A Clandestine Meeting

Since his return from Osaka, Yamano Daigorō had been laid up. His slight fever continued and was accompanied by ceaseless, intense headaches. Although the doctor attributed his symptoms to a cold that was going around at the time, he did not doubt that the cause of the fever was the disappearance of Yamano's only daughter, Michiko. Not only had his trip to Osaka ended in disappointment, but during his absence from home it had been learned through the unexpected discoveries of Akechi Kogorō that Michiko's disappearance was no ordinary case of a girl running away from home. So his anguish became more intense than ever.

Mr. Daigorō did not wish to face his household. Yamaki was severely reprimanded for thoughtlessly announcing a visitor. Even the manager of his store, who came for business meetings and to receive instructions, went away without seeing him more often than not. The only people who entered the master's room during that time were his wife Yurie and the maid Oyuki, who waited on him three times a day.

After seeing the gift in the ghastly wooden box, Mrs. Yamano became almost an invalid and shut herself up in the living room. She did not even show her face in the dining room when it came time for dinner. Oyuki was worried and came frequently to check on her mistress' condition, but Mrs. Yamano was lost in thought and would not even speak to her.

As if she had suddenly remembered something, Yurie changed her clothes and went into Mr. Yamano's room the moment it struck seven o'clock. Mr. Yamano lay on his back in the futon, pale-faced, gazing vacantly at the ceiling. The electric light, covered in dark green silk, only made the room appear even more dismal.

The lady offered her husband medicine, set a lidless brazier at his bedside so as to prevent the air in the room from becoming dry, and poured water into a silver kettle. She then attempted to read Mr. Yamano's countenance.

"I would like to make a short visit to Katamachi, but . . ." she began with nervous diffidence.

"Are you going for a consultation or something of the kind?" Mr. Yamano inquired, twisting his bearded face in his wife's direction. He appeared to have thinned remarkably over the last two or three days and his eyes were big and bloodshot.

"Yes. My visits there have been frequent, but if your condition is not so bad, I would like just an hour or so of free time to go over that way."

In her hometown of Nishi Katamachi, there lived an uncle of Mrs. Yamano's. Both the lady's parents were gone, and this person was her only remaining relative.

"I have no objections, but if you go, take care on the way," Mr. Yamano said absentmindedly, as if he were thinking of something else.

"Then I will go and pay a brief visit." Mrs. Yamano began to stand up as she said this, but suddenly noticed an evening paper lying open at her husband's side. Because so many incidents had occurred one after another, she had become distracted and a serious matter had slipped her mind. She should not have allowed her husband to see that day's evening paper.

There, just as she had expected, no, exaggerated beyond her expectations, the strange occurrence of the department store was reported. The passionate article filled the greater part of two pages. It appeared that the private affairs of one family had expanded into a major public scandal without her realizing it. Of course, there could not be a single thing about Michiko written in that article, but this exaggerated human-interest piece made her feel as if the event's actual connection to her family was a lie.

There was no doubt that Mr. Yamano had read the article. But, in reading it, had he noticed a certain detail or not? The lady endeavored to read the answer in his expression, but his dispirited face told nothing. Probably he could not even imagine that such a sensational article hinted at his daughter's fate.

Mrs. Yamano informed Oyuki of her destination and had her make preparations for going out. Oyuki recommended bringing Yamaki along, but Mrs. Yamano said that, because she would hire a neighborhood taxi, it would not be necessary. She went out the gate alone.

Outside the gate, long walls stretched out along the road on either side. Here and there safety lamps gave off dim light, but they seemed only to enhance the darkness. There was no pedestrian traffic at all.

Mrs. Yamano halted on the dark highway and pondered something for a while, but in the end she trudged off. The strange thing was that the road she took led away from the taxi stand, pointing in a still more lonely direction. When she came to the first street corner, she looked back over her shoulder. Once she had confirmed that there was no one to see, she quickened her pace slightly and walked on, choosing dark street after dark street.

When she had gone two or three blocks, the road came out onto a lonely bank of the Sumida River. The lights of all the houses on the opposite shore appeared just like the painted backdrop of a play. On the wide, pitch-black surface of the river, the thin red paper lanterns of barges, two or three of them, moved while appearing motionless.

