“Well,” said Kosehira, “let’s find out why he was in such a hurry to take this young woman away.”
They walked down to the pair. The young woman was very pretty, even with her eyes swollen from weeping and her nose red. Akitada noted that her clothes were good silk, not the cotton or ramie he would have expected of a servant. She also wore her hair long. He thought he knew what had been happening and why she looked so frightened and distraught.
Kosehira perhaps also guessed, for he spoke quite gently to her. “My dear,” he said, “don’t be frightened. Nobody will punish you. Just answer our questions, and if you are truthful, I’ll see what can be done for you. Who are you and what are you doing here?”
She sniffed, bowed, and said, “This person is called Mineko. I’m one of the maids. Her ladyship told Kato to take me away.”
Kosehira looked at the servant. “And you are Kato?”
The man bowed and said, “Yes. I serve his lordship as major domo. I was showing this girl the way out. On orders of her ladyship.”
The girl hung her head.
“It seems to me,” said Akitada, “that this is a strange time to deal with unsatisfactory servants when your master has just died.”
Kosehira said, “I agree.”
The majordomo compressed his lips. “No doubt her ladyship had her reasons.”
The girl fell to her knees. “Please help me. I don’t know where to go. I was born in this house.”
Kosehira and Akitada exchanged a glance. Kosehira asked the major domo, “By any chance, was this young woman favored by Lord Sukemichi?”
The servant said nothing, but Mineko cried eagerly, “His lordship was very kind to me. He would never send me away like this.” Tears welled up again and she pressed a hand to her stomach.
Akitada thought he recognized the gesture. “Are you with child?” he asked her. “His lordship’s child?”
Ishimoda gasped audibly.
She flushed a deep crimson. “Oh, no! Never. His lordship was like a father to me.”
The majordomo sneered, “If she’s with child, it’s because she’s been lying with the stable hands.”
She burst into protestations, and Kosehira said firmly, “Stop this. Mineko will stay here with the other maids until the matter is cleared up. And you, Kato, will do well to remember that you may be given twenty lashes if you’ve been lying.”
Kato paled and bowed.
When they had left, Kosehira said to Akitada, “If she was Sukemichi’s mistress, it would give his wife a motive, surely?”
“Perhaps. If she felt very strongly about her husband’s affairs.” Akitada turned to the prefect. “Show us where the body was found, and on the way perhaps you’d better tell us what your coroner said.”
If the prefect was surprised that Akitada asked the questions, he did not say so. He told them that the fatal wound had been to the back of the head and that Lord Sukemichi’s skull had been broken to pieces so that some of his brains had escaped.
“A very powerful blow to the head then?”
“Several blows, sir. The first probably felled him. Then the killer hit him again and again to make sure he was dead.”
Kosehira muttered, “That’s a lot of hate.”
“Or fear,” said Akitada. “Fear of being discovered, if he was a robber. In a panic, a man can become both strong and vicious.”
“That’s true, but what about a woman?”
“Less likely, but Lady Taira is in her thirties and looked tall.”
They had arrived in a part of the garden some distance from the house. The prefect pointed to an area of disturbed moss and earth beside a path of stepping stones. A darker spot in the moss showed where Sukemichi’s head had lain and bled. His feet had been near the path.
“So he was walking along and the killer came up behind him,” said Akitada. “I suppose it’s just possible that an intruder, afraid of being caught, circled behind Sukemichi to strike him down. But it’s more likely that the killer was hiding and somehow lured Sukemichi to this place. Have your men searched the area?”
“No, sir. We didn’t wish to disturb the family.”
Akitada frowned at him. “There has been a murder. It’s more important that everything be done to find the killer.”
Ishimoda glanced at Kosehira and said, “Yes, sir. Allow me to arrange for a search. What are the men to look for?”
“Did the coroner offer any suggestion s about the weapon the killer used?”
“Not really. He said it could’ve been anything. A piece of wood or a branch or a staff.”
Akitada sighed. “Let’s have a look for it, shall we? A piece of silver for the man who finds it.”
The prefect bowed and left to organize the search. Kosehira was going to turn back also, but Akitada stopped him. “Just a moment. I bet the constables didn’t bother to search around the body.” He peered closely at the ground, then walked a few steps either way along the path that Sukemichi had walked in the last few moments of his life, looking this way and that among the shrubs, ferns, and mossy stones on either side of the path.
He found it just about an arm’s throw from where Sukemichi had fallen. The small figurine rested in a tuft of uncurling ferns. Akitada bent closer, hardly daring to breathe.
It could not be.
Sukemichi was much younger than the others: a mere forty years to their late sixties and seventies. And he was a ranking nobleman within his own domain.
But if a robber could have entered here, then the Jizo killer could have done the same.
Akitada straightened and called to Kosehira. The prefect had also returned and joined them.
Kosehira peered. “Dear me! It’s another one!” He picked it up to show the prefect.
Ishimoda chuckled. “It’s nothing. Just a cheap toy. It probably belongs to one of the children. We found it beside the body and tossed it aside.”
“It’s not a toy,” said Akitada, taking the Jizo and turning it in his hands. “The killer left this. It’s like the one that was found with the peasant Wakiya. You will have to send one of your men back down into the gorge where they found the other peasant. I think he’ll find another Jizo down there.”
The prefect gaped at him as if he had lost his mind.
Kosehira said, “Yes, I think you’d better, Prefect. Lord Sugawara thinks someone is killing people and leaving those things behind.”
“But that sounds mad.” The prefect looked confused.
“He may be.” Akitada held up the Jizo. “But if you find a Jizo in the gorge, we will be sure that the same man killed at least five people.”
Before the prefect could say anything else, one of the constables returned at a run. He waved a broken length of wood. “It was outside the wall,” he gasped. “I climbed up to get a better look, and there it was on the other side, caught in the crook of a branch. He must have thrown it over the wall.”
“Good man!” Akitada took the piece of wood. It was part of an ordinary walking staff, the kind people used on long journeys, sturdy but not as thick as the fighting staffs he and Tora had used. He looked at it carefully. One end had splintered off. The other was the part that touched the ground, and it bore traces of blood and a few black hairs. The killer had broken his weapon when he had killed Sukemichi and thrown the useless pieces away. “Yes,” he told the constable, “you have found the weapon that killed Lord Sukemichi. Or part of it. The rest must be in the same area.” He gave the grinning constable the promised piece of silver and sent him off to search for the other piece.
∞
Later they began the questioning of the servants, the house servants first, and the stable hands and gardeners afterward.
Sukemichi’s personal attendant, a stiff, middle-aged man, froze further when asked about his master’s sleeping arrangements. Reluctantly, he told them that his master had had an occasional female servant in his room, but had slept alone on the night before his death. As for his relations with his wives, he had been accustomed to visiting them in their quarters. He could not identify Sukemichi’s bed partners.