Short Fiction

thought was driven him home, and he seemed suddenly to find the skin of his own hands and feet stained over with a hue of ghostly sombreness. If he was to take to immediate flight, these blood-soaked clothes would be out of the question. He went out into the kitchen and, stripping himself off, cleansed his self of all blood stains. There was fortunately found on the closet shelf what seemed to be one of Seiji’s suits, which he pulled out to put on himself. It proved to be a two piece suit of heavy pongee, with cotton wadding, and a hard lined sash marked with centre stripes on a dark brown ground; precisely the sort of clothing to fit him up in attire of respectable quietness. Next, he gave his attention to the chest of drawers, out of which he took, in both gold and silver pieces, what was an approximation of three ryo. It was done at once to fill the need he stood in at the time, and to work for the ruse to lead the whole happening to burglary. The clothes he had shed off were rolled into a bundle with a heavy stone used for pickling purpose, and were consigned to the depths of the canal water. All these thus disposed of, all this precaution taken, he was turning himself upon the scene which offered no evidence to convict him of the murder of Santa or the woman. Or, he tried to force his recalcitrant self into such thoughts.

Without, the rain had ceased. In the sky clear and open, the midnight moon shone frosty and serene. He covered his head in a deep cap that he had not forgotten to bring. And, at the first corner of the wider thoroughfare, he passed before the patrol box, unchallenged.

Part III

In the days Shinsuké lived with his own folk, he was often taken by his father to the home of a certain gambler master by the name of Kinzo, with whom his father maintained some sort of personal relations. It was to this place that Shinsuké had to take himself on the night of his murderous deeds. Whilst the earlier part of Kinzo’s life was marked with irregularities, of which violence and bullying were no inconspicuous features, yet with his fortune made and his discretion matured, he had entered on a new sort of life these two or three years, since reaching the age of fifty, and he was now known to be a man, very rational and restrained, so different from the man of his quondam profession, and with a ready hand and a big heart for others that should need his help.

Having given an outline of the happenings of the night to the man he had come to place his confidence in, Shinsuké asked to be hidden under his roof for the time being, on the promise that he should surrender himself to justice as soon as Tsuya had been found. In telling his story, however, Shinsuké accounted himself for the end of Santa, but did not touch on what concerned the boatman’s wife.

“Shinsuké-san, if you want my help, perhaps you can have it; but there is one thing I don’t quite seem to get clear. Now, you’ve told me you have come here straight upon killing Santa. I see you are cut up pretty badly, but your clothes look none the worse for it. I don’t understand that.”

Kinzo was prompt to observe. Stung with this point-blank thrust, Shinsuké cringed with terror. Before leaving Seiji’s place, he thought he had made sure to cleanse himself thoroughly. Once told of it, he could see it all for himself; for he found blood not only curdled on his finger nails and about his neck, but even above his left temple, gluing the hair into a patchy tuft. He could not but make a clean breast of it all.

“I had guessed as much.⁠—Now that your story is straightened out, I don’t see why I shouldn’t take the thing on my hands, be as just and fair with you as you have been with me, and we can perhaps put our work together to find the girl you call Tsuya. But before we do anything, I must have you understand this, that my idea is that you should give up yourself as soon as you have found your sweetheart. Now, take it from a man who knows what he talks about, for there was a time when I killed a man or two myself⁠—that once you get the feel of it, it’s mighty hard to wash your hands of it for all time. You’ve never been what I might call a bold boy, but now it’s all different. There is nothing more for you to stop at, and that means your temptations will be now many and often. You are now, Shinsuké-san, placed where a step one way or the other counts a lot. Unless you take yourself in hand and do a lot of thinking, you are bound to roll down and down until you will be the devil himself. If I told you that I would insist on your stepping out to get your punishment, and would hear of nothing short of it, you would think I was a pretty heartless sort of a man, and I know it. But, you see, your life, even if saved now, would do, if anything, harm but no good, to yourself or to the world you live in. It would simply mean that there will be some more man killing, and nothing more.”

Shinsuké could not quite grasp what Kinzo was driving at by what he meant to be his advice. Had he not owned up everything on his conscience? And had he not shown penitence for the same? Why this unless he were clear and firm in mind about what he should and was to do? He could see no reason why there should be