"If I go out of business, the sales of rice will be held up. My customers, including the Tokugawa clan, will be short on cash for quite a while until other brokers can take over for me." Ogita's smile broadened. "Do you want thousands of armed samurai blaming you? How about a famine in the city? You'll be hounded out of the government."
Merchants had gained considerable power because the ruling samurai class had put its financial affairs into their hands, Sano knew. The traditional samurai belief that money was dirty had given the merchants a big advantage. Ogita was right; if Sano shut down a rice brokerage as big as Ogita's, the economy would suffer, and Sano would pay. But Sano's first concern was finding the shogun's wife.
"My men and I are going inside your house whether you like it or not," he said. "We'll kill anyone who tries to stop us."
Ogita's bodyguards looked at each other, shrugged, and moved away from the gate. Ogita dropped his smile just long enough to glare at them. Then he said, "How about if we strike a deal? I convert your rice stipend to cash for half my usual commission, and you leave me out of your investigation."
That discount would save Sano a small fortune, but he said, "Move, or I'll arrest you."
Ogita complied with bad humor. As Sano and his men marched through the gate, Ogita followed with his guards. Sano discovered that Ogita's home consisted of four houses, each at a corner of a square that made up an entire block, built around a central garden and connected by covered corridors. As Sano walked through them, people he took to be Ogita's family and servants scrambled out of his way. Ogita vanished into a maze of rooms crammed with expensively crafted lacquer tables and screens, shelves of valuable porcelain and jade vases and figurines, and cabinets filled with silk clothing that the merchant class wasn't supposed to wear.
"Maybe this is what Ogita didn't want us to see," Fukida said. "He's broken the sumptuary laws."
"Not only the sumptuary laws," Marume said, holding up swords he'd found in a trunk. Martial law said that only samurai were allowed to own swords.
"Never mind about that. All I care about is the shogun's wife." Sano called to his troops, "Turn this whole place upside down."
In a corridor, Sano met Ogita, who said, "Even if I had kidnapped the shogun's wife, surely you can't think I would be keeping her here."
"This is the one place you wouldn't expect anyone to look."
"Look to your heart's content. You're wasting your time."
"We'll see about that. Show me your private quarters."
Ogita led Sano to a bedchamber that adjoined an office and a balcony that gave him a view of his ware house and the river. The bedchamber was bare and austere compared to the rest of the house, furnished with a few tables pushed into its corners and silk cushions neatly stacked. Sano eyed the cupboards built into one wall.
"There's no room for a person in there," Ogita said. "I don't know what you expect to find."
Sano didn't, either. Gazing around the room, he saw a section of tatami that was slightly crooked where the bed would be laid at night. He crouched, lifted a corner of the mat, and touched the floor underneath. One of the boards was shorter than the others, and it was loose. Sano pried it up with his finger and found a square, empty compartment that was about as long as his forearm. He looked up at Ogita.
Ogita smiled. "I sometimes keep money there."
But instinct told Sano the compartment was used for other, secret things that Ogita had just dashed up here to hide. Sano noticed Ogita hovering by the partition that separated the bedchamber from his office. When Sano slid open the partition and stepped into the office, Ogita didn't object or move, but Sano pictured him hurrying to remove contents from the compartment and find somewhere else to secret them moments ago. This was the nearest place, and it offered many possibilities, because the space around the desk was crowded with fireproof iron cabinets and trunks.
"I work at home at night," Ogita said. "I don't need much sleep. That's the secret of my success."
While he spoke, Sano moved around the office. He listened for tension in Ogita's voice and heard it when he drew close to one cabinet.
"That's full of old sales records," Ogita said.
Sano opened the cabinet and saw rows of ledgers. Stuck into one row was a thinner volume with polished teak covers, just the size to fit in the hidden compartment. Sano pulled it out, opened it, showed it to Ogita, and said, "What kind of record is this?"
The book was a "spring book," a collection of erotic art. On the first page was a picture of a woman undressing. A man stood outside her room, peering through the window at her, masturbating his huge erection.
"It's nothing," Ogita said.
Sano turned the page. "If it's nothing, why did you hide it?" The next picture showed the man inside the room. He held the woman and fondled her while she struggled to free herself. His erection pressed against her. Her head was flung back, her mouth open in a scream.
"Every man in Edo has books like that," Ogita said.
"Every man in Edo isn't a suspect in three rapes and possibly four." Sano turned to the next picture. Here, the man straddled the woman. Her legs were spread, his erection thrust into her. She lay limp, her eyes closed, as if unconscious. "Maybe you do more than just look at these pictures."
Obstinacy veiled fear in Ogita's expression. "So what if I do?" He waved his hand at the book. "That doesn't prove I have the shogun's wife."
Marume and Fukida stood in the doorway, craning their necks to get a look at the pictures. "We've finished searching," Fukida said. "She's not here."
"See? I told you," Ogita said triumphantly.
Sano was disappointed, but not ready to consider Ogita exonerated. "What other properties do you own?"
"I have a villa across the river in Honjo and a summer house in the hills outside town," Ogita said. "But you won't find the shogun's wife there, either."
"Excuse me, Lady Reiko, this message just came for you," said Lieutenant Tanuma.
Reiko sat on the veranda, arranging flowers in a vase and worrying about Sano. "Is it from my husband?" Hoping the message said he'd found Lady Nobuko, she accepted the bamboo scroll case from her bodyguard. When she unfurled the scroll, she saw the red signature stamped beneath the characters written in black.
"It's from Chiyo." Reading the message, she raised her eyebrows in surprise. "Chiyo says Fumiko has left the Kumazawa estate. Her father came and took her. I can't believe it! He was so adamant about not wanting her back."
Reiko continued reading, and her surprise turned to concern. "Chiyo says there's trouble. She begs me to come at once. She'll explain when I arrive." Beset by anxiety, Reiko said, "What can be wrong? What should I do?"
"Your husband doesn't want you going back to the Kumazawa house," Tanuma said.
Reiko knew how displeased Sano would be if she went. "But Chiyo needs me. I can't refuse to help."
"Major Kumazawa would probably not let you in the door even though Chiyo invited you," Tanuma said.
"I'll take the chance." Reiko stood. "Are you coming?"
"If you say so." Tanuma had worked for her long enough to understand that arguing with her when she'd made up her mind was a lost cause.
As they hurried off, Reiko hoped she wouldn't be too late to help Chiyo.
Sano and his entourage gathered in the street outside Ogita's house. He assigned a few troops to follow Ogita, in case the rice broker could lead them to the shogun's wife. Fukida said, "Should we go search Ogita's other properties?"
"No," Sano said. "If the shogun's wife were there, he wouldn't have told us about them. I suspect those aren't his only other properties."