With Kindaichi tagging along after the chief, the detective led them into the dressing room adjoining the bathroom next to the kitchen. There, on the wooden floor, they were surprised to find a small clay cooking stove, a pan, a pot for cooking rice, a teapot, and a cardboard box half full of charcoal. Obviously someone had been cooking there recently.
“You know, Chief,” said the detective, looking at the two men, “we checked this house right after Také’s murder, to see if that repatriated soldier who was staying at the Kashiwaya Inn might be hiding here. I’m absolutely certain there was nothing like this here then. So if someone did sneak into this house, it had to be after we checked it.”
“I see.”
Happily scratching his head, Kindaichi said, “Perhaps he thought this would be the safest place to hide since the police had already searched it once.”
“Yes, exactly. That’s what I thought, too. But if so, that means this guy knew we had searched it. How could he have known that?”
“Y-y-yes, D-D-Detective, that’s what I find extremely interesting. Perhaps information on everything you police are doing is somehow being passed on to him.”
Kindaichi seemed to be enjoying himself tremendously, but Tachibana, in contrast, looked rather cross, and countered, “What do you mean, Mr. Kindaichi? You seem to be assuming that the person who was here is the man we’re looking for, but that doesn’t necessarily have to be the case, does it? It could have been some vagrant.”
“But, Chief, there’s more.” The detective opened the door to the bathroom. “Look. Whoever was hiding here washed his food and cooking utensils in the bathroom. He could have done the cooking here, too, but he didn’t because someone could have seen the fire from outside. Same with the kitchen. That’s why he did the cooking in the dressing room, because it can’t be seen from the outside. What’s more, look here, in the bathroom.”
There was no need for the detective to continue. On the white tile covered with scattered bits of greens was a large footprint—without question, the impression of a combat boot, so sharp and clear as to have been made with a stamp. Chief Tachibana uttered a low groan in spite of himself.
“Of course, it doesn’t necessarily mean that because he’s wearing combat boots, it’s the man we’re looking for, but judging from the circumstances…”
“We’ve certainly moved a step closer to that probability. Nishimoto, be sure and make an impression of this print.”
Turning back toward Kindaichi, Chief Tachibana started talking forcefully, irate. “So, Mr. Kindaichi, what do we have—that Tomo brought Tamayo here without knowing this repatriated soldier was hiding here, that he and Tomo fought, and that Tomo ended up being bound to the chair. After tying Tomo up, the man who was hiding here phoned Monkey and told him Tamayo was in this house. Then, Monkey came, but he just took Tamayo home and left Tomo tied to the chair. So that’s what we have up to now, but if that’s so,” said the chief with emphasis, “then who killed Tomo? Did the repatriated soldier return after Monkey had left and strangle him?”
Kindaichi scratched his head lightly all around. “Chief, I was just thinking the same thing. If that man was going to kill Tomo, why didn’t he do so before calling Monkey? He would have known that once he’d told Monkey, this house was bound to become a focus of attention. Fortunately or unfortunately, Monkey being the way he is, he didn’t tell anyone until this morning, but the man who was hiding here certainly couldn’t be sure of that. In that case, it would have been extremely risky for him to return to this house after he had told Monkey about it. And besides… no, I shouldn’t say anything rash without knowing the time of death.”
Tachibana stood thinking in silence but soon turned to his detective and asked, “Nishimoto, was there anything else?”
“Yes, sir. Just one more thing. I’d like you to take a look at the shed.”
The shed, which stood just outside the kitchen door, was a structure with a floor space of about seven square meters. In one corner of the earthen-floored room, filled high with various kinds of junk, was a large pile of fresh straw. Kindaichi and Tachibana grew wide-eyed at the sight. “He must have been sleeping here.”
“Yes. It’s just after the harvest, so there are strawstacks everywhere. Take a little from this one, a little from that one, and no one’s the wiser. And besides,” said the detective, stomping on the straw, “it’s so deep and thick, it’s bound to be a lot warmer than any cheap, thin quilt.”
“I see.” Tachibana looked abstractedly at the straw bed. “But I wonder if this really means unmistakably that someone was hiding here. I don’t suppose this could all be a sham…”
“A sham?”
