Togakushi Legend Murders (Tuttle Classics)

by Yasuo Uchida

  "No, it isn't sympathy. It's because I think that to understand Noh—this art of omission—it's very important to know what's omitted. For instance, sir, you offered the play 'On the Hollyhocks' as an example, but I think the significance of the omission in that play is totally different from the one in 'Maple-Viewing.' The people of those days were far more devoted to their religion and regarded it as much more absolute than we do nowadays. They would have felt instinctively what a demoness was, and I don't think it would have made any difference at all to their feelings even if they had been told how she became one."

  Tachibana was amazed. For a girl of nineteen or so to be offering such an excellent argument in such fine language in this day and age was nothing less than a miracle. And indeed, the other students were gazing at Yuko Noya after her fervent speech as if she herself were a demoness.

  "I see. I see. That's very interesting. And I certainly do think that's another good way of looking at it," said Tachibana. "But Miss Noya, you certainly do know your subject, don't you? To tell you the truth, I'm not that familiar myself with the story leading up to the 'Maple-Viewing' play. But from the way you talk, you must have made quite a thorough study of it. I wonder if we could ask you to tell us all about it?"

  "Yes," she replied in a voice like a bell, and sat up very straight. "Actually, the reason I'm so familiar with the play is that the story is taken from a legend around my home in Nagano Prefecture. On the Noh stage, Maple is depicted as a demoness, but in the northern part of Nagano, especially around Togakushi and Kinasa, she's recognized as a real, historical character, and there are quite a number of very peculiar place names around Togakushi and Kinasa, whose origin can't be explained unless it is assumed that she did really exist. As a matter of fact, even the name Kinasa itself, meaning 'Village Without a Demon,' serves as paradoxical proof of her existence."

  It stirred Tachibana to hear that Yuko Noya was from Nagano, and he was shaken when she mentioned Togakushi, feeling a bittersweet sentiment and a vague, inexplicable foreboding.

  "Maple's infant name was Kureha, and she is said to have been born in the Aizu Region of northeastern Japan," Yuko continued. "As a girl, she was a beauty of some repute, and it was decided that she should go to the capital. There, she found favor with Tsunemoto, of the clan of Genji. That was when she changed her name from Kureha to Maple.

  "Now, most prevalent theories take Maple as an inherently wicked woman. Some even make her a child sent in answer to a prayer to Marishiten, the Buddhist god of war. But looking at it with common sense and from a scientific point of view, those things just don't happen. I think her wickedness developed only when she decided that she wanted Tsunemoto's love all for herself. If I had been a country girl who went to the capital and received the favors of a man of power like Tsunemoto, I'm sure I would have been in such rapture that I would have become every bit as wicked as she did."

  "Now, hold on there," laughed Tachibana, raising both hands. "I understand that you want to defend Maple, but don't be so subjective about it! Just tell us the story."

  "I'm sorry." Yuko closed her mouth and her face reddened. For the first time, she displayed the naivete and innocence of a young girl, which made Tachibana intensely happy. If she had turned out to be totally the prim young lady that her manner of speech indicated, he would most likely have found her unbearably stuffy.

  She continued. "Maple's desire to possess Tsunemoto became stronger and stronger, until finally she thought of killing his lawful wife. Some views have it that she tried to use poison, others say it was witchcraft. Uh, my objective guess is that she must have learned something about poisonous herbs, and the hallucinatory powers of hemp.

  "But her scheme was discovered before she could carry it out, and she was exiled to the mountains of Togakushi, a poor area on barren land, known for the production of hemp. Lamenting her misfortune, she built a house for herself Kyoto style, to remind her of the capital, and she gave the names of places in Kyoto to the surrounding settlements—Higashikyo, Nishikyo, Ichijo, Nijo, even the river she named after one in Kyoto. The names are still used today. In Nishikyo there's the Kasuga Shrine, and the place where Maple lived is called Imperial Palace Remains.

