Nursing a design in her heart from the start, Tsuya’s reception of the man was calculated never to be discouraging or cold. He was to be led on and be made to dance to her music, until she should be ready to cast aside his fleeced remains, after he had been drained to her satisfaction.
“If all that sweetness you tell is true, I can’t deny that it warms up my heart toward you. But, while you are with your Ichi-san, I wouldn’t quite relish the idea.” It was the refrain with which she would always parry his advance beyond a certain point. Ichi was the boatman’s third wife; she herself had been a geisha in the Yoshi-cho quarter until two or three years ago, when Seiji bought her out to be kept as his mistress. On the death of his last wife, he took her into his own family. Not a woman of so much attractiveness, she had nevertheless an accountably strong hold upon the man. Moral slips on his part or any little things suggestive of such an eventuality, if smelt out, were sure to expose him to a connubial tirade, often accompanied by a muscular display of much vehemence. However strongly he might covet Tsuya, the idea of driving out this woman seemed to be the one thing he was never likely to buckle himself to.
“Little difference if the old woman was with me,” he would say expediently. “Why, there are a lot of ways so she would never be the wiser.” To such she would retort, “If it suits you, it won’t suit me. If you love me truly, there is to be no other woman—and no wife but myself.” If her thrust thus driven home to him was meant as an idea to thwart him, it was as effective as it was intended to be.
“Listen, Seiji-san, you say you are in love with me, but you don’t know what you talk about, do you? If you love me so much, why shouldn’t you make a quick work of your woman who is wise to your doings?” At last, she saw her chance on one occasion, and pushed her argument thus far.
“A man like yourself who would kill Shin-san in cold blood who had no fault except he loved me, wouldn’t stop at a little thing like that, would he?—”
“It’s Santa’s work, and I had no hand in it.—By the way, you’ve become a woman of wonderful mettle, nowadays, and no mistake, either!”
On this expression of startled admiration, he dismissed the subject; but he appeared to have allowed his mind to be considerably swayed by her pregnant words.
“A little more time—and Seiji and his woman shall be caught in the same noose! We will settle our old score with him!”—such were the words oft whispered between the loving pair, as they found themselves alone, in each other’s company, in that room upstairs in the Tsuta-ya, to sweetly enjoy those hours of bedtime. They would yet await their chance; and they treasured their hopes of vengeance. At each of his workaday passages to and from the house, by day or at night, Shinsuké’s mind was scrupulously employed not to expose himself to sight a whit more than necessary.
Their chance came, at length, in July of the same year, when the summer was at its height. Through the arrest of one of his gang, a series of convicting cases had begun to be brought to light against Seiji, driving him to the decision that he should shut up his house, and sneak off into the country where to lie low in hiding for some while. This should be his chance to do away with Ichi, and this would be done to clear the way for them; for he wished Tsuya to accompany him on this flight into his life to open anew. He would, of course, bear away all the money on hand. It was suggested that they should steal away by boat under cover of night.—When this was whispered into her ear, Tsuya gave a ready assent, forcing down her heaving bosom.
The fourth hour of a night, a few days after the Buddhist festivity on , was set for the time of dispatching his woman Ichi and their departure from town. The day before the appointed night found Seiji all but completed in his preparations; his hired hands, many in number, had been discharged, furniture and household sundries all sold off—not a soul or a thing remained save his wife, Ichi, whom he assured he would take as his sole companion on his flight. To Tsuya was sent the message that she should walk in by the kitchen entrance on the stroke of the fourth hour of the night, as Ichi would be removed by that time.
Having reassured herself of Shinsuké’s part of the concert, alone and covering her face partly in a wimple, Tsuya walked in through the kitchen door of the boatman’s house, sharp at the appointed hour.
“Here! Here I am!” hailed Seiji, who was discovered in the back room, standing in the light of a sleep-room lantern, a figure gaunt and drawn to its height. Lying