Hearing his detective retort in surprise, Tachibana began to speak in an angry tone of voice. “You know, Mr. Kindaichi, we really don’t know anything certain about what happened here yesterday. Sure, we’ve heard stories from Tamayo and Monkey that sound plausible. But who’s to say those stories are true? According to Tamayo, Tomo used something like chloroform on her and brought her to this house, but maybe, just maybe, couldn’t it have been Tamayo who seduced Tomo and tricked him into coming here? Monkey says he got a call from an anonymous caller and then came here, but maybe that’s a lie and in fact he was here first lying in wait for Tomo. Mr. Kindaichi, I’m sure you remember that Monkey has old koto strings for repairing his fishing nets.”
Detective Nishimoto looked in astonishment at the chief’s face. “Then, Chief, you think that all these pieces of evidence we’ve found were manufactured and that Tamayo and Monkey conspired to kill Tomo?”
“No, I’m not saying that. I’m just saying that it’s not out of the question. And that footprint, too, it seems too clear and sharp, as if it were made with a stamp of some kind. But… well, never mind, you go ahead and investigate more fully based on your own line of thinking. Mr. Kindaichi, Dr. Kusuda should be about finished by now. Shall we go?”
When the two men returned to the room on the second floor, the doctor was gone, and only the detective was keeping watch over the corpse.
“Kawada, where’s Dr. Kusuda?”
“He went to see about the lady in the other room.”
“Oh, right. And what about the results of the post-mortem?”
“He said that he would present an in-depth report after the autopsy. But to give you the main points,” said the detective, looking at his pocket notebook, “the time elapsed since death is approximately seventeen to eighteen hours. Therefore, counting back, that means the time of death was between eight and nine last night.”
Between eight and nine last night. Chief Tachibana and Kindaichi instinctively exchanged glances. According to Monkey, he left this house sometime between half past four and five in the afternoon. If so, it appeared that Tomo had remained alive and tied to this chair for three or four hours after Monkey had left.
The detective continued, comparing the expressions on the two men’s faces, “Yes, sir, between eight and nine last night. But there’s something else that’s strange. Dr. Kusuda says that the koto string wound around the victim’s neck was placed there after he was dead and that he was actually strangled with something thicker, like a rope of some kind.”
“What!” Chief Tachibana literally jumped in surprise, but just then, as if in response to his voice, there was a woman’s shriek from another room.
Kindaichi and the chief looked at each other aghast. They knew it was Sayoko, but they were taken aback by the pathetic, heart-rending sound.
“Chief, let’s go see. Something has happened.”
Sayoko was being tended to by Monkey and Kokichi in a room three doors down the hallway. The instant Kindaichi and Chief Tachibana stepped inside the room, however, they saw a sight that stopped them dead in their tracks: Sayoko, restrained on both sides by Monkey and Kokichi, with a face that showed she was no longer sane. With eyes slanted sharply upward and the muscles of her cheeks twitching horribly, her mad strength was such that she would sometimes nearly hurl off
even the powerful Monkey.
“Monkey, hold her tight. I’m going to give her another shot. I think one more should do the trick,” the doctor said, as he gave her the last of several injections. They heard three more pathetic, gut-wrenching wails from Sayoko’s lips, but then the drug must have taken effect, for she gradually became quiet until, finally, she lay sleeping like a baby against Monkey’s chest.
“Poor girl,” Kusuda muttered sadly as he put away his syringe. “Her nerves must have simply snapped. I just hope it’s a transient episode.”
The words alarmed Tachibana. “Doctor, then you mean there’s a danger of insanity?”
“I can’t say anything for sure. The shock was just too great.” Kusuda looked back and forth at the chief and Kindaichi. “Chief,” he said after a pause, his face grave, “she’s pregnant. Three months pregnant.”
