“Is anything missing?” Sano asked Chidori.
“… The outfit Lady Wisteria had on last night.” Chidori risked a glance at Sano, seemed to discern that he wouldn’t hurt her, and spoke up more boldly: “She wore a black kimono with purple wisteria blossoms and green vines on it.”
Her conspicuous costume would aid the search for her, Sano thought, and saw the idea register on Hoshina’s countenance. Opening the cabinet’s other compartments, Sano revealed quilts, bath supplies, a tea service, a sake decanter and cups, a writing box containing brushes, inkstone, and water jar. A drawer held hair ornaments- lacquerware picks, silk flowers mounted on combs, ribbons. Chidori attested that all the possessions were present as she remembered from when she’d tidied the cabinet yesterday. This left Sano one last task for the girl.
“Chidori-chan, I must ask you to look at the body.” Seeing her blench, he added, “You need only look for a moment. Try to be brave.”
The kamuro gulped, nodding. Sano stepped to the bed and peeled back the cloth just far enough to reveal the upper part of Mitsuyoshi’s head. Chidori gasped; she stared in horror at the hairpin stuck in the eye.
“Does the hairpin belong to Lady Wisteria?” Sano said.
Emitting a whimper, Chidori shook her head. Sano experienced a cautious relief as he replaced the cloth. That Wisteria didn’t own the hairpin was evidence that hinted at her innocence. “Do you know who it does belong to?”
“Momoko-san,” the girl whispered.
The yarite again, thought Sano. Revealed as the last person to see Wisteria and Lord Mitsuyoshi, discoverer of the body, and now, owner of the murder weapon, she seemed a better suspect than Wisteria. He said to Chidori, “Look around the room again. Are you sure nothing is missing?”
“Yes, master.” Then a frown wrinkled Chidori’s brow.
Sano felt his instincts stir, as they did when he knew he was about to hear something important. Hoshina pushed himself away from the wall, eyeing the kamuro with heightened interest.
“What is it?” Sano said.
“Her pillow book,” said Chidori.
A pillow book was a journal in which a woman recorded her private thoughts and the events of her life, in the tradition of Imperial court ladies. “What was in the book?” Sano said, intrigued to learn that Wisteria had followed the centuries-old custom.
“I don’t know. I can’t read.”
More questioning revealed that the pillow book was a pack of white rice paper, bound between lavender silk covers tied with green ribbon. Wisteria wrote in it whenever she had a spare moment, and if she heard someone coming, she would quickly put it away, as though fearful that they might read it. She took the book with her whenever she left the brothel, and Chidori had seen her tuck it under her sash yesterday evening, but although Sano searched the entire room, the pillow book was indeed gone.
“Wisteria could have removed it when she left,” Hoshina suggested.
Or someone had stolen the pillow book, Sano thought, resisting Hoshina’s attempt to draw him into a discussion and elicit ideas from him. He considered possible scenarios for the crime. Perhaps the killer had entered the room while Wisteria and Mitsuyoshi slept, stabbed Mitsuyoshi, kidnapped Wisteria, and stolen the pillow book. But perhaps Wisteria herself had killed Mitsuyoshi, then fled, taking her book with her. Each scenario was as plausible as the other, and Sano realized how little he knew about his former lover. What had happened to her since they’d parted ways? Was she capable of such a grisly murder? The idea alarmed Sano, as did the suspicion that this case would bring him and Wisteria together again, with unpredictable consequences.
Hiding his uneasiness, Sano turned to the proprietor and said, “I’ll see the yarite now.”
2
Sano went outside, summoned the troops he’d banished from the ageya, and told them they could take Lord Mitsuyoshi’s remains to the castle. He would have liked to send them to his friend and adviser, Dr. Ito, at Edo Morgue, but couldn’t subject the body of an important person to such a desecrating, illegal procedure as a scientific examination. When Sano went back inside the ageya, Hirata met him in the corridor.
“We’ve interviewed everyone in the house,” Hirata said in a low voice that wouldn’t be overheard by Police Commissioner Hoshina, who loitered nearby. “The clients and courtesans say they were together in the bedchambers last night. There was a party here, and the servants say they and the proprietor and the kamuro were busy waiting on the guests the whole time.
“Nobody noticed anything unusual, until the commotion when the body was discovered. I’m inclined to believe they’re telling the truth. They knew Lord Mitsuyoshi was in the house, but they weren’t personally acquainted with him. I didn’t find any reason why they would kill him.”
“What about his retainers?” Sano asked.
“They were at the party, according to them and the other guests. If they know anything about the murder, they’re not talking.”
“We’ll interrogate them again later,” Sano decided.
Hoshina gave Sano and Hirata a faint smirk that said they needn’t bother trying to hide anything from him because he could find it out on his own. Then he slipped away.
“It would have taken only a moment for someone at the party to go up and stab Lord Mitsuyoshi, especially if he was unconscious.” Sano described the murder scene. “We’ll have to investigate all the guests.”
Fortunately, Yoshiwara was a small, gossipy community, and any hostilities involving Lord Mitsuyoshi shouldn’t be hard to discover. But the party complicated Sano’s work by increasing the number of potential witnesses and suspects.
“I sent the detectives to ask people in neighboring houses if they observed anything that might help us,” Hirata said.
“Good.” Sano told Hirata that Lord Mitsuyoshi had spent the evening with Lady Wisteria, who’d disappeared along with the pillow book. As Sano described the book, he realized he should tell Hirata about his past relationship with Wisteria, but now was not the time; he didn’t want Hoshina or the other policemen to overhear. “Please go out and see if you can find any leads on Wisteria or the book.”
“Yes, Sosakan-sama. By the way, when I interviewed the servants, they said Wisteria’s yarite found the body. She’d gone back to the Great Miura-the brothel where she lives-so I brought her here because I knew you’d want to speak with her.”
“Well done,” Sano said, grateful to have such a capable, trustworthy retainer as Hirata. “Where is she?”
Somewhere in the house, a female voice burst into a strident harangue. Hirata rolled his eyes toward the sound. “Momoko made sure to tell me that she was once a great taju, but I can’t imagine that her manner ever would have pleased many men,” he said, then took his leave.
Sano followed the voice to the rear of the ageya, where a door stood open to a guest room. Inside were two women. The younger was in her teens, and Sano recognized her as one of the courtesans he’d seen in the parlor. She knelt on the floor before the older woman, who wore a brown kimono with the black girdle and cap of a chaperone. The latter, Sano deduced, was Momoko. She thrust a silk quilt at the courtesan’s frightened, babyish face.
“You should be careful when you drink wine in bed!” she exclaimed, shaking the quilt, which exhibited a large purple stain. Her voice had a brassy edge, as if she often shouted. Her hair, knotted above her long, thin neck, was dyed a dull, unnatural black. “This will never come clean. You’ve completely ruined an expensive quilt, you little fool!”
The courtesan cringed and mumbled.
“Don’t blame your client,” Momoko said. Her profile was elegant, but vicious. “And how dare you talk back to me?”
She smacked the courtesan hard across the face. The courtesan shrieked in pain. Momoko hurled the quilt at her. “The price of this quilt will come out of the fee you earned last night. Forget about buying your freedom, because at this rate, you’ll never leave Yoshiwara until you’re so old and ugly they throw you out. Now go
