SHIZUKO NATSUKI

Cry
From The Cliff

A graduate of Keto University, where she majored in English Literature, Shizuko Natsuki attracted notice for her first novel, The Passed Death. She is one of the few female detective writers in Japan, and each year produces an average of one long novel and fifteen novelettes. In 1973 her best seller, Disappearance, won the Association of Mystery Writers of Japan A ward. Many Japanese critics have predicted that Shizuko Natsuki will become known as the "Agatha Christie of Japan," preeminent in the field of "women's psychological suspense."

Her contribution to this collection is a bittersweet love story about a strange sculptor and his lovely, sad wife who live near the sea, and a visitor—a fascinating mystery that will clutch at your heartstrings. . . .

I first met Maiko Nishikawa on an afternoon toward the end of August. The still strong, late-summer sun penetrated deep into the small reception room next to the editorial office. When I entered the room, she was seated close to the wall, where she could be out of the sunlight. When our eyes met, she half rose, then sat back and waited for me to draw up a chair in front of her. She was small and slender, wearing a soft white suit, her attractively cut hair in a delicate line just below her ears. As I presented my card, I said, "Sorry you've made a special trip here. Did you say you've some copies of the New Art Journal?"

This magazine had been discontinued. But an architect had written to the "Bulletin Boarg" column, here at the West Japan News, where I work, to inquire if we could find someone with a complete set of issues for 1959-60 who would be willing to sell them to him.

The woman raised her eyes to mine and said, "Yes, I have the ones you want. I'd be happy to give them to you. But, they're very heavy. And I live rather far from here."

Her gaze was cool as she looked steadily at me. There was nothing sensual in her look, nor was it too cold. She seemed intelligent and charming.

"You could send them to us. Of course, we'll pay for the mailing charges."

She glanced at my card lying on the table, then picked it up. There was a kind of excitement in her gesture.

"Shin'ichi Takida. Your name? Did you graduate from the Shuyu High School, in Fukuoka, in 1956?"

"That's right."

"Well," she said. "How about that?"

She looked happy. Her cheeks flushed slightly as she asked, "You remember Sugio Nishikawa? You were both in the same class."

I groped for a moment, but finally recalled his face. He and I had not been especially close friends, but I could see him clearly in my mind's eye. The school we attended was famous in our part of the country. Sugio Nishikawa had been conspicuous as something of an eccentric.

"He's my husband," she said. "Perhaps you've forgotten him, but he speaks of you often."

"No, no. I remember. He was the first student from our school ever to be accepted by the sculpture department of the Tokyo University of Fine Arts. I recall reading that he won prizes for his work while he was at the university. I suppose he's continued as a sculptor?"

"Five years ago he damaged his eyes in an automobile accident. We came back here. The injury wasn't serious. Nothing that would interfere with his work. But it was a bad psychological blow. Lately he's done almost no work. I'm beginning to be afraid he won't get any better."

For a moment, I could think of nothing to say. She lowered her eyes. An unexpected air of heaviness settled between us.

I tried changing the topic.

"You say you live a long way from here?"

"We have a small studio on the beach at Keya no Oto. We're some distance from the nearest town. But, it's quiet there, and the sea is beautiful."

Her tone was brightening again.

Keya no Oto, located some thirty kilometers west of the city of Fukuoka on the northwest part of a peninsula jutting into the Sea of Genkai, is famous for its rugged, exciting shoreline.

"Yes, he speaks of you often. He's not the type man who has many friends. You must have left a deep impression on him."

This surprised me. In high school, Nishikawa had a pale, regular face that always suggested an awareness that he was of the elite. He was on close terms with no one, including me. Since graduation, I'd had no contact with him. After leaving college, I went to work for the West Japan News, but remained in the Tokyo branch until I transferred to the Fukuoka main office only five months ago. This was the first news I'd had of any high-school classmate.

A gleam came into the woman's eyes. "I know this is sudden, and I hope you'll forgive me. But I wonder if you'd come to visit us sometime?"

I didn't know what to say.

"Meeting you might give my husband the will to work again. And there are the copies of the New Art Journal. Please?"

Her cheeks flushed again, and her gaze was arresting. So, I vaguely agreed to her request. She stood to go, but I invited her to join me for a cup of tea. She accepted without hesitation.

I flagged a taxi and took her to a cool, quiet place some distance from the office. We were there for some time. She talked little, but her eyes seemed to tell me a great deal about her way of life, her unhappiness, her search for something indefinable. At parting, a little flustered at my stupidity, I said, "I don't know your first name."

"Maiko."

Small teeth showed between pale pink lips. We watched each other, and I felt we read something in each other's eyes. We did not understand the true meaning of the word fate.

