“Yes,” agreed the professor. “I told you he was violent.”
The student sobbed.
“But why?” Akiko dabbed at her nose and studied the bloody tissue. “What possible reason could he have had?”
“Professor, would you give me hand? I’ve been wounded and this incident has taken the strength from my knees.” Akitada held out a hand to the professor who grasped it and pulled him to his feet. Akitada stood a moment, swaying.
“He attacked you, too?” the professor asked. “Where are you wounded?”
“They are old wounds. He rushed my sister and me because we were looking at Lady Ogata’s diary. He must have stolen it from her trunk after he killed her.”
A wail from the student, “I didn’t mean to hurt her! I loved her more than my life.”
“A fine way to show it,” growled Tora, pulling the student’s head back by his topknot. This produced another squeal. “You’re nothing but a crybaby,” Tora told the youth. “Why should a lady like that even look at you?”
The student whimpered, “You’re hurting me.”
“Let him get up,” Akitada said, “but have your sword ready in case he makes a break for it.” He moved gingerly. The pain was going away. Akiko was also standing now, the blood-stained tissue pressed to her nose, but a distinct gleam in her eyes as she watched the student getting to his feet. He was a pitiful sight, his hair loose and his face blubbered with tears and snot. He looked around at the circle of his grim-faced accusers and shivered.
“Very well,” said Lady Akiko. “You’ve admitted killing her, but you say you didn’t mean it. Explain!”
The youth hung his head and dabbed a sleeve at his face. “She made me so angry. She mocked me!” He dabbed again and raised his eyes to look at Akiko. “Women are cruel!”
Akiko chuckled. “Nonsense.”
He cried, “Look at you! You don’t care. You come into my room and go through my things and you laugh at me. How would you like being laughed at?”
Akitada went to pick up the fallen diary and held it up. “It seems to me you did the same thing and you stole what you found. This was surely among Lady Ogata’s things.”
“I had to take it after … I had to make sure she hadn’t written about me.”
“And had she?” Lady Akiko asked.
He glowered. “She was a fox! She teased me, pretending she liked me. I wrote her poems and she lied. She said the poems were beautiful. But in her diary she says she couldn’t stand me and that my poems are horrible. Like a fox, she tricked me and made me reveal my feelings when I was caught by her beauty and false kindness. Then, when I poured out my love for her, she laughed at me. I got angry! I shook her to stop those evil words. When she was silent, I let her go.” His face crumpled. “She fell, and I saw she was dead, and I was frightened.”
“And you decided to make it look as if she’d committed suicide?” Akitada asked.
The student nodded. “It was hard. She was heavy.” His tone was accusatory, as if he blamed the dead woman for this also.
“You thought people would think she had done it herself?”
The student nodded.
Akitada said, “But unless she had used a trunk to stand on, she couldn’t have hanged herself. And there was no trunk there when she was found. Can you explain that?”
The student looked puzzled. “But everyone said the trunk was there. I must have put it there. I was very upset at the time. I thought of the diary and searched for it. When I found it, I took it away with me. I don’t remember what else I did, but I must have put the trunk under her.”
“Very odd!” said the professor, who had listened with great attention to all of these revelations. “Clearly, killing the poor lady caused him to lose whatever small amount of sense he had before.”
“I wish it had been you, you drunken sot,” the student snarled at him.
Tora drew his short sword and raised it. “Down on your knees!” he snapped.
The student obeyed.
Suddenly Akitada felt utterly spent. He swayed and only caught himself by putting one hand on the small book stand.
Tora held out his sword. “Professor, if you’d take over for a moment, I’ll find something to tie this brat up with. And then we’d better send for the police.” He glanced at Akitada, who nodded wordlessly.
Akitada felt faint and hoped he would neither faint nor vomit. Akiko came to stand beside him and touched his hand. “Time to go home,” she said softly. “Tora can handle matters here, can’t you, Tora?”
34
The student Takechi Akushiro was arrested. The professor, perhaps because of his outrage over the moral turpitude of the younger generation, accompanied Tora to police headquarters to support his charges against him. The student confessed readily, though not without putting blame on Lady Ogata for having provoked him.
The case was closed, and yet Akitada felt dissatisfied. There was the matter of Lady Ogata’s real identity. On his instructions, Tora had not revealed this to the police, but Akitada felt her family should know of her death.
But he was not equal to taking such a tale to a man like Senior Secretary Soga and was still fretting when, to his consternation, Saburo admitted the Senior Secretary to his study the next day.
Soga Ietada, tall and thin, walked in briskly, cast a curious glance around at all the books collected by Akitada and a long line of learned Sugawaras, and a more penetrating one at Akitada. His expression was grim.
Akitada knelt and bowed deeply, ignoring the pain in his back, and wondering what new disaster was about to strike.
“Please be comfortable, Sugawara,” said the secretary. “I understand you are recovering from a knife attack?”
“Yes, Excellency. Thank you. Saburo, a cushion for his Excellency and some refreshments.”
“No refreshments.” Soga sat down. “And please, no interruptions either. I have private business with your master.”
Saburo bowed and withdrew.
Akitada said quickly, “I should have come in person to express my thanks that you … that His Excellency the Prime Minister has decided to overlook my precipitate departure from Kyushu, but as you know I’ve not been well.” Flushing with embarrassment, he stumbled on, “And of course I’m also grateful for the generous remittance of my past salary.”
Soga’s grim look did not change. He said, “What? Oh, yes. But I’m not here about that.”
Could this have something to do with Soga’s daughter? But how had he found out? This time Akitada waited.
Soga sighed deeply. “I understand you are acquainted with Abbot Genshin?”
“We were students together.”
“Ah. His Reverence came to see me late last night because some news had reached him. He told me a rather strange story that involved you also.” Soga paused.
Akitada nodded. “Please continue, Excellency.”
“It seems about five years ago he found a young noblewoman living in great poverty and brought her to his Takashina mansion. She called herself Lady Ogata. She remained there, living quietly, until some three weeks ago when the abbot’s caretaker found she had hanged herself.” Soga shuddered, but his voice was level when he continued. “At any rate, the police called it a suicide, but the abbot tells me, you thought this death suspicious. Is this true?”
“Yes, Excellency. The young lady was murdered. Yesterday the police arrested a student who confessed to strangling her and creating the scenario the police found.”
Soga nodded, his eyes probing Akitada’s. “That is what brought Abbot Genshin to me. That and the knowledge he had.” He paused, obviously deeply pained, then tried again, “You see, he knew that I have, or had, a daughter …” He stopped again and closed his eyes.
Akitada said gently, “Yes, your Excellency. I believe Lady Ogata was indeed your daughter. I’m deeply sorry.”
The Senior Secretary opened his eyes and heaved a deep sigh. “Thank you. That was the question I wanted to ask. You are quite certain?”