When the studio is investigated, a bizarre note is discovered - the same short story which starts the novel. In it, the narrator, who identifies himself as Heikichi, describes a long-running battle with mental disease, diabolism, and his murderous urge to create the perfect woman called "Azoth.” To do this, he will cut up his 2 daughters, 2 of his 3 stepdaughters and his 2 nieces, and take a single astrologically aligned piece of her body and combine it with the others. The reason given for excluding his remaining stepdaughter, Kazue Kanemoto, is that she is not a virgin. Each one will be killed with an alchemically significant metal and buried in a place which produces those metals. He writes that he will carry out his plan as soon as he finishes the Aries portrait.