  "The villagers and the rough men of the surrounding mountains were charmed by her rare beauty, and that, along with her powers of witchcraft, turned her very quickly into a charismatic leader. The people cooperated to build her the 'imperial palace' of her dreams along with the surrounding town she desired, and they pledged their loyalty to her. Before long, the powerful clans of the region and even the warriors of the Zenko Temple became her followers, so it is said, which shows that she must have had quite considerable influence.

  "But to support itself, this large band repeatedly raided and plundered the neighboring villages. Word of the raids reached the capital in Kyoto, and a military force under the command of Taira no Koremochi was dispatched to Togakushi. But Maple's band, protected by the natural stronghold of the Togakushi Mountains, built weirs and forts all over, and defeated the forces come to subjugate them. The memory of those weirs and forts is preserved today in some of the place names.

  "Stymied by the stubborn resistance of Maple's band, Koremochi prayed to the Kitamuki Kuan-yin goddess in Ueda and was granted an oracle." Here Yuko paused, looking very sad. "The rest of the story sounds made up, and I don't like it very much, but anyway, with the gods behind him this time, Taira no Koremochi plans a general attack over a new route. The places where he crossed the Susobana River and where he set up camp are named for those events. Also, as the gods have instructed him to do, in order to determine where to begin his attack on the cave in which Maple has entrenched herself, Koremochi aims his bow at the sky and lets fly an arrow. The arrow flies west and lands with its point stuck in the ground. The place where it landed is called Arrowstand, and today there's a Hachiman Shrine on the site.

  "Before beginning his final attack, Koremochi sneaks into Maple's camp alone. Discovered, he is naturally suspected of being an enemy soldier, and is brought before her. She knows at a glance that he is the enemy, but overcome by her longing for the capital from which he has come, she gives him a banquet. There are conflicting theories concerning whether it was Maple who offered Koremochi poisoned sake at the banquet, or whether it was the reverse, but whichever way it happened, the place is now called Poison Plain.

  "Having succeeded in getting close to Maple, Koremochi finds his chance to draw his supernatural sword, with which he seriously wounds her. At the same time, his entire force charges. Unable to bear the mortification and hatred of it all, Maple finally turns into a demoness and tries to fight Koremochi off, but her wound is so serious that she is unable to use her witchcraft, and in the end, she is slain by Koremochi's supernatural sword.

  "And that is the end of the Demoness Legend. After that, the name of the neighboring village was changed to Kinasa, or Demon-Free. In his old age, Taira no Koremochi built a villa in Ueda, where he spent his last years. The place is named after his villa, and his grave there is called General's Mound."

  Yuko Noya had finished her long story. There was silence for a moment, and then all at once, applause. Tachibana joined in, gazing in fascination at Yuko's shy, flushed smile. For some reason, over Yuko's beautiful face, there seemed to be superimposed the face of Taki Tendoh, so long asleep in his memory.

  * * *

  In front of the restaurant, Minegishi hailed a taxi for Tachibana. Tachibana thanked him, and was just getting in when, from among the students seeing him off, Yuko Noya rushed up to him. She put her hand on his back, pretending to be helping him into the taxi, and whispered quickly into his ear, "Professor, you were the son of a viscount, weren't you?"

  Tachibana turned in astonishment. She was looking at him with an enigmatic smile. "How did you know that?" he asked, but she merrily signaled to the driver to go ahead, and moved away from the car.

  The driver pulled the door shut and started. Tachibana looked back to see Yuko waving to
him from among the crowd of students.

  The questioning of residents of the villa development on the Koshimizu Plateau was nearly concluded. "Three of the villas were still vacant, most likely because it's pretty early in the season," reported Detective Sergeant Yoshii, "but we've made a list of all the owners."

  According to Yoshii's list, there were altogether twenty-six villas in the development. Most of those owned by companies were constantly attended by live-in managers. The name of the manager of the Fukumoto Machinery villa was listed as Mitsuo Murata. Takemura remembered Junko Murata, the woman who liked to talk the way his wife Yoko did.

