Claws of the Cat Read online

  “No more than I minded his visits to her,” Hidetaro said.

  The ambiguous response was worthy of a shinobi. Hiro hadn’t expected such facility from a samurai.

  “Hideyoshi enjoyed Sayuri’s company,” Hidetaro continued, “but he wanted me to buy her contract. He thought she deserved a better life than a teahouse.”

  “He didn’t mind his brother marrying an entertainer?” Hiro asked. Samurai honor forbade most marriages to people outside the samurai class.

  Hidetaro shifted slightly. “Until a few months ago, I wanted to become a Buddhist monk. In Yoshi’s eyes, any marriage was preferable to that.”

  Samurai did not discuss family issues in public. The hint alone ended the conversation and made the ensuing silence awkward.

  At last, Father Mateo said, “His death must have come as a terrible shock.”

  “Yes,” Hidetaro said. “I learned of it this morning, at the teahouse. Mayuri would not take my payment. She said she could not accept it because Nobuhide intends to execute Sayuri. She also told me about your investigation and that you hoped to prove Sayuri innocent.”

  “Did you see Sayuri?” Hiro asked.

  “No. Mayuri would not allow it.”

  “When was the last time you saw her?” Hiro asked.

  “A week ago, or possibly more. I can’t afford teahouses—that is, I have to save my money for her contract. You must prove her innocent. She did not do this.”

  “We will do our best,” Father Mateo said.

  Hidetaro stood up. He moved slowly, as though his injured leg still hurt a little. “Thank you for the tea.”

  Hiro escorted the guest to the door. As they reached the entrance Hidetaro said, “This foreigner is a good man, I think. Do you find it strange to serve him?”

  “He is a man, with good qualities and bad ones, like any other,” Hiro said as Hidetaro slipped on his muddy sandals.

  Hiro nodded at the shoes. “Last night’s rain created a lot of mud.”

  “Did it?” Hidetaro asked. “I was asleep at home.”

  “Indeed.” Hiro bowed. “Thank you for honoring us with your visit.”

  Hidetaro returned the bow and departed, walking slowly to prevent anyone from noticing his limp.

  “Well, I guess we can take him off the suspect list,” Father Mateo said as they watched the samurai walk away on the narrow road.

  “Quite the opposite,” Hiro said. “He just placed himself firmly on it.”

  Chapter 17

  “Do you really think Hidetaro killed his brother?” Father Mateo asked.

  “I think he’s less than honest,” Hiro said, “which merits investigation. Speaking of which—where’s Luis?”

  “Probably napping,” Father Mateo said. “I think he finished his business for today.”

  “Exactly what we need to discuss.” Hiro walked across the common room and rapped on the paneled door to the merchant’s room. “Luis? Are you awake?”

  He heard a rustling sound and a groan, followed by footsteps heading for the door. It rattled and Luis’s face appeared in the opening. His eyes were misty with sleep and his long hair stood out around his face. “No. What do you want?”

  “Information about the rice merchant you sold weapons to this morning. Was he from Nagoya, by chance?”

  Luis blinked and the sleepy look left his face. “How did you know that?”

  “I think you may have done business with a murderer.”

  “All of my clients are murderers. What Japanese isn’t?”

  “Luis.” Father Mateo joined them at the door. “I think I understand what Hiro means. A rice merchant from Nagoya visited the Sakura Teahouse last night. We think he may have murdered Akechi Hideyoshi. If he’s the same man you met this morning, you may be able to help us find him.”

  The door slid open further and Luis stepped into the common room. He wore the same white shirt as earlier and a clean pair of dark-colored breeches. He had taken off his tunic before his nap, and the end of his wrinkled shirt flapped loosely below his rounded belly. Hiro had rarely seen a less flattering costume.

  “Akechi?” Luis repeated. “Is that the dead man’s name?”

  “Yes.” Father Mateo nodded eagerly. “Do you know him?”

  “It might just be a coincidence. These Japanese only have about twenty surnames between them.”

  “Anything you can tell us might help,” Father Mateo said.