One Saturday in early September, I drove my small car to the Nishikawa house. Leaving the national highway and driving for a time over rough mountain road, I finally found the desolated little Shinto shrine that was my landmark. I could hear the sound of waves nearby.

As Maiko said, the public beach, caves, and spots tourists visit in boats were about one kilometer from the shrine. There were no houses here. Lines of lofty pines rustled boughs overhead.

Getting out of the car, I heard someone call to me. Maiko smiled at me from a path to the cliff on which I stood. She wore a broad-brimmed straw hat and had yellow rubber zori on her feet. The blue veins were visible in the delicate flesh of her fragile, white toes.

As we came out of the grove of pine trees, the sea opened before us. Far below, waves crashed whitely. Maiko guided me down the steep path leading among boulders and clumps of wild grass to the sea.

"You see that high cliff over there? From the top, the view's wonderful. I'll show you later." Her voice was light as she pointed. The cliff was so high it was necessary to look up. Made of a kind of basalt peculiar to this part of Japan, it was a great column rising toward the sky from a base badly eroded by pounding waves.

The Nishikawa house was built snugly near the sea, almost at the bottom of the path. Though small and old, it had Western-looking white walls and a flat roof that set it apart from the usual fishing-village houses in this part of the country. It seemed to be a weekend house built a long time ago by a person who was both rich and capricious.

Sugio Nishikawa greeted us at the door. I couldn't believe what I saw. Could he have changed as much as this in ten years? He was thin and aged, looking a good ten years older than he was. He combed his hair straight back from his forehead, but it was already thin at the hairline. His skin was transparent. In the past, the high bridge of his nose had contributed to the regularity and artistlike appearance of his face; now it only accentuated sunken eyes and bony cheeks. What struck me most about him was an alteration of general mood. A light of pride had always governed Nishikawa's features. Now he seemed a shadow of weakness and emasculation. Nonetheless, there was a hint of happiness on his face as he welcomed me.

"Good to see you. Thanks for coming."

We shook hands like acquaintances of ten years.

Just beyond the entranceway was a large room with a worn carpet on the floor. Apparently it served as both living room and studio. In a corner was a built-in sofa and table; at the back of the room stood a rattan chair. On the floor, in a semicircle around the chair, ranged various lumps of clay. None of these had definite shape. But the buttocks-shaped dent in the tattered cushion of the rattan chair showed where Nishikawa spent long hours.

He motioned me to the sofa, then sat in the chair, some distance from me. As old friends who haven't seen each other for a long time, we sketched our histories since parting, then ran out of conversation. Names of two or three high-school classmates came up, but neither of us knew anything about them. We hadn't much in common to discuss.

The silence became difficult. I said, "I heard you damaged your eyes in a traffic accident."

I thought I'd gone too far, but Nishikawa smiled weakly. "It's nothing serious. Sometimes things blur, and maybe every ten days I get a bad headache."

To my relief, Maiko came from the kitchen, where she'd been preparing food.

"Sugio's been happy as a child ever since he heard you were coming. But he's not a good talker—probably hasn't let you know how he feels."

I understood. As if unable to suppress his excitement, Nishikawa had been continually toying with a pipe, and stammered a little when he spoke. His attitude made me uncomfortable.

"Shall I show you the house?" Maiko asked.

The request sounded American. Under ordinary Japanese circumstances, it would even have been pretentious. But, coming from Maiko, it sounded completely innocent, and I rose to follow her.

I was surprised to see that the bath was directly next to the studio living room. Beyond a small dressing-room was a blue-tiled bath with a large window looking out on the sea. Below the window were boulders, and several meters farther down, waves beat against the shore. Only the living room and bath faced the sea. At the rear of the house were one bedroom and a small dining-kitchen.

"You 'II spend the night of course?"

Maiko's tone was much more intimate than on the day when I'd first met her in my office.

"As you see, we're country. I'm afraid there isn't much to offer in the way of hospitality. But we can get good fresh fish. And then, there's the view of the sea."

Nishikawa had oppressed me. But with Maiko, the entire mood changed. Once again, I felt myself unable to refuse her request.

After dinner, I spent what seemed hours facing Nishikawa across the living room. During the meal, he had taken part in the small talk Maiko engineered. But now he sat in silence, leaning back in the rattan chair with his eyes closed. The only proof I had that he wasn't sleeping was the smile of satisfaction playing over his face.

Somewhat accustomed to the quiet, I enjoyed the moonlight on the sea. From time to time, I heard the humming sound of a motorboat.

Quite some time had passed, when I realized the sounds from the kitchen had ceased. I rose and went to tell Maiko not to stay out of the living room to humor us.

The dining-kitchen was dark. I knocked on the bedroom door, but there was. no answer. Cracking the door slightly, I looked in. There was no sign of Maiko. All was quiet in the bathroom, too. Maiko was nowhere to be found.

