The Master Key

by Masako Togawa

  ‘While we were in the waiting room together, George was looking at a comic. When it became his turn to go in, he left it face down on the table, and he was going to finish it later. When he came out from his treatment, he looked for the comic, but a middle-aged American woman was reading it by then. I thought of telling her that my son had been reading it, but felt too shy to do so. Sometimes, when I look back on it, I feel that if he had had that comic to read, he would never have left the waiting room and gone back to the car, and my heart is full of hatred for that white woman.’

  Keiko laughed bitterly as she said this, and suddenly Yoneko realised that if she could produce positive and final proof of George’s death it would in the end be for the good of her former pupil. Keiko’s whole life and personality had become distorted by the uncertainty about her child’s fate.

  Since the seance, Chikako Ueda had become even more of a recluse, and there seemed no way that anyone could approach her. To get any further in her enquiries, Yoneko realised that she must invent some pretext for talking to Chikako. Even after Keiko went home the next morning, Yoneko spent the day thinking of nothing else.

  That evening, when she was just going out to do some shopping, Miss Tojo called out to her from the front office: ‘You forgot to register your overnight visitor, you know.’ Her face was smiling, but behind the mask Yoneko could detect some suspicion about her relationship with Keiko.

  ‘Perhaps you’d care to fill in the book now?’ She pushed the register across the desk, pointing to a clean page. Yoneko could just discern the traces of writing on the other side.

  ‘I don’t want to be petty, but it’s always been the rule, you know… We’ve filled in without fail ever since the war ended, and I suppose we’ll go on doing so for another four or five years, even though society has changed.’

  And she chatted on in this vein whilst Yoneko registered Keiko’s visit. Suddenly, she had a flash of inspiration. Having entered Keiko’s name and filled in the relationship column—‘friend’—she turned the pages back rapidly until she came to the year 1951. And, just as she had begun to inspect, there was an entry for Chikako Ueda. Ignoring Miss Tojo’s astonished and increasingly loud complaints at this breach of the rules, Yoneko gazed triumphantly at the evidence which lay before her, proof positive of Chikako’s involvement in the kidnapping.

  Chikako Ueda was shown as having had a younger female cousin to stay with her between 29 March and 1 April 1951. The name was given as Yasuyo Aoki, aged thirty, unemployed. As George was kidnapped on 27 March, it seemed clear that this ‘female cousin’ was the kidnapper who had brought the child to the apartment block.

  ‘Oh, I remember,’ Yoneko interrupted Miss Tojo. ‘This was the cousin of Miss Ueda’s who came with a little boy of about four. He must be getting quite big now.’

  Miss Tojo thought for a moment, and then replied, ‘No—she was quite alone—I’m sure of that.’ She looked Yoneko straight in the eye as she said this, taking the book back and putting it in the drawer. Yoneko felt that one leg of her hypothesis had been knocked from under her.

  She went back to her room and retraced every development since she had received Keiko’s first letter up to this latest discovery in the guest register. She noted down on a sheet of paper those points which she felt to be of most significance:

  1. Chikako Ueda had the opportunity of knowing about George from reading her pupil’s essay…

  2. She has been awaiting the visit of a man for several years, and always prepares a meal against his coming.

  3. She at least knows that a child was buried, and was probably involved in it, too.

  Reasons: (a) The poem in her room.

  (b) Her reaction to the medium.

  4. During the few days immediately following George’s disappearance on 27 March 1951, Chikako Ueda had a female cousin to stay with her.

  Having set this all down in black and white, she then examined these facts against the hypothesis that Chikako Ueda was an accomplice in the kidnapping and that the man for whom she had been waiting for so long was the kidnapper. And she suddenly realised that, if this was so, then the young female cousin, the man who had not come back, and the kidnapper were one and the same person. Why had she not stumbled on this obvious fact before? Because she had started off with the false proposition that, because it was strictly forbidden, it was impossible that any male could spend the night in the K Ladies’ apartments. And of course not only Yoneko would fall into this trap—it seemed probable that anyone would.

