Masako Togawa - The Master Key

3. She had for the last few years begun to act and speak in a rather strange way, casting doubts on her mental stability.

All of which being so, Yoneko realised that no purpose would be served by approaching Chikako direct. Not that this would have been easy, as Chikako’s whole course of behaviour and way of life seemed to be contrived in order to avoid meeting or talking with anyone. It did indeed seem as if she had something to hide.

Yoneko decided to keep Chikako under close observation for a time before proceeding further. She wrote back to Keiko, telling her of what she had learned and asking her former pupil to leave the matter entirely in her hands. She said that she would share with her the grief and pain that Keiko had suffered. This was all very well, but of course she had absolutely no idea of what she might be called upon to do when the time came. For the time being, all she could do was to try and get a peep inside Chikako’s room.

She continued her practice of writing one letter a day to her former students, but with less enthusiasm than before. On her way out to post them every morning, she would glance at the master key and secretly envy the receptionist within whose power it lay to enter every room in the block.

It was essential that she should get her hands on that key.

A few days later, Yoneko was to be found at the bottom of the stairway, peering down through the receptionist’s hatch. Miss Tojo was on duty; as usual, she was sitting with her head lowered as if concentrating on some book or document on the desk. But more to the point, the master key, readily identifiable from its red ribbon and large wooden tag, was also on the desk. This was in accordance with a resolution passed by the residents’ association shortly after the Suwa Yatabe incident.

Yoneko went up to the receptionist’s window. ‘I’m sorry to disturb you, but could I just have a look at the fourth-floor gas bills for last month?’ she asked. (She had just taken up a three-month spell of duty as committee member for the fourth floor.)

‘Miss Suzuki is complaining that her bill was too high last month. She says her meter must have been misread. She’s not the kind to take no for an answer, so if you don’t mind…’ she explained.

‘No trouble at all. After all, it’s my job—I’ll certainly go and have a look.’ Miss Tojo got up and went to the back of the room and began to rummage in the filing cabinet. The master key lay within reach of Yoneko’s hand. Could she make the switch now, she wondered. She stretched her hand through the window.’

Two days earlier, she had been listening outside Chikako’s door on the fifth floor when Miss Tojo had suddenly appeared. As Chikako’s room was second from the far end of the corridor, Yoneko had nowhere to hide. She started to try and cover up her unwarranted presence there by asking Miss Tojo who was the fifth-floor committee representative, but she need not have worried. As luck would have it, Miss Tojo was holding the master key and in search of a witness before she used it. The rule was that the witness should either be from a neighbouring room or a committee member. So, far from being curious as to why Yoneko was on the fifth floor, she was delighted to find her there. It so happened that Miss Haru Santo, who occupied the room next to Chikako’s, had telephoned to say that she had left her electric stove on. They let themselves in, and indeed found the stove on and the kettle boiled nearly dry.

‘It’s not particularly the fire risk that worried her—after all, there’s not much danger of that. No, it was the fear of incurring a high electricity bill that got her. She pretends to earn her living teaching Japanese to foreigners, but we know better than that, don’t we!’ Miss Tojo switched the stove off as she spoke.

Yoneko understood the implications of her last remark. Some while back, one of the other residents had visited one of the main Tokyo cinemas and, going to the toilet, had been surprised to find that the cleaner there bore a striking resemblance to Miss Santo. But the cleaner had made good her escape before any words could be exchanged.

Yoneko knew little more about Miss Santo apart from the fact that she had snow-white hair and was a fervent adherent of a new spiritualist sect called the ‘ Sanreikyo ’. [1] Literally ‘Three spirit faith.’ Perhaps her unusually white hair owed something to her fanaticism; at all events, she was a slightly creepy little old woman.

There was a small altar by the black curtain festooned with weird talismans; on top of it, there was a religious offering of rice wine. The whole room reeked of incense. All in all, it fully resembled what one would imagine the apartment of a devotee of a new religion to be like, and the fact that such a mundane reason as an electric stove had led her there caused Yoneko to find her surroundings even more strange.

‘But I’m glad people phone me without embarrassment when such things occur,’ said Miss Tojo, as she locked the door. ‘Since that fire in Miss Ishiyama’s room, it’s just as well to take full precautions.’

‘Yes—and it’s just as well you have a master key. What a convenient thing that is! You can get into anyone’s room…’ Yoneko replied vacuously, but the power of the master key had begun to obsess her.

‘Not just convenient; it’s a disaster if it gets mislaid. Just think of that recent incident where we found it still in the lock on the inside of Miss Yatabe’s room! We still haven’t got to the bottom of that one, but what a peculiar set of circumstances that was! We took every care, but it still vanished. You know, the builders of this place were ahead of their time. Just think how long it would take if there were no master key, and if we had to search through a hundred and fifty keys every time there was a problem like this! It showed real imagination to make one key to fit all the locks. Look, I’ll show you how it differs from all the other keys—do you see this groove here, at the tip?’

And she went prattling on about how this building had been the first in Japan to employ such a master key. And how essential a thing this had been at the time for an apartment block reserved solely for the use of unmarried young women.

Yoneko Kimura spent that evening considering how she could get her hands on that master key, which could solve her problem. Eventually she came up with a plan.

Since the key spent the daytime under the nose of the receptionist, and the nights in a locker, the only apparent way to get hold of it was to break into the office at night and steal it from the locker. But this would involve forcing two locks, which was beyond her power. So if it had to be stolen by daytime, one would have to remove it by force, which she also had to rule out. There remained the possibility of explaining the whole thing frankly to the receptionist and asking for the loan of the key. Nonetheless, however correct her motivation, the receptionist would almost certainly abide by the rules and refer the matter to the residents’ committee for a decision. The request would almost certainly be rejected on the grounds of protection of privacy.

And so there was only one way left—sleight of hand. When the master key had been used to enter Miss Santo’s room, Yoneko had for the first time got a close look at it. Apart from a slight difference of patina, it hardly seemed any different from all the individual keys, including her own, used about the building. What distinguished it from the others was the wooden tag tied to it with a red ribbon.

Yoneko got out her own key and looked at it. It seemed to differ in no noticeable way from the master key. If it had a red ribbon and a wooden tag, it would look just like the master key. The red ribbon would present no problem, but forging the wooden tag and the writing on it might prove more hard. It would take some time to age a new piece of wood with sweat and grime. But then she noticed that the keys to the lavatory broom cupboards had an identical wooden tag—and this key was always left in the door of the cupboard where anyone could get at it! So she quietly removed the tag and the ribbon of the second-floor lavatory cupboard one day and soiled the ribbon until it looked just like that on the master key. She then tied the tag to her own room key.