The Samurai and the Long-Nosed Devils (9 page)

The searchers returned to report failure. “We couldn't find any trace of Kotaro, my lord. We searched his room and found that he had taken nothing at all, not even his swords.”

“Did he take his sandals?” asked Zenta.

“I . . . I didn't think to ask,” admitted the samurai.

Kagemasa looked curiously at the ronin. “Is this important?”

“If Kotaro wore sandals, he didn't make the footprints that we saw,” replied Zenta. “But to flee barefoot would mean that he left very suddenly. Then again, stealing the gun and waiting for the thunderstorm to break before firing showed a great deal of planning. I'm puzzled by the inconsistency here.”

Since it was the custom to remove footgear before entering the house, all the sandals were stored together near the front entrance. A little time was spent questioning the household staff before it could be established that Kotaro had not taken any footgear. When he left his master's house, his feet had been bare.

Chapter 9

 

 

“Hambei,” said Nobunaga, “I'm beginning to have doubts about the whole affair. It seems to me that the risks are too great.”

“Everything is under control, my lord,” said Hambei. “The shogun's deputy will prevent the Fujikawa men from taking matters into their own hands.”

“The shogun's deputy will protect the Portuguese only if he finds them innocent of the murder. Will Zenta be able to convince him of that?”

“Zenta will find some way to convince him,”

said Hambei.

“But it's not enough to prove the Portuguese innocent,” insisted Nobunaga. “Zenta must also produce the guilty party for the shogun's investigator. Are you sure that he will produce the one we want?”

“I'm sure that he will, my lord,” said Hambei. “But if he doesn't seem to be doing so, I will step in and help him.”

 

A message for the two bodyguards arrived at the house of the Portuguese. Hambei wanted to arrange a meeting with them to discuss the progress of the murder investigation. Since Hambei was known to be Nobunaga's henchman, he didn't want to visit the foreigners house while Kagemasa's men were still in the neighborhood searching for Kotaro. Therefore he asked the two ronin to meet him at an inn that was famous for turtle soup and other seafood delicacies.

“Why doesn't Hambei bring us to see Nobunaga?” demanded Matsuzo as they set out for the inn. “After all, we've been working for him all this time, and we still haven't even seen his face.”

Zenta was amused. Obviously Matsuzo still suspected that it was Hambei's jealousy which prevented them from having an audience with Nobunaga. Once an idea entered Matsuzo's head, it was hard to make him change his mind. Zenta himself had no fear of Hambei being jealous. On past occasions when they had worked together, he and Hambei had never competed for the same post or duties. They had never even desired the same girl. Chiyo was an example. Zenta felt not the slightest attraction to the girl. Her cleverness he thought to be cunning, and he disliked her veiled insolence to her mistress.

Lady Yuki was the type that Zenta liked. He admired her delicate beauty and her composure, unusual in one so young, and he enjoyed the gleam of sardonic humor that he saw in her eyes. Matsuzo, he knew, distrusted Lady Yuki.

He did agree with Matsuzo on one point, however. It felt strange not to have seen Nobunaga. They worked for him, they felt his influence everywhere in the city, but they still didn't have the faintest idea what he looked like.

The inn that Hambei had chosen was in a quiet street near the Temple of the Silver Pavilion. Looking at the austere elegance of the front entrance, Zenta expected suffocating service and high prices within. Hambei could be trusted to find all the outstanding eating places in town.

When the two men announced their names, the proprietor of the inn welcomed them in person with a deep bow and conducted them to a private room which opened out to a lovely garden with a pond. The garden was cleverly designed to represent a miniature landscape of mountains, valleys, and lakes. They entered the room and found a bevy of serving women fussing over Hambei. He was obviously a favorite customer.

“Ah, there you are!” cried Hambei. He peeled off a few of the serving women and sent them towards the new guests. “How about a few rounds of drinks?”

“No, let's have the food first,” said Zenta. He was hungry and he wanted to keep his head clear. When the trays of food arrived, he applied himself to the meal, ignoring both the efforts of the serving girls to entertain and Hambei's questions about the murder investigation.