  "So far, we've asked everybody in the villas whether they had anything to do with Kisuke Takeda or whether they had a visit from him that night, but we haven't picked up anything yet that might help us," said Yoshii with a look of chagrin. A man of forty-two with a strong sense of duty, he was painfully irritated that he hadn't come up with anything helpful. "But we did pay special attention to the vicinity where you said a man who could be assumed to be Kisuke Takeda had been seen walking. One of the three villas whose owners we haven't been able yet to get in touch with is in that vicinity, and we did hear from the owner of the villa next to it—'next to it' being about a hundred meters away—that he had seen a light on there the night of the 3rd and heard a car going out and in."

  "Oh? What time was that?"

  "Well, he wasn't really sure, but he thinks he must have heard the car sometime between ten and eleven."

  "You say he heard it going out, and then in?"

  "That's right."

  "In other words, he heard it twice, you mean? Both going out, and then coming in?"

  "I think so... probably..."

  "Come on! You know 'probably' isn't good enough. You said 'out and in.' That means first out and later in. I want to know how long it was between the going out and the coming in."

  It was rare for Takemura to bawl out one of his men like that, but he was annoyed that Yoshii should have casually overlooked something that to him was only common sense.

  "All right," said Yoshii, "we'll go back and check."

  "I'd appreciate that. Also, which one on the list is the owner of that villa?"

  "His name is Ishihara. He lives in Nagoya City, Chikusa Ward."

  "Okay, split up your men and send somebody to Nagoya."

  Two men each were immediately sent to Nagoya and Togakushi.

  No further information had been picked up from the questioning of residents of the area around Poison Plain, where the body had been found. Nothing whatsoever about any suspicious person or automobile. No matter what time of night the body had been brought there, whoever did it must have known that the chances of not being seen were very slim, so whatever his purpose might have been, he knew he would be taking a big risk to accomplish it. Unless, of course, he had reason to believe it would be perfectly safe.

  As Takemura listened to the reports of his men, he was looking hard at a 1:25,000 map spread out on the table. There was only one road to Poison Plain, and that was from the village of Imai. "Just looking at the place," said Takemura, "anybody wanting to bring a body there in the middle of the night would have had to know the area awfully well. Not only that, but he must have been sure of not being seen along the way. I don't like this."

  "Maybe it was done by somebody local," said Kinoshita, quick to pick up Takemura's thoughts.

  "That's a good possibility."

  Obviously, if the murderer were somebody local, then the motive might well have been trouble over the building of the Togakushi Plateau Golf Course. Organized opposition to the course, though still weak, was said to be getting stronger. In addition, there were most likely quite a few people who might approve of the course itself but were angered by the strong-arm tactics employed by Takeda in other ventures. The police were, in fact, getting that impression from a lot of the residents. Some even declared coldly that Takeda had gotten the divine retribution he had coming to him.

  "Still," said Takemura, "who would have opposed a golf course enough to kill somebody over it? Besides, that doesn't tell us why the body was left on Poison Plain. No, I don't think the motive for this murder could have been anything so obvious. It must be something much deeper. Otherwise, how do we explain why the body was left just where it was?"

  That had been Takemura's feeling from the beginning, and the longer he worked on the case, the more convinced of it he had become. The poisoned body had been left on Poison Plain, and if they wrote that off as mere coincidence, then how would they explain the murderer's need to take the risk of getting it there? No, Takemura could only assume that the murderer must have been making some sort of display. But if so, then who was the display intended for, and why? If Takeda's killing and the placing of his body on Poison Plain was some kind of warning, then the murderer was likely not finished.

  "I think perhaps we can expect another murder before long," said Takemura, with a gloomy look.

  His prediction was to come true with unexpected speed.

  * * *

  On his return to the villa development on the Koshimizu Plateau, Detective Yoshii had made his questioning more precise.

