The Phantom Doctor, page 2
“Mister, I apologize for entering your house without permission. A short while ago, I spotted a shifty old tramp sneaking into this house through an open window. Thinking he was a thief, I rang the doorbell to warn the people inside. Nobody answered the door so I followed him into the house through the same window. My name is Taiji Aikawa.”
Taiji had explained only that much when the curious gentleman grinned again. His next words were all the more unsettling. “Oh, I already knew your name, Taiji Aikawa. I have been awaiting your arrival.”
But Taiji still had the strange old man on his mind and couldn’t concern himself right then with that unexpected statement.
“Mister, a suspicious tramp is hiding in this house somewhere. He is certainly a thief and must be rooted out as soon as possible.”
The man chuckled. “Oh, you don’t need to worry about him. He happens to be in the room as we speak.”
“What?” Taiji said with a start. “In this room?” Eyes peeled, he looked around. There was no one else in the room but himself and the man behind the desk. What was this eccentric individual trying to say? “There’s nobody that fits that description in here,” Taiji said, giving him a puzzled look.
“And neither is he not here. Look! I believe he is right over there!”
Taiji followed the pointing finger and found his attention drawn to the sculpture in the corner of the room where the ends of the bookcases formed a nook. At the foot of the sculpture was a heap of dirty western clothing. And not only clothing. One tattered shoe and what appeared to be a gray wig and a theatrical beard had been discarded there as well.
Staring at the items, Taiji realized they matched the tattered suit of clothes the strange old man had worn, along with the dilapidated shoes, gray hair and beard.
“What in the world!” he exclaimed to himself in amazement.
The man behind the desk chuckled again. “You figured it out, didn’t you? That tramp was none other than myself. I shed that disguise only minutes ago and resumed the appearance of my regular self.”
Taiji’s eyes widened. He instinctively retreated two or three steps.
“Caught you by surprise, didn’t I? That was a pretty good disguise, if I say so myself.”
“Mister, who are you really?” Taiji pointedly asked, getting ready to run if push came to shove.
The man’s grin only widened. “Do you want to know my name? I am Doctor Hiruta, a doctor of medicine and philosophy. As I made clear earlier, I am the owner of this abode.”
“Then why did you dress up as an old man and sneak in through the window? Don’t you think it’s odd for the owner to enter his own house that way?”
“You may think it odd but I had my reasons. To tell the truth, I summoned you here and did so in a way that would leave no one else the wiser. Do you understand?”
“You summoned me? In that case, wouldn’t it be easier to dispense with the disguise and extend me an invitation?”
“As you will soon see, that was not an option.” The man smiled. “You’re a wary one. A smart kid too. One must always take care when meddling in the lives of others. I needed an equally intelligent lure to reel you in.”
“Which means that those symbols you drew on the ground were meant to lead me here?”
“Exactly. Because you are one of the Boy Detectives. By adopting such a strategy, I was sure you would follow along quietly without raising any alarms. The usual ham-fisted approach would only produce much screaming and shouting. It is far better to take the time to get things right. Such methods always prove faster and safer in the long run.”
As Taiji listened, the frightening scheme of this Doctor Hiruta or whomever came into focus. Using the safest means possible, the Doctor had had ensnared Taiji in his web without him resisting in the slightest.
“And so that doll—”
“Yes, I see you are finally coming around. An ingenious way of enticing you into the room, wouldn’t you say? You possess an unexpectedly chivalrous spirit for a mere child. I was sure, having witnessed such a sight, you would not abandon her and run away. Sure enough, you gallantly rushed to her aid like a true hero. An impressive young man.”
With evident pride in his analysis, Doctor Hiruta licked his lips and continued with his explanation.
“With you preoccupied and unawares, the window was shuttered behind you. Of course, I was the one who closed the shutters. This house is filled with all sorts of mechanical devices. I can do practically anything with the press of a button. That was all it took to secure you as my prisoner. No matter how loudly you wept and wailed, the world would neither hear you nor care. Once the window was closed, the only path available inevitably led you here. All I had to do was sit and wait.”
