The Rain Song

I had initially planned to discuss Suishakan no Satsujin (1988; translated and published as The Mill House Murders by Pushkin Vertigo in 2023), the second novel in Yukito Ayatsuji's Yakata series, alongside The Decagon House Murders, but my fanboying of the latter turned too long for my taste. Hence, the decision to write about The Mill House Murders in a separate post.

The way things ended in The Decagon House Murders, it was hard to envision a sequel to the work. The Mill House Murders, while not exactly a sequel in the truest sense of the word, serves as a great example of how even a minor, almost inconsequential, detail can serve as the basis of a series in continuity — in my very limited reading of the Yakata series (only two works in English translation so far), the two connecting threads would be that they share a common detective and that they are all set in mansions and buildings constructed by the eccentric architect, Seiji Nakamura, introduced and killed off in the first novel itself. The result seems to be a series whose works can be enjoyed both as standalone entries (featuring the odd tribute to previous masters of the craft) as well as part of a loosely-connected chronological set. And on that note of continuity, The Mill House Murders is a work that is fascinatingly similar and dissimilar to The Decagon House Murders, in ways both good and bad.

My first impression of the second entry in the Yakata series was that the sprightly, breezy nature of the first novel had been replaced with a heavy, brooding atmosphere. While The Decagon House Murders had a lightness of touch to it, replicating the essence of an Ellery-Queen puzzle plot, The Mill House Murders is heavy-handed in its execution, doffing its hat instead to the works of another master, John Dickson Carr. However, the main trickery employed here makes it another Christie tribute novel, in my opinion, even though it may not be as evident as seen in The Decagon House Murders.

The Mill House Murders is narrated from the perspective of one of the characters, a resident of the eponymous Mill House (named so after the mill wheels generating power), another strange creation of Seiji Nakamura. The narrator is introduced as the current owner of the Mill House — and is the son of a 'visionary' painter who drew a number of remarkable surrealist scenes and landscapes before dying. Every year, he hosts a diverse group of guests — a disciple of the deceased visionary painter, an art dealer, a professor of art history, a director of a surgical hospital, and a few others — all of whom gather to marvel at the painter's works and to chance their luck at buying one of the masterpieces (particularly The Phantom Cluster, a painting that no one has seen). However, tragedy struck when the group met a year prior to the events of the novel — "a woman fallen from the tower", "a painting disappeared", "a man vanished under seemingly impossible circumstances", and "another man ... killed, cut up in pieces and burnt in the incinerator". The novel does a great job, straight-up mentioning the past mysteries in the prologue itself. And, thrown into this mix is the series detective, Kiyoshi Shimada, who arrives to the mansion in the present day, to solve the mystery of his friend's impossible disappearance the year previous. 

But then, it starts to suffer from a few design issues. Unlike The Decagon House Murders, the division of the narrative in The Mill House Murders is mostly time-based as the movements of the characters are limited to the confines of the mansion and its tower. What this essentially means is that most of the action in the novel consists of a cast of mostly familiar faces roaming over the same grounds in different combinations and circumstances. While this is not a bad thing by itself, the novel goes out of its way in the early stages to demonstrate how eerily the events of the present day and the previous year parallel each other. Consider, for example, the two opening sections of the first two chapters:

I woke as I usually do. The amber curtains were drawn over the windows facing the courtyard to the east, but the bright morning sun shone right through them into the room. It was quiet outside, but if I listened carefully, I could just make out the faint chirping of the mountain birds, as well as the distant sound of flowing water. I could also hear the heavy rumble of the mill wheels, always revolving by the western side of this house. It was a peaceful morning.

We’d had good weather ever since September came along, but the news last night had reported an approaching typhoon. The forecast said it would start raining in the Chūgoku region this afternoon. This morning was thus, truly, the calm before the storm.

I slowly sat up in the spacious bed. The clock on the wall showed half past eight. The same time I always woke up.

Leaning back against the headboard, I reached for the nightstand with my right hand, picked up my old briar pipe and packed it with tobacco. Soon a mellow scent filled the room, accompanied by cream-coloured smoke.

“A typhoon, eh?” I mumbled out loud to myself. My voice was unnaturally hoarse.

I had to think back to exactly one year ago, 28th September. The morning of that fateful day had been the same as today. There’d been reports of an approaching typhoon then too. And it arrived just as forecast.

One year… A whole year had passed since that blood-soaked night.

I became lost in thought, my hand swaying with the pipe. The tentacles of my mind crept towards the events of that night one year ago, to everything that occurred the following day, and even to what happened afterwards.

I stole a glance at the door in the corner of the room, the bronze doorknob and dark mahogany panelling. That door, which led to the study, would never be opened again…

My lean body suddenly shuddered. An indescribable, inescapable shiver welled up from deep within and ran through my whole being.

It was a quarter to nine now. The phone on my nightstand would ring soon, softly signalling the start of another day.

“Good morning, sir.”

The familiar voice on the other end of the line sounded calm. It was the butler, Kuramoto Shōji.

“I will be bringing you your breakfast right away.”

“Thanks.”

I placed my pipe on its stand and started getting dressed. I took my pyjamas off, put on a shirt and trousers, and a dressing gown on top. When I had managed to do all of this, I put the cotton gloves on both my hands. And finally, it was time to put on my face.

My mask.

That mask was a symbol of my whole life at this time, a symbol of everything that Fujinuma Kiichi now was.

