Yoshida: 39

It has been one week since the previous post.

I believe I have surmised just what the whales are singing when they attack. As we recall from this post, there is a break at every thirteenth interval:

"/************/************/************/************/"

The number thirteen has the typical connotations of luck or unluckiness, but there is also this:

1831: 1+8+3+1 = 13

So simple. I can only assume the time spent with Howland and Stroud has dulled my intellect.

Now I cannot help but think: has the number 13 been associated with unluckiness because of the Magician and the year 1831 A.D.?

Yoshida: 38

And another. How have we missed these all the way along?

On January first, 1831, William Lloyd Garrison began publishing an anti-slavery newspaper. It's name? The Liberator.


All things point back to that year. How many other references to it have gone unnoticed? It is now all I can think about.

Yoshida: 37

Another 1831 reference (it is remarkable how, once you focus on a number you begin to see it everywhere):

Leopold I was crowned the first king of the Belgians on July 21st, 1831.

Yoshida: 36

With further research, I have discovered that "The Great Gagasti"'s real name was Geoffrey Gagworth.

Jeff Werth.


My condolences, Howland.

Yoshida: 35

I know the Magician's identity.

After I left Howland and Stroud I made my way across town to visit my sensei in the art of stage magic. While I have little desire to go into specific detail, recording the exact dialog of the encounter as everyone else here insists on doing, I do feel some obligation to "show my work" in how I arrived in the answer. At least with my chronicle of events the accuracy of what was actually said will be an improvement over the dismally deficient and preposterously subjective recitations of those who lack a nearly photographic memory, as I do.

For the first ten minutes of the instruction, my master merely quizzed me as to what had been previously learned, satisfying himself that I had indeed been practicing and could now perform the various tricks he'd taught me. Inoue-San then decided to begin training me in a new trick.


INOUE: Now I will teach you the rabbit out of the hat trick.

YOSHIDA: No. Something else.

INOUE: I am the teacher. If you wish to know how to become a magician, you need to know this trick.

YOSHIDA: No. I loathe rabbits. When I was young my father worked with them in Australia. Their smell makes me gag to this day.

INOUE: The "pull the rabbit out of a hat" trick is iconic [I believe this is the English word closest to what Inoue was attempting to describe]. When anyone thinks of a magician, the rabbit out of a hat is the trick that pops into their minds first.

YOSHIDA: The rabbit out of a hat. The Magician. The rabbit out of a hat. He pulls the rabbit out of a hat. The Magician. When someone thinks of that trick, they think of him.

INOUE: Are you all right? You seem odder than normal, with all respect to your family.

YOSHIDA: Mrs. Justina Walentowicz. Her head was pulled down through her torso.

INOUE: Excuse me?

YOSHIDA: Then he pulled it up through the incision in her belly. He pulled it up. He pulled it out of... he was performing the rabbit out of a hat trick with her head, announcing himself.

INOUE: You're making me sick. Settle down now, and I'll teach you.

YOSHIDA: He was showing us right from the beginning. He even put the rabbit's foot in her brain. Rabbit out of a hat trick. The Magician. Of course.

INOUE: Whose brain? What are you saying? You are worrying me.

YOSHIDA: What do you know about the rabbit out of a hat trick? You must tell me everything you know immediately.

INOUE: Well, uh... you require a hat-

YOSHIDA: No, idiot! Not how to perform it. Tell me about it! I want to know everything.


This is the story he told (with corrections and additional information supplied by myself):

In England, in the year 1831, an itinerant magician was wandering between towns, performing magic tricks for food. On one of his stops, a member of the local aristocracy happened to notice that he had a rabbit caged along with his belongings. The lady was a grand supporter of the newly-formed Animal Protection Legislation Act (much like your similarly misguided American SPCA), and she fetched the local constable to report the magician for animal cruelty.

