Akitada stared, aghast, and stumbled to his feet. "Where is she?"
Lady Sugawara studied her fingernails. "She has your younger sister's room."
Akitada found Tamako alone, seated on the small veranda outside. She was dressed in the white robes of mourning, her hair very dark against the silk and her pale skin. He had expected dejection, violent tears, anger- he knew not what- but he found instead utter calm and composure.
"Akitada!" she said in her light voice, smiling a little. "I am so glad you came. Please sit down for a minute. I have to thank you for so many things. It was very kind of you to take care of the funeral and offer me shelter."
He remained standing. "My mother tells me you wish to renounce the world." His voice was harsh with emotion. "Is this true?"
She looked up at him calmly. "Yes, of course. It is the wisest thing to do under the circumstances. One of my father's cousins is a nun in Nara. I shall go to her."
"You are too young and beautiful to shut yourself away like that," Akitada cried angrily. "I won't permit it!" He corrected himself. "I mean, your father would not have approved."
"I think he would understand."
"No. You should marry. You could be my wife. That is what he wished."
She turned away then. Her slender hands twisted in her lap. "It is impossible."
"Why?" he cried, "Why can't you marry me, Tamako?"
She did not answer and kept her face turned from him. All the fears about his own inadequacy returned, and they were worse than before. How much she must detest him, if she could not even now accept the refuge he offered her from destitution and distress! "It is not impossible," he shouted. "It is you who are impossible!" With an incoherent cry, he turned and stormed away.
All the way to the university, he searched again for a rational explanation of Tamako's rejection of his offer. And as before, he found no answer other than that she must dislike him or his family. He set the students to reading a chapter in the Book of Documents and went to Hirata's room to sort through his belongings, working with feverish concentration to banish his despair.
Setting aside such personal things as his daughter might wish to have, he went on to sifting through Hirata's papers. There was much, the work of a lifetime. Not only had Hirata kept copious notes on legal matters, but he had preserved many of his students' papers. Akitada even came across one of his own efforts. Throughout the years of his teaching, Hirata had taken enormous and loving pains with his students. Often he had written appreciative comments on their papers. It seemed wrong to discard all that, but there was no point in saving any of them.
He turned to the books next, and it was here that he found the diary. It spanned the past year and contained small memos Hirata had written to himself about things he planned to do that day. Akitada turned to the final entry, made the last time Akitada had seen Hirata, the day he had decided to go with Nishioka instead of speaking to his old friend.
Hirata had written, "I think A. is still angry with me over the matter of the examination. Poor Tamako. My conscience will give me no peace until I make one more effort to set things right. An announcement that a mistake has been made and that the poor dead boy should have won would at least please his family."
Akitada laid the journal down with a shaking hand. It confirmed his dreadful suspicion. He wondered if Hirata had wanted to consult him before taking a dangerous step. What if he had, in fact, started to "set things right"?
Tucking the journal into his sleeve, Akitada went to dismiss the students early. Then he walked to the ruins of the Hirata house.
There was nothing left but charred timbers. A single fireman was raking apart the debris of the main house. Akitada picked his way to where Hirata's study had been.
"What are you looking for, sir?" the fireman asked, walking up.
"I was trying to see where the fire started."
The man pointed. "Right there. Started outside. On the veranda."
Akitada looked at a pile of ashes, then at the man. He had an intelligent face and bright, curious eyes. "How do you know that?" he asked.
"Oh, I've seen plenty of fires. You get to where you can tell. It was hottest on the veranda. See, there's nothing left of it. The room burned up later, and the supports are still there. Fire burns up, not down."
"But how could a fire start outside?"
"Oh, any number of ways. Careless maid drops a brazier full of coals or spills a lantern full of oil and is too scared to tell. This one must've been oil. You can still smell it a bit. I expect it dripped down between the boards."
Akitada could not smell anything but the acrid odor of burnt wood that hung over the whole compound, but he knew the man was right. He also knew that the oil had not been spilled accidentally.
He asked the fireman's name and walked to police headquarters.
Kobe was in and still in a friendly mood. "Come in, come in!" he cried. "I have good news." He took a closer look at Akitada's drawn face and said, "You look terrible. Have you been ill?"
"No. Are you aware that Professor Hirata died in a fire in his home five nights ago?"
Kobe 's face lengthened. "Yes. I saw the report. Forgive me for not expressing my sympathy. You were close, weren't you?"
"Yes. I came to tell you that the fire was arson. The professor was murdered by the same man who killed Oe."
Kobe sighed. "Now, now," he said soothingly. "I can see that you've been under a lot of strain and are upset about this. But I read the report, you know, and there's nothing in it about arson. And Oe's killer wasn't anywhere near Hirata's place that night."
Akitada raised a distracted hand to his face and sat down. So much had been happening that he found it hard to concentrate. He felt the outline of Hirata's diary through his gown. "It is a long and complicated story," he said, pulling the diary from his sleeve and sliding it across the desk towards Kobe. "Turn to the last page and read the entry."
Kobe read and then leafed through the journal. "This is Hirata's?"
"Yes. I found it when I was clearing out his papers at the university. He and I had been investigating a report of cheating during the spring examinations, but I had thought that he had decided to leave the matter alone."
"Does this have anything to do with Ishikawa and Oe?" Kobe asked.
"Yes, indirectly. A very mediocre student was given first place, because Ishikawa, who is quite brilliant, wrote his essay, and Oe, one of the proctors, passed it to the candidate during the examination. Oe was subsequently paid, but Ishikawa got very little for his troubles. He sought to rectify the situation by blackmailing Oe. By accident the note was passed to Hirata instead."
Akitada had Kobe 's full attention now. "Go on!"
"Hirata asked my help in discovering the blackmailer and his target. We were on the point of confronting Ishikawa and Oe when the murder happened. I have tried to reconstruct the sequence of events. No doubt Ishikawa continued to pressure Oe who, in turn, asked the candidate for more money to pay Ishikawa."
Kobe frowned. "He asked whom for more money?"
When Akitada told him, he protested, "His name has not come up once in this investigation."
"Because everybody looked for the suspect among Oe's colleagues. The killer had a better reason to wish Oe dead than anyone, and his personality fits the circumstances of the crime perfectly. Nishioka, who makes a study of such things, would agree. As for opportunity, he was at the contest and, if I am not mistaken, Oe recited a poem which contained a direct threat to this man. I think he left the park and followed Oe to the Temple of Confucius, perhaps to reason with him. When he saw Ishikawa come out alone, he went in and discovered a helpless Oe tied to the statue of the sage. The temptation to kill him was too great to resist."