Tora flushed with pleasure, but Miss Plumblossom said, “The silly girl says she couldn’t see in the dark. All she’s sure of is that he was smallish and thinnish but very strong. Humph!”

“After such a vicious attack, it is a wonder she recalls anything. Perhaps in time she will remember more.”

The maid mumbled something.

“Oh, yes. She says she smelled him,” interpreted Miss Plumblossom with a toss of her head. “As if we could go around smelling people.”

“What sort of smell was it?” Akitada asked, interested in spite of himself.

Tora moved impatiently. “Never mind, sir. We’ll get it all sorted out. How was your trip? Catch any murderers?”

“Superintendent Kobe has arrested Nagaoka’s father-in-law, and I brought home a guest, a Professor Harada. He used to work for Yasaburo. He is pretty sick, but may be able to give us some information. Seimei is tending to him now.” Akitada looked curiously at the pretty girl. “Is this young woman by any chance a member of Uemon’s Players?”

“Yes, Gold’s an acrobat. She’s fantastic.” Tora smiled proudly at the girl, who returned the adoring look.

“In that case, Gold,” said Akitada, “you may be able to answer a question. You stayed at the temple where the woman was murdered, didn’t you? On the fifth day of last month?”

“Yes, sir. Tora’s already asked me about that. I saw nothing, and neither did any of the others, sir.”

Akitada hid his disappointment. “You did not leave your room after dark?”

“No. We had performed that afternoon and I was tired. Besides, it was raining.”

“You slept alone?”

“No. My sister and Ohisa shared the room. They came to bed later, but my sister also saw nothing.”

“And Ohisa?”

“Ohisa took off before either of us awoke.”

“Took off?”

Gold made a face. “Ohisa used to be Danjuro’s girl. Danjuro is our lead actor, and all the women are wild about him.” Tora glowered and she added with a smile, “Except me. I can’t stand the arrogant bastard. Anyway, he dumped Ohisa and she left in a snit, just like that. We would’ve been short a dancer if Danjuro’s new girlfriend hadn’t stepped in.”

“And none of the others saw anything suspicious?”

She shook her head. “They would’ve told me. We talked about the murder all the way back to the capital.”

Akitada thanked her and turned to Genba. “I trust everything was quiet in my absence?”

Genba nodded. “But there was an odd little man here a little earlier. He asked for you. Something about a screen he’s supposed to paint for your lady, so I took him to her. I hope that was all right?”

“Heavens, Noami!” Akitada jumped up. “He is a very unpleasant person. I had better see him before he upsets my wife.”

He met Tamako in the corridor outside her quarters. She had heard of his arrival and was coming to look for him.

“I am glad you are back safely.” She bowed in her restrained and formal manner, but her eyes searched Akitada’s face.

“I looked in on Tora first and found him surrounded by admiring females, plotting how to catch the slasher.” Seeing her incomprehension, he explained, “A man who has been mutilating and killing young women in the city.”

Her eyes grew round. “How very horrible,” she breathed. “I had no idea such things were happening. Is it safe to go out?”

“Safe enough, provided you go in the daytime, take a maid with you, and don’t venture into unsavory parts of town. By the way, I brought you another patient.” He explained briefly about Harada.

She nodded, then took his arm. “Come! I have someone waiting to talk to you. The painter of the pretty scroll has called. I left him giving a drawing lesson to your son.”

An irrational fear seized Akitada. “You left him with Yori?”

But the scene which met his eyes was harmless enough. The defrocked monk, dressed in a decent gray robe, his short hair brushed back, knelt next to Akitada’s son. Both held ink brushes and were bent over a large sheet of paper.

The boy looked up and a broad smile lit his face. Jumping to his feet, he ran to his father and wrapped his arms around his thighs. “I’m painting,” he cried. “I painted cats. Come see!”

Akitada nodded to Noami, who bowed with unexpected politeness.

“I called, sir,” he said in his grating voice, “to see if you wished me to proceed with the screen for your lady. Since you were not here, it was my great fortune to meet the beautiful lady herself and your charming son.”

The compliments were courteous, but Akitada did not want this man near his family. “It was good of you to come,” he said brusquely, “but we have not really had time to consider the matter.”

Yori tugged at his sleeve.

“I was perhaps a little unreasonable about the price,” Noami suggested.

Still easily shamed by money problems, Akitada felt the color rise to his face. “No, no. I have been too busy to consider and will let you know when we make up our minds.” He hoped Noami would get the idea that the visit was over.

But the painter lingered. “Young Yori has something to show you,” he reminded Akitada.

Reluctantly Akitada allowed his son to draw him over to Noami’s side. The sheet of paper was covered with pictures of cats. Some were admirably true to life, their catlike postures sketched with consummate skill: a cat jumping for a mouse, a cat staring down into a fishbowl, a cat toying with a beetle, a cat hissing, and a cat eating a bird. The others were childish copies by Yori, painstakingly executed, the black-on-white scheme enlivened by vivid touches of red.

“Your son has a lively sense of color,” Noami commented, his eyes watching Akitada’s face.

The red touches looked like blood, were meant to be blood. Yori had got the idea from the just-killed bird and applied a thick layer of red grease paint from his mother’s cosmetics to the bird and to the face of the cat. Pleased with the effect, he had then given all the other cats red muzzles. He pointed, quite unnecessarily. “Blood! Cats eat birds and mice and they get blood on them.”

Tamako came to take a look and clasped her hand to her mouth.

Noami chuckled, a dry coughlike sound. “A boy after my own heart,” he said, and put a hand on Yori’s shoulder. “So young and already so observant. What a man you will be someday!”

Tamako jerked up the child. “It is time for his nap,” she cried, and ran from the room, Yori protesting loudly.

Akitada looked at the painter with hatred in his heart. Controlling himself with difficulty, he said coldly, “We won’t keep you any longer. And there is no need to return. I will send for you if we decide on the screen.”

Noami nodded. “I am told you saw the hell screen at the temple?”

“Yes. It is greatly admired.”

The painter cocked his head. “But not by you?”

Akitada said stiffly, “I do not hold with the Buddhist theory of hell.”

“Ah! I, on the other hand, have problems with the Western Paradise.” Noami stepped closer and fixed Akitada with his deep-set, burning eyes. “What pleasure can be so great that it matches pain? We all suffer the agonies of hell, but none has tasted the joys of paradise.” With that he turned and walked out.

When Tora felt well enough to begin his investigation two days later, he dressed in the worst clothes he could find: baggy pants, liberally stained and torn in places; a ragged cotton shirt; a quilted jacket with unmatched patches, tied about the waist with a hemp rope; and old straw sandals. He untied his long hair, rubbed it with some greasy lamp oil, and wrapped a rag around his head. Finally, putting a scowl on his unshaven face, he left.

He was headed for the western city, where poor people, criminals, and outcasts lived in tenements, abandoned ruins, or squatters’ shacks in open fields. There was the heart of the underworld of the city, the refuge of gangs and notorious criminals, of vagrants, beggars, cripples, and the insane.