Beyond Rue Morgue Anthology (18 page)

Dupin stood considering this for many long and silent seconds. He cut a look at me. “You were closer to her than I. Did you see her eyes and can you confirm that she was Chinese?”

“I did see her eyes, though briefly,” I admitted, “but I cannot tell from those if she was Chinese, Japanese, Korean, or any of countless Orientals. They are all of a piece to me.”

Irritation flickered across Dupin’s face. “That may be a dead end in terms of apprehending the killer, but surely, Legrand, you had to make some connection between an Oriental woman and the nature of Monsieur Thibodaux’s business.”

Legrand swallowed. “To tell the honest truth, sir, I thought she was another charwoman. She was dressed in rags except for that scarf, and walked hunched over. In any other circumstance I would have offered her my arm and escorted her to a public house or fetched her a cab.”

“Too late for that now.” Dupin looked even more disgusted. “Let us leave that for the moment. Is there anything more you can tell me?”

The big sergeant shook his head, and Dupin dismissed him with bad grace. When he was gone, Dupin snarled, “Had that been an old man leaving the building, even a dotard or a cripple, I have no doubt Legrand would have detained him without thought. But he, being a big and powerful man, can barely imagine anyone but a similarly large person committing an act of such shocking violence. It is a blind spot that may hurt his career and may have prevented us from easily solving this case. Bah! It is my curse that I am so often disappointed by believing in the potential of a person only to find them as flawed and shallow as the rest of the herd.”

“Surely not,” I began, working up some heat in protest to my friend’s words, but he dismissed me with an irritable wave of his hand. I bit down on the rest of my words and they left a bitter taste on my tongue.

Dupin stalked back toward the murder room, leaving G. and I to exchange helpless looks. With raised eyebrows, we followed. Dupin walked past the elderly doctor without comment. He once more examined the bloody footprints and then, nodding to himself, entered the room. He was careful not to step on any of the spilled blood, but that care limited him, for the blood was everywhere. He moved slowly through the chamber, speaking in a low murmur as he assessed each item therein and offered commentary to construct a scenario.

“That Monsieur Thibodaux was an Orientalist is evident,” said he. “Except for ordinary items of daily convenience— pens, ink bottles and suchlike—there is nothing here of local or common manufacture. It is likewise evident that Monsieur Thibodaux was an antiquarian of some note. These premises are not inexpensive, and his stationery and calling cards are of the very best quality. Likewise his clothes, what we can see of them. He was a man of expensive tastes and deep pockets.” He did a complete circuit of the room, peering up and down, sometimes bending quite low to examine one of the countless artifacts on display. “It appears that the late Monsieur Thibodaux was more than a mere Orientalist, but rather a specialist within that field, for virtually everything here, with the exception of a few paintings, is of Japanese origin. This statue of sacred cranes is well known and is surely the work of H—, a noted sculptor from the city of Osaka. There are a number of
Tansu
chests of great value. And see these
Satsuma
vases,
Ko Imari
and
Kutani
covered bowls,
Oribe
tea bowls,
Usuki
stone Buddhas, as well as stone mirrors, jade combs, and many swords.”

“But what of it?” demanded G. “Please, my friend, I did not bring you here to inventory the possessions of a murdered man, but to offer advice in the discovery of a murderer.”

“The fact that some of these items are even here is surely at the heart of this gruesome matter,” said Dupin. “See here, this tea-leaf jar with a design of wisteria? This is a treasure from the seventeenth century and it belongs in a museum. I would venture the same holds true of this fine
Akikusamon
bottle. This is authentic Heian Period, later twelfth century. I know for a fact that this is considered a national treasure of Japan. How then is it in the collection of a Parisian dealer of antiquities? The fact that the man who came to be in possession of these items could not under any circumstances legally own them is undoubtedly tied to the cause of his death.”

“Then Thibodaux was naught but a common thief?” exclaimed G.