Doctor Hiruta paused to let his words sink in. “I arranged your visit here by entirely natural means. Nobody was kidnapped. Neither were you summoned with a letter or phone call. Since you have no idea who I am, I expect your mother and father are equally in the dark. In short, the only people who know you came to this house are the old man and myself. But since that old man is none other than myself, I am the only person in the whole wide world who knows where you are. Am I making myself clear?”
He didn’t wait for an answer. “If your father asked the police to search for you as a missing person, they would have no idea where to begin. I have not gone to any great or messy lengths thus far in this endeavor, and plan on leaving no trail of clues behind going forward. In short, now and forever, you have become my perfect little prisoner.”
Unable to contain his delight, Doctor Hiruta laughed with malevolent joy.
In the face of his looming fears, Taiji found himself at a loss for words. But seeing that he had no place to run, despite being a child or perhaps because he was a child, it was time to pluck up his courage. Not to mention that he was beginning to truly loathe this Doctor Hiruta with the face of a sorcerer.
Taiji took a step closer to the mad Doctor. “Do you have some sort of grudge against me?” he demanded to know. “Is that it?” His cherubic cheeks flushed all the redder with anger. A surge of fury welled up in his gut. “What do you intend to do with me?”
Chapter 4
Black Magic
The Doctor responded at first with an amused chuckle. “Oh, you have nothing to worry about. I’m not going to eat you or anything. Simply that there is something interesting I would like you to see.”
He stared intently at Taiji’s flushed face from behind his big wire rim glasses.
“Something interesting?”
“Yes. Just as I said.”
“I’m not interested in your show and tell. I’m going home.”
“Well, that would be up to me. And I say no.”
“I’m leaving anyway,” Taiji said with determined resolve.
“Hah. Be my guest. Leave if you can. But I don’t think you’ll be going anywhere after what comes next.”
The Doctor pressed a button beneath the table. An instant later, the floor beneath Taiji’s feet dropped open with a bang. In the blink of an eye, Taiji disappeared inside the square black hole as if he’d been suddenly sucked out of sight.
The Doctor had simply been biding his time, waiting for Taiji to step onto the trap door.
Taiji’s startled shout vanished along with him into the ground. With the creak of hinges, the floorboards sprang back into their original position. Silence flowed back into the room like nothing had happened there at all.
“That takes care of that,” the Doctor said with a self-satisfied air.
He rose from the chair and turned to the tall bookcase behind him. After removing two large volumes, he reached into the gap and twisted a knob or pulled on a lever at the back. Whatever he did, gears ground together and one section of the bookcase swung inward like a door, revealing a secret room hidden behind the bookcase. Yet another of the Doctor’s mechanical mysteries at work.
The Doctor walked into the small, pitch-black room. The bookcase door closed behind him. An electric light switched on. This was no ordinary room. In one corner sat a low cabinet that sported thirty or forty drawers. An elegant mirror, resembling the kind found in barber shops, perched atop the cabinet.
Dozens of Asian and European outfits, overcoats and hats, hung from hooks on all four walls, such that the room resembled a used clothing shop. On the floor beneath the outfits, a wide variety of shoes, sandals, geta, and umbrellas were arranged in tidy rows.
Inside the room, the Doctor discarded his black officer’s cloak. Donning a single shirt, he sat down in front of the mirror. A truly mysterious transformation began.
He first removed his glasses and placed them on the cabinet. He took hold of his head of hair with both hands and, like doffing a hat, removed it in one fell swoop. He next peeled off his moustache and triangular goatee.
Ah, the Doctor had disguised himself twice over. First as a disheveled tramp. Beneath that attire, he still had on the wig and false moustache. Discarding these outer layers, the real Doctor Hiruta at last revealed himself. With his jet-black hair and glowing features, far from an elderly individual, here was a man in his thirties.
