Togakushi Legend Murders (Tuttle Classics)

by Yasuo Uchida

  He went through the whole case again in his mind. On the evening of July 3rd, a little after six, Kisuke Takeda had excused himself from the dinner party at the Koshimizu Plateau Hotel and retired to his room. A little before seven, he left the hotel and walked to the villa development, where the last person to see him was Junko Murata.

  Questioning of neighbors suggested that his destination must have been the Ishihara villa, and the subsequent search of the villa after the Ishihara murders did indeed turn up his fingerprints and a few strands of his hair, though it could not be established that they had been left on the day of his disappearance. Ishihara family members and connections stated that none of them had been at the villa that night, so if he was there, it was without their leave. Since a light had been seen there from the neighboring Segi villa, the probability was quite high that he had been there—either alone or with others.

  Next there was the question of the car heard going out and then coming back in. Since Takeda had walked to the villa, someone else must have gone there by car. Who? And where would the car have been going at ten or eleven at night?

  Takemura made the important assumption that Takeda was still alive at that point. If that were the case, it could mean that he had been taken someplace else in the car and killed there. Where? And was his body kept there until deposited on Poison Plain, or moved elsewhere again? If so, how and where?

  Having gotten that far, however, Takemura found that what still bothered him most was the weird act of leaving the poisoned body on Poison Plain.

  Takemura had gone through Kisuke Takeda's actions on July 3rd many times by now, following his habitual method of trying to put himself in the other man's place. Any human action could be assumed to have some goal and some kind of logic. Even if it seemed contradictory, it had to have some particular drift. If the drift changed or stagnated unnaturally, it could be assumed that the action had encountered some obstacle. Thus, if one could only follow the course of the drift, one could discover the person's aim.

  In Takeda's actions on that day, there were several points that seemed unnatural. First, he had excused himself from the dinner party. Second, he had gotten rid of his secretary, Izawa. Third, he had gone off without a car. Obviously, he had been trying to do something without anyone's knowledge. What could it have been that was so secret he wanted to keep it even from his trusted personal secretary, Izawa?

  Suddenly, Takemura had it. It took only an instant for the thought to pass from hypothesis to conviction.

  "Hey, Kinoshita, we're going out!" he called.

  "Right. Where to?" said Kinoshita, who was at the window absentmindedly pulling hairs out of his nose.

  "Nagoya. By train," said Takemura on his way out of the door. Kinoshita grabbed his jacket and raced after him.

  Shizu Kasai received the two detectives apprehensively. Though she was an old woman of inscrutable expression and unfathomable thoughts, they definitely got the prickly feeling that they were not welcome.

  "May we come in?" said Takemura.

  "Please."

  With that brief exchange they were admitted, shown to the parlor and served cold barley tea without another word from Shizu. Either she was very unsociable, or else she was trying to avoid saying anything she didn't have to for fear of making some kind of blunder. Probably both, thought Takemura.

  "I imagine you must be lonely, all by yourself in such a big house," said Takemura.

  "No." Shizu had apparently taken the comment as a mere attempt at polite conversation.

  Takemura smiled ruefully. Detectives are apt to be thought of as brazen, hardheaded people, but he, at least, was rather the reverse. He was considerate almost to a fault of the feelings of the person he was dealing with. When he thought of the position in which this old woman had been placed, he could quite well understand her behavior.

  "You're in for some considerable troubles, I would imagine," said Takemura. "It will be hard for you, I'm sure, but you've got to stand up for your rights and secure your own happiness now. If there's any way that we can advise or assist you, please let us know."

  Shizu had not expected to hear anything like that. She melted, revealing a lonely old woman trembling with sorrow and anxiety. "Can you really help me?" she asked.

  "Of course we can. Just tell us the trouble."

  "I'm going to be thrown out of this house."

  That was what Takemura had thought. "So Mr. Ishihara's daughter, Hisako, is treating you badly, then?"

  "Yes, yes, she is." Once the dam was broken, there was no stopping her. The young Kinoshita looked displeased, but Takemura listened to her patiently. When she had said all she had to say, she mumbled distractedly, "But now that my mistress Kayo, is gone, I can't just stay in this house forever."