  Luis scratched his chest while he thought. “A couple of months ago I sold a hundred arquebuses to a samurai named Akechi, but not Hideyoshi. The given name was different. Miso-something, I think. He was passing through Kyoto on his way to join some warlord in the south.

  “The rice merchant from Nagoya mentioned Akechi’s name when he contacted me. Apparently they’re friends or something. He thought it would get him a discount.” The merchant looked smug. “I raised all the prices by twenty percent and then gave him a ten percent markdown. He never knew the difference.”

  Hiro ignored his rising frustration and returned to the topic of interest. “Who introduced the samurai to you? The one from the Akechi clan.”

  “I don’t remember,” Luis said. “I know several of the merchants, and most of them make introductions. It’s a ridiculous samurai custom anyway, needing to know someone personally before you can do business. Normal people just find what they want and buy it.”

  “This is important,” Hiro insisted. “Who made the introduction?”

  Luis thought for a moment. “It must have been the tailor, Yaso.” After a pause he added, “Definitely Yaso. He set up this morning’s meeting too.”

  “Did either man tell you where he was staying?” Hiro asked. “Did they have relatives in Kyoto?”

  Luis sneered and shook his head. “We only talked about muskets. I could care less about their personal lives.”

  “Do you have records of the sales?”

  “I keep detailed ledgers, but you won’t find what you’re looking for. I list names, but no addresses or other information about the buyer.”

  “Good enough,” Hiro said. “Have you got the ledgers here?”

  Luis turned back to his room and returned a moment later with a ledger, leather-bound in the Portuguese style. He flipped through the pages until he found the transaction he wanted.

  “There.” He pointed to the page. “That’s the first one, the samurai.”

  It took Hiro a moment to find the entry, and not only because it was written in Portuguese. The lines and columns made no sense until he realized that the merchant organized the pages horizontally, not vertically like a Japanese ledger.

  Hiro examined the line Luis indicated. Everything except for the customer’s name was written in the Portuguese merchant’s even script. Hiro found it difficult to read but enjoyed the effort. Despite his irritating nature, Luis had beautiful handwriting.

  The customer’s name was far more legible, because that wasn’t written by hand. Samurai and many merchants used a carved seal, or inkan, in place of a formal signature. The seals discouraged forgery and eliminated the need to carry a writing brush or ink. When pressed into a paste-like ink and then on a document or page, the seal displayed the characters representing the bearer’s name.

  The characters on this one read “Akechi Mitsuhide.”

  “And the other?” Hiro asked. “The man you met this morning?”

  The merchant flipped two more leaves and ran his finger down the page until he came to the final entry. “Well, that’s interesting.”

  He tipped the book toward Hiro and Father Mateo. The column for the customer’s seal contained an illegible smudge. “He must have rushed the impression.”

  “Or deliberately marred it to obscure his name,” Hiro said.

  Luis shrugged. “That’s going to make it difficult to track him, not that he’s still here anyway. He left Kyoto as soon as he picked up his weapons and wanted to start early to get ahead of the traffic on the road. That’s why I had to get up at such an
abominable hour.

  “Do you think this Akechi is related to your dead samurai?”

  “It would astonish me to learn otherwise,” Hiro said.

  “Interesting that no one mentioned a relative in Lord Oda’s service,” Father Mateo mused.

  “But not surprising,” Hiro said. “This also means Yoshiko was mistaken, or lied. Both Lord Oda and the shogun have reasons to want Hideyoshi dead.”

  “Mateo.” Luis’s face grew red. “You need to leave Kyoto now. Don’t martyr yourself for a prostitute.”

  “I became a priest because I believe in the truth,” Father Mateo said. “I will not run away to save myself and abandon an innocent woman to die. I fear God’s judgment far more than any death.”

  Hiro excused himself and returned to his room. The priest would not leave Kyoto until the facts freed Sayuri or condemned her, no matter what Luis said. But the merchant’s ledger reminded Hiro of the pages hidden in his sleeve, and he wanted to see what further clues they revealed.