A mask. Indeed, I had no face. I wore that mask every single day to hide my accursed features. The white mask was now the real face of the master of the house. The rubber clung to my skin. A cold death mask worn by a living man.

and

He woke as he usually did. The amber curtains were drawn over the windows facing the courtyard to the east, but the bright morning sun shone right through them into the room. It was quiet outside, but if he listened carefully, he could just make out the faint chirping of the mountain birds, as well as the distant sound of flowing water. He could also hear the heavy rumble of the mill wheels, always revolving by the western side of the house. It was a peaceful morning.

The news last night had reported an approaching typhoon. The forecast said it would start raining in the Chūgoku region on the afternoon of the 28th.

He slowly sat up in the spacious bed. The clock on the wall showed half past eight. The same time he always woke up.

Leaning back against the headboard, he reached for the nightstand with his right hand, picked up his old briar pipe and packed it with tobacco. Soon a mellow scent filled the room, accompanied by cream-coloured smoke.

Three days ago he’d caught a cold and ran a fever, but he’d recovered now. He could savour the scent of tobacco again.

He slowly closed his eyes as he puffed his pipe.

28th September. Ōishi Genzō, Mori Shigehiko, Mitamura Noriyuki and Furukawa Tsunehito. Today was the day the four of them would visit him in the afternoon, just as they had done in previous years.

Their annual visit was not a joyous occasion for him, living as he did in this house deep in the mountains, hiding from the outside world. He honestly felt their visit was a great annoyance.

Yet he was also in denial about his feelings. He could easily tell them not to come if he genuinely did not want them to. But his inability to turn them away all these years was perhaps partially due to guilt.

He kept his eyes closed as a low sigh escaped his cracked lips.

Anyway, they’re coming today. It’d all been decided, so nothing could be changed now.

He had no intention of making a detailed analysis of his own contradictory thoughts. The visit plagued him, but he also welcomed it. That was all there was to it.

It was a quarter to nine now. The phone on his nightstand would ring soon, softly signifying the start of another day.

“Good morning, sir.”

The familiar voice on the other end of the line sounded calm. It was the butler, Kuramoto Shōji.

“How are you feeling, sir?”

“Better now, thanks.”

“I can bring your breakfast immediately if you wish.”

“I’ll come down myself.”

He placed his pipe on its stand and started getting dressed. He took his pyjamas off, put on a shirt and trousers, and a dressing gown on top. When he had managed to do all of this, he put the cotton gloves on both his hands. And finally, it was time to put on his face.

His mask. 

The mask could be considered the symbol of the last twelve years of his life, a symbol of everything that Fujinuma Kiichi was.

Indeed, he had no face. He wore this mask every single day to hide his accursed features. This white mask bearing the features of Fujinuma Kiichi, the master of this house. The rubber clung to his skin. A cold death mask worn by a living man.

There are important reasons, both stylistic and plot-based, behind such a narration, which are revealed towards the end of the novel. But, I am not sure that this style of closely mirroring prose over long stretches and/or entire chapters is necessarily in the best interests of the book. If nothing else, it invites the allegation that the narration is lazy, long-drawn and stretched—an allegation that is justifiable for the first half of the novel. Even more infuriating is the fact that the repetition spills over into the conversations between the characters during this stretch, with the result that, time and again, readers are forcibly reminded of the multiple events that occurred in many of the characters' pasts, to the point of memorising them. Even though a sense of unease (that things are not as they seem) persists—and despite Shimada's constant needling—any fair, outright indication of the deception behind the events of the past is not explicitly revealed till a much later period in the novel.

The experience of reading the first half/three-fourths of the novel is akin to that of playing a challenging, laborious dungeon-crawler game where one knows the entry- and exit-points of the maze and, seemingly, the major boss to be overcome. However, they still need to explore the same dungeon time-and-time again to unravel different secrets (spaces, quests or resources) that reveal themselves only during a replay and which have a bearing on the game and its completion, and can potentially change the nature of the dungeon-space itself. In the case of The Mill House Murders, readers are likely to retread the same incidents, stories from the past and developments in the present time from the mostly similar perspectives of multiple characters—and each time, they are likely to have to refer to the previous mention of said incident to spot the critical difference/change in viewpoint. Besides not making for a smooth, fluid read, this is, indeed, an excruciating exercise in patience—not unlike taking on and staring at an extremely difficult spot-the-difference challenge where the differences are microscopic to a visible eye.

It does not help that a superior treatment of this narrative style, in my opinion, is seen in Taiwanese author Szu Yen Lin's Death in the House of Rain (translated and published in English by Locked Room International, 2017)—a far more fluid, fast-paced read than The Mill House Murders because of the simple fact that the individual incidents do not overstay their welcome and the characters are hardly given time to obsess endlessly over past events. Even more damning is the fact that The Mill House Murders itself does not really provide a framework with which one can appreciate the narrative style employed (even though it is tepid and off-putting in its execution), or a solid rationale for its application. For instance, a recent chapter of Motohiro Katou's manga, Q.E.D. iff, employs two legal principles that may be used to cultivate a somewhat begrudging admiration of the way things unfold in The Mill House Murders. In chapter 46 of the manga series (a story titled "Legal Realism"), a character provides a beginner's introduction to the judicial principles used to resolve civil and criminal cases—namely, 'legal realism' and 'legal formalism', respectively. In 'legal realism', which is employed in civil cases, the 'matching parts' of conflicting testimonies are upheld as 'the truth', even though they may oppose each other completely in other respects. However, in 'legal formalism' (used in criminal cases), the minutest details, facts, testimonies, perspectives and discrepancies are gathered and thoroughly investigated to establish and verify 'the truth'. Analysed from this perspective, it can be argued that the opening half of The Mill House Murders adheres more to the 'legal realism' principle, whereby certain core 'facts' are established to be 'the truth' through their constant repetition, whereas the other half goes about subverting, unravelling and undoing the aforesaid, established 'facts' and the core 'truth' by employing 'legal formalism' through the disruptive activities of the detective, Kiyoshi Shimada.

