Murder at the Tokyo American Club. Robert J. Collins

a few of them to search the buildings."

      "That's of course true, Chief, and I certainly," said Kawamura, "admit failure on that crucial point. But it wasn't until almost everyone had left that we knew there was a second body." or, I should say, second body and second head."

      Chief Arai was a large man who tended to use his size as a weapon to intimidate in face-to-face encounters. Originally from the northern island of Hokkaido, it was rumored that Arai was part Russian, at least on his mother's side, and that in his youth he would amuse himself and stun his neighbors by picking up his playmates and throwing them across the road or over small buildings.

      "You," Chief Arai bellowed down and about the head and shoulders of Kawamura, "take thirty men and go back to that club and stay there until we get some answers. I have to report to the ward office, the Tokyo city government, the Foreign Ministry, and the Diet. And they just think a foreigner's involved. Wait until the evening papers come out and reveal that the body of one of us is also involved. That makes it international!"

      "Yes sir," said Kawamura, bowing and backing from the room. "Your advice as always is perfectly correct."

      Returning to his corner cubicle one floor below the chiefs office, Tim Kawamura gathered his senior staff plus the other detectives involved in the "American Club thing" and began the ordeal of reviewing what was known and what was not. A half-dozen or so of his advisers were already occupying all the flat surfaces in his room, and another four or five—continual movement in and out the door kept the number in flux—perched on the edge of windowsills or leaned against filing cabinets.

      "How long can we keep the club closed?" asked one of the sergeants, who had distinguished himself the previous evening by finding the valves that drained the pool. The sudden and unscheduled release of 185,000 gallons of water into the neighborhood sewage system had created spectacular flooding problems in the shops and houses at the bottom of the hill below the club. The reports on this episode, filed in triplicate by both the Department of Water and Department of Health, had yet to reach Chief Arai's desk.

      "As long as we wish," answered Kawamura. "But I think we should plan on obtaining all the physical evidence today—it is Arai-san's fervent wish."

      The men in the office grumbled assent as they shifted position, moved knees, and squeezed even closer together. Two tea girls in identical blue shifts and white blouses were now in the room distributing the steaming green liquid. They were followed by three fingerprint experts who brought chairs from the outer office and placed them in the doorway, trapping the tea girls inside. (The tea girls stood demurely against the windows for the duration of the meeting—empty trays clasped to their groins.)

      "Let's first review all the relevant facts," suggested Kawamura. "It appears there were two murders and at least one of them occurred between the time the general manager was last seen at 7:30 and when his body—or excuse me, his head—was discovered at 8:00 in the pool."

      Everyone nodded in agreement.

      "And we have not recovered his body, but we can assume it's still on the premises," continued Kawamura.

      Everyone nodded in agreement.

      "We also know that the body in the pool belonged to someone named Yoshio Endo of Yokohama—at least that's what the identification in his pocket said."

      Everyone nodded in agreement.

      "And we don't have that body's head."

      Everyone nodded in agreement. Kawamura stood up, paced the one step that the space in the room allowed, then sat down.

      "Have we confirmed the identity of that body?" asked Kawamura.

      "Yes," replied one of the fingerprinters. "And we confirmed his prints with his employers."

      Kawamura looked up at the man. Although non-Japanese residents are mandatorily fingerprinted, Japanese rarely are, unless they have criminal records.

      "His employers maintained records for everyone working there," continued the fingerprinters.

      "Where?" asked Kawamura.

      "Next-door," answered the man.

      "Next-door to the police station?"

      "No, next-door to the club," said the man. "The Russian embassy," he added.

      Kawamura again rose from his chair, paced the one step back and forth for nearly a minute, and returned to his seat.

      "Are you certain, I mean, that he works for the Russian embassy?"

      "Yes, certain," said the fingerprint expert. "And the funny thing is that he was not invited to the party—in fact no one can imagine why he was there in formal dress. He was only a security guard."

      Kawamura gazed at the man in silence, then shifted his eyes to the ceiling of his office.

      "I will have to inform Chief Arai of this new development," he announced finally. "Then we will go to the club and find the other head, and the other body."

      * * * *