Coming out onto the embankment, going a little way along it and descending the gentle slope, she arrived at the grounds of Mimeguri Shrine. After her descent from the hill, Mrs. Yamano carefully looked about again to her left and right, then entered the shrine.

But, in spite of her caution, the lady was unable to perceive the person shadowing her. The maid Oyuki, with even more caution than her mistress, had been following Mrs. Yamano since she exited the gate of her estate.

The grounds of Mimeguri Shrine were as silent as a graveyard. Aside from the light emitted by the safety lamps at the top of the bank, there was no illumination but the lamplight that leaked out through cracks in the walls. In the darkness, stone slabs engraved with haiku stood in rows, looking like bald giants.

Mrs. Yamano weaved her way between the fieldstones as if searching for something. Finally arriving before an especially large slab, she came to a halt, as if she were expecting something.

"Madam?"

Something white appeared from behind the engraved slab and called out in a whisper. The man wore Japanese clothing with a spring overcoat and a large hunting cap, which was pulled low over his eyes. His large glasses sparkled even in the dark, reflecting the distant light.

"Yes," Mrs. Yamano answered weakly. Her voice sounded as if she were trying with all her might to keep it from trembling.

"I wasn't lying, was I? I pulled it off perfectly, just like I said I would." The mysterious man was leaning on a thick stick seemed to be peering into the lady's face.

"I'm laying down my life, you know. Whatever it is, I'll do away with it. Even something more than this. Now, let me hear your reply. How about it? Will you comply with my wishes?"

"It's already hopeless. Having come this far, we can't go back." The lady sounded as if she was about to burst into tears. "I'm certain it will come out. To make matters worse, I've gone and called in Mr. Akechi. He's a terrifying person. I feel as if he sees through to the very bottom of everything. And you, why didn't you speak more quickly? At least before I had asked Mr. Akechi?"

"Akechi, you say?" the mysterious man laughed sardonically. "What can he do? There's nothing to fear. It's all your fault that things have come to this. You were wrong to look down on and make light of me. Talk didn't startle you, so I had no choice but to put it into practice. What good will it do you to complain now? But never despair. I hold all the secrets. Even if it's known that Michiko has been murdered, no one, not even the police or the amateur detective, will ever find out who's killed her or where her body is, no matter how they search. There's nothing to worry about."

Oyuki drew as near to the pair as she could, and from the shadow of a stone slab tried to hear their secret talk. More than fear, she was filled with a strange curiosity and a kind of feeling of righteousness. Moreover, it made her oddly excited that Yurie, whom she had always revered as if she were of a different race entirely, was engaged in these mysterious actions, which had the appearance of a crime. She trembled with a queer feeling that was almost indignation.

"You should relax. As long as you don't anger me, everything will be alright. But on what pretext did you leave your home this evening?" The man continued in a voice low as if he were trying to repress it.

"I said I was going to Katamachi," the lady answered brokenly.

"Your uncle's place, I suppose. Then two or three hours won't matter. Come with me; I have a taxi waiting up on the embankment. I'll have you home in about two hours. There's nothing to be afraid of. But if you refuse my proposal, something unthinkable will happen. I'll confess without holding anything back. Of course I'll be implicated as well, if it comes to that, but it will ruin your position. You won't be able to live. So you have no choice but to consent to do as I say. Why not resign yourself to the bad luck of being anticipated by a terrible fellow? Now, we haven't much time, so make up your mind quickly. I've already waited as long as I can."

"I didn't think you were so horrible. You pretend to be a hermit who has achieved enlightenment, but it seems you're really a terrifying villain." The lady sighed. "But there's nothing else to be done. In order to keep that matter a secret, I'll make any sacrifice I have to. But can you force my compliance in such a way and still have a clear conscience? You know I could never come to love you."