It is a shame then that the first 150-odd pages are so challenging to get by, because when the revelations emerge in the latter half, they come in fast and hit real hard. Architecture plays a greater and more central role in this story than it did in The Decagon House Murders, with one particular resolution evoking the spirit of Gaston Leroux's Le mystère de la chambre jaune (The Mystery of the Yellow Room, 1907) in a wonderful way. Ayatsuji also shows a marked improvement in certain aspects of his craft—the characterisation, in particular. He fleshes out the characters of his cast well, and gives them motivations and more pronounced roles than he did in The Decagon House Murders—from the very young, Rapunzel-esque wife of the narrator who is confined in the fairy-tale setting of the tower, to the brash and extremely forward hospital director, to the meek and subdued art professor, all of whom have different reasons for their presence at the Mill House, that are independent of the motives of the protagonist or antagonist. Personally, I also like the atmosphere here, with its constant evocation of the rainy, drenched and soaked weather in both of the years the work traverses between, particularly as I find it conducive to the setting up and maintenance, throughout, of a brooding, overwhelming mood that is appropriate for the story.

But alas, I cannot help but feel that The Mill House Murders would have been far better served as a novella (with better design choices, less narrative repetition and experimentation, and more impact) rather than as a full-blown novel. There are cases in which the saying 'less is more' rings true—this is certainly the case with Ayatsuji's second outing as well, despite him showing definite improvement as a writer.

The Devil May Care

Observing the similarities between four unlikely, disparate works of crime fiction—Edogawa Rampo's Nisen doka (Two-Sen Copper Coin, 1923) and Agatha Christie's The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926) on one hand and Rampo's Inju (The Devil in the Shadow, 1928) and Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon (1930) on the other—Sari Kawana states that these commonalities "question the myth of direct influence in that occasionally what appears to be the result of direct influence is in fact the consequence of the permutation of similar generic rules." She goes on to say, " ... the sequence of events suggests that Rampo and Christie detected the same generic convention and decided to permute it in the same way, making a conscious choice to exploit the naivete of such an assumption and using it to entertain readers" and that " ... the case of Rampo and Christie calls for a new way of looking at various formalist literatures and cross-cultural literary inspiration and encourages the willingness to go beyond the existent hierarchy of influence and de-emphasize originality and priority."

Concerning Rampo and Hammett, Kawana states the following: " ... the striking similarity between Hammett's and Rampo's works should be viewed as evidence potentially pointing to at least two theories. From the standpoint of social history, it can serve as another piece of evidence potentially what critics Yoshimi Shun'ya and Harry D. Harootunian have called sekai dojisei (global simultaneity), the emergence of a global culture to which the United States, Europe, and Japan belonged.

Another more formalist explanation would be that Hammett and Rampo, both students of the formulas and techniques of detective fiction, arrived at the same conclusion via different paths. ... "

The truth, when it comes to the evolution of Japanese crime fiction, perhaps lies somewhere in between. While the theory of global simultaneity holds firm, especially during the Inter-War period, there's also no denying that Japanese crime-fiction authors did, unabashedly, look to the West for influence and even inspiration after World War II. Seishi Yokomizo, long considered a doyen of crime fiction in the Japanese literary world, perfectly illustrates this in The Honjin Murders, where the unnamed narrator tries to think of any western counterparts to the case he is about to introduce to the readers—John Dickson Carr's The Plague Court Murders, Gaston Leroux's The Mystery of the Yellow Chamber, S. S. Van Dine's Canary Murder Case and Kennel Murder Case, Royal Scarlett's Murder among the Angells, among others. But, he then concludes that this case is not at all similar to these illustrious works—an admission that suggests that The Honjin Murders is not a plagiarised work. Yokomizo then presents a work that is uniquely Japanese in essence, but which curiously enough "neither declares nor refutes its uniqueness"—an observation made evident by the narrator's comment that the culprit may have read the aforementioned books and used their elements to their advantage. 

The fact that Yokomizo openly admits to his inspirations (the narrator, in the end, says that they learnt to deceive the readers by taking hints from Agatha Christie's works) hints at a new way of dealing with the originality/unoriginality debate that rages on even today in the world of crime fiction. In the book, Yokomizo merely uses some tricks (they would have been common and popular knowledge among crime-fiction aficionados at that time) to explore new avenues and to further develop his own plot. It is a stratagem fraught with risks (especially when it comes to the degree to which you can 'borrow' and 'be inspired' in such a way), but for a self-respecting, clever writer, such an approach can be useful.

For the observant reader, on the other hand, pinpointing these unconventional points of intersection between works separated by space and time can be instructive. Moreover, with the benefit of hindsight and a retrospective lens, one is likely to come across more instances of twinning in detective fiction, many of which can be completely accidental. For instance, one wouldn't usually speak of Carr's The Crooked Hinge (1938) and Yokomizo's Akuma ga Kitarite Fue wo Fuku (The Devil Comes Playing His Flute, 1951–1953) in the same breath. And yet, the 'similarities' between the two definitely deserve a closer look.

