The Black Lizard and Beast In the Shadows

by Rampo Edogawa

  He looked like Daikoku, the stout god of wealth, as he smiled sardonically, before answering all my questions earnestly.

  According to Honda, Shundei had been living in a rented house in Ikebukuro when he began to write novels, but as his name became better known and his income increased he gradually relocated to more commodious dwellings (albeit mostly rented). Honda named some seven locations that Shundei had lived in over a period of around two years, including Kikui-chō in Ushigome, Negishi, Yanaka-Hatsune, and Nippori Kanasugi.

  It was after he had moved into Negishi, that Shundei finally became very popular and the magazine hacks started to arrive in droves. However, from about that time he showed an aversion to people and the front door was always locked, while his wife used the back door to come and go.

  Often he would refuse to meet visitors, feigning that he was out, only to send a polite note explaining ‘I do not like company; please send a letter stating your business.’ Only a few journalists were able to meet and speak to Shundei – most gave up in frustration. While they were used to the strange habits of novelists, Shundei’s misanthropy was too much.

  As it happens, though, his wife was a woman of considerable sagacity and Honda often went through her when negotiating manuscripts or pressing for something.

  That said, it could be quite difficult even to meet the wife because the front door would be closed with strict-sounding notices hanging from it carrying such messages as ‘No interviews granted due to illness,’ ‘Away on a trip,’ and ‘Journalists: all manuscript commission requests to be sent by letter; no interviews.’ On more than one occasion even Honda was discouraged and left in disappointment.

  As Shundei did not notify anyone of his new address when he moved, the journalists all had to search for him based on his mail.

  ‘There might be a lot of journalists, but I’m probably the only one to talk with Shundei and joke with his wife,’ boasted Honda.

  My curiosity was growing steadily and I asked: ‘Going by the photographs, Shundei seems quite a handsome chap. Is that how he actually looks?’

  ‘Ha! Those photographs must be fakes. Shundei said they were taken when he was young, but it seems odd to me. He’s just not that good looking. You could put it down to extreme puffiness and obesity brought on by lack of exercise. He’s always lying down, you know. Although he’s overweight, the skin on his face hangs down terribly, giving him the expressionless look of a Chinaman, while his eyes are clouded and turbid. I’d say he looks something like a drowned corpse. What’s more, he’s terrible at speaking and keeps his mouth shut. It makes you wonder how he could write such marvellous fiction.

  ‘You remember that Uno Kōji novel Hitodenkan, right? Well Shundei is exactly like that. He lies down so much he could get bed sores and I’d say it’s probably true he eats while in bed.

  ‘Still, there’s something peculiar. Even though he is so averse to company and is always in bed, there are rumours that he sometimes disguises himself and wanders around in the Asakusa area. And it’s always at night. You’d think he was a robber or a bat. I wonder if he isn’t really painfully shy. Perhaps he just doesn’t want people to see his bloated body and face. The more famous he becomes, the more ashamed he is of his unsightly body. It could be he wanders secretly around in the thronging quayside at night instead of making friends and meeting visitors. That’s the feeling I get based on his character and reading between the lines of what his wife says.’

  Honda had created an image of Shundei with considerable eloquence. Finally he told me something very strange.

  ‘You may be interested to know, Mr Samukawa, that I met the elusive Ōe Shundei the other day. He appeared so different that I didn’t greet him, but I am sure it was Shundei.’

  ‘Where? Where was this?’ I asked instantly.

  ‘In Asakusa Park. Actually, I was making my way home after having been out late and I may still have been a little drunk.’

  Honda grinned and scratched his face.

  ‘You know that Chinese restaurant Rai-Rai Ken? Well it was on that corner early in the morning when there are not many people about. I saw a fat person standing there in a clown’s costume with a deep-red pointy hat handing out advertising leaflets. It sounds like something out of a dream, but it was Ōe Shundei. I stopped in surprise and was wondering if I should say something when he seemed to notice me too. But the face remained an expressionless blank and he then swivelled away and made off at great speed down the street opposite. I thought about going after him, but then realized that it might actually be out of order to greet him in that get up so I decided against it and just went home.’

  ‘It sounds like something out of a dream… I stopped

  in surprise and was wondering if I should say something

  when he seemed to notice me too.

  But the face remained an expressionless blank …’

  Listening to Ōe Shundei’s odd way of life, I had felt an unpleasant sensation as if I was having a nightmare. Then when I heard about him standing in Asakusa Park wearing a pointed hat and a clown’s costume, for some reason I felt shocked and the hair on the back of my neck stood up.

  I could not understand what the connection was between his appearance as a clown and the threatening letters to Shizuko (it seemed that Honda had met Shundei in Asakusa just at the time when the first of these letters arrived), but I knew that I could not just let it slide.

  To confirm that the script in the threatening notes I was keeping for Shizuko was indeed Shundei’s handwriting, I selected one page only from a section where the meaning was not clear and showed it to Honda.