The Blood on the Forefinger
Tomo had been found murdered. The news from across the lake hit the Inugami villa like a jolt of electricity, throwing its occupants into a panic. Needless to say, the one who received the greatest shock was Tomo’s mother, Umeko, whose usual hysteria, already aggravated by worry and anguish since the previous night, finally exploded in response to the dire news. Her grief and indignation made her say things to Detective Yoshii, who had brought the news to her, which were so shocking they could not be overlooked:
“Damn her! Damn her! Damn that Matsuko! That bitch killed him. That bitch killed my Tomo. Detective, you have to arrest her. You have to arrest her and put her to death. Not just the regular death penalty—that’s not good enough for her. I want to hang her by her heels, rip her to shreds, burn her till she’s black, and pull out her hair, strand by strand.”
Like a raging demon, Umeko named various other horrible forms of punishment she would mete out to Matsuko. But after a while, she stopped and began to weep bitterly. Her tears seemed to calm her down a bit, for between her sobs she gave Detective Yoshii the following statement.
“Detective, you know about Father’s will, don’t you? If he hadn’t left that will, Matsuko’s son, Kiyo, would have been the legal heir to the Inugami estate. She had been counting on that and looked forward to wielding power like a queen regent. Thanks to the will, though, all her plans went up in a puff of smoke. The will gives the Inugami fortune to the man who becomes Tamayo’s husband, but her Kiyo’s face is a pulpy mass of flesh—a red pomegranate that’s ripened and burst. God, how disgusting. It makes my flesh creep just thinking about it. I don’t care how strange Tamayo’s tastes are, she would never choose such a monster for a husband. So, from the first, it was inevitable that Kiyo would lose the contest for Tamayo’s hand. Matsuko couldn’t bear that, so first she killed Také and then our son, Tomo. With them dead, Tamayo would have to marry that monster whether she liked it or not, because she’d lose her right to inherit if she refused to do so. That would be the only way for Kiyo to lay his hands on the Inugami fortune. Oh that evil, evil bitch! Detective, you have to arrest her. You have to arrest Matsuko.”
Umeko’s own words had caused her to grow increasingly excited. But when Detective Yoshii informed her that the cause of death had been strangulation, and that the murderer, after strangling Tomo, had for some reason wound a koto string around his neck, Umeko stared at him in surprise. “A koto string?” Looking mystified, she asked back vacantly, “He was strangled with a koto string?”
“No, that’s not right. He was strangled with something thicker, like a rope, and the murderer wound the koto string around his neck after he was dead. The chief, too, is puzzled as to why the culprit would do such a thing.”
“A koto string,” murmured Umeko slowly to herself. “A koto string… koto…” she kept repeating. Suddenly, she seemed to remember something, for her expression changed, and as her breath came in rapid bursts, she muttered, “Zither!… chrysanthemum!… Oh, God…” and fell silent.
After Umeko, the one who was the most shocked by the report from Toyohata Village was, needless to say, Sayoko’s mother, Takeko. The news about Tomo did not particularly shake her; in fact she seemed to feel no emotion at all—except maybe satisfaction. She, after all, had had to endure her tragedy. However, when Detective Yoshii then told her about Sayoko’s breakdown, and that she was pregnant, Takeko, like Umeko, was overcome by hysteria and blurted out some scandalous words. Incredibly, though, the content of her ravings paralleled Umeko’s, for she accused her sister Matsuko of being the murderer and screamed that Matsuko had killed Také and Tomo so her son would be the heir to the Inugami fortune. What was also interesting, she had the same reaction as Umeko to Detective Yoshii’s report about the koto string.
“A koto string… a koto string?” At first, Takeko, too, simply cocked her head in puzzlement, but soon she seemed to remember something and gasped with frightened eyes, “The zither! And the chrysanthemum last time!” With those words, she fell silent and refused to answer, no matter how much the detective or her husband, Toranosuke, pressed her to explain. After a while, she stood up, as pale as a ghost. “I’m going to go discuss this with Umeko. Although I don’t see how it could be possible… it scares me. Perhaps, after I discuss it with her, I might be able to tell you about it,” she said and staggered out of the room as if in a trance.
Least upset by the report from Toyohata Village was, of course, Kiyo’s mother, Matsuko. When Detective Yoshii came finally to her room, she was in the middle of a koto lesson with her teacher, Kokin Miyakawa. Kokin had been staying in Nasu at the time of Také’s murder, but thereafter had been making the rounds of her students’ homes in Ina before returning the day before to her lodgings in Nasu.