  Chapter 18

  Hiro knelt before the writing alcove in the south wall of his room and slipped the burned pages from his sleeve. He laid them in a row on the low wooden desk. After studying them for a while he reached for the narrow box that sat at the far end of the desk.

  The cedar box had several compartments. One held parchments, another ink sticks. A third held various papers, including the scrap Hiro retrieved from Mayuri’s kimono. He removed the paper from the box and added it to the others.

  The pages looked identical in thickness, but accounting books all looked similar and the scorch marks made it impossible to tell for sure.

  Father Mateo entered the room and knelt beside Hiro.

  “I don’t understand,” he said. “Why would one page be ripped and others burned?”

  “She might have tried to rip out the incriminating pages and then realized torn ledgers looked suspicious.”

  “It is a ledger, then?”

  “Several of them.” Hiro explained what he had seen in the fire room.

  “But what was Mayuri trying to hide?” Father Mateo asked. A few seconds later his mouth fell open in surprise. “Do you think she’s using one brother’s death to defraud the other?”

  “What?” Hiro pulled his gaze from the scraps. “What are you talking about?”

  “Won’t Mayuri have to give Hidetaro’s money back if Sayuri is executed? But if there’s no record of the payments…”

  “That’s not a bad theory,” Hiro said, “although, if you’re right, Hidetaro has known Sayuri longer than either of them admits.

  “Businesses start a new ledger every year on New Year’s Day. Whatever Mayuri is trying to hide goes back at least three years.”

  “And Sayuri only had her debut this spring,” Father Mateo said.

  “Exactly,” Hiro said. He continued, thinking aloud. “An apprentice spends at least four years in training, so it’s possible Hidetaro saw Sayuri before her debut. I didn’t think to ask if Hideyoshi visited another girl before Sayuri caught his eye.”

  Father Mateo picked up one of the burned pages. He examined both sides and handed it to Hiro. “Do you see anything useful? I don’t recognize anything but numbers.”

  Impeccable calligraphy ran down both sides of the paper in straight vertical lines. Fire and ash rendered most of the figures illegible, but Hiro could tell the numbers were high. That didn’t surprise him. Cedar floors and fancy kimonos weren’t cheap.

  Most ledger pages had headings at the top of every column, but the top and sides of the page in question had perished in the fire. The others looked the same.

  Hiro laid the scrap on the desk. “It’s too badly burned. Without the headings I can’t tell whose accounts the columns contain, or even what the numbers stand for. It was a slim chance anyway. Accounts alone won’t explain what Mayuri is hiding.”

  Father Mateo pointed at the unburned page. “Now that we know it’s a ledger, can you tell anything from that one?”

  Hiro picked up the original jagged scrap. It had come from the top of a page and contained one intact column heading and part of a column on either side.

  “The center column has a name.” Hiro pointed. “Tanaka Ichiro.”

  “Do you know him?”

  Hiro cocked an eyebrow at the priest. “Tanaka is a popular clan name in Kyoto, and Ichiro means ‘first son.’ We could find a thousand men in Kyoto by that name.

  “More importantly,” he continued, “only nobles have two names, and the Bushido code disapproves of samurai patronizing teahouses. Even if we found the right Tanaka Ichiro, he won’t admit it.”

  The priest looked disappointed.

  “It wouldn’t help anyway,” Hiro continued. “We can’t track down every visitor to the Sakura in the hope that someone will know what Mayuri might want to hide. Her secret might not relate to the murder at all. The opposite seems more likely—this was just a convenient excuse to cover up an embarrassment.”

  “Or another crime,” Father Mateo said. “Can you read any more of the page?”

  Hiro looked at the scrap. “The numbers don’t start at zero, which suggests a running tally. The figures are large, but that’s hardly unexpected.” He squinted at the torn column to the right of Ichiro’s name. “The next column heading might say ‘Akechi,’ but it’s ripped in the middle and the given name is missing.”

  “Then it could be either Hideyoshi or Hidetaro.”

  “Or someone else entirely. We can’t tell without a given name.”