The mysterious man stifled unpleasant laughter. "I've waited for ten years. You couldn't know, but I've been thinking only of you for such a long time. How I suffered! What absurd plans I made! Now I confess it all." Another burst of eerie laughter. "You'll certainly be surprised. When you realize the true identity of the man who's been thinking of you, you'll be so surprised you'll faint for certain. But how fortunate this business is! If something like this hadn't happened, I would never have had the opportunity to confess these heartrending feelings of mine. I'll give you a full account once we get there. In any case, you have no choice but to accompany me."

The man exited the grounds of the shrine and walked toward the embankment, appearing full of confidence. Mrs. Yamano followed after him so obediently as to be vexing, as if she had lost her own will and was moving according to the commands of another mind.

Half a block upstream along the embankment from Mimeguri Shrine, there was an isolated, broken-down, vacant house. An automobile was parked beside it, as if hiding in its shadow. Because the headlights were off, at a brief glance it looked like nothing but a part of the vacant house. When the mysterious man finally arrived at the car, he beckoned to Mrs. Yamano. He then climbed on top of the car as if he was breaking into it, and after whispering something to the driver he too entered the dark box.

The automobile immediately let out a piercing screech and vanished from the top of the deserted embankment, practically flying in the direction of Azuma Bridge.

Oyuki stood in hiding, looking carefully after the car. There was nothing more she could do. She had no choice but to return to the estate. But at least she had fixed the only two matters she ought to report to Akechi in her mind. One was the number of the automobile in which the suspicious man had taken Mrs. Yamano away: 2936. The other was the fact that the mysterious man's body and voice, and especially his characteristic way of walking, resembled a person she knew well.

Because his figure had recalled such an unexpected person to her mind, Oyuki felt odd. She wondered if there might be something wrong with her head. But that slightly limping walk could belong to only one man. The attitude of the shoulders, the way of grasping the stick, and every other point besides were unmistakable. Oyuki hurried back to the estate to report the affair to Akechi by telephone.

The automobile in which the mysterious person and Mrs. Yamano rode turned and turned countless times, down wide avenues and narrow streets, before stopping at a certain lonely street corner. The window curtains had been lowered since their departure, so Mrs. Yamano had not even the slightest idea where she had been taken to. She repeatedly asked their destination, but the man only smirked broadly and made no reply.

"Come now, we've arrived." Once the automobile had stopped, the man prompted the lady and alighted from the car himself. Compared to his attitude before their departure, he had become strangely sullen. It was as if he were a different person.

After the lady alighted from the car, she looked about the lonely road. She had hoped that she might recognize the neighborhood, but it was a place completely unknown to her. Although she felt that they had not traveled for a very long time, the aspect of that area gave her the impression of a country town somewhere extremely distant.

The man walked with unexpected quickness, putting his weight on his stick as if he were dragging his legs along. Although he said nothing, and did not even look back, the lady had no choice but to follow after him. Again they turned down countless narrow streets. After walking about three blocks, they passed together through a small gate and came out onto a street lined with an uninterrupted row of houses for rent, which gave the impression that they might be the residences of government clerks or something of the kind. The mysterious man passed through the gate of one of these and opened a glass-fitted lattice door situated just inside it. It appeared that Mrs. Yamano had now screwed up her courage and, although she turned pale, she followed after the man with surprising composure.

In an effort not to keep his refuge secret even from the cabman, the man had deliberately left the car three blocks before it. Even if Oyuki the maid remembered the number of that car, it would be of no use against such a cautious opponent. Luckily, there was one other person, aside from Akechi and Oyuki, who shadowed Mrs. Yamano constantly. His actions sprang not from justice or curiosity, but from a certain more ardent motive, and he did not neglect his observation of the lady for even a moment.

Around the time the mysterious man and Mrs. Yamano got out of the automobile and vanished into the dark streets, the assistant sitting in the seat beside the driver removed his gaudy, borrowed overcoat and spoke, passing a bill to the driver at the same time.

"Well, thank you. Now, this isn't much, but it's a symbol of my gratitude. Please give my regards to your assistant as well."

Disguised as the assistant and sitting in the driver's seat was none other than Kobayashi Monzō. He stripped off the overcoat he had borrowed from the real assistant and beneath it he was wearing his only good suit, that sky-blue spring overcoat.

