh.
Sherlock Holmes and the Sumo Wrestler
Almost everyone had heard of Kato already, of course. The famous 350-pound, six-foot rikishi – sumo wrestler – who cared little for etiquette or tradition, destroying his opponents the length and breadth of Japan as he rose rapidly up the sumo ladder. He frequently liked to indulge in sake (which still never affected his performance in the dohyo – the semi-circular ring), which also on occasion caused him to grab male well-wishers by their genitalia, leading them yelping around some inn or other such place.
On another occasion – again at an inn, where Kato was staying the night – a foreign customer in the room next to his dared complain about the noise late in the evening, coming from Kato’s room where the massive rikishi was busy entertaining some geisha. Kato promptly settled the matter by throwing the gaijin out of a second-floor window. For a while, it seemed as though the man might die from his injuries, and when he at last recovered Kato was obliged to pay a significant amount of money in damages.
Not that he cared. Still under thirty, he was already extremely wealthy, and could thus well afford to ‘pay off’ anyone who suffered because of his drunken behavior. In the dohyo, meanwhile, he rarely bowed to or even acknowledged his opponent – something for which he was regularly reprimanded, though much he cared for that – and, moreover, often waved one clenched fist in the air, when he won a match.
Such behavior is, of course, entirely anathema in the world of sumo. Even if a rikishi has just won a match for which they have been in training for many months, against their ultimate opponent, they are still expected to display no more emotion than if someone had simply informed them that it is raining outside. But Kato was a law unto himself, and completely unstoppable. His unbelievable arrogance was matched only by his sheer physical power, and all those who found themselves in his way (both in the dohyo as well as outside of it) were mercilessly dealt with.
And now, today, in a gigantic tournament building containing several thousand spectators, Kato stood the chance of becoming yokozuna – the highest rank in sumo. Traditionally, yokozuna have had to conduct themselves with extreme dignity at all times; yet no one was expecting any such behavior from Kato, if he happened to win today. His opponent was a powerhouse from Hokkaido, quiet, respectful and apparently teetotal – in every way the opposite of Kato.
The atmosphere was charged, here inside this huge tournament building. Sherlock Holmes and I had come to this city of Osaka to investigate a string of suspicious deaths – of moneylenders, those wealthy men who are still so despised and belittled by the samurai class for their conspicuous greed. Holmes (whose ethics are – remarkably for a foreigner – often like those of the – in fact, recently abolished – samurai) would not have touched this case, but the wife of one of the dead men had travelled especially to see him, and while performing a full kneeling bow, her voice choked with tears, had begged for his assistance.
And so we had spent several days quietly looking into the deaths of the seven men, which had all occurred within the space of a year. Several had died in their beds… Another one had been found slumped at his desk, having suddenly expired in the act of counting out a sum of money… All appeared to have suffered some sort of mas
sive heart attack or stroke, although they were not all old, or obese, as moneylenders are typically portrayed in such things as novels and theatrical performances.
Holmes’s skillful investigations into this matter had exposed a number of unsavory details – one married man had several mistresses, for example, while another had a predilection for teenage boys – but nothing which suggested that the deaths of the seven moneylenders had been anything other than natural.
But seven such men? And all in the space of one year? This surely stretched the boundaries of coincidence too far…
…I was distracted from my thoughts by the arrival of Kato and his opponent into the dohyo, over which was suspended a roof resembling that of a Shinto shrine. Holmes and I were sitting on cushions very close to the ring; a high-ranking city official had learned of the famous Englishman’s presence in Osaka, and had immediately offered him (and thus me) two of the finest ringside seats in the house.
We’d been kept well-supplied with food and sake while awaiting the arrival of Kato and the other would-be yokozuna, other, lower-ranking sumo fighting for the entertainment of the several thousand people present.