  “Could Hidetaro have killed his brother to ruin the teahouse’s reputation and lower Sayuri’s price?”

  Hiro looked up, impressed. “For a priest, you think of some intricate schemes.”

  “I was a man before I was a priest, and the Bible describes some very ingenuous sinners. It might even teach you a thing or two, if you read it.”

  As usual, Hiro ignored the invitation. “Hidetaro wouldn’t kill his brother in the teahouse.” He turned the ripped page over in his fingers while he thought. “Too much chance Sayuri would take the blame.”

  “Was it a shinobi after all?”

  Hiro set the scrap on the desk. “Perhaps a hired killer. Not a shinobi or kunoichi—at least, not an experienced one.”

  “Why not?”

  “The wounds. Hideyoshi’s throat was slashed from behind, which suggests an assassin, but the execution showed a remarkable lack of skill. His throat looked ripped as well as cut, so the killer was strong—probably a man, though a woman might have done it. No one creates that many wounds with a knife, which means neko-te, but the jagged cuts indicate an inexperienced user.”

  Hiro raised his hand and hooked his fingers in imitation of claws. “Kunoichi use neko-te to stab or cut, but rarely both at once.” He pantomimed stabbing himself in the heart and then slitting his own throat. “It takes too much time. A professional would have known that.”

  “Maybe the killer wanted to be sure he was dead?”

  “Again, a sign of a novice,” Hiro said. “The stab wounds barely bled, which means Hideyoshi was already dead or so close that it made no difference.”

  “How do you know all this?” A hint of suspicion crept into the Jesuit’s voice.

  “I’ll show you.” Hiro stood up and positioned himself behind the priest. “You’re Hideyoshi, kneeling on the floor in front of the alcove.”

  Father Mateo twisted around with a concerned frown on his face. “Wait a minute.”

  Hiro pointed at the desk. “Trust me. Look there.”

  He waited until the priest complied.

  “Now,” Hiro continued, “while you’re looking at a mediocre flower arrangement—which probably looks slightly better because you’re drunk—the killer sneaks up behind you and slashes your throat with neko-te.”

  Hiro’s right hand hovered over the Jesuit’s hair while his left snaked around the priest’s neck and then pulled away with violent speed. Father Mateo jerked backward, startled, though the shinobi had not touc
hed him.

  “Your blood spurts out on the wall as the killer attacks again,” Hiro pantomimed a second, slower cut across the priest’s throat, “and again. That’s when the ripping happens. The blades get stuck in the grooves from previous cuts. One blade also comes loose.”

  “How?” Father Mateo asked. “Weren’t they sewn into the finger cuffs?”

  “Yes, but it’s hard to sew a blade into leather securely. That’s why the weapon is normally used to stab instead of slice. The blade must have caught on Hideyoshi’s collarbone or in the sinews of his neck. Either way, it came loose during the attack.”

  Hiro put his hands on the priest’s shoulders. “Back to the killing.

  “You slump forward, nearing death, but the killer doesn’t leave as a shinobi or kunoichi would have. He, or she, pulls you onto your back to finish the job.”

  Father Mateo let Hiro lower him backward to the floor. The shinobi extended his fingers, still hooked like claws. “The killer stabs you in the eyes and then in the chest, where the loosened blade pulls free. An experienced assassin would have noticed and removed it from the scene, but this killer leaves it behind.”

  “So that’s why you didn’t suspect a shinobi.” Father Mateo pushed himself back to a kneeling position.

  Hiro nodded. “Also, shinobi and kunoichi rarely stab a victim in the eyes. Defiling the dead invites retribution on the assassin’s clan.”

  Father Mateo looked surprised. “Divine retribution? I thought you didn’t believe in superstition.”

  “Not all retribution is divine.”

  “A shinobi would never defile a corpse?”

  “A professional will do anything if the price is right,” Hiro said, “but shinobi or not, the person responsible for the killing must have hated Hideyoshi.”

  “Or hated the look of his dead eyes,” Father Mateo said.