He got out of the car and carefully shadowed the man and woman walking just half a block ahead. He watched them until they entered the gate of a house.

Monzō then tenaciously continued to keep watch before that house. Even if he had had the courage to break in, he had not the least idea what Mrs. Yamano's secret was or what sort of relationship the strange man had with the lady, so he could not act recklessly.

Luckily, beside the house was a narrow alley that came to an end by its rear door. If he kept watch in the entrance of that alley, he would not miss them even if they slipped out the back.

Monzō hid himself within the dark alleyway and patiently stood watch. Disguising himself as the assistant and keeping a lookout for a mysterious person in the dark like this actually made him feel a little proud.

When they opened the lattice door and entered, there was a dirt floor about four yards square, a three-mat vestibule, and immediately after that a stairway leading to the second floor. The man went up the stairs in silence. Mrs. Yamano, trying for some reason to silence her footsteps, followed after him. The lame man crept up the stairs slowly, one step at a time, using his hands like a child. Waiting below, the lady thought that he looked just like a crab scaling a stone wall.

The second floor was divided into two rooms, one six-mat and one four-and-a-half-mat. The man entered the six-mat room and shut the sliding screen tight behind him.

"It's no good staying on our feet. There are seating cushions over there, so feel free to lay them out. But, Yurie, you're here at last."

The man smiled unpleasantly as he spoke. Then he took a cushion as well and sat upon it without removing his overcoat. He took a long time, as if bending his legs was extremely difficult, and finally sat with his legs out to one side.

"You've gotten awfully stiff. Why not make yourself more at home?" He looked at the lady, snake-like eyes glinting from behind his spectacles.

"Is there no one here?" Yurie sat shrinking in a corner and spoke with parched lips.

"Well, it's as good as if there isn't. I employ a hard-of-hearing old woman here, but I thought you would probably find her disagreeable so I have ordered her not to show her face. The old woman might as well be deaf, so it makes no difference. Even if you raise your voice a bit, there's no fear of being heard."

The man removed the large hunting cap he had been wearing until then. Short, disheveled hair sprouted dirtily on its underside. The strange thing was that, when he removed his cap, his features appeared to alter completely.

"My goodness!" Yurie drew in her breath in astonishment at the sight.

"This?" The man laughed, running a hand over his head. "This is a wig. My face must look different without it. You can't let something like this shock you. There are more horrible things. But it doesn't matter; you're already mine. You can't get away, even if you try to escape. If you flee, it will mean the destruction of your position."

The man grinned in a strange manner, unsightly wrinkles gathering above his nose. He had removed his mask just a little and was beginning to reveal his true, cruel nature.

He abruptly bared his teeth and laughed like a madman. "Yurie. Ah, now at last I am able to call out to you. I am able to call out to you like a lover. For ten years, I have continued to call your name within my breast. I knew that it could never be, and still I couldn't cast away the hope. Now my wish has come true. I'm as happy as I could be in a dream. Yurie, I won't ask for something so impossible as for you to give me your love. Please have pity on this man of unfortunate birth. Don't detest my wicked tricks. You must do that much. Please have some sympathy for my miserable feelings."

The man reversed his overpowering manner and supplicated himself, writhing in agony. Before Yurie knew what was happening, the long, overcoat-clad body toppled sideways and the man approached her, bending his body back and forth loosely like a weird snake.

"Who in the world are you? Aren't you the you I know? Who? Who?" Yurie cried in a shrill voice, drawing back even further into the corner.

"You want to know that, do you? Well then, I'll tell you."

The prone man seemed to fly into the air. His hand shot out in the direction of the electric light, then there was a snapping sound and the room suddenly went pitch black.

The shutters on the second storey were closed tight, and there was no light in the highway outside other than dim gate lamps, so when the electric light was extinguished, the interior of the room was truly dark.

Within that darkness, Yurie held her position, staring intently in the direction where the man had been. More than anything, she feared that the truth of the matter would be exposed. In order to preserve that secret, she was prepared to endure any sacrifice. She was no innocent virgin and let out no immodest screams, but she could of course do nothing to stop herself trembling timidly from an inexpressible fear in her breast.

