Inspector Totsugawa of the First Investigation Division goes to Tsuruoka in Yamagata to attend the wedding of the son of Inspector Mukai, his former colleague who now works for the Yamagata Prefectural Police. While sightseeing at Mt. Haguro after the ceremony, he notices a young woman drawing him in her sketchbook. She introduces herself as Yuka Shiraishi and says she came to draw the Dewa Sanzan. Signing the drawing of Totsugawa next to the five-story pagoda with her initial, a 'Y' in the corner, she gives it to him as a present. The next morning, the corpse of a young woman who has been stabbed is discovered in a forest in Tsuruoka. When Totsugawa, on his way back, hears that a sketchbook signed with a 'Y' was found at the scene, he follows Mukai there. However, the body is not Yuka, the woman Totsugawa had met, and while no items pointing to her identity are found, the sketchbook is the same one Yuka had the day before.
One day, Hikojiro goes to visit Sayo Kujo, an old lady who has been hospitalized. Sayo has been told that she has a year to live by assistant professor Natsuhiko Moriwaki, and insists on returning to the house she was born and raised in. It so happens that Hikojiro will be the one to treat her at home from now on. At the university hospital, Hikojiro runs into a familiar face - Hazuki, the daughter of Tetsuji Tonoyama, the man who taught Hikojiro how to make takoyaki. Hazuki is now a nurse at the university hospital and Hikojiro is surprised to see a strange poster on the hospital bulletin board that implies she's having an affair with Moriwaki. The hospital is currently preparing to elect a new chief surgeon, and the candidates are assistant professors Moriwaki and Shinsuke Noguchi, heads of the first and second surgical department. Both of their factions have been publishing defamatory statements about each other.
One day, Hikojiro receives an emergency call from inn proprietress Shino Ogawa to examine Tadahiko Mori, a guest complaining of stomach pain. Mori, who owns an art gallery in Tokyo, has come to Kyoto on a trip with his only daughter, high school student Nanami. Hikojiro gives him his business card, telling him to contact him if the pain comes back. However, the next day, Mori is found dead...!
In January 1946 a British military transport plane departs from Shanghai on its to Tokyo, Japan. During the flight the airplane makes an emergency landing on Sado Island. The residents on the island have heard stereotypes of the British soldiers and have mixed feelings about the their new "guest." Nevertheless, for the next 40 days the islanders take care of the crew members until the plane can take off once again. This includes Chiyoko Morimoto who is the daughter of the inn owner where some of the British crew members stay.
Hapless gangsters are hired by the yakuza to tail his daughter. Once the identity of the boy she's dating has been unveiled, the boss offers a reward for his capture.