I glanced at my watch. It was past nine. She couldn't have gone out to buy anything at this hour.

Somewhat uneasy, I returned to the living room to find Nishikawa just as I'd left him. He swayed back and forth in the rattan chair and wore a look of savoring each second. It was still. All I could hear was the sound of the waves and the occasional humming of a motorboat.

Then the motorboat sound seemed to come nearer. When it reached a point comparatively close to the house, it stopped. After that, I heard it no more. The silence muffled everything.

More time passed; I don't know how long. Then I heard the soft sound of the front door opening. I went across the room, opened the connecting door a bit. Maiko was there. She wasn't aware of me. She carefully locked the front door, without a sound. After removing her rubber zori, she walked quietly toward the bedroom.

It was night. Sometimes people went out to finish a piece of work they'd forgotten. Sometimes, unable to sleep, they went for a walk. But the thing that made me reject both of these explanations of Maiko's absence was the thick makeup she wore, heavier than what she'd worn during the day. She had drawn pencil lines around her cool eyes, and her lipstick wasn't pale pink, but brilliant scarlet. There was wet sand on her feet.

I closed the door and walked back to the sofa as Nishikawa opened his eyes.

"I think I'll take a bath. Takida, how about you? I hop into the bath, anytime, day or night."

With a motion, I indicated refusal. With a meaningless laugh, Nishikawa opened the bathroom door and went in.

He must have noticed Maiko's absence and her secretive return. He was simply keeping quiet. I concluded this was the most deliberate posture this emasculated man was capable of.

As she promised, on the following bright, sunny day, Maiko guided me to the top of the high basalt cliff. Though the weather was calm and windless, powerful waves hurtled against the cliff base, twenty meters below. It was the kind of sea one could expect at Genkai. In the offing, there were no waves, only an expanse of cobalt-blue water dotted with pale green islands. The two or three hours after lunch, Nishikawa devoted to what he called "work." For this reason, only Maiko accompanied me on the walk. She wore an orange blouse and white shorts and the same yellow zori she'd worn the day before. Though small, she was beautifully proportioned, with legs like a young fawn's. She was very lovely. Seen from behind, her bobbed hair fluttered and she reminded me of an innocent girl who's fond of sports. I found it hard to believe this was the same Maiko who had sneaked into the house the preceding night.

Standing on the cliff, she told me the names of all the peninsulas and islands. Then she laughed. "Forgive me. You're a native of this part of the country."

"Maybe—but I've forgotten these places. I was in Tokyo a long time."

"Tokyo. . ."

Maiko looked raptly at the sea. Her voice was filled with some special emotion.

"Are you from Tokyo?" I asked.

"Yes."

"Your parents still there?"

"They're dead. But I do have an elder sister. I love her very much. I used to visit her often, but now. . ."

Maiko lowered her gaze. I wondered why she didn't enjoy the luxury of trips to see her sister. Psychological, financial? I nearly asked her why she concealed her sadness.

But I turned my eyes away and suddenly saw an elegant building of white walls, near an inlet on the opposite side of the bay. A villa. Partly hidden by a grove of pines, the house looked cool, refreshing.

At the shore by the house was a motorboat; its bright cream hull suddenly filled my entire field of vision and burned itself on my mind.

I decided to spend another night with the Nishikawas. Maiko was eager for me to do so, as on the previous night. I was unable to say no. But I had another reason. Monday morning, I didn't have to be at the office until around eleven. Since I'm a bachelor, there's no one to complain if I stay away from home for a night or so.

Shortly after dinner, Nishikawa retired to the bedroom, claiming he was tired from his first good day of work in a long time. Although there was nothing to show how much or what kind of work he'd done, it seemed certain he was pleased at my staying there. As usual, he was silent, but smiled in a satisfied way when he looked at me.

Alone in the living room, I unfolded the sofa bed and lay down. Moonlight fell on the water. Everything was quiet in the dining-kitchen. After a time, the humming motorboat sound arose from the sea. With closed eyes, I listened as the boat approached, then moved away in what seemed to be a pattern of fixed distance. The repeated rhythm of this pattern finally began to get on my nerves. It was almost intolerable, when the engine stopped. The restored silence penetrated to the very core of my brain. I went outdoors.

I felt it was the same motorboat I'd seen moored by the villa across the water.

I began climbing the stony, upward path. Moonlight bathed everything a pale blue-white. When I reached a point about halfway up, I heard a car engine. Then, at the very top of the path, I saw the car—a white Volvo. A man and woman got out of the car. The woman was Maiko. The man was tall.

Maiko led the way down the path, which was too narrow for them to walk abreast. If she showed any sign of unsteadiness, the man put out both arms to catch her and help her. They were soon well on their way down the slope. I hastened to retrace my steps, since there was no place on the path to hide.

