The Stairs and Other Stories

A research institute’s staircase becomes the center of one man’s consuming obsession. At a fashionable café, an electric sign appears to blink at the moment of murder. A quiet daytime bath turns into a bewildering sequence of shocks, missing clothes, and bodies discovered in unexpected places.

In these three stories, Unno Jūza combines the machinery of detection with unsettling accounts of desire, secrecy, and technological ingenuity. Watchers may be watched in turn, familiar routines conceal dangerous arrangements, and apparently clear explanations yield to further discoveries. Narrators reveal their own entanglement while investigators struggle to distinguish coincidence from evidence.

First published in Shinseinen between 1928 and 1930, the stories capture a literary world fascinated by electricity, recording devices, and the possibilities of scientific crime. This complete collection retains each supplied ending and follows the original selection’s order. Explanatory notes clarify names, period terms, publication details, and uncertain readings while preserving the tension and disturbing ambiguity of the original voices.