I Parker: The Masuda Affair

It explained a great deal. The student Ishikawa had been very poor, very bright, and very hard-working, but those qualities had failed to produce the rapid success he desired. No doubt being raised in a wealthy household, side by side with the heir, had contributed to his criminal activities at the university. Akitada felt sympathy for his mother, even if he could not excuse the son.

‘Perhaps you can help me,’ he said. ‘There is an abandoned villa on the lake. I was told that it belongs to the Masudas.’

The old lady looked startled. ‘You mean Peony’s house? Lady Masuda would not wish to be reminded of that.’

Peony was a professional name used only by courtesans and entertainers. ‘I take it that Lord Masuda’s son used to keep this Peony in the villa on the lake?’

Mrs Ishikawa flushed and squirmed a little. ‘We are not to speak of this.’

Akitada had put her in an impossible situation. Using her gratitude to extort information about her employers was disgraceful. He retreated instantly. ‘I see. I will not trouble you then. But perhaps you can tell me about a cat I saw there, a white one with brown spots.’

‘Patch? Could it be Patch after all this time? Such a dear little kitten. I used to wonder what became of it. Oh.’ Shock at her indiscretion caused her to break off and clamp a hand over her mouth.

Half ashamed of himself, Akitada pounced. ‘Was there not a little boy?’

‘Oh, the poor child is dead. They’re both dead and best forgotten.’ When Akitada raised his eyebrows, she flushed. ‘I did not mean it the way it sounds, but the story was so shocking that it is very unpleasant to think about it. You see, Peony killed her child and then herself

Akitada’s face fell, along with his hopes.

Mrs Ishikawa misunderstood. Oh, forgive me for not saying any more. And please don’t mention what I told you to the ladies. It was horrible, but there was nothing we could do. There is enough grief in this household as it is.’

From the garden came the voice of Lady Masuda calling for her. Mrs Ishikawa looked over her shoulder. ‘I must go, My Lord. Please, forget what I said.’ And with another deep bow she was gone.

Akitada stared after her. If she was right about Peony’s child being dead, then the deaf-mute boy belonged to someone else, most likely to the repulsive couple who had dragged him away.

But here was a new mystery: why did Lady Masuda impose such secrecy on her household? Whatever jealousy she might have felt of her husband’s concubine, such arrangements were common enough and accepted. Mrs Ishikawa had known Peony and her son and had been fond of them. Perhaps the elegant lady who had been bent over the account book knew what was in the interest of the Masudas, and the dubious offspring of a former courtesan was best assumed dead.

Whatever had happened, the Masuda problems were not his affair. Yet Akitada paused in his walk to the gate to look back thoughtfully at the Masuda mansion, testimony to the family’s wealth, all of it belonging to an ailing old man without an heir. He wondered about the deaths of the courtesan Peony and her child. He also wondered about the curse killing the male Masuda heirs. Perhaps the years spent solving crimes committed by corrupt, greedy, and vengeful people had made him suspicious. Or perhaps his encounter with the wailing ghost had made him think of restless spirits in search of justice. He was neither religious nor superstitious, but there had been nothing reasonable about the events of the past two days.

For a few moments, the bleak and paralyzing hopelessness that had stifled his spirit lifted because he had stumbled on this mystery.

He asked the old servant waiting patiently beside the gate, ‘When did the young lord die?’

‘Which one, My Lord? Lord Tadayori died last year, and the first lady’s son this year.’ He sighed. ‘Only the two little girls of the second lady are left now, but the old lord cares nothing for them.’

Akitada’s eyebrows rose. ‘How did the grandson die?’

‘The great sickness, My Lord. Many children died from it.’

Akitada’s stomach twisted. His son, that sturdy, handsome bundle of energy, had become a whimpering creature, covered with festering sores, as he watched helplessly. So Lady Masuda had also lost a son. And Peony and her son had died soon after. But their deaths were not clearly accounted for. A picture began to shape in Akitada’s mind.

The story was not unusual. A wealthy nobleman falls in love with a beautiful courtesan, buys out her contract, and keeps her for his private enjoyment in a place where he can visit her often. Such liaisons could last for months or for a lifetime. In this case, there had been a child. Had the younger Masuda really ended his affair or had his death ended it? What if Lady Masuda, after losing both husband and son, had become distraught with grief and jealousy and killed both her rival and her child?

But he was jumping to conclusions without facts. He could not even be certain that Peony’s child had been Masuda’s. He thanked the old man and left.

Crowds were already filling the main streets of Otsu to celebrate the departure of their ancestral ghosts. For most people, death lost its more painful attributes as soon as duty had been observed – when the souls of those who were once deeply mourned had been duly acknowledged and could, with a clear conscience, be sent back to the other world for another year. After dark, people everywhere would gather on the shores of rivers, lakes, and oceans and set afloat tiny straw boats, each containing a small candle or oil lamp, to carry the spirits of the dear departed away. One by one, the lights would grow smaller until they were extinguished.

Akitada’s bitterness had hardened him to human emotions. To his skepticism for supernatural events he had added a cynical distrust for the professed grief of the living. His sympathies were with the dead. What of those ghosts whose lives and families had been taken from them by violence?

Feeling at odds with his world, he returned to the local warden’s office and walked into a shouting match between a portly matron and two prisoners, a nattily-dressed man with a mustache and chin beard, and a ragged youngster of about fourteen. The warden was looking from one to the other and scratching his head.

Apparently, 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 crowd. Her screams had brought a constable, who had set off after the fugitives and caught them a short distance away. The package was lying in the street and the two men were scuffling.

The problem 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.’ He claimed his mother was waiting for some fish he was to purchase for their holiday meal.

The man with the whiskers was outraged. ‘Lazy kids don’t want to work and think they can steal an honest person’s goods. Maybe a good whipping will teach him before it’s too late.’

The matron, though vocal about her ordeal, was no help at all. ‘I tell you, Warden Takechi, I didn’t see him. He knocked me down and nearly broke my back.’ She rubbed her substantial behind.

The warden shook his head. ‘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.’