Crouching behind a large boulder beside the entrance of the house, I watched as Maiko almost ran to the front door. I was shuddering with excitement. She seemed completely collected. Then the man arrived. He wore a white shirt with the collar turned up. Since the moonlight was behind him, I couldn't make out his face. but I could see that he was tall and thin.

Maiko turned around. The man's hand stroked her hair and then slipped along her shoulder. His fingers interlaced with her white fingers. Maiko allowed him to touch her lightly, then she pulled free. When she reached for the doorknob, the man did not touch her. After looking at him another moment, Maiko quickly slipped inside and shut the door. The man stood for a moment before the closed door, then turned and slowly started climbing the path.

There had been no embraces, no amorous whispering. But it was all the same to me. I wanted to look away from Maiko's true reason for inviting me "for my husband's sake" and for her eager urging that I stay. As I watched him walk away in the moonlight, I experienced an emotion I was unable to entertain in connection with Sugio Nishikawa. It welled within me. It was jealousy.

Two days later, as I returned to my office from lunch, noticed a parked white Volvo. I hadn't gotten a good look at the car Maiko came home in that night. It made me uneasy.

I was right to be suspicious. As I watched, a tall man came out of a gun shop in a building two or three doors beyond the car. He had on large, dark green sun glasses and wore a beige shirt with the collar turned up. He carried a hunting rifle in his left hand. Opening the rear door of the car, he dropped the gun inside, then got in himself. With a roar, the car was lost in traffic on the boulevard.

I was certain this was the man who had brought Maiko home that evening.

I went into the quiet cool of the air-conditioned gun shop. Running my eyes over the polished rifles along the walls, I said to the heavy-set man behind the counter, "The man who went out just then. I know him. Does he come here often?"

"Yes. That's Mr. Kusashita, you mean?" The shop owner had a ruddy, pleasant face and smiled as if he liked people. He wore a red bow tie.

"Quite a gun fan, Mr. Kusashita. Been a good customer of mine for about six months."

"Doesn't he have a beach place at Keya no Oto?"

"Yes. But I hear he's originally from Tokyo. He came here to get over a case of asthma, liked it, and stays more here than anywhere else. Even if he's recovering from sickness, he's lucky to be able to do what he wants."

When I returned to work, one of the office girls said I'd received a call from a woman named Nishikawa. She had called a few days earlier urging me to visit them. Since he'd seen me, her husband's condition had changed. He was working and she wanted me to come often to encourage him.

On the phone she was completely the wife who's deeply concerned about her husband. She created a feeling that would only be possible in a woman who believes implicitly in the bond between her husband and an old friend. This hurt me, somehow. Still, I decided that day to visit them again. I had the respectable excuse of wanting to pay them for the copies of the New Art Journal. I felt that, if I were being used, it was all right. As long as he understands his part, Pierrot is not really a clown. If I could only see Maiko. But because of work, it was after eight at night when I finally knocked on the Nishikawa front door.

Maiko, dressed in dark blue, greeted me at once. She looked more downcast than usual. I almost believed that look of striking happiness that filled her eyes when they met mine. But probably what I saw was only a reflection of what was in my own heart.

Niskikawa wasn't in the studio-living room.

"He's gone out in the boat," Maiko said, looking in an oddly coaxing way at the dark waters. A fog was moving in over the sea. "He only wants to go rowing on nights like this. He claims he's only relaxed when he's out on the water where it's impossible to see anything."

Maiko prepared something to eat and I sat for a long time in silence, playing with the drink in my hand.

"Are you going to go on living like this?" I asked after a while. And Maiko's eyes spoke to me, just as they had that day in the coffee shop. She seemed deep in thought.

I said, "You're sacrificing yourself for your husband's sake."

She made no reply.

"Are you satisfied with this kind of life? You're not, are you?"

She looked at me. When I felt her glance, a wall inside me seemed to crumble.

"You're giving him everything. Anyway, that's how it looks. But actually, you're betraying him."

"That's not true," she said sadly.

"But I've seen you with him, with Kusashita."

"There's nothing between us. I want you—you of all people—to believe that."

Her lips trembled as she spoke. I wanted to believe her.

There came the sound of a rifle shot from the sea. Then another. The fog seemed to muffle the sounds so they had difficulty reaching us. Something came over me, a sense of foreboding, and I embraced Maiko with all my strength. Her body felt pitiably light as she collapsed against my chest.

"If that's how you feel, it's all the more reason for you to stop living this hopeless way."

"Only a little longer," she said. "Sugio needs this life. Anyway, it'll end sooner or later."

"And then?"

"I'll change completely. I'll become a different person." Her words were fixed in my mind. The sound of the shots from the sea continued.

"Believe me," she said softly.

I pressed my lips against hers. She kissed me in return. At the same time, a fat tear rolled from the corner of her eye. I believed that tear.

