“But I know a place they might be,” Chugo said.
“Where?” Hirata demanded.
Chugo looked unhappy because his obligation to Hirata was going to take more time than he liked, as well as incriminate his dead master even more. But he said, “I’ll show you.”
“Lord Mori rents this warehouse,” the clerk said. “This is it.”
He and Hirata and Detectives Inoue and Arai swung off their horses outside a building, one in a uniform row with whitewashed walls and steeply pitched tile roofs that fronted on a quay. Men rowed boats, laden with vegetables, along a canal. All the warehouses except the one that had belonged to Lord Mori bustled with activity as porters unloaded the boats and carried the goods inside. His was silent, its huge doors locked. The quay was crowded and noisy, but at night it would be deserted, a perfect place to receive contraband.
“Let us in,” Hirata told Chugo.
Chugo unlocked the warehouse doors and flung them open. Hirata and the detectives strode inside. The cavernous space was warm and dank, lit by barred windows near the roofline. The air had a faint, greasy, metallic odor. Wooden crates stood ranged, ten wide and three high, along one wall. Anticipation leapt in Hirata as he and his men hurried toward them. They raised the lid of one crate. The smell of iron wafted up. Inside, swathed in greased cloth, lay a pile of arquebuses, their long barrels gleaming dully.
Hirata, Inoue, and Arai burst into a simultaneous cheer. “I knew it! Lord Mori was plotting a rebellion,” Hirata exulted.
“These have to be the weapons you saw,” Inoue said.
“Proof doesn’t come much better than this,” Arai said.
Chugo slouched by the door, looking miserable. Hirata pitied this samurai who’d betrayed his master. “You did the right thing,” Hirata assured Chugo again. “Even now that Lord Mori is dead, the rebellion could have gone on without him if you hadn’t reported him. You may have prevented another war.”
The clerk didn’t seem any happier. “What are you going to do with the guns?”
“We’ll take them to Edo Castle. They’re evidence in the murder investigation.” Hirata told Inoue, “Go hire some porters to carry them for us.”
Inoue hastened off to obey. Chugo said nervously, “You won’t tell anybody that I was the one who led you to them?”
“Not anybody more than necessary,” Hirata said.
Unsatisfied yet resigned, Chugo said, “Can I go now?”
“Yes,” Hirata said. “Thank you for your cooperation.”
Chugo sped off like a rat with its tail on fire.
“It would be nice if we could discover who Lord Mori’s coconspirators were,” Arai said.
“Let’s see if there are any clues with the guns,” Hirata said.
They opened all the crates, removed the guns, but found no letters or other papers to show where they’d come from or who besides Lord Mori owned them. Hirata and Arai repacked the crates. Refusing to be discouraged, Hirata said, “We’ll search this whole place.”
That promised not to take long. The warehouse appeared empty except for the crates, its floor swept clean. “They were careful not to leave traces of themselves,” Arai commented.
“Don’t give up hope yet.” Hirata looked upward and noticed an enclosure built on a platform high in a corner. A wooden ladder led to it.
Hirata and Arai climbed the ladder. Inside the enclosure was an office with a view out a window that overlooked the canal. It contained a writing desk, a fireproof iron trunk, and a round, open bamboo basket. Arai lifted the lids of the desk and trunk.
“Empty,” he said.
“Wait.” Hirata gazed into the basket. A repository for trash, it held sunflower seed shells, dust balls, and wadded papers. He picked out the papers and flattened them. There were three, each bearing handwritten characters. Even before he read them, recognition jarred him.
“What do they say?” Arai asked.
Foreboding drummed a warning signal through Hirata. He read the first page: “ ‘Meeting on night after tomorrow. Observe usual precautions.”“
He shook his head. It couldn’t be. The dim warehouse echoed with his disbelief.
Arai looked over his shoulder at the second page, which was a roughly drawn sketch of Edo with the castle, river, and a few streets labeled. Hirata read aloud the third page, a list of four daimyo and three high-ranking Tokugawa officials. After each name were scribbled numbers in the thousands.
“It looks as if the leader of the conspiracy had scheduled a secret meeting of the men who were in on it,” Arai said. “The map could be their battle plan. The list must be their names and the amounts of money and troops they were pledging.” These ideas jibed with Hi-rata’s own. “This is good information. Now if only we can find out who wrote this, we’ll have them all.”
“No,” Hirata said, “no, it’s not good.” Agitated by horror, he thrust the papers at Arai. “This is Chamberlain Sano’s writing. If it’s what we think, then he’s the leader of the rebellion conspiracy.”
17
When Sano arrived home late that night, he discovered that the roof above his office had given way under the constant rain. Servants were busy cleaning up pieces of soggy ceiling that had fallen, moving out his furniture, and rolling the drenched tatami. In the adjacent chamber Sano found Reiko spreading his wet books, scrolls, and papers on the floor to dry. Masahiro was blotting them with a cloth. Sano frowned because Reiko looked even worse than when Hirata had brought her home from the Mori estate. She wore no makeup to cover the shadows under her eyes, which brimmed with misery. Brushing back a strand of disheveled hair, she managed a wan smile at Sano.
“What a mess this is,” she said. “But I think we can save most of it.”
“Good. I’d hate to think that a little rain could bring down the Tokugawa bureaucracy by destroying my paperwork.” Because Masahiro was present, Sano matched Reiko’s light tone. “But never mind the mess. You should be resting. Let the servants clean up.”
Reiko sighed. “I need to keep busy, to distract myself.” Sano couldn’t help wondering if there was something more troubling her than he knew. She said, “Masahiro, it’s time for bed.”
“But I have to finish wiping the papers.”
“Tomorrow,” Reiko said. “Go. That’s a good boy.” When he’d left, she turned eagerly to Sano. “What’s happened?”
Sano hated to dash the hope that brightened her eyes. “I wish I had better news. But I spent most of the day checking with all my informants and spies, and they gave me no clues about Lord Mori, and no dirt on Hoshina.”
Trying but failing to hide her disappointment, Reiko separated a stack of wet pages. The thin rice paper tore despite her carefulness. “What about your inquiries at the Mori estate? Did you discover anything there?”
“No guns, no missing boy. For a while I thought we’d found the murdered one buried on the grounds, but I was mistaken.” Sano didn’t elaborate, lest the tale of the dead baby upset Reiko. “And I’m sorry to say there are no new suspects.”
“I thought I would have some by now, but I was mistaken, too,” Reiko said. “I sent Lieutenant Asukai to investigate the Black Lotus sect. But even though he managed to chase down some members, they didn’t seem to know anything about Lord Mori’s murder. And there have been no rumors that the Black Lotus is up to anything other than petty crime.”
Sano took the news in stride, but unwelcome thoughts preyed on his mind. He said, “Have you remembered anything else about that night at the Mori estate?”
“No,” she said. “I’ve tried, but I can’t.”
Her sincerity would have convinced anyone who didn’t know her as well as Sano did. He felt her withdraw into herself, as though shrinking from a threat. “Are you sure?”