The Inugami Curse

by Seishi Yokomizo

  Again chance had been at work, for Matsuko had not been aware of the true significance of the pocket watch when she had decided to hide it. A series of coincidences, as so often is the case in life. Thus, much of the mystery in the case of the Inugami clan had been elucidated, but there still remained a great deal more to be told.

  The Inconsolable Wanderer

  “Thank you very much, Mrs. Matsuko. Now that we have the watch, everything falls into place.” Kindaichi cleared his throat awkwardly and turned to Kiyo. “Mr. Kiyo, I think we now know what happened with the first murder, so let’s move on to the second. You look very tired, so I’ll proceed by asking you questions, and you answer to the best of your ability. Alright?”

  Kiyo nodded weakly.

  “Now, I don’t know where you hid after you left this villa on the night of November 16, but on November 25, the day the second murder took place, you were in the abandoned house in Toyohata Village. There you saw Mr. Tomo carry Miss Tamayo into the house and try to take advantage of her, so you jumped out from your hiding place and fought, eventually managing to tie him to a chair. Then you phoned Monkey, correct?”

  Nodding with spiritless eyes, Kiyo said, “Yes, that way, I thought when Monkey came to rescue Tamayo, he would untie Tomo as well.”

  “I see. But Monkey ignored Mr. Tomo’s plight and simply took Miss Tamayo home, so it was only after much effort and much time—probably about seven or eight that night—that Mr. Tomo managed to untie the ropes. Having finally freed himself, he pulled on his undershirt, shirt, jacket and so forth and hastened outside, and since Monkey had taken his motorboat, he rowed back to the villa in the rowboat Monkey had come in.”

  “What! You mean Tomo came back to this villa that night?” Chief Tachibana cried out in surprise.

  “Yes, Chief. You saw those rope burns all over his skin. The rope must have been quite loose to have caused so many abrasions, but when we found Mr. Tomo, bound and gagged, it was biting into his skin without any slack at all. That proved that someone had retied him. Also, the button from his shirt—Miss Sayoko was found holding it in her hand, but since she has not stepped outside the estate at all since that day, she must have found it here somewhere, either inside the villa or on the grounds. So, I deduced that Mr. Tomo must have returned that night and been murdered here.”

  Chief Tachibana groaned in comprehension. “Then Kiyo carried the body back again to the abandoned house in Toyohata Village?”

  “I think so. Mr. Kiyo, I’d like to hear about that from your own lips. Why did you come to this house that night?”

  Kiyo’s shoulders trembled violently again, and staring at the tatami with glazed eyes, he began to speak softly. “It was a coincidence. Everything was an accursed coincidence. Having left the abandoned house in Toyohata Village, I knew I couldn’t go back there. I had made absolutely certain Tomo never got a look at my face, but the police would certainly soon find out that the repatriated soldier had been there and step up their efforts to track him down. Until then, I had been hiding here and there, not wanting for some reason to leave this area, but now, I thought, I had no choice but to go elsewhere, perhaps to Tokyo. For that, though, I needed a fair sum of money. So, hoping to discuss it with Shizuma, I sneaked onto the estate again and whistled to him to come out. I had gotten money from him once before in the same way, and that night, too, Shizuma came out immediately and we met as always inside the boathouse. When I related what had happened that day and told him I wanted to go to Tokyo, he was elated, for he had long been wanting to drive me away from this region. As we were talking, however, someone rowed up to the sluice gate from the lake and, finding that it would not open, climbed over the fence onto the grounds. Surprised, we peeked out cautiously from the boathouse window and saw that it was Tomo.”

  Kiyo paused, but continued immediately. “I was astounded, for I had thought that Monkey would surely have untied him and that Tomo would have been home a long time ago. He looked exhausted and disheveled, and passing in front of the boathouse, he staggered toward the house. We were just sitting there watching him from the back, when all of a sudden, two arms shot out of the dark from behind him and wound something like a rope around his neck.”

  Pausing, Kiyo shuddered violently and wiped the sweat from his forehead with his bandaged right hand. A dreadful silence pierced the room, and black flames of hatred flashed from Umeko’s and Kokichi’s eyes.

  “The struggle was over in an instant, and Tomo collapsed to the ground. The person who had strangled Tomo came out of the shadows for the first time and stood stooping over him, but eventually straightened and glanced around. And I… I…”

  “Saw who it was?”