When the detective entered, Kiyo joined them, seating himself wordlessly between his mother and Kokin. Realizing that Kokin would hear about it sooner or later anyway, the detective accepted her presence. He informed them all of Tomo’s murder, as well as of Sayoko’s madness. Matsuko, the very picture of meanness, did not so much as twitch an eyebrow at the news. She continued to play her koto.
Rather, it was Kokin, the koto teacher, who seemed the most affected by the detective’s report. She had stopped playing the koto when the detective had walked into the room and had sat waiting politely. When she heard his account, she widened her almost sightless eyes in terror, shoulders shaking, and sighed deeply. Kiyo’s reaction, on the other hand, was hidden behind his white mask, as ever expressionless and eerily mum.
For a moment, an awkward silence fell across the room, but Matsuko calmly continued to play her koto. No doubt she was well aware how her sisters felt about her and was acting nonchalant to dispel the damning image they had created. Yet her facade, too, began to crumble when the detective told of the koto string wound around Tomo’s neck.
“The chief finds that very peculiar. It would be one thing if he had been strangled with the koto string, but he wasn’t. Why would the murderer strangle him with some other rope and then wind a koto string around his neck afterwards, as if he had been strangled with it?”
Matsuko’s koto playing gradually became faulty, clearly affected by the detective’s words. Still she did not stop.
“So the murderer,” continued the detective, “wanted for some reason to focus our attention on the koto string. That is the only possible explanation. A koto string, or perhaps a koto itself. By the way, when Mr. Také was killed, the murderer made use of a chrysanthemum doll—in other words, chrysanthemum. And now, a koto, that is, a zither. Zither and chrysanthemum. Yokikotokiku. Ax, zither, and chrysanthemum.”
That instant, Matsuko’s fingers made a terrible scraping sound, and one of the koto strings snapped in two.
“Oh!”
Matsuko and Kokin cried out almost in unison. The koto teacher half rose on her knees in alarm, while Matsuko hastily removed the plectra from the fingers of her right hand. Blood was dripping from her forefinger. Taking out a handkerchief from her kimono sleeve, she hurriedly wrapped it around her finger.
“Did you hurt yourself?” inquired t
he detective.
“Yes, when the koto string broke just now.”
Kokin, the koto teacher, had remained frozen on her knees, breathing rapidly, but when she heard Matsuko’s words, she knitted her eyebrows as if in confusion and muttered to herself, “When the koto string broke just now?”
It was at that moment that the detective saw a flash in Matsuko’s eyes, an expression of vehement hatred. The flash was gone in an instant, however, and her eyes reverted immediately to their former coldness.
The nearly sightless Kokin of course had not noticed Matsuko’s reaction and remained on her knees, with her hand to her breast as if to still the beating of her heart. Beside her, Kiyo waited awkwardly. For some reason, when Kokin had cried out and half risen, Kiyo had rushed to her side and had moved as if to support her.
Matsuko regarded her son and her teacher with a puzzled expression but soon turned toward Detective Yoshii. “Was there really a koto string wound around Tomo’s neck?”
“Excuse me, I’ll be leaving now,” Kokin announced abruptly, standing up nervously. She must have been frightened by the detective’s story, for she was terribly pale and seemed unsteady on her feet.
“I’ll see you out, then.” Kiyo stood up after her.
Surprised, Kokin looked at him with her nearly blind eyes. “Oh, my, Mr. Kiyo, how kind of you. But I don’t want to impose.”
“It’s quite alright. I don’t want you to stumble, so please let me see you to the door.”
Kokin could not refuse, for Kiyo had gently taken her hand. “Well, thank you very much, then. Goodbye, Mrs. Matsuko.”
Matsuko, head cocked, stared curiously at the two of them leaving but soon turned toward the detective and asked again, “Detective, is it really true what you said just now, that there was a koto string wound around Tomo’s neck?”
“Yes, it’s true. Does that mean anything to you?”
The Inugami Curse Page 16
