The Inugami Curse

by Seishi Yokomizo

  “Because the person who read the will was trying to kill her. After all, Tamayo is like a thorn in the side for the Inugami clan. So long as she’s alive, she’s the one who’ll decide the heir to the family fortune.”

  “But if that’s the case, why have the attempts always failed? The viper in the bedroom, the faulty brakes, and the third accident of the other day with the boat—the attempts on her life have never succeeded. Why isn’t the culprit doing a better job?”

  Furudate stared at Kindaichi with a wild look, his nostrils wide and his brow wet with perspiration. Finally, he whispered in a throaty voice, “Mr. Kindaichi, I don’t know what you mean. What on earth are you…?”

  Kindaichi slowly shook his head. “Yes, you do, Mr. Furudate. You know, but you’re denying it. I know you must have thought this way, too, that the person who threw the viper into the bedroom, the person who tampered with the brakes, the person who bore a hole in the boat and plugged it with putty was none other than Tamayo herself.”

  “But what for? Why would she do such a thing?”

  “To set the scene for future events.”

  “Future events?”

  “The triple murders of Kiyo, Také, and Tomo.”

  Furudate began perspiring even more freely, the sweat pouring from his brow and over his cheeks in numerous little rivulets. Without even thinking to wipe his face, he sat grasping both arms of the wicker chair tightly, as if he would spring out of it at any moment.

  “The triple murders of Kiyo, Také, and Tomo? Who are you suggesting is going to kill them? And what does this have to do with Tamayo’s accidents?”

  “Listen to me, Mr. Furudate. Tamayo has been given an enormous fortune. She has been bequeathed tremendous power. But there is a condition attached: she has to marry Kiyo, Také, or Tomo—that is, unless all three of them die or all three refuse to marry her. The last possibility, of course, would never happen. With Tamayo being so beautiful and, what’s more, with the person who marries her being entitled to the enormous wealth and power of the Inugami clan, one would have to be crazy or stupid to refuse such a marriage. Already today, in that room where we all sat, I clearly saw Tomo making a move on Tamayo with my very own eyes. So…”

  “So?” Furudate retorted. He seemed to be challenging Kindaichi.

  “So, what if Tamayo dislikes all three of them? Or has some other lover? Let’s say Tamayo doesn’t want to marry any of the three, but of course she doesn’t want to lose the Inugami fortune, either. If so, Tamayo is doomed unless those three die. So, she decides to kill them, one by one, and she stages those repeated accidents as a preparatory move, so she can assume the role of another intended victim when the murders eventually take place.”

  “Mr. Kindaichi.” Furudate breathed rapidly, as if trying to expel some red hot mass from inside him. Then he said with emotion, “You’re a terrible man. How can you let such horrible thoughts dwell in your mind? Is everyone in your line of work so suspicious?”

  Kindaichi smiled sadly and shook his head. “No, I’m not being suspicious. I’m just pursuing possibilities, that such a scenario could be the case. We can pursue the opposite possibility as well. Say Tamayo’s strange accidents in fact do not involve pretense or deception on her part, but that someone really is trying to kill her. In that case, then who’s the culprit and what does he or she have in mind?”

  “Alright,” Furudate repeated, “in that case, who is the culprit and what does he or she have in mind?”

  “In that case, all three men—Kiyo, Také, and Tomo—are suspect. In other words, if one of the three has no confidence at all of winning Tamayo for himself, would that person stand by twiddling his thumbs while Tamayo marries one of the other two? As soon as any one of the three marries Tamayo, the other two are totally deprived of any of the Inugami fortune. So, killing Tamayo would mean he would at least come into some of the money.”

  “You’re a terrible man, Mr. Kindaichi. Terrible. But what you’re saying is all just fantasy. It’s only in a novel that a person could be so cold-blooded.”

  “No. Whoever it is has already shown how cold-blooded he or she can be. Remember, someone has already murdered Mr. Wakabayashi in a very cold-blooded way. Incidentally, if we pursue the possibility I just mentioned, it’s not just Kiyo, Také, and Tomo who are suspect but also their parents and even Také’s sister as well. By making sure their son or brother receives a share of the inheritance, they’re letting themselves in for a share, too. The question then is, who had the best, surest chance to toss a viper into Tamayo’s bedroom, tamper with her car, and bore a hole in her boat. Mr. Furudate, don’t you have any ideas?”

