“Thanks. You did not do so badly yourself. Provisional governor. And you crushed a rebellion or two, I hear. The New Year should bring a generous promotion.”
“Not with my luck.” Akitada paused and glanced at a servant who had cracked open the gate and was listening with an expression of avid curiosity. Kobe followed his glance and took Akitada’s arm to pull him a few steps away. Behind them the gate clanked shut.
Akitada looked back and then in growing puzzlement at Kobe. “What brings you here? Is something wrong?”
“Murder,” remarked Kobe placidly. “My men seem to be making a mess of the investigation, so I came to see what’s what.”
“The antiquarian has been killed?” If the trail of the imperial treasures ended here, Toshikage’s predicament had just taken a new, more ominous turn.
But it appeared that Nagaoka was alive.
“His wife,” said Kobe. “Apparently killed by his brother. A love triangle. Pretty young wife agrees to meet elderly husband’s younger brother in a romantic setting. Somehow they argue, and he kills her. Husband is understandably distraught. Mixed loyalties! Should he help the police and have his own brother sentenced for murder, or should he protect the man who killed his beloved wife? He has not been cooperative so far.”
“I see.” It was a tricky problem for a Confucian scholar. Was a man’s first duty to his wife or to his blood brother? More to the point, Nagaoka would hardly be in a frame of mind to answer questions about antiques.
“What did you want from him?” Kobe’s eyes studied Akitada’s face with bright interest.
Akitada could hardly divulge Toshikage’s problem to the police superintendent, yet Kobe must be told something. Akitada hesitated just a fraction too long, and Kobe’s eyes suddenly became intent. “Aha! I was right. What do you know about the case?” he snapped, his good humor gone in a flash. “Come on! Your arrival is just a little too coincidental.”
“I swear I know nothing about it,” said Akitada, trying to think of some innocuous reason. Then he remembered his flute purchase. “I, er, have taken up flute playing, and am interested in antique instruments. Nagaoka’s name came up as someone who might help me.”
Kobe was unconvinced. “You are here to look at flutes?”
Akitada nodded. “I have had four long years in the northern wilderness to practice. You have no idea how soothing the sound of a flute is when you are snowed in and the cares of the world hang heavy on you.”
Kobe looked at him askance. “Sounds depressing to me. I don’t suppose you’d better bother Nagaoka at present. He has about as much of the cares of the world as any man can bear.”
“I can see that. When did the murder happen?”
Kobe hesitated for a moment, then said, “Night before last. In a temple west of the capital. The brother was found with the wife’s corpse in a locked room. It’s a clear case and he confessed right away, but then Nagaoka talked to him in jail, trying to get him to withdraw the confession. I could see our case falling apart in court and came to warn Nagaoka off.” Somewhere another bell rang the half hour. Kobe said, “I must get back. Are you walking my way?”
Akitada hesitated. He cast a glance back up the street at the closed gate of the Nagaoka residence, then said, “I am on my way home. My mother is very ill, and I had better not be too late. Can we meet tomorrow?”
“Of course. Stop by my new office in the palace. Sorry about your mother.”
They exchanged bows and walked off in opposite directions. Akitada went around the next corner and stopped. A murder night before last? In a temple? Perhaps the Eastern Mountain Temple, where he had heard a woman scream in the middle of the night?
It was not really any affair of his, and Kobe would not take kindly to his meddling in police business again. But Akitada had never been able to resist a mystery.
Peering around the corner of Nagaoka’s fence, Akitada made sure that Kobe was gone. Then he returned to the gate and knocked.
FOUR
Faceless Murder
After a moment, the fretted doorway opened a crack and the round, frowning face of the servant peered out.
“I am Sugawara,” said Akitada in a businesslike manner. “I must speak to your master immediately.”
This had the desired effect, for the gate opened wider and the servant let him enter. Akitada took in his surroundings. The unswept courtyard with its stone pathway was covered with fallen leaves, and the man had merely tossed a hempen shirt of mourning over his regular cotton clothes. He looked irritated, symbol of a household in disarray, but led Akitada politely enough into the house and helped him remove his shoes before bringing him to a small study in the rear of the building.
The room was bathed in diffuse light which came through the paper-covered openings of doors to the outside. Faded silk paintings and calligraphy scrolls hung against the dark wood of the walls, and carved stands displayed translucent jade bowls and vases. In the center of the room sat a thin, bent figure at a low black desk.
Nagaoka was a colorless man, gray from his hair to his dress. His clean-shaven face was ashen and deeply lined. He wore a robe of costly gray silk and was sitting hunched over, inert. When the door opened, he looked up without much interest. Even the sight of an unexpected guest caused no change in his expression. In a tired voice he said, “Not now, Sasho.”
“The gentleman insisted, sir.” The servant’s tone was aggrieved.
Akitada stepped fully into the room. “I am Sugawara Akitada,” he introduced himself formally, closing the door on the servant’s curiosity.
After a moment’s hesitation, Nagaoka took in his rank and came to his feet with a deep bow. He was almost as tall as Akitada, but narrow-shouldered and much thinner. “How may I serve you, my lord?”
“I came here for information about antiques,” said Akitada, seating himself, “but find instead that I may be of some use to you in your present difficulty.” At least he hoped he might. “Just now I met my old friend Superintendent Kobe outside your gate. He told me of the recent tragedy. You have my deepest sympathy on your loss.”
Nagaoka still stood, looking down at him with a dazed expression. His face contracted suddenly. “My brother …” he said, his voice catching. “My younger brother has been arrested for murder. If you can help, I would be…” Tears suddenly spilled from his eyes. He broke off, put a shaking hand to his face, and collapsed on his cushion. “Oh, there is no help,” he sobbed. “I don’t know what to do.”
The fact that Nagaoka seemed to grieve, not for his wife who had been the victim, but for the brother who had murdered her, struck Akitada as strange. When Nagaoka finally stopped weeping and dabbed his face with a piece of tissue, Akitada said, “May I ask where the murder took place?”
Nagaoka raised reddened eyes to his. “In the Eastern Mountain Temple. They were on a pilgrimage.”
Akitada had expected it. The complexities of fate always had a way of catching him. The rains which had brought him to the Eastern Mountain Temple for the night of the murder, the old abbot’s rambling talk, the hell screen, and his frightful dreams of screaming souls had all inescapably led him to this moment in Nagaoka’s house. He felt a shiver of dread run down his spine.
He asked Nagaoka, “Why do you believe that your brother is innocent?”
Nagaoka cried, “Because I know him like myself. He is incapable of such a crime. Kojiro is the most gentle of men. Since he remembers nothing of the night and does not know how he got into my wife’s room, he should not have confessed to something he did not do.”
Akitada reflected that a loss of memory hardly constituted innocence, even if it was genuine, but he only said, “Perhaps you had better tell me his story.”