The Space Alien by Ranpo Edogawa

Author:Ranpo Edogawa
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780463825808
Publisher: Peaks Island Press
Published: 2020-07-26T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

The Detective in the Treetops

Carrying Yurika-san under his arm, the alien raced to the big evergreen oak in the nearby vacant lot. It leaned back against the thick trunk and paused to catch its breath.

The space alien had previously taken to the skies from the top of this tree. It surely harbored the same intentions this night as well. After a short rest, it shifted Yurika-san over its shoulder and looked up.

The branches reached out in all directions, the canopy of the big evergreen oak covering much of the lot. As the alien peered at the tree, a faint rustling came from the dense darkness amongst the overlapping leaves and branches. The sound grew louder, like that of an animal crawling along the branches high in the tree.

Intrigued, the alien directed its attention to the source of the sound. It saw nothing. The noise became all the more intense.

This was not a small animal but something much bigger. Monkeys rarely showed up in the suburbs of Tokyo. A strange creature must be lurking at the top of this tree. The alien found this puzzling in the extreme. It froze in place and raised its silver masked face to the sky, staring unrelentingly. At length, though, its patience came to an end.

“Who is that?” it demanded in its raspy voice. “Answer me, whoever you are.”

A moment later, human laughter echoed down from the treetops. The leaves rustled. A silhouette appeared on the largest branch visible from the ground, a human dressed in black, its outline only vaguely discernable in the distant light from the city.

“Who is that? Who are you?”

“Hah! I am a human being,” answered the man in the tree. “A Japanese human being by the name of Kogoro Akechi.”

Ah, so Detective Akechi had been hiding here all along. Such a renowned detective hiding in a tree certainly made for a strange juxtaposition.

“A-k-e-chi Ko-go-ro—” the alien mumbled to itself. “A-k-e-chi Ko-go-ro—”

“A clever thing like you should know my name by now. Because I am your worst enemy.”

“Akechi—yes, I know—Akechi—why you are in the tree?”

“I’ve been waiting for you, don’t you know? You do like taking to wing from these branches. I camped out here hoping to frustrate your supernatural powers. You get it now, don’t you?”

The detective in the tree asked a kind of a riddle. But the alien showed every sign of knowing exactly what he was talking about. In nothing short of a panic, it lay Yurika-san down on the ground and fled the scene, racing away from the evergreen oak at a blistering pace. In a matter of seconds, the alien vanished from view.

Detective Akechi slowly climbed down from the tree. He didn’t chase after the alien but lifted Yurika up in his arms, removed the gag from her mouth, and gently resuscitated her.

And so Yurika-san was saved. But why had the space alien abandoned her and run away? Did this alien from another world fear Detective Akechi that much?

A very odd turn of events, to say the least.

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