Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine Presents Fifty Years of Crime and Suspense (75 page)

Akitada had much to think about. He thanked the old man and left.

Crowds already filled the main streets of Otsu, most in their holiday best and eager to celebrate the departure of their ancestral ghosts. Akitada contemplated wryly that for most people, death loses its more painful attributes as soon as duty has been observed and the souls of those who were once deeply mourned have been duly acknowledged and can, with clear conscience, be sent back to the other world for another year. Tonight people everywhere would gather on the shores of rivers, lakes, and oceans and set afloat tiny straw boats containing a small candle or oil lamp to carry the spirits of the dear departed out into the open water, where, one by one, the lights would grow smaller until they died out completely. But what of those whose lives and families had been taken from them by violence?

Akitada asked for direction to the local warden's office. There he walked into a shouting match among a matron, a poorly dressed man, and a ragged youngster of about fourteen. The warden was looking from one to the other and scratched his head.

As he waited for the matter to be settled, Akitada pieced together what had happened. Someone had knocked the matron to the ground from behind and snatched a package containing a length of silk from under her arm. When she had gathered her wits, she had seen the two villains running away through the crowds. Her screams had brought one of the local constables who had set off after the men and caught them a short distance away. The package was lying in the street, and the two were scuffling with each other.

The trouble was that each blamed the theft on the other and claimed to have been chasing down the culprit.

The ragged boy had tears in his eyes. He kept repeating, “I was only trying to help,” and claimed his mother was waiting for some fish he was to have purchased for their holiday meal. The man looked outraged. “Lazy kids! Don't want to work and think they can steal an honest person's goods. Maybe a few good whippings will teach him before it's too late.”

The matron, though vocal about her ordeal, was no help at all. “I tell you, I didn't see who did it! He knocked me down and nearly broke my back.”

The warden shook his head, apparently at the end of his tether. “You should have brought witnesses,” he grumbled to the constable. “Now it's too late, and what'll we do?”

The constable protested, “Oh come on, Warden. The kid did it. Look at his clothes. Look at his face. Guilt's written all over him. Let's take him out back and question him.”

Akitada looked at the boy and saw that he was terrified. Interrogation meant the whip, and even innocent people had been known to confess to crimes when beaten. He decided to step in.

“Look here, Constable,” he said in his sternest official tone, “whipping a suspect without good cause is against the law. And you do not have good cause without a witness.”

They all turned to stare at him. The warden, seeing a person of authority, cheered up. “Perhaps you have some information in this matter, sir?”

“No. But I have a solution for your problem. Take both men outside and make them run the same distance. The loser will be your thief.”

“A truly wise decision, sir,” cried the matron, folding her hands and bowing to Akitada. “The Buddha helps the innocent.”

“No, madam. The thief got caught because his captor was the better runner.”

They all adjourned to a large courtyard, where the constables marked off the proper distance, and then sent the two suspects off on their race. As Akitada had known, the thin boy won easily. He thanked Akitada awkwardly and rushed off to purchase his fish, while the thief was taken away.

“Well, sir,” cried the delighted warden, “I'm much obliged to you. It might have gone hard with that young fellow otherwise. Now, how can I be of service?”

Having established such unexpectedly friendly relations, Akitada introduced himself and told the story of the mute boy. The warden's face grew serious. When Akitada reached the Masuda family's account of Peony's death, the warden said, “I went there when she was found. There was no child, dead or alive, though there might have been one. Bodies disappear in the lake. The woman Peony had drowned, but there was a large bruise on her temple. The coroner's report states that the bruise was not fatal and that she must have hit a rock when she jumped into the lake. But there were no rocks where she was found, and the water was too shallow for jumping anyway.”

“Then why did you not speak up at the time?”

“I did not attend the hearing. Someone told me about the verdict later. I did go and ask the coroner about that bruise. He said she could have bumped her head earlier.” The warden added defensively, “It looked like a suicide. The neighbors said she'd been deserted by her lover.”