  The kidnapper, either under the pressure of necessity or as part of a prearranged plan, had disguised himself as a woman and passed himself off as Chikako’s cousin and spent two nights with her. Seen in that light, the K apartment block would be the safest hideout imaginable.

  The more she thought about it, the more horrified she became. As each clue fell into place, it became clear what had happened. She pictured the course of events and visualised the young man dressed as a woman standing in front of the reception desk, just where she had herself stood only a few minutes before, sheltering behind Chikako’s skirts. Could he have possibly brought George here alive? It would be no easy matter to smuggle in a four-year-old child, to keep him quiet, and so… he had naturally killed him! He had put the body in a rucksack, or suitcase, or some such container, and carried it here. If one was to believe what the medium had said, he had brought him in a suitcase. With what fear of being detected the two of them had climbed the stairs all the way to Chikako’s room on the fifth floor! But where had they buried the child? Unquestionably, somewhere in the building. In the inner courtyard? Under the incinerator, perhaps?

  At least one thing was clear. There was now no doubt in Yoneko’s mind of Chikako’s connection with the kidnapping.

  Chikako had pledged herself to a man, and waited for him ever since. The man, the kidnapper, had made a promise to Major Kraft, George’s father, and had failed to keep it. He had betrayed Chikako and the Major.

  She pondered this a while, and then the germ of an idea grew in her mind. Suddenly she saw everything in a blinding flash of inspiration. The man had not betrayed Chikako and the Major—something, some unforeseen accident had prevented him from doing what he said he would. There was no way in which she could deduce precisely what had happened, but she felt that this explanation fitted all the circumstances.

  She looked at her clock. It was two am. In the far distance, she heard the baleful whistle of a steam engine. Yes, beyond doubt, the kidnapper was the man Chikako had awaited so long.

  All that remained to be discovered was where the child lay buried.

  She got into bed and turned out the light. Gazing into the impenetrable darkness of her room, she puzzled over something else. How could the medium have come to know about Chikako’s secret? She did not believe in the claims of the supernatural power made by the Three Spirit Faith. For example, if the voice they had heard was truly that of George, it seemed unlikely that he would have used the standard Japanese word for Mother. Keiko had said that he addressed her by the English word ‘Mummy’.

  This thought frightened her. It meant that, far from the Three Spirit Faith having supernatural capabilities, someone, and that someone closely connected to it, knew of what had happened and was plotting some deep scheme. But who? And why?

  At last, her vision blurred in the dark and she fell asleep.

  The mist which had begun to settle on the streets an hour before now enveloped the town; nonetheless, it was quite a warm evening and one could just see the naked bulbs, strung around the trench at four-metre intervals to prevent people from falling into the excavation under the apartment block.

  The myriad lights of the amusement area below twinkled and died out one by one under the veil of the mist. Yoneko gazed at them in fascination. She was leaning out of the window in the rear corridor on the fifth floor. She had tried every trick she could think of during the last fortnight to get Chikako to let slip where the child was buried but it had all be
en a waste of time. She had even tried phoning from outside. She had chosen a telephone box in a lonely area and, having called the building, waited for a few minutes while Chikako was summoned from the fifth floor. She had stuffed a handkerchief into her mouth, and, being unused to practising deception, felt thoroughly ashamed of what she was doing. At last she heard the echoes of footsteps approaching the phone at the other end, the sound of the receiver being taken up, and Chikako’s breathing. She could visualise the scene at the other end, and felt as if somehow all her efforts to conceal her identity would fail. Disguising her voice and speaking through the handkerchief, she said, ‘I know you buried the child. Say where, at once! I know it’s in the apartment block.’

  She tried to be as threatening as possible. But Chikako said nothing. Instead, Yoneko could hear, first of all, the sound of the phone being dropped, and then the voice of Miss Tojo calling out Chikako’s name.

