Rashomon Gate (38 page)

Shinoda's expression became veiled, his tone distant. "I cannot confirm your suspicions."

An ambiguous answer. Akitada tried to read the other man's mind. Shinoda was his last chance to find out the truth. "There are aspects of the incident which trouble me," he said tentatively.

Shinoda shot him another look. "Really? You will have to tell me what they are."

Akitada met his eyes. "I wondered why all of you assumed immediately that the prince was dead. Without a body, I would have thought a thorough search of the hall, the temple and the surrounding woods, as well as of the prince's various residences throughout the country was in order. Instead you announced almost immediately that the prince was no more."

Shinoda looked down into the water. "There was a search, but we knew he was dead."

Akitada stared at him. "Are you telling me that you found his corpse?"

Shimoda raised his eyes. "Certainly not," he snapped. "How could there have been a miracle if Yoakira had merely died in the middle of his sutra reading?"

"Then how—"

Shimoda said impatiently, "Trust me, young man, we had sufficient proof of death as well as of a miracle. Surely you don't think that we would trick His Majesty with some hocus-pocus?"

"Of course not, but . . ." Akitada realized belatedly that the emperor's sanction of the miraculous event would present an insurmountable obstacle to his investigation. Shinoda was not being merely abstruse or obstructive. He was reminding Akitada of the dangerous ground he was treading. But Shinoda and the others had seen something that convinced them of Yoakira's demise. He said, "I won't question the miracle, sir, but what did you find that proved to you Yoakira had passed from this life?"

Shinoda did not answer. He pulled his skinny legs from the water and started drying them with the hem of his robe.

Akitada put a hand on the older man's sleeve. "Please, sir. I am not asking out of idle curiosity. It is a matter of some urgency . . . of the child's safety. What did you find?"

Shinoda stood up and looked down at Akitada. "Young man," he said severely, "if I believed for one moment that what you hint at is true, I would hardly sit quietly in my garden soaking my feet. Since you appear to be one of those restless people who cannot leave well enough alone, you will no doubt look elsewhere. I wish you luck!"

"Sir," cried Akitada flushing with anger and frustration, "you may be helping a murderer escape justice to murder again. Think of your duty to your friend! Only the boy stands in the way of Sakanoue seizing the estates."

Shinoda's eyes widened. "How dare you?" he demanded. "You, sir, are accusing us of covering up a murder. Let me inform you that Lord Sakanoue never entered the hall while my friend was alive. He sat with us until the chanting stopped, and then we entered together and found . . . Yoakira gone. Furthermore, afterwards he was more eager to search the grounds than any of us. He was absolutely tireless! As for you, to my mind there has already been far too much idle and irresponsible gossip. First it was demons, now murder. Beware, sir, beware!"

And with that he padded off angrily, barefoot and indifferent to the sharp gravel on the path.

Akitada got up, angry with himself that he had ruined his last chance. He brushed the dust from his best robe and put on his socks and shoes over wet feet. Feeling slightly refreshed, but mentally more confused and frustrated than ever, he walked home thinking over Shinoda's words.

The complete lack of cooperation from all three men, though for different reasons, had a troubling unanimity about it. Only Shinoda had given him an answer of sorts. He had seen something besides Yoakira's robe in the prayer hall, something which had proved to him and the others that Prince Yoakira had died there. What had he seen? Suddenly Akitada recalled vividly the admonition on the calligraphy scroll in the prince's mansion: "Thou must search the truth within, for thou shalt not find it without." He had wasted time talking to people in the capital, when he should have gone to the place where it had happened. Akitada now suspected that Abe and Yanagida had played an elaborate game with him. Yoakira's friends knew something they were afraid to reveal, afraid that it would feed more "idle gossip."

He was passing the university compound at that point and remembered Hirata's poor health. If only he could solve Oe's murder! That certainly would put an end to the stress his old friend was under.

On an impulse, he crossed Nijo Avenue. The grounds of the university were deserted and the heat hung heavily over the courtyards, baking the gravel and rising in shimmering waves above it. Not a branch stirred in the pines.

