[Holmes Detective Chronicles] Episode 36: The Sign of the Winter Goldfish

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Holmes Detective Chronicles: The Great Detective of London Reincarnates as an Edo Okappiki

Author: Conan Kidoyle

Episode 36: The Sign of the Winter Goldfish

~ The Sign of the Winter Goldfish ~

[Prologue: The London Era]

It was a night in January, 1892.

In the living room at 221B Baker Street, the coals in the fireplace glowed orange, and Sherlock Holmes sat before them with his knees crossed. On the table, strange test tubes and a drafting pen pitcher were lined up.

"Watson," Holmes said quietly. "Do you think goldfish are something to be sold in winter?"

"In winter?" I, John H. Watson, stopped my writing. "A goldfish seller would be a summer trade, wouldn't it? Walking around with a bucket during festivals or summer fairs—isn't that a business for children?"

"Exactly. By common sense, yes." Holmes picked up a test tube and held it up to the candlelight. The amber liquid swayed. "Then, if a goldfish seller were walking down an alley at dawn in the dead of winter, what would that signify?"

"A remnant of a business that didn't sell out in summer, or perhaps—"

"Or perhaps, the goldfish are merely a cover." Holmes nodded with satisfaction. "Someone trading in living things is actually carrying something else. Or, the very existence of the goldfish indicates some other code."

"It sounds like a riddle, Holmes."

"Life itself is a riddle, Watson. Waiting to be solved."

At that moment, the room door opened. Our landlady, Mrs. Hudson, stood there with a pale face.

"Mr. Holmes, outside—"

There was a dull thud.

I heard later that the bay window on the third floor of the house across the street had its fasteners loosened by frost. The heavy wooden window frame suddenly fell, dropping from above at the very instant we opened the door to head out for our evening walk.

After feeling the cold and the darkness, I—when I came to, I was in Edo.

【Main Story: The Incident in Edo】

——Narrated by Santa Wato——

It was late on a December night, with fine snow falling silently and piling up on the streets of Kanda.

I, Santa Wato, sat on the wooden veranda of the tenement house, looking up at the sky while cradling a kairo—a small metal box containing charcoal, equivalent to the hot water bottles in London used to warm the body inside one's clothes—in both hands. The snowy night was quiet, and only the sound of a temple bell somewhere melted into the distant white darkness.

"Santa."

From behind the shoji—a partition made of thin Japanese paper stretched over a wooden lattice, equivalent to the glass doors in London—came the voice of Homushichi Sharaku.

"Someone is coming. Two sets of footsteps. One of them is in a hurry."

As expected, two figures appeared from the corner of the alley. One was a young man running on the snow in straw sandals with bare feet, not even wearing tabi—cloth foot coverings. The other was an elderly man, desperately keeping up while holding a chochin—a portable light consisting of an oil dish and a wick wrapped in a paper cylinder.

"Mr. Homushichi, I beg of you!"

The young man shouted.

Homushichi had already stepped out onto the veranda, rolling his kiseru pipe between his fingers as he greeted the two. From that moment on, his eyes were already in motion. I could see him reading everything—the state of their snow-dampened kimonos, the way they walked, the irregularity of their breathing—with the same gaze that Holmes in London used to observe a client's fingertips or the soles of their shoes.

"Come inside first. There is no need to talk in the snow."

Once they came inside, it was revealed that the young man was Genkichi, a clerk—equivalent to a shop apprentice in London—at a goldfish shop in Asakusa. The elderly man was his employer, Ihee, the owner of the goldfish shop.

A goldfish shop is a business indispensable to the summer in Edo. They sell goldfish with vibrant colors swimming in tanks as ornamental fish for townspeople to admire while cooling off in the evening. They are also used for scooping games at en-nichi—markets held on the days of shrine or temple festivals. In the alleys of Edo during the summer, the voices of peddlers carrying buckets and calling out "Goldfish, goldfish" echo through the air.

But it is winter now.

Genkichi's story was as follows.