Akitada did not agree. He thought Peony had been struck unconscious and then put into the water to drown, and if the boy was indeed her son, he might have seen her killer. But that boy was mute.

Or was he?

“The boy I found,” he said, “was terrified of the people who claimed him. I thought at first it was because he expected another beating. Perhaps so, but I think now that they are not his parents. I believe he has a more than casual connection with the cat and could be Peony's missing son.”

“Holy Amida!” breathed the warden. “What a story that would be!” He said eagerly, “They live in a fishing village outside town. I'll ride out now and check into it. If you're right, sir, it may solve the case. But that would really make a person wonder about the Masudas.”

“It would indeed. I'll get my horse from the inn and join you.”

The weather continued clear. They took the road Akitada had traveled two days before. On the way, the warden told Akitada about the Masuda family.

The old lord had doted on his handsome son and had chosen his son's first wife for both her birth and beauty, but the young lord did not care for his bride and started to visit the courtesans of the capital. His worried father sought to keep him home to produce an heir by presenting him next with a sturdy country girl for a second wife. She proved fertile and gave him two daughters before he lost interest again. It was at this time that the young husband had installed Peony, a beautiful courtesan, in the lake villa, where he stayed with her, turning his back on his two wives. The old lord forced him to return temporarily to his family, and the first lady finally conceived and bore a son, but her husband died soon after.

And, mused Akitada, while all of Otsu took an avid interest in the births and deaths in the Masuda mansion, hardly anyone cared about the fate of a courtesan and her child. In fact, he was surprised they had been allowed to continue living in the villa.

When Akitada and the warden reached the fishing village, they found the man Mimura leaning against the wall of a dilapidated shack, watching the boy sweep up a smelly mess of fish entrails, fins, and vegetable peelings. Dressed in rags again, the child now sported a large black eye.

“Hey, Mimura?” shouted the warden. The boy raised his head and stared at them. Then he dropped his broom and ran to Akitada, who jumped from his horse and caught him in his arms. The child was filthy and stank of rotten fish, and he clung to Akitada for dear life.

Mimura walked up, glowering. “If it's about the boy, we settled all that,” he told the warden. “I should've asked for more than the bits and pieces he gave the kid, and that's the truth.” He turned with a sneer to Akitada. “You had him a whole day and night. That ought to be worth at least two pieces of silver.”

The warden reddened to the roots of his hair, and Akitada realized belatedly that he was being accused of an unnatural fondness for boys. A cold fury took hold of him. “That child is not yours,” he thundered. “And stealing children is a crime.”

Mimura lost some of his bravado, and the warden quickly added, “Yes. This boy's not registered to you, yet you claimed him as your own. I'm afraid I'll have to arrest you.”

Mimura's jaw dropped. “We didn't steal him, Warden. Honest. He's got no family. We took him in, the wife and I.”

“Really? Out of the goodness of your heart? Then where are his papers? Where was he born and who were his people?”

“I'm just a poor working man, Warden. This woman gave him to my wife, and she paid her a bit of money to look after him.” He turned to call his slatternly spouse from the shack.

She approached nervously and confirmed his story. “I was selling fish in the market. It was getting dark when this lady came. She was carrying the boy and said, ‘This poor child has just lost his parents. I'll pay you if you'll raise him as your own.' I could see the boy was sickly, but we needed the money, so I said yes.”

“Her name?” the warden growled.

“She didn't say.”

“You called her a lady. What did she look like?” Akitada asked.

“I couldn't tell. She had on a veil and it was dark. And she was in a hurry. She just passed over the boy and the money and left.”

“How much money?” the warden wanted to know.

“A few pieces of silver. And a poor bargain it was,” Mimura grumbled. “He's a weakling and deaf and dumb as a stone. Look at him!”

“Did you give him the black eye?” Akitada asked.

“Me? No. He's a clumsy boy. A cripple.”

Akitada lifted the boy on his horse. “Come along, Warden,” he said over his shoulder. “You can deal with them later. We need to find this child's family.”