Automatons, Satanism, The Tichborne Claimant, The Titanic, Witchcraft

At the core of the devilish proceedings in Carr's The Crooked Hinge lies an impersonation inspired by the infamous Tichborne case in the 1870s, where an Australian butcher by the name of Arthur Orton unsuccessfully tried to lay claim to the Tichborne baronetcy impersonating the deceased Roger Tichborne, after the other heir (Alfred Tichborne) had passed away. In Carr's work, the peace and quiet of a Kentish village is broken with the arrival of a certain Patrick Gore, who claims to be the true inheritor of Farnleigh Close, an ancient mansion currently occupied by Sir John Farleigh (a title Gore also lays claim to), his wife Molly, their butler Knowles and a small housekeeping stuff.

As was the case with Arthur Orton and Roger Tichborne, the intriguing bit is that Gore and Farnleigh do not resemble each other at all in their facial looks. However, during the inquest to determine the legimitacy of the real Sir Farnleigh, it transpires that both 'claimants' are privy to facts that only the real deal would know. And really wild facts they are: turns out there was a 'role-reversal' on the sinking Titanic that was carried out so successfully that no party on either side of the Atlantic was able to notice the deception—'Patrick Gore' landed in a circus troupe in America after being rescued from the Titanic while 'Sir John Farnleigh' inherited the mansion and married his childhood sweetheart. It is in the midst of a break in these proceedings that the current occupant of the mansion, Sir John Farnleigh, has his throat slashed and is found floating in a pool surrounded on all sides by a five-feet border of sand and thick hedges that block its view. It is witnessed by three separate people all of whom claim to have seen no one in Farnleigh's vicinity. At the same time, a thumbograph recording the fingerprints of both Farnleigh and Gore is stolen from the library.

At this point, in comes Dr Fell after being apprised of the developments. Things start moving at a feverish pace henceforth, and Carr lays it very thick, especially with the atmosphere which is menacing, infernal and has a touch of Death Watch (an earlier Dr Fell novel) to it. An automaton suddenly brought to life, the Golden Hag (modelled after Maelzel's Chess Player), scares the living hell out of a housekeeper and then tumbles down the stairs from the topmost floor almost killing Dr Fell. Rumours of satanism and witchcraft start making the rounds, and the damaged automaton later reappears at the doorstep of a neighbour, also managing to 'orchestrate' the unsuccessful shooting of a bullet at one of the characters. Dr Fell, however, plays his own game, managing to unravel the truth and also present a false, exaggerated solution to lure the weak link (surprise, surprise, it's the butler!) into making a confession of what really happened and his role in it all.

Probably, only an imagination as fertile as Carr's could have come up with a plot that manages to tie together elements as far removed from each other as automatons, the Titanic, the Tichborne Claimant, witchcraft and Satanism.  Regretfully, though, this is one of those efforts where the individual components outshine the sum and combined effect of all of the parts. There are many incredibly attractive plot threads that end on disappointing notes. The fake Patrick Gore's (and in turn, Carr's) explanation of the operation of the automaton, for instance, has often been considered to be dodgy and suspect, especially as it seems to echo Edgar Allan Poe's mistaken ideas on how the Maelzel Chess Player actually functioned. More importantly, the conclusion makes the very addition of the automaton feel cheap, almost like a cop-out—especially as it only exists to scare a character from accidentally making a discovery the significance of which they may not even realise, while the automaton's second appearance feels worse than an afterthought, and is incredibly childish and damning for the perpetrators given their 'satanic' credentials. The digressions on witchcraft, illusionist practices, Satanism sometimes feel too contrived and overwhelm the central narrative too much in the name of atmosphere—all of which are effectively rendered null and void by the killer's epistolary admission to Dr Fell. 

I am equally torn about the solution to the murder of Sir John Farnleigh. I absolutely love the completely-bonkers, didn't-see-it-coming aspect to it, especially as it plays upon our perceptions of height and how one can 'disguise' themselves taking advantage of these perceptions. At the same time, it comes across as a convenient deus ex machina without sufficient clueing prior to its revelation—and even with the clues observed by Dr Fell, it will be quite the stretch for you to identify the exact contraption used (or not) to make the illusion possible. And even though I find the reason to how three witnesses were cheated satisfactory (if not a bit too dependent on luck), there's one major problem with the solution. It fails to help me envision how the culprit escaped from the pond without leaving any print whatsoever on the five-feet border of sand surrounding it on all sides. That must have been a miraculous achievement, given what the killer suffered from. And as they say, in crime fiction, even miracles need to have a rational basis. Sadly, I could find none in this case in which these prints could have been a dead giveaway and a major setback for the culprit early on.

Japanese Nobility, Seances, The Devil, The Teigin Incident, Three-Fingered Clues

Much like The Crooked Hinge, Yokomizo's Akuma ga Kitarite Fue o Fuku has a real-life incident in its backdrop—the 1948 Teigin case, in which a person masquerading as a public health official poisoned 16 employees of the Imperial Bank in Toshima, Tokyo by telling them that he was inoculating them against an outbreak of dysentery. Twelve people died as a result, while the killer made off with 16,000 yen.