Before dawn two days ago, the corpse of a young man was found in a back alley in Asakusa. The young man's name was Tokuji, and he had been a detchi—an apprentice servant—at Ihee's goldfish shop until about half a year ago. However, Tokuji had suddenly quit about three months ago and had gone missing.

"This was lying next to the body."

What Genkichi took out from his robe was a small ceramic goldfish bowl. It was an exquisite piece, about four sun (approximately 12 centimeters) in diameter, made of white porcelain with a goldfish painted in blue. There was no water, and only dry mud remained inside.

"A winter goldfish bowl, next to a corpse?"

I repeated, involuntarily.

Torimushichi took the goldfish bowl in silence, stroked the bottom with his finger, and held it up to the light to peer through it. It was the exact same gesture he used to make when holding test tubes up to the window back in London.

“Why come to me instead of the magistrate's office?”

“I did ask the agents at the North Town Magistrate's Office, but they were quite reluctant—they wouldn't take it seriously, saying it was just a young apprentice who had collapsed on the street,” Ihei said. “I had heard that you were the one to ask, Torimushichi-san.”

“The magistrate's office is likely tied up with other matters right now,” Torimushichi said. “When Tokuji took his leave, what reason did he give?”

“That’s the thing—he didn't say anything at all, he just suddenly vanished. He had been working normally until the night before, but by the next morning, he was gone. He barely took any of his belongings with him.”

“Did he have any money?”

“He had about two bu, I believe. That was his advance pay from around that time.”

Torimushichi placed the goldfish bowl back on his lap.

Two bu is an Edo currency unit, equivalent to half a ryo. Since one ryo is roughly the value of a carpenter's monthly wage, two bu is not a huge sum, but it is not an amount an apprentice can ignore. In London terms, it would be about a few shillings.

“Is there anyone at the shop who was close to Tokuji?”

“There is a girl named Ito who helps with the accounts...” Ihei said, looking a bit hesitant. “The two of them, well, they seemed to be quite close.”

“Were they lovers?”

“Well, that is... indeed the case.”

Torimushichi gave the bowl of his pipe a quick turn and then stood up.

“I will visit the shop tomorrow morning. I would like to speak with the girl named Ito.”

The next morning, Torimushichi and I set out for Ihei's shop in Asakusa.

Asakusa is one of the most bustling districts in Edo, centered around the temple town of Senso-ji—a large temple with a Kaminarimon gate—and lined with theaters, eateries, souvenir shops, and sideshows. It is as lively as Covent Garden and the South Bank combined in London, but all the buildings are made of wood, bearing the fate of Edo, which must be rebuilt every time a fire occurs.

The goldfish shop, Ihei's, was a small-fronted store located in the back streets of Asakusa. There were three large water tanks lined up in front of the shop, but because it was winter, the goldfish were being kept in the storehouse in the back to survive the winter, and there were no signs of living creatures outside the shop.

Ito was a girl of eighteen or nineteen, and her eyes were swollen. I could tell she had been crying all night.

"I've come to ask about Tokuji," Torimushichi said quietly. "Not to blame you. I just want to know the facts."

O-Ito seemed a little relieved and began to speak in fragments.

She said that about a month before Tokuji suddenly disappeared, his behavior had been strange. He would sneak out of the shop in the middle of the night, and when he returned, his eyes were strangely bloodshot. Even when she asked, "Is something scary happening?" he would only repeat, "It's fine, don't worry," and would not tell her the essential details.

"The last time I saw him was the night before he disappeared. Tokuji-san—"

O-Ito swallowed her words for a moment, then continued.

"Tokuji-san tried to give me this goldfish bowl. He said, 'Keep this, it's important.' But I got scared—and refused to take it. If I had accepted it, things wouldn't have turned out like this—"

Tears flowed again.

Torimushichi listened quietly. Nothing showed on his face, but I knew. Something was beginning to stir in this man's mind.

"Do you know where Tokuji got that goldfish bowl?"

"I don't. But—" O-Ito thought for a moment. "He said, 'This is proof of the truth.' I remember the word 'proof' clearly."

