The Masuda Affair (A Sugawara Akitada Novel)

by I. J. Parker

  Akitada did remember fleetingly, and with a pang of guilt, that he should be at work. A whole week had passed since his return from Hikone, and he had yet to report to the ministry. Of course, he had a free hand nowadays – daily tasks were in the capable hands of a large staff of clerks and scribes, and the minister was in office – but they would wonder sooner or later what kept him in Hikone. He must try to settle affairs in Otsu today so that he could take up his duties again.

  They reached Otsu by midday. The lake stretched before them like an invitation to eternity, its far reaches melting into a blue horizon, and black-headed seagulls shrieked and spun in the air above. The brisk autumnal wind filled the sails of boats, moving them along swiftly. It was a day when it seemed easy and tempting to leave behind all one’s troubles.

  They left their horses at the post stables and walked to the warden’s office. Tora was still a fugitive until his status could be cleared. They met Warden Takechi as he hurried out, his face grim and his mustache bristling with excitement. Three constables trotted at his heels and shouted, ‘Make way.’

  The warden stopped. ‘It’s you, sir,’ he cried. ‘The answer to a prayer. Would you mind coming along on a murder case?’

  Akitada said cautiously, ‘I’m Sugawara, Warden Takechi. I brought my retainer to answer the charges against him.’

  The warden waved an impatient hand. ‘I know.’ His eyes flicked over Tora. ‘He can come along too.’

  Bemused, Akitada looked at Tora, who grinned, no doubt relieved that he was in no immediate danger of arrest. They followed the warden and his constables down the busy main street of Otsu and into a residential quarter.

  The warden turned to speak to Akitada on the way. ‘I wouldn’t have troubled you, sir,’ he said, belatedly apologetic, ‘but it’s Dr Inabe who’s been murdered. He’s the only doctor in Otsu. I’m told he’s been bludgeoned to death in his home. I want to get my hands on the killers quick.’

  Akitada hoped to settle his own affairs and return to the capital before dark, but he could not afford to alienate the warden. He said, ‘I’m not sure I can be of much use, but I’ll gladly take a look.’ Then he asked, ‘Is the boy well? Is he still with the widow Yozaemon and her son?’

  ‘No problems there. The Mimuras have made no trouble.’

  ‘I’ve decided to settle the matter with them.’

  ‘Much the best way, though they don’t deserve it.’

  ‘I’d like to see him.’

  ‘Go ahead. The judge is satisfied that you mean the child no harm.’

  Tora gave a snort. ‘About time.’

  Fortunately, Warden Takechi seemed to take this as an expression of loyalty and only nodded. Akitada was grateful; he suspected that the warden had put in a good word for him. ‘Tell me about your victim,’ he said.

  The warden’s face fell. ‘He’s … he was a good man. Everybody loved him. Getting on in years – past fifty – but still strong and healthy. No family. Never had children, and after his wife died he lived alone, like a monk almost, with only one old servant. He tended to the sick and served as our coroner. He’ll be sorely missed.’

  ‘I’m very sorry. Any idea who did this?’

  ‘None. It makes no sense at all.’

  The doctor’s house was not far from that of the dead courtesan, though it was not on the lake. It lay hidden among thick, rustling trees. Birds chirped and chattered, and here and there a late cicada still sounded its shrill rasp. Outside the open gate a group of neighbors waited. To the side stood one of the itinerant monks. The neighbors greeted the warden with anxious questions, but he brushed off them off and left a constable at the gate to take their information.

  The house had once been a fine one, but it was as sadly neglected as the Sugawara home. Shutters hung loose, and big wads of thatch were missing from the main roof; a kitchen building leaned crazily, and weeds grew everywhere. But the whole place was alive with birds. Swallows nested under the eaves, scattering bits of straw and thatch; doves cooed in the trees, suddenly swooping down in a swarm to fly across to a neighboring property and back again; somewhere finches chittered; and the courtyard’s gravel seemed covered with tiny chirping sparrows, pecking and fluttering up at their approach.

  ‘He loved the birds,’ muttered the warden.

  A distraught and trembling old man in a dusty robe and with a small black cap on his white hair waited for them. The warden nodded to him. ‘Where is he?’