  Kiyo nodded weakly and shuddered again. What a horrible trick of fate, for Kiyo had witnessed another of his mother’s monstrous deeds. It was the cruelest of fates anyone could experience.

  “That night…” So began Matsuko, completely ignoring the fierce looks directed at her from the others in the room and speaking in a flat tone, as if reciting from memory. “I was in the middle of a koto lesson when I needed to go to Kiyo’s room for some reason. I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but the round window in that room looks out on a portion of the lake. It was open when I entered the room, so I happened to glance outside and saw someone approaching the grounds in a rowboat. The boat soon disappeared behind the boathouse, but I realized it might be Tomo, for Umeko had been fussing since early evening about him being missing. So, creeping out of the annex, I waited in the shadows and saw it was indeed Tomo walking toward the house. I removed the belt from my kimono sash and slipped it around his neck from behind. He must have been terribly weak because he hardly resisted at all.”

  A ghastly smile appeared on Matsuko’s lips. Umeko burst into hysterical tears, but Kindaichi ignored her and asked, “You injured your right forefinger on Mr. Tomo’s shirt button, did you not? And the button was torn off at that time?”

  “I suppose so. I didn’t notice it at the time. Only after I returned to the annex did I realize I had hurt my finger. Fortunately, the bleeding stopped immediately, and I continued playing the koto despite the pain. Mrs. Kokin, though, seems to have seen right through me.” Once again, the corners of Matsuko’s mouth rose in a horrible smile—the smile, no doubt, of a cold-blooded killer.

  Kindaichi turned once more to Kiyo. “Mr. Kiyo, please continue with your account.”

  Kiyo glared at Kindaichi, angry, but continued his accursed tale. “When we could no longer see Mother, we both ran out to Tomo. Shizuma and I carried him back inside the boathouse and tried to revive him somehow with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, but it didn’t work. Shizuma, worried that he might draw suspicion if he stayed away too long, returned to the villa, but I desperately continued trying to revive Tomo. In about half an hour, Shizuma returned and asked if I had had any luck, but when I answered in the negative, he told me that we couldn’t leave the body on the estate. ‘Take him back to Toyohata Village,’ he said. ‘Take off his shirt again and tie him onto the chair, just like he was before, and they’ll think he was killed there.’ He said that and gave me money to go to Tokyo and some koto string, along with instructions on how to use it.”

  Kiyo’s voice faltered and became barely audible. Even so, gathering the last of his strength, he spoke in gasps. “What else could I have done? I had no choice but to follow Shizuma’s command. When Shizuma opened the sluice gate, we found the rowboat Tomo had come in floating just outside. We placed his body in the boat, and I started rowing toward Toyohata Village, Shizuma closing the sluice gate after me. When I arrived at the abandoned house in Toyohata Village, I arranged Tomo’s body as Shizuma had told me to, walked to Upper Nasu, and immediately left for Tokyo. Then, until I saw the evening paper two days ago, I just wandered around Tokyo, aimlessly, hopelessly, laden with the darkest sorrow and anguish.” Suddenly, tears began streaming from Kiyo’s eyes.

  Shizuma’s Dilemma

  The afternoon shadows must have grown
longer, for the splattering of melting snow that had sounded noisily until just a while ago had died down, and a chill gradually invaded the corners of the large room. Kindaichi drew up his shoulders, not so much from physical cold, but because he felt chilled to the depths of his soul by Matsuko’s demonic deeds and by the cruel fate and wretched circumstances Kiyo had been forced to endure.

  This, however, was no time to wallow in emotion. He turned again toward Matsuko. “Mrs. Matsuko, it’s your turn at last. I hope you will tell us everything.”

  Matsuko pierced Kindaichi with her vulture-like eyes but quickly smiled wryly and said, “Yes, of course, I’ll tell you everything. After all, the more I talk, the less my dear son will be accused of.”

  “Then, please, if you’ll start with the Wakabayashi murder.”