Torimushichi hardly spoke on the way home.

We walked the road from Asakusa toward Kanda. The snow had stopped during the night, but the melting snow falling from the roofs had created puddles here and there on the dirt ground, not stone pavement. The people passing by were all wearing thick wataire—cotton-padded winter clothes—and some even had cotton hoods pulled over their heads.

"Torimushichi-san," I finally opened my mouth, unable to hold back any longer. "Did you find out anything?"

"It's the mud at the bottom of the goldfish bowl," he said. "It's not just ordinary river sand. It contains a certain type of mineral. It's soil from near a coal mine, or perhaps—from around a refinery."

"What does that mean?"

"I don't know yet. But Tokuji, despite being an apprentice at a goldfish shop, knew of a place involved in refining somewhere. And that place was linked to a secret that must not be known by whoever killed him."

"Proof, huh—"

"O-Ito's words are everything. Tokuji called this goldfish bowl proof. Is the soil in the bowl the proof, or is the bowl itself the proof? I don't know which it is yet, but—"

Torimushichi stopped and took the goldfish bowl out from his pocket. He stared at it intently against the backlight.

"Santa, look at the bottom of this goldfish bowl. There are small characters, like an artist's seal."

I peered inside. Sure enough, on the inside of the kodai—the rim of the base—a very fine mark of a 'pine in a circle' had been inscribed in ink.

'Is this... a shop sign?'

In Edo, merchant houses had shop signs, and they used those marks on their shop curtains and seals. If I could find a merchant house with a 'pine in a circle' mark, I might be able to figure something out.

'That is the idea,' said Torikiri Shichi. 'Santa, could you look into this? Find a shop with the shop sign of a pine in a circle around Asakusa or Kanda.'

'What kind of shop should I look for?'

'A shop that deals in metal. A caster, or perhaps a goldsmith—'

Half a day later, the place I tracked down was a small foundry called 'Marumatsu' on the outskirts of Kanda Kaji-cho.

Kaji-cho, as the name suggests, was a town where craftsmen who made their living as blacksmiths gathered, and it was a major production center for ironwork and castings in Edo. The work of a caster, who melts iron and pours it into molds, produces various things, from pots and kettles to temple bonsho—large bells. It was a region lined with smaller, artisan-style workshops, similar to but different from the industrial areas of London.

When I arrived at 'Marumatsu,' the atmosphere was strange.

There was a 'Closed' sign posted on the front of the shop, but from the back came the smell of soot and a faint, strange odor, as if something metallic were being melted.

I returned to Torikiri Shichi and reported my findings.

After hearing my words, Torikiri Shichi stood up quietly.

'Let's go together.'

When we arrived in front of Marumatsu, he didn't go to the front door, but instead went around to the alley and headed to the back. When he put his hand on the wooden door of the back entrance, it was slightly ajar. Torikiri Shichi gave me a look, and we entered quietly.

Stepping into the doma—the dirt-floored workspace—the embers of the furnace were still glowing red. The heat, reminiscent of the furnaces in London's factories, still lingered. On the workbench, there were several broken goldfish bowls—no, looking closely, they weren't goldfish bowls. The shape resembled a goldfish bowl, but the base was strangely thick and heavy.

'Santa, try holding one.'

When I picked one up, it was clearly not the weight of pottery.

'It's lead,' said Torikiri Shichi. 'It's a lump of lead cast into the shape of a goldfish bowl, covered with a skin of pottery. Though the contents might not be lead—'

He opened a small package that had been rolling on the corner of the workbench. A whitish powder appeared. He brought it close to his nose and took one small sniff.

'Just as I thought,' he said in a low voice. 'This is powder in the process of refining white lead. But the composition is—'

Torikiri Shichi suddenly grabbed my arm and pulled me.

They're coming.

I heard running footsteps.

Multiple sets of footsteps approached from outside. We hurriedly exited through the back door and hid in the shadows of the alley.

