“Who’s there? Is that you, Santa?” It was the boatman’s wife who challenged him, her voice scarce above a whisper.
“Yes, it’s myself,” Shinsuké returned, in a tone as low and husky as hers, when he arrested his step sharp and short.
“Well, how did it come off—all’s well?” she continued with her query, in a note of concern. The woman, placed close by the brazier and over the foot-warmer, had evidently been waiting for Santa’s return, without a wink of sleep. And strangely enough, the hired men who usually slept in the adjoining room were missed there, this night. Had Tsuya been taken off somewhere, he asked in thought, and it almost left him aghast.
“No fear, I’ve done my part right and neatly,” he spoke, imitating Santa’s voice, as he brusquely shoved back the screens and put in his appearance before the woman. Continuing in the same low voice which sounded all the more awesome because of its tone of forced softness, he said—
“Tell me where Tsu-chan is.”
“Why, it’s Shin-don!” she gasped; but spoke no more. On the verge of fainting, she fought for self-possession by strained effort, the while she blindly groped in mind for some wile to cover up the situation. Shinsuké’s mien, however, was too forbidding and deadly to permit her such a chance. Nor did he realize it until now he discovered himself in the light of the lantern. Not only his clothes, ripped into shreds, but his own body were blotched several spots with mud, rain, and blood—a ghastly sight unfit for any earthly being. Shinsuké gave a start to see it, but forthwith he knew he should abandon any hope to conceal his murderous deed.
“Whatever have you been up to, Shin-don?” she asked, with a semblance of confidence when she had sufficiently composed herself.
“What have I been up to, you ask? I’ve killed your Santa! But, if you tell me where Tsu-chan is, your life will be spared.” He held forth the knife under her nose, with threat in his voice and manner. The woman remained in command of herself, and her coolness was feigned to the point of exasperation.
“She’s no doubt upstairs,” she said, and, having lighted her long pipe, calmly puffed at it, her chin stuck out at an angle at once indifferent and aggressive.
She had once served her term in a house in the Yoshiwara, whence Seiji took her to himself upon the death of his first wife. Although somewhat over-largely made, she was of white complexion, extremely attractive of figure; a woman in the early afternoon of her life, about thirty-two or three. Like a woman of strong will and nerves even to match a man’s, that she had always vauntedly claimed herself to be, she was capable of facing the situation without flinching, maintaining complete mastery over herself. It was also presumable that the woman who had always looked down on him as a lily bud of a man had accepted the profession of his killing as little more than an attempt to scare her out of her wits, and, for the very reason, made her best to present an unflinching front. Search had to be made upstairs, in any case, he considered; and he set about to bind her, hand and foot, to prevent her escape in the meantime.
“What’s this impudence from you, green clown!” She bolted upright, and rushed on to bring down the thing to which she had accredited so little of manhood. But with a blow dealt on her spine with such magnificent force that nearly knocked her senseless, she rolled off in a heap to the mercy of the man. The killing of one man had turned him into an adept at the trick of adroitly bending, twisting, squeezing, knee-pressing the human body. It was with little ado that Shinsuké bound the woman, hand and foot, and gagged her.
With the aid of a lantern, he made his way upstairs. Rooms, closets, behind the screens, and no stone was left unturned; but Tsuya was not to be found. He had expected as much; nevertheless, when brought face to face with the situation which left him no longer in doubt as to her kidnapping, he felt himself as helpless as a child forlorn and astray, a pitiful prey to the dark thoughts that assailed his mind. With his face framed in a pathetic half-cry, he was down the stairs in the manner of a crazed man. Even hoping against hope, he went through all the rooms downstairs, looked all over the place, under the verandahs, too; but Tsuya was nowhere to be found.
“Come, own up where you’ve hidden her or your life is lost;” he said, when she was relieved of the gag. And as he demanded, he tapped on her cheek with the flat of the carving blade, to awaken her to a keener sense of what was in store for her.
The woman had remained in unperturbed silence, with her eyes closed. It was some moments ere she partly opened her eyes at him, narrowing them into a gleam of
