The Collected Adventures of Sherlock Holmes in Japan (12 page)

It was blood. Blood from the figure lying so still upon the
futon
below that window. The merchant had heard the rumors, the servants and such in other residences purportedly found dead in the morning, their bodies entirely drained of blood and those two small holes on one side of their necks… But he’d put such stories down to mere hysteria, the bodies in any case quickly being buried or cremated (this custom of burning bodies becoming ever-more popular within Japan), the victims soon being forgotten…

In a moment, the face of the
geisha
with the gleaming white face and the blood-soaked chin was gone. But the merchant knew what he had seen, just as he knew that the naked servant girl he’d been so earnestly intending to make love to was now lying dead upon the
futon
…

And with this, the merchant began to scream…

1

‘It is fortunate indeed that you should happen to be in this neighborhood, Holmes-
san
, so that I can hopefully hire your services to investigate this strange affair.’

So declared the
geisha
named Iwasaki, the so-called ‘older sister’ and owner of the large ‘Spring-sea’ teahouse which (Holmes had already informed me, upon our journey here from the inn where we were staying) was the oldest and most respected
geisha
business in this area.

Certainly there was no shortage of such businesses, here in this town’s large ‘pleasure quarter’. Even during our short walk here – with Holmes having to support my slow, limping progress, due to the injury I’d recently received to my left ankle – we’d seen any number of
geisha
and also
maiko
(those young ‘
geisha
in training’, as it were) bustling past on raised
geta
, their
kimono
beautifully colored. They carried those three-stringed instruments named
shamisen
and also small drums in cases, spare clothing, barrels of alcohol and all those other items necessary for their work.

Now, Holmes inclined his head at Iwasaki’s words.

‘I am at your service,’ he said gravely.     

‘You have heard that the merchant who allegedly saw this… Well…’

Iwasaki gave a discreet cough, before continuing –

‘In any case, he is now effectively insane – so that one may very well be tempted to question the actual
truth
concerning what it is he
claimed
to have seen that evening.’

This ‘older sister’ struck me as being a woman of strong character, with a somewhat pragmatic nature disinclined to believe in the type of shocking story Holmes and I had recently heard.

Otherwise, it was difficult to tell too much about her – even her age. She was not wearing the full
geisha
‘make up’, and yet her face was still whitened slightly, and her teeth fashionably blackened.

She was sat kneeling, facing us across a low table in a small
tatami
room. There was a pot of green tea, from which she refilled Holmes’s and my cups.        

‘The other
geisha
teahouses in this area are already suffering, business-wise, because of this unfortunate incident,’ declared Holmes levelly.

The unspoken question was obvious, and Iwasaki answered it readily enough –

‘Mine is certainly the most well-established teahouse in this area; but, yes, we too are seeing fewer customers. That is why, if you were agreeable, I would like to engage you to investigate this story concerning what the merchant (now judged to be insane, don’t forget)
claims
he saw – and disprove it.

‘To find out the
truth
concerning what actually happened to that poor servant girl – and those other victims before.’

‘Then you don’t believe that they were attacked by a
geisha
who becomes a vampire at night, and who thus visits the living as they sleep to suck out the blood from their very bodies?’ inquired Holmes in his excellent Japanese, his expression in that somewhat dimly-lit room earnest. 

Iwasaki merely gave Holmes a
look
, and I found myself emitting a slight cough, out of sheer embarrassment at the Englishman’s words.

‘Whoever is responsible for these disgusting murders needs to be uncovered and
caught
,’ continued the senior
geisha
, after a few moments’ awkward silence. ‘Unfortunately, it is true that enough people believe the ravings of a lunatic for it to affect business at the house I run, as well as those other teahouses in which
geisha
operate. And I feel it is my duty to somehow try and put a stop to this whole, unfortunate turn of events – in this instance, by employing the well-known foreign detective Holmes-
san
…’

These
words
might well have been taken for a compliment; but the
way
in which they had been spoken was far less flattering. As though Holmes’s foolish mutterings about blood-sucking demons, vampires or whatever you may wish to call such creatures of mere myth and superstition had caused Iwasaki to suddenly have second thoughts about employing him.

‘There is a room here, in which you and your doctor friend – Yoshida-
sensei
, I believe? – might stay while you investigate this matter, if you so desire,’ said Iwasaki then, almost as an afterthought.

‘I accept the case,’ said Holmes. ‘You will have noticed, of course, that poor Yoshida-
sensei
is currently having some difficulties walking. As such, I would like to leave him here, in the room in which you are so kindly letting us stay, while I return to the inn we were at previously to get our few possessions.

‘And then… then I shall begin my investigation…’

2

A short while later I found myself lying in a room with an adjoining bathroom on the fourth floor of the teahouse – that is, the top floor of the large building which seemed to have any number of rooms and corridors. As I’d been helped up the steep wooden stairs to this room by Holmes, both of us following the woman named Iwasaki, we’d passed by a number of these
tatami
rooms, which lay empty and somewhat gloomy in the fading late-afternoon light.

