Red Chrysanthemum

you are an evil, meddlesome witch. You have ruined our lives. Someday I will hurt you as much as you have hurt us.” “

Madam Tsuzuki turned a look of horror on Reiko. “You can’t think that my son is responsible for what happened to you?”

He was as good a suspect as Colonel Kubota and better than the family of the clerk that had been executed for murder because of Reiko. “He belonged to a gang that included men from Lord Mori’s retinue.” Such samurai gangs spent their idle hours roving the town, drinking, brawling, and chasing women. “They were a way into the Mori estate. And he’s intelligent enough to invent an elaborate murder scheme.” Besides, the fact that he’d been disowned gave him all the more reason to hate Reiko. “What do you think? Could he have done it?”

“I don’t know.” Madam Tsuzuki shook her head helplessly. “I don’t know what my son is capable of or who he is anymore. I haven’t seen him in a year, since he told us he was going to marry that woman against our wishes and his father told him to leave our house and never come back.”

“Where did he go?” Reiko said.

“I don’t know. But her family might. Ask them.”

Sano, Hirata, and their detectives and entourage gathered in the neighborhood where Reiko had claimed she’d met Lily and all her problems had begun. Rain dripped off sagging roofs and balconies; mildew and green moss infected damp, dingy, plaster walls. The streets were deserted, but as Sano and his men dismounted and tied their horses to posts, people peeked out windows at them.

“There’s the Persimmon Teahouse,” Hirata said, pointing at the drab storefront overhung with a wet blue curtain.

Sano gave it scant attention as he walked by. “Never mind that for now.”

“Do you want us to round up all the residents for questioning?” Hirata asked.

“That probably won’t work any better than before.” Sano kept moving, past shops and a little shrine.

“What are we looking for?” Detective Marume asked.

“I’m not sure,” Sano said. “I’ll know it when I see it.”

He attuned himself to his surroundings. Instinct told him that the answers were here. He opened his mind to all stimuli. He smelled nightsoil bins in an alley, heard voices chanting prayers inside houses, tasted garlic in charcoal smoke that wafted from a kitchen. He felt new hope as he continued along the street, alert for whatever he’d come to discover.

His men followed him silently. They came to a shop halfway down the block, whose door was open a crack. It seemed to beckon Sano. He went up to the storefront, stood under the overhanging eaves, and looked inside while Hirata and the detectives peered over his shoulder.

It was a stationer’s shop, filled with writing brushes, ink stones, ceramic water jars, scroll cases, and stacks of paper. An old man knelt at a desk. Opposite him sat a young woman. “The baby was sick with a cold, but he’s better,” she said. “My husband is working hard. I’m well, but I miss you.” The old man wrote down her words as she continued dictating, “Good-bye for now. With love from your daughter, Emiko.”

Sano pictured a different, older woman sitting in her place; he heard another voice: Dear Lady Reiko, please excuse we for imposing on you, but I need your help. The old man was probably one of the few literate people in his neighborhood. Shops like his were patronized by folks who needed letters written or read for them. Sano felt the tingling sensation of excitement that told him he was on the right track. He slid the door open wider and stepped into the shop.

The proprietor bowed to him. “I’ll be right with you, master.”

Sano nodded, but was looking at the letter that the man carefully blotted dry. The inked characters were square-shaped, neat, precise, and familiar. The man rolled the page into a bamboo case and handed it to the woman; she paid, thanked him, and left. He asked Sano, “How may I serve you?”

“I want to talk to you about a letter you once wrote,” Sano said. “It was for a dancer named Lily.”

The old man’s courteous smile faded. “I respectfully beg to disagree; I’ve never had a customer by that name.”

“Yes, you did,” Sano said. “I’ve seen the letter. It was sent to Lady Reiko, my wife. I recognized your calligraphy.” It was proof at last that Lily existed, that Reiko hadn’t imagined her in a fit of madness.

Fear crept into the old man’s withered features. “A thousand apologies, but I don’t know any Lily.” He turned to Hirata, who’d crowded into the shop with Sano. “I told you so the other night, when you were here.”

“Yes, you did. I remember you.” Hirata said to Sano, “I threatened to beat him if he didn’t tell me where to find Lily, but he wouldn’t. Neither would the other folks in the street.”

And Hirata had backed off because he’d believed them rather than Reiko’s story and didn’t want to hurt innocent people, Sano thought. But now the old man had unwittingly furnished proof of a conspiracy of silence. Now Sano and Hirata were desperate.

“Today we’re going to give you another chance to tell the truth,” Hirata told the old man.

He shut the door. He and Sano stood over the old man, who shrank behind his desk. “Please don’t hurt me!” he cried, raising his hands to fend off blows.

“Just tell us where Lily is,” Sano said, “and we won’t touch you.”

“I can’t!”

The small, stuffy room reeked of the man’s old age and terror. Sano said, “Who threatened you into keeping quiet?”

“Some samurai. I don’t know who they were. They came here two days ago.” Anxious to placate Sano and Hirata, the old man babbled, “They went from house to house, looking for Lily. They didn’t find her; she was already gone. They told us that if anyone asked about her, we were to say we didn’t know her, or they would come back and kill us all.”

“Don’t be afraid of them. I’ll protect you.” Urgency mounted in Sano. He grabbed the old man by the front of his robe. “Now where is she?”

Even though the old man whimpered and quaked, he cried, “I promised her I wouldn’t tell!”

“Now we’re getting somewhere,” Hirata said.

“Why did she disappear?” Sano asked.

“She heard that those samurai were after her. She came hurrying into my shop, all frightened. She begged me to write a letter for her.”

“A letter to whom?”

When the old man didn’t answer, Sano turned him to face Hirata, who drew his sword. Hirata held the blade to the man’s chest. They didn’t have time to waste on gentle persuasion. The man shrieked, then blurted, “It was to Lady Reiko.”

Sano was surprised because Reiko hadn’t, as far as he knew, received a second letter from Lily. “What did she tell you to write?”

“That some bad men were after her, and she had to hide. She begged Lady Reiko to save her.”

“If she expected help, she would have said where she would be,” Sano said. She must not have had a chance to send the letter to Reiko. “Tell me!”

“I can’t!” The old man pressed his back against Sano, shrinking away from Hirata’s blade. “I would never forgive myself if anything happened to her.”

“Listen,” Sano said, turning the old man, “those people will find Lily eventually. My wife would want me to rescue her, and I will, but first you have to tell me where she is.”

Fearful hope battled defiance in the man’s eyes and won. “All right,” he cried. “Just please let me go!”

Sano did. The old man crumpled onto the floor. Ashamed and woeful, he said, “I guess I can’t do any more harm than I’ve already done. Lily said she was going to Ginkgo Street. There was a fire there before the rains started. She was going to hide in a building that hadn’t quite burned down.”

“Exactly where is this building?” Sano demanded.

The man gave complicated directions through Edo’s maze of neighborhoods.

“Thank you,” Sano said. “You did the right thing. I’m sorry we were so cruel to you.”

He opened the door and called to some of his troops who were waiting outside: “Take this man to my compound. Guard him with your lives. He’ll testify on behalf of Lady Reiko at her trial.” He assigned more men to protect the residents of the street, then said to Hirata, Inoue, Arai, Marume, and Fukida: “Come with me. We have to find Lily. She’s the most important witness of all.”