The Bell Tolls

STORY/DESCRIPTIONS

November 19, 1969
Appeared in "Form Shonen Champion" (Akita Shoten Publishing Co., Ltd.) as a series of complete stories

Three guests are staying at an inn located in a hot-spring resort. But whenever each of them goes to enjoy the outdoor hot spring, they hear the strange tinkling of a bell. Since each of them has a guilty memory related to the sound of a bell, they cannot bear this. Having checked to make sure that there is no bell at the outdoor hot spring, the landlord of the inn assures his three guests.
The landlord has a large python as a pet to which he gives live animals as food. One day, he gets angry at his wife's cat, and lets his python eat it. After the incident, however, he starts hearing the tinkling of a bell from the stomach of his python, the bell that the cat was wearing around its neck. The sound keeps haunting his conscience, and he finally finds out what it really is.