Yet Taguchi's face did not show any displeasure. His calm manner remained unchanged as he listened with arms folded. He merely threw in at times a "Hmm" or "Really?" or "And then?" in order to allow Keitaro to keep the account going. Even when the report ended, Taguchi's demeanor did not change too soon, apparently expecting something yet to come. Keitaro had to say, "That's all," adding, "I'm really sorry the results are so poor."
"No, you've furnished me with quite a bit of information. Thanks for your pains. It was probably a difficult job."
Taguchi's compliment did not contain much gratitude, but as Keitaro had just made himself look quite stupid, this much affability was more than enough for him. Only now did he feel any relief in finding he had narrowly escaped being disgraced. At the same time a feeling of relaxation so worked on him that he immediately said to Taguchi, "Who is that man?"
"Well, who could he be? What do you guess him to be?"
The image of the man in the black fedora dressed in his salt-and-pepper cloak with its open collar vividly appeared before Keitaro's eyes. He had a clear vision of everything about the man—his appearance, his way of speaking, his walk—yet he could come out with no reply to Taguchi's question.
"I don't have the slightest idea."
"Then what kind of personality do you think he has?"
Keitaro had some idea about that. "I thought he seemed like a quiet person," he said, responding as he had actually observed the man to be.
"You're just saying that because you saw him talking to a young woman, aren't you?"
Noticing the flicker of a smile at the corners of Taguchi's lips the moment these words were said, Keitaro closed his mouth again just as it was about to form an answer.
"All men are tender to young women, you know. Probably even you are not without some experience in that area. That fellow especially may be tenderer than most," said Taguchi, bursting into unrestrained laughter. Even while laughing, however, Taguchi kept his eyes on Keitaro.
Imagining what a simpleton he must appear to anyone seeing him there, Keitaro had to laugh too, even though he was pained inwardly.
"Well, what kind of woman do you think she was?" asked Taguchi, suddenly shifting the topic and now putting this sort of question to Keitaro.
"She was even more difficult to understand than the man," Keitaro blurted out.
"Can't you even tell if she's an ordinary woman or a professional?"
"Well," said Keitaro, pausing a moment to think. In rapid succession there welled to the surface of his memory the leather gloves, the white scarf, the beautiful smiling face, and the long coat, yet all these together did not provide him with enough evidence to reply. "She wore a rather somber-colored coat and leather gloves, but . . ."
These two items, which had especially drawn Keitaro's attention among the articles worn by the woman, did not seem to arouse the slightest interest in Taguchi. His face turned serious, and he proceeded to ask further, "Well, don't you have any opinion about their relationship?"
Already complimented a while ago as proof that his report had passed off smoothly, Keitaro had not expected these ticklish inquiries to crop up one after another. What was more, possibly because he was puzzled, he was made to feel each new question increased in difficulty over the preceding one.
Seeing that Keitaro was at a total loss, Taguchi put the same question in other words: "For example, could they be a married couple or a brother and sister or simply friends, or could she be his sweetheart? Of these various relationships, what do you think theirs is?"
"When I saw the woman, I wondered if she was married or not, but somehow they didn't seem like a married couple."
"Granted then that they aren't married, do you think their relationship is physical?"
From the beginning, Keitaro had not been without sprouts of suspicion. If he were to thoroughly reexamine his thoughts on the matter, he might have found that he had a supposition that the two had already established some clandestine relationship exerting its influence on him even from a distance and, because of that influence, intensifying his interest in spying. He was not that much of a theorist to assert that no relationship worthy of note other than a physical one can occur between a man and a woman, but as is usual with warm-blooded young men, he thought that a man and a woman could be considered as "man and woman" only when viewed from this physical aspect. So thinking, he wanted to survey the world as much as possible from this point of view.
To his youthful eyes the large world of humankind was not clearly perceptible; instead, the microcosm of man and woman was vividly mirrored in terms of the physical. Accordingly, he enjoyed reducing most social relationships to sexual ones. It seemed that the relationship between the two people who had met at the streetcar stop had, in the depths of his mind, been linked from the start as one such couple. Moreover, he was not that much of a moralist to fear needlessly some gross sin behind relationships of this kind. He was one of the common lot of men who possess an average awareness of morality, but his own moral outlook, quite unlike his imaginative powers, was not usually active except when the occasion demanded, so he had not experienced any particular offense when he attributed the relationship between the man and woman to the type that most interested him. The only doubts he had about their relationship concerned the considerable difference in their ages. On the other hand, this difference seemed to indicate to him all the more markedly a characteristic feature of "the world of men and women."
To such an extent had he unconsciously given rein to his imagination concerning the two of them, but when he was asked by Taguchi if it were actually true of them, a decisive reply, irrespective of the responsibility for giving it, did not easily reveal itself in definite form to Keitaro's mind. So he said, "Maybe, or maybe not."
Taguchi merely smiled. At that moment the houseboy in hakama brought in a calling card on a tray. As Taguchi held up the card for an instant, he replied to Keitaro, "Well, it's only natural you don't know," and then immediately turning to the houseboy, ordered him to show the guest into the Western-style drawing room.
