According to the police, who are strictly keeping away outsiders in an effort to find a clue, an intensive search is now being conducted across the city for the bank robber.
I stop writing. I file the story. I get my hat and my coat. I tell Shiratō to wait where he is, that I’m going to the Seibo Hospital, and I’ll be back in a couple of hours.
IN THE FICTIONAL CITY, in the Seibo Hospital, I am wearing a stolen white coat, I am pretending to be a doctor –
Pretending, impersonating, deceiving…
I smile at the policeman. I open the door. I step inside the room. She is alone in the room, lying in the only bed, her eyes closed. I walk to the end of the bed. I read the name above her head –
I write it down in my notebook:
Murata Masako …
I sit down in a chair beside the bed. I see her hand on top of the blankets. I sit forward in the chair beside the bed. I reach for her hand on the blankets. I hold her hand. I lean towards her face. I whisper in her ear, ‘Miss Murata, Miss Murata …’
I see her swallow in her sleep –
‘Can you hear me, Miss Murata …?’
I see her eyelids flicker –
‘Can you tell me what happened to you, Miss Murata?’
I see her eyes opening. I see her looking at me now –
‘Can you tell me what happened to you in the bank?’
Now her body starts to tremble. Her mouth begins to open — ’
Get away!’ she shouts. ‘Get away from me!’
I let go of her hand. I stand up. I want to apologize. I want to explain. But I turn away. And I walk away –
‘Get away! Get away from me!’
Out of the room. The hospital.
IN THE FICTIONAL CITY, I walk her streets and I hear her stories, telephones ringing and voices whispering, along the wires and down the cables, a telephone and a voice with a time and with a place –
An hour later, I turn a corner off the main street, and I walk down an alley of pawnshops and mahjong parlours. Half-way down the alleyway, I push open a frosted-glass door. A bell above the door rings and five pairs of eyes glance up from the shadows of the dark and narrow room. I walk through these shadows, past their glances that are now stares, and I sit down on a sofa at the back of the room. Across a large porcelain brazier, a man is sitting opposite me, reading a newspaper, my newspaper –
The Yomiuri…
The man slowly folds up the newspaper. He takes off his glasses. He puts the glasses in the breast pocket of his jacket. He sits forward in his chair. He stretches out his hands over the edge of the brazier. He looks up at me and he says, ‘I hope you brought your wallet with you?’
IN THE FICTIONAL CITY, the MPB have made a statement, and then another, and another, and so I write a story, and then another, and another:
WIDE MANHUNT ON FOR POISON KILLER; INVESTIGATORS WORK ON DESCRIPTION GIVEN BY 4 MASS MURDER SURVIVORS
Slayer Believed Familiar With Medicines; Assisted By Several Accomplices?
WANTED!
Description of culprit in Teikoku Bank Shiinamachi branch
mass poison murder case:
Sex: Male. Age: From 45 to 56. Height: 5 ft. 2 or 3 in.
Thin, long-faced, pale, high-nose,
crop-haired with a sprinkling of grey hair.
Brown blemish on left cheek.
Was wearing brown overcoat at time of crime.
TOKYO, Jan. 28 — With the above description of the culprit given by the four survivors as the chief clue, the Metropolitan Police Board, mobilizing its most experienced criminal investigators, is on the search for the perpetrators of one of the coldest-blooded crimes of modern times.
The search is on for the man who, as reported yesterday, posed as a health inspector and induced 16 persons at the Shiinamachi branch of the Teikoku Bank to take poison, killing 12 of them.
The police base their belief (a) that the culprit was familiar with medicine and epidemic prevention and (b) that he was someone who knew the district and the bank well on the following two factors:
Dysentery cases had been reported in the district recently.
The criminal wore the armband of the Tokyo Metropolitan sanitation bureau and did not arouse any suspicion among the 16 who drank the poison.
Investigation headquarters have been established at the Mejiro police station.
The names of the victims of the mass poison slaughter have been ascertained as follows:
Dead — Watanabe Yoshiyasu, 43, chief treasurer; Shirai Shoichi, 28; Kato Teruko, 16; Uchida Yuko, 22; Takeuchi Sutejiro, 48, messenger; Nishimura Hidehiko, 38; Akiyama Miyako, 22; Takizawa Tatsuo, 46, messenger; his wife, Takizawa Ryuko, 51; Takizawa’s son, Yoshihiro, 7; Takizawa’s daughter, Takako, 18; and Sawada Yoshio, 21.
Those in critical condition: — Yoshida Takejiro, 42, assistant manager; Akusawa Yoshiko, 18; Murata Masako, 21; and Tanaka Norikazu, 28.
The first of the two bottles that the culprit induced his victims to drink is ascertained to have contained potassium cyanide.
The armband he wore is believed to have been one issued at the time of the recent flood disaster to students, hospitals, ward offices, and volunteer workers.
The crime is believed to have been planned by several persons in conjunction with the culprit who appeared at the bank.
Four persons who figured in a similar attempt made previously at the Nakai branch of the Mitsubishi Bank are believed to have some connection with the Teikoku Bank case.
The latest check shows that from ¥110,000 to ¥120,000 of the bank’s money are missing.
Doctor Suspected
TOKYO, Jan. 28 — Police suspicion in the Teikoku Bank mass murder case has fallen on a certain middle-aged doctor living within the jurisdiction of the Mejiro police station who fits the description given by Miss Murata Masako, one of the survivors, it is learned.
Linked With Case?
TOKYO, Jan. 28 — A man committed suicide with potassium cyanide at a hotel not far from the Shiinamachi branch of the Teikoku Bank early this morning.
As the poison taken by the suicide is the same as that which killed the bank employees, the Mejiro police station is investigating whether he is connected with the mass murder case.
The suicide, who registered as Yokobe Kunio, a company official at Komagawa-mura, Iruma-gun, Saitama prefecture, put up at the Kiraku Inn at 2156 Shiina-machi 5-chōme, Toshima-ku, yesterday at about 9.30 p.m. and took the potassium cyanide today at about 6 a.m.
He was wearing a grey sweater, khaki coat, black serge trousers and black overcoat. In his wallet was only about ¥100.
His hair was not cropped.
In the Fictional City, this city of millions, millions will buy my newspaper, millions will buy my stories.
IN THE FICTIONAL CITY, I am back in the Seibo Hospital, back wearing a stolen white coat, back pretending to be a doctor –