She felt certain that he would come leaping at her any moment, but, mysteriously, the man only let out a soft cry. For a while, only his ragged breathing, mixed with a clattering noise, could be heard from the opposite corner of the room.

"You gave me a start by turning off the light so suddenly.

Switch it on at once. If you don't, I will return home," Yurie forced herself to speak nonchalantly, but her tone was firm.

"By all means, go if you can. It's no good bluffing like that. Whatever you do, you can't go home. I only turned off the light so that you wouldn't be frightened."

A suppressed laugh, like a shudder, sounded out of the darkness.

"You probably don't remember, but our first meeting at the Yamano residence is already ten years in the past. At that time, you were still an innocent girl with the shoulders of your kimono tucked in9. You often came to the previous Mrs. Yamano's place to play, back when Yamano's estate was in Nishi Katamachi. Come on, you must remember. I've been in and out of Yamano's estate frequently since then, since I first saw your face. But I showed no sign of such feelings, because mine is not a body capable of ordinary love. I'd given up on just about everything in this world. In fact, perhaps it was fate, but you, Yurie, were the only thing I couldn't give up completely, no matter how I tried. I don't know how many times I wanted to stab you to death and then die myself. When you married Yamano of all people, I actually slipped a dagger in my breast pocket before going to meet you. That's how much I've brooded over it. Surely you can feel a little compassion for me."

It was a broken, miserable voice. It came nearer to Yurie's position with every few words, as if it were crawling through the darkness. She could feel the wriggling presence of a black thing growing gradually closer to her, as if the owner of the voice really were sidling toward her little by little.

Yurie felt odd. It was not just fear, but a strange dread, as if she were being assaulted by some ghastly beast. The strange thing was that, as she listened to the man's confession, she felt a certain fascination with his snake-like tenacity. It was not the feeling of compassion, but a more bodily species of longing.

Something soft suddenly crept about her knee and quickly grasped her hand, allowing her no time to flee. She felt a man's palm, drenched in cold sweat.

"Oh," Yurie could not repress a low cry. She tried to break free, but the hands of the imagined man stuck to her as tenaciously as birdlime and could not be easily removed. Not only could they not be removed, the force with which they fastened onto her slender fingers grew gradually stronger.

At the same time, a queer sound began to be audible. At first, Yurie wondered if the man was coughing. His throat sounded violently. But before long, it became a sniffling, and then, abruptly, a convulsive sobbing. The man was crying. He clung and clung to Yurie's fingers, his tears dripping onto her arm. He continued to cry as if he had gone mad.

Yurie was won over by the man's violent emotion, and before she knew it she had abandoned one hand to the man's mercy and was listening to his sobbing voice in silence, feeling a mysterious arousal. The sensation of tears falling onto her hand like rain softened her fear just a little.

"Yurie! Yurie!"

The man called her name countless times as he sobbed. One of his hands ran over Yurie's entire body with its five legs, like a large insect. From her knee it rose to her sash, crawled uneasily over her breasts, slid along her gently sloping shoulders, and stroked the hollow of her spine as if to offer comfort. Yurie felt the sweat-damp palm uncannily through her thin kimono, as if it lay directly against her skin. In spite of the intense uncanniness of the thing, it appeared to possess the bewitching power of paralyzing her moral sense.

Before she knew it, she had lost the power of resistance. That was why, even when the man's burning face brushed her cheek, his hot tears wet her lips and a sigh like flames mingled with her breathing, she made no attempt to ward him off.

But a short time later, she suddenly let out a cry of terror and hurried to escape from the man's arms. While she was doing that, she noticed that a certain fearful change had taken place in him.

