The Collected Adventures of Sherlock Holmes in Japan (19 page)

‘What is that, Holmes-
san
?’ I asked.

‘Cut his nails – or should I say, one nail in particular…’

With this bewildering declaration, Holmes strode into a large room with
tatami
mats, full of people, food and drink. In the centre of this room Kato was holding court, now dressed in a clean white
kimono
, and with a
geisha
either side of him attending to his every need.

‘You do not weave yourself, as does your girlfriend?’ demanded Holmes, in a loud, firm voice which instantly silenced the rest of the room.

‘What? Who are you?’ returned the
rikishi
, his face turning almost purple with anger.

He rose to his feet, declaring –

‘I’ll throw you out of here myself, you damn
gaijin
– ’

I have spoken before of Sherlock Holmes’s martial abilities. As Kato stomped towards him, those massive hands reaching out in their desire to tear the tall, lithe Englishman apart, Holmes grabbed one hand and performed some sort of complicated wrist-lock, instantly bringing the
rikishi
down to his knees, tears sprouting in Kato’s eyes as he bellowed that his wrist was being broken.

‘I said – you do not weave yourself?’ repeated Holmes, and again I glanced at him in utter bewilderment at this question.

‘No, no, of course I don’t,’ returned the
sumo
wrestler.

‘And yet looking at the middle finger of your right hand – the one I hold in my grasp – I see that its nail is cut in
exactly
the same manner as Shige’s. That is, with three minute but still razor-sharp points. So why do you have this, eh?’

Those people gathered around stared closer – and it was true. When you looked closely (you would never have noticed it on such a fat finger otherwise), you could see the nail cut in three points. Doubtless Holmes had also observed such a feature while watching the artist Shige work; a true indication of his close-eyed genius.

‘You… you…’ rumbled Kato, still on his knees, helpless with the wristlock Holmes was continuing to apply. But his eyes now showed piggish guilt, and he then closed his mouth and simply glowered, Holmes continuing –

‘Shige’s nails – of the middle-fingers of both hands – assist her in pulling down the threads, as she creates her truly fantastic works of art. But coated with poison (expertly mixed by her assistant Tamura, depending on how quickly she wished for her target to die), they could provide a small, seemingly ‘accidental’ cut on a person’s hand – the sort you might make if you accidently ‘nick’ someone’s skin with your own nail, while handing something over, for example – thus introducing the poison into that person’s body.

‘Such was how those seven moneylenders, here in Osaka, met their demise over the past twelve months, after they’d been persuaded by the apparently demure and utterly reliable Shige, in turn, to provide her with a large loan – in secret. Doubtless, she promised an extremely favorable return of interest, based upon some expected increase in her business.   

‘She again met with each merchant, so perhaps obliged to at least provide the first repayment – one moneylender was found slumped over a sum of money – and in handing it over, she ‘accidentally nicked’ the moneylender’s hand with her fingernail. She apologized and effected gentle concern, he assured her that it was nothing – wiping away the slightest trace of blood, as the skin has been broken – and they parted company.

‘And then later, suspecting absolutely nothing, he simply died…’

‘But Kato, Holmes-
san
?’ demanded one man listening. ‘What of him?’

‘A blubbery blabbermouth, with scarcely more intellect than a small dog,’ said Holmes contemptuously. Still, despite such verbal provocation, the
rikishi
did nothing expect glare up at Holmes.

‘The money obtained from the murdered moneylenders has doubtless been placed in various, backstreet ‘bets’ on the outcome of this match,’ continued Holmes. ‘Thus entirely in the ‘sway’, as it were, of Shige – who allowed her simple-minded partner to indulge his appetites for
sake
and
geisha
, thereby humoring his base desires – he was persuaded to cut one nail in a similar fashion, coat it with poison just before the match (a poison mixed especially by the assistant Tamura, so that it would take almost instant effect), and avoiding placing his hands in the bucket of salt that is located at either side of the
dohyo
, which would have removed the poison, then managed to ‘cut’ his opponent as he delivered his trademark volley of hard, slapping blows to the upper-body.

‘The smallest abrasion somewhere upon the skin of a fallen man-mountain… Who would notice such a thing? Or even upon the much smaller bodies of seven deceased moneylenders…

‘In any case,’ said Holmes then, ‘once the prize money was paid, I have no doubt that the extremely-wealthy Shige would have considered the previous object of her affections to now be a liability, possibly prone to blabbering all these sordid little secrets in some drunken fit of remorse – for although an insufferable bully, Kato is not truly evil – and so would have ‘dispatched’ the
yokozuna
to meet Buddha forthwith…’  

5

  Holmes’s tale was fantastic, and at the trial which followed – of Kato, Shige and the ‘master-mixer’ Tamura – there were many who did not quite believe it, despite the ‘evidence’ of Kato’s fingernail, which some thirty people had seen after Holmes had entered the
tatami
room.

Shige, in particular, impressed the magistrate with her seemingly gentle nature. She could only quietly weep, and shake her head, and say she’d no idea what could have possibly prompted Holmes to say such a thing…

‘Always there is this tendency, among the ignorant, to portray
ninja
as being these black-clad wraiths of the night,’ said Holmes to me at one point. ‘Yet we see two
real
examples of
ninja
in Shige and her assistant – both of them utterly skilled in a deadly art, and yet disguising this perfectly through the small business they ran, which was widely praised for the quality of its products…’

  But an assistant at the
sumo
building came forward to say that he’d delivered a small, wrapped package to Kato just before the start of the match, and that the
rikishi
had insisted on then being alone – which was not at all usual.