As Keitaro had for some time been in a quandary, he thought of seizing this opportunity to take his leave and was about to rise when Taguchi purposely interrupted him before he was able to. In spite of Keitaro's discomfiture, Taguchi proceeded with his questions. To almost none of them was Keitaro able to give a clear answer, finding them even more trying than the oral examination he had undergone at the university.
"Well, let's make this the last one. You've found out the names of the man and the woman, haven't you?"
To this final question Keitaro had no satisfactory response either. While at the restaurant, he had been paying attention to the conversation of the two people, looking forward to their mentioning "Mr. So-and-so" or "Miss So-and-so" or simply a pet name, but no names, even those of a third party, to say nothing of their own, had ever been referred to, as if they had some particular reason for avoiding them.
"I really don't know their names either."
Hearing this response, Taguchi, his hands moving against the sides of the small brazier, began tapping its paulownia rim with his fingertips, seemingly beating time. Continuing this for a while, he said, "It seems somehow that you missed the main points," but added immediately, "Yet you're honest. That's probably your best quality. Maybe that's much better than reporting what you don't know as if you knew it. If you have one strong point, that's what I appreciate in you," and he burst out laughing.
Keitaro discovered, as he had expected, that his own observations were of no practical value and so felt somewhat ashamed of his failure, but since he firmly believed that only a few hours of attentiveness, patience, and conjecture would not have been enough to obtain a result that would have satisfied Taguchi even if a man ten times more competent had been employed, he did not feel that much pain from Taguchi's evaluation. On the other hand, he was not all that delighted to be praised for his honesty, for to be as honest as he was seemed to him nothing more than what
an ordinary person's honesty would be.
Having wished for some time to speak out once and for all to Taguchi, even if only a word about what he had in his mind, Keitaro, who had been completely pinned down, had the sudden thought that if he didn't speak now, there would be no further opportunity to.
"I too am sorry about a result that falls so short of the mark, but personal matters of the kind you asked me are almost impossible to ascertain in such a short time by someone as dull as I am. This may sound impudent, but I think it would be better to meet the man openly and ask him exactly what you want to know rather than resorting to petty tricks like spying on him. It would save trouble and allow you to get more accurate and reliable information." Having said that much, Keitaro looked at Taguchi, expecting to be laughed at or played with by someone so rich in worldly wisdom.
On the contrary, Taguchi said rather seriously, "So you understand that much. I'm impressed."
Keitaro deliberately refrained from responding.
"The method you suggest seems the most tactless, yet the most expedient, the fairest. That you were aware of it proves how fine your character really is."
Again praised by Taguchi, Keitaro was even more confused on how to reply.
"It was wrong of me to have asked you to do such a petty thing, not realizing how fine your thoughts are. That was making a mistake in estimating a man of character. But in introducing you to me, Ichizo told me you were interested in some job along the detective line. So I went and asked you to do such an outrageous task. I ought to have known better."
"No, no. I do remember telling that to Sunaga," said Keitaro, embarrassed.
"You did?"
Taguchi disposed of Keitaro's inconsistency with this brief expression, not venturing to pursue such a foolish subject any further. "How about this then?" he said, immediately turning their talk to a new direction. "Instead of trailing him secretly, how about going directly into the lion's den? Do you have that much courage?"
"I think I could do it."
"Even after trailing him the way you did?"
"No matter how I trailed them, I certainly haven't made any observations which would harm their character."
"Yes, you're quite right. Try it once. I'll give you an introduction." Even as Taguchi was speaking, he came out with a loud laugh.
Keitaro, however, did not take this proposal as a mere joke and so brought himself to think that he would actually like to talk face to face with the mole-browed man. "Yes, please write me a letter. I would like to talk with him," he said.
"Fine. This will also be a good experience for you. Meet him and study him firsthand. The way you are, I'm sure you'll say you followed him the other night because Taguchi asked you to. But I don't care. If you want to mention it, it's all right with me. You needn't hold back. And his relationship with that woman, ask about that too if you have the courage. Do you think you have enough nerve to ask even about that?"
Taguchi broke off for a moment and looked at Keitaro. Before Keitaro could get out an answer, however, the other went on: "But until the turn of conversation makes it natural to bring up either of those subjects, don't mention them or ask about them. Doing so would only make you appear deficient in common sense, no matter how brave you claim you are. No, it would be much worse than that, since he's quite particular about receiving visitors even under ordinary circumstances. So if you speak about such matters without using discretion, it's very possible that he'll ask you to leave right then. So in return for my introducing you, I hope you'll be prudent. . . ."
Keitaro replied that he would of course respect Taguchi's wishes. In his mind, however, the man with the black fedora could by no means be taken as Taguchi had described him.
