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'That is coer indifferently 'We areto solve one of our problems if a few extra people die in an auto in what you said earlier Our word for suicide is jisatsu, literally "self-h it is a violent solution to a personal problema as it would in your country In fact, one of our most famous folk-tales, known to all children, is of the forty-seven ronin, or bodyguards Through their negligence, their lord, Asano, was assassinated They swore to avenge hiether at a place called Ako and all coence This is what you know as hara-kiri, which is a vulgar ter" Today, at the time of the festival at the Ako shrine, special trains have to be laid on to accori your children up on that sort of stuff, you can't expect them not to venerate the act of suicide'

'Just so,' said Tiger proudly, '25,000 Japanese coard that as a shameful statistic And the more spectacular the suicide, thestudent achieved great renown by trying to saw his own head off Lovers link hands and throw theon Falls at Nikko The Mihara volcano on the island of Oshi slope of the crater and hurl the cauldron in its centre To co authorities have now opened, at great expense, a "Suicide Prevention Office" on the peak But always the wheels of the good old-fashioned railway train provide theself-operating All you need to do is make a four-foot juer But what's all this lecture about anyway? What's it got to do with friend Shatterhand and his pretty garden?'

'Everything, Bondo-san Everything You see, arden has become the most desirable site for suicides in the whole of Japan It has everything - a ride on our famous "Romance" express to Kyoto; a boat trip across our beautiful Inland Sea that is so full of Japanese history; a local train from the terminal harbour at Beppu to Fukuoka and a walk or taxi drive along a beautiful coast to the awe-inspiring ramparts of this le yourself in on a provision cart, and then a last delicious, ruh the beautiful groves And finally the great gaame of pachinko the Japanese love so much Which ball will have your number on it? Will your death be easy or painful? Will a Russell's Viper strike at your legs as you walk the silent, well-raked paths? Will soht as you rest under this or that gorgeous tree? Or will hunger or curiosity lead you to munch a handful of those red berries or pick one of those orange fruit? Of course, if you want to , sulphurous furees Centigrade will allow you just enough ti more than a departes of self-destruction, all given away for nothing Can you not i flock there as if to a shrine? The police have erected a barricade across the road Genuine visitors, botanists and so on, have to show a pass But the suicides fight their way to the shrine across the fields and ain entrance The good doctor is of course , with skulls and crossbones upon theone to the expense of flying one of those high heliu streamers threaten trespassers with prosecution But, alas for the doctor's precautions, the high balloon serves only to beckon Here is death! it proclaier Why don't you arrest him? Burn the place down?'

'Arrest hi Japan with this unique collection of rare plants? Burn down a aljin resident? TheIf anyone is to blame, it is the Japanese people It is true that he could exercise ularly patrolled And it is certainly odd that when he has the ambulance called, thevictims are always totally dead and are usually in the for of calcined bones fished out of one of the fumaroles From the list I have shown you, one would have expected some to be only crippled, or blinded The Herr Doktor expresses hiests that, in the cases of blindness or amnesia, the victims presumably fall into one of the fumaroles by mistake Maybe But, as I have said, his tally so far is over five hundred and, with the stream of publicity, more and more people will be attracted to the Castle of Death We have got to put a stop to it'

'What steps have been taken so far?'

'Coation have visited the doctor They have beenshall be done to protect him from these trespassers He complains that they interfere with his work, break off precious boughs and pick valuable plants He shows himself as entirely cooperative with anythis project, which is so dear to his heart and so much appreciated by trie Japanese specialists in botany and so forth He hasa research department - to be manned by workers of his own choice, mark you -to extract the poisons froive the essences free to an appropriate medical research centre You will have noted that many of these poisons are valuable medicines in a diluted form'

'But how has all this co drowsy It was four o'clock and the horizon of jagged grey, porcelain-shingled roof-tops was lightening He poured down the last of the sake It had the flat taste of too er was obviously obsessed with this lunatic business, and subtle, authentic glihtmare story with its undertones of Poe, Le Fanu, Braer seemed unaffected by the lateness of the hour The samurai face was perhaps etched in more sinister, more brutal lines The hint of Tartar, taed ani n that he was interested, even excited He said, 'One o, Bondo-san, I sent one of my best men into this place to try and discover what it was all about I was so instructed by my Minister, the Minister of the Interior He in turn was under orders fro one of public debate I chose a good et into the place, observe, and report One week later, Bondo-san, he was recovered from the sea on a beach near this Castle of Death He was blinded and in delirium All the lower half of his body was terribly burned He could only babble a haiku about dragonflies I later discovered that, as a youth, he had indulged in the pastionfly on a thread and let it go This acts as a lure for the onfly and you can quickly catch many males in this way They attach theo The haiku - that is a verse of seventeen syllables - he kept on reciting until his death, which ca above the graves"'

Ja inside a dream: the little room, partitioned in imitation rice-paper and cedar plywood, the open vista of a sarden in which water tinkled, the distant redness of an iarettes, the quiet voice of the storyteller telling a fairy tale, as it ht be told in a tent under the stars And yet this was so that had happened the other day, close by - was happening now, soht him here to tell Why? Because he was lonely? Because there was no one else he could trust? Bond pulled hier What did you do next?'

Tiger Tanaka seele of golden tatami He looked very directly at Ja except apologize to my superiors I waited for an honourable solution to present itself I waited for you to coht have been another'

James Bond yawned He couldn't help it He could see no end to the evening Tiger had got some Japanese bee in his Japanese bonnet How in hell could Bond stop it buzzing? He said, 'Tiger It's time for bed Let's talk about the rest of this toive you any advice I can I can see it's a difficult problem But those are just the ones to sleep on' He er said, and it was an order, 'Sit down, Bondo-san If you have any regard for your country, you leave tomorrow' He consulted his watch 'By the twelve-twenty from Tokyo main station Your ultimate destination is Fukuoka on the southern island of Kyushu You will not be going back to your hotel You will not be seeing Dikko From now on you are under my personal orders' The voice went very quiet and velvety 'Is that understood?'

Bond sat up as if he had been stung 'What in God's naer Tanaka said, 'In nificant statee for MAGIC 44 you were eht require of you'

'I didn't say that I was e for you on ood enough I took you at your word and I requested an audience of the Priard the matter as a State secret known only to hier,' said Bond impatiently 'Cut the cackle What is it you want er was not to be hurried He said, 'Bondo-san, I will now be blunt with you, and you will not be offended, because we are friends Yes? Now it is a sad fact that I, and many of us in positions of authority in Japan, have formed an unsatisfactory opinion about the British people since the war You have not only lost a great Empire, you have seeht,' he held up a hand, 'ill not go deeply into the reasons for this policy, but when you apparently sought to arrest this slide into i one of the les in the history of the world, if not the worst Further, your govern and have handed over effective control of the country to the trade unions, who appear to be dedicated to the principle of doing less and less work forof an honest day's work, is sapping at ever-increasing speed the moral fibre of the British, a quality the world once so much admired In its placesee a vacuous, ai at the pools and bingo, whining at the weather and the declining fortunes of the country, and ing nostalgically in gossip about the doings of the Royal Faes of the most debased newspapers in the world'