The serving women nudged each other and smiled to see this wholehearted concentration on food. Hambei looked on with an exasperation which was, in part, genuine. “I go to the trouble of finding you a job with good pay, room and board. And what happens? You still eat like a hungry demon!”

Zenta was used to Hambei's hectoring tone, and he went on with his meal unperturbed. It was his habit to eat heartily whenever good food was set before him. He never knew when or what his next meal would be.

“Do the Portuguese starve their employees, then?” demanded Hambei.

Zenta didn't reply. He was busy with the difficult task of extracting all the bones from a tiny freshwater fish, a specialty of the inn. Matsuzo answered for him. “Because of the disturbances over the murder, the cooks didn't prepare breakfast for us. Pedro invited us to try some of his foreign food, and we were rash enough to accept.”

“I've never had any Portuguese food,” said Hambei. “What was it like?”

Matsuzo shuddered. “Each of us had a large slab of something called ‘bread.' I didn't know how to eat it, and I had to watch Pedro. Do you know what he did? He picked up the whole hunk and bit off pieces of it, just like a dog gnawing at a bone!”

Hambei laughed. “I've heard about this food called bread. According to some people, its texture is chewy and hard on the teeth, but the taste is not so bad. At least there is no truth to the rumor that the Portuguese eat human flesh.”

“No, but we had bowls of stew with some kind of unidentified animal meat in it,” said Matsuzo darkly. His voice dropped to a horrified whisper. “I was told later by one of the maids that it was cow's flesh!”

“I don't doubt it,” said Hambei. “The Portuguese had apparently bought some cow's flesh from a leather worker for eating purposes.”

“Naturally I couldn't eat more than a mouthful of the stew,” said Matsuzo, looking faintly green at the memory. “And the strangest part of it is that Pedro said he couldn't stand raw fish when he first arrived here. Imagine anyone not liking the delicate flavor of raw fish!”

“In fairness to the Portuguese, you should mention the fried prawns,” said Zenta. “They were covered with a crispy batter made of egg and I found them delicious. Pedro called the dish something like
tempura
, the Portuguese word for ‘egg.' ”

One of the serving girls, seeing the rice bucket empty, offered to fetch more rice from the kitchen. Zenta was full, however, and stopped her. He put down his empty rice bowl, replaced the lid on his soup bowl and set his chopsticks back on their china holder.

“I'm ready to discuss Lord Fujikawa's murder,” he announced. “What do you want to know?”

“I suppose that the Portuguese are no longer under suspicion,” said Hambei. “What does the shogun's deputy think?”

“Kagemasa? Naturally he wants to make a quick arrest for his master. Lord Fujikawa was a close friend of the shogun.”

“Does he suspect anyone in particular?” asked Hambei.

“At the moment he suspects Kotaro, the leader of the household samurai,” replied Zenta. “The man is certainly missing.”

“What is Kotaro's motive for murdering his master?”

“He's in love with Lady Yuki,” said Matsuzo. “Perhaps Lord Fujikawa caught him in her room.”

Zenta sighed, without even bothering to point out all the flaws in Matsuzo's theory. His young friend had a romantic nature and an overactive imagination. Nevertheless, Kotaro's infatuation with his mistress was not imaginary. Zenta told Hambei about Kotaro's angry reaction to Lord Fujikawa at Kiyomizu Temple. He gave a full account of the morning's events, beginning with the discovery of the murder and ending with the footprint demonstration which had finally convinced Kagemasa.

Hambei's clever face was serious for once as he listened to the recital. In the end he said, “What do you personally believe?”

Zenta hesitated. “Everything would be simple if Kotaro turned out to be the murderer,” he said finally. “But I can't bring myself to believe it.”

“Why not?” demanded Matsuzo. “What's wrong with a theory that's simple?”

“The first thing wrong with the theory is the use of the gun,” replied Zenta. “I can picture Kotaro killing his master in a burst of anger, but I don't think he had enough time to master the technique of loading, priming, and firing a gun.”

“The gun isn't like the sword, which takes years to master,” said Matsuzo. “Even the lowest foot soldier can fire the gun in a very short time. That's why so many warlords are eager to possess the weapon.”

“But it still takes a few weeks of training to fire a gun with accuracy,” said Zenta. “Between the time that the gun was stolen and the time of the murder, Kotaro had only one day, and part of the day he had to accompany his master to Kiyomizu. No, I don't think the murderer was Kotaro.”