The body of Kato’s opponent had been examined, after Holmes had spoken there in the crowded
tatami
room, but there had been so many marks and abrasions upon it – as might be expected – that this examination hadn’t really served any purpose.

A thorough examination of the building which served as Shige’s studio was conducted, but nothing suspicious was found.

‘Hardly surprising,’ noted Holmes. ‘The ingredients used to make the poisons will be kept in some place no one will ever find; they would hardly store them alongside those powdered dyes!’

In the end, it came down almost to Holmes’s word and considerable reputation against the indignant denials from Kato, Shige and Tamura. Many in Osaka now said that the famous English detective had lost his wits; that this theory of his – of poison-covered, jagged fingernails, a delicate female artist who was actually a highly-skilled
ninja
assassin, and all the rest of it – was just too ridiculous…

I must confess, even
I
had my private doubts, for all the cases Holmes and I have shared together…

But as Kato could hardly explain
why
he’d fashioned his nail in such a way (in fact, one could hardly imagine that he’d created this nail himself, using his other hand), he was found guilty. Such was the influence Holmes’s word had here in Osaka. Tamura was also convicted, of having mixed the poison, with the blame also being put upon him for the deaths of the moneylenders. The pair was thus quickly put to death.

Almost inexplicably, however, Shige was found
not
guilty – the aging magistrate was by now clearly quite infatuated with her – and she left Osaka shortly after her erstwhile boyfriend, and Tamura, were executed. (It was curious – and, it seemed at the time, a little ominous – that neither man sought to throw any blame upon her, even when they knew they were going to die. Holmes suggested that she wielded some malign influence upon their souls, which caused them to stay loyal to her right to the end.)

Greatly irritated by the magistrate’s judgment – ‘Why did that fool choose to believe some parts of my theory and not others?’ he indignantly demanded – Holmes also left the city. This had not been a case that had ended well, or cleanly, despite the convictions of Kato and Tamura. We both knew this. And still a sense of doubt remained, deep down in my insides….

Had
Holmes been correct? The
rikishi
and the dyer had been convicted on such little evidence… Neither man had confessed their sin even right at the end…

And then, just a month or so later, we were sitting in an inn – Holmes having recently solved the case of the Emperor’s missing cousin, which had been talked about all over Japan – when a package was delivered.   

Curious, Holmes opened it. Something rolled up in paper… Holmes quickly revealed a large facial portrait of himself, expertly created in a dazzling array of dyed threads. Yet still I felt a chill cross my heart. For Holmes’s eyes were closed, and there was such a whitish hue to the skin that there was no doubt that this was a depiction of him in death…

Rolling this grotesque portrait of himself back up, the Englishman gave me a small smile in the lamp-light.

‘I think we can assume that this has been sent to inform me that Shige (see how well she now dyes, as well as weaves!) has not forgotten about me, Yoshida-
sensei
, and that I can safely add her name to my already-not inconsiderable list of enemies…’

Sherlock Holmes and the Dead Monk

1

The monk was lying sprawled in front of the large golden statue of the Buddha, there in the main hall of the Temple of Eternal Light. Upon the dead monk’s face was an expression of absolute amazement, such as I have never seen before.

There was no obvious cause of death, no wound or anything like that… Was it possible that some great shock could have caused his heart to stop beating? This was the only theory I could think of as I stood with Sherlock Holmes, the head-priest and a senior monk, the four of us staring down at the corpse.

‘We’re fortunate that you happened to be in the vicinity, Holmes-
san
,’ declared the head-priest, who had a shrewd, slightly fox-like face. ‘I would not have troubled you, but for this remarkable expression we can plainly see upon Abe-
san
’s face.

‘He was getting on in years, and a little overweight,’ continued the priest. ‘So it is quite possible that his heart simply gave out, as he conducted the usual morning prayers by himself in this hall, lighting the incense sticks in front of the Buddha statue and so forth…

‘And yet, that face…’

The priest shook his head, his voice falling into silence.

‘It is a rather… striking… expression, that is true,’ said Holmes thoughtfully, as he continued to stare down at the dead monk.

The expression upon the corpse’s face made me think of the murdered monk we’d seen at the start of the adventure I entitled
The Temple of Death
– but then, that monk’s expression had been one of the most disturbing, the most obviously
horrorstruck
, I have ever seen. (Later, I was to personally discover exactly what had caused such an expression – and so come close to dying through the sheer terror of it myself…) 

But
this
monk’s expression… Well, it was, quite simply, just one of complete and utter surprise. Sheer amazement, if you will. Really, that is as best – as
accurately
– as I can describe it.     

I again glanced around this hall. It was bright, the sunny day outside illuminating the closed windows of rice paper pasted upon thin wooden struts. The
tatami
mats were a light green color, and very clean. Several long, dark-purple
futon
mats were lain out in front of the life-size Buddha statue and the main altar, just behind the area where the dead monk lay. There had been some sort of big festival recently, so that fruit and white flowers were still piled up either side of the golden Buddha, which sat upon a large golden lotus leaf, its hands placed in its lap, the left hand over the right.

All in all, this was very far from being like some of the old, gloomy temple halls which Holmes and I had previously had cause to visit. There where the golden statues were dull with age, unpolished and only partially illuminated by the candles burning nearby. The dark, smoky beams of timber and the worn, yellowing
tatami
…