The next day was cloudy, hot, humid. Sometimes a rough wind blew so hard it threatened to topple the little house. We heard that a small typhoon was approaching.

The night before, when Nishikawa came home to find me there, he was in good spirits. But even as late as the afternoon of the next day, he showed no signs of wanting to work. He was more talkative than usual and took pleasure in ridiculing all the generally admired sculptors, one by one. Maiko had wanted me to come to encourage him, but my presence seemed to have the opposite effect.

The typhoon was still creeping our way, but in the evening the wind was strong and steady. The sea swell increased. Whitish clouds rushed across the sky, making things lighter and brighter.

"It's a fine night," Nishikawa said, looking at the sea with feverish eyes. "I feel most relaxed in a storm."

"You going for a boat ride tonight, too?"

I was joking, but noticed that he had changed into the same gray shirt and black shorts he'd worn the night before. I knew I couldn't let him go out. The thing that really disturbed me was the memory of the dull, ominous gunshots from the fog. Before I could speak, Nishikawa said, "No. Since you're here, let's have some drinks."

I agreed. Not that I thought drinking with him would be much fun, but it would keep him home. I suspected Maiko would stay home tonight.

I was wrong. When Nishikawa and I had finished off about a third of the bottle of whiskey I'd brought as a present, I noticed the house was very quiet. Pretending to go to the toilet, I went to the entranceway. Maiko's zori were gone.

Irritation, indignation touched me. After a while, I got the better of my feelings and returned to the living-room. I tried to recall the look in Maiko's eyes when she had said, "I want youof all people—to believe that." I had believed her. Nothing else mattered. I had to close my eyes to everything.

I had been drinking fast since early evening. Nishikawa held his liquor well. No matter how much he drank, he didn't become flushed in the face. He became paler. Only his eyes glowed with a strange, burning light. From time to time he said disconnected things.

A little after nine, he rose sluggishly.

"Excuse me, but I think I'll take a bath. Sober up. Then we can drink some more."

I nodded and he went into the bath.

A few moments later I heard a sharp woman's cry from the sea. "Help!" Then, "Somebody!" This was followed by inarticulate screaming. Finally there was an indistinct sound of something falling into the sea, of splashing water. This was mixed with the sounds of the wind and the waves, reaching my ears in snatches. I shot up from my chair, then hesitated.

At that instant, Nishikawa opened the bathroom door. He was wet and naked. There was something different in his expression.

"You hear a funny voice, just now?"

It had been no trick of my hearing, then.

"Yes," I said. "Sounded like it came from the sea."

"No. From the cliff. It couldn't be. . ."

His voice choked off. He was thinking the same as I: It couldn't be Maiko.

"I'll go and take a look," I told him.

"Yes. I'll be along in a minute."

I left the house. At first, I looked toward the sea. The boiling sheet of white rain clouds lightened the sky, but the sea was black. High waves crashed and foamed among the boulders below. I could see nothing from the height on which I stood.

I started up the path. Maybe Nishikawa had been right saying the voice came from the cliff. I hurried. I heard my own rough breathing, felt blood pounding in my ears.

Reaching the top, I cut through the alley of pines. Two hundred meters from the small shrine, a narrow path dipped then turned up to emerge at the top of the basalt cliff. It was the same path Maiko had guided me along the day we walked up there. Because the path twisted and turned, it took five or six minutes to reach the cliff edge.

There was no one there. I looked over. The drop of more than twenty meters along the scooped-out cliff face made me slightly dizzy. Looking around, I glimpsed some white thing shining at the very edge of the cliff. I picked it up. It was a small woman's rubber zori with yellow straps. I felt sure it belonged to Maiko.

I noticed something. On one of the straps, was a spot. I looked closer. It seemed to be blood.

"Maiko!" I called out loudly, but the wind and waves obliterated my voice.

I thought of jumping in. But I'd had no experience in high diving. I had no notion what waited for me at the base of the cliff.

Holding the zori, I retraced my steps along the narrow path. My car was parked by the gate of the small Shinto shrine.

The settlement of inns for the Keya no Oto public beach is about a kilometer in the opposite direction from the cliff. It is located on a sandy shore across the peninsula from where the Nishikawa house stands.

The middle-aged officer in the local police station was skillful and expert. Accidents at sea were fairly frequent. He immediately called the innkeepers' labor union and asked them to put out the motorboat they held in readiness. Then he sat beside me in the front seat of my car as we drove back to the cliff. By this time, large drops of rain had begun beating on the windshield.

We arrived at the top of the cliff at the same moment Nishikawa came loping up. He was breathing hard.

"I went to the breakwater," he managed. "But I couldn't see anything."