  ‘The studio.’ The old man led the way, shuffling in worn straw sandals through a derelict garden, where more birds fluttered and rustled in the shrubbery, to a small pavilion in better repair than the rest.

  They took off their shoes at the door. ‘This is where he lived,’ Warden Takechi explained. ‘His study, library, pharmacy, and living quarters all in one.’

  The pavilion was small. Odd, Akitada thought, how the man’s life had contracted to living in one room and with only one servant. Being childless, Inabe was alone in the world. He suddenly had a vision of himself, years from now, dying alone in his study while the Sugawara mansion lay in ruins about him. The image depressed him.

  Leaving the constables and the servant outside, they stepped into a dim, oppressive space. Sickly sweet odors of rotting fruit, stale wine, and of something stranger and more upsetting hung in the warm air: the cloying smell of blood and death. There was an odd sound, a faint sibilant hum. The room was crowded with dimly seen objects.

  Skirting something on the floor, the warden crossed the space and pushed open the shutters to the rear garden. Sunlight poured in, slanting through the branches and falling across the body as if to focus attention on it. The dead man lay face down near the center of the room, his head towards the garden, his arms and legs flung out like those of the rice straw manikin in the peasants’ harvest rites. His black silk physician’s gown was neat and the white socks clean, but the back of his head was covered by a strange black cap that was horribly alive and buzzing.

  Hundreds of flies, disturbed in their feeding frenzy, hovered and clung, fighting like tiny vultures over their carrion.

  All around, the necessities of Inabe’s simple life cluttered up the modest space. Like most men, he had either not been a good house-keeper or had not really cared about such things. The walls were lined haphazardly with shelves, some crammed with books, others with a jumble of jars of ointments and boxes of powders. Bundles of drying herbs hung from ceiling beams. On a small, low desk, notes, papers, scrolls, used wine cups, dirty rice bowls, and, incongruously, a straw rain hat kept disorderly company. A bamboo stand in the corner held more cups, chopsticks, a wine flask, three overripe plums in a chipped bowl, a burnt-down candle in a holder, and a dirty brazier. Several old leather-covered trunks probably contained his clothes and bedding. The doctor’s case stood beside his walking staff at the door by which they had entered.

  Tora growled, ‘Amida, his head’s a mess.’

  They looked at the corpse. The warden brushed away the flies. They rose sluggishly, drunk and heavy from their meal, and revealed the wound, a mass of congealed blood mixed with hair, bone splinters, and brain matter. More blood had puddled, dark and viscous, under the head. The doctor’s black silk cap lay nearby. Half under his upper body was a crushed bamboo birdcage.

  The dead man had been tall and thin, his hair white until someone had turned it this unnatural shade of rust brown. The topknot had come undone under the force of the blow that shattered his skull. Death must have been instantaneous.

  Warden Takechi muttered something, then became businesslike. He peered at the wound, touched the dead man’s skin, glanced about the room, and turned to the servant who cowered at the door, his face white and his body trembling. ‘Your master’s been dead a while. How is it that you just now report this?’

  The man bowed. ‘Wasn’t here. Just got back. Cousin’s funeral. More death.’ He shook his head. ‘Found the master and went for help. A neighbor. My legs are no good.’ He wrung his hands and shivered.


  The warden growled, ‘We’ll check your story. When did you last see the doctor?’

  ‘Two days ago. In the morning. Eating his gruel. Feeding the birds. He said not to worry. He could manage.’ The old man stopped as if exhausted by so many words.

  ‘Your cousin’s funeral was not in Otsu?’

  ‘In Ohara. I walked. Gone two days.’

  ‘I see. Did your master expect visitors while you were away?’

  ‘No.’

  Akitada thought again of his own childless state. It seemed to be what lay in store for old men who had no families and only lived on to do their jobs. Or, like the old Masuda lord, they went quietly mad and left their affairs to women. The doctor had become a recluse. He had subsisted here, in this one room, served by another old man, puttering about among his books and medicines or in his overgrown garden unless he was called out on a case. A dreary, hopeless condition.

  Tora went to peer at the body. ‘Nasty blow,’ he said.

