Japanese Tales of Mystery & Imagination (4 page)

Ultimately I began to feel that if she would just look at me, even for a brief passing moment, I could die with the deepest contentment.

No doubt, Madam, by this time, you must certainly have guessed who the object of my mad passion is. To put it explicitly, she happens to be none other than yourself, Madam! Ever since your husband brought the chair from that furniture store I have been suffering excruciating pains because of my mad love and longing for you. I am but a worm... a loathsome creature.

I have but one request. Could you meet me once, just once? I will ask nothing further of you. I of course do not deserve your sympathy, for I have always been nothing but a villain, unworthy even to touch the soles of your feet. But if you will grant me this one request, just out of compassion, my gratitude will be eternal.

Last night I stole out of your residence to write this confession because, even leaving aside the danger, I did not possess the courage to meet you suddenly face to face, without any warning or preparation.

While you are reading this letter, I will be roaming around your house with bated breath. If you will agree to my request, please place your handkerchief on the pot of flowers that stands outside your window. At this signal I will open your front door and enter as a humble visitor. . . .

Thus ended the letter.

Even before Yoshiko had read many pages, some premonition of evil had caused her to become deadly pale. Rising unconsciously, she had fled from the study, from
that chair
upon which she had been seated, and had sought sanctuary in one of the Japanese rooms of her house.

For a moment it had been her intention to stop reading and tear up the eerie message; but somehow, she had read on, with the closely-written sheets laid on a low desk.

Now that she had finished, her premonition was proved correct. That chair on which she had sat from day to day . . .had it really contained a man? If true, what a horrible experience she had unknowingly undergone! A sudden chill came over her, as if ice water had been poured down her back, and the shivers that followed seemed never to stop.

Like one in a trance, she gazed into space. Should she examine the chair? But how could she possibly steel herself for such a horrible ordeal? Even though the chair might now be empty, what about the filthy remains, such as the food and other necessary items which he must have used?

"Madam, a letter for you."

With a start, she looked up and found her maid standing at the doorway with an envelope in her hand.

In a daze, Yoshiko took the envelope and stifled a scream. Horror of horrors! It was another message from the same man! Again her name was written in that same familiar scrawl.

For a long while she hesitated, wondering whether she should open it. At last she mustered up enough courage to break the seal and shakingly took out the pages. This second communication was short and curt, and it contained another breath-taking surprise:

Forgive my boldness in addressing another message to you. To begin with, I merely happen to be one of your ardent admirers. The manuscript which I submitted to you under separate cover was based on pure imagination and my knowledge that you had recently bought
that chair.
It is a sample of my own humble attempts at fictional writing. If you would kindly comment on it, I shall know no greater satisfaction.

For personal reasons I submitted my MS prior to writing this letter of explanation, and I assume you have already read it. How did you find it? If, Madam, you have found it amusing or entertaining in some degree, I shall feel that my literary efforts have not been wasted.

Although I purposely refrained from telling you in the MS, I intend to give my story the title of "The Human Chair."

With all my deepest respects and sincere wishes, I remain,

Cordially yours,     

  . . . .           

              PSYCHO-
              LOGICAL
      TEST

F
UKIYA MIGHT HAVE GONE A
long way in the world if he had only put his considerable intelligence to better use. Young, bright, and diligent, and the constant pride of his professors at Waseda University in Tokyo—anyone could have seen that he was a man earmarked for a promising future. But, alas, in collaboration with the fates, Fukiya chose to fool all observers. Instead of pursuing a normal scholastic career, he shattered it abruptly by committing. . .
murder!

Today, many years following his shocking crime, conjecture is still rife as to what strange, unearthly motive actually prompted this gifted young man to carry out his violent plot. Some still persist in their belief that greed for money—the most common of motives—was behind it all. To some extent, this explanation is plausible, for it is true that young Fukiya, who was working his way through school, was keenly feeling the leanness of his purse. Also, being the intellectual that he was, his pride may have been so deeply wounded at having to consume so much of his precious time working that he might have felt that crime was the only way out. But are these altogether obvious reasons sufficient to explain away the almost unparalleled viciousness of the crime he committed? Others have advanced the far more likely theory that Fukiya was a born criminal and had committed the crime merely for its own sake. At any rate, whatever his hidden motives, it is an undeniable fact that Fukiya, like many other intellectual criminals before him, had set out to commit the perfect crime.

From the day Fukiya began his first classes at Waseda he was restless and uneasy. Some noxious force seemed to be eating away at his mind, coaxing him, goading him on to execute a "plot" which was still only a vague outline in his mind—like a shadow in a mist. Day in and day out, while attending lectures, chatting with his friends on the campus, or working at odd jobs to cover his expenses, he kept puzzling over what was making him so nervous. And then, one day, he became specially chummy with a classmate named Saito, and his "plot" began to take definite shape.

Saito was a quiet student of about the same age as Fukiya, and likewise hard up for money. For nearly a year now he had rented a room in the home of a widow who had been left in quite comfortable circumstances upon the death of her husband, a government official. Nearly sixty years old, the woman was extremely avaricious and stingy. Despite the fact that the income from rent on several houses ensured her a comfortable living, she still greedily added to her wealth by lending money in small sums to reliable acquaintances. But, then, she was childless, and as a result had gradually come to regard money, ever since the early stages of her widowhood, as a substitute consolation. In the case of Saito, however, she had taken him as a lodger more for protection than for gain: like all people who hoard money, she kept a large sum cached away in her house.