All three of us rushed to the edge. The policeman trained a flashlight on the blackness, but we only saw dark swelling waters and pounding spray. I explained the situation to Nishikawa, showed him the zori. He collapsed. Wind and rain lashed his white shirt and brown trousers.

I heard a low, smothered groan. It was Nishikawa, pouring out a bitter sorrow.

About an hour later, they found Maiko's body. It was near a cliff, some fifty meters west of their house. She was wearing the dark blue dress and was barefoot. The large fruit knife that remained thrust in her body had been driven into her back, aimed at her heart.

The results of the autopsy were revealed the following evening. She had died instantaneously of the wound in the back. She could not have drowned because she had taken in almost no seawater. Nishikawa testified that the right zori found at the cliff edge was Maiko's. The blood on the strap was Maiko's type. Time of death was established as between nine and nine-thirty. Nishikawa and I had heard the cry about nine-fifteen. From this, it was postulated that Maiko had been stabbed on the clifftop, then pushed over into the sea. The waves and tide carried her body to where it was discovered.

Nishikawa did nothing but wander empty-eyed about the house all day. It was natural I take his place in cooperating with the police investigation. But down to hard facts, I found I knew little about Maiko, except that she went out at night.

Nishikawa could say nothing of any use to the investigators. I couldn't believe he was ignorant of what went on, but he never mentioned anything about Maiko and Kusashita. In a voice touched with grief, he did say that, about six months ago, he and Maiko had each taken out a life insurance policy for ten million yen and had named each other as beneficiary. He said he'd taken this step in hopes of providing for Maiko after his death and that, over his objections, she had insisted on insuring herself, as well.

When Nishikawa wasn't in the room, I told the police about Maiko and Kusashita, hinting the two had been together. The police considered this valuable information. The case was clearly murder, but suspects were so few that the investigators were puzzled and irritated. They would have suspected Nishikawa and myself, but for the fact that we were facing each other in the same room when the cry was heard. Thus, we had an unbreakable alibi.

I soon learned Kusashita was beyond suspicion. He, too, had an alibi. He hadn't left his house the evening of the murder. Two people vouched for this; his housekeeper and his doctor, who'd had supper at Kusashita's. This exasperated me. Didn't the police know the housekeeper and doctor might easily be bribed?

I decided to act directly on my own.

About an hour after I started waiting, the white Volvo came up the dirt road, which was like a tunnel, shaded by trees and brush. The low-powered engine rumbled as the car climbed the road leading from Kusashita's house to the small shrine. He was alone. I stepped into the road to block the way. Throwing sand, the car jerked to a halt. I glimpsed a hunting rifle in the back seat. Kusashita looked wonderingly at me. I said nothing for a moment.

"You've got a leak in one of your tires."

"What?" He looked doubtfully at me.

"That one," I said, pointing to a front tire. He got out. As he crossed to look at the tire, I moved and gripped him by the wrist.

"I want to talk to you about Maiko."

His face stiffened. It was the first time I'd ever seen him close up. He looked much older than I'd expected. He must have been well over thirty. The skin of his face was smooth and had the bluish-white cast of illness. His eyes were prominent, like those of a person suffering from Basedow's disease, but they were cloudy, weak. Everything about him, from the long nose to the purplish lips and thin, round-shouldered stance, told me he was fragile.

"Let's talk on top of the cliff."

He tried to yank his hand free. A look of panic was in his eyes.

"I have nothing to say to you."

"But I have something for you. I know all about you and Maiko."

Occasional automobiles passed on the road, but we were concealed by trees. I twisted his wrist and he scowled, but stopped resisting.

"You want to talk, let's do it here."

"No. Upon the cliff is better."

He stiffened again at each mention of the cliff. Fear showed on his face. I became certain I was right about him.

"Don't be frightened. I just want to talk."

My throat was tight with anger, hatred. I put my hand on his neck, and he turned, started forward.

A narrow path enabled us to reach the cliff without passing on the larger road. It was evening at sea. A slow wind drew over calm water that glittered red like the scales of a brilliant fish. When we left the path for the clifftop, Kusashita stopped dead.

"We can talk here."

He looked desperate, I felt sure he was afraid to return to the place where the murder had been committed.

"Tell me exactly what your relations were with Maiko."

"There was nothing between us."

"Sure."

"It's true. I met her about six months ago. By the shrine. She spoke to me first. After that, we sometimes went for drives together. On summer nights we'd go out in the motorboat. She almost never talked. I didn't even hold her hand. How can I tell you? She never gave me an opening."

"If that's so, why did you kill her?"

"I didn't kill her," he shouted.

"Yes, you did. You probably talked about killing Nishikawa. But Maiko wouldn't do things like you wanted, and you began to find her a burden. That night, on the cliff, here, you had a fight. You lost your temper, stabbed her in the back, and pushed her into the sea."

"Damn you—none of that's true!"