As with The Crooked Hinge, impersonation plays a critical role in this work as well—here, in the form of a strong facial resemblance between two important characters. Apparently, Yokomizo was inspired to write the novel when a fellow writer confessed that his face closely resembled that of the alleged culprit, going by the killer's composite picture released by the police. For his part, Yokomizo kept most of this setting intact, only replacing the bank with a jewellery store called Tengindo.

To read the novel though, one needs to have a thorough grasp of Japanese as it hasn't been translated yet. The best you can probably do, if you are unable to read the book, is to watch a 2018 adaptation (a TV special) by NHK, a Japanese broadcasting agency (this shoddy print exists on YouTube). Side note: this is only one of the several adaptations over the decades; I personally prefer the late 1970s episodes (with Ikko Furuya in the lead), a subbed version of which once used to come up on  YouTube, but alas, that's gone.

Hidetaka Yoshioka as Kindaichi

Anyway... Master sleuth Kosuke Kindaichi receives a most unusual request from one Mineko Tsubaki: to investigate the death of her father, Viscount Tsubaki, and to find out if he is actually deceased or not. As it turns out, a few months ago, acting on an anonymous tip-off, the police took the Viscount into their custody on suspicion of having committed murders and an enormous robbery at the Tengindo jewellery store in Tokyo. He is eventually released; strangely enough, he soon commits suicide, but not before cryptically warning his daughter (both verbally and in a note) that 'the shame is too much for him to bear', that 'in the Tsubaki mansion, the devil resides', and that 'the devil comes, playing his flute'. He spends his last few days playing the eerie tunes of his last composition on his flute. The spark for Mineko's visit to Kindaichi, however, is the fact that a few days ago, the mistress of the mansion (Mineko's mother, Akiko) and a servant (Mishima Totaro) both claimed to have seen the deceased viscount in a packed theatre. Kindaichi thus finds himself invited to a seance (to be conducted at the behest of Akiko) at the Tsubaki mansion, where the participants will try to communicate with the deceased patriarch.

If this foreboding atmosphere reeks of the devil (in essence, almost reminiscent of the inquest scene at Farnleigh Close in The Crooked Hinge), it's a fitting one. For, the seance, aided by two blackouts, literally summons the symbol of the devil on the table where it is being conducted! At the same time, the sinister tones of Viscount Tsubaki's float into the seance room, sending everyone into a frenzy. And all this is only the beginning of an extremely complicated case, as, the very next morning, Mineko's uncle (Count Tamamushi) is found murdered inside the locked seance room.

At the scene of the seance

Both in The Crooked Hinge and in Akuma ga Kitarite Fue wo Fuku, readers and viewers are assailed by the sense that most of the characters are floundering in fathomless darkness, in the sense that they are unable to truly get a grip on whatever's happening around them. But, in the latter's case, the real 'heart of darkness' concealed by layers and years of deception and depravity is sufficient to drive any sane person truly insane. This dark, depressing potential is supposedly never fully realised in the novel (which ends on a hopeful note), but the 2018 adaptation is more than happy to emphasise these elements in the extreme, especially with the wholesale changes it makes in the long concluding stretch, and will you leave you feeling absolutely hollow at the end of it all (for a comprehensive list of the differences between the novel and this adaptation, head over here).

Things happen in this TV special, and a lot of them too—more murders, including one far from Tokyo that has a direct bearing on the case, a lot of past history for which Kindaichi has to travel elsewhere, a disappearing flute case, a part of the Tengindo loot suddenly reappearing, words disappearing from a stone lantern (the equivalent to the automaton incident in The Crooked Hinge, in my opinion), among others. But this is not an action movie by any stretch of the imagination—on the contrary, most of it consists of Kindaichi striking up conversations with people that later provide valuable insights into the case.

Still, the clues are littered throughout the episode in a way that never leaves you bored. For example,  linguistic differences—the subtle difference in the way common words are pronounced in different regional dialects (facts Kindaichi gleans while conversing with people)—help the ace detective figure out whodunnit. It is also a great example of how a single word and its correct interpretation can completely turn a mystery on its head. Above all, rarely will one come across such a glaring, in-your-face dying message that remains so cunningly hidden till the end—Viscount Tsubaki's last musical score that Kindaichi comes to understand, at the very end, would have helped him realise who the perpetrator was at the very beginning and thereby prevent all the murders. Tragic indeed.

Unlike The Crooked Hinge, none of these diverse elements are irrelevant to the central mysteries. There's a synergy between all the events (something that is lacking somewhat in The Crooked Hinge) that makes for a linear, intense storyline. And this adaptation focuses most on the motive aspect, with a nearly hour-long conclusion. The locked room is explained in a matter of minutes (not counting the false solution proposed in the opening stretch), demonstrated in a comic, matter-of-fact way, and so is the explanation of how the devil's symbol appeared on the seance table (a clever switching identical-looking, 'twin' statues at an opportune moment). Kindaichi himself points out that he would not be able to come to the truth as long as he thought about 'how' or 'why', he needed to know 'what': what really happened in Count Tamamushi's villa in Kobe during the summer of that year long ago?

Kindaichi visits the stone lantern at the site of Count Tamamushi's ruined summer palace in Kobe. The devil was born here

The incident (or incidents) at the heart of the affair is truly horrific (nauseating would be an understatement) and, aided by complicated happenings later on, adequately explains why the relations between nearly all of the characters are so insanely complicated, frankly unbelievable (in this aspect, it resembles Victorian-era novels with long, intricate family trees). There are two aspects to this that I particularly like. One is that the motive directly ties in with the themes Yokomizo explores in his work: namely, the sheer depravity of the Japanese nobility, the bottomless depths of this depravity, the nobility's fraught relations with the lower classes and the detrimental effects of this relation, as well as the ways in which World War II acted as the great leveller that erased Japanese aristocracy and brought them to the level of commoners.   