Fukiya had no sooner learned all this from his friend Saito than he was tempted by the widow's money. "What earthly good will it ever do her anyway?" he asked himself repeatedly, following two or three visits to the house. "Anyone can see that the withered old hag is not long for this world. But look at me! I'm young, full of life and ambition, with a bright future to look forward to."

His thoughts constantly revolved about this subject, leading to but one conclusion:
He just had to have that money!
But how to get it? The answer to this question grew into the web of a horrible plan. First, however, Fukiya decided that all successful plots depended on one important factor—skilful and thorough preparation. So, in a subtle and casual manner, he set about the task of getting as much information as possible from his schoolmate Saito about the old woman and her hidden money.

One day Saito casually made a remark which nearly bowled Fukiya over, for it was the very information he had long been yearning to know.

"You know, Fukiya," Saito remarked laughingly, utterly unsuspecting the foul plot that was being nursed in his friend's mind, "the old woman surely is crazy about her money. Nearly every month she thinks up a new place to hide it. Today, quite by accident, I came across her latest 'safety deposit vault,' and I must say she's exceedingly original. Can you guess where it is?"

Suppressing his excitement with an actor's finesse, Fukiya yawned and blandly remarked: "I'm afraid I couldn't even make a guess."

Saito was easily caught in the artful trap. "Well, then, I'll tell you," he quickly said, somewhat disappointed by the other's lack of interest. "As you probably know, when a person tries to hide money he usually puts it under the floor or in some secret cavity or hole in the wall. But my dear landlady's far more ingenious. Do you remember that dwarf pine-tree that sits in the alcove of the guest room? Well, that's the newest place she's chosen to hide her money—right inside the earth in the pot. Don't you think she's awfully clever? No thief would ever think of looking in a place like that."

As the days passed, Saito appeared to have forgotten the conversation, but not Fukiya. Having devoured Saito's every word, he was now determined to take possession of the old woman's money. But there were still certain details which had to be figured out before he could make his first move. One of these was the all-important problem of how to divert even the faintest suspicion from himself. Other questions, such as remorse and the attendant pangs of conscience, troubled him not in the least. All this talk of Raskolnikov, in Dostoevsky's
Crime and Punishment,
crucified by the unseen terrors of a haunted heart was, to Fukiya, sheer nonsense. After all, he reasoned, everything depended on one's point of view. Was Napoleon to be condemned as a mass murderer because he had been responsible for the deaths of so many people? Certainly not. In fact, he rather admired the ex-corporal who had risen to be an emperor, no matter what the means.

Now definitely committed to the deed, Fukiya calmly awaited his chance. As he called frequently to see Saito, he already knew the general lay-out of the house, and a few more visits provided him with all the details he needed. For example, he soon learned that the old woman rarely went out of doors. This was a disappointment. Day after day she remained seated in her private parlor in one wing of the house in absolute silence. If, however, sheer necessity did coax her to leave the comfort of her shell, she would first post her maidservant, a simple country girl, as a "sentry" to keep watch over the house. Fukiya soon came to realize that in the face of these circumstances his contemplated adventure in crime would be no easy matter. On the contrary, if he was ever to succeed, he would have to use his greatest cunning.

For a full month Fukiya considered various schemes, but one by one he discarded them all as faulty. Finally, after wracking his brain to the point of exhaustion, Fukiya came to the conclusion that there was but one solution:
He must murder the old woman!
He also reasoned that the old woman's hidden fortune would certainly be large enough to justify killing her and reminded himself that the most notorious burglars in history had always eliminated their victims on the sound theory that "the dead tell no tales."

Carefully, Fukiya began to map out the safest course of action. This took time, but through the innocent Saito he knew that the hiding place had not been changed, and he felt he could afford to make each tiny detail perfect, even down to the most trivial matter.

One day, quite unexpectedly, Fukiya realized that his long-awaited moment had arrived. First, he heard that Saito would be absent from the house all day on school business. The maidservant, too, would be away on an errand, not to return until evening. Quite by coincidence, just two days previously Fukiya had gone to the trouble of verifying that the money was still concealed in the pot of the dwarf pine. He had ascertained this quite easily. While visiting Saito he had casually gone into the old landlady's room "to pay his respects" and during the course of his conversation had ingeniously let drop a remark here and there referring to her hidden cache of money. An artful student of psychology, he had watched the old woman's eyes whenever he mentioned the words
hiding place
. As he had anticipated, her eyes turned unintentionally toward the potted tree in the alcove every time.

On the day of the murder Fukiya dressed in his usual school uniform and cap, plus his black student's cloak. He also wore gloves to be sure he would leave no fingerprints. Long ago he had decided against a disguise, for he had realized that masquerade outfits would be easy to trace. He was of the firm conviction that the simpler and more open his crime was, the harder it would be to detect. In his pockets he carried a longish but ordinary jackknife and a large purse. He had purchased these commonplace objects at a small general-merchandise store at a time when it was full of customers, and he had paid the price asked without haggling. So he was confident no one would remember him as the purchaser.