  "Don't you have any relatives?" asked Takemura.

  "No, no blood relatives at all. The only thing I could do is return to my mistress's family home in Suwa, but I'd only be a nuisance to them."

  "Nonsense. Besides, the Ishihara family should settle some reasonable amount on you, too, in acknowledgment of your service to Kayo. They can't just treat you as someone who's in the way. If you don't want to return to Kayo's family home, you should be able to live by yourself."

  Takemura cheered Shizu up with a promise that he would help her with the procedure and tell her the proper office to go to for whatever she wished to do. She was so happy she almost cried.

  After thanking him over and over again, she paused, and then said, "Uh, Inspector, I'm afraid I have an apology to make."

  "I know," said Takemura cheerfully. "You lied to me about Kayo, didn't you?"

  "How did you know that?" She stared at him in amazement. He smiled back at her. Kinoshita leaned forward, staring at him too, wondering what Shizu had lied about.

  "Well, I'm not sure exactly how I knew. I guess after being a detective for so long, a person just sort of knows these things. Some kind of intuition, I suppose."

  "Really? Then I guess it was useless to try to hide it after all."

  "Oh no, I wouldn't say that. You were lying to protect your mistress's reputation, weren't you? But now there's no need to lie anymore. Far from it. If you don't tell me the truth now, we'll never catch whoever killed her and Mr. Ishihara."

  "I'm very sorry I lied to you," said Shizu, bowing her head in shame. "I'll tell you the truth now. I lied when I said that my young lady—I mean, Mrs. Ishihara—had not gone to Togakushi on July 3rd. As soon as Mr. Ishihara left that day for Takarazuka, she started out for Togakushi by car. If he called, I was to say that she was indisposed, in the toilet or the bath, and would call him back later."

  "I see. Then she was going alone to the villa in Togakushi to meet Kisuke Takeda?"

  "Yes," answered Shizu, in a voice as soft as the buzz of a mosquito. Kinoshita looked on, mouth agape.

  "Mr. Takeda had been having an affair with Kayo, hadn't he?"

  "Yes. Well, no, not an affair. He led my young lady astray, is what he did. But his own wife is so dreadful that he had to force my young lady on Mr. Ishihara. Then before long, he set it up so they could have secret meetings at that villa in Togakushi, and..."

  "A terrible person, wasn't he, this Mr. Takeda?"

  "A horrible, horrible man, to seduce such a pure innocent lady."

  "Didn't Kayo's parents speak to him about it?"

  "They couldn't. They were at his mercy. They had been an important family of the Suwa area for more than ten generations, but had been cheated out of the family business by Mr. Takeda and forced to sell their land to him cheap. Finally, he even got his hands on their daughter. She was like a human sacrifice. But he couldn't marry her. At first, she hated him, but then—I don't know why—she began to look forward to his visits. An evil man, he was. A terrible, evil man. But even he had to keep up appearances, and besides, he was afraid of his wife, so to hide his evil, he forced my lady on Mr. Ishihara. Then he found ways to keep seeing her secretly. This spring, she told Mr. Ishihara she wanted to
buy a villa in Togakushi. He told her he didn't like Togakushi, but she insisted and forced him into it. But I'll tell you, I'm sure it was Mr. Takeda who was behind it!"

  To hear Shizu Kasai talk about him, Kisuke Takeda must have been the Devil himself. Takemura was careful to take what she said with a grain of salt, though. Even supposing that Kayo's family had been outwitted and taken in by Takeda, they could hardly have been so innocent themselves. Their story sounded like a typical example of the decline of a great family. Nor could Kayo herself have been so innocent that she could not have broken off, even after marriage, a relationship with a man old enough to be her father, and hardly a very attractive man at that.

  "Then did Kayo get home on the morning of the 4th?" asked Takemura.

  "Yes, but it was almost noon. It was a Sunday, and there was heavy rain in Nagano. She said traffic was all tied up, and she had spent a long time on the road."

