Burning Down The House (Part II)

"Do you still write in your diary every day?
Do you still look up at the stars once a month?
Do you still walk around the park alone?
Do you still watch movies on Sundays?"

        —"Renai Bochi" ("Graveyard of Love"), Kirikyogen, Kuni Kawachi and the Flower Travellin' Band

Akimitsu Takagi debuted with Shisei Satsujin Jiken (The Tatoo Murder Case) in 1948, but it was his second novel—1949's Nōmen Satsujin Jiken (The Noh Mask Murder)—that won him the prestigious Mystery Writers of Japan Award in 1950. I fondly recall The Tattoo Murder Case for its evocative portrayal of a bombed-out Tokyo, the underworld, the tattoo culture, and its clever use of tailing as a plot mechanic, rather than for its locked room mystery credentials and prowess. So, naturally, expectations were sky-high when I picked up a copy of the English translation of Nōmen Satsujin Jiken (The Noh Mask Murder, Pushkin Vertigo, 2024) earlier this year.

Takagi comes across as an intriguing writer on two counts. On the one hand, while he is probably not as skilled a storyteller as his compatriot Seishi Yokomizo, his portrayal of a post World War-II Japan (as seen in The Tatoo Murder Case) is refreshingly original, in a manner quite different to Yokomizo's Japan. On the other hand, Takagi's sense of fair play and habit of acknowledging his inspirations is rather extreme—to the extent that he openly describes important details and plot points from the works he is inspired by, thereby spoiling them for numerous readers. Subtlety in this regard is not his strong suite, and the combination of the two qualities can be both fascinating and frustrating.

The Noh Mask Murder takes one to the seaside resort town of H– on the Miura Peninsula in Kanagawa. In 1946, a mansion on the outskirts of the town is witness to a series of incidents that leads to the demise of the entire Chizui family living in it. Thematically, the novel resonates with Yokomizo's The Devil's Flute Murders which portrays the downfall of the Tsubaki family and other lineages associated with it. However, the mechanics of the family's annihilation in The Noh Mask Murder sharply contrasts what one sees in Yokomizo's novel.

The novel opens with a note from the author himself who plays a not-insignificant role in the events. In it, he recounts meeting with a childhood friend, Koichi Yanagi, that would eventually lead him (Takagi) to be embroiled in the Chizui affair. The subsequent narrative is in the form of Yanagi's journal that documents the Chizui case, bookended by a letter and a sealed note addressed to Takagi by a public prosecutor Hiroyuki Ishikari. Though Ishikari's 'association' with the Chizuis dates back three decades, his involvement in the events of 1946 begins, incidentally, with a chance encounter with Yanagi, the son of Ishikari's dear friend Genichiro, on a beach that holds some painful memories for Ishikari. A few days later, Ishikari visits the Chizui mansion on Yanagi's invitation. Their stroll comes to a jarring end once they reach near the grey walls of the Western-styled Chizui mansion, when they hear a haunting tune on a piano. At around the same time, they see the terrifying face of someone wearing a hannya mask staring at them from one of the upper-floor windows. The nightmarish scenes concludes with an abrupt end to the piano tune, just as "the ghastly, deranged laughter of a woman" echoes through the night.

So much for the opening act! Takagi may not impress one with his storytelling finesse, but there's no doubt that he significantly amplifies the dramatic, theatrical quotient in the novel. Two days after the demon's sighting, amateur detective Takagi ( who "... fancies himself Japan's answer to Philo Vance") enters the picture when Yanagi visits him on the request of the head of the Chizui household, Taijiro. As Takagi and Yanagi discuss the case, they receive a rather frantic call from Taijiro who states that he has identified the person behind the Noh mask. However, within the 20 minutes it takes for Takagi and Yanagi to return to the mansion, the unthinkable happens—and the corpse of Taijiro, with no visible injuries, is found seated in a room with doors and windows tightly closed and locked, with the hannya mask, "the bearer of a two-hundred-year-old-curse", lying on the floor. 

