The Absent Corpse
三島和希
Kazuki Mishima

Nearly two score years I have policed this town, and only once have I encountered a case as bizarre as that of the absent corpse or anybody as mad as the murderer of the imagined man.

The night was peculiarly hot when my partner and I received orders to call upon an apartment in the dilapidated neighborhood on the eastern banks of the river. A neighbor heard a terrified, painful scream, as of mortal terror, that woke her from her sleep and sent her into a panic. The neighbor, an obviously poor but very dignified woman, led us to the door. "He makes me sick with worry. I tell him often that he should rent his lodgings, if only to have somebody to watch him." We arrived at the source of the scream with the moon at its zenith and knocked loudly upon the door of apartment N° —, hoping to wake any occupant within. The door opened immediately.

The man who stood in the opened doorway was pale and something about him suggested a terrible illness He was fully dressed, despite the late hour, and shouted "Enter, officers!" with incongruous joviality.

As we crossed the threshold into this man's domain, an odor of mold assaulted my sinuses. The walls seemed to be crumbling and spewing dust. They were decorated with a weary, fading floral pattern. My partner inquired politely about the source of the reported scream.

"My own," the man declared almost proudly, "in a dream. Let me show you my rooms." He led us swiftly through cramped, squalid rooms with more crumbling walls of flowers. Every room contained the delicate instruments of a refined woman: a fine hairbrush, ivory combs, and an ornate hand-mirror. Yet dust covered each of these treasures, and all the rooms lacked that order and cleanliness that I would attribute to a woman's touch. The man's bed was in particular disarray. Sheets tumbled restlessly from the bed and an overused hookah lay dripping on the pillow.

We settled in a particularly dismal room, with a vanity and a bed – this one neatly made – nearly monopolizing the floor space. "My lodger's room," our guide explained. "He's gone… for a pleasure trip. Here – see the sorts of things he keeps." He drew forth rotting books and a broken pipe and asked that we examine them thoroughly. Producing chairs from an adjacent room, he bade us sit, and then collapsed into a seat positioned by the vanity. He glanced with hateful distaste at his reflection in the vanity mirror.

"The moon is brilliant," I ventured, "is it not?"

"It watches us always," the man said, "like the eye of God." He emitted a volatile laugh.

"It's quite majestic tonight."

"Its brightness strains my vision." This statement had the manner of a threat, spoken in a heightened voice.

For perhaps an hour my partner and I spent chatted about lunar mythology with the man, who displayed an increasing exasperation with every comment offered. At one point, the tension broke something in the man and he gave birth to a terrified, painful shriek.

"Villains!" he said, "dissemble no more! I admit the deed!—tear up the planks!—here, here!—it is the beating of his hideous heart!" He took hold of his chair and swung it as an athlete swings a discus, then sent it flying into the mirror, smashing the image of his face. "The heart!" He shouted, "The hideous heart! Arrest me! I killed the old man! I killed him, and you speak of trifles! His body is here." He began to tear at the boards of the floor.

"Who is the old man?" my partner inquired.

"My tenant! My lodger! It was his eye. His eye was like the moon, like the eye of God."

He finally succeeded in opening the floor. Below the boards lay only withered flowers.

"We were told you live alone," I said.

"He left them here!" shouted the madman. "He left Lenore's flowers. His eye was like the moon, the eye of God who took my Lenore."