  The warden looked glum. ‘He’s been our coroner for thirty years or more. It’s a disaster. Now who’ll tell me when he died?’

  ‘Well,’ said Akitada, ‘I can give you my opinion for what it’s worth, but you’d better appoint some other medical man until you can hire a suitable replacement. If nobody is available, send to the capital for Dr Masayoshi.’ He bent to scrutinize the corpse, then felt the dead man’s neck. It was cold, dry, and a little stiff to the touch. The dead are no longer quite human.

  Outside, a cicada struck up its strident song again and put him in mind of the Buddhist image of the empty cicada shell. Man shed his body to become reincarnated. That fly returning to the wound was another image of the shortness of human life and of rebirth. Soon that wound would crawl with maggots. In fact, he could see a scattering of their eggs and some slight movement in one of the clusters of pale grains. They had already begun their cycle of destruction and renewal, the bond that tied man to the smallest living creature. What karma would bring a man back as a maggot?

  ‘He’s been dead a while, I think,’ Warden Takechi said again.

  ‘So has his bird.’ Tora went across the room and bent to pick up a large black crow by one stiff leg. ‘It had something wrong with its wing.’

  The servant piped up from the doorway, ‘Master put on a splint.’

  ‘Well, somebody bounced it off the wall.’ Tora dropped the bird. ‘I hate bastards who do things like that to helpless creatures.’ He drifted off to inspect the rest of the room.

  Akitada said, ‘The doctor died some time before yesterday, I think. The wound was caused by a single massive blow from behind. He fell forward, was probably dead before he hit the floor.’

  The warden came closer and looked.

  Akitada gestured at the wound from several angles. ‘See here? That cut is quite deep. Bone splinters protrude. It took great force to make that wound. And it slants. He was hit with something heavy and round, a cudgel perhaps, and by someone a little taller than he is.’ ‘Why taller?’ asked the warden.

  Akitada straightened up, his eyes searching the room. Tora was at the door, his eyes on the doctor’s staff. It was a long one, made of thick bamboo, and resembled those that itinerant monks carried. Theirs had metal rings at the top, which jingled as they walked, but this one was plain and lacquered black. When Tora picked it up and hefted it, the old servant said helpfully, ‘The master’s staff. Calls it his friend. Because he leans on it.’

  ‘Well, his friend turned on him,’ said Tora, holding it out to show what he meant. The servant backed away with a whimper. ‘At least the bastard that killed him is a neat fellow. Puts things back after using them.’

  Warden Takechi took the staff. ‘He’s right,’ he said. ‘There’s blood and hair on it.’

  Akitada nodded and turned to the body again. He lifted one shoulder to get a look at the dead man’s face. More fat flies rose from his nostrils and mouth and from the open, glazed eyes. Dr Inabe’s face had probably been narrow and scholarly and showed his age. Now it was puffy and one cheek was suffused with the blood which had gathered under the skin after death. There was a greenish tinge to it. Akitada sniffed. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘As I thought. A noticeable smell.’ He lowered the body again. ‘I would say he’s been dead for at least a day and a night. The murder happened the day before yesterday, and most likely it was still daytime. The neighbors may have seen something. The killer was a tall man and strong, because it takes strength to kill another man with only one blow. You asked why I thought he was taller than his victim? The position of the wound shows that. He had to strike almost horizontally because the ceiling is too low to swing the staff downward.’

  The warden, looking a little dazed, nodded and barked out orders. The two constables disappeared.

  Akitada inspected the dead bird, then looked around the room. He turned to the servant. ‘I wonder,’ he asked, ‘if your master was likely to receive strangers in here?’

  The old man shook his head. ‘Never. People ring the bell. I go and tell the master. He packs his medicines and goes with them.’

  Akitada said to the warden, ‘You see what that means, don’t you?’

  Warden Takechi blinked. ‘A thief? Someone climbing the wall to rob him? Yes, I guess that’s what happened.’

  ‘Not likely,’ said Tora.

