“By palanquin?”

“On foot.”

Sano gave up the notion of identifying the woman through her vehicle or escorts. If she’d had them, she’d left them where they wouldn’t be seen. “What time did she come?”

“At half past the hour of the boar,” said the proprietor.

Late evening, the time preferred for secret assignations. Sano said, “What happened when she arrived?”

“She knocked on the door, as usual,” the proprietor said. “I showed her to the room. It was reserved and paid for in advance, as usual.”

“Was Daiemon already here when she arrived?” Sano said.

“No,” said the proprietor. “He always came later.”

“Tell me what happened when he came.”

“I let him in the door, but I didn’t show him to the room. He went by himself. He knew where it was-they always used the same one. That was the last time I saw him alive.”

“Were there any noises from this room after he went in?”

The proprietor hunched his shoulders. “Maybe some whispering or cries. But that’s normal here. And they could have come from my other customers.”

The sounds of lovemaking had obscured whatever sounds Daiemon or his killer had uttered during the stabbing, Sano observed. “How did you happen to discover the murder?”

“I was passing by the door and I looked through the peephole.” A guilty, sheepish look came over the proprietor’s face. “All the doors have peepholes. I like to check the rooms once in a while, to make sure everything is all right.”

And he probably enjoyed watching the lovers. Sano said, “So you looked inside this room. What happened next?”

“I saw him like that.” The proprietor glanced at the corpse, gulped, and averted his gaze.

“You fetched the police?”

“No.” The proprietor hastened to add, "Of course I was going to fetch them, but I didn’t have a chance. First I thought I should tell my customers what had happened and give them time to leave.”

Sano knew that the illicit lovers wouldn’t have wanted to be caught here, by the police, at the scene of a crime; nor would the proprietor have wanted to expose them to scandal and lose their business.

“But just then, I heard banging on the door,” the proprietor said, “and voices shouting, ‘Police! Let us in!’ When I opened the door, they ran straight to this room-they seemed to already know about the murder.”

Sano cut his gaze to Police Commissioner Hoshina, loitering nearby. “How did they?”

“The local patrol officer was patrolling his territory with his civilian assistants, when they heard someone shouting, ‘The Honorable Lord Matsudaira Daiemon has been murdered at the Sign of Bedazzlement!’ ” Hoshina said. “They didn’t see who shouted. Whoever it was ran away. They came here and found Daiemon. They notified me. I notified Lord Matsudaira. We came immediately.”

This strange story of an anonymous herald sounded unlikely to Sano. He hesitated to believe anything Hoshina said, but perhaps the killer had wanted the murder discovered and thus had told the police.

“The woman was gone when you found Daiemon?” Sano asked the proprietor.

“Yes, master.”

“Did you see her go?”

“No, master. She must have left through the secret passage.” The proprietor slid aside a partition camouflaged by the mural on a wall, revealing a closet. From a square black hole in the floor issued a cold draft that smelled of earth and drains. “It leads to the alley behind the house.”

Sano turned to his detectives. “Marume-san, tell our men outside to search the neighborhood for the woman,” he said, although he knew she could have gotten far away during the time that had elapsed since the murder. “Fukida-san, examine the secret passage and the alley for clues she might have left.”

Marume departed. Fukida borrowed a lamp from the proprietor and jumped into the passage that the illicit lovers used to escape when necessary. Lord Matsudaira got to his feet like a pile of rubble coalescing into a mountain. His stunned expression vanished; anger focused his eyes as his combative spirit returned.

“Why must you bother hunting for the woman?” he asked Sano.

“She may have witnessed the murder,” Sano said, “or she may have committed it.”

“Who cares about witnesses?” Lord Matsudaira said, his fists clenched and nostrils flared. “We don’t need anyone to tell us what happened here tonight. And we both know my nephew wasn’t killed by his lady.”

“She was with him,” Sano pointed out. “That she’s gone now suggests she’s guilty. Daiemon appears to have been killed by someone he knew and trusted. His murder could be a case of romance gone bad.”

Yet Sano doubted the crime was that simple. Daiemon’s murder, so soon after Makino’s, was unlikely to be a coincidence.

“This was no lovers’ quarrel. This was political assassination,” Lord Matsudaira said, voicing Sano’s thoughts.

“And it’s obvious who’s responsible,” Hoshina said.

“Chamberlain Yanagisawa.” Lord Matsudaira spat the name as though expelling poison from his mouth.

The grin on Hoshina’s face expressed his pleasure at the implication of his onetime lover in the murder of the shogun’s heir apparent. Sano felt his heart sink as he foresaw a rise in the strife between the factions, no matter how or why Daiemon had actually died.

“Bring my nephew home to be prepared for his funeral,” Lord Matsudaira told his troops. Then he addressed Sano and Hoshina: “I must inform the shogun about the murder.” Vindictive intent glittered in Lord Matsudaira’s eyes. “And I will make Chamberlain Yanagisawa pay with his own blood.”

21

No!” the shogun cried. “It can’t be! First my old friend Makino dies of, ahh, foul play, and now my dearest, beloved Daiemon. Why are these terrible things happening to me?” He flung himself facedown on his dais and sobbed.

Below him, to his right on the upper floor level of the reception hall, knelt Lord Matsudaira, who had just broken the news of Daiemon’s murder. He wore a somber air appropriate for the occasion. Sano knelt opposite the shogun. Police Commissioner Hoshina sat near Sano. Suppressed excitement animated Hoshina’s dignified pose. On the lower level of the floor sat a crowd of Matsudaira troops, Sano’s detectives, and Hoshina’s police officers. Along the walls stood the shogun’s bodyguards. A tense, waiting silence gripped the assembly. The sunrise tinted the windows red as if with blood.

“Tell me,” the shogun entreated Lord Matsudaira as he sat up and wiped his tear-drenched face, “what villain has, ahh, cut Daiemon down in the prime of his life?”

Lord Matsudaira leaned toward the shogun like a general riding into a decisive battle. “My nephew had an enemy who was envious of your affection for him. That enemy has been plotting to destroy Daiemon and strike at you by killing him.”

He didn’t come right out and name Yanagisawa because he first wanted to lay groundwork for his accusation, Sano understood. And he couldn’t name Yanagisawa’s real motive for the murder-to weaken the Matsudaira clan and clear his son’s way to inherit the dictatorship-because the shogun wasn’t supposed to know about the factions’ struggle for power. The whole bakufu had an unspoken agreement to keep him in the dark.

“Last night his enemy stabbed Daiemon to death,” Lord Matsudaira said.

Confusion wrinkled the shogun’s forehead. “And who is this enemy?”

“I regret to say that he is none other than your chamberlain.” Lord Matsudaira spoke with grave sincerity that hid his enjoyment of openly attacking his rival at last.

Sano braced himself for the reaction. Police Commissioner Hoshina kneaded his hands, while everyone else sat frozen. The shogun gasped in wide-eyed shock.

“Chamberlain Yanagisawa? But that’s, ahh, impossible. He would never hurt anyone who matters to me… would he?” Sudden doubt colored the shogun’s features. Ever open to influence by people more forceful than himself, he looked from Lord Matsudaira to Sano to Hoshina. “What makes you think he, ahh, killed Daiemon?”