"Of course," said Knight, "a human document of the utmost value." Then, to my surprise, he took me by the arm and led me in front of a kakemono, which was the only decoration on the walls of the room. "This is what Mr. Fitch calls the log of the _Evening Star_," he said. "It was found among the effects of Mr. Kato's brother on the schooner; and, fortunately, it was claimed by Mr. Kato himself. Take it to the light and examine it." I took it to the window and looked at it with curiosity, though I did not quite see its bearing on the mystery of the _Evening Star_. It was a fine piece of work, one of those weird night-pictures in which the Japanese are masters, for they know how to give you the single point of light that tells you of the unseen life around the lamp of the household or the temple. This was a picture of a little dark house, with jutting eaves, and a tiny rose light in one window, overlooking the sea. At the brink of the sea rose a ghostly figure that might only be a drift of mist, for the curve of the vague body suggested that the off-shore wind was blowing it out to sea, while the great gleaming eyes were fixed on the lamp, and the shadowy arms outstretched towards it in hopeless longing. Sea and ghost and house were suggested in a very few strokes of the brush. All the rest, the peace and the tragic desire and a thousand other suggestions, according to the mood of the beholder, were concentrated into that single pinpoint of warm light in the window. "Turn it over," said Fitch. I obeyed him, and saw that the whole back of the kakemono, which measured about four feet by two, was covered with a fine scrawl of Japanese characters in purple copying-pencil. I had overlooked it at first, or accepted it, with the eye of ignorance, as a mere piece of Oriental decoration. "That is what we all did," said Fitch. "We all overlooked the simple fact that Japanese words have a meaning. We didn't trouble about it--you know how vaguely one's eye travels over a three-foot sign on a Japanese tea-house--we didn't even think about it till Mr. Kato turned up in our office a week or two ago. You can't read it. Nor can I. But we got Mr. Knight here to handle it for us."