On the way back, the small, warm, smelly body in his arm, Akitada was filled with new purpose. He outlined his suspicions to the warden, but he spoke cautiously, for he was now certain that the child could hear very well.

“So you see,” he said, “we must speak to Lord Masuda himself, for the women are covering up the affair.”

The warden, who had been admirably cooperative so far, demurred. “Nobody sees the old lord. They say he's lost his mind.”

“Nevertheless, we must try.”

The Masuda mansion opened its gates for a second time. If the ancient servant was surprised to see Akitada with a ragged child in his arms and accompanied by the warden, he was too wellmannered to ask. But he shook his head stubbornly when Akitada demanded to see the old lord.

“Look,” Akitada finally said, “I think that this boy is Lord Masuda's grandson, the child of the courtesan Peony. Would he not wish to know him before he dies?”

“But,” stammered the old man, “that boy is dead. Lady Masuda said so herself.”

“She was mistaken.”

The old man came closer and peered up at the child. “Amida!” he whispered. “Those eyebrows. Can it be?”

He took them then. They found the old lord in his study. He sat sunken into himself, one gnarled hand pulling at the thin white beard that had grown long with neglect, his hooded eyes looking at nothing.

“My lord,” said the servant timidly. “You have visitors.” There was no reaction from Lord Masuda. “Lord Sugawara is here with the warden.” Still no sign that the master had heard. “They have a small boy with them, my lord. They say …”

Akitada stopped him with a gesture. Leading the child to the old man, he said, “Go to your grandfather, boy.”

For a moment he clung to his hand, but his eyes were wide with curiosity. Then he made a bow and a small noise in the back of his throat.

Lord Masuda's hand paused its stroking, but he gave no other sign that he had noticed.

The boy crept forward until he was close enough to touch the gnarled fingers with his own small ones. The old hand trembled at his touch, and Lord Masuda looked at the child.

“Yori?” he asked, his voice thin as a thread. “Is it you?”

The boy nodded, and Akitada's heart stopped. He turned to the servant. “Did he call the boy ‘Yori'?”

The servant was wiping his eyes. “The master's confused. He thinks he's his dead son, whose name was Tadayori. The child looks like him, you see. We used to call him Yori for short.”

It was a common abbreviation—his own Yori had been Yorinaga—but Akitada was shaken. That he should have crossed paths with this child during the O-bon festival when his grief had caused him to mistake the small pale figure for his son's ghost and he had called him “Yori” now seemed like a miracle. Fatefully, the child had come to him, and together they had encountered the extraordinary cat that had led him to Peony's villa and the Masudas.

The old lord was still looking searchingly at the child. Finally he turned his head and regarded them. “Who are these men?” he asked the servant. “And why is the boy dressed in these stinking rags?”

Akitada stepped forward and introduced himself and the warden. Lord Masuda looked merely baffled.

“My lord, were you aware of your son's liaison with the courtesan Peony?”

A faint flicker in the filmy eyes. “Peony?”

“They had a child, a boy, born five years ago. Your son continued his visits to the lady and acknowledged the boy as his.” There was just a broken sword for proof, but a nobleman buys such a sword only for his own son.

The old lord looked from him to the boy and then back again. “He resembles my son.” The gnarled hand stretched out and traced the child's straight eyebrows. “You hurt yourself,” he murmured, touching the bruised eye. “What is your name, boy?”

The child struggled to speak, when there was an interruption.

Lady Masuda swept in, followed closely by Kohime. “What is going on here?” she demanded, her eyes on her father-in-law. “He is not well …”

Akitada's eyes flew to the child. He had hoped for a confrontation between the boy and Lady Masuda, and now he prayed for another miracle. He saw him turn toward the women and his face transform into a mask of terror and fury. Then he catapulted himself forward, his voice bursting into gurgling speech. “I'll kill you, I'll kill you,” he screeched. But he rushed past Lady Masuda and threw himself on Kohime, fists flying.