The magician was quick on his feet, informing the constable and the lady that the rabbit was in fact part of his act and not dinner, and the lady demanded to see what trick the rabbit could possibly assist with that very night. As you can surmise, at the finale to his show, the magician thanked his "friend" for all his help that night, pulling the rabbit from his hat to the wild applause of the crowd and the great annoyance of the thwarted lady.

This is the first record of any magician ever performing the "rabbit out of a hat" trick.

The magician was known as The Great Gagasti.

Yoshida: 34

Two days since their last post, and still no word.

The situation looks grim, but Howland has been declared dead before. I'll believe it only when I see the corpse.

Yoshida: 33

I spoke with my uncles, and they inform me that there has been no S.O.S. reported. I then asked them to inform the Coast Guard of the missing vessel, which they did. No further word thus far.

Yoshida: 32

Are you aware of the typos in your posts? Is your keyboard broken in some way, or is your computer somehow being affected by the hum? E-mail me your latitude and longitude in case the engine explodes so we may recover the Magician's knife and other accessories. Make certain that they are safely inside the trunk so that there is a chance that it might float.

Yoshida: 31

Today I learned how to saw a woman in half. I never imagined that I would actually find stage magic to actually be interesting, but I'm fascinated by how such a simple trick could fool an entire room full of people that magic is being done. Tomorrow I learn the "art" of levitation.

Yoshida: 29

My research into stage magic proceeds. I decided that I would seek out a sensei to show me at least some rudimentary tricks, and found a man whom, in exchange for my doing his taxes, is demonstrating how to perform various slight of hand illusions. Memorizing the steps is simple, but making my hands do what I want them to is maddeningly frustrating.

In more important news, all the arrangements have been made to sneak you both into Japan. My uncles and their servants will be present upon your arrival.

Yoshida: 28

I should clarify, the company used to hunt whales, but over the last couple of years we merely harvest them for "research", which is still quite legal, though contested.

At any rate, I personally have never touched a harpoon. In fact, I do not even set foot on the boats, as I am prone to seasickness. My job entails collating data as far as the whales' seasonal movements and creating charts- planning where and when to sail so as to maximize the harvest. My uncles estimate that my work on the project has enabled them to up their catch more than fifteen percent, which makes me far more valuable to the company sitting at a computer than actually out at sea.

And I certainly don't hate whales, despite your wild overreactions. In fact, I find them delicious.

Josh: "The Family That Harpoons Whales Together, Fails Together", And Other Rhymes I'll Be Chanting Outside Your Door When I Get To Japan

They're whalers? They actually harpoon whales? Jesus, and you work for them?! I'm a goddamn member of Greenpeace, you @sshole! You have got to be kidding me! Every time you save our @sses and I start liking you just a tiny bit you have to go and type something else, Yoshida. It's uncanny.

What do you do, go out on weekends with the family just to slaughter some whale babies? Do you know how smart they are? How generally peaceful? Goddamn, you make me want to throw up, Yoshida. What do you do in your spare time, stab baby seals?

Yoshida: 27

They own the Bengosha Whaling Company, second largest whaling fleet in Japan.

Yoshida: 26

Best if you don't attempt to communicate with my uncles, even if it's to thank them. Words cannot properly express how much they detest foreigners, Americans specifically. Their recent run-ins with your "Greenpeace" terrorist organization have soured them even further.

I would expect that you will be met at the Kyoto dockyard by intermediaries, but should you have the misfortune of actually physically encountering my uncles, my advice is to avoid eye contact and be silent.

Bon Voyage.

Yoshida: 25

I have spoken to my uncles, and while they despise Westerners in general, I have convinced them that you have worked diligently to assist in finding my father's killer, and that the trail leads here to Japan.

Do not attempt to fly as airport security will surely flag you. If you travel by boat to Kyoto, my uncles will get you through customs.

Yoshida: 24

Stroud, Howland, your cover is blown.

Someone has tipped off the Australian authorities that you are traveling under false identities. If I were you I would withdraw all the cash you possibly can and leave your hotel immediately. Do not use your passports.