The second aspect I admire is that not even the culprit is aware of the exact 'what' that motivates and guides his revenge against the Tsubaki family and its full implications. It is the misguided nature of his life and his actions that adds a tragic edge to the already overwhelming darkness (as if that alone wasn't enough). One will find it within themselves to sympathise with this devilish criminal drowning in the blood of people for the longest time without respite. This outburst of sympathy is also due, in large part, to the superb portrayal of Kindaichi who comes across as this pathos-inducing, gentle detective who hesitates and tries his best to conceal the devastating truth to those who would be affected by it the most, only to reveal it which then precipitates the last tragedy, denying the detective any form of solace. 

As Kindaichi remarks several times during his deduction, "In a person's quest to know everything, he tends to lose sight of the truth." It is a fitting epithet, indeed, for this adaptation.

***

This has turned into quite the long rant on what I essentially started on a whim and some surface-level thinking on two works I encountered a few months ago. It also probably explains why it reads quite disjointed and on rereading it, I am no longer sure that I have adequately achieved what I set out to. However, this is an exercise I am willing to continue. So, expect more of such comparative studies of 'detective twins'—hopefully, with better and well-thought out selections.

Locked and Loaded

It is not every day that you come across a set of stories exclusively based on unlocking locked room mysteries, impossible crimes and breaking unbreakable alibis.

Each of these scenarios are, individually, extremely challenging for most mystery authors—and they are, perhaps, best tackled alone. But what makes The Red Locked Room—a collection (in translation) of short stories from influential Japanese crime fiction author Tetsuya Ayukawa—special is that it manages to incorporate, with aplomb, all of the aforesaid elements to craft engrossing tales of crime and detection.

In his introduction to the book, author Taku Ashibe cites Ayukawa as one of the luminaries of the honkaku (literally, 'orthodox' or 'standard') mystery genre—a school of writing that strove to recreate 'classic fair-play mysteries' in Japanese settings with a more local flavour. Not surprisingly, therefore, Ayukawa seems to be particularly inspired, both in his choice of detectives and narratives, by John Dickson Carr and Freeman Wills Crofts.

The opening story, "The White Locked Room", is Ayukawa's take on the classic no-footprints-in-the-snow theme. A professor turns into a victim in a sealed house surrounded by snow, as a student of his watches helplessly as his mentor suddenly bleeds to death. The catch is, if the victim is truly innocent, then this is an impossible crime. Sounds familiar? Of course, it does

Seasoned readers will not miss the story's similarities with Carr's The Three Coffins. The way the story unfolds—the 'accidental' nature of the man's death, the timing of the snowfall and its role in 'obscuring' and 'revealing' puzzling footprints and the importance of the witness' actions in it all—reeks of Carr's masterpiece, but not quite. There's an ingenuity and precision to the solution, delivered in cryptic forecasts by the detective at key moments in the story, that does away with the superfluous, slightly unbelievable elements of Dr Fell's exposition in The Three Coffins. And while Ayukawa's detective, Ryūzō Hoshikage, is clearly based on Gideon Fell and/or Henry Merrivale, the scoreline here is evident: Ryūzō Hoshikage-1, Dr Fell/Henry Merrivale-0.

The following story, "Whose Body?", introduces us to Ayukawa's other sleuth, Chief Inspector Onitsura. He is modelled after Croft's character, Inspector Joseph French—and like him, Onitsura too specialises in cracking unbreakable alibis. "Whose Body?", one of the highlights of the collection, has Onitsura in charge of a sensational case that starts well before the first corpse surfaces. Murder weapons—a gun, an empty bottle of sulphuric acid and a rope—are sent anonymously to three seemingly unrelated people at random. It seems to be a prank till the first victim is found, shot by a revolver. Thereafter, the story advances, thriller-like, almost at a pulpish, breakneck speed—very unusual considering that it is set in the mould of a police procedural. More deaths follow, through strangulation and burning—and it would seem that the weapons sent were not pranks, but a foreshadowing of things to come. Yet, for all its pace, Ayukawa expertly deceives readers every step of the way with small touches. Every element, however small, matters from the very beginning—and you'll wonder what elementary part you have missed that has led you to be trapped in Ayukawa's illusionary trap. Is it the character traits of the people involved? Or is it a part of their conversation that you have overlooked? Is there any significance to the props and weapons used? Were you not able to keep track of the spaces in which the action unfolded? Was it too convoluted for you to figure out a correct timeline of events? Or were you unable to see through the confusion surrounding identities? Rarely do police procedurals even aspire to be this absorbing.

"The Blue Locked Room" is less ambitious in its conception and scope. On the other hand, it's a good example of how instinctive thoughts and actions (in comparison to premeditated ones) can also make for puzzling plots. The culprit makes effective use of the space and time at hand to kill a much-hated theatre personality and then arrange it in a way that makes it seem like a locked-room murder case with outside interference, But, even his machinations cannot fool the great Hoshikage who comes up with an answer that reinforces a central tenet in detective fiction: "When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." All in all, a story that is, in equal parts, Christie-esque, Holmesian and Queensian.

