Over the past nine
months, I've read and reread a spate of Japanese detective novels and
short stories by such mystery writers as Takemaru
Abiko, Rintaro
Norizuki, Edogawa
Rampo, Soji
Shimada and the man with the palindromic name, "NisiOisiN"
– coming in addition of my regular reading of manga series like
Case
Closed, The
Kindaichi Case Files and Q.E.D.
So why not continue this trend and revisit a particular title I
wanted to reread ever since reading John Russell Fearn's The
Tattoo Murders (1949).
"Akimitsu
Takagi" was the penname of Seiichi Takagi and worked for the
Nakajima Aircraft Company during the Second World War, but lost his
position when the company had to close down when the Occupational
Military Government (US) banned all military industries in Japan.
Reportedly, Takagi decided to become a writer on the advice of a
fortune-teller.
So, along with his
contemporaries, Tetsuya
Ayukawa and Seishi
Yokomizo, Takagi became one of the pioneers of the original,
distinctly Japanese honkaku-style of detective fiction.
Shisei satsujin jiken
(The Tattoo Murder Case, 1948) is, as Ho-Ling
Wong perfectly described it in his own review, "a surprisingly well-polished debut novel" takes place
against the backdrop of the messy, bombed-out ruins, shuttered
buildings and makeshift shops of post-war Tokyo – where "ragged
crowds" meander aimlessly and mingle with American soldiers.
After sunset, the rubble-strewn streets "teemed with
prostitutes, petty criminals and vagabonds" with occasional
gunshot shattering the "uneasy silence of the night."
However, the plot is deeply rooted in that "shadowy, sensual
world" of tattoos and this is "the tragic story of three
of those tattoos."
Horiyasu was a famous
tattoo master with three children, Kinue, Tamae and Tsunetaro, two
daughters and a son, who he tattooed with one of the most taboo of
all tattoos, the Three Curses.
The Three Curses is the
legendary tale of three sorcerers, Tsunedahime, Jiraiya, and
Orochimaru, who lived in the depths of Mount Togakushi, in Nagano
Prefecture, where they competed "to see who could create the
wickedest, most powerful spells." Sorcerers are closely
associated with three large creatures: Tsunedahime rides on an
enormous slug, Jiraiya on a giant toad and Orochimaru has a huge,
long snake. According to the superstition, the tattooing of a snake,
a toad and slug on the people with the same blood flowing through
their veins, like siblings, "the three creatures would fight to
the death" – which means Horiyasu placed a deadly curse on
his three children. Tamae and Tsunetaro were killed in the war. Kinue
has no reason to be believe her full-body, Orochimaru tattoo will
allow her to live a long, prosperous live.
Professor Heishiro
Hayakawa is better known as "Doctor Tattoo" and is the curator of
the beautifully macabre collection of "vividly colored,
intricately-tattooed skins hanging on the walls" or "suspended
from the ceiling" in the Specimen Room of Tokyo University.
Professor Hayakawa works hard to expend the collection and considers
Kinue's tattoo to be a national treasure, wishing to preserve it for
posterity, but she keeps turning down the old "skin-peeler."
Uncharacteristically, Kinue takes part in a competition of the first
post-war meeting of the Edo Tattoo Society and there she meets Kenzo
Matsushita.
Kenzo Matsushita is a
graduate student at the medical school of Tokyo University, where he
studies forensic medicine to eventually join the police medical
staff, because his older brother is Detective Chief Inspector Daiyu
Matsushita of the Metropolitan Police Department. So he attended the
exhibition purely out professional curiosity and bumps into an old
high-school friend, Hisashi Mogami, whose brother, Takezo, is married
to Kinue and their uncle is Professor Hayakawa! And this is where the
trouble really begins. Kenzo falls hard for Kinue, as if "bewitched
by foxes," and they begin a short-lived, but passionate,
relationship cut short by her murder.
Kenzo and Professor
Hayakawa find, whatever remained, of Kinue in her bathroom: a severed
head, two forearms and two long legs from the knees down were laid
out on the tile floor, but the body's torso was missing and the
murderer apparently vanished into thin air – because the horizontal
bar on the door was firmly pushed in place and the window was tightly
locked from the inside. A murder as gruesome as it's utterly
impossible!
I first read The
Tattoo Murder Case in 2006, or 2007, which was one of my first
Japanese detective novels and remember liking it, but the book has
gotten its share of criticism over the years. A notable example is
the tepid, two-star review
by "JJ," of The
Invisible Event, who called the book a mix bag. So this was
another reason why I wanted to reread the book. Honestly, I liked the
book on my first reading, but loved it the second time around (sorry,
JJ!). The Tattoo Murder Case is such a fascinating, richly
detailed and smartly plotted detective story. That being said, some
of the criticism is not entirely unfounded.
Firstly, the solution to
the locked room puzzle is a mechanical variation on an age-old trick
and recalls an impossible crime from a well-known American writer,
which was handicapped by being poorly motivated (you had a point
there, JJ). Nonetheless, I thought it was a clever variation that
made good use of the bathroom setting. Ho-Ling pointed out in his
previously mentioned review that the impossible crime element is
historically important, because the story is set in a Japanese-style
house that "pre-war critics thought to be unsuitable for locked
room mysteries" and The Tattoo Murder Case was one of
the first counter arguments.
The explanation as to how
the murderer removed the tattooed torso from the locked bathroom even
had a glimmer of Chestertonian brilliance!
Secondly, the story is,
while not great, competently plotted with some genuinely inspired
bits and pieces, but weren't always utilized to their full potential
– showing a promising, but inexperienced, mystery writer. A good
example is the back-story of the cursed tattoos and how the murder is
supposed to look like the fulfillment of a curse, but this aspect is
never played up. This would have been a very different story in the
hands of John
Dickson Carr, Paul
Halter or Hake
Talbot! Another problem is that the small selection of Japanese
mysteries available in English comprises largely of novels with often
more ambitious, better executed and original plots. If I would
compile a top 10 of translations, The Tattoo Murder Case would
be in the bottom five, but still good enough to make the top 10.
Takagi didn't simply use "the world of sharp needles and vermilion ink" as an
immersive, vividly colored canvas to play out a detective story in
front, like a stage set, but the history and superstitions of this
world provided clues, answers and even clever bit of misdirection to
the plot. Particularly the historical bits, character backstories and
the outside, post-war malaise that had shattered the old order makes
for engrossing reading. Another point of historical interest is the
detective of the story, Kyosuke Kamizu, who appears very late in the
game.
Two months later, the
murder of Kinue remains unsolved and two additional bodies have been
found in abandoned and burned-out buildings. So Kenzo decides to
consult an old school chum, Kyosuke Kamizu, who as a youth of
nineteen spoke six foreign languages and was christened by his fellow
students "Boy Genius" – a nickname he always despised. Now he
does special research in forensic medicine at the Tokyo University
Medical School. Kyosuke appears to have been created as a younger and
more likable version of S.S.
van Dine's Philo Vance, but I recognized in him a rough prototype
of the high-school/university student detectives that dominate so
many anime-and
manga mystery series.
Kyosuke makes quick work
of the locked room problem and solves the whole case in the last
one-hundred pages with his pet theory of "criminal economics."
A satisfactorily conclusion to a (historically) engrossing detective
story.
The Tattoo Murder Case
is a mystery rich in history with an, especially at the time,
original and a well-done plot, which has since been overshadowed by
translations of his shin honkaku decedents. But that only adds
to the story's historical importance and interest. If I were to
compile a Haycraft-Queen-like Cornerstones of the Locked Room
Mystery, The Tattoo Murder Case would be on it. So, long story
short, I really liked it.