  That would mean that she had left Togakushi early in the morning.

  "From then until the 7th, did she go out anywhere for long?"

  "How long?"

  "Say, five or ten hours."

  "Oh no, not for that long."

  "Then the next time she went to Togakushi was with her husband on July 10th?"

  "Yes, that's right."

  If so, then Kayo could not have been the one who left Kisuke Takeda's body on Poison Plain, so if she did kill him, she must have had an accomplice.

  "All right, now, this is a very important question, so I want you to listen calmly and then answer frankly," said Takemura, straightening up and looking the old woman right in the eye. "Do you think it's possible that Kayo could have killed Kisuke Takeda, or do you think it's absolutely impossible?"

  Shizu paled, but Takemura's earnestness forced her to think about the question as hard as she could, before answering carefully, "No, she absolutely could never have done such a thing. As sad as it may be, Mr. Takeda had taken possession body and soul of my young lady. If anybody in this house had killed him, it would have been me or Mr. Ishihara."

  "What?" Takemura was caught by surprise now. "You mean Mr. Ishihara knew about her affair?"

  "Yes, I think he must have had a feeling. Then when he heard about the murder and read in the newspaper that it wasn't known where Mr. Takeda went after he left the hotel, he asked my lady if it hadn't been the villa he went to, for a meeting with her. I'd never seen him question her so hard before. He asked her if all the excuses she had been making to go to Togakushi had been just so she could see Mr. Takeda. There were tears and accusations for two days, but she just kept shaking her head. Finally, on the afternoon of the 10th, when he got home from work, he practically dragged her off to Togakushi."

  "What were they going to do there?"

  "I don't know. I guess he was going to try to find out for himself whether she was telling the truth or not."

  "It sounds like Mr. Ishihara was very much in love with Kayo."

  "Yes, he was. I felt sorry for him, because I knew her feelings were for Mr. Takeda."

  Takemura seemed to have gotten just about everything he needed from Shizu Kasai. He had just one more question, about something that had been bothering him since he entered the room. "Do you mind if I ask you, those two things that look like bowls, standing side by side over there, what are they for?" He was referring to two enameled basins that looked like some sort of sacred offering, placed ostentatiously on a side table. Each was about four-fifths full of a slightly cloudy, light green liquid. "The liquid is the color of tea. Is that what it is?"

  Takemura got up and went over to the basins for a closer look. Shizu followed him, looking troubled.

  "Yes, that's tea."

  "Oh, so it is tea. But what's it for? Some kind of charm?"

  "Er, yes, something like that." She hesitated.

  Takemura looked at her. "Won't you tell me about it?"

  "It's the Curse of the Demoness."

  "The Curse of the Demoness?" He felt cold all over. "What sort of curse is that?"

  "It's supposed to be a secret spell used a long time ago by the Demoness Maple in the Togakushi Mountains."

  "What's it supposed to do?"

  No response.

  "Is it supposed to put a death spell on somebody?"

  She nodded.

  "How do you cast it?

  "You make the tea in the morning, then you pour it into the bowl while facing in the direction where the person you want to put the curse on is located. As you do it, you say, 'Die, die."'

  "I see."

  "Then in the evening you take the bowl outside and do the same thing again as you pour the tea out on the ground."

  What was he on to now, he wondered sadly. "You keep doing this every day?"

  "Yes."

  "Do two bowls mean the curse is on two people?"

  "Yes."

  "Then I guess one of them must be for Mrs. Takeda in Nagano. Who's the other for?"

  Again, no response.

  "Is it for Hisako Hirai?"

  "Yes, now. But not when my mistress was alive."

  Takemura realized who it must have been for. "Then it was for her husband, Mr. Ishihara?"

  The old lady nodded.

  "Then it was Kayo who was trying to cast the spell?" Had the woman been that horrible? Then Takemura thought of something even worse. "You just said it was different when Kayo was alive. Do you mean you're trying to carry out her wishes even now that she's dead?"

  Shizu stood there as stiff as a board.

  "So you are, then." Takemura shook his head sadly.

