Laura Rowland - The Perfumed Sleeve

“He makes himself comfortable,” Otani said as he opened a cabinet to reveal folded silk bedding and robes.

Ibe examined the screen. “This wasn’t cheap. He has money.”

Sano wondered uneasily whether Ibe and Otani would discover whose house this was and what would happen if they did. But Daiemon seemed not to have left any obvious clues to his identity. Sano and Hirata found two smaller rooms, both unfurnished. They returned to the main chamber, where Otani had opened the chest. This held a pair of swords on a rack.

“Whoever he is, he’s a samurai,” Ibe said.

Otani lifted out the long sword and frowned in puzzlement. “This dragon design on the hilt looks familiar,” he said. “I’m sure I’ve seen it someplace before… but where?”

Sano gave Hirata a look that said they’d better finish inspecting the house before Otani recalled that he’d seen his lord’s nephew wearing the sword. While Hirata began searching the cabinet, Sano opened the lid of the desk. Inside he found writing supplies and a pile of gold coins alongside a stack of white rice paper. Sano riffled the sheets and found them all blank except the last, which bore scrawled black writing.

“What’s that?” Ibe said, leaning over Sano’s shoulder.

The paper read:

Makino

One hundred koban beforehand

One hundred afterward

Final payment the next day, at the Floating Teahouse

Elation vied with apprehension inside Sano. “Unless I’m mistaken, this means that somebody hired somebody else to assassinate Senior Elder Makino,” he said.

And if Sano was correct, the person who’d hired the assassin had to be Daiemon. Yet Sano was less pleased with the thought that he’d solved the crime than concerned about the consequences of the solution. If he exposed Daiemon as the person responsible for Makino’s death, what then? Chamberlain Yanagisawa would be delighted to have the Matsudaira clan disgraced. Lord Matsudaira would come raging after Sano’s blood… if Sano first survived defying his watchdogs’ orders against investigating Daiemon or involving their lords in the crime.

“But who’s the assassin?” Ibe said. “And who hired him?”

A creaking noise outside froze everyone into alert silence. Somebody was coming up the stairs. Sano and Hirata drew their swords and stood to one side of the doorway leading through the kitchen to the entrance. Ibe and Otani also unsheathed their weapons and positioned themselves on the other side. Suspense hushed the room. Sano heard the door open. The footsteps crossed the kitchen. Into the parlor walked a samurai.

“Halt!” Sano ordered.

He lunged, his blade pointed at the samurai. Hirata, Otani, and Ibe followed suit. The samurai yelped. His eyes widened and his mouth gaped in horror as four blades impinged on his throat. He fumbled for his own weapon.

“Don’t even try,” Sano said.

The samurai gulped, nodded, and held his hands palms up in surrender. He was in his twenties, with a heavy jaw and a square, short, muscular build. His silk garments and expensive swords declared him a member of the upper social ranks.

“Who are you?” Sano asked.

Before the samurai could answer, Otani said, “Kubo-san?” Startled recognition marked both men’s faces. “What are you doing here?”

“Otani-san,” the samurai said with obvious relief at seeing someone he knew. “Please don’t hurt me! Please allow me to explain!”

“How do you know each other?” Sano said, surprised himself, as he and Hirata and the watchdogs sheathed their weapons.

“He was a retainer to Daiemon,” said Otani. Then he addressed the young samurai: “By all means explain.”

Sano saw Hirata’s leery expression. He braced himself for what he knew was coming.

“I came to get some money and swords that Daiemon left here,” said Kubo. “I thought I should give them to his family.”

“This was Daiemon’s place?” Otani demanded, as he stared at Kubo, then around the room.

“Well, yes,” Kubo said nervously. “Only a few of his men know about it. We weren’t supposed to tell. But now that he’s dead, I guess it doesn’t really matter… does it?”

A brief silence, fraught with tension, ensued while Otani and Ibe grasped the meaning of the news they’d just received. Otani spoke in a tone of dumbfounded revelation: “Those are Daiemon’s swords. I knew I’d seen them before.” He snatched the note from Hirata. “It was Daiemon who wrote this?”

Kubo peered at the note. “That looks like his writing.”

Ibe’s face showed dawning enlightenment, then a calculating look. “Daiemon hired the assassin. He was behind Senior Elder Makino’s murder.”

“No!” Otani exclaimed, aghast. “It can’t be!”

“This place belonged to Daiemon. He wrote the note,” Ibe said.

“But-but maybe we’ve misinterpreted the note,” Otani said.

“What other interpretation is there?” Ibe said.

Otani opened his mouth, then shook his head.

“Did I say something wrong?” Kubo said in small voice.

“Just take the money and swords and go,” Sano told him. “Forget what happened here.”

Kubo went. “Wait until Chamberlain Yanagisawa hears about this,” Ibe gloated. “How glad he’ll be to learn that Lord Matsudaira’s nephew was the guilty one. That should strengthen him and weaken his enemy.”

“But… ” Shaken and confused, Otani said, “We’re not going to tell the chamberlain. We agreed to leave our superiors and the factions out of the murder investigation… didn’t we?” His eyes implored Ibe. “And we agreed that one of the women should be blamed for both crimes. We can’t expose Daiemon as the killer and traitor!”

Sano saw that Otani was terrified of Lord Matsudaira’s displeasure and the shogun’s wrath. Since Daiemon was dead and beyond punishment, his clan and its associates would pay for his crime.

“This changes everything,” Ibe said, wresting the note from Otani’s grip. “I agreed to our pact because I thought it would serve our mutual interests, and I thought one of the women was as likely to be the culprit as anyone else. But now that we know different, I can’t let the wrong person be punished for killing my lord’s friend and ally while the Matsudaira clan goes free. Nor can I hide such important information from Chamberlain Yanagisawa.”

The man did have some sense of honor and duty after all, Sano saw; but only if it favored his interests. A divergence of interests had shattered the alliance between Sano’s watchdogs. Otani stood frozen by horror that his partner had not only cut him loose, but meant to strike a crippling blow at his lord.

“Congratulations on solving Senior Elder Makino’s murder,” Ibe said to Sano. "Let’s take the news back to Edo Castle.”

“No!” Otani shouted as fury roused him to life. He turned to Sano in desperation. “I order you to never speak of what we found here. I order you to arrest Okitsu or Agemaki!”

His words fell into dead quiet. Nobody moved. “Are you coming?” Ibe asked Sano.

“Not yet,” Sano said.

As Ibe regarded him with puzzlement, and Otani with sudden hope of a reprieve, Sano said, “There’s not enough evidence to prove Daiemon is guilty.”

“What are you talking about?” Ibe said. He waved the note. “There’s this, written by Daiemon, describing the arrangements he made with the assassin. What more do you want?”

“Verification that the note is what it appears to be,” Sano said.

“That it appears to be in Daiemon’s handwriting, and it was found in his house, doesn’t mean anything,” Otani said eagerly. “Someone could have forged the note and planted it here.”

“Do you question the evidence because you’re afraid of how Lord Matsudaira will react?” Ibe asked Sano.