Her hands had been unconsciously groping for the man's body from the first. When she accidentally touched his foot, she discovered that, although until now she had thought he was merely sitting, in fact he was standing, and his short, misshapen legs were fully extended. His face and her face were at the same height. And yet, while she was sitting, he was clearly standing upright. In other words, unnoticed by her, the man had changed into an abnormally short deformed child. She grasped the whole situation in an instant. Just as he had disguised himself that night by means of a wig, glasses and an overcoat, his everyday self was also nothing more than a masquerade. This second disguise concealed his abominable true form. That dwarf who had been shadowed by Kobayashi Monzō and discovered by the head clerk of the department store was none other than this man. She had indeed been quite thoughtless not to have noticed until now that the man threatening her and the man who had pulled the sinful trick of dismembering Michiko's corpse were one and the same person. If he were truly a frightful deformed child to look at, then his declaration that he had been unable to reveal his heartrending love for ten long years, his hiding in the shadow of a criminal incident like this, and his attempt to achieve his desire by taking advantage of her weak body were all truly quite understandable.

No matter how prepared she was, when Yurie realized that the man was a dwarf she could endure no more. A cold shudder went down her spine when she thought that she had felt a queer fascination for a monster like this even for a moment. She struggled desperately to twist and tear away from the monster's arms.

When he saw that she understood, he held his victim with still greater strength. Deformed child or not, against the strength of desperation there was nothing Yurie, a feeble woman, could do to resist.

"You think I'll let you loose after waiting such a long time?" His voice strained with exertion. "Shout all you want. See here, you can't possibly have forgotten. If you do such a thing, it will mean your destruction. Listen to me! It will mean the ruin of the Yamano family."

The dwarf twined himself around the now-standing Yurie's thighs, rattling off threats. When he saw his opponent falter, he seized his chance, entangled his short legs about one of hers, and threw her down with fearsome power.

Even if Yurie had wanted to shout, she had been robbed of the freedom to speak. Even if she wished to escape, she had lost the power to flee. She felt as if she were having a nightmare. The deformed child clung tightly to half her body like a ghastly mollusk. The strength of his arms, tightened around her waist, increased moment by moment.

Kobayashi Monzō endured the unbelievable cold, tenaciously holding his ground at the mouth of the alleyway. It wasn't what one would call late, but that neighborhood was awfully dark and quiet. Each and every house kept just as silent as if they were all vacant.

He kept watch on the dim highway, pressing his body, batlike, against the wooden fence of the alleyway. Once in a while a thing like a grey shadow would pass quietly by. They were certainly human beings, but he felt as if they were some sort of ghosts because they did not make even the least sound.

Sensing that Mrs. Yamano had ascended to the second floor, he looked up in that direction and strained his ears. He hoped to overhear voices in conversation, but he could not even see any trace of a light. It was as if the house within the tightly closed shutters were deserted.

Monzō suddenly thought he had heard something. When he pricked up his ears, the feeble, crying voice of a baby could be heard from far off.

In the past few days, Monzō had escaped from his long period of boredom and been able to savor a considerable feeling of tension. He felt as if he had finally discovered his raison d'être. The childlike Monzō found being caught up in the whirlpool of a weird criminal incident and affecting the air of an amateur detective to be extremely entertaining. But it was the fact that Mrs. Yamano, who until now he regarded as being somehow on a different level from himself and had hesitated even to speak to, had approached him out of the blue with an easy manner that pleased him most of all. With Michiko's affair as a pretext, he would call on the Yamano family and shadow the lady's person as long as he had the opportunity.

At last, he would be able to grasp the lady's secret. The villain called Love made him incredibly sensitive: No action of the lady's, no matter how trivial, could escape his observation. He had perceived that night's clandestine meeting just as Oyuki had, and he had performed a risky feat that the maid could not have imitated. He had shrewdly bribed the assistant driver of the mysterious man's automobile, and as a result he had at last succeeded in locating this hiding place. Monzō was terribly proud to think that he may have outwitted Akechi Kogorō and grasped a clue that the specialist had not even dreamed of.

But who the mysterious man was, he had not the slightest idea. He felt vaguely that he had met him once before somewhere, but more than that he could not say. What he did know was that the man was taking advantage of the lady's weakness to threaten her, that the lady held some terrible secret, and that she was resigned to act in accordance with the man's will.

Whatever the lady's secret might be, Monzō did not feel inclined to hate her for it. It was the man he hated. Against him, Monzō felt a fearsome jealousy. When he thought of what the feeble lady might at that moment be suffering because of that man, he felt that he would go mad.