I heard the sound of several men forcing their way in from the front. The sound of the door being violently smashed in, shouting voices—among them was a voice I recognized.

Here it is. Destroy all the evidence.

That night, Torikiri Shichi sat formally in front of the tenement house, puffed on his pipe three times, and then said to me.

Let's organize this, Santa. The reason the apprentice named Tokuji suddenly disappeared is because he saw something. At a foundry called Marumatsu, he saw a secret workshop where lead was cast into the shape of goldfish bowls, and inside them—perhaps used as a hiding place for contraband or bribe money.

So you mean he had the goldfish bowl as evidence?

Exactly. And whoever runs Marumatsu realized that Tokuji held the evidence. That is why Tokuji was killed. The question is, who was using that foundry, and for what purpose were they making lead fake goldfish bowls?

What is the use of the fake goldfish bowls?

That is the core of it, Torikiri Shichi said. Think about it, Santa. Goldfish bowls are a summer business. However, they can be used as a pretext for transporting goldfish even in winter. If the contents are lead, you cannot tell them apart from ceramic goldfish bowls just by looking from the outside. Even if a goldfish seller is walking around in winter, it looks like an ordinary business on the surface.

In other words—transporting lead blocks disguised as goldfish bowls? To transport what?

Bribes, Santa, Torikiri Shichi said flatly. The biggest problem in Edo is the 'sodenoshita'—the act equivalent to bribery in London—given to officials at the town magistrate's office. If gold and silver are moved, it leaves a trail. But if you mix lead into the goldfish bowls and hide gold or silver inside them to transport them, even if they are inspected by some employment agency along the way, they just look like ordinary trade goods.

And they were doing that work at the Marumatsu workshop.

Someone of considerable status is involved in this matter. The person Tokuji feared was not just a mere craftsman. It was someone with enough power to kill Tokuji.

Torikiri Shichi put down his pipe.

Tomorrow, let me do one job. It will likely be at night.

I still remember the following night vividly.

Torikiri Shichi took me to a 'hatago'—an inn for travelers—in the back streets of Asakusa. A hatago is equivalent to an inn in London, but because you sleep on futons laid out on tatami mats, the style is completely different from a furnished room.

“Someone is staying here,” Torikiri Shichi said. “It is a room secretly used under an assumed name by one of the yoriki—a high-ranking official—of the Minami-machi Magistrate’s Office.”

“A yoriki? Why?”

“One of the men who left Marumatsu shortly after noon today was a servant from that yoriki’s household. I followed him even after he left Marumatsu.”

Torikiri Shichi stopped at the back door of the inn and pricked up his ears. I followed suit. From the second floor, I could hear muffled voices.

“If we finish everything tonight—”

“Because of the Tokuji affair, people are already sniffing around everywhere—”

“If we just silence those low-level constables—”

Torikiri Shichi tapped my shoulder lightly.

“Did you hear that, Santa? The witnesses are gathered.”

He took his jutte from his robe, held it in a reverse grip, and quietly pushed open the wooden door of the back entrance.

As I followed behind him, I vividly recalled that unique mixture of exhilaration and fear I felt in London on Baker Street, when Holmes would whisper, “Come, Watson,” and step into the darkness. I realized that even if the people change, the essence remains the same.

On the second floor of the inn, Torikiri Shichi apprehended a man named Juzaemon Tamura, a yoriki of the Minami-machi Magistrate’s Office, along with two of his henchmen.

Tamura was the de facto manager of Marumatsu and had created a system to receive bribes from wealthy merchants and large shops using lead-crafted goldfish bowls. Messengers disguised as winter goldfish sellers would deliver the bribes, and in return, Tamura would show leniency in the Magistrate’s investigations—a truly wicked scheme.

Tokuji had wandered into the Marumatsu workshop by mistake and learned the secret of the goldfish bowls. However, Tokuji took one piece of evidence and tried to give it to Ito—that became his undoing, and he was killed.

That night, Tamura and his men were handed over to a jomawari-doshin—a patrol officer—of the Kita-machi Magistrate’s Office.