  Thereafter, she spent several days racking her brains to think of some other technique. Every day she went into the inner courtyard and looked at the latest diggings. The incinerator and the greenhouse had been removed and the earth all turned over, but there was no sign of any childish bones having been dug up, and no tales of such an event either. She examined the earth and clay which had been dug out from the foundations and dumped by the conveyor on the ground above. Sometimes, she thought she could sense the presence of a rotting corpse, and her stomach turned. Once the soil had been removed, the workmen tamped down the earth under the walls of the building and laid heavy girders and rails. At this point, Yoneko began to doubt if it really was true that a child was buried somewhere in the vicinity. At such times, the words of the medium, the poem in Chikako’s room, and all the other pieces of evidence she had so carefully assembled seemed to amount to no more than her wild fancies. But she could not drive out of her mind the conviction that there was a child buried somewhere around the building. The tale of the man who had spent the night in Chikako’s room disguised as a woman, and of Chikako who had waited for him all the long years since, now took a second place in her mind. She was possessed by the illusion of the child buried beneath the building and there was nothing she could do about it. Before falling asleep at night, she saw in her mind’s eye the site after the building had been moved, with a suitcase somewhere in the centre. But Keiko’s son, George, was alive and well and moving around inside the suitcase.

  These imaginings were to stand her in good stead when she had all but given up hope of getting Chikako to talk. She made a plan based on them. As soon as the building had been moved, she would rush to Chikako’s door, knock loudly, and shout out ‘They’ve found the child’s body!’ This should at least produce some reaction which would be of use.

  For this plan to work, it would be necessary to prepare Chikako’s mind with a few hints of what lay in store for her. So for the past several days she had written ‘A divine revelation’ on a half sheet of rice paper such as was used by oracles at shrines and pushed it under Chikako’s door. The ‘divine revelation’ that Yoneko wrote read as follows:

  ‘When the building is moved, then all the sinful events that lie buried beneath it shall be revealed. And lo! the child thou didst bury shall come back to life!’

  At just about the same time, a rumour went the rounds that a miracle would occur when the building was moved. It was said that the Three Spirit Faith had revealed that a child, kidnapped seven years ago, would be discovered. This gave Yoneko the horrible feeling that someone knew what she was up to! She felt as if all the guilt she was trying to expose was turning around, piling on her. If the Three Spirit Faith made such an announcement, it was clearly part of a human and not a supernatural plan. She felt that this plot would come to fruition before her very eyes on the day that the building was moved. As the instant when the building was to be moved came closer and closer, Yoneko felt more and more like a gambler whose fate rests on one hand, lying face down on the table, which is about to be turned over and exposed. For good, or perhaps for ill…

  Only two days remained until the building would be moved. All preparations were complete. The workers had nothing left to do, and peace and quiet had at last returned to the inner garden which lay hidden in the mists below.

  Somewhere, she heard a clock strike eleven pm. Yoneko straightened up and made her way towards Chikako’s room in order to pass the folded rice paper under her door. As she turned the corner, she heard footsteps on the stairs. Someone was coming. As Yoneko was wearing the patrol armband, there was no need for her to hide or run away. She went to the stairwell and saw Suwa Yatabe coming up to the fifth floor. Suwa bowed slightly as she passed, but her face showed an expression of distaste. She hurried along the corridor and vanished up the stairs which led out onto the roof. She seemed to be carrying an unusually heavy load on her conscience for one who had experienced a miracle, thought Yoneko, and then paused to wonder what Suwa would be doing on the roof at such an hour. However, she stuck to her original plan and made her way to Chikako’s room with the ‘divine revelation’ in her hand. As on all previous occasions, she crept quietly so as not to be heard.

  When she got back to the staircase, she thought she could hear a human voice crying out in grief. But it could have been a cat miaowing, or a drunk singing in the road below. All was still again for a moment, and then she heard it quite clearly—the faint sound of a violin being played. It seemed to come from the roof. She heard the vibratos echoing in the night air. She went to the staircase leading to the roof, and as she did so, the sound became louder and then suddenly broke off.

