and earn some extra money and put the silver back before the annual inspection. She took over the duties of the kitchen staff for the prison. I was against it, because it would ruin her reputation. But she argued that my disgrace would also ruin her, and this way we might salvage a great deal, particularly my son’s career. And now, poor child, she has suffered to no purpose.” Yamada fell to weeping again, the tears leaving wet tracks on his dirt-smudged cheeks. Akitada’s heart went out to him and to the girl who had borne her hardship without complaint.
“But,” he said, still mystified, “why didn’t you arrest the person who deposited the fake bars?”
Yamada’s misery deepened. “I couldn’t,” he whispered. “No record.”
“The thief gave a false name?”
“I wouldn’t know. There was a small fire. It destroyed a ledger.”
“Good heavens! Are you the only one who takes care of the Valuables Office?”
“I used to have a clerk, but had to let him go. I discovered the clay bars when I checked the stored goods against my own records after the fire. I was trying to piece together some sort of documentation from the charred remnants of the ledgers.” Akitada mentally raised his brows that Yamada had not checked deposits regularly before but only said, “The governor has given me permission to help you get ready for the inspection.”
“Very kind of him,” muttered Yamada, “but it won’t do any good. I might as well go to him now and confess the whole thing. I will be dismissed, of course, but the worst part is the dishonor. It will ruin my son’s career and Masako’s prospects of marriage.” He brushed fresh tears from his face and rose.
Akitada caught his sleeve. “Wait!”
“Oh, I forgot.” Yamada turned, his expression, if anything, more dismal than before. “Masako must be told. Would you do it?” He raised his hands in a pathetic gesture of entreaty. “I don’t have the belly for it.”
The thought of facing Masako with this bit of news daunted Akitada also. “Don’t give up yet,” he urged. “Perhaps we can buy some time. Could I have a look at the Valuables Office?” In spite of Yamada’s distress, he looked shocked. “There are rules against allowing people into the storage area,” he said.
“And you being a prisoner-well, I don’t think-”
“In that case,” said Akitada, “I don’t see how I can help you.
But surely if you are with me, an exception might be made?” Yamada hesitated. “Why do you want to see it?”
“To get an idea how the theft was done and perhaps find the thief.”
“It could be anyone. I told you, the records are gone.” But Yamada’s fear was so great that he took Akitada across the compound to a small building in the far corner.
The Valuables Office had been fitted into the outer wall so that its front faced out into the main street, where it was acces-sible to merchants and farmers, while the rest of the building was within the walls of the guarded compound. Apart from the front, its plaster walls were windowless and it had only one rear door.
Yamada and Akitada entered through this back door, which Yamada unlocked with a set of keys he carried. He lit a lantern that stood on a shelf beside the doorway. By its light, Akitada could make out rows of shelving filled with all sorts of objects. In one corner was an iron-bound chest for money and many bags of rice. Silver and copper coins were a more practical form of tender, but less common than the ubiquitous rice as a medium of exchange.
Yamada passed through this room and unlocked a second door, which led into the front area where business was trans-acted. Here some light filtered in through high and narrow paper-covered windows. The walls still bore traces of smoke damage. From outside they could hear the voices of passersby and the sounds of wheels and horses’ hooves.
“We only open for business on the first and tenth day of each month,” explained Yamada.
Against the back wall stood shelves which held scales for weighing precious metals, an abacus, various writing tools, candle holders, and ledgers. Both the front door and the heavy door they had just passed through were protected by metal locks and a series of iron bands and studs.
“Who, besides you, has keys to this place?” asked Akitada, walking over to the new-looking ledgers and turning the pages idly.
“Nobody.”
“Not even the clerk who used to work here?”
“Certainly not. I did not trust him. He drank and made careless mistakes.”
“And where do you keep your keys when you don’t carry them?
Yamada frowned at this interrogation. “With me at all times.
Why? The torch was thrown in from the street. Nobody broke in or unlocked any doors.”
Akitada turned to look at Yamada in surprise. “A torch was thrown from the street? Why?”
Yamada shook his head. “Who knows? There are too many criminals on this island. The fire was put out quickly, and we did not pursue the matter when we found the deposits safe
behind their locked doors. The only loss was one ledger and a broken window screen. We moved the shelves against the back wall after that, and I copied what information I could gather from the charred ledger.”
Akitada nodded and studied the entries. “You wrote all this?
I see you loaned five strings of cash on five bars of silver. Is that the going rate?”
“It’s generous but not unusual. If the person is known to us and reliable, as much as a thousand copper cash or fifty
“Is this really necessary? If someone found out-”
“You would be no worse off.”
Yamada sighed and turned back into the storage room, taking the keys from his sash again to relock the door. Holding up the lantern, he led the way to the shelves which filled an area two or three times the size of the front room.
Akitada saw that the shelves bore numbers, each number corresponding with a deposit. He walked along picking up this or that, while Yamada followed, watching nervously to make sure he replaced it in its assigned spot. The goods consisted of rolls of silk and brocade, lengths of cotton, various art objects, books, musical instruments, swords, elegant utensils in lacquer and inlaid metals, and numerous stacks of silver bars. He thought of the death of the Second Prince and the murder of little Jisei. Silver figured in both instances. The prince’s plot, if indeed there had been one, would have been financed with local silver, and the little convict had worked in one of the mines.
“Here,” said Yamada, pointing to three silver bars in a corner of one of the shelves. “These are the two clay ones. The third one is the silver bar I purchased.”
Akitada took them up one by one. The first two seemed a little lighter than the third, and he saw that a piece had broken off one of these, revealing the red clay underneath. The second bar showed clay beneath some scratches, no doubt made by Yamada to verify that it, too, was counterfeit. Whoever had accepted these bars was criminally negligent. The scales in the other room would have revealed the problem instantly. “You said you checked all the rest?” Akitada asked, looking around at the many small piles of silver.
“Yes, I checked them all.”
“Hmm. Only two out of all of these. When did your clerk leave?”
Yamada frowned. “It was before the fire. A very unreliable person. I had to speak to him repeatedly about sleeping during working hours, but after the fire I wished I had kept him on.”
Akitada looked at another deposit. It was a large one, consisting of some fifteen silver bars and various boxes. Noting a small silk pouch, he picked it up. It was astonishingly heavy.
“That is raw gold,” Yamada said.
“Gold?” The contents felt lumpy. Akitada opened the bag and saw small irregular chunks of the yellow metal inside. None was larger than the average pebble. “Where did this come from?” he asked.
“Sometimes a farmer or some youngster finds a piece in a stream. Often they don’t know what it is and take it to a temple.”
“And you don’t know its owner either?”
“But I do. It belongs to the Kokubunji Temple. I remember the little bag of gold. Silver bars are more common.”
