‘I don’t know. When you have an unexplained murder, you tend to wonder about everything. I’d like your permission to return to the doctor’s house to go through his papers in case they contain a clue to his death and young Masuda’s.’
‘Of course. Shall I send a constable along to give you a hand?’
‘Thank you, no. I think you need your men. Do you want me to reseal the place when I finish?’
‘No need for a seal. The servant’s watching.’
Akitada started to point out the need for keeping the scene of a crime secured until an investigation was complete, but thought better of it. He asked instead, ‘Who inherits the property?’
‘A nephew. We’re trying to contact him.’
‘Then he does not live here?’
‘He’s not been around for years. The servant says the young man travels a lot.’
‘Hmm.’
The warden chuckled. ‘If you’re thinking he might’ve returned to kill his uncle for the house, I doubt it. It’s practically a ruin, and there was no money apart from the little bit of silver in the trunk.’
This saintly reputation was beginning to irritate Akitada. ‘Did the neighbors see anyone?
‘Just the usual. Servants leaving and returning from shopping. A mendicant monk. A post boy with a letter for someone. A sedan chair that picked up one of the ladies for a visit to her shrine and brought her back again.’ He shuffled among his papers. And, yes, the fishmonger with a basket of fish for one of the houses.’
‘You checked them all?’
‘Yes.’ Gloom settled over the warden again. ‘I hope you turn up something.’
Warden Takechi had not bothered to leave a constable at the gate, and so Akitada wandered in uninvited. The doctor’s old servant was sweeping the courtyard.
He blinked, trying to recall Akitada’s name.
‘I’m Sugawara. The warden and I came yesterday. I have permission to look through your master’s papers.’
The servant nodded and put his broom aside. ‘The ladies asked about the funeral,’ he muttered as they walked through the tangled garden. ‘Couldn’t say. The body’s gone. Not even monks chanting. Disrespectful.’
‘The arrangements should be made by Dr Inabe’s relatives. He has a nephew, I hear.’
‘That one.’ The old man spat.
‘Wait until you hear from Warden Takechi.’ Akitada glanced around the lush wilderness. The garden was filled with sound. Birds were singing and chirping, calling out to each other and answering, challenging rivals or warning of the human presence among them. ‘The birds are doing their best to make up for the lack of chanting,’ he said with a smile.
The servant nodded. ‘They know,’ he said quite seriously. ‘Waiting to be fed. I’ll get some food.’
Akitada looked up into the dense branches. The foliage was alive. Did they know their benefactor was dead? They must have seen Inabe’s killer come with murder on his mind and watched him leave, his hands stained with the blood of their friend and that of one of their own. It was a foolish speculation, and Akitada turned to business.
The warden’s people had left the door to the studio unsealed. Muttering angrily under his breath, Akitada walked in. If anything, the stench was worse today. Like the warden, Akitada went to raise the shutters to the back garden. Light, fresh air, and birdsong poured in.
The room looked the same, except that the body was gone. The doctor’s blood still stained the floor, though, and attracted an occasional fly. More flies crawled on the dead crow. The warden had also taken the murder weapon, but the broken birdcage still lay there, and Akitada bent to pick up the pieces.
The old servant hovered at the door. He said, ‘I haven’t come in here.’ He did not explain if he feared the dead man’s spirit, thought to remain around its home for forty-nine days, or the warden’s anger.
Akitada said, ‘I’ll be working with your master’s papers. Don’t let me keep you from your chores.’
The old man looked relieved and crept away. Strange, thought Akitada, how many old men and their old servants he had met on this case. First the old lord and his servant, and now the doctor and his. Or perhaps it was not so strange. If loyalty meant anything, then master and servant would grow old together. He thought of Seimei. The bond between them was as strong as blood. The Masuda servant’s passionate hatred for Peony was due to that loyalty. But the doctor’s servant seemed more confused than grief-stricken or angry. Perhaps his claim that he had walked to his cousin’s funeral was untrue.
Enough theorizing. He needed facts.
He prowled around the room, looking at everything but the books and papers. The clothes box held plain and badly worn black robes and under robes, loin cloths, socks with holes in them, and a moldy black cap. Some of the things were good silk twill, but green with age. The dishes were a similar mix. Some were of cheap earthenware and some of fine china, but the china was cracked and chipped. Two pale rectangles on the wall suggested that paintings had hung there once. Otherwise, there was little of a personal nature in the room. No games or musical instruments. Just the broken birdcage.
It supported what he had been told of the doctor: that he had become an individual who cared nothing for personal luxuries, though once he had been well-to-do and had led a different life.
Akitada inspected the shelves of drugs and ointments next. He opened jars and twists of paper and sniffed at the contents. The doctor must have known what all this was, but Akitada was in the dark. Seimei or Tamako might know. Seimei had always dabbled in herbal medicines, and Tamako was an avid gardener who would probably recognize the dried plants that hung from the doctor’s rafters.
He looked at them: bunches of leaves, glaucous or grey, glossy or downy, coarse and smooth, large, small, feathery and spiny, palmate and toothed. He recognized none. Black, white and brown tubers hung among them, twisted and shriveled in their dried death. They reminded him of the neglected garden at home, of the dead wisteria, and of the coldness that had come between him and his wife.
He turned to the books and papers.
The doctor had the medical texts, the Ishimpo, as well as a series of herbals and pharmacological treatises. These, along with the Book of Changes, the Manyoshu, and the four Confucian classics, made up his library. But there were also handwritten scrolls and notebooks. The notebooks were what he had come for. They seemed to cover interesting medical cases and diary entries. Just what he needed. He laid them aside.
In the rolled-up scrolls, each sheet was carefully pasted to the next, while the notebooks were sewn together along one edge. The scrolls contained drawings and poetry. Akitada recognized some of the lines. Apparently, the doctor had liked the poems and had copied them for his own satisfaction. One of the scrolls was devoted to bird studies. It had drawings, as well as observations about avian habits and wise sayings and legends. On the most recent page, he found drawings of a crow and a detailed sketch of its wing. Under the drawings, Inabe had written down the legend of the crow that was sent by the goddess Amaterasu to guide the first emperor and his army to their new homeland.
The doctor’s peculiar obsession with birds seemed harmless, even attractive, but what if it had affected his judgment? He turned to look at the dead crow. Making a face, he picked it up. The flies had done their work thoroughly; the black carcass was dusted with a snow of eggs and crawling with white maggots. Some fell off as he held the large bird by its foot and carried it outside to place it under a shrub. The birds fell silent for a moment. He looked up. Another crow sat on a low branch, its head cocked and its beady eyes staring at him accusingly. ‘I didn’t do it. I’m sorry,’ he said and felt foolish. The crow gave a harsh squawk and flew off. The bird chatter started up again.
And here came the old man, carrying a small sack. When he reached the open area in front of the studio, he shouted, ‘Here it is. Come and eat.’