The Doctor opened and closed the drawers in the cabinet under the mirror, clearly searching for something. He finally pulled out a crumpled and tangled wig made for an old woman and put it on. He next opened a drawer filled with jars of face paint. He took out a brush and stared into the mirror while applying the makeup.
In a flash, the distressingly wrinkled features of an old grandmother appeared in the mirror. His eyebrows turned white. Gaps opened up in his mouth thanks to black metal caps placed over his teeth.
Once he was done creating the face, the Doctor got up from the chair. From among the costumes hanging on the walls, he chose a white jacket and pleated skirt of the sort an old woman might wear in western countries. Having dressed himself in a practiced and efficient manner, he draped a brown shawl around his shoulders. He didn’t pull on socks or shoes but slipped into a pair of ordinary wooden clogs.
The disguise now complete, he took on the appearance of the wicked witch in a European fairy tale.
The grandma stooped forward, her body bent almost in two. Both arms tucked around her back, she shuffled forward with a tottering gait.
A side door was set into the wall opposite the bookshelves in the small room. The grandma unlocked the door with a key. The door opened onto a passageway that appeared at first to be a dark hallway but turned into a staircase that disappeared underground. Accompanied by the rhythmic knocking of the wooden clogs against the steps, the grandma descended the stairs one at a time.
Let us now return to Taiji’s side of the story.
In the blink of an eye, the floorboards beneath his feet dropped away, suspending him momentarily in mid-air. A second later, he struck a hard and slippery surface, like the slide in a playground. He slid down and around at an accelerating rate of speed.
He at last struck hard ground and came to a halt with a thud. The slide deposited him on the floor of a subterranean room. He felt a brief pain in his backside but quickly determined there was nothing else wrong with his body. He clambered to his feet and looked around.
The trap door had already closed, leaving the room as dark as night. The only light came from a stone hearth in the center of the cellar. Inside the hearth, feeble flames flickered up from a few sticks of kindling.
As his eyes became accustomed to the dark, the nature of the cellar grew clearer. The floor area was approximately a dozen by a dozen feet in size. Large boulders heaped atop each other formed the four surrounding walls. As a result, the cellar looked less like the basement of a modern house than it did a grotto from the time of the cavemen.
A tripod perched over the fire smoldering in the hearth, the legs formed from three tree limbs twined together at the top. A curious looking kettle dangled from the head of the tripod. The kettle was filled with some sort of liquid, from which puffs of steam rose as it bubbled and boiled over the fire.
Next to the hearth sat a big wooden chair. This oddly shaped piece of furniture also looked like a prop taken straight out of a fairy tale. Both armrests were carved into the shape of serpents. Observing the chair straight on, the two snakes appeared to lunge at him, fangs bared. The shimmering light from the glowing red embers of the fire made them look all the more alive.
If he hadn’t seen it for himself, Taiji wouldn’t have believed that such a grim and gloomy cellar could be found in the middle of Tokyo. It belonged more to those rumored stories about grotesque and evil events that began with some poor soul tumbling down into a twilight Hades. The setting was so improbable he couldn’t help wondering if he had fallen into a bad dream.
However, as he looked around the cellar, an even more terrifying sight sent a cold shiver down his spine and made his whole frame tremble.
Off in the darkness, the details obscured by the surrounding gloom, a faint white object came into view. Taiji didn’t believe in ghosts, but in a place like this spooky cellar, anything that might have otherworldly origins was enough to freeze him with fright.
The apparition inched toward him, becoming more distinct with each step. Whatever it was, it moved on two feet, so it wasn’t an actual ghost. Except this creature sported an appearance more eerie and alarming than any ordinary ghost.
A disheveled head of silverly white hair dangled onto her shoulders. Beneath the stringy mat of hair, the wrinkled face of an old lady opened her mouth and flashed Taiji a toothless smile.