Akitada went to the Temple of Confucius and entered it. In the half light the hall was slightly cooler than the outside air. With the figures of the sages looming darkly above him, Akitada tried to get a sense of the atmosphere. On his visit to Yoakira's rooms he had felt the presence of the prince very distinctly. Here the walls and beams, the very floor-boards under Akitada's feet were imbued with the mystery of Oe's murder, permeated with the images of violent death. Yet Akitada did not sense the spirit of Oe as he had that of the prince in the Minamoto mansion. What had these statues seen? How many people had been here the night Oe died? The victim and his killer, of course. And Ishikawa. Akitada was certain of this. But he did not think that Ishikawa had killed Oe. And he could not have been an accomplice. Ishikawa, the blackmailer, would have been a poor choice indeed. Had he been an unwilling witness? Or could he have come upon the body of his professor afterwards and decided on a whim to suspend it from the statue? That would have been in character. But Akitada could not see Ishikawa risking arrest by manhandling a newly murdered corpse. Quite apart from everything else, Oe's blood would have got all over Ishikawa.

Akitada stared at the polished boards at his feet. No, that was nonsense. If the body had been lying down, it would have left stains on the boards. And the blood in that case would have covered the victim's neck and shoulders only. Akitada raised his head to look up at Confucius. Oe's gown had had a broad band of gore running down its front, splashing into a puddle on the dais.

Akitada's eyes moved to the face of the sage. For the first time he noticed that the full lips, half hidden by mustache and beard, were smiling. With an angry exclamation, he turned on his heel and rushed out.

Kobe greeted Akitada almost cheerfully. Apparently the arrest of Kurata had caused him to regard Akitada with friendlier eyes.

"You'll be glad to hear," he announced complacently, "that we got a full confession to both murders. Imagine, Kurata claims he cannot father children, and the girl was trying to saddle him with another man's child. He said it infuriated him so that he snatched back the expensive sash he had given her. That's when she started threatening him, and so he strangled her with it, tossed the body into the reeds, and the sash to the first beggar he passed."

"Umakai."

"Yes. Later the old man recognized Kurata in his shop and made a scene, talking wildly about Jizo and having lost the sash. Kurata told him to come back after dark and he would give him another. Instead he strangled the old man, carried the body a few steps to the canal and flung it in. Case complete."

"You are to be congratulated," Akitada said dryly. "That was certainly most efficient. However, I came about Oe. If you have kept the dead man's clothes, may I have a look at them?"

"Of course we have kept the clothes. That is an ongoing investigation." Kobe clapped his hands and gave an order to a young constable, who returned to place the bundle on Kobe's desk.

Akitada took up the embroidered sash and laid it out flat. Deep creases marked the places where it had passed under Oe's arms and been knotted around the statue. The center section was less creased but heavily soaked in blood. The material was heavy and lined on the inside. When Akitada turned it over, only a few traces of blood had soaked through. Next he spread out the robe.

"Just as I thought," he told Kobe, pointing to an unstained section of fabric on the upper chest, close to the neckline. He placed the stained sash over it. "Look! Do you realize what that means?"

Kobe leaned forward. His eyes widened. "Holy heaven!" he exclaimed. "He was killed after he was tied up."

"Yes. If he had been killed first, the sash would have protected the fabric of his robe at the waist, where it originally was. When he was tied up, the sash was passed around his chest and under his arms. That means the killer need not have been strong at all. Slashing the throat of a bound man is ridiculously easy." Akitada grimaced. "It is also a coward's crime."

Kobe scratched his head. "But how did he get his victim to agree to being tied up?"

"Remember, Oe was very drunk. Whether he was tricked into it or threatened in some way does not matter. I think he was too befuddled to realize his predicament."

"Hm," Kobe said stubbornly. "It may have happened that way, but that doesn't mean that Ishikawa didn't kill him. In any case, my men have been scouring the temples throughout the capital. Tomorrow they will start on those outside the city. I'll get that young villain eventually. He'll be sorry he ran."