“Oh, I daresay he was much more than a common thief. More likely a trafficker in stolen items. A most elite fence, for these items are unparalleled in quality, and more to the point, they are treasures of historical and cultural significance. Wars have been waged over the possession of items such as these. Even now Japan is slowly being torn apart by cultural changes, with one faction wanting to move toward a more modern culture— with fractured and fuming Europe as its model; while the other desperately tries to hold onto the ancient values of the Samurai traditions. Look at these items, gentlemen, and you will see their delicacy and exotic beauty, but to the Japanese on both sides of the cultural rift these are emblematic of the spirit of the people.”

“How came they here?” asked the Prefect.

Dupin picked up an ornate knife and studied the fine weaving of black silk thread around its handle. “Certainly it is not the traditional faction who would let such items leave Japan. No, gentlemen, this is part of an insidious plan by the modernists, the groups who want to see the old remnants of the Tokugawa Shogunate torn down and replaced by a more corporate and capitalist structure. To that end they have engaged many of the world’s greatest thieves, as well as traitors from within the oldest families. Bribery and promises of power are the grease that allows the machinery of theft and exportation to work.”

“But why? Bowls and urns and hair combs? Why steal trinkets and baubles?” I asked. “What possible political value could they possess?”

Dupin cocked an eyebrow. “Imagine, if you can, that a similar schism were taking place in, say, Great Britain. What if dissidents were spiriting away the Crown Jewels? And, closer to home, imagine that thieves were walking off with the splendors of Versailles, and doing so in a deliberate attempt to inflict a wound upon the heart of all that we hold dear as Frenchmen. That is the scope of this. That is what is at stake for the Japanese. The treasures of that nation are being looted and men like our dearly departed Monsieur Thibodaux are the parasites and Shylocks who both assist in these crimes and profit handsomely from them.”

We looked around the room, seeing it afresh. I could very well now understand the vehemence of the attack. The degree of harm, and the apparently protracted length of the assault, spoke to a passion fed by love of country and horror at the rape of an ancient culture. I found now that I could look upon the corpse with less revulsion and more with a particular repugnance—and a total lack of sympathy.

“We are still no closer to solving the mystery of who committed this murder,” said G. “I cannot ignore it because I may sympathize with the murderer’s cause. That is for courts, domestic and likely foreign, to decide. And furthermore I am still at a loss for
how
the murder was committed. I daresay the killer took his weapon with him, but I cannot deduce what that weapon may have been.”

“Weapons,”
corrected Dupin, making the word clearly plural, “for I perceive that a great many of them were used in the work that was done here.”

“But which ones? I see swords aplenty, and even spears, but these are not the cuts and slashes of those weapons.”

“No.” Dupin’s tight mouth wore a strange half-smile. “There is a certain poetry to this carnage.”

“In God’s name, how?” I demanded.

“Gentlemen,” he said, holding wide his arms, “we are surrounded by the murder weapons. Can you not see them? They have been left behind for us to find—for anyone who had the eyes to see.”

G. and I looked around, and though we saw blood glisten and drip from virtually every object and surface, there did not appear to be any particular weapon on display except those fashioned for that purpose, but they had inexplicably been eschewed by the killer.

“I cannot see it,” confessed the Prefect. “I am all at sea.”

“Then let logic bring you safely to shore,” said Dupin. He pointed to a particularly deep gouge on Monsieur Thibodaux’s scalp. “To identify an object used in a murder as creative as this we need to broaden our minds from thoughts of those things created to be weapons to those which were not, but can nevertheless be used to accomplish harm.” He turned and picked up a fragile vase with one hand and then the painted wooden stand with the other. For all of the delicacy of the vase, the stand was a sturdy piece of work. Dupin held it up for our inspection and with our wondering and horrified eyes we could see a smear of blood in which floated a few fine hairs that were a match to the deceased’s, and the corner of one leg was an equally perfect match to an indented scalp wound.

“He used a... vase stand?” gasped the Prefect.

“Oh yes. A vase stand is but a piece of wood after all, and wooden weapons have such a rich history, wouldn’t you say?” While we continued to gape, Dupin pointed out several other objects, matching each to a specific wound or series of wounds. Decorative chopsticks made from bone had been used to create dreadful rough punctures, the steel ribs of a lady’s court fan had been used to create dozens of shallow slashes, an ink-block had clearly been the cause of a broken nose and crushed brow. On and on it went, until Dupin had proved that we, indeed, stood within an arsenal of deadly weapons, though each appeared to be utterly fragile and lovely.

