The Collected Adventures of Sherlock Holmes in Japan (23 page)

‘And now he’s dead? Well, I’m… I’m sorry about that,’ continued the turtle-faced man hesitantly, ‘but it’s got nothing to do with me, no matter what that son of his says…’

‘Thank you for your time, Tashima-
san
,’ returned Holmes. With that, we walked away from the fruit farmer, heading out of the orange groves at the top of the hill and walking back towards our inn, the sea sparkling in the distance.  

3

‘Could it be that the orange farmer named Miguchi did not simply just trip, somehow striking the back of his neck on a tree – that is, causing the fatal blow
himself
?’ mused Sherlock Holmes, as we ate a little lunch back in our room at the inn. ‘He was an old man, slightly frail… It would not have required that hard an impact, at a point such as on the back of the neck, to have fatal consequences…’

I kept quiet as I ate, knowing that this was just one of those occasions when the Englishman needed to voice his thoughts aloud.

‘Or did he meet a silent assassin, there in his much-treasured orange grove? An assassin sent by that Miguchi, who so readily pointed out to us the sheer impossibility of him clambering down to the orchard some two hundred feet directly below his own, personally killing the man whose orange-growing secrets he so coveted, and then climbing back up again, entirely undetected?

‘But surely such a thought is just ridiculous… Jealous orange growers employing
ninja
and the like, I mean…’

I had to agree. It seemed as though the identity of Miguchi’s assassin might forever remain a mystery. Unless, of course, he
had
somehow received the fatal blow by accident… But then, how come he’d ended up lying face down? Everything about his sprawling pose had suggested he’d been struck
from behind…

Then I had a sudden brainwave, so that I could no longer keep quiet.

‘Holmes-
san
,’ I said. ‘His son – he more-or-less admitted that his father had kept his secrets concerning his orange growing ‘ability’ (for want of a better word – this grafting of fruit branches and the like, I mean) from him until recently.

‘Maybe his son was tiring of this; maybe he saw that he had the chance of making a considerable amount of money, if he could only learn all that his father knew.

‘But with this desired information mostly being kept secret from him – knowledge being only ‘drip-fed’ to him on occasion, as it were – his frustration grew and grew, until one day, there in that lonely little orange orchard at the foot of the hillside, he picked up a stout stick or something similar and…’

I paused, catching my breath after my sudden fit of oratory. I felt gratified to see the famous foreign detective looking at me with an expression of mild approval.  

‘Very good, my dear Yoshida-
sensei
. Admittedly we didn’t
see
any such stick lying around – assuming that was indeed the murder weapon, for the young man is certainly no master of unarmed combat – but then, he could have just thrown it away somewhere…

‘But there seemed to be nothing on the ground save for some fallen leaves, dried earth and the fruit which falls from the trees and rolls…

‘
Rolls
…’

At once Holmes’s face adopted that distant expression I knew so well. Something which indicated this particular mystery might soon be a mystery no longer.

‘Supposing,’ he said then, ‘that whatever killed Miguchi just… rolled away, perhaps being caught in a net further down. We didn’t check that…’

‘What could this thing have been though, Holmes-
san
– this murder weapon?’ I blurted.

“Murder’?’ repeated Holmes, staring intently at one wall, so that I knew he was again seeing that shady orchard in his mind’s eye… ‘Maybe not murder; but then, what I am thinking is surely impossible… A chance in a thousand… More than that – a chance in one hundred thousand…’

The famous English detective was talking in riddles once more; and at any event, there was suddenly a knock on the door to our room and Terumasa burst in.

‘Forgive me, Holmes-
san
, but I thought you should know…’ he gasped. ‘Sagari-
san
has called in Tashima for questioning – I
knew
it!’

‘Quite so,’ returned Holmes coolly. ‘I may have cause to visit the pair of them in a short while – we shall see. Now, if you’ll excuse me, Yoshida-
sensei
and I have something to check….’

4

‘As I say, a chance in one hundred thousand – a split-second action born out of petty jealousy and spite having quite unforeseen consequences. But, we shall see… First we must find what struck Miguchi on the back of his neck – and then rolled away, quite out of sight to anyone expect the person who might
expressly
be looking for it…’

So said Sherlock Holmes, as we again clambered down the hillside. It seemed that the fruit farmers had finished their work by now, several wooden ladders being propped up against the trunks of trees, in readiness for tomorrow. Here and there, along the sloping ground, were the nets used to catch falling fruit; and then the stone walls, down which Holmes and I climbed into the next allotment, and so on…

Finally we were in that shaded orange grove at the foot of the hillside. I looked straight up, through a gap in the spreading branches, at the allotment which was at the very top – Tashima’s allotment.

Then I took notice of Holmes’s actions. He was checking the nets stretched along the ground here and there, several of them having already caught a quantity of fallen fruit.

He began to mutter to himself, his search obviously not yielding what he wanted to see… Then he gave a sudden cry, and running down the sloped ground picked up something…

‘Here,’ he said, holding it up for me to inspect. ‘
Here
is what killed Miguchi…’

‘Someone… quietly coming up behind him, Holmes-
san
– his son, perhaps – and striking him upon the back of the neck with this ‘weapon’…’ I stammered, my mind desperately trying to make sense of this new piece of evidence.

