at Kashii railway station at 9:24 on the night of the twentieth. This meant that they had left Hakata station about 9:10 since it was only a fifteen-minute journey.
Assuming Sayama had left the inn at about eight o'clock, after receiving the phone call from the woman, where did they meet and what did they do for that one hour before getting on the train at Hakata? This would be difficult to ascertain, probably impossible. There was no place from which to start checking in a city the size of Hakata.
Torigai was walking slowly towards the Nishitetsu station, pondering the problem, when someone called to him from behind.
'Excuse me!' Torigai turned around. A young man was approaching. 'Are you from the police?' His manner was diffident.
'Yes,' Torigai answered. The man was carrying a paper bag full of oranges. Torigai remembered seeing him make the purchase at the fruit store he had just left.
'I overheard your conversation while I was buying these oranges,' the young man explained as he came up to Torigai. 'I want to tell you that I also saw the couple you were inquiring about. It was around 9:30, the night of the twentieth.'
'Oh,' exclaimed Torigai, his voice betraying his surprise. Looking around, he saw a small shop at the side of the road that looked like a coffee shop and invited the rather shy young man to enter with him. Over a cup of something black and steaming that was said to be coffee he studied the young stranger. 'Please tell me what you know.'
'I really have little to tell,' said the young man, scratching his head. 'But when I overheard your conversation, I thought the few facts I have might be of use to you.'
'That's kind of you. Please tell me what you know.'
'I live here but I commute to Hakata where I work,' the young stranger began. 'The night before the bodies were found, therefore the night of the twentieth, I too saw a couple who resembled the pictures in the papers of the two who committed suicide. They arrived at Nishitetsu Kashii Station at 9:35.'
'Wait a moment.' Torigai held up his hand. 'You say the Nishitetsu line?'
'Yes. That train leaves Keirinjo-mae at 9:27. It takes only eight minutes to get here.' Keirinjo-mae is in Hakozaki, on the extreme eastern edge of Hakata.
'I see. Was it in the train that you saw the couple?'
'No, not in the train. The train had two coaches and I was in the second coach. There were only a few passengers so if they had been in my coach I would have noticed them. They must have been in the first coach.'
'Then where did you see them?'
'After I came through the gate and was walking home. I had had a few drinks at Hakata that night and was a bit drunk so I was walking slowly. Two or three passengers who followed me through the gate soon passed me by. They were local people I know by sight. There was also a couple I did not recognize. They came from behind and walked past me quickly. The man wore an overcoat; the woman had a Japanese coat over her kimono. They took the deserted road that leads to the beach. I didn't think anything of it at the time. But then there was the incident the next morning! According to the papers they died around ten o'clock that night, so I wondered if they were not the couple I had noticed.'
'Did you see their faces?'
'As I said before, they came from behind and hurried past me so I saw them only from the back.'
'How about the color of the overcoat or the pattern of the kimono?'
'I didn't notice that either. The road was dark and I was a bit under the weather. But I did hear something the woman said.'
Torigai's eyes brightened. 'What did she say?'
'Just as they went past I heard her say, 'What a lonely place!''
'What a lonely place,' Jutaro repeated to himself, half-mumbling. 'What did the man say?'
'He said nothing; he just kept on walking.'
'Did you notice anything in particular about the woman's voice?'
'No, it was a pleasant voice. But she didn't have the local accent. People around here don't speak like that. I believe it was a Tokyo accent.'
Torigai took a cigarette from a crumpled packet and lit it. The smoke drifted in the air while he thought of other questions.
'That was the local train that arrived at 9:35?'
'No mistake about that. I make a point of always catching the same train, even if I stay over in Hakata for a drink or two.'
Torigai pondered the answer. He was trying to determine whether the couple the young man had encountered was the same couple the fruit store dealer had seen, emerging from the main railway station. The young man had not seen them in his coach; he merely took it for granted that they had traveled with him in the same train because they had overtaken him outside the gate. The other train had arrived at the railway station at 9:24. His train had arrived at Nishitetsu Kashii Station at 9:35. Thus, there was a difference of eleven minutes. The distance between the two stations was about five hundred meters. The road to the beach from the railway station passed in front of the private railway station, so the time and place agreed.
'That is all I have to tell you.' The young man stood up. He looked at Torigai who was still deep in thought. 'I wanted to give you this information when I heard you making inquiries at the fruit store.'
'Thank you very much.' Torigai asked the stranger for his name and address and bowed low to him to show his sincere gratitude. Just to hear the one remark the woman had made was worth a good deal.
It was already dark when they left the coffee shop.
'What a lonely place!' The words the young man had repeated rang in Torigai's ears. It was as if he himself had overheard them.
That chance remark led Torigai to make three deductions:
From the woman's speech, he concluded that she was not from the area. She was not from Fukuoka and very likely not even from Kyushu.
As the words indicated, the place must have been unfamiliar to her.
Therefore, she was not asking the man to agree; it sounded, on the contrary, as if she were giving her impression of the place to someone who had been there before. The fact that the man did not answer, that he continued to walk rapidly, supported this view.
In short, the man must have been familiar with the area, whereas the woman was seeing it for the first time. She had a Tokyo accent, and the scene occurred shortly before the suicides were believed to have taken place Torigai believed he could safely assume that the two people the storekeeper had noticed were the same two who had passed the young man on the road.
Of course, on second thought, he had no proof. In Fukuoka alone were thousands of visitors from Tokyo, and the fact that a couple was seen walking in the Kashii area at that hour of the night could be purely accidental and have no connection with the double suicide But Torigai refused to entertain these doubts. He believed they were the two people who had committed suicide.
A cold wind was blowing. The stars were unusually bright in a very black sky.
Jutaro Torigai returned to the railway station. Pausing at the entrance, he looked at his watch. It was an old timepiece but kept excellent time. He then started walking as if he had a stopwatch in his hand. He walked briskly, stooping slightly, his hands in his pockets. He was once again heading for the private railway station. The wind whipped the edges of his overcoat.
Coming to the brightly lighted station he looked at his watch. It has taken him less than six minutes. It took less than six minutes, he noted, to walk from one station to the other.
Torigai repeated the experiment. Again timing his walk, he turned around and headed back towards the national railway station. He could almost judge his speed from the sound of his footsteps. Arriving at the station, he checked his time. A little over six minutes!
For the third time, he started back on the same road. He deliberately slowed his steps. He studied the houses on either side of the road, as if taking a leisurely stroll. When he reached the private railway station he looked at his watch. Eight minutes!
The exercise had proved that it took six to seven minutes to walk, at a normal pace, from the Kashii national railway station to the Kashii Nishitetsu Station.
