Because of this, Futabatei asked a friend of his, Natsume Sōseki, to continue mentoring the Mozume sisters. With this, both of them finally can continue learning to write. During a period between 1901 to 1912, Teruko would publish her works using the name Iwata Yumi (岩田 由美) and Iwata Yuriko (岩田 百合子) while still under the mentorship of Natsume.

Sometime after her apprenticeship, she would marry the diplomat Sawayanagi Masatarō. While stationed in England with her husband, she would discover the works of Arthur Conan Doyle which may have sparked her interest in mystery fiction. After her trip to England however, things went somewhat downhill. Sawayanagi divorced her and during this period, she began to study the art of nagauta. Nagauta (長唄) itself is a type of traditional Japanese music best described as a shamisen accompaniment to kabuki plays. A far distance from the fiction she wrote before.

But then, Teruko found a new mentor in two mystery novelists of the time, Morishita Uson (森下雨村, 1890 - 1965) and Ōshita Udaru (大下宇陀児, 1896 - 1966). With the two of them she started to write in this new budding genre at the time of detective fiction. With her mentoring, she would begin to publish her mystery stories to several publications in the country. Her debut work Dancing Shadow Puppets (踊る影絵) was a collection of strange stories written by Teruko, first published in 1938 and gained popularity, Teruko was advertised as "A comet in the world of detective fiction". Edogawa Ranpo, a fellow mystery writer had commented on this new and upcoming writer.

With great praise from peers, Teruko continued to write and her popularity steadily grew, she never wrote full novel-length stories but continued writing short "strange" stories as she would put it. Her next hit story would be The Cursed Phantom Dog (呪いの妖犬) in 1951 which I will talk about later down the line.

Unfortunately however, in 1960 she would pass away without becoming the "Japanese Christie" that Ranpo had hoped she would become, since then she fell into obscurity until her introduction in the Bungō Stray Dogs series. Like her nickname, she truly was a comet in the Japanese mystery novel scene.

Literary Work

The Cursed Phantom Dog

The story is very much reminiscent of a different story but from the English-speaking world. The Cursed Phantom Dogs was not a story purely created by Teruko's imagination but, is also partially a retelling of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's work "The Hound of the Baskervilles" published in 1902.

This inspiration however does not make Teruko a "bad writer" in any sense. Writers from all over have drawn inspirations and retold stories through a new lens. Teruko's praise early on into her career showed that her writing skills had merit. However, it is always unfortunate when many important writers like her are forgotten to time.

Unlike the rest of her peers in the Hunting Dogs, Teruko herself is the odd one out of the group (discounting Tachihara Michizō). She was uninvolved in politics unless you count her husband's position as an educator and diplomat in England. However, besides that fact there is little to no connection that can be made to the other members of the Hunting Dogs.

As of writing this the most recent chapter is the 100th chapter (At The Port In The Sky, Part 9). [Spoilers ahead, please bold the text after this if you're okay with spoilers] With her meeting with Edogawa becoming a plot point now, I wonder if their relationship will mirror how Ranpo had felt about writings. Maybe Teruko might be complimented by Ranpo for her skills? Who knows, I look forward either way.