‘Oh no, my dear doctor, this object was
thrown
– and from a great distance away,’ returned Holmes, indicating all the way up to the top of the hill, and Tashima’s orchard.

‘Impossible, Holmes-
san
!’ I said bluntly. I felt almost irritated; never had I heard anything more ridiculous. That this famous English detective should be the one to utter something so absurd…

‘No person in the
world
could make such an accurate shot, at such a distance, with such an improvised weapon.’

‘I agree, Yoshida-
sensei
,’ said Holmes amiably. ‘Only, the death-strike was not intended. It was an accident. That was why I spoke earlier of a ‘chance in one hundred thousand’.

‘But then, this rock had to land
somewhere
… Come, we have something to check in Tashima’s orchard, and then I believe that it’s time we visited him and that fool of a magistrate…’

5

Sherlock Holmes and I visited the magistrate’s office shortly afterwards. Sagari looked irritably at us as we entered, while Tashima gave a low moan at the sight of the rock held in Holmes’s hand.

‘Taken from the wall at the end of your orchard, Tashima,’ said Holmes. ‘I checked, and found the small gap made. Extracted after you gazed down the stepped hillside (and congratulations on your sharp eyesight, by the way) at the distant figure of the late Miguchi-
san
working away among his bountiful orange trees, and felt your sense of anger and frustration at his superior and, moreover,
secretive
methods overwhelm you.

‘Hardly knowing what you were doing, you pulled out this piece of rock from the wall, dragging it through a gap in the wire netting and throwing it downwards, in the general direction of Miguchi-
san
… But then, incredibly, you saw him collapse – this piece of rock had, quite by accident, struck him directly upon the back of his neck!

‘Sickened by what you’d done, but determined that no one would ever know that
you
were responsible for Miguchi-
san
’s death, you quickly resumed your work, preparing to feign shocked surprise the moment you were informed of his death.’

‘Impossible…’ breathed Sagari, but he was looking at the lean, hawk-faced foreigner with wide eyes.

‘As I told my good friend Yoshida-
sensei
here earlier, this rock had to land
somewhere
,’ returned Holmes, with a shrug. ‘I knew a man who once threw a message in a bottle out to sea; and then thirty years later found this same bottle lying, unopened, upon a stretch of shore on the opposite side of England.

‘Such remarkable things do happen, you know.

‘Anyway, having unfortunately struck Miguchi-
san
with an immediate, and quite fatal, consequence – he did not even cry out as he collapsed, so his son Terumasa would not have heard anything – the rock rolled away out of sight. It would never have been noticed, had I not expressly been looking for such a thing.

‘A stupid, petty, childish act of ill-temper,’ continued Holmes, looking at Tashima who had begun to weep, tears coursing down his turtle-like face. ‘But one which had a result you certainly never intended, no matter how great your dislike for Miguchi-
san
.’

‘Well, Holmes-
san
,’ coughed the magistrate. ‘Although I’d already had the idea of bringing in Tashima for questioning, it seems all credit must go to
you
for solving the murder of Miguchi-
san
…’

“Manslaughter’ is, I believe, the strongest charge Tashima should face,’ returned Holmes sternly, as the old fruit farmer now covered his face with both hands, his body convulsed with sobs. ‘This cannot be a capital offence, despite the regrettable loss of life.

‘But in any case, I give all credit to
you
, Sagari-
san.
You need not mention my involvement in this matter at all.’

‘But why, Holmes-
san
?’ demanded Sagari, his thin face showing his surprise at the Englishman’s words.

‘I believe your parting words to me, there in Miguchi-
san
’s orange grove a short while earlier, went something like – ‘There’s something in what the boy Terumasa says about certain other orange farmers and their jealousy…’

‘A quite correct conjecture, as it transpires… That aside, this whole matter has been quite childishly simple, remarkable only for the fact that this rock plunged through space, gathering deadly momentum on its downward path of some two hundred feet, before striking poor Miguchi-
san
exactly (but still entirely by chance) on the nape of his neck, thus killing that elderly man instantly.

‘If someone was to try and make such a shot
on
purpose
, no matter how good their aim, it would surely take them many thousands of attempts – perhaps a lifetime’s worth…

‘You can write all of this in your report. As I say, you need not mention me. But now, if you’ll excuse me, I must be going. I have the honor of bidding you good-day.’

And I followed Holmes back out of that office.

Sherlock Holmes and the Disappearing Dragon

1

‘It was
there
, Holmes-
san
, located upon the roof on the far right-hand side – just as the dragon statue is still there upon the left!’

So said the priest excitedly, pointing with his forefinger at the sweeping temple roof. This was, indeed, now absent of one of the two marvelous golden dragon statues which had (or so declared the priest) been placed either side of it.

‘They were constructed as a pair,’ continued the chubby-faced priest mournfully. ‘
Osu
and
mesu
– ‘male’ and ‘female’. When the temple itself was built, some one hundred years ago, they were placed up there. Then yesterday morning I stepped outside, only to realize with a shock that almost killed me that the female statue was just…
gone
!’

‘I see,’ said the English detective calmly. ‘And you heard nothing during the night?’

‘Not a thing – but then, the temple having been locked up for the night, I sleep in one of the rooms located well inside the building. The monks, also, have their quarters near my own, private room. So we could hardly expect to hear anything taking place so high up. Although, Holmes-
san
, I ask you, how is it possible that this statue was even taken…?’