  “Wakabayashi?” Matsuko stared in surprise, but immediately chuckled and said, “Yes, of course, that one. I’d forgotten all about it since it happened while I was gone from Nasu. Yes, I was the one who had Wakabayashi make a copy of the will. He stubbornly refused at first, of course, but I threatened him, cajoled him, and finally, since he was indebted to me for a previous favor, he couldn’t refuse. He gave in. Now, you can imagine how infuriated I was when I read the will. The anger and hatred I felt toward Tamayo, who had been treated so generously in the will just because she was descended from Father’s benefactor—I could have torn her to pieces and still not have been satisfied. It was then that I made up my mind: Tamayo had to die. I’m a very strong-willed woman, once I make up my mind. I tried all sorts of little maneuvers—throwing a viper into her bedroom, tampering with the brakes on her car, boring a hole in her boat—but each time, I was foiled by that Monkey.”

  She sucked on her pipe. “After a while, though, I found I had a problem, because Wakabayashi had become aware of what I was doing. He must have been in love with Tamayo, and when he saw her being exposed to danger time and again, he began to suspect me. I knew this was bad. No matter what happened in the future, I couldn’t let it be known that I had secretly read the will, so before I left to meet Kiyo in Hakata, I gave Wakabayashi a pack of cigarettes that included one that was poisoned. I never thought they would do their work with such exquisite timing, though.” Matsuko let out a ghastly, scornful laugh.

  “How did I get the poison? I’m sorry, but that is the one thing I won’t tell you, because I don’t want to get anyone else in trouble. Anyway, after that, I went to meet Kiyo, but as I studied the will carefully on the way, I changed my mind about killing Tamayo. I realized that if Tamayo died, Kiyo would indeed get control of all the Inugami businesses, but the estate would be divided into equal fifths, with Kiyo receiving only one-fifth and Kikuno Aonuma’s brat receiving twice that.”

  Her wrath undiminished even now, Matsuko ground her molars audibly. “And, when I examined the will even more closely, I realized that Kikuno’s brat would get his hands on a part of the estate only if one of two things happened: if Tamayo died or if she refused to marry any of the three grandsons and thus forfeited her right of inheritance. For the first time, I marveled at how thoroughly Father had planned things. Father knew us well. He knew that we might try to harm Tamayo, and he used the incident with Kikuno Aonuma to prevent that. Understanding thoroughly just how much we hated Kikuno and her son, he arranged it so the only way we could prevent that wretched Kikuno’s brat from getting a piece of the estate was to keep Tamayo alive. How ingenious he was!”

  Kindaichi had realized that as well. For that very reason, when he had heard that Tamayo had been faced with danger time and again yet had always managed to escape unharmed, he had been unable for a while to rid himself of the suspicion that perhaps all those attempts on her life were a sham, an act played out by Tamayo herself, and that it was she who had seduced Wakabayashi and secretly read the will.

  “So, if Tamayo had to be kept alive,” Matsuko continued, “then it was imperative that she marry Kiyo. I was sure she would, though, because I knew she was fond of Kiyo—no, in fact, I knew clearly that she was more than fond of Kiyo. So I went off to meet Kiyo in Hakata absolutely confident that things would go well, but the minute I laid eyes on his face, that confidence was smashed to pieces. Imagine my shock, my despair when I saw that face.”

  She sighed passionately. Kindaichi edged forward and said, “Sorry to interrupt you, but… didn’t you realize at all that the man with the ravaged face was an imposter?”

  Matsuko stared at Kindaichi with a dreadful glint in her eye. “Mr. Kindaichi, I may be an obstinate woman, but surely I wouldn’t bring home someone who I knew was an imposter or do such horrible things for him. No, I didn’t see through him at all. There were, of course, incidents I found strange, but he told me that the blow to the head he had received when he was wounded in the face made him forget everything about the past, and I believed him. Oh, yes, the time I was really puzzled was the night they insisted on taking his hand print. I lost my temper, became stubborn, and refused to bend, but I was secretly waiting for Kiyo to speak up and agree to their demands. Instead, though, he took advantage of my protests and got by without giving his hand print. That time, I must admit, I felt something sinister. The thought crossed my mind that maybe Také and Tomo were right and he was an imposter, but I expelled that suspicion from my mind. The next day, when Kiyo volunteered to give them a new hand print, I was thrilled, and when the hand prints were found to be identical, I was ecstatic—so much so I thought I would faint—and I regretted ever having doubted him, even for a second. So I didn’t even dream of doubting him again until much later.”