  "Well, I ask you to stop. Wouldn't you say that Kayo's curse has already worked?"

  "It has?"

  "Well, look. In the direction she put the curse, Mr. Takeda, Mr. Ishihara, and even Kayo herself are all dead."

  "Oh my!" Shizu began to tremble. That had never occurred to her.

  "Don't you know the saying that curses, like chickens, come home to roost? Kayo shouldn't have been doing it, and for you who have got better judgement, it's even worse. Do you think you can get happiness for yourself by making someone else unhappy?"

  Shizu flopped down on the floor. Arms dangling at her sides, she began to wail like a baby. Takemura put his arm around her shoulders and helped her to the sofa, then waited patiently for her to calm down.

  Finally recovering enough to regain a sense of shame, she wiped her eyes with a tissue and said, "I'm sorry to let you see me so upset."

  "No, no. A shock like that would upset anybody," said Takemura gently. "By the way, do you know where Kayo learned the curse?"

  "She said it was at a place called the Hall of Heavenly Wisdom, in Togakushi."

  "The Hall of Heavenly Wisdom?"

  "Yes. There's a shrine maiden there who tells fortunes."

  "Oh? I guess Kayo must really have believed in her!"

  "She did. She had her fortune told there almost every time she went to the villa."

  "Oh did she?" laughed Takemura. "Then I guess she must have used that as her excuse to her husband for going to Togakushi, right?"

  "She did use to tell him that was why she was going. But I don't think it was only an excuse. I do think it was really half her reason for going. She had heard about the shrine maiden from somebody this spring on one of her visits to Togakushi. After having her fortune told once, she became a believer. Afterward, whenever she had any kind of problem, she would go right off to the Hall of Heavenly Wisdom to consult her fortuneteller."

  "Then is it possible that that's where she and her husband were going in Togakushi on the 10th?"

  "I don't know, because they couldn't have gotten there before night."

  "Oh yes, that's right."

  Still, had Ishihara doubted his wife's story, the Hall of Heavenly Wisdom would have been the place for him to check it out. Takemura came away thinking that he might have picked up something else quite valuable.

  On the train going back, Kinoshita suddenly blurted out loud, "Inspector, that must mean tha
t the car the boy heard from the toilet next door was Kayo's!"

  All the passengers around them turned to look at the source of the peculiar outburst. Takemura flinched and ducked his head.

  "Probably so," he said.

  "What? You don't seem too surprised."

  "Surprised? Oh yes, I'm surprised. I'm surprised at you and your ridiculous shout."

  "But if that was Kayo's car, doesn't it mean that she must have killed Kisuke Takeda? With a car, it would have been easy to get the body to Poison Plain."

  "But that car went out and came right back, didn't it?"

  "Well, maybe she didn't take the body all the way to Poison Plain just then. She could have been just taking a run around the neighborhood looking for someplace nearby to put it."

  "Yes, but the time of death was estimated to be a little later than that."

  "The estimate could be off some."

  "Boy, wouldn't Inspector Kojima, the examiner, love to hear that! But that aside, Shizu Kasai declared that Kayo could not have killed Takeda."

  "So how far can you believe an old woman like that? But Inspector, may I ask how you would explain the car?"

  "It was Kayo's, of course."

  "Was she alone?"

  "No, Takeda was probably with her, but alive."

  "What?" Kinoshita looked puzzled. "But where in the world were they going?"

  "Well, now," Takemura smiled, "maybe they were just taking a run around the neighborhood, as you suggested."

  "Oh, I see. Then maybe she killed him after that, right?"

  "If she did, what did she do with the body? If she had left it anywhere in the vicinity that evening, it would probably soon have been found, and she left for Nagoya the next morning. That would mean she had to have left the body in the villa."

  "Maybe she had an accomplice."

  "Okay, so you insist she must have done it? Then tell me, who killed her and her husband? The accomplice?"

  "Yes! Yes, that's it! That solves it!"

  "Well, I'm ready to offer you my congratulations. Who's the accomplice?"

  "Pardon? Oh, a little further investigation should clear that up."