at headquarters had ordered another meeting of administrators. "He doesn't want it let out that we've identified the body until we get back. It sounds like he got that request from above," Miyazaki told Takemura.
"They're interfering with our investigation!" grumbled Takemura, disgusted. "We have identified him. What's with these financiers and politicians?"
"Take it easy, now! They must have their reasons. There are probably a lot of things they have to take care of before the information gets around."
Miyazaki made a very brief, formal announcement to the reporters at the campground office. "The victim has not been identified. The body is that of a male, about sixty, who appears to be of the senior executive type. We believe he has been dead for three or four days. Cause of death was apparently poisoning, but we won't know anything for sure until we get the results of the autopsy."
He barely had time to take a breath before being swamped with questions.
"Then is there a strong possibility of murder?"
"We can't say yet whether it was murder or suicide."
"But this is a pretty strange place for someone to be found dead."
"You're right, of course. That's why we're here."
"Aren't you evading the question, sir? Tell us, is there a strong suspicion of murder, or not?"
"You can tell your readers that we are investigating the possibilities of suicide and murder both."
"Our editors will have our heads for an article like that!"
There was a burst of laughter. Realizing that they were not going to pin Miyazaki down any further, the reporters turned their attention to the girls who had discovered the body, and then went off to send in their articles. Miyazaki relaxed a little, knowing that at this point they would have to treat the case like any other discovery of a body, and it would make no more than a little stuffing for the evening papers.
After Miyazaki had accompanied the body down the hill, investigation of the vicinity began in earnest. More than one hundred men, some with dogs, went into the bamboo-grass brush still soaked with rain and dew to look for clues. For any case, the initial search was always the most important, and the one to which the most energy was devoted. It was also the most primitive, there being no other way to do it than by using a human sea of investigators.
Detectives from Section One were dispatched to question residents of the surrounding villages. The road leading to the Arakura Campground was from the village of Imai at the bottom of the hill. There were fields along the way, but the closest house was one kilometer away. The road was unpaved and wide enough for only one car. Since the men in the office had not heard a car, it was assumed that someone must have parked some distance away, then carried the body into the campground on foot. It was estimated that no matter how hard it might have been raining, the car could not have come closer than three hundred meters without being heard. That would mean that someone must have carried the body, already smelling of decay, a considerable distance, which in itself would make the case a bizarre one.
Nothing important was being found near the scene of the discovery, and neither were the detectives having much luck with their questioning of residents in the surrounding villages. They were unable to find anyone who had heard a car, even though it must have been the middle of the night, and of course there was no such thing as an eyewitness. Leaving the remaining search to his men, Takemura headed for the Koshimizu Plateau Hotel with Kinoshita, his regular driver.
At about that time, Chief Nagakura was holding a most unusual press conference at the Nagano Central Station. Since press notifications had been carefully prepared and sent around beforehand, practically all of the mass media were there, along with four television cameras.
With Nagakura were his chief of detectives, Tsukamoto, the head of Investigative Section One, Miyazaki, and Kisuke Takeda's secretary, Izawa. A lot of reporters recognized Izawa, but none of them had any idea why he was there, which created considerable curiosity right from the start. When they finally learned the identity of the body, even hardened reporters were appalled by the news of Kisuke Takeda's unnatural death.
Takeda was, by title, the president of the Takeda Firm, on the surface a small company of twelve employees with a main office in Nagano City, a branch office in Matsumoto City, and assets worth twenty million yen. It was supposed to be dealing in real estate, metals, and some other business, but even the tax people couldn't keep track of all its dealings. It was affiliated with five other incorporated companies at various locations, each independent, with its own president, but all shadowy. In a word, most were probably ghost companies. Hardly any of them did any regular business of note, but often one would suddenly pop up in some real estate deal worth ten or twenty billion yen. Popular opinion had it that all of them were fronts for the Takeda Firm, but nobody could put his finger on the exact connection, and there were other, even more mysterious companies continually being created and dissolved.
Kisuke Takeda had done a skillful job of operating an organization whose dealings were impossible to trace. It was said that he could do as he liked anywhere in Nagano Prefecture, but that was about all that anyone not close to him could say. Everyone was aware, however, that he had been a real power behind the political and financial scenes of Nagano Prefecture, and that his death would result in some major changes. One did not have to be particularly knowledgeable to realize that Takeda's murder would break open a beehive.
Chief Nagakura described the facts of the case to the assembled reporters: Kisuke Takeda had been missing since July 3rd; his body had been found this morning in the Arakura Campground outside Imai in Togakushi; cause of death was cyanide poisoning; there was some suspicion of murder, and so on. The chief made a point of extending his sympathy to the bereaved and promising every possible effort toward a rapid solution of the case. As soon as he finished, he was swamped with questions, but he quickly turned over the floor to Miyazaki, who was to bear the brunt of the questioning.
Miyazaki was an old fox at this, and if the truth be known, he rather enjoyed it. The reporters were mainly concerned with finding out just how strong was the possibility of murder, and if it was murder, where were the police directing their suspicions, and did they have any particular suspect yet? Also, what sort of motives were they considering? Since Chief Nagakura had so far avoided a clear declaration that the case was being investigated as a murder, however, Miyazaki had a good excuse for avoiding discussion of any theories based on that premise. As a result, there was no real substance to the exchange between him and the reporters. The only juicy information they got was that Inspector Iwao Takemura had been put in charge of the case, and their cheers for the master detective were half in desperation.
"If you're sending Takemura up against it, doesn't that mean it must be a pretty difficult case?" came the tricky question. Since the case of the dismembered corpse, Takemura had fast been making a reputation for himself. The raincoat that had become his trademark had even led to his being called the "Columbo of the Japanese Alps," a name which fit his appearance perfectly. One of the reasons for his popularity was that he had not tried to improve that appearance even after receiving a double promotion, raising him to the rank of inspector in one leap.
"Well, no help for it," grumbled one of the reporters. "We'll just have to make tomorrow morning's headline Takemura On The Case.'"
