Japanese Tales of Mystery & Imagination - Edogawa Rampo [37]
Losing his balance, the man staggers forward, clawing wildly at empty space. The next instant, his feet are treading thin air, and his body goes hurtling down into the yawning chasm.
Moments later, the merry chirping of birds is heard from amidst the surrounding foliage. In the distance the sinking sun is like a flaming ball, dyeing the hovering clouds a deep red.
The girl stands stock-still atop the cliff. Then, slowly and mechanically, she beings to mumble to herself.
GIRL: Self-defense again. How funny! A year ago Saito tried to kill me. But he was the one who was killed, not I. And now that fool tried to push me off this cliff. But he was the one who fell off. . . . I was the real killer of both. But the law won't punish me. . . . How-easy it is to kill! Who knows, maybe I really am the witch I seem. . . maybe I'm destined to go on forever, killing one husband after another. . . .
Like a lone pine, the girl continues to stand motionless on the edge of the cliff, gradually fading from view as darkness descends.
HELL of
MIRRORS
O NE OF THE QUEEREST FRIENDS I ever had was Kan Tanuma. From the very start I suspected that he was mentally unbalanced. Some might have called him just eccentric, but I am convinced he was a lunatic. At any rate, he had one mania—a craze for anything capable of reflecting an image, as well as for all types of lenses. Even as a boy the only toys he would play with were magic lanterns, telescopes, magnifying glasses, kaleidoscopes, prisms, and the like.
Perhaps this strange mania of Tanuma's was hereditary, for his great-grandfather Moribe was also known to have had the same predilection. As evidence there is the collection of objects—primitive glassware and telescopes and ancient books on related subjects—which this Moribe obtained from the early Dutch merchants at Nagasaki. These were handed down to his descendants, and my friend Tanuma was the last in line to receive the heirlooms.
Although episodes concerning Tanuma's craze for mirrors and lenses in his boyhood are almost endless, those I remember most vividly took place in the latter part of his high-school days, when he was deeply involved in the study of physics, especially optics.
One day while we were in the classroom (Tanuma and I were classmates in the same school), the teacher passed around a concave mirror and invited all the students to observe the reflection of their faces in the glass. When my turn came to look I recoiled with horror, for the numerous festering pimples on my face, so greatly magnified, looked exactly like craters on the moon seen through the gigantic telescope of an astronomical observatory. I might mention that I had always been extremely sensitive about my heavily pimpled face, so much so that the shock I received on this occasion left me with a phobia of looking into such concave mirrors. On one occasion not long after this incident I happened to visit a science exhibition, but when I spotted an extra-large concave mirror mounted in the far distance I took to my heels in holy terror.
Tanuma, however, in sharp contrast to my sensitive feelings, let out a shrill cry of joy as soon as he got his first glance at that concave mirror in the classroom. "Wonderful. . .wonderful!" he shrieked, and all the other students laughed at him.
But to Tanuma the experience was no laughing matter, for he was in dead earnest. Subsequently his love for concave mirrors grew so intense that he was forever buying all sorts of paraphernalia—wire, cardboard, mirrors, and the like. From these he mischievously began constructing various devilish trick-boxes with the help of many books which he had procured, all devoted to the art of scientific magic.
Following Tanuma's graduation from high school,