  "The name of the family I spoke to is Segi, and the villa is privately owned," he reported to Takemura. "The son had gotten home from college at the beginning of this month, and on Saturday the 3rd, the whole family came up from Tokyo. The Ishihara villa is about a hundred meters away from theirs as the crow flies, and there's a rather thick stand of trees between them, so they don't have a good view of it. But at night, they can see its lights, and they remember somebody in their family commenting that night that their neighbors were there too. It was the college son who heard the car. He says he heard the engine start and the car drive off shortly after he went into the toilet, and he heard it come back and stop, and the door close just as he was leaving the toilet."

  "What?" exclaimed Takemura. "You mean it went out and came right back?"

  "Well, he says he probably spent five or six minutes in the toilet."

  "Still, five or six minutes at most. Where could it have gone in such a short time?" Takemura considered the question for a moment, then asked, "Could it have been two different cars?"

  "That's what I wondered myself, so I asked the boy just that question, but he says it had to be either the same car, or at least the same model. It seems he's a car buff, and he says he can tell the make and model of any car by the sound of its engine. It's a lot quieter out there than it is in the city, and he could very well be right."

  "Hmm, I see. So, I guess they didn't notice any other activities in the villa next door—the Ishihara villa, I mean?"

  "No, I'm afraid not. Except that they said they didn't see any lights on there the next evening, so I guess the people must have left during the day."

  "So, what's your feeling about it, Sarge? Do you think Takeda might have visited the Ishihara villa that night?"

  "Well, I'd say it's a strong possibility. From your conversation with the Murata woman, I don't think we could be wrong that Takeda went somewhere near the Ishihara villa after he left the hotel. We've been awfully thorough in our questioning in that neighborhood, and we've found no reason to believe that he might have visited any other villa. Of course, it's always possible that someone was lying, so maybe we'd better double-check, but I didn't get that feeling from anyone. Unless someone did lie, that would leave only the Ishihara villa, and its location is right. Besides, if Takeda had been headed for any place beyond the Ishihara villa, it would have been shorter for him to use the paved road that connects the Koshimizu Plateau Hotel and the Middle Shrine, so he would have had no reason to be walking on that lousy gravel road. So at this point, I think we have to assume that he was headed for the Ishihara villa."

  "Okay, sounds great. We'll go all the way on your theory, Sarge," said Takemura, patting Yoshii appreciatively on the shoulder. "Now all we have to do is wait for your men to bring something back for us from Nagoya."

&nb
sp; In that, however, they were disappointed. Yoshii's men just missed Mr. and Mrs. Ishihara. The only person at home was the elderly housekeeper, and she was not able to tell them much at all. "Mr. Ishihara only had to work until noon today, and he and Mrs. Ishihara just left a few minutes ago by car for their villa."

  The detectives looked at each other. "You mean, their villa in Togakushi?"

  "Yes."

  It was a little past three. If the Ishiharas had left around three and taken the Chuo Expressway, it would take about two and a half hours to the Ihoku interchange. From there through Matsumoto and Nagano Cities to Togakushi over ordinary roads would take them quite a while, so the earliest they could be expected to arrive would be between eight and nine that night.

  When he received that report from the men in Nagoya, Takemura decided to go to Togakushi himself. For some reason, he felt a foreboding that something was going to go wrong, and he had never known anything good to come of being given the slip by someone he wanted to see.

  "Come on Kinoshita, let's go!" called Takemura.

  Kinoshita looked glum. "Are we staking them out?"

  "No, I just want to be there a little early, waiting for them."

  "I guess we'll be back in the middle of the night, will we?"

  "I imagine so. Why? Did you have something to do?"

  "No, it's all right." Kinoshita hurried over to make a phone call in a corner of the room. By the way he kept bobbing his head, it looked like he was breaking a date.

  Takemura and Kinoshita in one car, along with Yoshii and another detective in the second, headed for Togakushi.

  "You did have something planned, didn't you? Did you go and break a date?" said Takemura, after they had traveled some distance. "You could have gotten somebody to fill in for you, you know."