The murder of Taijiro acts as the catalyst for the eventual unravelling of the Chizui family, but it is hard to feel any shred of sympathy for a majority of the characters and their fates. Most of the patriarchs in the Chizui family are portrayed as absolutely vile with no redeeming quality, while the victims die by the end of the novel, facing the most pitiable and pathetic fates. Taijiro and his sons are involved in the death of the previous head of the Chizui family—Taijiro's brother Soichiro—while Soichiro's wife Kayoko is 'admitted' to a mental asylum for her alleged insanity. The most villainous of the lot is Taijiro's eldest son, Rintaro, who is described by Yanagi as "a terrifying nihilist":

"All he really believes in is power; to him, justice and morality are no more than intellectual games. He seems to view everything in this world as a sort of dreary mirage, contemplating reality in the indifferent way one might gaze at a passing cloud in the sky. All capacity for feeling has deserted him, leaving behind only his abnormally sharp intellect; if he hasn’t murdered anyone yet, it’s probably only because it doesn’t agree with him as a hobby. He told me as much himself once, in no uncertain terms. If it had been you he was talking to, I imagine he would have informed you, with a scornful smile, that 'the ultimate law is lawlessness itself '."

Even though the other family members also exhibit varying degrees of evilness and madness:

"It’s the same with Taijiro’s second son, Yojiro. He may not be quite as craven as his father, but still—a snake only ever begets a snake. If we were to compare Taijiro to a mighty sword, Yojiro is more like a dagger glinting in its sheath.

Even Taijiro’s mother, Sonoe, long bedridden with palsy, has the same fiery temper smouldering away inside her. And while his daughter, Sawako, is the most reasonably minded of the family, you have to remember that for many years she has had only lunatics, near-lunatics and invalids for company. Who knows when she might succumb to some violent fit of emotion?

Between the two remaining members of the Professor’s own family, and these five members of Taijiro’s branch, it is safe to say there is no love lost. As Jules Renard once put it, a family is a group of people living under the same roof who cannot stand each other. That house has been struck by a disease from within. Riven by mutual hatred, suspicion and a sheer failure to understand one another, the Chizuis are engaged in a perpetual and desperate struggle.

But precisely because their respective forces have reached a sort of equilibrium, the family appears, on the surface at least, to be entirely at peace. Any disruption of that balance, however momentary, would surely spell the downfall of the entire family. Who knows what tragedy may erupt among that forsaken tribe? In any case, I fear it may be fast approaching …"

The swirling miasma in the Chizui family also overwhelms Soichiro's and Kayoko's children—14-year- old Kenkichi who is unaware that he has a heart disease (and won't be alive for long), and 27-year-old Hisako (once a piano-playing prodigy, now driven to madness). And, unlike the kind of madness seen in Yokomizo's works such as Death on Gokumon Island, where the onset of insanity is often tied to external factors such as war, the madness of the characters in The Noh Mask Murder is due to willful and vile misdeeds committed by certain characters on others. In particular, Hisako's plight is a scathing indictment of the depravity of the Chizui family members.

It is no surprise therefore that the Chizui family ultimately decays from within. In fact, I am almost tempted to call this an 'anti-Yokomizo' sensibility. In a work like The Devil's Flute Murders, one sees how the sordid secrets of the Tsubaki family affect multiple families caught in the wheelhouse of the Tsubakis. In other words, the action spills out in a centrifugal manner. In Akimitsu's work, however, the narrative absorbs all the disparate strands and concentrates them on the Chizui family. Like a whirlpool, the Chizui affair draws all kinds of hidden facts and truths towards itself with an enormous centripetal force, leading to the implosion of the entire family. However, the War plays, at the most, a cursory role in this work—limited to one or two social commentaries, and not even close to the level of influence it exerts on the plot of The Devil's Flute Murders.

What does leave a lasting influence on the novel, however, is the discourse on and application of theatre, particularly its conventions and 'props' (masks and tools). Furthermore, a particular section in Shakespeare's play, The Merchant of Venice, provides a code to the whereabouts of the elusive treasure, the root of all that's evil in this work, while the dying words of Kayoko reference the character Portia in the same play. And, while the core mystery of Taijiro's death is, at its heart, a scientific one, the use of the cursed mask and a particular tool used in Noh theatre prove to be integral to the entire performance.

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In between setting up puzzles, Takagi devotes a surprising amount of time and space in providing social commentary. As Ishikari addresses his companions in a certain section:

"Gentlemen, Japan is changing: we have a democracy now; the military has been disbanded; the police are no longer the violent enforcers we knew in the past. It seems that even in prisons, with a few rare exceptions, torture has fallen out of use. These days, there is only one place where such brutality is still permitted—the mental asylum.

This is possible, of course, because we hold doctors in higher regard than almost any other profession. We see them as somehow special—almost holy, if you like. But any privilege, in the wrong hands, can have terrible consequences. And when a doctor abuses their power, the results can be spine-chilling." 