Akitada almost hoped he had guessed wrong about Ishikawa's hiding place, but the foolish young man had brought this upon himself. He turned to go, saying, "I shall visit the Ninna temple tomorrow and save you the trouble of checking that."

Kobe's eyes narrowed speculatively as he watched Akitada walk from his office.

That night Akitada lay awake for a long time thinking about the Yoakira case. His decision to visit the temple had been intuitive rather than rational. Even now he had no idea what he was looking for in a place which must have been scrutinized over and over again after the event. He only knew he must go.

"Thou must search the truth within, for thou shalt not find it without," the prince's scroll had advised. He remembered the strange sense that a voice had spoken the words aloud as he was reading them. They referred to introspection, but could they not also be applied to the mystery? He had spent all his time looking for answers to the prince's fate "without," talking to the man's grandson and brother, and visiting his servants and friends. Now it was time to penetrate to the center of things, to the place where Prince Yoakira had ceased to exist as six men sat outside watching the door and listening to his voice.

Well before dawn Akitada and Tora got ready for the trip into the hilly countryside northwest of the capital. Since it was a workday, Akitada wrote a note to Hirata, excusing himself from his duties for one day and reassuring him about the Oe case. He gave it to Hitomaro to deliver at the university before the start of classes, feeling guilty about postponing further a visit with Tamako's father, but the danger to young Sadamu urged him to lose no more time in getting evidence against Sakanoue.

They left the capital on horseback. It was still dark, for which Akitada in his glum mood was thankful. The air was already warm and musty, and a faint stench of smoky cooking fires hung over the streets west of the palace. But as soon as they left the buildings behind, the smoke cleared and a light breeze sprang up, bringing the scent of warm summer grasses and the wildflowers which grew unseen by the side of the dirt road. They made good time, keeping their horses at an easy pace. The night was clear so that they could see the narrow band of road stretching gray before them. A breeze cooled their faces, and up ahead rose the black ridge of pine-covered headlands which lay between them and their destination. Now and then they passed another horseman, or a farmer with his cart, out before dawn; vague shapes in the darkness, or points of moving yellow lights if they carried lanterns. The carts did, as a rule, but men on foot or on a surefooted horse relied on the faint light of the sky.

"You've got to admit," said Tora, coming up beside Akitada and breaking the long silence, "that Hitomaro and Genba are good fellows and have done exactly as you told them."

Akitada had been pondering Yoakira's journey to the temple and brought his thoughts back to the present with difficulty. "Fortunately they have not been put to the test," he said. "We have not had a single suspicious character show his face for the past two nights. But I intend to return to the city as quickly as possible."

"What do you really think of Hitomaro, sir?" Tora persisted.

"He does have some of the mannerisms of a military man. But I think he has a better education than the average warrior, though he tries to hide it. An interesting character."

"Yes, he acts funny sometimes. I offered him a stick-fighting match, but he said he'd never used them. Like he was above that sort of thing. And he wouldn't practice sword-fighting with me either."Tora sounded aggrieved.

"Never mind," remarked Akitada with a smile. "Your skills are much more appreciated by the young lord."

Tora grinned. "The boy's a quick learner. He got really good at walking on his stilts, but when I was about to show him a few simple stick-fighting moves, Lady Sugawara called me away to do some chores."

A vision of his mother's outraged face amused Akitada only for a moment. There were more important matters on his mind. "If Yoakira's journey was anything like this, I expect neither the driver nor the prince's friends would have been able to see each other clearly until they reached the temple," he suggested to Tora.

Tora glanced up the road, where an oxcart labored up the hill. "Not a chance," he said. "The riders probably passed the carriage and went ahead. Not much point in staying together. They'd all meet at the temple anyway."

"I seem to remember that the driver said those on horseback were sometimes in front and sometimes behind. I don't suppose Kinsue would have paid much attention even if he could see them."

"It doesn't matter. Nothing happened on the way. Now that we've solved the murders of Omaki and Umakai, what are you going to do about the university?"

"I am waiting to hear what Ishikawa has to say when Kobe finds him."