After this match was finished, the city official had declared his intention of taking Holmes and me to visit one of Osaka’s finest artists, who, it was said, could make any scene using an array of colored thread, utilizing a remarkable wooden frame which she – and the man who mixed the many dyes for her thread, and in general apparently acted as her assistant – had constructed.
…But here was Kato, and his opponent. The atmosphere was fully-charged, although the noise from the huge crowd gathered at once died down. The opponent threw salt around his side of the dohyo, symbolically purifying it, while Kato merely crouched low on his haunches and glowered at his opponent, his stare stating quite clearly –
I am ready when you are.
Both men were wearing the stiff, mawashi wrestling belts, while Kato was just slightly of larger build. Finally, his opponent squatted down opposite him, the men both touched their fists upon the ground – and at that they charged against each other, surely meeting with the force of two colliding bulls.
Kato favored utilizing a series of lightning-fast, almost karate-like chops, while his opponent attempted to get a grip of Kato’s mawashi, which would thus enable a throw to be performed. The seconds ticked by – already this sumo match was lasting an unusually long time – and it started to become obvious that Kato’s opponent stood a strong chance of winning.
Ignoring the blows raining down upon his shoulders, he managed to grasp Kato’s mawashi… With awesome strength he lifted Kato almost onto his toes, and began to turn in for a throw… All seemed lost for Kato…
And then, all at once, the opponent seemed to stagger slightly, and his hands fell away from Kato’s mawashi. So close was I sat to the dohyo, that I could distinctly see the opponent’s eyes roll in his head – for he was facing me. And then he collapsed, although Kato attempted to make it look as though he’d skillfully thrown the man.
There was instant uproar, the crowd going wild with delight. Seat cushions rained down in and around the dohyo, the many people watching thus registering their pleasure in the time-honored fashion. The gyoji, the referee, waved his fan in Kato’s direction, fruitlessly trying to raise his voice above the din to announce Kato as the victor – and thus a yokozuna.
‘Something’s wrong,’ murmured Holmes, and instantly I realized that the opponent was not moving, sprawled out upon the floor of the ring. Several men crouched down by his side, and the crowd began to quieten, several thousand tongues now murmuring in confusion and concern. Kato, meanwhile, only held aloft his colossal fists and bellowed his delight; a shocking way for a rikishi – never mind an actual yokozuna – to behave, quite apart from the current circumstances…
Still the opponent was not moving, and I heard one of the men attending to him shout –
‘He’s not breathing!’
As a doctor, I at once sprang into the ring. Joining the other men gathered around the still body of the wrestler, I felt for a pulse, and then gave them a slight shake of my head. There truly was no hope for the man; he was obviously quite dead.
The crowds began to be ushered out, as Holmes disappeared with the other men into the rooms behind the actual ring, where the various rikishi prepare for their tournaments. I waited in that cavernous hall that had become quite empty, until finally Holmes reappeared, together with the high-ranking city official – a dignified-looking man named Suzuki – who was currently acting as our escort. Suzuki’s face now appeared haggard and drawn, while Holmes appeared pensive, and deep in thought.
‘A sudden death, Yoshida-sensei – as seemingly ‘natural’, yet contrastingly suspicious, as those other deaths we have so lately been investigating,’ said Holmes to me. ‘Kato’s opponent was a young man, and for all his considerable bulk still apparently in excellent health – and yet, quite suddenly, in the middle of the most important match of his life, he dropped dead.’
‘Then Kato is surely no longer yokozuna,’ I queried.
‘Oh no – he will retain that rank,’ declared Suzuki. ‘We did not realize his opponent was dead until after the end of the match, and so there is no way to say when it was he actually died. A harsh judgment, perhaps, but that is sumo. Fatalities do sometimes occur, and injuries far more often, but every rikishi knows the risks they are running…’
It was on the tip of my tongue to say just what I had seen (the deceased rikishi’s eyes rolling in his head, that is, and the way he’d seemed almost to collapse to the ground), but then Suzuki continued –
‘In any case, we will now go and see Shige-san, one of Osaka’s finest artists, and attempt to put this whole unfortunate situation behind us,’ he declared. ‘Incidentally, I don’t know if you are aware, but Shige-san and Kato-san have been ‘in a relationship’, as it were, for quite a while now. Osaka is Kato-san’s home-city, after all; I believe the pair met at some sort of social occasion.’