  Furudate glanced again in consternation at Kindaichi, and a look of obvious confusion quickly began to spread over his face.

  “Ah-hah, Mr. Furudate, I see you’re thinking of a particular name. Who is it?”

  “No, no, I don’t know. As for who had the chance, all of them did.”

  “All of them?”

  “Yes, except for Kiyo, who just came back. Mr. Kindaichi, the family members have been gathering here in Nasu every month for Sahei’s memorial services. Of course, they don’t come to pay homage to the old man. They come here once a month because they want to find out what the others are up to and because they don’t want to lose out on anything. And Tamayo’s accidents invariably happen when they are here. This time, too…”

  Kindaichi gave a shrill whistle and started to scratch his head vigorously.

  “Th-th-this certainly is a very interesting case, Mr. Furudate. No matter who the perpetrator is, he or she keeps us guessing.”

  Kindaichi remained lost in thought, violently scratching his head, with its increasingly tangled mop of hair. Finally he remembered Furudate’s presence. He turned toward the lawyer, who was staring at him aghast, and smiled sheepishly.

  “Excuse me,” he laughed. “It’s a habit of mine when I’m excited. I hope you won’t hold it against me. Anyhow, as I was saying, we’ve considered two possibilities—the possibility that Tamayo’s strange accidents are staged performances and the possibility that they are not. By the way, if the latter is the case, then there is another strong suspect. Of course, whether he would have had a chance to read the will is another question.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Shizuma Aonuma.”

  A faint cry escaped Furudate’s taut lips.

  “Setting aside whether he had the chance or not, Shizuma has the strongest motive of any to want Tamayo dead. Unless she dies, he won’t be included at all in this scheme of inheritance. Since he can’t make Tamayo reject Sahei’s grandsons, he has to kill her first if he wants to be assured of a share of the money. Then, if the three grandsons die after that, he would get everything—all Sahei’s fortune and businesses. Mr. Furudate,” Kindaichi spoke with emphasis, “who is this Shizuma Aonuma? What connection does he have with Sahei? And why is he being shown such generosity?”

  Furudate sighed deeply. Wiping his clammy brow with his handkerchief, he nodded with a gloomy expression. “Shizuma Aonuma was the reason Sahei had so much bitterness and anguish in his heart in his later years. It’s no wonder he gave Shizuma such an important role in the will. Shizuma is…” The words seemed to stick in Furudate’s throat. Then, clearing his throat, he murmured almost in a stammer, “Shizuma is Sahei’s illegitimate son.”

  Kindaichi raised his eyebrows high in surprise. “His son?”

  “Yes. His only son.”

  “But then, why…? I mean, that wasn’t even mentioned in his biography.”

  “Of course not. Writing about that would mean exposing what Matsuko, Takeko, and Umeko did—their cruel, evil deed.” Furudate began his tale in an emotionless voice, as if reciting something from memory. “When he was in his fifties, Sahei fell in love for the first time in his life. He already had three mistresses, with whom he had sired Matsuko, Takeko, and Umeko, but he did not particularly love any of them. He just kept them by his side to satisfy his physical needs. B
ut then, when he was past fifty, he fell deeply in love with a woman for the first time in his life. Her name was Kikuno Aonuma, and she worked at the Inugami silk mill. They say she was even younger than Matsuko. After a while, Kikuno became pregnant, throwing Sahei’s three daughters into a panic. Having different mothers as they did, they’d never been close, even as children. No, in fact, they had constantly fought and feuded with each other like sworn enemies. But now, at least in regard to Kikuno, they joined forces in a united effort—they were that dismayed by her pregnancy.”

  “Why? Why would they care if she was pregnant?”

  Furudate smiled wearily. “Isn’t it obvious? What if Kikuno had a boy? Sahei was totally infatuated with her, and if she were to give him the son he had always wanted, he might decide to marry her legally. Then, the boy would steal the entire Inugami fortune from them.”

  “I see.” Kindaichi controlled the shudder he felt rising within him. He nodded slowly and deeply.