  Honda confirmed that the handwriting was Shundei’s and he also said that the flourishes and style could only have been penned by Shundei. Honda knew the features of Shundei’s handwriting because he had once tried to write a novel in his style, but he said that he found it impossible to copy that relentless, cloying approach. I knew what he meant. Having read a number of his letters in their entirety, I was even more aware than Honda of the distinctive trace of Shundei contained therein.

  Using some flimsy pretext, I asked Honda if he could track down Shundei.

  ‘Sure, leave it to me,’ he accepted without fuss. Still, as that was not enough to set my mind at rest I decided to check the area around block 32 of Sakuragi-chō, in Ueno, which Honda had told me was where Shundei had lived.

  The next day, I left a manuscript I had started to write where it lay and set out for Sakuragi-chō, where I stopped maids from the neighbourhood and trades people visiting local homes to ask them about the Ōe household. I was able to confirm the veracity of Honda’s account, but I could not find out one jot more about Shundei’s subsequent whereabouts.

  As many of the homes in the area were middle-class establishments with their own gateways, the neighbours did not chat together as they would when living in more tightly packed cheaper dwellings and accordingly the most anybody could say was that the household had relocated without giving a destination. Of course, there was no doorplate bearing the name Ōe Shundei, so nobody knew that the house had been occupied by a famous author. As nobody even knew the name of the movers who had carted the luggage away in a truck, I had to return empty-handed.

  With no other alternative available, every day I snatched quick breaks while working urgently on a manuscript and phoned Honda to inquire about the search, but it seemed there were no clues and the days passed by. While we were thus occupied, Shundei steadily pushed forward with his obsessive plot.

  One day Oyamada Shizuko telephoned me at my lodgings and after telling me that something very worrying had occurred she asked me to come over. Apparently her husband was away and all of the house staff on whom she could rely were out on errands. It seems she had decided to use a public telephone rather than call from the house, and such was her extreme hesitation that she only had time to make the request before the th
ree minutes elapsed and the line was lost.

  I felt a little strange that she had thought to ask me over in this somewhat coquettish fashion with her husband fortuitously away and the servants out about their tasks.

  I agreed to her request and went to her house, which was in Yama no Shuku, in Asakusa.

  Tucked well down between two merchant buildings, the Oya­ma­da home was an old building that resembled a dormitory from the past. While the Sumida River was not visible from the front, I thought that it probably flowed at the back. The building, which appeared to have been recently extended, differed from a dormitory in that it was surrounded by a very large and tasteless concrete wall (topped with glass shards to ward off thieves), while behind the main building arose a double storey block built in a Western style. The disharmony between the old, very Japanese looking building and these two structures gave an impression of moneyed but unrefined taste.

  After presenting my card, I was shown to the parlour of the Western-style building by a young woman who seemed to be from the country. Shizuko was waiting there with a serious expression on her face.

  She apologized many times over for her lack of propriety in having called me, and then assuming a low voice for some reason she said, ‘First, please take a look at this’ as she produced a document in an envelope. Looking behind as if afraid, she edged closer to me. It was of course a letter from Ōe Shundei, but as the content was slightly different from the documents she had received thus far I include it below:

  Shizuko, I can see the anguish you are in.

  I am also aware that unbeknownst to your husband you are going to great lengths to track me down. However, it is no good so you may as well stop. Even if you had the courage to reveal my threatening letters to him and as a result the matter ended up in the hands of the police, you’ll never discover my whereabouts. You only need to look at my novels to understand what a well-prepared fellow I am.

  Now then, it is about time my prelude came to an end. The moment has arrived for this business of revenge to move to the second stage. First though, I should let you in a little on the background. You can probably broadly surmise how I was able to learn with such accuracy what you were doing each night. Since I found out where you were, I have been following you as closely as a shadow. You cannot see me at all, but I can observe you at every moment, whether you are at home or out about your business. I have become your very shadow. Even now as you read this letter trembling with fear, perhaps this shadow is staring at you from some corner of the room through narrowed eyes.

  Naturally, as I observed your activities every night I had to see the intimacy between you and your husband and of course I felt extremely jealous.

  Although this was something I did not allow for when I first brewed up my revenge scheme, it did not hinder my plan in the least. What is more, the jealousy even served as fuel to kindle the flames of my vengeful heart. Then I realized that if I made a slight adjustment to my plan it would better serve my objectives.

  My original plan called for me to expose you to great torment and fear before eventually taking your life, but since recently having had to witness the intimacy between you and your husband I have come to think that before killing you it would probably be quite effective if I took the life of your beloved right before your eyes and then make it your turn after you have been given sufficient time to savour the tragedy. And that is what I have decided to do.

  But you do not need to panic. I never rush things because it would be such a waste to move to the next step before you had fully relished the anguish produced by perusing my first letter.

  Your vengeful devil (this late night of 16 March)

  On reading this horribly cruel letter I could not suppress a shudder. I sensed my hatred toward Ōe Shundei multiply.

  But were I to give in to fear, who would comfort poor beleaguered Shizuko? There was nothing for it but to feign complaisance and explain to her repeatedly that the letter’s threats were simply a novelist’s fantasies.

  ‘I entreat you to speak more softly.’

