[From the journal of Dr. John H. Watson]
The events of the preceding day had left a most profound and unsettling mark upon our entire party. To have my good friend Hastings snatched from the very streets in broad daylight, and to witness his rescue at the hands of a heavily armed American contingent led by a mere boy, was a sequence of events so bizarre as to defy all rational belief. The entire affair had left a bitter taste in my mouth, and I had hoped that the following morning might bring with it a return to some semblance of normalcy, a chance to consolidate our thoughts and form a coherent plan of action.
My hopes, however, were dashed before I had even finished my morning tea. I found Holmes already dressed, his hawk-like features animated by a familiar, almost feverish, energy. He was rapidly scanning one of those peculiar tablet devices, his brow furrowed in concentration.
"There has been a murder, Watson," he announced, without preamble. "A most commonplace and sordid affair, it would seem. A young woman, a hostess by the name of 'Mimi,' was found with her throat cut in a private room at a disreputable establishment in Shinjuku called the 'Velvet Rabbit'."
I confess, my immediate reaction was one of bewilderment. "A hostess, Holmes? In a nightclub? I fail to see how such a crime, tragic though it may be for the unfortunate woman, could possibly pertain to our present investigation. We are hunting a veritable god of death, not some common ruffian who has had a quarrel with a lady of the night."
Holmes looked up from the screen, and I saw that dangerous, predatory glint in his eyes that I had come to know so well. It was the look he wore when the game was afoot.
"On the surface, you are entirely correct, my dear fellow," he said. "It is precisely its apparent lack of connection that has captured my interest. The official police report, which I have taken the liberty of accessing, is a model of concise incompetence. They have ruled it a crime of passion, likely perpetrated by a jealous suitor or a disgruntled client. The case is, for all intents and purposes, already closed in their minds."
He stood and began to pace the room, his long, thin frame radiating a restless energy. "But consider the timing, Watson! On the very day that the leader of a murderous cult, a woman named Akane Tanaka, vanishes from a warehouse raid, a young woman is found murdered less than five miles away. A coincidence? Perhaps. But I have long held that coincidence is the last refuge of the unimaginative mind. When the grand, overarching puzzle of our case presents us with a sudden, seemingly insignificant anomaly, it is often in that very anomaly that the key to the entire affair is to be found. The local police are looking at a single, dead tree; I suspect we may find it to be a branch of a much larger and more sinister forest."
His reasoning, as was so often the case, was so startlingly clear that my own objections seemed foolish in retrospect. And so it was that, not an hour later, we found ourselves standing before the entrance to this 'Velvet Rabbit' club. The establishment was closed, a single, weary-looking police officer standing guard at the garishly decorated entrance. He was a young man, clearly unimpressed with his assignment, and a flash of Holmes's Scotland Yard credentials, coupled with a few authoritative words about 'international cooperation on the Kira case,' was enough to grant us entry.
The interior of the club was a truly lamentable sight. The air hung thick and stale with the ghosts of cheap perfume, spilt liquor, and stale tobacco smoke. The decor was a tawdry affair of red velvet and imitation gold, a desperate attempt at opulence that succeeded only in achieving a profound sense of melancholy. It was in a small display case by the entrance that I saw a series of photographs of the club's hostesses. I was immediately struck by the nature of their attire—or rather, the lack thereof. They were dressed in costumes that I can only describe as being designed for the sole purpose of appealing to the basest instincts of man, with a shocking amount of cleavage and limb on display.
"Good heavens, Holmes," I remarked, my voice low. "It is a sad state of affairs when a woman must resort to such measures to earn her living. The degeneracy of this era seems to know no bounds."
"The morals of the age are of little consequence, Watson," he replied, his gaze already sweeping the room, his mind far beyond such societal observations. "We are here to observe the facts."
We were led to the small, private booth where the unfortunate woman had met her end. The scene had been processed by the local constabulary, but the faint, dark stains on the velvet cushions and the cloying, metallic scent of blood still lingered in the air. Holmes produced his magnifying glass and began his examination with a meticulous intensity that was a marvel to behold. He did not merely look at the scene; he consumed it, his eyes darting from the floor to the walls to the table, his mind cataloguing every minute detail.
He spent a full ten minutes examining the victim's belongings, which had been placed in an evidence bag on the table. He paid particular attention to the woman's shoes.
"Observe, Watson," he murmured, pointing to the heel of one of the shoes with the tip of his pen. "There are traces of a fine, grey dust here. A dust composed of concrete and iron oxide. The very same composition as the dust we found at the warehouse where Hastings was held. Our 'Mimi' and the cult leader Akane Tanaka have, at the very least, walked upon the same ground."
My heart began to beat a little faster. The connection was no longer a matter of mere conjecture.
Holmes then turned his attention to the wound itself, as described in the coroner's report. "A single, clean incision," he mused, his eyes distant. "Made from left to right, with a blade of exceptional sharpness. A straight razor, I should imagine. It is a wound of extreme precision, almost surgical. There is no hesitation, no passion. This was not the work of a spurned lover in a fit of rage. This was an execution, as cold and impersonal as the fall of a guillotine."
He fell silent then, his gaze fixed upon the floor of the small booth. I watched him, my own mind struggling to piece together the dreadful implications. The victim was almost certainly the cult leader, Akane. She had fled the raid only to be found and executed by some unknown party. But who? And why?
"The motive is clear," Holmes said suddenly, as if responding to my own unspoken thoughts. "Akane had failed. She had allowed herself and her followers to be captured or killed. She had, in doing so, brought the attention of the American authorities down upon our mystery. To her master, the enigmatic B.B., she was no longer an asset. She had become a liability. And B.B., much like our friend Kira, does not tolerate loose ends."
The conclusion was as chilling as it was logical. We were no longer dealing with a cult acting on its own initiative. We were dealing with a master puppeteer, a creature of such ruthless pragmatism that he would cut the strings on his own puppets the moment their performance was finished.
It was then that Holmes's entire demeanour changed. The cold, analytical machine receded, and in its place was an ecstatic, almost boyish, excitement. A brilliant, triumphant smile spread across his face, and his eyes shone with a light I had not seen since the day we had first unravelled the singular affair of the Red-Headed League.
"Watson!" he cried, his voice a thrilling, jubilant whisper. "Quickly, man! Look!"
He was pointing a long, trembling finger towards the floor, just beneath the table where the poor woman had been slain.
"What is it, Holmes?" I asked, my own excitement rising to meet his. "What have you found?"
I knelt beside him, my eyes following his pointing finger. The floor was covered in a cheap, dark carpet, stained and worn from years of use. At first, I saw nothing. But then, as my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I perceived it. Something had been traced in the thick pile of the carpet, written with a deliberate, almost artistic, pressure. It was not a word, but a series of four simple, yet profoundly unsettling, symbols.
"My God, Holmes," I breathed, a sense of profound and terrible discovery dawning upon me. "What does it mean?"
"Mean, my dear Watson?" he replied, his voice alight with the pure, unadulterated joy of the hunt. "It means our killer, our grand artist, is a creature of immense ego. He could not resist signing his work. It means the game has changed. It means that we, at long last, have found our first, true hint."