"Death in Early Spring" features Onitsura at his alibi-cracking best. Ashibe singles out this story as an illustration of why Ayukawa was a master of both locked room mysteries and alibi deconstruction stories. For Ashibe, the story is also a validation of Ayukawa's belief that "an alibi is basically a locked room in time" and that "a locked room on the other hand is an alibi in space."

However, the real reason this story stands out for me is that it highlights the mystery genre's enduring love affair with travelling (short- and long-distance), the railways and timetables. Much in the tradition of Crofts' novels, and taking hints from The Cask in particular, "Death in Early Spring" has Onitsura solve a murder in an abandoned building where it is impossible for the only suspect to have been present at the time of the crime. The resolution is a validation of Onitsura's tedious but extremely meticulous style of investigation—he refers to timetables frequently and undertakes multiple train journeys (literally stepping in the shoes of both the victim and the culprit) to unravel the discrepancy of a role reversal and the source of deception that made the impossible possible.

Much like "The White Locked Room", "The Clown in the Tunnel" has an element of fortuitousness that dilutes, somewhat, the precise, premeditated nature of the plot. But the problem it poses is an interesting one—how does a man dressed as a clown disappear in the middle of a long, straight tunnel/passage watched on both ends after attacking people and killing one in a house full of musicians? The way the story pans out is Christie-like (you may notice, above all, a collusion between most of the characters), but Hoshikage's intervention once again shows the careful skill with which Ayukawa time and again interweaves and blurs the boundaries between 'locked rooms' and 'alibis' of time and space.

"The Five Clocks", a story Ayukawa apparently wrote at the behest of Edogawa Rampo (the father of Japanese crime fiction), has a most imaginative plot. It involves a man manufacturing his alibi using five different clocks in different locations, some set apart by quite a distance—and making a scapegoat out of his friend, who becomes the chief suspect in the process. Onitsura saves the day again. But, with analog clocks, the story is very much a relic of the past and a product of the age in which it was written. One wonders, however, if this daring trick can be replicated in this day and age of digital clocks and the Internet Standard Time. A challenge for future writers, perhaps?

The last story of this collection, "The Red Locked Room", is perhaps the most ambitious of the lot and involves the introduction of a dismembered body in an autopsy room with closed vents and no means of egress at the time it was brought in. Ayukawa is up to his usual tricks here, manipulating the reader's perceptions of time and space and making deceptive use of the props and tools in plain view, but something didn't quite click for me with this one. In parts, it all felt a bit too artificial, forced and careless for my taste.

Some occasional quibbles aside (the outdated, conservative and quite unnecessary socio-cultural commentary in certain sections, for instance), this is quite a competent selection of short stories that I see making it to other future mystery anthologies. As fans of the genre, we tend to harbour certain expectations while reading a work—the plot, the characterisation, the settings and the messages, for example—and we usually want all of these elements, of the correct quality, in the right measure for our complete enjoyment. However, there's a completely different kind of enjoyment to be had when one sees a master author devote their energy and thoughts in exploring, to the utmost, particular themes and aspects only—just as Ayukawa has done by stretching the limits of what's possible in the realms of locked room mysteries, impossible crimes and alibi-deconstruction stories. Which is to say, read and enjoy The Red Locked Room for the puzzles it presents and its celebration of the wonders of logical reasoning; do not expect to find much by way of compelling motives and well-defined characters in these stories—those are best left for another book.

(This post was published on the Scroll website with the following title: ‘The Red Locked Room’: How Tetsuya Ayukawa unlocks locked room mysteries)

A Nosy Affair

When I first conceived of this blog, I imagined it to be a space where I would talk exclusively about Asian (in particular, Japanese) crime fiction. And while the first post is probably a sign that is no longer the case, much of what I plan to write here will be my thoughts and commentary on books, films and series (animated or otherwise) from said region.

I was introduced to Japanese crime fiction courtesy of a television channel called Hungama TV, which once aired 30 episodes of Detective Conan, dubbed in Hindi, over the course of two seasons. It was a curious choice to broadcast them on a channel meant primarily for kids—most Indian parents I have come across have extreme reservations on letting their children see anything that has blood and violence; Detective Conan has copious amounts of both.

Be that as it may, I remember being pretty amused at the sight of genius high-school detective Shinichi Kudo being turned into a kid (literally!) in the very first episode itself. This happens after Shinichi solves a murder case on a rollercoaster while on a date with his girlfriend Ran Mouri. He then overhears a suspicious conversation between a businessman and two men in black and tails them only to be ambushed by said men in black, which finally leads to the predicament mentioned earlier.

The kid Shinichi adopts the name of Edogawa Conan (a tribute to mystery authors Edogawa Rampo and—you guessed it—Arthur Conan Doyle) to protect those near and dear to him as well as uncover the (many) brains and the mastermind behind the nefarious Black Organisation (who are responsible for his plight) and bring them to justice. And to his credit, Shinichi (or Conan) certainly stands out in a world where every fourth or fifth character (friend or foe) turns out to be a sleuth in some form or the other (hey, you can never have enough detectives after all!).

Shinichi Kudo (left) and Edogawa Conan (right) from the early days of Detective Conan

Conan's quest continues to this day. Gosho Aoyama's Meitantei Conan (as Detective Conan is known in Japan) started back in 1994 as a manga series. Conan and company's adventures have now seen over 1,000 manga chapters, 1,000-plus anime episodes, over 20 animated films, several OVAs and television specials. The prolific nature and high standards achieved make it one of the longest-running, most beloved and acclaimed literary-fiction franchises all over the world.