  It was pitch dark on the roof. Yoneko stood by the door, creaking on its hinges, and peering into the mist called out: ‘Miss Yatabe! Miss Yatabe!’

  There was no response. Yoneko took a few steps onto the roof and, raising her voice once again, called out:

  ‘Miss Yatabe!’

  The low railing around the roof loomed through the mist, seeming almost to be self-consciously aware of its own existence, but there was no sign of any living being. Somewhere in the distance below, Yoneko heard the shrill squeal of brakes being suddenly applied. She felt suddenly afraid. She froze where she stood, but could hear no sound about her. There was something unpleasant in the air.

  The next morning, she awoke to shouts that told her what it was. Suwa Yatabe had committed suicide by jumping from the roof. She had put down the famous violin before leaping to her death, and her body was found on one of the piles of earth which had been excavated from the foundations.

  Yoneko reflected on how she and Suwa had passed each other the night before, she on her errand and Suwa hurrying on the way to her death. Now she understood why she had heard the violin but had found no trace of Suwa. Suwa had been bidding farewell to the world on the instrument she loved so much, but Yoneko had interrupted her, and she had gone without completing her tune.

  Yoneko felt sad thinking of the last years of Suwa, the violinist whose hopes had turned to sorrow. She did not doubt that Suwa had committed suicide, but one thing puzzled her.

  Why, when Suwa passed her on the way to the roof, had she been empty-handed?

  On the day of the move, it was windy from dawn on, and dust and grit from the excavations whirled in the air and crept into every corner of the building.

  The death of Suwa Yatabe two days before had left everyone stunned, but the excitement of the move now brought things back to life. They got ready for the experiment with the glass of water, which they had looked forward to for so long. Some even made innocent little wagers with cakes or sweets on the outcome. But Yoneko was indifferent to such goings on. She had passed by Chikako Ueda’s door once early on in the morning but thereafter had returned to her room to await quietly the hour of noon, and the moving of the building.

  She was working out what she should do if her ruse caused Chikako to confess where the child was buried. She had expected to hear from the police after she had revealed all she knew to Keiko, but this had not happened.

  She
puzzled over where the child could be buried. All the soil around the building and in the courtyard had been dug out to quite a depth, so it couldn’t be there. Perhaps under the walls, or the foundations of the incinerator? She remembered the words she had heard about being in a suitcase covered in cement, so such a place seemed likely. Or under the floor? Anyway, if Chikako confessed, she could get the workmen to dig up wherever it was, and then her first action, she decided, would be to call the police.

  This led her to imagine Chikako locked up in a cell, which made her feel even worse. She did not enjoy interfering in other people’s lives or laying bare their secrets for all to learn. Little had she dreamed, when she began to write to her pupils to overcome the boredom of retirement, that it would end in her exposing someone else and causing her to be dragged off to prison. She began to regret what she had done. Chikako had waited alone in her little room for seven years, and the man had not come; was not this punishment enough? Was it really essential for her to be put at the disposal of merciless public opinion? That would not bring the child back to life.

  Yoneko cast her mind back to the three months after her retirement, when she had sat alone in her room gazing at the cold walls. What thoughts had crossed her mind then? Had she reflected back on the life of an old maid who had just let the days go by and life pass with them? She wondered if she had pursued Chikako so relentlessly out of jealously because she had at least had an affair with a man? This thought made her feel she had lost all her strength and purpose.

  Reflecting thus upon her solitude, Yoneko glanced down at her watch, which she had put on the table. It was five to twelve. She got up to go to Chikako’s room.

  Not a soul was to be seen in the corridors or on the staircase, and the whole building was eerily silent.

  Just as she reached Chikako’s room, the noon siren wailed at a nearby factory. She thought that the building would now begin to move, and rushed to the window but could see nothing to suggest that the move had begun.