Taguchi sent for his inkstone case and some rolled letter paper and easily began his letter of introduction. When he had put the addressee's name at the end, he said, "I've set it down in quite the usual way. That's enough, isn't it?" And holding the letter over the small brazier, he read it to Keitaro. As Taguchi had himself declared, it contained nothing worth paying any real attention to. All it said was that its bearer was a bachelor of laws fresh from the university, this declaration followed by the words, "Please see him, as he is someone I may have to help find a position." Assured from Keitaro's look that he had no objection, Taguchi at once rolled up the paper, inserted it in an envelope, wrote over the front in large letters, "Mr. Tsunezo Matsumoto," and handed the deliberately unsealed envelope to Keitaro, who kept staring at the characters written on it. The brush strokes were thick and slovenly, so unskillful in fact that he wondered how a man like Taguchi could have written in such an awkward way.
"Stop admiring my calligraphy like that!"
"There doesn't seem to be an address."
"Oh. I guess I forgot." Taguchi took back the letter and added the street and number. "Well, it's all right now, I suppose. My writing is large and tasteless, like the sushi one eats at Dobashi. But for its purpose it'll do. You can put up with the poor handwriting."
"Oh no, it looks fine to me."
"By the way, shall I write a letter for the woman as well?"
"Do you know her too?"
"Possibly," Taguchi said, his smile full of meaning.
"If you don't mind, it would be good to have it while you're at it," Keitaro said half-jokingly.
"Well, it's probably safer not to. If I introduce a young man like you to a young woman and something improper happens, I'd be responsible. You're the type they call roman—what's the word I want? I'm not a man of much learning, so these words in fashion now soon slip out of my mind. What do you call it, that word often used by modern novelists?"
Keitaro could not bring himself to refresh Taguchi's memory. All he did was continue grinning like an idiot. He thought that it was about time to drop the matter and take his leave, for the longer he stayed, the more likely he was to be ridiculed. He put the letter of introduction into the upper part of his kimono and slid off the soft silk cushion. "I'll go visit Mr. Matsumoto in a few days," he said. "And I'll come again to see you if I have anything to report."
Taguchi bowed politely and replied, "Thank you for your trouble." He stood up, looking as though he couldn't care less whether the word was "romantic" or "cosmetic."
On his way back, Keitaro pondered on the possible relationship of Taguchi, whom he had just seen, Matsumoto, whom he was going to see, and the graceful-looking woman who had been waiting for Matsumoto and had finally met him at the streetcar stop, sometimes joining all of them and sometimes splitting them up. He had the amused feeling of a man who the more he speculates, the deeper into a maze is he lured with each succeeding step. The game he had captured at Taguchi's that day was merely the name Matsumoto, but that name seemed to be a mysterious bag in which were tied for his benefit various intricate and knotty facts. He thus anticipated the greater pleasure for not knowing what things would emerge from it. Taguchi's account of Matsumoto gave Keitaro the impression he was not an easy man to approach, but from what Keitaro had already seen of him, he seemed several times easier to talk to than Taguchi had been. On the other hand, the impression Keitaro had gained of Taguchi today was that in spite of finding him admirable in the tactful way he dealt with people and even in spite of something eminent reflected every so often in his bright, piercing eyes, he could not remove the feeling he had of being confined all during the time he had been sitting before him, restricted, fettered, deprived of the freedom of movement. This state of being put under constant surveillance seemed to Keitaro not a temporary one but one that could never be worn down no matter how many opportunities he had of meeting Taguchi. Keitaro's imagination persisted in placing Taguchi and Matsumoto at opposite poles. He felt ill at ease with the former, yet with Matsumoto he had the impression that he could ask any question freely without fear of offending. His way of speaking was itself so agreeable that it had already attracted Keitaro.
Early the following morning Keitaro was ready to go off to see Matsumoto when, as ill lu
ck would have it, a chilly rain began falling. He slid open his window a bit and surveyed the scene from the height of his third-floor room. Everything was drenched. For some time he contemplated the dismal hue permeating the very roof tiles.
The letter of introduction Taguchi had written was lying on his desk. For a while he was undecided about whether to go or not, but urged by the strong desire to see Matsumoto as soon as possible, he at last left his desk and descended toward the entrance, where he heard a bean-curd vendor's horn piercing the gloomy atmosphere and ringing out sharply down the street.
Matsumoto's house was in Yarai. Keitaro came to the spot below the police box, wondering what the site would look like where the other night he had felt as though he had been bewitched by a fox. There he saw that the street forked up and down a sloping piece of land, the area between irregularly bloated. He paused in the cold rain, disregarding the skirt of his hakama, which was catching the downpour blown by the wind, and he looked around speculating if this was the place where the rickshawman, still grasping the shafts of his vehicle, had come to a halt the other night, hopelessly befuddled. It was raining now as heavily as it had been then, and the earth under his feet was as soaked as if the lead pipes below the ground had corroded through. But some faint light of the day was now showing in the gloom around him, so his impression of the area was quite different from that of the other night. He climbed the slope with the woods on Mejirodai behind him and an obscurely overlapping cluster of trees along the approach to Mizu-Inari Shrine on his right.