  The warden frowned. Tora grinned back impudently. ‘Can you see a common thief being tidy? Or taking the time to play kickball with a bird?’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Akitada. He turned to the warden. ‘The doctor’s servant can check if anything is missing, but I suspect that the doctor admitted his killer himself. I’m afraid that’s all I can tell you until you get more information.’ He paused. ‘Now I would really like to go and visit the boy. Suppose we stop by your office later?’

  Takechi looked unhappy, but nodded.

  When they were outside, Akitada said to Tora, ‘You really should not volunteer your opinions. Even when you are right. The warden was getting irritated. Remember, he can still lock you up.’

  Tora grinned. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘This murder is very inconvenient. Inabe must have been the coroner in Peony’s drowning.’

  ‘Hah! You think someone killed him because of her?’

  ‘No. I just wanted to speak to the man about that drowning, and now he is dead.’

  Tora was not listening. ‘Murdered! Both of them! And that means … What does it mean?’

  ‘Nothing. Come on, let’s go and visit the boy.’

  But Tora was not to be moved until he had thought it through. ‘Sadanori talks to Ishikawa, Ishikawa goes to Otsu, and Peony’s coroner dies. Coincidence? I don’t think so. Maybe Ishikawa was being a good boy and visiting his old mom, but what if he wasn’t? What if he bashed the doc instead?’ He clapped a hand to his head. ‘Amida! I told the bastard in Uji that you were in Otsu, and he dashed back to the capital to tell Sadanori. That’s it. That must be it. That’s when Sadanori sent Ishikawa to kill the doctor. And that means the doctor knew something about Peony’s death.’

  Akitada said sourly, ‘A brilliant deduction. You have solved all of our problems, along with the warden’s case.’

  ‘Well, nothing else explains it.’

  On the contrary. There could be a thousand different explanations for what happened. Yours is a wild tale based on wishful thinking because you hate Sadanori. At this point we don’t even know that Peony was murdered, let alone by whom.’

  Tora flushed. ‘How can you say that with Sadanori’s reputation? If you won’t believe it, then I’ll find the proof myself. They’re devils. And we’ve got stop them.’

  Akitada had no particular feelings about Fujiwara Sadanori, but accusing a man of his rank of abduction, rape, and now murder was going a little too far. Tora had always disliked the ruling class, and the incident with Hanae had apparently stirred up all the old loathing. He said, ‘Your sort of thinking creates trumped up charges against the innocent.’

  ‘Innocent? Crap! Ishi
kawa’s always been a crook. And that bastard Sadanori. Men like him live above the clouds and think they’re above the law. They know they can get away with anything. And when it comes to our women, they don’t even believe in common decency.’ He glowered and kicked a clod of dirt into a patch of weeds. A rabbit erupted with a high-pitched squeal and shot across the road. Tora chortled, his good mood restored. After a moment, he said more calmly, ‘So what do you think?’

  Akitada was a little shaken by that outburst. Tora’s theory was not without some logic. He also distrusted both Ishikawa and recent events. Perhaps Ishikawa had come to Otsu on Sadanori’s instruction. And Sadanori was implicated in at least two prior abductions of women from the amusement quarter. He was also linked to Peony, if she was the same woman who had once lived in the house they had visited. But until there was proof, neither her death nor the murder of the doctor could be laid at his door, nor Ishikawa’s.

  He sighed. The scene at Inabe’s house had depressed him for purely personal reasons. ‘I don’t know what to think, Tora. We’ll question Peony’s neighbors, but I want to go see the child first,’ he said.

  Akitada stopped in the market to purchase a bright-red wooden top and tucked it in his sleeve. ‘A small gift,’ he said, a little embarrassed. ‘He has no toys.’

  Tora grinned.

  The Yozaemons lived in a poor little house near the market. Mrs Yozaemon, as round and neat as a brown hen, was hanging her washing over the brush fence. There were small shirts and diminutive pants among the larger clothes, but the boy was nowhere to be seen.

  She saw them and her round face broke into a wide smile. Wiping her hands down her sides, she bustled to open the gate. ‘Welcome, welcome.’ She bobbed a bow with each ‘welcome’.

  ‘Thank you.’ Akitada scanned the yard. ‘Is the boy here?’

  She laughed. ‘A little boy likes to hide.’ She cried, ‘Nori.’