  “So the three daughters formed an alliance and began to hound Kikuno, tormenting her, abusing her fiercely in unspeakable ways. Kikuno finally found it unbearable. She thought that if this continued, the three would torment her to death in the end. So she ran away. Matsuko, Takeko, and Umeko were relieved, but then they found out, after Kikuno had left, that Sahei had given her the three Inugami heirlooms: the ax, zither, and chrysanthemum.”

  “Yes, I was going to ask about those. What are the ax, zither, and chrysanthemum?”

  “Let me explain that later. As the will said, though, they are the Inugami family treasures, which signify the right of inheritance. The three half-sisters found out that Sahei had given them to Kikuno and had told her that if she had a son, she should come back with the heirlooms and demand her rights. It’s no wonder the three panicked even more. When they heard that Kikuno had indeed safely given birth to a boy, they could no longer hold back their fury and rushed to Kikuno like demons from hell. Even though she had just given birth, they forced her to sign a statement saying that Sahei was not the father of her child. They then retrieved the three heirlooms and went triumphantly on their way. That’s why Sahei was as cold as ice to Matsuko, Takeko, and Umeko in his latter years.”

  Kindaichi recalled the malicious features of the three women. Imagining how they might have been in their youth, when they would have had even more spirit and spite, he felt his flesh crawl. “I see. What happened to Kikuno and the baby?”

  “Well, the terrifying experience must have made quite an impression on Kikuno. She had signed that statement, but who knew what other harm could come to her? So, she took her baby, Shizuma, and disappeared without a trace. Even now, we have no idea where mother and son are. If he’s living, Shizuma should be twenty-nine, the same age as Kiyo.”

  Furudate finished his tale and sighed morosely.

  A dark thought overwhelmed Kindaichi. Perhaps Sahei’s will was written with a horrible purpose in mind from the first. Did the old man deliberately write such an extraordinary will to cause discord among Matsuko, Takeko, and Umeko—a blood feud that would continue for years and years to come? Kindaichi pondered what he had heard, crushed by depressing thoughts, but eventually, taking out a pen and paper, he began sketching the Inugami family tree. For a long time, he sat staring at the chart, as if there were something to discover there.

  So this was the inception of the unearthly series of murders that befell the Inugami clan. The curtain had risen on the first act of this blood-soaked tragedy.

  THE INUGAMI CLAN

  The Mysterious Monkey

  Sahei’s unusual will quickly became a hot topic for greedy journalists. Thanks to the efforts of a certain news agency, the will’s contents and accounts of the bitter enmity it had caused among the family members were scattered far and wide to newspapers throughout the country. Of course the major dailies did not choose to publish articles about such private matters, but the second- and third-rate tabloids, without exception, splashed the story all over their pages with sensational and misleading exaggeration. As a result, the inheritance of Sahei Inugami’s fortune was no longer just a topic of local interest but had ballooned into a national concern. Anyone who was even the least bit inquisitive watched with curiosity, waiting to see whom this Tamayo Nonomiya would choose for a husband. Some even made wagers among themselves.

  The Inugami villa, while thus basked in the national spotlight, stood as hushed in suffocating silence as ever by the shores of Lake Nasu. Takeko, Umeko, and their families were still at the villa, but there was almost no communication between them and Matsuko or Kiyo. Each family, when not secluded in its own quarters, tried to read the others’ faces and minds. Inside the mansion there now brewed four separate storms, with interests interlocking in complex ways: Matsuko and Kiyo, Takeko’s family, Umeko’s family, and Tamayo. Imagine Tamayo’s miserable situation. Matsuko, Takeko, Umeko, and their families hated each other like bitter enemies, but even so they were united in their hatred for Tamayo. Not one of them, however, would express that animosity openly. Though they concealed daggers of jealousy in their hearts, the three half-sisters were all flattery and smiles toward Tamayo. Then, bitterly resenting being forced to lavish such false compliments on this young orphan, their hatred toward her doubled in intensity.

  No doubt egged on by their parents, Také and Tomo went daily to pay their respects to Tamayo. Také, being the epitome of arrogance, appeared exceedingly confident from the first and did not jabber on with obviously insincere flattery, but Tomo, sly and smart, was like a dog nearly wagging its tail off. He would run around Tamayo, sit up, shake hands, and whimper obligingly, trying to curry favor with her.