“If we suspected that the murderer was one of the modernist Japanese, then I would have expected to find bullet wounds or the marks of military knives. But no, the fact that commonplace objects—or rather those things never intended for such grim purposes—had been used, reinforces my supposition that the murderer is indeed devoted to the ancient Samurai houses of Japan. But not, I am certain, a Samurai himself.”

“Please explain,” said G., “so that I may begin composing a rough description for my men.”

“The Samurai and their retainers are highly skilled in many fighting arts, not least the sword. But some of these sciences are more obscure, their nature and use coveted by the great families. One such art is called
hadaka-korosu,
and it translates roughly to ‘the art of the naked kill.’ The name refers not to a person being unclothed in combat, but a fighting art used when the Samurai has no sword. The Japanese, particularly the Samurai, are less mystical than the Chinese in that they endeavor to see things plainly for what they are. And so to them a piece of wood is a potential weapon, whether it has been fashioned into a club or made to support a delicate vase.”

“Astounding,” said I.

“Subtle,” said he. “Look around and you can see how many of these things are surrogates for blades, for truncheons, for garroting wires, for weapons of combat, or—as clearly in this case—for weapons of torture, punishment, and execution.” He looked down in disdain at the body. “Think about the care, the patience, and the risks taken by the killer, gentlemen. Even a retainer of a Samurai family would be skilled with every kind of knife. He could have made this quick and silent. Instead, he chose to use the stolen artifacts as the weapons of this man’s destruction. This was a performance of murder, a symphony of slaughter, make no mistake. And... think of how poetic that is.”

“Poetic?”
I asked, aghast.

“Oh yes,” said Dupin, “and in its poetry the killer is revealed. Remember the words the dying man cried aloud.”

“You mean the name,” said the Prefect, “Anna Gata.”

“No, my dear friend, I do not, for I would doubt that Monsieur Thibodaux ever knew the name of the assassin sent to kill him. My guess is that he arranged a late meeting with what he thought would be a client, someone bringing a new and illegal piece to him that he could never receive during regular hours. The caller was almost certainly a woman.”

G. snapped his fingers. “The old Oriental woman Legrand encountered. Surely it can’t be she? These wounds are the work of a powerful hand.”

Dupin nodded. “And yet Thibodeaux would never feel quite safe meeting a Japanese man after hours, not with the likelihood of a Samurai spy hunting for a broker such as he. No, Thibodeaux expected to meet with a woman, but her name was never ‘Anna Gata.’”

“Then what?” I demanded.

“Thibodaux did not, with his last breath, name the killer, but cried out in surprise as he discovered the killer’s secret. In the extremis of the situation, Thibodaux realized that it was, after all his precautions, a man who assailed him... but a man dressed as a woman. And therein is the answer to his outcry. Not ‘Anna Gata,’ gentlemen, but
onnagata.
A Japanese word from the world of Kabuki theater—which we have all seen upon the stage even here in Paris. Like Shakespeare of old, Kabuki does not allow women to perform, and instead young men are chosen to play the female roles, and the word for such a role is
onnagata
. Our killer revealed that he was a man, and quite a lethal one, during the act of murder, but by then Thibodaux was doomed.”

The Prefect gaped at Dupin for a long moment, but he did not dare question my friend’s veracity or try to poke holes in the chain of his logic. Dupin seldom speaks unless he is sure, even when other men witness the same evidence and are far less certain.

Then G. bellowed for Legrand and his other gendarmes and bade them hurry to the train station to arrest anyone they met there. An old woman, an old man, or even someone dressed like a Buddhist monk, for a Kabuki actor could adopt any of a thousand roles and play them with surpassing conviction.

Dupin hooked his arm in mine and we went down the stairs and out into the cold, foggy night.

“Your knowledge is in itself remarkable,” I told him, “but it is in the way that you allow disparate facts from such vastly different closets of your mind to find their way together that continues to astound me.”

“It is the result of a practice of logical thought,” he said. “It is not a comfortable discipline, for it is very demanding and it can sour one to many aspects of ordinary social behavior. But... but... it has its advantages.”