“We were experimenting in the forensic lab at university, and they used a cigarette butt that I had smoked. Do you know that you can detect a saliva type from one-third of a postage stamp that someone has licked? So that’s how I know.” And without further ceremony he turned away from Shinji, hurrying down the corridor with long strides.
Could this really be true? Could the semen found in the body of Kimiko Tsuda not belong to Yamazaki after all? So was he wrong in his theory about the woman with a mole who collected samples of AB Rh-negative blood and sperm? His supposition, which had seemed to be 99 percent probable, seemed on the point of collapse. But then, why would the woman with the mole bother to collect Yamazaki’s semen?
Shinji felt that he was still blundering in the dark.
Shinji came to the end of his report, but even then the old man did not raise his hooded eyes. He was gazing down at the scrap of paper that the Turkish bath girl had given to Tanikawa, tapping it absently with his fingertip. Was the old man silent because the case had turned out to be as he had expected? Was he stunned by this or merely satisfied? And yet, was there not an enormous hole in his theory—the matter of secretory and nonsecretory types, which Yamazaki had explained?
“The fact that Yamazaki is a nonsecretory type, and that his fluids are type O, does not matter at all,” said Hatanaka at length. “Indeed, it only goes to prove that the woman with the mole did use his sperm.”
“Why?”
“Well, go back and read the trial transcript. You will find that the semen found in Kimiko Tsuda’s body was originally classified as type O. However, a later submission by the prosecution to have it reclassified AB was upheld by the judge. It was partly due to this doubt that Honda was acquitted of that murder. However, it now seems plain to me that the original assessment was correct and that the semen found in the corpse must have indeed been type O.”
“But surely it is a matter of scientific fact rather than surmise?”
“Not a bit of it. Expert evidence is often just as subjective as lay evidence. Two different professors are quite likely to come up with two different views.”
“So you are convinced that the woman with the mole is the person who entrapped Ichiro Honda?”
“Can there be any doubt? I am quite convinced that the woman with the mole collected the semen and deposited it in the women’s bodies. And furthermore, I have proof that these crimes were premeditated for a long time. You see, last night I went to a bar called Boi in Shinjuku.” The old man’s eyes were like curtains; he paused and lit a fresh cigar.
“Let me tell you a little story. One summer’s evening just two years ago, Ichiro Honda was in that bar, singing the ‘Zigeunerliedchen.’ A girl joined him and sang with him. And they ended up spending the night together.”
“Where did they go? An inn?”
“Probably, but it is not relevant.”
Shinji felt the excitement welling up inside him; at the same time, he felt disgusted by Honda’s promiscuity.
“And let me tell you another little story. Six months later, there was a key-punch operator who took her own life; she fell from the window of an office building.” He drew heavily upon his cigar, blowing the purple cloud of smoke high toward the ceiling. “And the two stories are linked, for the girl was the same in each case. The girl who killed herself, and the girl who slept with Honda after singing ‘Zigeunerliedchen.’ One and the same—Keiko Obana, aged nineteen.”
“And was Honda the cause of her suicide?”
“No. She had become neurotic because of a vocational disease.” Shinji was listening attentively, but in place of the key-punch operator he was thinking of his former lover, the lending clerk in the library. She, too, had slept with Ichiro Honda, hadn’t she? He reflected bitterly upon his client.
Somewhere in the distance, he heard the old man continue. “Keiko Obana had an only sister, much older than she was.” Hatanaka’s voice was like a bee heard at a distance in a summer garden. “When Honda told me about Keiko Obana yesterday, I felt I had to go to the bar. So I went and sat in the box seat on the second floor where Honda said the girl was sitting before the singing began. After a little while, I heard the weeping strains of a violin from the ground floor, just as Honda had described to me. So I sent for the player and asked him to play ‘Zigeunerliedchen.’ The violinist, a bald old man, changed his expression sharply at my request.”
At last Hatanaka opened his sleepy eyelids and gazed at his junior. The old man’s voice began to take on an urgency that Shinji had never heard before.
“The player grinned at me in a crooked way and remarked, ‘Customers at Boi certainly like this song, don’t they, sir?’ I asked him what he meant, and he looked knowing and replied, ‘Next you are going to tell me that a thin girl occupied this seat and sang in chorus with a man downstairs. That would be right, wouldn’t it, sir?’” The old man stubbed out his cigar. “I asked if anyone else had put these questions to him, and he immediately answered that a woman had, about a year ago.”
Shinji felt as if he had suddenly been pulled from a dark coalhole into brilliant sunshine. He watched the old man’s lips as a gambler watches the dealer; it was as if two cards were about to be turned up, and they would both turn out to be the same.
“So I asked what the woman looked like. All he could remember was that she had a mole at the base of her nose, for the rest of her face was concealed by a wide-brimmed hat and sunglasses.”
Silence dominated the room. What had that woman with the mole been up to? Surely, Shinji thought, the old man was right; she was preparing to entrap Ichiro Honda.
“And what did the woman ask of the violinist?”
“The name of the man who had sung in union with the girl, and also the bars that he frequented.”
“And that was a year ago?”
“Yes. Just four months before the murder of Kimiko Tsuda at Kinshicho.”
“And who do you think she was?”
“I don’t know, but I have my suspicions. A relative of Keiko Obana’s, I’d say.”
“And the sister was the only relative?”
“Yes. I read up all the newspaper articles that came out at the time of the suicide. They were living together in an apartment at Omori. So I’ve sent a researcher off there to see what he can find.”
Shinji drew in his breath sharply, an involuntary sign of respect. The Hatanaka Law Office had found the trail, which would help it in its efforts to defend Ichiro Honda. It did indeed seem as if there was some connection between the key-puncher’s suicide and the murders. He saw in his mind’s eye those three faces: the worker at the film laboratory, the cosmetics salesman, the homosexual prostitute. Now they had to string together the moist episodes in the secret lives of these three men of a rare blood group and so prove Honda’s innocence.
The old man had again closed his eyes as if in sleep. Suddenly the phone on his desk rang with heart-stopping suddenness; the old man was shaken, for his hands trembled as he picked up the receiver.
The conversation was one-sided; occasionally, the old man would grunt or interject a terse word. Meanwhile, his right hand was engaged in scribbling on the memo pad in front of him. He replaced the receiver and lay back with his eyes closed, and Shinji knew better than to interrupt. After a while, the old man opened his eyes, lit a cigar and spoke.
“Keiko Obana’s sister moved from the Omori apartment last September. No one knows where she went, just that she moved. But all the people living around there describe her in the same way—a woman with a large mole on the right-hand side of her nose.”
“So that’s it; we’ve got her, haven’t we?”