  After a pause, she continued. “Anyway, going back to my story, when I saw how hideously ravaged his face was, I knew I couldn’t possibly take him back home like that, because Tamayo would surely feel an aversion to him. So, after considering various options, I had that rubber mask made for him in Tokyo. I had it made exactly as Kiyo’s face used to be, so it might help Tamayo remember the old days, even if only a little, and feel love for him.”

  Matsuko sighed. “But all those efforts were in vain. Even to a mother’s eyes, it was more than obvious that Tamayo disliked him. I understand now that she had sensed he was an imposter and that was the reason for her feelings, but how was I to know that? I knew it would be difficult to make Tamayo choose Kiyo unless Také and Tomo were both dead.”

  “And so you carried out your plans, step by step.”

  A terrible smile rose to Matsuko’s lips. “Yes. Like I said just now, I’m a very strong-willed woman when I make up my mind. But let me say here and now that in Také’s case and in Tomo’s, I didn’t care very much at all about concealing my crime. All I wanted to do was to kill the two of them, and it didn’t matter to me whether I was arrested or even executed. I just wanted to remove those who were in my son’s way. I had no concern for my own life.” No doubt that was the truth, the true motive behind the actions of this extraordinary, demonic killer.

  “Then it must have come as a great surprise to you when you realized that despite how you felt, someone was going around after you, skillfully hiding traces of the crime that would point to you.”

  “Of course I was surprised, but I must admit, I really didn’t care much. I became worried, though, because the masked Kiyo seemed to be involved in these little tricks in some way. I felt concern, but at the same time, I also felt something sinister. We never said a word about it to each other, but the way he could camouflage things so easily sometimes made him seem like a horrific monster.”

  Kindaichi turned to Chief Tachibana. “Chief, do you see? The actual murderer in this case was not contriving to hide her crimes at all. It was two accessories after the fact who were cleaning up after her and trying to redirect suspicion. That’s what made this case so interesting and so difficult.”

  Chief Tachibana nodded and leaned forward toward Matsuko. “Then, Mrs. Matsuko, let’s finally turn to Shizuma’s murder. That, surely, was your doing alone.”

  Matsuko nodded.

  “Why on ear
th did you decide to kill him? Did you discover his identity?”

  Matsuko nodded again. “Yes, I learned who he was. However, let me first of all tell you how I found out. With Také and Tomo gone, we had won, so I nagged and nagged the masked Kiyo to propose to Tamayo. But for some reason, he refused to do so.”

  Chief Tachibana frowned. “I wonder why. According to what Kiyo just told us, Shizuma had said he intended to take Kiyo’s place and marry Tamayo.”

  At that moment, Kindaichi, scratching his head with furious abandon, started stuttering terribly. “Th-that’s what Sh-Sh-Shizuma intended to d-do until November 26, when Tomo’s b-b-body was found.” Kindaichi finally realized how he sounded and, gulping hard, regained his composure. “But after Tomo’s body was found, Mr. Oyama, the priest of Nasu Shrine, threw an explosive piece of information our way—the secret hidden inside the Chinese chest. We found out that Miss Tamayo was not the granddaughter of Mr. Inugami’s benefactor, but was in fact Mr. Inugami’s real granddaughter. That meant that Shizuma could not marry Tamayo.”

  “Why not?”

  Chief Tachibana still did not seem to understand, but Kindaichi said with a smile, “Chief, don’t you see? Shizuma was Mr. Inugami’s son, so if Miss Tamayo was Mr. Inugami’s granddaughter, that would make them uncle and niece.”

  A cry escaped Chief Tachibana’s lips. “I see, I see. Of course. So Shizuma didn’t know what to do.” He rubbed his fat neck with a big handkerchief.

  Kindaichi heaved an emotional sigh. “Yes. Thinking back, Mr. Oyama’s explosive revelation of that horrible secret was the climax of this case. Shizuma was thus faced with a dilemma. Legally, both Shizuma and Miss Tamayo were not listed in the family register as being related to Mr. Inugami, so they would not have been prevented from marrying. But when Shizuma thought about their blood relationship, he couldn’t go ahead with the marriage, either. According to Mr. Kiyo, too, Shizuma was not particularly evil but was just consumed by the desire for revenge, so he was no doubt constrained by the same compunctions as we would be.”