The small dining room at the front was jammed with customers who sat on the floor, scooping food into their mouths with chopsticks. In the rear kitchen, huge rice pots simmered. Cooks flung wriggling eels on chopping blocks, split them from gill to tail, cut off the heads, and extracted the bones. The long strips of meat, skewered on bamboo sticks and basted with soy sauce and sweet sake, roasted over an open fire. Clouds of pungent smoke whetted Hirata’s appetite and evoked a sharp pang of nostalgia. The restaurant reminded him of establishments he’d frequented during happier days as a doshin. He’d been so confident then; how could he have known his career would founder upon a woman’s treachery?
Hirata sat, then ordered a meal from the proprietor, a stout man with missing finger joints on both hands. Customers and staff exchanged gossip. The place was clearly a popular local meeting place. Maybe this trip didn’t have to be a waste of time after all.
The proprietor brought Hirata’s food: chunks of grilled eel and pickled eggplant on rice, with a pot of tea. Hirata introduced himself, then said, “I’m investigating the murder of a peddler not far from here. Have you heard about it?”
Wiping his sweaty brow with a rag, the man nodded. “Lots of bad things happen nowadays, but it’s still a shock when it’s someone you know.”
Hirata’s interest stirred. “You knew him?” This was the first person to admit an acquaintance with Choyei, who seemed a recluse without friends or family.
“Not very well,” the proprietor confessed. “He never talked much; kept to himself. But he ate here often. We had a deaclass="underline" he let me buy things cheap, and I took messages from his customers. He roamed all over town, but word got around that he could be reached here.” The proprietor glanced at the Tokugawa crests on Hirata’s garments, then said, “Mind if I ask why a high-ranking official like you is interested in an old peddler?”
“He supplied the poison that killed the shogun’s concubine,” Hirata said.
“Hey. Wait. I don’t know anything about poison.” The proprietor raised his hands defensively. “As far as I knew, the old man sold only healing potions. Please, I don’t want any trouble!”
“Don’t worry,” Hirata said, “I’m not after you. I just need your help. Did a man wearing a dark cloak and hood come looking for the peddler yesterday?”
“No. I can’t recall that anyone asked for him then.”
Disappointment descended upon Hirata: Perhaps this lead was a dead end after all. Reluctantly he said, “Were any of his customers women?”
“Oh, yes. Many, including fine, rich ladies. They bought medicine for female troubles.”
The proprietor relaxed, glad to turn the conversation away from murder, but Hirata’s heart sank. “Was one of the ladies tall, very beautiful and elegant, about twenty-nine, with a large bosom and lots of hair ornaments?”
“Could be, but not recently.” Eager to dissociate himself from the crime, the proprietor added, “Come to think of it, there haven’t been any messages or visitors for the old man in ages.”
A young, pimple-faced waiter, passing by with a tray of food, interjected, “Except for that samurai who came here just after we finished serving the morning meal yesterday.”
“What samurai?” Hirata and the proprietor said in unison.
The waiter distributed bowls of rice and eel. “The one I saw in the alley when I took out the garbage. He threatened to spear me if I didn’t help him find the peddler. So I told him where the old man lived. He left in a hurry.” The waiter looked stricken. “Was that who killed him? I guess I did the wrong thing.”
“What did he look like?” Hirata asked.
“Older than you. An ugly fellow.” The waiter thrust out his jaw, scowling in imitation. “He hadn’t shaved, and even though his clothes were the kind gentlemen wear, they were dirty, like he’d been sleeping outside.”
Elation buoyed Hirata. The description of the man and his weapon matched Lieutenant Kushida, placing him in the area at the time of Choyei’s death; he could have donned the hood and cloak later, as a disguise. His potential as a suspect outweighed that of Lady Ichiteru. Hirata ate his food and thanked the proprietor and waiter with large tips. Leaving the restaurant, he sent a messenger to Edo Castle with orders to search for Kushida around Daikon Quay. Then he rode toward the marketplace where an assassin had almost felled Lady Harume with a dagger.
“I’ll show you where it happened,” said the priest in charge of security at Asakusa Kannon Temple. A former Edo Castle guard, he had the powerful features of an iron war mask and a vigor undiminished by the amputation of an injured left arm, which had ended his past career. Hirata had called on him to review the official account of the attack on Lady Harume. Now he and the priest left the temple and walked along Naka-mise-dori, the broad avenue that led from the main worship hall to the great vermilion Thunder Gate.
Asakusa, a suburb on the bank of the Sumida River, straddled the highway that led to all points north. Travelers often stopped to have refreshments and make offerings at the temple. This convenient location made Asakusa one of Edo ’s most popular entertainment districts. Noisy crowds thronged the precinct, gathering around stalls that sold plants, medicines, umbrellas, sweets, dolls, and ivory figurines. The scent of incense mingled with the toasty smell of Asakusa’s famous “thunder crackers,” made of millet, rice, and beans. Consulting a clothbound ledger, the priest halted outside a teahouse. Nearby, audiences cheered three acrobats who spun iron tops on the rims of their fans while balanced on a plank perched atop tall bamboo poles supported by a fourth man.
“According to Lady Harume’s statement, she was standing here, like this.” The priest positioned himself at the corner of the teahouse, just inside the adjacent alley and half-turned away from the street. “The dagger came from that direction”-he pointed diagonally across Naka-mise-dori-“and struck here.” He touched a narrow slit in the plank wall of the teahouse. “The blade pierced Lady Harume’s sleeve. Any closer, and she would have been seriously injured-or killed.”
“What happened to the weapon?” Hirata asked.
“I have it here.”
From the ledger, the priest took a paper-wrapped package. Hirata opened this and found a short dagger with a tapering, sharply pointed steel blade, the haft wrapped in black cotton cord. It was the sort of cheap weapon used by commoners, easily hidden beneath clothing or under the bed… and sold everywhere.
“I’ll keep this,” Hirata said, rewrapping the dagger and tucking it under his sash, though he had minimal hope of tracing the owner. “Were there any witnesses?”
“The people nearby were all looking in the other direction, at the acrobats. Lady Harume had become separated from her companions and was very upset. Either she saw nothing, or fright made her forget. Vendors down the street noticed a man in a dark cloak and hood running away.”
Hirata’s heart gave a thump of excitement. The attacker had worn the same disguise as Choyei’s killer!
“Unfortunately, no one got a good look at the culprit, and he escaped,” the priest said.
“How?” This surprised Hirata. The Asakusa security force usually maintained order and subdued troublemakers with admirable efficiency. “Didn’t anyone chase after him?”
“Yes, but the incident occurred on Forty-six Thousand Day,” the priest reminded Hirata.
Hirata nodded in glum comprehension. A visit to the temple on this summer holiday equalled forty-six thousand visits on ordinary days, incurring the equivalent in blessings. The precinct would have been jammed with pilgrims. Additional stalls selling Chinese lantern plants, whose fruit warded off the plague, would have hindered the pursuit, while the confusion allowed the would-be assassin to flee. Sighing, Hirata gazed up at the overshadowing bulk of the temple’s main hall, the tiered roofs of the two pagodas. He envisioned the shrines, gardens, cemeteries, other temples, and secondary marketplace within Asakusa Kannon’s precinct; the roads leading through the surrounding rice fields; the ferry landing and the river. There were countless places for a criminal to hide, and just as many avenues for escape. Lady Harume’s attacker had chosen both time and place well.