“Tamura-san,” he called.
The noise from the audience subsided into an expectant hush. Tamura turned, glancing at Sano but keeping his attention focused on Koheiji. “Sōsakan-sama,” he said, his manner amused as well as hostile. “Many thanks for discovering that this worthless gob of filth murdered my master. I suppose I owe you an apology for underestimating you. Now, if you’ll stand back, I’ll save you the trouble of arresting him.”
He lunged and slashed his sword at Koheiji. The actor vaulted backward, narrowly escaping the blade. The onlookers cheered. Their hunger for thrills exceeded any concern that their favorite’s life was in peril.
“I’m not the murderer.” His desperation obvious, Koheiji said, “Ask Okitsu. She’ll tell you.”
“She has,” Sano said. “She told me the whole story.”
“Louder!” came shouts from the audience. “We can’t hear you! Speak up!”
Sano glanced over his shoulder and saw hundreds of avid faces looking at him: He’d become part of the drama. “You did kill Makino,” he said to Koheiji, then addressed Tamura: “But he’s not a murderer.”
Both men stared at him. Tamura halted on the verge of another attack. Disbelief and confusion showed on both their faces.
“Tamura-san, you listened to only part of the story,” Sano said. “You overheard me tell Agemaki that Koheiji had been hired to assassinate your master. If you hadn’t rushed off so fast, you’d have heard there was no assassination plot, and Makino’s murder was an accident.”
“What?” Tamura exclaimed. The audience quieted, eager to hear the conversation.
“Makino collapsed during a sex game,” Sano said.
Koheiji exhaled a puff of relief that the truth had come out. “That’s right,” he said. “Makino dropped dead on Okitsu and me while we were giving him a little fun.”
“Quiet!” Bent on pursuing retribution, Tamura slashed his sword at Koheiji.
The audience gasped a collective breath. Koheiji drew his weapon and parried strikes; the audience cheered him on. But his sword was a mere theater prop. Tamura’s sword hacked off its wooden blade. Koheiji stared in dismay at the useless stub that fell from his hand.
“I don’t believe you,” Tamura said angrily to Sano. “You’re just trying to trick me out of my vengeance.”
“This is no trick,” Sano said. “The assassination plot was a fraud.”
Tamura glowered and raised his sword at Koheiji, who cried in desperation, “Get him out of here, will you please?”
Sano gestured for Hirata and the detectives to surround Tamura. As they moved in on him, Tamura ordered, “Get out of my way. Let me at him.” But indecision flickered in his eyes. Sano had shaken his certainty that Koheiji had murdered his master.
A gang of samurai jumped onto the walkway. Clad in tattered clothes, they appeared to be rōnin. Sano saw that they wanted to join the action, and they were too excited-or too drunk-to worry about the consequences of interfering with bakufu business. Ibe’s and Otani’s men held them back from rushing onstage. Their leader, a brute with an unshaved face and a red head kerchief, yelled, “Fight! Fight!”
The audience took up the chant. The rhythm, accompanied by stamping feet and clapping hands, rocked the theater.
“Makino drank too much aphrodisiac and overexerted himself,” Sano said. “He’s as responsible for his death as anyone else is.”
Tamura stood paralyzed. His face reflected shock, then disgust, then acceptance that lustful habits, not murder, had been his master’s undoing.
“Now that you know I’m innocent, can you all just go?” Koheiji whined. “Can I please finish the play?”
“Fight! Fight!” chanted the audience. The brute in the red head kerchief wrestled with Otani’s and Ibe’s troops as they tried to force him and his gang off the walkway.
“I’m afraid not,” Sano told Koheiji. “You see, Makino wasn’t quite dead when he collapsed. You shouldn’t have tried to make his death look like murder by an intruder. The beating you gave him is what really killed him.”
Koheiji stared in open-mouthed, silent horror. Sano could almost see his face turn pale under its makeup. “Merciful gods,” he whispered. “I had no idea…” He shook his head, ruing his mistake. Sano watched him realize that someone must shed blood for Makino’s death, and he was that someone. He staggered under the knowledge that he’d come to the end of living by his impulses and wits, and this was one scrape from which they couldn’t save him.
“Then Makino’s death was a stupid blunder by this fool,” Tamura said. “It’s not worth avenging. And a fool isn’t worth bloodying my sword.” Crestfallen, he lowered his weapon. But Sano discerned that he was relieved-he lacked the heart to enjoy killing. Now he sheathed the weapon. “I renounce my vendetta,” he said and jumped off the stage.
The audience and the gang of rōnin booed, furious to be cheated out of the carnage they wanted to see. Police moved through the theater, forcing the mob to clear the seats. Sano nodded to Detectives Marume and Fukida. They moved to Koheiji and grabbed his arms. He didn’t resist; he appeared too shattered by his misfortune. “You’re under arrest,” Sano said.
“My husband had discovered that Lord Matsudaira’s nephew and concubine were having a love affair,” Lady Yanagisawa told Reiko. “He’d learned about the signal that Lady Gosechi used to arrange secret meetings with Daiemon. He lured Daiemon to the Sign of Bedazzlement and sent me there to assassinate him.”
Lady Yanagisawa seemed unfazed that the detectives, as well as Reiko, were listening to her incriminate herself. Shocked by her admission even though already aware of what Lady Yanagisawa had done, Reiko said, “Weren’t you afraid? How could you do it?” A reason occurred to her. “What did the chamberlain offer you in return?”
“His love,” Lady Yanagisawa said.
Her mouth curved in a secretive smile; she sighed with pleasure. Reiko saw her suspicion confirmed. The chamberlain had taken advantage of his wife’s passion for him and promised to make the crime worth her while. After she’d rid him of his enemy, he’d rewarded her by bedding her as she had longed for him to do.
“I disguised myself as Gosechi. I wore my hair down,” Lady Yanagisawa said, stroking the black tresses that flowed down her bosom. “I put on the kind of bright, pretty clothes that Gosechi wears.” She touched her orange kimono. “I covered my head with a shawl. I carried a dagger that my husband gave me.” Her fingers curled around the hilt of an imaginary weapon.
“Why did you take Kikuko with you?” Reiko said.
Guilt shadowed Lady Yanagisawa’s features. Even if she didn’t care that she’d killed a man, she felt she’d done wrong by bringing her daughter on such an errand. “Kikuko has been difficult lately. When I tried to leave the house, she screamed and clung to me. She wouldn’t let me go. I had no choice but to take her along.”
Lady Yanagisawa shook her shoulders, casting off blame for her lapse of maternal responsibility. “We rode in the palanquin to the Sign of Bedazzlement. When we arrived, I told the bearers to wait for me down the street. I told Kikuko that she must stay inside the palanquin and be very quiet. She thought it was a game. I left her and hurried into the Sign of Bedazzlement.” Lady Yanagisawa drifted across the room as if in a trance, following the path along which the chamberlain had sent her that night. “There were other people in the house-I could hear them in the rooms. But the doors were shut. The corridor was empty. No one saw me.”
Reiko pictured Lady Yanagisawa’s furtive figure sneaking through the house of assignation, the dagger clutched hidden under her sleeve. Her eyes must have glittered with the same determination as they did now.