person located, interviewed, asked to produce card received from Matsui / Persons unable to produce Matsui card allocated file / Told to work through each file / Re-check each file and mark for possible re-interview / Begin to re-check, re-check, re-check / No regrets.
1948/3/7; 06.00: Strong winds still / Re-check, re-check, re-check / One file, one name, stands out: Hirasawa Daishō / Hirasawa Daishō pen-name of Hirasawa Sadamichi, aged fifty-seven / Hirasawa resident in Otaru, Hokkaido with father and younger brother / Wife and three children resident in Tokyo / Request made to Otaru Police Station for information on Hirasawa / Report from Otaru: Hirasawa famous artist of good character and reputation / No further information or investigation received from Otaru Police / Detectives Tomitsuka and Iki-i travel to Otaru / Interview Hirasawa / Hirasawa states that he met Dr Matsui on the train ferry from Hokkaido to Honshu sometime in July last year / Hirasawa says he was travelling to Tokyo to deliver one of his watercolours to the Crown Prince / Hirasawa and Matsui exchange name-cards / Hirasawa states that he lost Matsui’s name-card when his wallet was stolen by a pickpocket in Tokyo at Mikawashima Station on the Joban Line in August 1947 / Hirasawa reported theft to the Mikawashima Station kōban / Detectives ask Hirasawa’s whereabouts on 26 January / Hirasawa admits he was in Tokyo on the day of the crime / Hirasawa states he spent the morning and early afternoon with his daughter and son-in-law in the Marunouchi district / Hirasawa then took a train to his other daughter’s house, where he spent the rest of the afternoon and evening playing cards with his daughter’s boyfriend / Detectives conclude Hirasawa is not suspect / Innocent / Disagree; premature / Alibi not checked, statements not corroborated / Place file to one side / Continue to re-check, re-check, re-check other files.
[VARIOUS PAGES DAMAGED, DEFACED, OR MISSING FOR REASONS UNKNOWN]
The Fourth Period (the fourth twenty days of the investigation; 26 March to 14 April, 1948) –
1948/3/26; 06.00: Clear / Meeting of Robbery Room Name-card Team / Request permission to visit Mikawashima Station kōban to re-check Hirasawa pickpocket story / Other detectives sceptical / Waste of time, they say / But Inspector Iki-i grants permission / Make a telephone call / Ask about the officer who took down Hirasawa’s statement about being pickpocketed in August last year / Find out when the officer will be on duty / 09.00: Go to the Mikawashima Station kōban / Meet the officer / Nervous / File in hand / Apologizes for lack of detail and discrepancies in original report / Failure to note Hirasawa’s date of birth / Age noted as forty-five years old etc. / Claims to have been mesmerized by the way Hirasawa spoke, his use of language, his reputation, connections to the Imperial Family etc. / Following the interview, admits he chased after Hirasawa to confirm age and date of birth / Hirasawa gone / Vanished / Officer and two colleagues agreed to write ‘forty-five years old’ in the report, based on their impressions / Tell officer that Hirasawa would have been fifty-six or fifty-seven years old in August 1947 / Note: survivors of the Teigin incident all stated that the perpetrator looked to be approximately ‘fifty years old’ / Note: Hirasawa appeared to be younger than he was to the Mikawashima Officers / Note: Hirasawa should not be eliminated on basis of age alone / Mikawashima officer then produces a fan from case file / Hirasawa had given the fan to the officer at the time of his statement / Hirasawa stated that the thief left the fan in his pocket when he stole his wallet / Fan is stamped with the name of an ice-vendor and his address / 10.00: Leave Mikawashima Station kōban / Follow the fan / Address of ice-vendor in the same neighbourhood as one of Hirasawa’s daughters / Speak with ice-vendor / Man sells coal and logs in the winter / Ice in the summer / Made fifty fans as a gift for regular customers last summer / Hirasawa’s daughter is a regular customer / Ice-vendor remembers giving fan to Hirasawa’s daughter / Story about pickpocket a lie / Kuro-kuro / Stand for a long time outside Hirasawa’s daughter’s house / Blacker and blacker / Do not enter / Guiltier and guiltier / 12.00: Return to Robbery Room Name-card Team HQ / 13.00: Meeting with Inspector Iki-i / Report on interviews with