She opened a partition. “This is it.” The tub was empty, the floor dry. She stepped inside and opened the bamboo blinds. Dust motes glistened in the sunshine. “We haven’t used this room since Moriwaki-san died. None of the girls will work in here. They think it’s haunted by his ghost.”
“Were you on the premises when he died?” Hirata asked.
“Yes. I told him what happened.” The proprietress cast a baleful look at Hoshina. “But he wouldn’t listen.”
Hoshina slouched against the wall, his hands in his armpits, his expression stormy. But Hirata knew he’d stick around to see if Hirata would turn up something he’d missed, which he could use to get back in Lord Matsudaira’s good graces. He was the sort of man who would rather take credit for someone else’s work than take pains to do his job right in the first place.
“I’ll listen,” Hirata said. “Tell me.”
“I was out front when Moriwaki came for his bath,” the woman explained. “He was a regular customer. Came in almost every day. I called Yuki to wait on him. She was his favorite girl. She brought him in here. After a while, I heard a loud crash. Yuki screamed. I ran to see what was wrong. I found Moriwaki-sanlying there, naked.” She pointed at the floor beside the tub. “Yuki said he’d fallen down. His head was bloody where it had hit the floor.”
She pursed her lips. “First time a customer ever died here. Very bad for business. But it was an accident.”
Hirata observed that this sounded just like Chief Ejima, suddenly dropping dead for no clear-cut reason. Had the treasury minister been another victim of dim-mak?
“I sent a message to Moriwaki’s family. His retainers came and told Yuki and me not to worry; they didn’t blame us. They took his body home. But the next day, he showed up.” She shot a bitter glance at Hoshina. “He took Yuki into a room and asked her what had happened to Moriwaki. When she tried to tell him she hadn’t done anything wrong, he called her a liar. I heard him hitting her. I heard her crying.”
“That’s enough,” Hoshina interrupted angrily.
“Go on,” Hirata said.
The woman gave Hoshina a vindictive smirk. “He thought Yuki had pushed Moriwaki. He made her say so. He arrested her and took her to jail, even though I told him Yuki was a good girl who’d never hurt a fly. Next day, her head was cut off.”
Hirata regarded the police commissioner with disgust. “That was good, quick detective work.”
Nettled, Hoshina hurried to justify himself. “It was standard procedure.” Torture of suspects was legal and often used to obtain confessions. The disadvantage was that it tended to produce as many false confessions as true ones.
“And today he comes back,” the woman said. “It’s plain to see that he’s found out that Yuki didn’t kill the treasury minister, because he’s poking around again, looking for some other innocent person to blame.”
“Shut up, old woman!” Hoshina said, goaded to a rage. “I’ll close down your bathhouse, or-”
Fists clenched, he advanced on her. Hirata’s detectives pushed him away. Hirata said, “This woman is an important witness, and if you do anything to hurt her, you’ll be in more trouble than you already are.”
Hoshina subsided, impotent but seething. Hirata took a petty pleasure in making Hoshina pay for insulting him today and sabotaging Sano in the past. He addressed the woman: “I intend to see that the real killer is caught. I need to ask you some questions about Treasury Minister Moriwaki.”
Smug under his protection, the woman said, “Go right ahead.”
“Did Moriwaki have any unusual bruises that you saw?”
“As a matter of fact, he did.”
Hoshina spoke through gritted teeth: “I ordered you to keep quiet about everything pertaining to this investigation.”
“I can’t refuse to talk to the shogun’s detective, can I?” The woman feigned helpless innocence. She told Hirata, “He had a bruise right here,” and pointed to a spot near her temple.
Hirata felt a ripple of excitement. “What did it look like?”
“It was blue. Oval-shaped. Kind of like a fingerprint.”
At last Hirata had definite evidence that connected one of the previous murders to Chief Ejima’s. Hoshina looked displeased; obviously, he’d wanted to hoard this important fact for his own use.
“When did you see the bruise?” Hirata said.
“Right after Moriwaki died. I washed the blood off him before his retainers took him home.” She added, “Whenever I bathed him, he would suckle on my breasts while we sat in the tub. Some men his age like to do that, you know. I’d spent so much time looking down at his head that I couldn’t help but notice the bruise because it hadn’t been there before.”
That was more detail than Hirata needed, but it added veracity to her statement. “You said the treasury minister was a regular customer. Had he come here during the two days previous to his death?”
Hoshina made angry, shushing gestures. The woman ignored him. “As a matter of fact, he was here just the day before.”
Now Hirata could account tor some of the time Moriwaki had spent away from Edo Castle. “Did you see anyone with him that day?”
“I already asked her that,” Hoshina interrupted. “She doesn’t know anything. She’s inventing lies to please you.”
The woman put her hands on her hips while her eyes shot angry sparks at Hoshina. “I’m not a liar. And if you think I am, then why were you so excited when I told you who I’d seen with Moriwaki?”
Hoshina spat out a breath of frustration. Amused, Hirata said, “Tell me what you told the police commissioner.”
“A samurai came into the bathhouse with Moriwaki. He begged to talk to him. Moriwaki said he was busy, but the samurai followed him into the dressing room. They started arguing. I didn’t notice what they said, but I think the samurai wanted a favor. Moriwaki told him to leave. He did.”
Hirata sensed that he was on the verge of learning something critical. “Do you know who this samurai was?”
“Yes. I asked Moriwaki, ‘Who was that rude fellow?’ He said it was a Captain Nakai, from the Tokugawa army.” She grinned triumphantly at Hoshina.
He stalked, cursing and furious, out of the room. Now Hirata understood why he’d wanted to keep the proprietress’s information a secret. Captain Nakai was an excellent suspect, who’d demonstrated his martial arts skills during the faction war. Connecting him with Treasury Minister Moriwaki was a stroke of luck, for he hadn’t appeared on the lists of people who’d had contact with any of the previous victims.
“Was Captain Nakai alone with the treasury minister?” Hirata asked.
“Yes. While Moriwaki was undressing.”
“Did he touch Moriwaki?”
“I don’t know. The curtain was closed.”
Hirata was elated nonetheless. When he and the detectives left the bathhouse, he found Police Commissioner Hoshina waiting for him in the street, still fuming.
“I just wanted to tell you that you won’t get away with making a fool of me in there,” Hoshina said. “And if you think you and Chamberlain Sano are going to solve this case and win more honors at my expense, you’re sadly mistaken. I’m going to ruin you both.”
He shoved his hand against Hirata’s chest. Hirata lost his balance; his lame leg buckled. He fell into a pile of horse manure. A cry of indignation burst from him at this public humiliation. Hoshina and his attendants laughed.