My master sighs in resignation and, his hands still tucked inside his robe, slowly shuffles his way to the entrance. There he finds Waverhouse, holding the visitor’s card in his hand, crouched down in the polite posture for receiving visitors. Seen from the back, however, that posture looks extremely undignified. The visiting card informs my master that his latest visitor is Police Detective Yoshida Torazo-from the Metropolitan Police Office. Standing beside Torazo- is a tall young man in his mid-twenties, smartly dressed in a kimono ensemble of fine striped cotton.
Quaintly enough, this personable young fellow is like my master in that, similarly silent, he also stands with his hands kept tucked inside his robe.
The face strikes me as vaguely familiar and, looking at him a little more closely, I suddenly realize why. Of course! It’s the man who burgled us a short while back and made off with that box of yams. And here he is again, by broad daylight, standing there as calm as you please, this time, too, at the front entrance.
“Sneaze,” says Waverhouse, “this person is a police detective. He has called specially to tell you that the man who burgled you the other night has now been caught. So he wants you to come to the police station.”
My master seems at last to understand why he is being raided by the police, and accordingly, turning to face the burglar, bows politely. An understandable mistake, since the burglar looks decidedly more presentable than the detective. The burglar must have been very surprised but, since he can hardly be expected to identify himself as a burglar, he just stands there calmly. He still keeps his hands buried in the fold of his kimono but, being handcuffed, he cannot take his hands out even if he wants to. Any sensible person could correctly interpret the situation by the appearances of the individuals concerned but my master, out of touch with modern trends, still makes much too much of officials and the police. He thinks the power of the authorities is really terrifying.
Though he is just capable of grasping that, in theory at least, policemen and other such creatures are no more than watchmen employed by us and paid by us, in actual practice he is ready to drop on his hands and knees at the first sight of a uniform. My master’s father, the headman of a district on the outskirts of some minor town, quickly developed the ugly habit of creeping to his superiors. Perhaps as an act of divine justice, his son was born with that cringing streak which one can but notice in my master’s character. I find this very pitiful.
The police detective must have had a sense of humor, for he was grinning when he said, “Please be at the Nihonzatsumi police substation tomorrow morning at nine o’clock. Would you also please tell me precisely what goods were stolen from you?”
“The stolen goods,” my master promptly responded, “consisted of. . .”
but having forgotten most of them, his voice petered out. All he could remember was that ridiculous box of yams. He didn’t really care about the yams, but he thought he would look silly and undignified if having started to identify the property stolen, he suddenly had to stop dead.
After all, it was he who had been burgled, and he was conscious of a certain responsibility deriving from his burgled status. If he could not give a precise answer to the policeman’s question, he would feel himself to be somehow less than a man. Accordingly, with sturdy resolution, he completed his sentence. “The stolen goods,” he said, “consisted of a box of yams.”
The burglar seemed to think this answer was terribly funny, for he looked down and buried his chin in his kimono collar. Waverhouse was less restrained and burst into hoots of laughter. “I see,” he squawked, “the yams were really precious, eh?”
Only the policeman looked at all serious. “I don’t think you’ll recover the yams,” he said, “but most of the other things will be returned.
Anyway, you can find out about all that at the station tomorrow. Of course, we shall need a receipt for everything you repossess, so don’t forget to bring your personal seal. You must arrive no later than nine in the morning at the aforementioned substation, which lies within the jurisdiction of the Asakusa Police Office. Well, goodbye.” His mission completed, the policeman walked out of the front door. The burglar followed him. Since he couldn’t take his hands out of his kimono, the burglar couldn’t close the door behind him, so after he’d gone, it just stood open. Though my master had conducted himself throughout the incident with awe-filled diffidence towards the police, he seemed annoyed by that parting rudeness: for, looking unpleasantly sullen, he closed the door with a vicious sliding slam.
“Well, well,” said Waverhouse, “you do seem awed by detectives. I only wish you’d always behave with such remarkable diffidence. You’d be a marvel of good manners. But the trouble with you is that you’re civil only to coppers.”
“But he’d come a long way out of his way to bring me that good news.”
“It’s his job to come and tell you. There was no need whatsoever to treat him as anyone special.”
“But his is not just any ordinary job.”
“Of course it’s not an ordinary job. It’s a disgusting job called ‘being a detective.’ An occupation lower and dirtier than any ordinary job.”
“If you talk like that, you’ll land yourself in trouble.”
Waverhouse snorted disrespectfully. “Very well then,” he grunted,
“I’ll lay off slandering detectives. But, you know, it’s not really a matter of respecting or not respecting those insufferable sneakers. What really is shocking is this business of being respectful to burglars.”
“Who showed respect to a burglar?”
“You did.”
“How could I conceivably number a burglar among my friends? Quite impossible!”
“Impossible, is it? But you actually bowed to a burglar.”
“When?”
“Just now, you bowed down like a hoop before him.”
“Don’t be silly. That was the detective.”
“Detectives don’t wear clothes like that.”
“But can’t you see, it’s precisely because he is a detective that he disguises himself in clothes like that.”
“You’re being very pig-headed.”
“It’s you who’s being very pig-headed.”
“Now do just think. To start with, when a detective visits someone, do you honestly imagine he will just stand there with his hands in his robes?”
“Are you suggesting detectives are incapable of keeping their hands in their robes?”
“If you get so fierce, I’ll simply have to break this conversation off. But think, man. While you were bowing to him, didn’t he just stand there?”
“Not surprising if he did. After all, he is a detective.”
“What glorious self-assurance! You’re totally deaf to reason, aren’t you?”
“No, I’m not. You keep saying that fellow was a burglar, but you didn’t actually see him committing burglary. You just imagine he did so, and you’re being extraordinary obstinate about it.”