“I need your help identifying a man I believe to be the kidnapper of Lady Keisho-in,” said Sano.
Toda’s eyes registered awareness that he had better cooperate. If Lady Keisho-in wasn’t rescued and the kidnapper brought to justice, the shogun would likely punish the whole bakufu, including the metsuke spies, who were responsible for discovering and neutralizing threats to the Tokugawa.
“What’s the matter? Have you abandoned your theory that the Dragon King is one of Police Commissioner Hoshina’s old enemies?” Toda could never resist a sly rejoinder. “Did the Kii clan and the merchant Naraya prove not to be the culprit?”
Sano wasn’t surprised that Toda knew about the theory, and the suspects. Toda probably had spies among the soldiers guarding Hosh-ina, and they’d eavesdropped on his conversation with Sano that morning. “I’ve got a new suspect,” Sano said, “but unfortunately not his name.”
He described what had happened at the secret Black Lotus temple. “The only clue I have to the man’s identity is the dead woman that he tried to communicate with through the Black Lotus priest. Her name was Anemone. I think someone among her family or associates is the Dragon King. I’m hoping you can tell me who she is.”
Toda pondered, searching the voluminous storehouse of his mind for the answer. Then he said, “I don’t remember a murder of anyone called Anemone. It’s a pity you didn’t get her family name. When was she killed? How did she die?”
“I don’t know,” Sano said.
“Perhaps you can tell me where her murder took place?”
Sano shook his head, realizing that what he asked might be more than even Toda could give him, considering the paucity of background information on the crime.
“There have been thousands of murders in the country throughout the years, as you well know,” Toda said. “For me to know where to begin looking for information about Anemone, I need more than just her given name.”
“Let’s suppose there’s a connection between Anemone and Hoshina,” Sano said, “even if he didn’t kill her.”
“That would narrow the time span down to the past twenty years or so, presuming the murder didn’t occur while Hoshina was only a child,” Toda said. “It would also locate the crime in Edo or Miyako, the two places Hoshina has lived.”
“The Dragon King couldn’t have planted Mariko as a spy in Lady Keisho-in’s retinue unless he has close connections to the Tokugawa,” Sano said. “He must be someone in the bakufu, and a member of a high-ranking samurai clan. There can’t be many murders of women named Anemone that involve a man who fits those criteria.”
“True,” Toda said, his weary expression leavened by the possibility that this favor to Sano might not cost him too much trouble after all. “And crimes involving a man of that sort would be noted in the records at metsuke headquarters. Give me a moment to get dressed, then we’ll be on our way.”
Soon they were in the partitioned room in the palace that housed the metsuke headquarters. A single lamp burned in the compartment where Sano and Toda pored over ledgers that detailed incidents concerning Tokugawa vassals and the law. The palace corridors were silent, the other compartments unoccupied. Desks piled with scrolls, maps, and writing materials awaited metsuke agents who still slumbered at home while Sano and Toda searched the Edo records for the three years Hoshina had lived in the city. Sano turned pages of accounts of people killed in duels or crimes of passion, wives divorced, and disputes over money, property, and protocol, but he found no mention of Anemone’s murder.
By the time he and Toda started on the Miyako records, daylight began seeping through the windows; temple bells around the city tolled, summoning priests to morning prayers. The room filled up with men, muttered conversation, and tobacco smoke. Strain burned Sano’s eyes as he read through yet another ledger and tried to stay awake. The noon deadline that Chamberlain Yanagisawa had given him loomed nearer, until at last, the characters of the name he sought focused his bleary gaze.
“Here it is,” he exclaimed to Toda, who gladly set aside his own ledger. Sano read: “ ‘Tenwa Year two, month five, day four,’ ” then clarified, “That’s twelve years ago. ‘Dannoshin Jirozaemon, commander of the militia, dead by suicide. His wife Anemone, dead by drowning. The lifeless body of Dannoshin was found in his pleasure boat, adrift on Lake Biwa. His throat was cut, his short sword in his hand. He had left a note at home that explained his actions.
“ ‘It said that his wife and a man who was Dannoshin’s own paramour had carried on a secret affair together. When Dannoshin found out, he decided to punish his wife by throwing her into the lake, then kill himself because he must atone for her death and could not bear that the two people he loved most had betrayed him with each other. The body of Anemone was never recovered.’ ”
Sano pounded his fist on the ledger as triumph exhilarated him. “This has to be the murder behind the kidnapping plot! Anemone is the drowned woman in the poem in the ransom letter. Since she was never found, she’s still in the lake, under the water-in the palace of the Dragon King.”
“But Hoshina didn’t kill Anemone,” said Toda. “Her husband did, according to his own confession. Why would anyone demand Hoshina’s execution for Anemone’s drowning? It makes no sense.”
“Maybe Hoshina still played a role in the murder,” Sano said. “I’m thinking he was the man who was the lover of both Dannoshin and Anemone.”
“Hoshina has been known to bed women, even though he prefers male partners,” Toda said. “If he was the lover, then Anemone’s death is indirectly his fault because her affair with him caused her husband to drown her.”
“Someone who grieved for her might resent the fact that Hoshina went about his business as if nothing had happened.” Sano reread the account. “Whoever wrote this neglected to mention the lover’s name.”
“Perhaps the omission was deliberate,” Toda said, then hinted, “What was Hoshina doing twelve years ago, when Anemone and Dannoshin died?”
“Hoshina was a detective on the Miyako police force,” Sano recalled. “Perhaps he investigated the deaths. There would have been an ugly scandal, and he probably wanted to keep himself out of it. He could have destroyed evidence that implicated him.”
“And made sure his name never appeared in any official records,” Toda said.
“Supposing he was indeed the third party in the triangle, there’s another reason for him to cover up the fact,” Sano said. “At the time, he was the companion of the shoshidai.” The shoshidai was the Tokugawa official who ruled Miyako, and a cousin of the shogun, “He wouldn’t have wanted his master to know he’d been indulging his lust elsewhere.”
“That might have cost him his position,” Toda said, “and his chance of rising in the bakufu.”
Exhaustion, as well as pressure to identify the Dragon King before noon and save Lady Keisho-in before the shogun lost patience and did something rash, took the edge off Sano’s triumph. Rubbing his tired eyes, he said, “This is all conjecture. And even though I’m sure that the Dragon King is someone connected with Anemone or Dannoshin, we still don’t know who he is, let alone where he is.”
“I’ll look up the names of their relatives,” Toda said. “I can also check on which are members of the bakufu and live in Edo. But it will take time to unearth the clan lineage records from the archives and match names on them to the thousands on the bakufu list.”
And time was running out for Sano. “Get your metsuke comrades to help you,” he said, rising to leave.
“Very well,” Toda said.
“Meanwhile,” Sano said, “I’m going to try a shortcut to the Dragon King. Knowing what we know now, I think a talk with our friend Hoshina is in order.”
The sun had ascended over Edo Castle, but the forest preserve cast deep shadow over the guard tower that imprisoned Hoshina. Although the morning was clear and the air windless beneath the hazy aquamarine sky, gray clouds spilled mist and rain over the distant hills, portending storms for the city. Sano strode toward the tower along the walkway on top of the palace wall. There, three guards lounged outside the door to the prison.