Her upper body was draped with an old brown shawl. A pleated skirt hung from around her waist. She wore sharp-tipped clogs on her feet. She was the splitting image of a wicked witch from European folklore. Catching full sight of her, Taiji let out a yelp and retreated to the furthest corner of the room.
“Hoh hoh! So happy to see you too! Now be a good boy and don’t run away. Grandma has an interesting tale to tell. Come here, come here.”
The old witch reached out a hand from beneath the shawl. Beckoning to him, she slowly closed the distance between them. When Taiji dodged to the left, so did she. When he shifted to the right, so did she. As if an invisible cord tied the two of them together, the old woman followed every attempt to evade her as closely as his own shadow.
There was no escape route inside the cellar. No matter how far he ran, he would eventually end up in her grasp. Taiji finally accepted the desperate straits he found himself in and stopped in his tracks. His face pale, he fixed his gaze on her and waited for the old woman to catch up with him.
“Oh, there’s a good boy. Good boy. You’re quite the fine young man, aren’t you? Courage to spare. Well, then, shall we hold a staring contest? The first one to laugh loses. What do you say?”
Taiji couldn’t tell if she was being serious or pulling his leg. Having thrown down that strange challenge, she stood in front of Taiji. Beneath her white eyebrows, her eyes glittered in a menacing manner. She gazed at his face without blinking.
For a long minute, the bizarre scene went on as the two glared at each other. Taiji felt like he was going to keel over but managed to hang on. He gritted his teeth and glowered at her with every ounce of discipline he could muster. But the grandma’s eyes only grew bigger and bigger until they seemed to cast off a blue glow like a predatory animal, as if an invisible electrical current leapt through the air between them.
At last, her uniquely piercing eyes still wide open, a creepy smile crossed the wrinkled face of the old woman. She raised both hands in front of Taiji’s face and began waving her arms back and forth like the conductor of an orchestra.
These movements must have possessed a mesmerizing power, for the world before Taiji’s eyes went white. The old grandma’s face vanished from his sight. And not only her face. As if wrapped in a thick haze, the cellar and everything in it faded into a hazy fog while his brain fell into a stupor.
Ah, this is no good! Taiji thought. That old witch is casting a spell on me! I’ve got to stay on top of this!
He did his best to keep his wits about him, but the waves projecting from her eyes overwhelmed him and reduced his wits to a dreamy state of mind.
“I’ve—I’ve—got to go home—Mom, a little help here, please—”
Mouthing meaningless gibberish, as if talking in his sleep, Taiji felt his willpower evaporate. He lapsed into semi-consciousness and collapsed like a spineless blob. Lying on the ground in a daze, he struggled to get his feet under him. But his energy ebbed away until he fell into a dead stupor, hardly any more alive than a corpse.
“Hoh, hoh! So you’ve finally decided to take a nap. Behold the power of the hypnotic arts. An obedient boy like you will do everything I say. While you are sleeping, you will remember everything I tell you. Do you understand?”
The grandma leaned over Taiji’s prone body. She again raised her hands in the air, swaying back and forth as she chanted an incantation. Taiji had been bespelled by the old witch. Except in this day and age, surely no such thing as witchcraft existed. Rather, the words recited by the grandma were designed to induce in him a hypnotic trance.
The hypnotist possessed the daunting power to make a person sleep at will. The hypnotist issued commands while he slept, and had him carry out those orders when he awoke.
Chapter 5
The Mysterious Thief
Taiji returned home around seven o’clock just like it was another ordinary day.
“Tai-chan, why are you so late?” his mother asked.
“I was studying at a friend’s house,” he said, making no mention of the events that had taken place only a short time before.
“Tai-chan, your dinner is ready and the table is set. Please hurry up and eat.”
Acting like he couldn’t bear to look at the faces of his mother and the maids, Taiji silently headed to his father’s study, where he conducted himself as quietly as a little bird before heading to his room.
