She gasped and made an imploring gesture with her hands. “I… I didn’t intend … I am sorry.” Then she began to sob in earnest. Her words were so muffled that he could barely hear her. “I am sorry and shall obey you in the future.” She bowed, weeping silently. He could imagine what such a promise had cost her, and felt a little ashamed, sickened at having reduced his sister to this pitiful weeping thing—no matter that he had done so with words instead of blows; it had been just as effective.

He returned to his guests in a bitter mood. Toshikage was standing before the scroll of the boy and the puppies. He glanced at Akitada, but with great tact he did not ask about Yoshiko. Instead he said, “This is by Noami, Akiko says. What did you think of him?”

Covering his distress, Akitada became almost voluble. “A remarkable artist, but I did not like him. For one thing, he is insufferably rude. For another, there is something unpleasant about him. Did I tell you that he is painting a gruesome hell screen for the temple where Nagaoka’s wife was killed?”

“You don’t say! What a coincidence! Well, he is becoming very popular. I suppose his patrons think it’s artistic eccentricity. Will he paint a screen for you?”

Akitada wanted Tamako to have the finest screen in the capital, even if it meant paying an exorbitant amount to a man he instinctively detested, but he hesitated. “I don’t know. The thought of visiting his studio again appalls me. I am not superstitious, but I had the strangest sense of evil while I was there.”

Toshikage chuckled. “I have met him. He would make a fine demon, I think.”

Akiko yawned noisily and shivered. “How you men chatter! It is cold in here.”

Toshikage rushed to help his wife into her quilted jacket. “It is getting late and Akiko is worn out,” he said apologetically. “If things are settled, we will go home.”

Akiko was either too tired or had the good sense to say no more on the subject of Yoshiko’s lover. Leaning heavily on her husband’s arm, she waved a languid good-bye to her brother.

Akitada saw them off and then returned to his own room. The charcoal in the brazier had turned to ashes, and it was chilly. His head still ached, and he wondered if he was getting sick. He did not have the energy to call Seimei. Besides, the old man had been doing enough. Throwing an extra robe around his shoulders, he sat down behind his desk and tried to think. The meeting with his wife and sister had gone about as badly as he had feared. Although he considered his anger justified after Tamako had taken Yoshiko’s side against him, he dreaded facing her.

A scratching at the door interrupted his morose imaginings of what his wife would do or say to him after he had ordered her from his sister’s room.

“Come in,” he called, wishing whoever it was to the devil.

It was Yoshiko. She bowed very humbly. “Please forgive the interruption,” she said, creeping in on tentative feet, her voice toneless, her eyes lowered. Taking a deep, shuddering breath, she raised her eyes to Akitada and burst into speech. “I regret deeply having caused trouble for you and Tamako. Thinking of you as only my elder brother, I am afraid I forgot my duty to you as the head of my family. Akiko and Tamako have both reminded me that since I am unmarried, my first allegiance must always be to my family. I promise to accept your decisions for my future and to remain here as long as it pleases you.” She took another deep breath and reached into her sleeve. With trembling fingers she extended a letter to him. “If you please, this is for Kojiro. You can read it. It explains why I cannot marry him. Will you give it to him?”

Akitada stared at the oblong of elegant paper as if it were red-hot. He had triumphed over her willfulness, had forced her to break her word to Kojiro, but victory tasted as bitter as the ashes in the cold brazier. Yet he could not reverse his judgment. The man in prison was simply not an acceptable husband for his sister. He hesitated so long that Yoshiko’s extended hand began to shake and the letter slipped from her fingers. He caught it before it fell and put it in his sleeve.

“Yes. Of course,” he said thickly. “I… I am very sorry, Yoshiko. He knows already, for I told him. I wish things were different. You must see—”

She bowed without a word and left his room.

Akitada took the letter from his sleeve. It was not sealed. The thin mulberry paper showed the brush strokes on the inside. Yoshiko’s brush strokes were elegant and fluid, the hand of a woman of grace and culture. How little he really knew about his sister! A memory came into his head, of how he had offered to help her marry the man her mother had rejected! A foolish promise made out of love for the little sister who had years earlier brought him and Tamako together. Sickened, he laid the letter on his desk and rose to pace the floor.

Suddenly the room felt too close. It seemed to be pressing in on him, worsening his headache. He opened the shutters and walked down into the garden. The snow had melted, and he could see the shapes of the fish moving sluggishly beneath the surface of the small pond. As he leaned down to scoop a handful of dead leaves from the surface, the carp rose to his hand. Sorry that he had no food for them, he let them probe his fingers with gentle inquisitive mouths. Their touch resembled caresses. Had his father ever stood like this, alone and alienated from those around him?

When he returned to his study, his head still aching, he found Tora and Genba waiting. Caught up in his private thoughts, he did not notice right away that they sat as far away from each other as possible.

“We came to report, sir,” announced Tora stiffly.

“Oh, yes, the actors. Did you find them?”

“Yes, sir,” they answered in unison. Genba added, “They use a riverside training hall to practice. I was lucky enough to meet the lady proprietor in one of the restaurants.”

Tora made an impolite noise. “Never mind that obnoxious moon cake of a female! She knows nothing, but one of Uemon’s girls has promised to meet me tonight.”Tora smiled, stroking his mustache. “I’ll try to get the goods on their lead actor Danjuro. He’s a very suspicious character.”

Akitada’s eyes had moved from one to the other, trying to make sense of their words. Slowly he realized that something was wrong. They pointedly avoided looking at each other. Tora and Genba had always been on the easiest, friendliest terms with each other. What could have happened? He saw Tora looking at him expectantly and tried to recall his words. “Er, what do you mean, ‘suspicious’?”

Tora gave a succinct account of events as they led up to and followed his clash with Danjuro, skipping only over his stick-fighting ordeal and the cuddle in the alley. “So you see,” he summed up, “they all turned into clams when I tried to ask questions. And all because he thought I was a constable. Which naturally made me think he’s got something to hide.”

Akitada stared at him. “He thought you were a constable? Whatever gave him that idea?”

Tora reddened. “Can’t imagine. Must’ve been something I said.”

“What?” Akitada persisted.

“Well, he was giving himself airs about being the great Danjuro and told me that I was some lowlife who had insulted his lady wife.”

Genba muttered, “Which naturally he had.”

“Shut up, you,” snarled Tora. “You weren’t there. You were too busy ogling that fat cow to keep your mind on work.”

Genba glared. “I found the place first. And I get results without getting into fights and quarrels and abusing every poor girl in sight.”

Akitada had enough. “Stop this ridiculous bickering this instant! You can settle your differences later. What facts have either of you found out that links these people to the murder of Mrs. Nagaoka?”

They shook their heads.

“Nothing at all?”