An Ugly Case (cont’d)
Chiba had obtained Omichi from Matsumoto in exchange for 150 dollars. He did obtain Omichi, and thought that it was a shame to let her go. Furthermore, hearing the course of Omichi’s travel into the interior Chiba noticed that the prostitute’s fate is not solely in the hands of Matsumoto to freely decide. When the negotiation happened, he immediately wrote an inquiry to Hayashi in Vancouver. In the reply it said, “I was entrusted with Michi Kawada from Yoshida and the woman had nothing to do with Matsumoto.” Thus, Chiba refused Oshige’s request without further comment.
In the meantime, the Vancouver side judged that this conflict was not insignificant and sent a telegram to Jinzaburō Kawamoto for assistance. At this time Omichi was still under the protection of the Salvation Army.
Right during this conflict, Takeshi Satō, who had a full command of caves in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, happened to hear everything about the ‘Omichi Incident’ when he stopped by Calgary on his way to Nelson for his prostitution business, and he quickly headed to Nelson. A few days later, Satō rolled into Calgary with Kawamoto and Hayashi’s authorization letter. Kawamoto, then, delegated all the responsibility to Satō, as Satō happened to be with Kawamoto when he received the telegram. Of course, Satō must have demonstrated his loyalty with his words.
I included a letter sent from Vancouver to Chiba. The original letter was written on a paper with a pencil, but I would like to let you know that for the purpose of creating a copy with a stereotype I traced the original letter with ink and then printed it, so the copy has somewhat lost its shape. However, I did not add any comment or criticism on it. I leave criticism to what you might call the reader’s free will.
This section will be completed tomorrow.