In scanning the latest jurisdictional Australian websites your names came up along with descriptions and Stroud's fingerprints, which I imagine you had to give at some point to acquire your Private Investigator license.

I would imagine Crayton or one of the others discovered the names you checked in under at the Port Victoria Hotel, and informed the police of your real identities, though I don't imagine the specifics of how it occurred are all that important to you at this point. I'd say there is an excellent chance that the SPSU (or State Protection Support Unit, the Australian equivalent of your American SWAT teams) is en route to your location as of right now with orders to shoot to kill if necessary.

On a more important note, I find the fact that Japan is not on the globe key chain to be absolutely fascinating. If you somehow manage to escape capture or death, take scans of every section of the globe and e-mail them to me as soon as possible.

Yoshida: 23

Well played.


On another subject, having had the great pleasure of abandoning my research into so-called "practical" magic, I amazingly enough found myself inspired by Howland's tedious, interminable account of his attempt and failure to originally acquire the Magician's knife in the sunken Liberator. There was a section where he described the actions of Crayton inside the vessel:

"With the flourish and panache of a stage magician, he opened his sleeves to show me there was nothing inside of them, then a moment later he extended his arms in our direction and bubbles began to appear from his cuffs. There were only a few at first, then there were so many bubbles that it was like watching jets from a Jacuzzi."

It was this "nothing up my sleeve" gesture as well as the style of the Magician's disappearing trick described in Taras' post that made me consider that perhaps some clues as to our adversary's methodology could be gleaned not from the study of that gibberish pseudo-science of Crowley's, but oddly-enough, instead from actual performance magic.

Of course, these books are talking about mere tricks: slight of hand, misdirection and so forth, but my hope is that I might discover some small nugget of information that we might find valuable.

Frankly, it's only because there is so little need for me at my uncles' business at the moment that I am even busying myself with this research, but I must occupy my mind somehow.

Yoshida: 22

Only three (or possibly two) of the suspects are innocent. There is a 25% chance that the first person cut will be the Magician, leaving the rest above suspicion and out of harms way before any further damage is done. Those strike me as acceptable odds.

Besides, I was not suggesting a fatal stab wound, only a blow sure to draw blood, perhaps to the stomach or groin.

If you do not hire a criminal to do the task for you, what can you possibly accomplish? Will you ask them all to line up so you can bite them?

Yoshida: 21

There is another we have encountered with a "G" name: Detective Gary Ward, with whom Stroud made contact early in our investigation. The fact that he was the officer in charge of the Walentowicz murder makes him a prime suspect in my opinion.

Also, there is another possibility that occurs to me: what if "G.G." actually stands for two separate people? Perhaps Garrett and Godsby work together in some fashion, or Ward and Glen, or some combination thereof? It is a more outlandish concept, but I thought it best to introduce the idea.

As far as testing these theories, the most foolproof way appears to be through blood. In Leopold's one and only post, he tells us that the Magician has no blood running through his veins.

You should immediately hire someone to stab them all and see if they bleed.

Yoshida: 20

My study of "practical" magic has been the most boring and degrading endeavor of my existence thus far, with the possible exception of reading one of Howland's staggeringly long and impossibly self-indulgent posts. Are you unaware of the editing functions on your computer? Three dead, Crayton escaped and you failed to acquire the knife. That's all that really needs to be said, yet you slog on through page after agonizing page.

Regardless, my research into "magic" has been a complete waste of time. Every so-called "sorcerer" merely attempts to drape the trappings of science over impenetrable jargon and scrambled words. I have read the scribblings of Crowley (below, laughably attempting to appear arcane and imposing) and Gardner, studied astrology and even explored Kabbalah, the imbecilic gibberish cult promoted by your dried-up Western whore, Madonna.

All of it is rubbish.

I am beyond frustrated. I am abandoning this line of study and returning to my job. My uncles are displeased enough with me taking as much time off as I have as it is. When there is something worth investigating, let me know.