Unsightly scenes flitted vividly before his eyes. A man like a beast. The lady's enticingly disheveled figure. The thought of it caused him physical pain. He wanted to leap into the house more times than he could count, but he sympathized with the lady's trouble and narrowly managed to hold himself back.

He waited and waited, but there was no sign of the pair coming out. He had been standing in the darkness for more than an hour. The wild ideas only grew worse. He could endure no more. And it was at precisely that time he heard something like a woman's scream from the second storey. He thought he heard it.

In a half-crazed state, he entered the gate and violently pushed open the lattice door.

"I beg your pardon."

The interior of the house was silent as the grave.

"Is anyone there?"

He shouted two or three times in a loud voice, but there was no reply of any kind. He resolutely opened the sliding paper door in the entryway. Still no one appeared, so he opened the sliding screen at the boundary of the next room and peered inside. There was not even the shadow of a person.

Monzō did not know how he would make his escape if, by some chance, he had been at fault, but he made light of the possibility. Though he was a coward, he could be extremely reckless and daring at times.

He abruptly removed his shoes and stepped up into the entryway, but because he was flustered, he did not notice that Mrs. Yamano's footwear was nowhere to be seen on its dirt floor. Fully opening the sliding screen, he stepped into the room beyond it, which seemed to be a living room, and tried opening the sliding screen leading to the inner rooms. Inside, a single squalid old woman was sitting with a vacant look on her face, as if she had just been startled out of a doze.

"Oh goodness gracious, who might you be? I don't know you at all," the old woman scolded in a loud voice.

"Pardon my rudeness, but there was no answer no matter how much I called, and I thought Yamano's wife might be found here. To tell the truth, urgent business has come up and I've come to fetch her."

"Who? My husband is out at the moment," the old woman replied incoherently. She seemed to be hard of hearing.

After repeating this dialogue two or three times, Monzō grew frustrated and, without taking further notice of the old woman, began opening the nearby paper doors and sliding screens as he pleased to search for Mrs. Yamano. On the lower floor, in addition to the rooms he had already visited, there was only a narrow kitchen. He could see neither hide nor hair of any person.

Ignoring the old woman's cry to stop, Monzō went up to the second floor. He braced himself as he ascended the stairs, expecting every moment to be shouted at. But mysteriously, there was no sign of anyone upstairs either. There were only two rooms on the second floor. In the six-mat one a dim electric light was on and the furnishings were neatly arranged. It was strangely deserted, and he could see no sign of its recent occupation.

"Oh dear, what absurd things this fellow does. Didn't I say that my husband is away from home? Aside from me there isn't even a single kitten in the house."

The old woman arrived unconcernedly on the second floor, muttering complaints as she observed Monzō.

"But I certainly saw them enter this house. How odd. You must lying."

But the old woman hardly understood him, whatever he said. She gradually raised her voice, finally screaming so loudly that the whole neighborhood could hear.

Monzō opened and looked in the closets one by one and searched every nook and cranny of the house. As the old woman had said, the place was deserted. He had been surveying both the front and rear entrances, so if the lady and her companion had left the house, he could not have failed to notice them. It was also impossible for them to have caught the sounds of him entering the house from the front and taken that chance to escape by the rear entrance. They could not have had enough time. In other words, he could only imagine that they had vanished from the house.

Once again, Monzō felt that he had been bewitched by foxes. Now he came to think about it, this same sort of strange thing had occurred many times now. Michiko had also vanished from inside a room. That creepy dwarf had disappeared after entering the Yōgen Temple priests' quarters. Tonight it was Mrs. Yamano's turn. Monzō was fed up.

He left the house in low spirits, still scolded by the old woman.

"Is there something wrong with my head these days? Or else, does the villain know some miraculous, mysterious sorcery? Which can be the true explanation?"

He felt as if he were having a nightmare. Walking through the dark streets in search of the railroad, Monzō suddenly recalled the stories of foxes and raccoon dogs transforming into people that he had heard in his childhood. That preposterous fear sent a chill down his spine.