  Through all this, Tamayo was magnificent. She could feel the family’s hatred and curses directed against her with her whole being, as sensitively as moist skin would feel electricity, yet she seemed not in the least daunted. She remained elegant and noble, and her attitude toward both the self-confident Také and the shifty Tomo seemed to have changed little if at all with the reading of the will—except that now she never forgot to have Monkey in an adjoining room when either one of them visited her in her quarters.

  Neither did Tamayo shrink from the masked Kiyo. Since he never came to visit her of his own accord, she would sometimes call on him in his room, in encounters that were rumored to be extremely strange. Again, Tamayo was always accompanied by Monkey. Kiyo, too, was never alone, always having his mother by his side when he met with Tamayo. Thus, the meetings between Kiyo and Tamayo would take place with Matsuko and Monkey present. Invariably they would lapse into an uncomfortable silence.

  Kiyo, with his sinister mask, perhaps self-conscious of his hideous appearance, hardly ever said a word. It was therefore mostly Tamayo who would speak. But when her words seemed to end in a question or referred to Kiyo’s past, Matsuko would always intervene and answer for her son, responding with seeming frivolity and deftly maneuvering the subject in another direction. When this happened, Tamayo would pale visibly, and she would sometimes begin to tremble slightly.

  Be that as it may, it was only thanks to Monkey that nothing untoward happened to Tamayo while living in the same villa as Také and Tomo, both of whom were noticeably impatient to secure her love. The easiest and fastest way to possess Tamayo would be to take her physically, by force if necessary—it was not beneath either of these men to consider such a plan. More than a few times in fact, they had wanted to make lewd advances. That they failed to carry out their intentions was due only to Monkey’s presence. If Také or Tomo had tried anything so outrageous, the ugly giant would no doubt have broken his neck.

  “You want to know about Monkey?” Furudate began explaining about this mysterious character one day. “That’s not his real name, of course. As you know, he looks just like one, though, so people have called him that since he was a boy. It’s come to seem like his real name. I for one don’t even remember what his real name is. He was orphaned when he was still very small, so Tamayo’s mother, feeling sorry for him, took him
in and raised him. Yes, he and Tamayo were brought up together from a very young age. So when Tamayo’s parents died and Sahei brought her to the Inugami home, Monkey came with her. He’s slightly mentally handicapped, and is blindly loyal to Tamayo and serves her with the utmost devotion. He’d do anything she asked him to do. If she asked him to kill, he’d do it gladly.”

  These last words must have popped out of Furudate’s mouth inadvertently. Surely he only wanted to describe how dedicated Monkey was to Tamayo. The moment they were uttered, however, both speaker and listener looked up as if jerked awake and stared at each other.

  Furudate, obviously regretting his choice of words, coughed awkwardly, and Kindaichi changed the topic for him. “By the way, I heard Monkey is in charge of the chrysanthemums at the Inugami estate.”

  “Yes, yes, did you see them? He might not be very bright, but he has a remarkable talent for growing chrysanthemums. Tamayo’s father, who was the priest of Nasu Shrine, taught him how because the chrysanthemum is historically significant to both Nasu Shrine and to the Inugami clan. Remember the ax, zither, and chrysanthemum?”

  “Yes, I wanted to ask you about those. What is the story behind those three objects? Are they related in some way to Nasu Shrine as well?”

  “Oh, yes. The ax refers to the yoki, the small hatchet used to chop firewood; the zither to the koto, the thirteen stringed musical instrument; and the chrysanthemum is the flower kiku. Originally, they were the three sacred treasures of Nasu Shrine. As you can see, when the words are spoken together, yokikotokiku, they are homonymous with ‘we hear good tidings.’ I understand that this phrase is also the family motto of the famous kabuki actor Kikugoro. Well, I’m sure the treasures of Nasu Shrine have nothing to do with any kabuki actor, but Daini Nonomiya—you know, Sahei’s benefactor and Tamayo’s grandfather—had thought of this same auspicious phrase and had a craftsman make a golden ax, zither, and chrysanthemum to be consecrated as the sacred treasures of the shrine. Then, later, when Sahei started his business, Daini presented them and the motto to Sahei to wish him success, so that now they’ve become the heirlooms of the Inugami clan.”