“The sōsakan-sama or his retainer will surely call on you again,” Koheiji said. “And when they do, you must keep your silence about me.”

Shrouded by her impenetrable thoughts, Agemaki sat unmoving, hands clasped and eyelids lowered, as the palanquin jounced along the street. The voices of beggars pleading for alms and the smell of decaying garbage filtered through the shutters. Koheiji squirmed, eager for reassurance from Agemaki.

Her gaze slid toward him, not quite meeting his. She murmured, “When the sōsakan-sama does call on me, I may be forced to tell him what you did.”

For once Koheiji could read her mind. She thought that if the sōsakan-sama accused her of murdering Daiemon, she could save herself by breaking the bargain and revealing the knowledge that would condemn Koheiji instead. Koheiji had always sensed that Agemaki was smarter, crueler, and more self-serving than she appeared; now he was certain. But if she thought she could betray him, she wasn’t as clever as she believed. Even while she held his fate in her hands, Koheiji held hers.

“If you tell the sōsakan-sama what I did,” Koheiji said, “I’ll have to tell him all about you.”

She seemed unruffled by his counterthreat. A hint of a smile touched her lips. “Whose story do you think the sōsakan-sama would consider more important? Yours or mine?”

The tinge of superiority in her voice nettled Koheiji. The danger that her betrayal posed struck dread into him. He felt sweat dampening his armpits and smelled his sweet stench of nerves filling the palanquin. Maybe the sōsakan-sama would think that what Agemaki knew was indisputable evidence that Koheiji had killed Makino, while Koheiji’s story didn’t prove Agemaki had. Agemaki obviously believed so, and maybe she was right. Yet Koheiji mustn’t let her intimidate him.

“If you think the sōsakan-sama would listen to a former shrine attendant and whore like you rather than a Kabuki star like me, I think you’ve got a lot to learn,” he said. “But, hey, there’s a way to settle the question. Let’s go to the sōsakan-sama, together, right now. We’ll each tell him our story and see which of us he arrests.”

He was bluffing; he didn’t dare take such a gamble. But Agemaki swiveled and raised her head until their gazes met. Koheiji saw fearful uncertainty, and hatred toward him, in her eyes. She looked away first.

“Perhaps it’s best that we keep our bargain,” she said.

Gladness and relief flooded Koheiji. He drew his first easy breath since Hirata had interrupted his tryst in the theater. “Oh, indeed it is best,” he said. “That way, the sōsakan-sama will have to pick somebody else to blame for the murders instead of either of us.”

And soon Koheiji’s darkest season would end. His star would shine once more.

As Reiko trudged behind the palanquin bearers, along the avenue outside the wall and moat of Edo Castle, she saw Koheiji jump out of the vehicle. Okitsu, who’d been walking alongside the maids and pouting, ran to him.

“Koheiji-san!” she cried petulantly. “What’s going on?”

“I’ll explain later,” he said, shaking her hand off his sleeve. “I have to get back to the theater.”

He whispered in Okitsu’s ear, then hurried away, cut between two squadrons of marching soldiers, and disappeared. Okitsu hesitated, obviously upset and wishing to go after him, then clambered into the palanquin. Reiko thought about the conversation that had just passed between Agemaki and Koheiji. Her keen ears had heard enough to know that the pair were engaging in a conspiracy of silence. Each appeared to have evidence that implicated the other in Makino’s murder. Questions teemed in Reiko’s mind. Was one of them the killer?

The conversation she’d overheard in Yanagiya suggested that it was Agemaki. Or were the actor and widow conspirators in the crime as well as in subterfuge?

Reiko remembered the scene she’d witnessed between Koheiji and Okitsu last night, which had almost convinced her that the guilty party was one or both of them. She felt as though her suspicion were a ball that kept bouncing from one person to another. Upon whom would it finally land?

Rain spiked with ice stippled the courtyard of Senior Elder Makino’s estate and clattered on the roofs of the surrounding barracks. In the courtyard, Sano greeted one of the detectives he’d assigned to watch the estate.

“Did Senior Elder Makino’s widow or concubine leave the premises yesterday evening?” Sano asked.

“Yes,” the detective said. “They went out separately, in palanquins, at around the hour of the boar.”

Sano glanced at Ibe and Otani, who stood nearby with their troops and Detectives Marume and Fukida, the only men they’d allowed him to bring along. Otani said, “That’s evidence that either woman had the opportunity to kill Daiemon.”

“For your son’s sake, you’d better find more evidence that they did,” Ibe said, his thin features stiff with cold and bad will toward Sano.

“What about Makino’s actor and chief retainer?” Sano asked his detective.

Otani said, “I’m warning you.”

“They both went out before the women did,” said the detective. “Koheiji hasn’t yet returned. Tamura came back after midnight and went out again a little while ago.”

“Forget you heard that,” Ibe told Sano. “Concentrate on the women, or else.”

Anger that the watchdogs had commandeered his investigation boiled up in Sano, but an image of Masahiro surrounded by their thugs stifled his retort. He longed to ask the detective for news of Reiko, but he couldn’t in the presence of Otani and Ibe. With great effort he banished the thought of his wife and son both in jeopardy and focused on the business at hand. “Where are Agemaki and Okitsu?” he asked the detective.

“They went out together early this morning. They’re not back yet.”

“I’m sure you can find something to occupy you here until they return,” Ibe said.

“Why don’t you search their quarters again?” Otani said.

He and Ibe escorted Sano to the private chambers, thwarting Sano’s hope of sneaking off to find Reiko or investigate the scene of Daiemon’s murder. Their troops followed, guarding Detectives Marume and Fukida. Sano and the detectives first searched Okitsu’s cluttered room. Otani and Ibe wandered off, but their troops stayed. If Okitsu had killed Daiemon, Sano found no sign of it. Sano moved on to Agemaki’s pristine quarters. There he and his men had just finished another fruitless search, when Ibe end Otani burst into the room. Ibe dragged the concubine; Otani brought the widow. Okitsu whimpered in terror, while Agemaki remained tranquil.

“Here they are,” said Ibe. “Pick one.”

Sano’s gaze flew to a group of maids who hovered fearfully outside the door. Reiko wasn’t among them. Sano said, “Take Okitsu to her room.” He thought her the weakest of the suspects, and giving her time to worry should goad her to reveal whatever secrets she might know about Makino’s murder. “I’ll question Agemaki first.”

The watchdogs’ troops took the concubine away. Ibe pushed the widow to her knees on the floor in front of the screen decorated with gilded birds. He and Otani stood on either side of her, their troops ranged around them. It was a situation designed to intimidate, Sano observed, but it wasn’t working. Agemaki seemed completely indifferent to the display of power surrounding her. He wondered if she’d been expecting another interrogation. Either she was innocent and felt safe in her virtue, or her stoicism was worthy of a samurai.

“When we talked yesterday, you told me that you last saw your husband before he went to bed the night he died,” Sano said. “You slept all that night in your own room. You were unaware of anything that happened because you’d taken a sleeping potion, and you don’t know how your husband died or who killed him. Is that correct?”