Masako Togawa - The Master Key

‘The seance is now over. Release your hands.’ The voice of the priest echoed sonorously in the dark room.

Yoneko took a handkerchief from her pocket and wiped her hands. She felt relieved that it was over, and wished that someone would turn on the electric light, but it looked as if this sect preferred to conduct its business by candlelight. Suddenly she could not bear to stay for a second longer, and she rushed to the lobby and struggled into her shoes, expecting to be halted by a command from the priest, but no one paid her any attention. She opened the door and went out. As soon as she breathed the fresh cold air in the corridor, she felt better.

Within, the sect was continuing its meeting, but Yoneko made her way straight back to her room.

What had she in common with the people in that room, with all their talk of prophecies and revelations and the world of spirits?

She sat down by her desk and reached for the list of her former pupils. But all of a sudden she seemed to have lost the will to continue her series of ‘letters from your past’.

Yoneko spent the next two days doing nothing, and hardly daring to leave her room for fear of bumping into Tomiko Iyoda or other members of the Three Spirit Faith. From time to time she overcame her reluctance and went out to have a look at Chikako Ueda’s room on the fifth floor. But she had almost given up hope of making any progress in that direction.

On the third day, she was cooking herself a late breakfast when there was a knock on her door. She opened it to find Tomiko Iyoda outside, her face wreathed in smiles.

‘What a delicious smell. You’re toasting new bread, I suppose!’ And without more ado she kicked off her sandals and stepped into the room. Yoneko followed her, apologising as she went.

‘I do hope you’ll forgive me for leaving so suddenly the other night, after you’d gone to the trouble of asking me. I suddenly felt indisposed.’

There was nothing for it but to offer her unwelcome guest a seat.

‘Not at all, not at all. Don’t mention it. It quite often happens that way to beginners: the unaccustomed contact with the spirit world overcomes them at first.’

And without the slightest reserve she sat down, looking curiously around the room as she did so, and helped herself to a piece of Yoneko’s toast.

‘But I felt you’d like to hear the upshot of the seance—it’s most interesting, I can assure you. Of course, you realise that funny noise—“Hee Hee”—was a voice from the spirit world? It sounded sad to me, but after you’d gone His Reverence played it back over the tape recorder and explained that in the language of the spirit world that particular sound represents the crackling of flames.

‘His Reverence told us that this signified that the missing object had been burned. At which point, Miss Yatabe, the one who’d lost whatever it was—a violin, I suppose—suddenly came out of her trance. Well, that should be enough to convince anybody that our seances are genuine, I feel. But there’s more and better to come! Would you believe it! Today we had absolute proof of the truth of what His Reverence said. And it happened right before our very eyes—yes, I was there, and saw it, too! Look, I wouldn’t have told you this before, but I occasionally had my doubts too, you know. But not any more after this! O how lucky and happy I feel! That’s why I rushed straight here to share the good news with you!’

She paused for a sip of tea, and then straightening her fat body she went on:

‘Well, you know there’s an old brick-built incinerator in the inner courtyard? Yes, well, it’ll have to come down because of the moving of the building, so since this morning the labourers have been raking out the ashes and what do you think they found? A violin case! Who could have put such a thing there? Well, it was badly scorched because although it was deep in the ashes, the heat of the fire had reached it. And the poor violin inside was scorched and warped, and the varnish was blistered. There it was, a worldfamous instrument of which there are hardly any left, all ruined! Well, Miss Tojo from the front desk said that Miss Yatabe would be the one to know about it, and of course she was dead right, because that was the violin which Miss Yatabe had lost, or rather which had been stolen from her that time when someone broke into her room using the master key, do you remember?

‘Poor Miss Yatabe! When she saw the state that violin was in, her knees crumpled and she sat on the floor and cried. For not only was it a famous instrument, but she had received it from her teacher years and years ago. Well, I suppose she shouldn’t be blamed, but in her place my first sentiments would be to wonder at the powers of the spirit world and marvel at how His Reverence has penetrated its hermetic secrets! More than the violin itself, his knowing how it would turn out—that’s what would move me!

‘I mean, that little medium can speak with the tongues of spirits, and of the dead, but there are many who can do that. But His Reverence can understand the language of that world! That is the real miracle if you ask me! It takes the wisdom and experience of someone like him to do that!’

Miss Iyoda seemed to be overcome by her own eloquence. Gradually she calmed down and then took her leave, urging Yoneko to be sure and attend the next seance.

‘Now that this has got about, people are coming from all over the building asking if a seance can be held for them. Miss Ueda from the fifth floor is joining us—Miss Santo, one of our most faithful believers, has persuaded her to come. Miss Santo says we all have a positive duty to persuade our neighbours to come, but you know how it is with neighbours—the closer you live to them, the harder it is to make such approaches.’

And she was off to spread the tidings amongst the believers on the third floor.

The news that Chikako Ueda was to attend the next seance gave Yoneko fresh hope. If she had joined the group, then she must be hoping to find out something by means of a seance. So if Yoneko went on attending, then one day Chikako might ask for a seance, and her secret might be revealed. It would take time, but seemed the best and least risky course of action under the circumstances.

Yoneko had thus all but given up her original plan to use the master key to search Chikako’s room when, as luck would have it, something happened that very evening to make her change her mind again.

Yoneko had been out to the public bathhouse, and was returning just before the front door was to be locked at eleven pm. Passing into the hall, she suddenly noticed something which she had overlooked before.

Just inside the door was a full set of mail boxes, one for each apartment. On the flap of each there was a tag, marked ‘In’ on one side and ‘Out’ on the other, the original purpose having been for residents to change the tag around as they went in or out. Now the paint was faded and on some of them one could no longer read the writing, and so recently people had given up changing the tags when they went out.

Yoneko was looking at the hundred or so boxes and contemplating on how the old practice had died out when she suddenly realised that there was one exception to this rule—Chikako Ueda! Her box read ‘Out’.

At that time she imagined it was just an oversight, but the next day she couldn’t help looking when she went downstairs, and saw that Chikako’s box now read ‘In’.

Unless someone was playing practical jokes—and this seemed unlikely—there was only one solution to the problem: Chikako Ueda, who was said never to leave the building, had gone out last night and deliberately changed her tag around!

From this fact, Yoneko could develop two hypotheses. Firstly, Chikako probably took great pains to switch around her tag when she went in or out. This could not just be from force of habit. Yoneko, who had lived a life of solitude for so long, was nonetheless still a good judge of human nature. She reasoned that at first, in the pride of one’s new room, one would change the tag every time one entered or left, and that this would go on for a day or so, but would wear thin after a week or so and more or less vanish after two months. And after two years of solitude, who on earth would bother with such a little thing?