I tried to imagine these rooms lit up by oil lamps, male customers drinking, eating and laughing as the
geisha
of this teahouse played, sang and danced for them, but it was no use. That strange, murky sense of depression which had been plaguing me for some weeks only intensified, so that I found myself dreading being left alone in whatever room we were heading towards…

‘One of the other
geisha
here will be up shortly, to bring you some refreshment,’ Iwasaki informed me, as Holmes helped me sit on one of the two
futon
which had already been lain out. (Obviously, the owner of this teahouse had expected we would agree to her suggestion that we stay here.)

Then Holmes followed Iwasaki out of the room, and I was left alone. There was a lamp, which I lit, but otherwise I had nothing to do except sit upon my
futon
and try to stop my thoughts from becoming too morose.

I wasn’t certain what exactly the matter was with me; I’d told myself that my spirits would improve as soon as I could walk properly again, and yet…

And yet I’d been feeling this way even
before
that silly and moreover fully avoidable accident, when I’d badly sprained my ankle after slipping in a muddy patch that lay along a path…

There was just… a sense that time was
slipping away
; that I was perpetually following this foreigner from one bizarre and often dangerous situation to the next, and that sooner-or-later we would be overtaken by the specter of death which always followed us so closely.

We’d survived so much, often when the odds against our survival had seemed overwhelming… Yet no matter how brilliant Holmes’s wits, such luck could not hold out indefinitely…

There came a gentle knock on the sliding door, and then it slid open. In entered another
geisha
, as Iwasaki had said. This
geisha
carried a tray with food, a flask of drink (I fervently hoped that it was
sake
) and a small hot towel upon it.

‘I am Omitsu,’ stated the white-faced woman, in a gentle voice that caused a strange feeling of warmth, deep in my belly. Immediately, for some indefinable reason, I felt my spirits lift slightly.

Despite the burning lamp, it was still none too bright in this room. The sliding shutters of wood and paper were closed across the window that lay behind the futon. Outside lay the fog which seemed to hug this area as evening descended, the lights from the many inns, pleasure houses and so on burning vaguely, mistily through it, enticing custom into more convivial surroundings.

The woman passed me the tray, and I was able to discern that she was certainly younger than Iwasaki. She wore a
kimono
of dark red, and when she spoke again I saw that her teeth had also been blackened –

‘I have been told that you are injured…’

Her big, almost doleful eyes seemed to flash sympathy at me, there in that ill-lit room.

‘It’s nothing,’ I said quickly. ‘Just a silly accident, when I was walking to this town a few days be –’

My voice abruptly cut off, for I realized that Omitsu was not really listening, instead staring intently at my face. Then she raised her right hand, gently placing it on my left cheek. It seemed that I could scarcely breathe, as she subjected me to this strange
analysis
of hers.

And yet… I did not want it to
end
, and that is the truth. I felt more at peace, more
relaxed
, than I had for a long, long time. Perhaps forever… The growing darkness in the room seemed almost to
hum
, so quiet and still did it otherwise lie.    

Abruptly, the
geisha
straightened.

‘Forgive me,’ she said. ‘I have brought you some refreshments. I will return later.’

I stared back at her as though dazed.

‘Yes, I… see,’ I mumbled foolishly. ‘I… later…’

But already, Omitsu was gone.

When Holmes returned, his overall demeanor was as subdued as ever I’d seen it. He had the appearance of a man trying to recover from some great shock, recently received.

‘The merchant truly has been driven out of his mind,’ remarked Holmes quietly, sitting down on the
futon
beside mine. ‘It was… awful to see a man – to see
anyone
– like
that
; shouting and ranting, his eyes bulging and his limbs tied to a wooden chair so that he shouldn’t break free and harm anyone else – or himself.

‘His wife (a meek, timid creature, obviously cowed by her husband back when he’d been in full possession of his faculties – and she as well as anyone else knew what had brought him to the servant girl’s room on
that
particular night) says that he shouts almost continually, day-and-night about ‘white faces’, ‘staring eyes’ and ‘blood’.

‘Certainly he was saying such things somewhat loudly when I saw him; and then exhaustion overtook him, for his head suddenly fell to one side and his eyes closed.’

Holmes paused, and shook his head before continuing –

‘It is too late now to continue any further enquiries, but I shall resume first thing tomorrow, trying to locate all the residences that have claimed an attack by this… whatever it is, and seeing if any sort of pattern can thus be established…’

If I am to be honest, I was having trouble concentrating on what Holmes was saying. I wanted only to see – to
talk
with – that
geisha
named Omitsu again.

‘Are you quite all right, my dear Yoshida-
sensei
?’ asked Holmes quietly, as I turned on my side, facing away from him.

‘I think so – just tired…’ I replied.

I closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep, Omitsu’s whitened face floating there in the darkness before me… 

3

When I awoke in the morning, Holmes was already gone. I managed to limp into the bathroom adjoining this room – and then fell back upon my
futon
, my ankle aching fiercely. As a doctor, I obviously knew how to expertly massage it, so to remove much of the pain and also encourage healing.

I had paper, brush and ink, so that I prepared to write up one of the recent cases I’d shared with Sherlock Holmes. But then there came that soft, already-familiar knock on the sliding door of this room.