Takagi's description of the Oka asylum follows in these lines:

"Could it even be called a ward? There was a small barred window high up on the wall, through which even the summer sunshine seemed reluctant to enter. The tatami mats were mouldy, an acrid stench of unknown origin assaulted our nostrils, and leaking water had smeared the walls a miserable grey. Even prison inmates were surely treated more humanely than this. I recalled my army days, and the dreaded guardhouse to which disobedient soldiers were confined—and yet even that paled in comparison to the wretched sight in front of us."

(Sadly enough, cases of abuse in Japanese mental asylums continue to this day.)

 Takagi also briefly reflects on the country's 'misguided education policy':

"[...] the answer to that question lies, in a sense, in the misguided educational policy of the war period. For all those years, we drummed into the nation’s children a pointless hatred of the enemy, a misguided desire for revenge. Children’s hearts aren’t like those of adults; the emotions seared into them cannot simply be forgotten overnight. Perhaps an extended period of democratic education will one day succeed in reversing the harm that was done. Otherwise, this country will be doomed to repeat the tragedies of its past."

Perhaps, these were all early signs that, as an author, Takagi would not be limited to only honkaku mystery conventions, but instead, dabble in multiple genres. However, The Noh Mask Mystery is still a very nascent work in this regard, with Takagi showing his naivete at times with some curious but questionable observations:

"A year before Sawako was born, Mrs Chizui began suffering from mild pleurisy, and relocated with Yojiro to a fishing village not far from Zushi for convalescence. Mrs Matsuno went with her as her maid and nurse; Taijiro himself visited once a week. Gradually, Mrs Chizui’s condition began to improve. Then, one autumn day, she had a chance encounter with the man she had loved in her youth. Now, to most men, such youthful dalliances are like a sprig of wild chrysanthemum, broken off on a whim as they pass and just as immediately discarded. The names of those first loves—sometimes even their order of appearance—are easily forgotten. But to women, love is a more vital force—and they never forget the person who first kindled its fire in their breast."

[Funnily enough, I recently came across a similar observation in C. M. Naim's work, Urdu Crime Fiction, 1890–1950: An Informal History (2023), where he translates a section of Lala Tirath Ram Ferozepuri's Urdu novel, Mistrīz āf Fīrozpūr (c. 1904): "Modesty does not allow me to be explicit, but let me give you a hint. A woman—any woman—when she shares her bed with a man and satisfies her sexual passion for the first time, a deep love for that particular man becomes a permanent part of her being, like a line scratched into stone ... It was Dunichand who first planted 'the seed of love' in me. Thousands came after him and told me how they loved me, but I now find no trace of affection for them inside me. However, the special love I feel for Dunichand will remain with me till death arrives."]

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The solution to The Noh Mask Mystery, while pleasing to visualize, really suffers from the lack of a map or a diagram, especially since there's an expansive fake solution involved. Even more glaring is the fact that the novel borrows handsomely from a few well-known works of S.S. Van Dine and Agatha Christie (which Takagi mentions too many times over the course of the novel to mention here). It therefore lends itself to the same critique I had extended in the case of The Tattoo Murders: that the ending stretch reads too much like a tribute act to certain works of Western crime fiction, despite it having sufficient elements to break new ground. A missed opportunity indeed!

The saving grace is the manner in which Takagi handles his own inclusion in the plot. Maybe it is an act of self-indulgence, but Takagi comes across as, perhaps, the only gentlemanly character in the work. He does not overplay his involvement in the case, honestly admits to his failures in deciphering the case from the right angle, gets a vague glimpse of the truth, nonetheless, that is completely against his expectations, and gently excuses himself from the case around the midway point:

"In your journal, Mr Takagi comes across as a complete idiot, but it seems a correction is called for. Nobody is perfect, after all. Making mistakes is only human [...] He told me he’d forget everything he’d learned, then withdrew entirely from the case. [...] See how, even in a situation like this, friendship shows us its beautiful light."

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With all its promise and flaws, The Noh Mask Murder is an oddly balanced work, where the yin and the yang cancel each other. Even with his considerable shortcomings, Takagi continues to fascinate me in these early works as an author charting his own path, and finding his own voice and style. This view of a flawed author experimenting with genre, form, plot, and style, has its own charm—distinct from what one experiences from reading the more polished works of a consummate storyteller like Yokomizo.