protect your wife. She left the inn without telling anyone. We’ve all been out searching for her, but we couldn’t find her.”
“She’s here,” Sano said. “It’s all right.” He dismissed his staff, shut the door, and turned to Reiko. She was sitting up, wrapped in her white under-robe, uneasily watching him.
“Maybe now you’ll tell me where you’ve been,” Sano said.
“I went to the palace to ask Lady Jokyoden to help me solve the murder case,” Reiko said.
“What?” Sano exclaimed in alarm. “You saw Jokyoden, after you promised me you would stay away from her?”
“Yes, because I didn’t know you were still around to care about promises,” Reiko said defensively. “It seemed more important to find your killer and avenge your death.”
Sano realized that he should have expected Reiko to behave this way; not even his death would quell her determined spirit. Now he was disturbed to learn that his short absence had been too long to leave Reiko on her own.
“Are you mad?” he said, standing over her. “Didn’t you see that the second murder reduced the number of suspects and made Jokyoden even more likely to be the killer? Didn’t you recognize the danger of associating with her?”
“Of course I did. But the risk was worth it.” Rising, Reiko walked to the table, picked up her embroidered silk purse, and removed a fragment of paper, which she handed to Sano. “I found this in a house that Left Minister Konoe owned in the textile district.”
As she described the house, how she’d gotten there, and her idea that Konoe had used it for espionage, Sano barely glanced at the words on the paper. He said, 'Lady Jokyoden took you to this place?”
Vexation crossed Reiko’s features. “We weren’t alone. I brought my guards with us. Please give me credit for some intelligence.”
“You believed what Lady Jokyoden told you about Left Minister Konoe purchasing the house? How did she know, anyway?”
“She didn’t say.”
An evasive note in Reiko’s voice signaled a lie. For the sake of peace, Sano chose to overlook it for the moment. “Look, I know you were upset and not thinking clearly, but even so, you should have known better than to trust a murder suspect. So far, there’s no evidence except Jokyoden’s word that the house belonged to Konoe, or that this paper is his. Jokyoden might have been misleading you to divert suspicion away from herself.”
“Well, yes, I was upset. Whose fault was that?” Reiko said sarcastically. “I did consider the problems you mentioned, but there must be a way to verify that Konoe owned the house and wrote the note. Besides, what I discovered next proves that it doesn’t matter whether or not I was thinking clearly, or what Jokyoden’s motives were for taking me to the house. I thought the note referred to spying that Konoe did on Lord Ibe. So I went there, and-”
“Wait.” Sano held up his hands. He had an ominous feeling that he was going to hear something else he wouldn’t like. “Slow down. You went where?”
“To the daimyo’s house in the cloth dyers’ district,” Reiko said patiently. 'Lady Jokyoden gave me directions.”
“She did, did she?” When Sano had met Jokyoden, he’d thought her arrogant and contrary; now he liked her even less for abetting his wife’s misadventures.
“I asked Fukida-san to go with me,” Reiko said, “but he wouldn’t. He even took away my palanquin and guards. I realize now that he wanted to wait for you to come back before doing anything, but at the time I thought he was ignoring an important clue. So I went alone.”
Horror filled Sano. “You walked across town by yourself?” If he’d known what she would do, he would have risked letting her know the truth about his faked death. 'Didn’t you think of what might have happened to you?”
“Nothing did, so there’s no need to worry now.” Reiko hesitated, then said, “I met a rough-looking man at Lord Ibe’s house. He wouldn’t answer my questions, and I was suspicious, so 1 sneaked through the back door for a look inside.”
She spoke as if she’d done the most reasonable thing in the world. Sano stared, dumbstruck.
“And guess what I found!” Animated with excitement, Reiko described an arsenal of weapons and a gang of samurai, gangsters, peasant ruffians, and an armed priest.
Sano was too upset by her daring to think about the implications of her discovery. He shouted, “I can’t believe you did that! You could have been killed! That was the most stupid, reckless, thoughtless, dangerous, foolhardy-”
“And the most important piece of evidence yet,” Reiko said.
“You shouldn’t have done it!”
“What’s done is done. Now please stop yelling and consider what this means to the case.”
“First I want you to promise you’ll never do such a thing again,” Sano said.
“Only if you’ll promise never again to trick me into thinking you’re dead.”
This was one of those times when Sano longed for a traditional marriage where the husband set the rules and the wife obeyed them, instead of this constant negotiation. “All right, I promise,” he said. “Do you?”
“Yes,” Reiko said, then hurried on: “I believe the gang is plotting to overthrow the Tokugawa regime, and that someone in the Imperial Court is behind the plot. One of the murder suspects must be arming troops in preparation to restore power to the emperor. Left Minister Konoe must have found out, and the murderer killed him to prevent him from telling the authorities.”
Sano saw the logic of her reasoning, and the new political element in the case disturbed him, but he strove for objectivity. “That’s quite a leap to make from a few scribbled notes, a few troublemakers, and a few guns.”
“There were more than just a few guns,” Reiko said, “and the size of the arsenal means there must be hundreds, even thousands of troublemakers involved in the plot. They could launch a full-scale siege of Miyako at any moment.” She grasped Sano’s hands. “You must do something immediately.”
“Of course I’ll investigate the situation,” Sano said. “Any potential threat against the regime must be taken seriously. But let’s not jump to conclusions. You were in the house for only a short time, while you were under severe emotional stress. Maybe there weren’t as many weapons as you thought; maybe you misinterpreted what the men said.”
“I know what I saw and heard,” Reiko said stubbornly. “If you don’t arrest those men and seize the arsenal, there could be a revolt that turns into nationwide civil war. Entire provinces could fall under rebel control before the bakufu has time to mount an effective defense. Eventually, war could reach Edo.”
“That’s a distinct possibility.” While Sano could think of arguments against the theory, he hesitated to raise them lest he reawaken Reiko’s hurt and resentment over his deception. “Therefore, I have to proceed with caution. A revolt goes beyond the scope of the murder investigation. I must inform the shoshidai and Chamberlain Yanagisawa.”
“Soon, I hope?” Reiko said.
“Tonight.” Instead of the evening of rest that he’d wanted, Sano anticipated hours of secret meetings. “And tomorrow I’ll begin looking for the instigator of the plot at the Imperial Palace.”
20
At dawn, a brisk wind rattled the window blinds, awakening Sano in his room at Nijo Manor. He smelled smoke, heard bells clanging, and bolted up in bed, heart pounding as he recalled a fire that had almost claimed his life. But the inn was quiet except for the ordinary noises of guests rising. Sano washed and dressed. Leaving Reiko asleep, he took his morning meal with his detectives in their rooms and gave them their orders for the day. Then he rode to the Imperial Palace.
Smoke hovered over Miyako, adding an acrid pall to the hazy, oppressive heat. From newssellers who hawked broadsheets, Sano learned that the wind had blown down some Obon lanterns and started a fire that had spread across the southern part of town. Nervous citizens kept watch for more fires. Sano’s own mood was troubled as he