In my early university days, though, when I was first able to appreciate the nuances of Aoyama sensei's work, I failed to see it as anything beyond a creative and faithful tribute to the past doyens of mystery fiction. This was especially true in the case of the first few volumes of the manga and the first 50-odd episodes of the animated series, where I could spot fun, sporting and subtle nods to your Conan Doyles, John Dickson Carrs and Ellery Queens, but not much else besides.

My opinion changed drastically, however, when I saw episode 52—an episode I still believe really helped the series stand out on its own and conveyed the message that it is a masterpiece like no other. This one-hour TV special, ominously titled "Kiri-tengu Densetsu Satsujin Jiken" (The Mist Goblin Legend Murder Case) (an adaptation of chapters 108–110 or volume 11, files 8–10, of the manga series) opens in a relatively peaceful fashion. Ran, Conan and Ran's father, the 'great detective' Kogoro Mouri, are watching cherry blossoms on the mountainside. As evening descends, they try to make their way back home—but as is often the case when Kogorou and travelling are involved, the trio manage to get themselves stranded and lost in the deep forest amidst pouring rain. They are, therefore, forced to take refuge in a temple, with a waterfall running past it, that Conan spots. In the Sandeiji temple, the group meets with the caretaker and head priest Tenei, a long- and sharp-nosed, suspicious-looking figure who agrees to accommodate them for the night for a hefty fee. They also come to know of the legend of the kiri-tengu (the mist goblin, a figure from Japanese folklore), who, in this story, is believed to kidnap young women and feast on their flesh after hanging them from trees.

The four Buddhist monks in training—Kannen, Tonnen, Mokunen and Shunen—take Conan, Kogoro and Ran on a tour of a temple. Here, Conan's attention is drawn to a small room with an extremely high ceiling, a window near the top and a gap near the bottom guarded by a door. On asking, they find out that the room is a 'training room' for monks who isolate themselves to observe penance after being punished. There's also talk of a certain 'incident' in the room some years ago, which seems to have been the handiwork of the kiri-tengu, but Tenei abruptly and angrily brings a halt to all discussions on the subject. All the characters pass restless nights—and the unease deepens further the following morning when the head priest is found hanging from a beam high up in the ceiling of the training room. It's as if the kiri-tengu itself had hung Tenei there—and when the police arrive, Conan and Kogoro learn that, two years ago, another monk Chunen had been found hanging from the very same beam in an identical fashion, a case the police had ruled out as suicide. Can Conan and Kogoro solve the mystery of both murders and unmask the kiri-tengu?

The dastardly kiri-tengu 'hangs' Tenei Oshou

Seasoned readers of Japanese detective fiction will probably realise that this somewhat long and elaborate setup screams 'Seishi Yokomizo' from the get-go. Elements from the works of this master of crime fiction are all here in this episode. A remote location? Check. A case with links to Japanese folklore? Yes. And just as a waterbody plays a major role in Yokomizo's The Honjin Murders (more precisely, the mechanism of a waterwheel on a nearby stream), here too, the waterfall adjoining the temple plays a very influential part here.

And yet, Conan solves the case not in the manner of a Kosuke Kindaichi (the detective from Yokomizo's series) but in his own characteristic way. The 'howdunnit' aspect of the story is a sheer delight, the solution to which will logically lead you to find out 'whodunnit'. It's all fair and above board too—what I like most about the culprit's plan is that it uses the natural features and the 'potential' of the 'training room' to maximum effect by using tools and tricks (none too fancy) that are present in the temple and won't leave you wondering, "Hmmm, how and from where could they have procured these tools in such a short time?" 

The main trick is a variation of one that I have seen executed successfully in a horizontal space (say, a crop field for instance) but never in a vertical space. It is quite unique, but never for a moment does it feel forced or that it does not belong or feels out of place in a setting such as a mountain temple. There is a meticulous yet commonsensical, DIY nature to the physics and dynamics of the tricks here, all of which are neatly tied up and explained in the end.

The episode plays it very fairly with the viewers as well. It invites them to completely immerse themselves in the story being told and pay particular attention to every conversation and scene in order to pick out the select clues that can solve the crime. By the time the deduction starts, you have in your possession all the information, visual and verbal, to unravel the mystery, even though you will probably need to exercise your imagination judiciously to get you started.

The kiri-tengu baffles Conan and the others

The most damning clue that specifically reveals the culprit is also presented in a most human manner. Quite refreshingly, this is not a case of the detectives intellectually outsmarting the criminal hands-down; neither is it an 'oversight' by the murderer. In the course of the episode, both the criminal and the detectives are evenly balanced and look for the same clue—it's just that the sleuths get to it and understand its significance faster than the criminal can hide or destroy it. Perhaps, the only 'unfairness' I can think of comes when the culprit falls into a trap in the first place by incorrectly guessing something that happened while they were busy preparing the scene of crime so elaborately.

In an episode that is a fair-play mystery on so many levels, it is perhaps a tad bit unfortunate that the tragic motive takes a backseat. But it's really a minor peeve, especially when one considers that the episode sets so many of the rules of the game for this series—ones that defined the series and stands it in good stead even today, nearly three decades after its start.

Lastly, there's something really fitting in the use of traditional cel animation in a series such as Detective Conan. The dark tones enhance the atmosphere and feel of the mysteries in the manga so much so that it becomes all the more easier to be invested in them—wouldn't you agree?