In the private quarters of his estate, Sano sat drinking hot tea with Hirata in his office. Outside, temple bells tolled, summoning priests, monks, and nuns to evening prayer rites; the distant gunfire subsided as darkness fell. The watchdogs had left Sano to make their reports to Lord Matsudaira and Chamberlain Yanagisawa, but their men still occupied the house. Through open partitions that divided several rooms adjoining his office, Sano watched the maids feeding Masahiro his supper in the nursery. Two thugs sat near Masahiro, guarding him. The little boy didn’t chatter or laugh as usual; he and the maids were quietly somber. Detectives stood in the corridor, ready to protect the household from the unwanted guests. An ominous gloom infected the estate.
“What have you learned?” Sano asked Hirata in a low voice that wouldn’t carry to the thugs in the nursery or elsewhere on the premises.
Hirata also kept his voice low as he described his visits to Tamura and Koheiji. “After I left them, I checked their stories about what they were doing at the time of Daiemon’s murder. The other actors at the Nakamura-za say that Koheiji left the theater for more than an hour during the rehearsal last night. He didn’t tell them where he went, or why.”
“Then he lied when he told you he was at the theater the whole night,” Sano concluded.
“Yes. He was gone long enough to kill Daiemon,” Hirata said. “And Tamura’s alibi is almost as weak. His men confirmed that he went to the army camp, but I think they were lying.”
“Did you find out whether anyone in the camp saw him?”
“By the time I got there, all the troops had gone to the battlefield. But neither Tamura nor Koheiji admitted anything about the night Makino died. And there doesn’t seem to be any evidence to connect either of them to Daiemon’s murder.”
Disappointment and fatigue, combined with his fears for Reiko, weighed upon Sano. “The same can be said for the women as for the men.” Sano told Hirata the results of his inquiries. “Agemaki stuck to her story about sleeping through Makino’s murder without seeing or hearing anything. Okitsu changed hers to include a glimpse of Daiemon standing over Makino’s corpse with the murder weapon in his hand, but I think she invented that.”
“By herself, or with help from someone?” Hirata said.
“The latter, I suspect, and I have a good idea who that someone is.”
Hirata nodded in accord. Sano continued, “I spent the afternoon establishing the women’s movements of last night. Agemaki’s palanquin bearers say they carried her around town for a while, then took her to a teahouse. She went inside and drank, while they went to a gambling den around the corner. They picked her up and took her home about an hour later. The teahouse isn’t far from the Sign of Bedazzlement.”
“She could have sneaked over there while the bearers were away gambling,” Hirata noted.
“When I questioned the owner of the teahouse, he said Agemaki is a frequent customer. She went out to the alley for a while, but he assumed she’d gone to the privy,” Sano said. “Later, I visited the Sign of Bedazzlement, under protest from the watchdogs. The proprietor didn’t recognize her name or my description of Agemaki. If Agemaki is the woman Daiemon met, she took care to conceal herself. But here’s an interesting fact I uncovered: A girl who matches Okitsu’s description was seen at the house by a maid who works there.”
“Then Okitsu could be Daiemon’s mistress,” Hirata said.
“The girl came in a palanquin,” Sano said. “She went inside one of the rooms-the maid isn’t sure whether it was Daiemon’s. But the maid is sure the girl was gone by the time Daiemon was found dead and the police came.”
“What do Okitsu’s palanquin bearers say?”
“They took her to four different houses last night,” Sano said. “At each place, she went inside, then came out a short time later. They don’t know what she was doing, and they’re not sure of the locations.” Edo was a maze of houses similar in appearance, where even a person who knew the city well could become confused. “Tomorrow I’ll send a detective out with the bearers to retrace their route and see if they can point out the places Okitsu visited. The best thing that happened to me today is that I exhausted Otani and Ibe while leading them around Edo and resisted letting them rush me into a premature arrest.”
Sano exhaled through his teeth. “I’m more certain than ever that the women are withholding information about what happened the night Makino died. And their movements the night of Daiemon’s death are as suspect as Koheiji’s and Tamura’s. But if there’s any evidence that they’re guilty of either murder, I’ve yet to find it.”
“I did find one lead,” Hirata said, and he reported learning about the house Daiemon kept. “After I finished investigating Tamura and Koheiji, I went there and had a look. It seemed empty, but I didn’t go in. I decided I should tell you first.”
“Well done,” Sano said. A glimmer of hope at a potential source of new clues brightened his spirits. “And a wise decision.” The fact that Hirata had chosen to consult him instead of rushing ahead on his own meant that Hirata was learning self-discipline. “I want a look inside that house, but the question is how.”
He and Hirata looked across the connecting rooms at the men watching Masahiro eat. Otani and Ibe would never allow Sano to investigate a clue concerning Daiemon that might lead to Lord Matsudaira or Chamberlain Yanagisawa. And if Sano left his house without them, his men would tell them.
Just then, Sano heard footsteps pelting down the corridor, accompanied by rapid, labored breaths. Reiko burst into the office. Her eyes were wild, her hair and clothes in disarray.
“Reiko-san!” exclaimed Sano. He was so glad to see his wife that at first he barely noticed her condition. “Thank the gods!”
He leaped up and enfolded her in his arms. She was cold, wet, and shivering. A closer look at her told Sano why his detectives hadn’t been able to find her at Makino’s estate: She’d disguised herself so well that they’d not recognized her. Now concern for her encroached upon Sano’s joy. “What happened to you?” he said.
Reiko was so winded after her mad dash through the official quarter that she couldn’t speak. As she struggled to catch her breath, she clung to Sano, overjoyed to be with him again, relieved to be home. Then she heard Masahiro call, “Mama!” and saw the little boy run toward her through the adjoining rooms. With a cry of delight, she pulled away from Sano and rushed to meet their son. The sight of two strange samurai in the nursery halted her. Masahiro collided against Reiko and threw his arms around her knees. Embracing him, she turned to Sano and Hirata in puzzlement.
“Who are those men?” she said. “What are they doing here?”
“I’ll explain,” Sano said, but first he gently detached Masahiro from her. “Go and get ready for bed, Masahiro. Mama will come to you soon.”
The boy toddled off with his nursemaids. The two strangers followed them. Sano seated Reiko by the charcoal brazier in his office and wrapped a warm quilt around her. Hirata poured her a bowl of tea. As she sipped the hot, invigorating liquid and warmed her icy hands on the bowl, Sano told her what had happened since she’d left home. Reiko listened in shock.
“But what happened to you?” Sano repeated with anxious concern.
“I had to leave Senior Elder Makino’s estate because his people figured out that I was a spy,” Reiko said.
She described how Yasue had caught her eavesdropping. But she didn’t say that Koheiji had tried to ravish her, Tamura had meant to kill her, or she’d fought her way out of the estate. Nor did she mention that she’d barely reached her own gate before Tamura’s troops came rushing up the street after her. If Sano knew, he would never let her spy again. Not that Reiko was eager to repeat the experiment, but she might need to in the future.