The Magistrate’s Office is the institution that handles both judicial and administrative affairs in Edo, with the North and South offices alternating duties every month. This month, it was the North Office’s turn. A man named Yoshioka, a jomawari-doshin, listened to Torikiri Shichi’s story from beginning to end, then crossed his arms and groaned.

“Tamura—Tamura of the South Office did something like this?”

“The evidence remains at the Marumatsu workshop. There should still be several lead goldfish bowls left there. I will handle the analysis of the soil composition.”

“Analysis?” Yoshioka tilted his head.

“With the help of an apothecary—a pharmacist—there is a way to examine the components of the soil and minerals. This will prove that the soil in the Marumatsu workshop and the soil in the goldfish bowls left at the scene are identical.”

"Should I refer this to the Arson and Theft Investigation Bureau—the special criminal investigation agency of Edo?"

"I will leave that to you. I can only go as far as finding the truth."

The case was solved three days later.

Juzaemon Tamura confessed during the magistrate's office investigation, and the Marumatsu workshop was sealed off. The truth behind Tokuji's death was also revealed, and O-Ito bowed her head deeply while weeping.

"Thank you so much. Tokuji's regret—"

"I don't think he has any regrets," Torikiri Shichi said quietly. "He left behind evidence before he passed. In the form of a goldfish bowl, something that didn't catch anyone's eye. What he tried to pass on may not have reached your hands, but—it certainly arrived."

O-Ito wept again.

On a cold winter evening, Torikiri Shichi and I walked home along the river in Asakusa. The Sumida River was gray, and the withered reeds on the bank swayed in the wind.

"Torikiri Shichi-san," I said. "Did you have an idea about Marumatsu and the bribery from the beginning?"

"Mostly from the composition of the soil at the bottom of the goldfish bowl," he replied. "The rest is about who is pulling the strings. The hardest part is always the 'who.' It is harder to suspect people than it is to suspect things—"

He was silent for a moment before continuing.

"But if we don't suspect, Tokuji will remain dead and forgotten. It would just be a story about a winter goldfish seller who happened to be walking by."

Beyond the Sumida River, the evening sky of Edo stretched out.

The winter sky was clear, high, and distant. I thought that perhaps in some goldfish dealer's storehouse, the goldfish waiting for spring were swimming quietly again tonight.

[Conclusion: London Era]

When I realized it, I was in the living room on Baker Street.

The coals in the fireplace were glowing red, and Holmes sat in his armchair with his violin on his knees, plucking the strings one by one as if checking them.

"Holmes," I said. "I was just having a strange dream."

"A dream about goldfish?" Holmes said.

My eyes widened in surprise.

Did you see it too?

I did. A dream of a goldfish seller walking in winter. Holmes put down his violin and looked at me. Watson, what do you think is the most clever way for a person to hide evidence?

...I suppose it would be to place it in a spot that everyone sees but no one pays attention to.

Exactly. Holmes gave a small laugh. Goldfish bowls are a summer business. Everyone knows that. That is precisely why, even if there is a goldfish bowl in winter, no one truly sees it. They look, but they do not see—that is the human blind spot.

A man named Tokuji saw it.

And that is why he died. And by dying, he signaled what he had seen. Holmes looked out the window. Fine snow had begun to dance over London in January. Those who see what is invisible sometimes pay the highest price. That is the unavoidable sorrow of the detective's profession.

I stared silently at the fire in the hearth.

On that snowy night, Baker Street was quiet. The sound of a carriage's horseshoes passed by in the distance over the cobblestones.

Holmes picked up his violin again and played a low, mournful melody. It was as if he were answering, from afar, the sound of the water of the Sumida River that winter.

This work is written with respect and gratitude to "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" by Arthur Conan Doyle and "Hanshichi Torimonocho" by Kido Okamoto.
This work is written with respect and gratitude to "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" by Arthur Conan Doyle and "Hanshichi Torimonocho" by Kido Okamoto.

Author: Conan Kidoyle

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