“What’s the matter with you?” Fukida asked.
The prisoner didn’t answer. His spasms passed, his body went limp, and the sword fell from his hand. He lay gasping.
“He must be ill,” Sano said. “I don’t think he’s any danger to us. Bring him out.”
Marume and Fukida cautiously reached into the hole. As they grasped the prisoner and lifted him, he shrieked, “No! Don’t touch me! It hurts!” He was emaciated, all bones and shriveled flesh. White cotton bandages swathed his right leg from toes to knee. They were stained with blood and pus from a wound that Sano identified as the source of the foul, rotten odor as well as the prisoner’s agony. The detectives dumped the prisoner on the bed, where he lay helpless and sobbing.
“Is that the Ghost?” Hirata said in a dubious tone.
Sano couldn’t believe that this invalid was the assassin who’d terrorized the regime. Crouching by the bed and setting down the lamp, Sano inspected his prisoner more closely. The man’s dirty, uncombed hair was long at the back and sides, but short stubble covered his crown, which had once been shaved: He was a samurai. Fukida held up the sword he’d retrieved from the hole. It was expensively crafted, the hilt bound with black silk cord and decorated with gold inlays, a mark of high status.
“Who are you?” Sano asked the prisoner.
His hollow eyes, underscored by dark shadows and wet with tears of pain, blazed with hostility toward Sano. “I know who you are,” he whispered between gasps and moans. “You’re Chamberlain Sano, running dog for Lord Matsudaira. Go ahead and kill me. I’ll tell you nothing.”
At least he’d identified himself as a member of the opposition, Sano thought. Then another convulsion gripped the prisoner. He cried, “Help me! Make it stop! Please!”
Hirata crouched beside Sano. He showed the prisoner a black lacquer vial. “This is opium. It will take away the pain. Answer Chamberlain Sano’s questions, and I’ll give it to you.”
The prisoner eyed the vial with fierce, hungry longing. Perspiration drenched his pale skin as the spasms faded. He nodded weakly.
“Who are you?” Sano repeated.
“Iwakura Sanjuro.”
That name had appeared on General Isogai’s list. “He’s from Yanagisawa’s elite squadron,” Sano told his men, then asked Iwakura, “How were you injured?”
“Shot,” he gasped out. “During our last attack on Lord Matsudaira’s troops.”
The wound had festered, spreading poison through his blood, Sano deduced; he now suffered from the fever that brought convulsions, wasting, and death. “When did this happen?”
“In the third month of this year.”
One month ago. “How long have you been sick?”
“I don’t recall.” Iwakura winced and groaned. “Seems like forever.”
Sano looked at Hirata and said, “He’s not the Ghost.”
“He’d have been too weak to stalk and kill Chief Ejima or Colonel Ibe,” Hirata agreed. “And he certainly couldn’t have invaded your compound and escaped last night.”
Yet although discouragement filled Sano, his captive wasn’t necessarily a dead end. He asked Iwakura the whereabouts of Yanagisawa’s other fugitive troops, naming each. Iwakura revealed that one was dead; four others had gone to ground in the provinces last winter, and he hadn’t seen them since.
“What about Kobori Banzan?” Sano said.
Iwakura groaned; his throat contracted. “Here.”
“Here?” Sano frowned in surprise. “At the Jade Pavilion?” He and Hirata and the detectives exchanged glances, wondering if one of the other men they’d caught was the last of the missing seven-and the Ghost.
“Not now,” Iwakura said. “We were hiding out in this room. But he left.”
“When?” Sano demanded.
“Yesterday. Or the day before.” Delirium clouded Iwakura’s eyes. “I don’t remember.”
Sano desperately wanted Kobori to be the Ghost, for if he wasn’t, Sano didn’t know who else was or where to look for the assassin. “Does Kobori know the technique of dim-mak?”
Moments passed while Iwakura squeezed his eyes shut and fought a silent battle with pain. Sano told Hirata, “Give him some opium.”
Hirata opened the vial and poured a few drops of the potion into Iwakura’s mouth. Soon Iwakura relaxed as the pain eased. Sano repeated his question. Iwakura nodded. “I never knew before. He kept it secret. But yesterday… or whenever it was…” His gaze blurred while his mind wandered. “Before he left, I asked him to kill me. I’m dying, I’m no good for anything. I wanted him to cut my throat and put me out of my misery. He said he couldn’t-it would make trouble.”
Such a death would have appeared to be murder, which would have focused police attention on the occupants of this room. Kobori the fugitive wouldn’t have wanted that.
“But he said he would help me. He touched my head. He said I would die soon. It would look natural.”
Sano held the lamp close to Iwakura’s head. There, on the thin, waxy skin near the temple, he could just make out a fingerprint-shaped bruise. Sano inwardly cursed his bad luck. That he’d just missed the assassin!
“Where did Kobori go?” he asked.
“I don’t know. A woman came to see him. He went off with her.”
Shock flashed across Sano’s nerves. “Who was she?”
Iwakura quaked and grunted in another convulsion. “I think he called her Yugao.”
And here was confirmation that Yugao and the Ghost were together, just as Reiko had suggested. Sano whistled out his breath in a rush, marveling that her investigation had brought him a break in his. Yet when he pressed Iwakura to remember if the couple had said anything to indicate where they meant to go, the man gritted his teeth and said, “I’ve already told you everything I know. Give me the opium!”
Sano nodded to Hirata, but Iwakura suddenly convulsed again. His body stiffened, his eyes closed, and the life deserted him. The touch of death had taken effect. As Sano beheld the corpse, he thought, That could be me soon.
“If only we could have arrived earlier,” Hirata lamented.
“But at least we know who the Ghost is,” Sano said, his spirits buoyed despite his disappointment. “That’s a big advantage. And we know that he and Yugao are together. A couple should be easier to find than a man alone.”
27
Noon had come and gone before Sano and Hirata returned to Edo Castle. As they rode through the passages with their detectives, the sun shone but clouds massed beyond the distant hills. The swampy, fetid scent of the river saturated the cool wind. The castle wasn’t as deserted as yesterday; soldiers escorted officials about their business. But their manners were subdued as they bowed to Sano in passing: Fear of the death-touch still pervaded the castle. Sano spotted Captain Nakai loitering near a checkpoint. Their gazes met, and Nakai seemed about to speak, but Sano turned away from his original prime suspect, an embarrassing reminder of the wrong turn his investigation had taken at the start. When Sano and his men arrived in his compound, Reiko came hurrying out of the mansion to meet him.
“What happened?” Her face was filled with gladness at seeing Sano alive. “Did you find them?”
Sano watched her air of expectancy fade at the discouragement on their faces. “You were right about Yugao and the Ghost. But we were too late.” He told her what had happened at the Jade Pavilion.
“Have you spent all night looking for him and Yugao?”
“Yes,” Sano said. “We questioned the other guests at the inn, but Kobori kept to himself while he was living there, and they couldn’t tell us where he and Yugao might have gone.”
“The sentries at three neighborhood gates near the Jade Pavilion saw a couple that fit their description pass by yesterday,” Hirata said. “But we couldn’t find any other witnesses who remember them.”
“They must have realized they were conspicuous and traveled separately,” Sano said. “My troops are out searching every neighborhood, starting near the Jade Pavilion, warning every headman and gate sentry to be on the lookout for Kobori and Yugao.” Exhaustion washed over Sano and his spirits fell. This massive search was like hunting for two bad grains of rice in a thousand bales. “We came home to put more men on the streets.”