Tora followed. They walked in the dusty footprints of others past an interior garden, and stepped up into the main room of the house. It had once been the best room of a prosperous merchant family. The wooden beams and walls had darkened over the years, and many stockinged feet had polished the raised wooden boards to a deep luster, now dulled by dirt and scuff marks. In one corner the floor was charred black. Someone had either lit an open fire there or spilled burning charcoal and left it. It was a miracle the house had not burned down. Spills and food stains marred the floor where it was not covered with the abandoned belongings of prior occupants. Clothing and bedding lay about in heaps wherever they had been kicked.
“Whose house is this?” Tora asked, surprised. “Where are the servants? The family?”
Kinjiro went out on a narrow veranda overlooking the small garden and sat down. “It belongs to Buntaro. He’s second in command. No servants. Just an old man.” He started eating with the greedy appetite of a growing boy.
It was much lighter outside than in the house and Tora looked curiously at the plants and small fish pond that filled the enclosed space. The fish in the pond were dead, bloated forms that floated on the surface, and the plants needed water. He sat down and looked dubiously at his food. He had not eaten for more than a day, but the sight of the dead fish made him feel queasy again. He took a small bite of the vegetables. It was good, and he tried some rice. “But there must have been women and servants once,” he said between mouthfuls.
“Don’t know. We haven’t been here long.” Kinjiro did not bother to empty his mouth but talked around the food. “There was nobody here but the old man when we came. The old man’s gone away on a trip.”
Tora had an uncomfortable feeling about the place. His encounter with the vicious Matsue had been bad enough. Now he was involved with a gang of thugs and thieves who would not think twice about killing him if they found out what he was up to. Though he was not precisely working for the police, the criminals would certainly see it that way.
And then there was a chance that the police might be tipped off by a neighbor and decide to raid this place. The guard was not at the door for nothing. If Tora, already a defendant in a murder case, were caught living with a gang so soon after his arrest, he would not have a chance in hell to prove his innocence. But it was a little late to back out now. He reminded himself that he was on the trail of Tomoe’s killer.
Kinjiro departed with his empty bowl and returned with a large pitcher of wine and two cups. Tora, who was making little headway with his food, refused the wine. His head pounded until he was nearly cross-eyed with the pain. What he needed was water. He watched the boy pour down several brimming cups in quick succession. “Are you allowed to drink all that?”
“Sure,” boasted Kinjiro, belching. “It’s the best. Kata Sensei gets it from one of his clients. Here! Try some.”
“I need water,” croaked Tora, staggering to his feet, “and the outhouse.”
Kinjiro got up. “I’ll show you.”
They passed down another dark corridor and through a back door into a fenced service area with several smaller buildings. Kinjiro pointed out the latrine, but Tora made straight for the well. When he reached it, he ran out of strength and sat down heavily. Kinjiro pulled up a pail of water, dipped a ladle in and offered it to Tora. “You don’t look too good,” he said needlessly.
Tora drank and handed the ladle back. “I’ll be all right in a minute,” he muttered, closing his eyes.
“Are you sure? Because I can’t stay.”
Tora’s eyes flew open. “You’re leaving?” he yelped. He had visions of a gang of bandits jumping on the strange intruder and asking questions later. “Who’s going to explain to the others what I’m doing here?”
Kinjiro narrowed his eyes. “You aren’t afraid, are you?”
Tora flushed. Of course he was afraid, but he could not disillusion his only ally. “Don’t be an idiot,” he snapped. “I want to get some sleep and I don’t want every fool who trails in to shake me awake because he’s never seen me before.”
“Oh.” The boy relaxed and grinned. “I’ll tell the guy at the door to warn them. See you in the morning then.”
Tora nodded and watched him disappear into the house. Actually, the situation was not without interest. He was alone in a robber’s den-well, alone except for the character at the street door, and he would hardly leave his post except for an emergency, such as a trip to the outhouse. Tora eyed the latrine and decided to use it himself.
When he emerged, he investigated the service yard. It was nearly dark by now. Wishing he had a lantern, Tora poked around in the large shed. It held household goods. He made out firewood, tools, spare buckets, a ragged broom, a coil of rope, a couple of braziers, a ladder, and an abandoned bathtub filled with sacks of beans, strings of onions, root vegetables, and a lot of other unidentifiable household goods.
A storehouse stood in the middle of the yard. It was the most substantial of the outbuildings, covered with plaster and roofed with tiles. Storehouses protected family valuables from the fires that often consumed the wooden dwellings, and this one was securely locked. No doubt the gang kept its ill-gotten gains in it.
Night was falling rapidly and already the unfamiliar place was full of black shadows and eerie sounds. Something knocked and something else scrabbled. When Tora thought he heard a groan, he retreated into the house.
It was even darker there. Suppressing irrational fears about ghosts and goblins, Tora felt his way down the dark corridor to the main room, where he could barely make out the piles of bedding. Helping himself to one of the quilts, he curled up in a corner and went to sleep.
He slept fitfully because he was nervous and because his head bothered him. At one point he thought he heard voices and steps, but nobody came to disturb him. Toward morning he fell into a deeper sleep and did not wake until well after daylight. To his surprise, he was still alone.
He sat up and gave a tentative shout, but no one appeared. After rolling up his bedding and tossing it back on the pile, he went to take a look around, but the rest of the house was as empty as the main room. Even the guard had disappeared.
This last discovery made Tora very uncomfortable. Where had the guard gone? And why? And why had he been left behind? He could not rid himself of a sense of impending disaster. Did they expect a raid? Perhaps he had been left to be arrested for some crime the others had committed during the night. He listened for the pounding boots and whistles of police constables, but all remained still.
Much too still! The sun was up. Where were the normal sounds of a neighborhood waking to another work day?
The urge to run warred with Tora’s curiosity. He stood uncertain for a moment, then decided that he would at least do a quick search of the rooms first.
In the kitchen he found evidence that someone had visited the house during the night. The rice pot was empty and on a shelf was a paper containing two square rice cakes and a lot of crumbs. Tora helped himself to the cakes, then checked the rest of the house. He found little of interest, apart from some spare clothing and one or two weapons of the type common among criminals, until he opened the door to a room that was furnished better than the rest. It had thick grass mats on the floor, its own small garden court, and a few pieces of well-made furniture. Apparently it was used as a guest room for an honored visitor.
Among the furnishings stood a large ironbound chest of the type used by traveling merchants to carry precious goods. Tora checked it. It was locked. The police would force the lock, he thought, and listened again for the sound of their pounding feet, but the same eerie silence prevailed. He was about to open a clothes chest, when he heard an odd little bump in the corridor outside. He peered cautiously out the door. The corridor was empty. Deciding he must have imagined it, Tora turned back to the clothes chest. And here he finally made a discovery, though what it meant was more than he could understand. On the bottom of the clothes chest, underneath the folded jackets, shirts, and pants, he found some documents. They seemed to belong to Matsue. Tora had no wish to be caught rifling through that character’s private property and quickly flipped through them. Some were about his training and qualifications as a swordsman and some were old travel permits. But two pieces of paper made him whistle softly in surprise.