"Can you keep up this pretense, even at the edge of the cliff? Maybe Maiko's spirit is still hovering here."

I gripped his hand again.

"Stop!"

Beads of perspiration stood out on his forehead. He was afraid.

"I'm terrified of heights. If you take me to the edge, I'll die. . . ."

I pulled at him. The more he resisted, the more he enraged me.

We reached the edge. Kusashita twisted to avoid looking down. I gripped his collar and forced him to look at the sea below.

"This is where you killed Maiko. Admit it."

He did not answer. Feeling him go heavy against me, I realized he was going to faint. I pushed him from me. He sprawled on the ground, panting for breath, staring with unfocused eyes.

I still hated him, but I knew he wasn't putting on an act. His sports car and his hunting rifle were an essential coverup for the weakness of this spineless man. He could never have been bold enough to kill Maiko.

It was an afternoon in late October when I called on Keiko Minegishi, Maiko's elder sister, who lived in a quiet, residential part of Tokyo. It was my first meeting with her. Her husband was traveling on business in Europe, and she'd just had a baby. Circumstances prevented their visiting Fukuoka after Maiko's death. I had found the cream-colored modern house easily from the directions over the phone. When I rang the bell, a middle-aged woman answered. It was Keiko. She was plump, but attractively dressed in a pongee kimono. Though childbirth had robbed her face of some of its color, the cool eyes and the outline from forehead to cheeks reminded me of Maiko. She led me to the living room and I came to the point.

"It's difficult to ask, but do you know of any men in Maiko's life other than Nishikawa?"

She slowly shook her head. "The police asked me the same thing. I know of no one. If there'd been another man, and if it'd been serious enough to change her fate, Maiko would certainly have discussed it with me."

"I understand you hadn't been seeing much of each other in recent months."

"No. But she wrote me often."

"You think she was completely satisfied with her life with Nishikawa?"

"She was satisfied. She tried to believe it, anyway. She vowed she would do anything, endure any life, for his sake." She spoke slowly, raised her fingertips to her eyes, and sat silent for a long time. I waited.She said, "It was a kind of atonement for her."

Keiko turned her gaze down after speaking.

"Atonement? What did she have to atone for? Atonement to whom?"

"Nishikawa, of course."

"Why?"

"I suspect you know. His eyes were damaged in an accident, and he's been in a bad slump ever since."

"I've heard—but. . ."

"Maiko was driving. A car in front braked suddenly, and she crashed into it. Miraculously, she escaped with only scratches. I'm sure the shock was great for Nishikawa. After all, an artist's eyes are his life. But I think the person most deeply hurt was Maiko. Before then, she was always so bright. Like a sprite. Good at all kinds of sports. In high school, she'd been a champion swimmer. . . ."

Keiko sat perfectly still, looking at the garden as she spoke. I had the painful feeling she could almost see Maiko out there.

She went on. "Shortly after the accident, when they decided to leave Tokyo, Maiko came to say goodbye. She said she was ready to devote her life to her husband. She would put up with anything for his sake. She cried, saying it was the only way she could make up for what had happened. But why did she cry? If she loved Nishikawa, it would have been only natural to give him everything. Before she talked of atonement, she would've seen devotion to him as happiness. I felt she was no longer in love with him. She didn't know it herself yet. She mistook a need for recompense for love. I thought that someday a man would come along and show her the mistake she was making. I was waiting for that to happen, for her sake."

Keiko looked directly at me. Her eyes were wet, but they gleamed with sadness, resignation. They reminded me of Maiko's eyes. I felt strangely tormented.

"You said Maiko had been a swimmer?"

"Yes. An especially good diver. Bold, elegant."

"Diving?" I repeated the word over to myself.

Thick clouds hung over the sky at the Sea of Genkai. The water was harsh black. The basalt cliff, towering into the grayness, seemed sharper than ever. Against my will, I recalled the day of the murder. I opened the door suddenly and saw Sugio Nishikawa seated in the rattan chair, looking at the sea. He slowly turned and looked at me.

"Oh, it's you." He spoke as if I'd been away only a short time. His eyes were lightless, his expression dead. I stood silent behind him.

"With you here, it seems Maiko's still in the house," he said, his voice was a kind of groan.

"All right," I said. "Tell me how you killed her. I understand almost everything, but I'd like to hear it from you."

Nishikawa coughed, looking up at me.

"What are you talking about? At the minute we heard the cry, you and I were here together."

"We were together when somebody cried out. But that wasn't when Maiko was killed."

Nishikawa made no reply.

"You were in the bath. That's why I went out to find what happened. But if you'd really been worried about Maiko, you'd have dressed. You said you went down to the breakwater. But you were gone too long for that. You were the one who first said the cry came from the cliff. And, even if you'd gone to the breakwater, you wouldn't have stayed long. But you didn't turn up till I'd been to the police and come back. Thirty minutes, at least. And you'd changed into a white shirt and brown pants. Why?"

