The public had followed the affair’s progress with great zest. Everyone talked of the gifts Mimaki lavished upon her; his poetic love letters; his neglect of wife, family, and work while he spent hours in the Water Lily’s private rooms with O-tama; and the huge sums he paid for the privilege. Their great love for each other had been so sure to end in tragedy, as forbidden romance always must, amid rumors of a government crackdown on bathhouse prostitution.
Sano reached Mimaki’s house, a large office-mansion with an unusually high wall that concealed all but the tip of its tile roof. He gave his name and title to the guard at the gate and said, “I wish an official audience with Mistress O-tama.”
The guard opened the gate, spoke to someone inside, and closed it again. “Please wait while your request is forwarded to Master Mimaki,” he told Sano.
As Sano dismounted and waited, he recalled how the story of Mimaki and O-tama had ended. The crackdown on bathhouse prostitution had proved unnecessary, as had the public’s sympathy for the doomed lovers. A fire had destroyed the Water Lily. Mimaki had sent his family to live in the country and taken O-tama into his home as his concubine. There, the gossips reported, he treated her like an empress, giving her everything she wanted. She did no work; servants waited on her hand and foot. Jealous of her beauty, wanting her all to himself, Mimaki shunned society. If an unavoidable visitor came, he placed a screen before her to hide her from view. The great love story having ended happily, the public’s interest moved on to other matters. Sano had heard nothing of O-tama in years. He wondered what she was like now, and pondered the strangeness of having her resurface as a murder suspect. And who would have thought that the blood of a great warrior like General Fujiwara flowed in her veins?
The gate opened. A middle-aged female servant, probably the housekeeper, bowed to Sano. “Please come with me.”
Sano followed her into the entryway to leave his swords. But instead of ushering him through the mansion’s public rooms, she led the way down a path alongside the house, through another gate, and into the most unusual garden Sano had ever seen. Gravel paths wound around the usual boulders, pines, and flowering cherries, but other less typical features dominated. From the delicate gray boughs of lilac trees, purple blossoms exuded a sweet perfume. Jasmine and honeysuckle vines draped the fence and veranda. Countless wind chimes tinkled from the branches of a red maple; birds twittered in wooden houses in the plum trees. Red carp splashed in a small pond, near which stood an odd seat, like ones Sano had seen in pictures of the Dutch traders’ quarters on Deshima, only with wooden wheels attached to its legs. Beside a bed of pungent mint knelt a gray-haired samurai in black kimono, weeding with a small spade.
The housekeeper led Sano to him. “Master Mimaki, here is Sōsakan Sano.”
Mimaki rose. As they exchanged bows, Sano noted with surprise that Mimaki, at sixty, looked not at all like the impetuous lover of a courtesan young enough to be his daughter. He was stout and ordinary-looking, with eyes that drooped at the corners and a narrow mouth tucked tightly between fleshy cheeks and chin. His tanned skin and muddy hands gave him a peasantlike appearance despite his shaven crown and high rank.
“I understand you wish to see O-tama on official business,” Mimaki said. His grave manner showed no jealousy.
“That’s correct.”
“Alone?”
Sano nodded. “I would prefer it, yes.”
Now Mimaki’s suspicious scrutiny, plus the fact that he was working in his garden instead of in his office, matched Sano’s expectation of a man preoccupied with his private life, into which he welcomed no intruders. But then Mimaki nodded, perhaps dismissing Sano as a rival.
“Very well.” He turned to the housekeeper. “Prepare Mistress O-tama for a visitor.”
The housekeeper hurried into the house. Mimaki and Sano followed more slowly.
“You may address O-tama under the following conditions,” Mimaki said as they walked down the corridor. “You will stay no less than ten paces from the screen. If you try to move the screen or step behind it, I’ll kill you. Is that clear?”
Shocked at this threat, delivered with no change of expression, Sano could only nod.
A door opened as they reached it, and the housekeeper slipped out, bowing them into a room that was bare except for a large wooden screen with thin mullions framing diamond-shaped paper panels. Light from the windows silhouetted a shadowy figure behind it.
Sano knelt in his designated place. Mimaki stepped behind the screen. Now two shadows appeared on its translucent paper, and Sano heard whispered conversation. Then Mimaki emerged, his face transformed almost beyond recognition. His eyes glowed; his mouth had relaxed into a smile at once joyful, sensual, and secretive. When he turned to Sano, his former gravity returned.
“Remember what I said.” Then Mimaki left the room.
Sano, uneasy about interrogating a suspect he couldn’t see, hesitated before speaking. How would he know if O-tama was telling the truth?
From behind the screen, she spoke! “It’s an honor and a pleasure to meet you, sōsakan-sama.”
Hers was one of the loveliest voices Sano had ever heard. High and sweet, it lilted and sang, tickled and warmed the inside of his chest. Sano smiled, despite the seriousness of this interview. Even so fresh from Aoi and so sure about his feelings for her, he couldn’t remain immune to O-tama’s charm. Many a man must have fallen in love with her voice alone.
“The pleasure is mine,” Sano replied, meaning it.
A maid appeared and set tea and cakes before him. “Do make yourself comfortable,” O-tama said. “And don’t let Mimaki-san’s rules bother you. He doesn’t mean to insult you; he’s just very protective of me. And I can tell from your voice that you’re an honorable, decent man.”
Her manner, though flirtatious, as, Sano suspected it would be toward any male, showed genuine affection for her master. Mimaki needn’t fear losing her, and probably for this reason had allowed the interview. So then why the screen, the threat?
“If you hadn’t come today, I would have invited you,” O-tama continued. “Because I’ve heard of your great talents, of course, but also because I have important information for you.”
“You do?” Sano said, taken aback by this reception, so unlike those he’d received from the other suspects. To give himself time to think, he lifted his tea bowl and drank, letting her continue.
“I like peace and privacy, and usually ignore the world,” O-tama said. “My dear Mimaki-san is my life. But I’ve followed these terrible murders with great concern. After the first and second, I guessed what was happening, and with the priest’s murder, the pattern became obvious to me. Yet still you, of whom I’ve heard tales of great courage and ability, hadn’t caught the killer. I decided I must come forth and tell you what I know.
“Sōsakan-sama, forgive my unwomanly boldness. I can’t name the Bundori Killer, but I can tell you why he kills-and why he must be one of three men.”
“Who are they?” Sano stalled, suppressing his eagerness. For a murder suspect, she seemed too forthcoming. Was this a bluff, designed to divert his suspicion? If only he could see her!
He peered through the screen, but could discern only the silhouette of her head, hair piled on top, rising above what looked to be heaped cushions. Age had probably filled out her face and figure, perhaps coarsened her skin and hair, but her voice suggested that she’d retained youth’s fresh vitality. Certainly her master’s continuing possessiveness meant she must be lovely still. Sano regretted more than just his inability to assess her honesty.