“Perhaps he already knew how to use a gun,” muttered Matsuzo.

Zenta looked at his young friend with exasperation. Matsuzo was far from stupid, but he was stubborn. He had taken a dislike to Kotaro and wanted to believe the man guilty.

“You are forgetting our first meeting with Kotaro, when Pedro bumped into Lady Yuki's sedan chair,” Zenta said. “At that time Pedro threatened the Fujikawa men with his gun. The weapon was not loaded or primed. If Kotaro was familiar with guns, he would have known that the threat was an empty gesture, and he would have pointed this out immediately to his men.”

Hambei had been silent so far during the exchange, but now he said, “I agree with Zenta. Kotaro did not kill his master. From what Chiyo tells me, he goes into a rage easily, but he doesn't have the cunning or foresight to plan the murder.”

“Then the murderer could be anyone in Miyako!” cried Matsuzo. “We may never find out who he is!”

Hambei was looking intently at Zenta. “Lord Fujikawa's murder creates an atmosphere of suspicion against my master, since the two of them were known to be enemies. If you succeed in discovering the real murderer and convincing Kagemasa of the man's guilt, Nobunaga will be grateful.”

Zenta knew that Hambei's words contained a promise. If he solved the murder, he could expect a high appointment on Nobunaga's staff. The years of wandering and poverty would be over, and he could look forward to a brilliant career under a brilliant man. But curiously enough, he felt a certain regret at the thought of leaving the Portuguese. He had come to like and respect the foreigners, and there was still so much to learn from them.

“Let's not talk about Nobunaga's gratitude until we make some progress in the murder investigation,” he said. “I'd like to get Kagemasa's permission to question Lord Fujikawa's staff further, especially Chiyo. Have you seen her since the murder? I have the feeling that she knows something.”

It turned out to be unnecessary to ask Kagemasa's permission for the interview. As the serving women finished clearing away the last of the meal, the door slid open and Chiyo's pale face appeared. At Hambei's greeting she gave a wan smile and entered the room. With her hands folded on her lap, she knelt by the door and waited for permission to speak. Zenta noticed that her hands were trembling.

“We were just talking about you,” said Hambei. “Zenta thinks that you may have observed something that could provide a clue to the murder.”

Chiyo nodded. Then instead of replying, she drew something from her sleeve and held it out on the palm of her hand for the three men to see. It was an orange-colored silk tuft about the size of a fist. Zenta recognized it instantly: it was a
bonten
, normally attached to a strip of brocade called a
yuigesa
, which hung from the neck of itinerant priests, such as the warrior monks of Mt. Hiei.

Matsuzo recognized it also. “Then the murderer must have been one of the monks who were trying to molest Chiyo! Now I know why he used a gun. He hated the Portuguese, and he devised this plot in order to put the blame on them!”

Hambei looked grave. “This is very serious. I must inform Nobunaga of this latest development.”

“Wait,” said Zenta. He felt that they were rushing their judgment. Turning to Chiyo he said, “Why didn't Kagemasa's men find this tuft when they searched Lord Fujikawa's residence? They struck me as being very thorough.”

“I found it in the garden, lying on top of a clump of summer lilies,” replied Chiyo. “It was close to the same color as the flowers, and that must have been why the searchers missed it.”

“But why didn't you report the find to Kagemasa?” asked Zenta. “He is the official investigator. You could have told Lady Yuki, at least, and she could have sent a message to Kagemasa.”

Chiyo's eyes flashed, and for a moment she showed some of her old spirit. “What good would it do to tell my mistress? She dislikes me, and she will try to discredit any clue which I bring. Everyone knows about my hatred of the Mt. Hiei monks, and Lady Yuki will say that I manufactured the clue myself.” “Chiyo is right,” Hambei told Zenta.

“It would look better if you took the tuft to Kagemasa. He knows that you are an impartial observer of this affair.”

Zenta was thinking aloud. “Chiyo said earlier that one of the monks was seen in the neighborhood yesterday. He could have gotten into the garden then. We have no way of knowing that he dropped the tuft at the time of the murder.”