While I was speaking, Nishikawa slumped down. His hands dangled from the chair arms. I couldn't tell whether he was listening. I felt new anger inside me. It was not the passionate feeling I'd experienced against Kusashita, but cold, deep hatred. Lifting his chin, I forced him to look up. He didn't resist, but stared at me vacantly.

"About six months ago, you and Maiko took out insurance policies for ten million each. At about the same time, Maiko first came into contact with Kusashita. That must've been when you planned to kill her and use Kusashita and me in some kind of supporting role."

"You're wrong!"

He spoke clearly for the first time.

"I had no intention of killing Maiko, till that day."

Finally, he straightened up in his chair and said, staring out at the sea, "I couldn't stand the life here any longer. Sitting here, looking at the sea,-is no way to calm yourself—it drives you mad. I wanted to go back to Tokyo, where I could be stimulated by other artists and finally get to work again. If I went on the way we were going then, I would've been finished. But I didn't have the means of getting there. This house belongs to somebody else, of course. But if we left it, we'd have no place to live. It's embarrassing, but we didn't have enough money to move."

"Then you remembered about life insurance policies?" "Maiko said she was willing to do anything, for my sake. No—for the sake of our future together."

"She say she was willing to be murdered?"

"No. Listen. I had no intention of killing her. We were going to make it look as if she'd been killed. You can't collect on a life-insurance policy if death is suicide and occurs one year after the conclusion of the contract. Suicide by a young wife who's known to have no male interests but her husband, would look unnatural. That's why we decided to bring Kusashita into the plan. We didn't intend to lay the blame on him. Sooner or later the police would see they lacked sufficient evidence and would let him go. We only wanted to make it look as if Maiko's murder had been inevitable."

"And you dragged me in for the sake of your alibi?"

"That's right. That's all we had in mind." His voice lowered. "After she met you, Maiko changed. I saw it, but I had no idea you'd make such a deep impression on her."

"Tell me what happened the day of the murder."

"The night before, when I came in from boating, you were here. A typhoon was coming up, the sea rough. Maiko said we should put our plan into action the following day.

"Our original plan was to choose a night when the sea was rough. Maiko would climb the cliff, leave a bloodstained zori at the edge, scream before she dived into the water. I'd be in the bath and would ask you to run on ahead of me to see what happened.

"While you were doing that, Maiko would swim here from the cliff. She'd been a diving champion in high school, and such a dive would be easy. She was a strong swimmer. Even if the sea was rough, she knew she could manage the distance here, about a hundred meters. She'd come here, change clothes, and vanish in the night. She intended to go to Tokyo. A big city swallows up anyone. Maiko thought she would work as a hostess in a club and live alone till I joined her. As soon as I collected the insurance money, I'd go to Tokyo. It might take time, but we felt certain the police would conclude that the body hadn't turned up because of the rough sea. Maiko would then change her name, but stay my wife. And the two of us could start a new life together."

There had been pain in his voice.

"But on the night of her death, Maiko suddenly said she was leaving me. She said she'd go through with everything as planned and that she'd let me have all the insurance money for a new start. Then she asked me to forget about her and our past life. She wanted a new life of her own. That's what she said."

He turned to me.

"I couldn't believe it, you see? She'd been faithful. Maiko had been all mine. On that night, I heard the cry. You went out. I went to the seaside. I thought Maiko might have hidden some dry clothes somewhere and that she'd leave without returning to the house. I waited at the edge of the cliff. I wanted to try once more to talk her out of leaving. She came. I tried to be convincing, but she refused to understand. Her mind was filled with another man. When I saw this, I gripped the knife I'd hidden in my pocket. I would not let Maiko belong to anyone but me!"

"You changed clothes because you were bathed in blood."

He glared at me with flaming eyes. I saw something, then, of the proud, elite Sugio Nishikawa of our high-school days. But it vanished at once. He rose shakily.

"I made one great miscalculation. I'd forgotten that life without her would be intolerable." Nishikawa laughed foolishly. Then he reached to the shelf on the wall, where he found the bottle of whisky he and I had been drinking together that night. "I'm tired, let me have a drink."

With a trembling hand, he poured whisky into a glass. I grasped his wrist the instant before the rim touched his lips. I saw some white powder slowly spreading on the amber liquid. He was suddenly powerful. We fell tumbling to the floor and he still held the glass. It broke, and a splinter pierced my chest.

"Let me die!"

One of his hands fumbled over the floor. I gripped it and then began throttling him. There was no chance I'd let him die, though. I wanted to drag him before a court just as he was at that moment. I believed that only then would Maiko's spirit find freedom from Nishikawa's spell, and eternal peace in my heart.