those ladies?”
Regretful denials and head-shaking ensued.
“What about one or two women traveling in different groups?” Hirata said. Perhaps the kidnappers had split up their party to avoid detection. But this question elicited more negative answers.
“Did you see anything out of the ordinary?” Hirata asked. He saw Goro smirk, and he realized the man had been deliberately withholding information, toying with him. “Tell me!” he ordered, his temper flaring.
Goro held out his hand, palm up, and waggled his fingers. Marume dropped coins one by one into Goro’s hand until Hirata said, “That’s enough. Now talk.”
The man grinned and tucked the coins in his own waist pouch. “The day before yesterday, a group of samurai hired me and some other porters to carry four big wooden chests.” Goro’s arms gestured, indicating dimensions large enough to contain a human body.
Excitement leapt in Hirata. “What was in the chests?”
“I don’t know,” Goro said. “The samurai didn’t say, and I didn’t ask. But the chests had holes cut in the lids.”
So that people locked inside could breathe, Hirata thought.
“The samurai were in a big hurry,” Goro went on. “And they paid double the usual rate.”
As criminals would for carrying contraband such as stolen women. “To go where?” Hirata said.
“Down Izu way.” The Izu Peninsula, located west of Hakone, jutted off Japan’s southern coast into the sea. “The samurai led us along the main highway that goes through Izu. We had to run to keep up with them. Aii, those chests were heavy. It’s a good thing there were four of us carrying each one. Otherwise, we’d never have lasted the whole trip.”
Now Hirata understood how the kidnappers had transported their victims, in spite of the law that restricted wheeled traffic on the Tokaido, hindered troop movements, prevented rebellions, and necessitated cargo to be carried by hand. The kidnappers must have bound, gagged, and probably drugged the women, then packed them in their own luggage. The officials who’d examined the scene afterward wouldn’t have noticed chests missing because the checkpoints kept no record of luggage inspected there. Hirata deduced that the kidnappers had carried the chests down the highway from the abduction site. They’d passed as ordinary travelers because the crime hadn’t yet been discovered. At Hakone they’d hired the porters because they couldn’t manage the heavy loads themselves and move as quickly as they needed.
“It was the middle of the afternoon when we left here, and past sunset when we stopped at a crossroad,” continued Goro. “It has a Jizo shrine. The samurai paid us off. We left them there with the chests and came back to Hakone.”
Triumph elated Hirata because he now knew which way the kidnappers had taken Midori. “But how did those samurai get the chests past inspection?” he said.
“The samurai wore Tokugawa crests and had Tokugawa travel passes,” Goro said. “They were waved right through the checkpoint.”
Hirata, Marume, and Fukida shared disturbed glances. Had bakufu officials been involved in the abduction? But Hirata speculated that the kidnappers had stolen clothes and documents from soldiers they’d killed during the massacre.
“Who were those samurai?” Hirata asked Goro.
“They didn’t tell us,” Goro said.
“How many were there?”
“Twelve of them.”
“What did they look like?”
“I didn’t get a good look at their faces because they wore helmets with visors and mouth guards.”
The kidnappers had made sure that their hired help couldn’t identify them, Hirata noted. When pressed for details about the men, Goro recalled little else, and he hadn’t heard anything they’d said to one another. The porters who’d gone with him were away on other jobs and unavailable for questioning.
“Did you report what you’ve just told me to the authorities?” Hirata asked.
Goro shook his head. “When those samurai hired me, I didn’t know the shogun’s mother had been taken. And afterward, when I heard about the missing ladies… ” A sly grin uplifted Goro’s scarred features. He jingled the coins in his pouch. “I decided to wait for a chance to make a little profit.”
The porter’s greedy opportunism enraged Hirata, but he had neither time nor energy to waste on punishing Goro, or on speculating what might have happened if Goro had reported his news instead of hoarding it. He and Marume and Fukida left the camp, retrieved their horses, and stood in the inspection line at the post house.
“As soon as we get past this checkpoint,” Hirata said, “we’ll be on our way to Izu.”
Police Commissioner Hoshina had been imprisoned in a square guard tower on the wall that separated the palace grounds from the forest preserve. The tower had white plaster walls, black trim, a barred window overlooking each direction, and a four-gabled tile roof. Sentries stood on the walkway atop the wall, guarding doors on either side of the tower. Sano approached its third door, set in the base of the wall and also guarded. Beyond the tower, the oaks, conifers, and maples of the forest preserve loomed against an overcast sky. Locusts whined in the hot, humid air as Sano climbed a flight of stairs to the makeshift prison.
Although samurai awaiting execution were usually kept under house arrest in their own homes, Hoshina lived at Chamberlain Yanagisawa’s estate, where Yanagisawa had refused to have him. Condemned men were usually barred from Edo Castle, but the shogun valued Hoshina as insurance of Lady Keisho-in’s survival and wanted him close at hand. Therefore, the palace officials had hastily improvised a jail for Hoshina.
More guards unbarred the door at the top of the stairs and admitted Sano to the tower room. Inside, Hoshina crouched, his back against the wall, arms resting limp on his knees. As Sano entered, Hoshina looked up, eager and expectant.
“Greetings,” Sano said quietly.
Hoshina’s face fell. “Oh. It’s you,” he said.
Obviously, he’d hoped to see Chamberlain Yanagisawa. Sano pitied Hoshina’s disappointment and hated to tell him Yanagisawa wasn’t coming.
After the meeting at which the shogun had almost condemned Sano and Yanagisawa to execution along with Hoshina, the two of them had walked out of the palace together.
“Hoshina-san must be interrogated,” Sano had told Yanagisawa as they strode down the gravel path through the grounds.
“You do it,” Yanagisawa said, clearly intending to distance himself from Hoshina. His cool expression showed no sign that he’d just narrowly escaped death, nor guilt over how he’d treated his lover.
“Report to me afterward.”
“Then he and his guards left Sano and walked away.
First, Sano returned home and summoned his detectives to the courtyard. “I want to know who delivered the ransom letter,” he told them. “Interview the soldiers assigned to guard the castle perimeter last night. Ask them whether they saw who posted the letter on the wall, or anyone loitering outside the castle and acting suspicious. If they did, get a description of the person. If not, search the neighborhoods around the castle for witnesses. And if you find the person, arrest him and notify me at once. He may be our best lead to the kidnappers.”
Now Sano beheld the other possible lead. Hoshina seemed shrunken by despondency. His head drooped; anguish hollowed his eyes. Sano experienced a pang of concern for him. Many a samurai would consider suicide as a way to escape such ignominious circumstances.
“Is there anything you need?” Sano said. Pretending an interest in Hoshina’s physical comfort, he scrutinized the cell.
The palace officials who’d furnished the prison had paid respect to Hoshina’s rank. Tatami cushioned the floor, and a rolled-up futon occupied a corner. Incense smoked on the window ledges, repelling mosquitoes and masking the foul odor of the stagnant moat below the tower on the forest side. A black-and-gilt lacquer tray contained soup, rice, prawns, vegetables, and tea on matching dishware. Against the stone wall stood a lidded lacquer chamber pot. But Sano saw, to his relief, nothing that Hoshina might use against himself.
“Don’t worry-they took away my swords,” Hoshina said in a sardonic voice. “They won’t even give me chopsticks to eat with.” He flapped a hand at the untouched meal. “And the guards watch me every moment. No
