I. Parker - Death of a Doll Maker

They worked past the middle of the night. When a guard outside struck the gong and shouted out the hour of the ox, Akitada stretched and closed the last document. “Tomorrow is another day. Thank you for your help, Mori.”

Left alone in the office, Akitada felt again the amorphous threat of the place. The darkness and silence of the night outside seemed to close in on him. He sat quite still and listened. Mori’s steps had long since receded, but somewhere a door closed, and a small draft set the candle flickering. He got up quickly and flung open the office door. The corridor was a black tunnel. He returned for an oil lamp and walked down the corridor, holding the lamp high. Nothing! All was empty and silent.

Ashamed of his panic, he returned to the office to extinguish the candle, then walked to his own room.

The next day began with the arrival of a contingent of fifteen armed men led by a middle-aged sergeant with a thick beard and mustache.

Tora met them in the forecourt.

Their sergeant eyed him askance and demanded, “Who are you?”

Tora folded his arms across his chest and grinned, “Where are your manners, Sarge?”

The man bristled. “I’m Sergeant Ueda and these are my men. We’ve been assigned to this tribunal. And now who are you ?”

Tora yawned. “Sorry, Sarge. Late night. You’d best get your men settled and then have them lend a hand in getting the place ready. We’ll talk about your routine later.”

Sergeant Ueda said coldly, “I prefer to be addressed as sergeant, and I don’t take orders from strangers. Where’s your master?”

Tora sighed. “I serve Lord Sugawara. The name’s Lieutenant Sashima. And I happen to be the inspector here. That means you do take orders from me. Now get on with it.”

It felt good to be an authority figure at last. Tora grinned as he walked away.

It was not until afternoon that he managed to return to Hakata. After wrangling most of the morning with the guard sergeant, he looked forward to seeing Maeda again. He found him in police headquarters, receiving a dressing down from Captain Okata for wasting time on a dead doll maker when he should have been working on the weekly reports due to be delivered to Dazaifu by the captain.

This reprimand took place in front of grinning constables and various locals who were waiting to report whatever had brought them here. Maeda stood at attention, his face a fixed mask.

When Okata paused to catch his breath, the newly appointed inspector of Chikuzen Tribunal said, “Never mind, Sergeant. Get on with the case. As for you, Captain, I’ll take those reports. The governor prefers to have them submitted to him first.”

Okata’s jaw sagged; he stared at Tora with a wrinkled brow. “Who the devil are you?”

This was the second such question of the day, and Tora sighed again. “Bad memory, Captain? We met yesterday at the crime scene. I’m Lieutenant Sashima, inspector for the province of Chikuzen.”

Silence fell in the room. Okata goggled and gulped. Then he said, “Nonsense. You have no authority here. We deal directly with the governor general in Dazaifu.”

“New governor, new rules,” snapped Tora. He turned back to the sergeant, “I came to ask about progress with the Mitsui murder. The governor is interested in the Chinese angle.”

“Absolutely not,” blustered the captain. “I forbid it. You cannot just walk in here and give orders.”

Tora cast up his eyes. “Captain, if you want a quarrel with the governor, let’s discuss it in private. You don’t want to lose face before half the town.”

Okata turned beet red. He turned and walked away, followed by Tora who glanced at Maeda and winked. In Okata’s office, Tora did not wait for the captain to speak. As soon as the door was shut, he said, “You cannot win this game, Okata. Lord Sugawara is your superior, and I have authority here. If we don’t get cooperation and obedience from you, you will lose your appointment. In fact, from what I’ve seen so far, you’re incompetent as a police officer. I have so informed the governor. Your post hangs by a mere spider’s thread. Now sit down and finish those reports while your sergeant and I clear up the murder.”

Okata’s face had lost all its color. “Y-you … I’ll file a complaint. This is outrageous!”

“By all means. Just remember what I said.”

Tora returned to the front of the building. “Let’s go, Maeda. There’s work to be done.”

Maeda gave him a mock salute, and they walked out together. “So that’s why they call you Tora? Because you snarl like a tiger?”

Tora grinned. “It felt good. By the way, I’ll send your horses back. Seems the inhabitants of Minami have been looking after them for us. And here we thought they were thieves.”

Maeda laughed. “They’re not bad people, you know. The last governor treated them like scum. They were owed for many months of work and then he dismissed them. Either anger or desperation drove them to it, as the case may be. I had a word with the headman. Did they offer to come back to work?”

“They did, and my master approved. But we are to keep an eye on them.”

Maeda laughed again. “I like your boss. I like you, too, for getting me out of doing the reports. Shall we go see the Mitsui children?”

“Why not?” Tora looked forward to the visit. “Do they know what happened?”

“Oh, yes. Word travels fast. But I thought I’d better talk to them myself, and the longer we wait the more time they’ll have to make up lies.” Maeda grinned. “The daughter’s called Atsuko. She married a shrine priest. The son is Hiroshi. He’s working as a porter at the Hakozaki harbor and may have met his father on the day of the murder. We’ll see her first. Her brother will be at work.”

“Who benefits from the mother’s death? Did she have any money or property?”

“You saw their house. They’re poor. In fact, I’ve been wondering why the children haven’t helped their parents out. My friend with the tiny trees said Mitsui’s wife had to take a job cleaning a merchant’s house.”

“Yes. That’s right.” Tora thought about it. “Atsuko means ‘kind child’, but this daughter doesn’t seem to live up to her name. Children should honor their parents. It’s unfeeling to ignore them.”

Maeda nodded.

Tora was looking about him as they walked. “Mitsui’s wife was Chinese,” he said. “Are there many rich Chinese here?”

“Oh no. Most of them are as poor as our people, just scraping by like old Mitsui and his wife. But some have found good fortune here. They’re silk merchants or deal in spices, medicines, religious objects, and art. All of it brought here from China or Koryo, as the case may be. There’s great demand for such things.”

“I thought trade with China was illegal.”

“Not all of it. The last governor was a good customer of Merchant Feng. Feng’s shop is over there. He sells silk and paintings from China.”

They were walking along Hakata’s main thoroughfare. To their right was a long one-story building with a tiled roof and ornately carved window screens. The name “Feng” was inscribed in a large black character on the red lacquer sign above the door. The open shutters revealed dim spaces inside, and two brawny men stood guard on either side of the entrance.

Tora eyed the place with interest. He noticed that the guards and several people on the street wore strange clothes-long narrow pants under slender belted robes that had slits up the sides. On their heads they had square black cloth caps unlike those worn by his own people. He asked, “Are you sure they don’t sell smuggled goods?”