  Shizuko was not heeding my earnest explanations. Her attention was focused elsewhere and from time to time she would stare fixedly at one spot in a way that suggested she was listening intently. Then she lowered her voice much as if someone were eavesdropping on us. Her lips lost so much colour that there was no contrast between them and her pale face.

  ‘I think I could be going a little crazy. But was that real, do you think?’

  Mouthing meaningless words in a whisper, it seemed Shizuko could perhaps have lost her mind.

  ‘Did something happen?’

  I too had been drawn in and was now talking in a very low voice.

  ‘Hirata Ichirō is in this house.’

  ‘Where?’

  I looked at her blankly, unable to grasp her meaning.

  Standing up suddenly, Shizuko blanched and beckoned me. I walked after her, becoming nervous myself. Noting my wristwatch, she had me remove it for some reason and then went back to place it on the table. Muffling our footsteps, we next moved down a short corridor to Shizuko’s living room, which was in the Japanese style building. As she opened the screen door, Shizuko seemed afraid that there might be some ruffian lurking immediately behind.

  ‘It’s a little odd, you know, to think that man would sneak into your house in broad daylight. Are you sure you aren’t mistaken?’

  After I had spoken, she made to stifle an impulsive gasp with her hand and then taking my hand she went to a corner of the room where she looked up at the ceiling and signalled to me to be quiet and listen.

  We stood there for ten minutes our eyes locked together as we listened intently.

  Although it was the middle of the day, there was not a sound in the room, which was deep within the large house, and such was the silence you could hear the blood beating in your ears.

  After a while, Shizuko asked in a voice so low I could hardly hear her, ‘Do you hear the timepiece ticking?’

  ‘A timepiece? No, where is it?’

  For a while she remained silent, listening attentively, then apparently reassured she said, ‘I can’t hear it now.’

  Shizuko led me back to the room in the Western style building and with laboured breathing she then began to relate the following unusual events.

  She had been doing a little needlework in the parlour, when the maid brought in the letter from Shundei quoted above. By this stage she could recognize his letters from just a glimpse of the envelope and she had an unpleasant feeling when she took the document, but she had to open it. With a heightened sense of uneasiness she fearfully cut the envelope and began to read.

  When she realized that her husband was now involved, she could not stay still. For no particular reason, she stood up and walked to the corner of the room. Just as she stopped in front of the wardrobe, she heard a very faint sound above her head that seemed almost like the noise made by a grub.

  ‘I thought it might just be a ringing in my ears, but I stood completely still and listened and heard something that was not my ears ringing. It was a definite ticking like the sound that might be produced by metal touching against metal.’

  Somebody must be concealed above the ceiling boards and this was the sound of that person’s pocket watch marking out the seconds.

  Probably she had been able to detect that ever-so-faint whisper of metal behind the ceiling because she just happened to be standing up, and so her ears were positioned closer to the ceiling, because the room was so quiet, and because nervousness had sharpened her senses. Thinking that perhaps the sound came from a timepiece in a different direction and that, much as with a light beam, reflection made it seem to emanate from behind the ceiling, she searched every nook and cranny but there was no clock or watch anywhere in the area.

  Then she recalled a sentence from the letter: ‘Even now as you read this letter trembling with
fear, perhaps this shadow is staring at you from some corner of the room through narrowed eyes.’ Her attention was drawn to a crack just there in the ceiling where the board had pulled back slightly. It seemed to her that she could see Shundei’s eyes glinting narrowly in the pitch dark deep inside the crack.

  ‘Hirata Ichirō, it’s you in there isn’t it?’

  Shizuko suddenly felt a strange excitement. As if thrusting herself in front of her enemy, she was speaking to the person in the attic, all the time crying large tears.

  ‘I don’t care what happens to me. I’ll do whatever you require. Kill me if you must. But please leave my husband alone. I lied to him. It would be too terrible if on top of that he should die for my sake.’

  Her voice was weak but she entreated with all her heart.

  But there was no reply from above. The excitement faded and she stood there for a long time as if drained. But apart from the tick-tocking there in the attic, not the slightest sound could be heard. Deep within the darkness, the beast in the shadows held its breath as silent as a mute.

  In that eerie silence she suddenly felt terribly frightened. Shizuko dashed out of the parlour and, unwilling to stay in the house for some reason, she ran out the front. Remembering me, she rushed to a nearby telephone booth.

  As I listened to Shizuko’s account, I couldn’t help remembering a weird story by Ōe Shundei entitled ‘Games in the Attic.’ If the ticking sound Shizuko had heard was not a delusion and Shundei was concealed in there, it could mean that he had decided to put into practice the concepts of the story and this would be very typical of Shundei’s behaviour.

  Because I had read ‘Games in the Attic,’ I could not laugh off Shizuko’s seemingly bizarre story and I too was beset by a great fear. I even seemed to see a bloated Ōe Shundei leering there in the darkness wearing a red pointed hat and a clown’s costume.

  After talking it over, I decided that, just like the amateur sleuth in ‘Games in the Attic,’ I would climb into the attic above Shizuko’s parlour and see if I could find any trace of someone having been there, and if there were some trace I would try to determine exactly how the person had entered and exited.