My surprise at this caused me to say –
‘Surely, then, she would be here, to see him compete in such an important match?’
‘I believe she does not like such a rough sport, and indeed desires for Kato-san to retire. Which, now that he has reached such an exalted rank, he may well do – for such a thing is reasonably common.’
‘Yes,’ said Holmes, still with that brooding expression. ‘Sumo wrestlers who continue the sport beyond the age of thirty-five, or as old as forty, risk an ever-greater chance of injury, or even death. The advantages of quitting the sport, and slimming down somewhat, while one is still relatively young, are well-known.’
‘A spectacular achievement for Kato-san today, but one that has surely been marred for him by the tragic death of his opponent,’ I ventured.
‘On the contrary,’ returned Holmes, his tone a little tight, ‘Kato and his entourage are currently in his dressing rooms, celebrating in fine style. He does not seem in the least distressed by the unfortunate fact which has resulted in him becoming yokozuna.’
Suzuki glanced in slight surprise at the English detective, who by speaking so (and neglecting to add any honorific to Kato’s name) had perfectly transmitted his negative opinion of the triumphant yokozuna.
‘Anyway,’ said Suzuki with a cough, ‘the exit is this way…’
As he walked slightly ahead of us, I again noticed Holmes’s intent expression. It showed that something had occurred to him, some suspicion, and his mind was currently turning whatever this was over-and-over, trying to make sense of it…
‘Holmes-san?’ I couldn’t help but say, almost in a whisper.
‘Kato didn’t put his hands in the salt, before the match commenced,’ returned Holmes, speaking almost to himself and in a voice so soft I could only just hear it. Suzuki, certainly, wasn’t even aware Holmes was speaking.
‘He has always distained sumo tradition, and been infamous for his arrogance – but his refusal to ‘purify’ the ring wit
h salt, as every rikishi does almost without thinking prior to fighting a match… I don’t believe he’s ever done such a thing before, for it would certainly have been commented upon…
‘So why today, Yoshida-sensei? Why…?
2
It was only a short walk to the modest wooden building which served as the workplace of the artist named Shige. As we walked, Suzuki coughed again, clearing his throat, and said a little nervously –
‘Forgive me, Holmes-san, but I and several other city officials were just wondering if…’
‘You are referring to the deaths of the seven moneylenders, of course,’ returned Holmes. ‘Such ‘personal’ information as I have discovered is, of course, available to you, although, so far as I can tell, it bears absolutely no relation to the men’s unexpected and somewhat ‘sudden’ deaths, which have all occurred within the space of just one year.
‘There was just one thing, however…’
Suzuki glanced keenly at Sherlock Holmes, whose voice had at once fallen into silence. I also desired to hear what this ‘one thing’ was – for I had accompanied Holmes during this investigation into the deaths of the moneylenders, and he’d yet to mention anything significant to me…
‘Um… Yes, Holmes-san?’ said Suzuki, when the famous detective still did not speak. I felt that the Englishman’s mind was again on the sumo match we had just seen, which had ended so terribly for Kato’s opponent.
‘I was permitted to examine the financial records of three of the men,’ declared Holmes then. ‘In the four other cases I was either refused outright (by a spouse or senior clerk of the dead man’s business), or some excuse was made.
‘But within those ledgers, those financial records I was allowed to check, I was able to discover that a significant amount of money had been paid out shortly (weeks or at the most a couple of months) before the moneylender’s death. I do not mean that this was recorded matter-of-factly by the moneylender, as an obvious matter of business.
