The late Lord Kiyowara’s major-domo was called Fuhito. Akitada had not paid much attention to him on his last visit and made up for it now. He was a slender, reserved man in his early sixties and exhibited a sense of extreme propriety. As was appropriate in a house of mourning, he wore a pale hemp robe over the dark-brown silk that was probably his usual attire. In a great noble house, even the major-domo could be a gentleman, perhaps a member of a junior branch of his master’s family.
True to custom, Fuhito was stiffly formal. He spoke in a refined voice, and his speech was that of an educated man. His bow and his welcome to Akitada were precisely gauged to the occasion and to the visitor’s rank. He led Akitada to his own office, which resembled a gentleman’s study, and had him served with refreshments before their conversation began.
Akitada was impatient with such punctiliousness. Violent death seemed to him to call for a relaxation of customs. ‘I expect Lady Kiyowara has informed you of the purpose of my visit?’
Fuhito bowed. ‘She has. We are to answer all your questions truthfully. I have so instructed the other servants. You are to be given access to everyone and shown around the property.’ He seemed to want to say something else, but decided against it.
‘Do you know who came to see Lord Kiyowara the afternoon of his death?’
‘I do. I keep myself informed of such things-’
Akitada interrupted, ‘I mean, do you know from your own observation?’
Fuhito looked taken aback. ‘Not personally, sir, but the servants keep me informed. I assure you, they are very well trained.’
‘Servants may lie for their own reasons or they may come to mistaken conclusions.’ Akitada thought of his own aborted visit.
Fuhito shifted a little. ‘I assure you, sir, our people are very honest. I know them all.’
It was all very proper, but Akitada sensed that the man was holding himself in an iron control. He cast about for some way to penetrate the shell of loyalty and found none. Eventually, he said, ‘I am sure you wish to see your master’s killer found.’ Fuhito bowed his assent. ‘Being a trusted member of the household surely means that you were in your master’s confidence?’ A slight hesitation, then another bow of agreement. Akitada wondered why Fuhito never changed the fixed expression on his face. The man had superb control – or else he had something to hide.
‘Since life is never without its disagreements, you might inform me of anyone who has quarreled with Lord Kiyowara, or who had a reason to wish him dead.’
If such a thing were possible, Fuhito stiffened even more. He compressed his lips tightly. Akitada knew from experience that this meant the major-domo refused to reveal some important and relevant piece of information. Most likely it was something that implicated him or reflected badly on a family member. To Akitada’s surprise, however, the major-domo spoke.
‘You will have heard that Lord Kiyowara’s son was upset with his father,’ he said. ‘Lord Kiyowara refused to let the young master become a soldier. You must not read too much into that. Those of us who have watched the young lord grow up, know that there is no viciousness in him. That particular disagreement you may therefore ignore. It happens – happened regularly; at least once a month.’
Akitada acknowledged this with a slight smile. ‘You are right that I have been told about the quarrel, but Lady Kiyowara seems to take it more seriously than you. In fact, I believe she expects me to find a more likely candidate quickly, before her son is arrested.’
Fuhito’s eyes moved around the room. ‘Quite so, My Lord. I’m sure you know that a man of His late Lordship’s temperament and position in the government may make many enemies that his household knows nothing about. Did not Her Ladyship tell you this?’
‘But the murder happened here, in Lord Kiyowara’s house. If the murderer came from the outside, either someone admitted him or he came by stealth. Since it happened in the daytime, the former is more likely. That is why I hope one of the servants will know who the killer is.’
Fuhito blinked. ‘I must warn you that there are nearly thirty house servants here. And another eighty-five have various duties at the gate, in the stables, the kitchens, the bath house, and the gardens.’
It was an impossible proposition, and the major-domo knew it. Akitada said coldly, ‘I expect a man in your position has questioned them already. Perhaps you would share what you have learned?’
Fuhito looked at his clenched hands. ‘Not everyone, sir. But I did speak with those on duty in the house, at the gate, and in the gardens. I made a list of all the visitors who entered the compound that day. Neither the servants in the house nor in the gardens observed anyone who was not supposed to be there. The list is in the hands of the police.’
‘Did you make a copy?’
Fuhito flushed. ‘No, sir. I did not know it would be needed. I have some rough notes, which I used to compile the final list.’
That was better. Akitada asked to see the notes, and Fuhito went to a bamboo stand with shelves, where he took several sheets of paper from a writing box. These he passed to Akitada with a bow.
Akitada studied them closely. Fuhito wrote in an excellent hand. In fact, his brush strokes marked him as university-educated, though sometimes graduates of the Imperial University were forced to teach in the provinces, and Fuhito might have benefited from one such instructor.
He saw his own name, and that of the poet Ono. In each case, the purpose of the visit was noted. He himself was identified by his former rank and position and his intention ‘to speak to His Lordship on a matter connected with the Ministry of Justice’. Ono was unidentified, perhaps because he was a familiar and regular visitor. He had paid a call on Her Ladyship. The others were tradesmen, messengers from various offices of the Greater Palace, and people from the Kiyowara estate. They had been seen by Fuhito or the head cook, because they had brought supplies or received orders.
When Akitada had read the notes carefully, he looked up. Fuhito met his gaze. ‘I see the name of His Highness, Prince Atsunori. He and I met briefly in the waiting room. Why is the purpose of his visit missing?’
The major-domo seemed astonished by the question. ‘His Highness was shown into the waiting room by mistake. I was horrified when I discovered what an ignorant servant had done and rushed to remedy the situation. His Highness should not have been asked to wait. He was angry.’
Akitada recalled the air of outraged importance that had enveloped the Minister of Central Affairs. ‘But why not list the reason for his call? Did you also leave that off the list you gave the police?’
‘I saw no need to demand a reason from someone of such exalted rank. He probably stopped on his way to the emperor to remind Lord Kiyowara of some small matter. I took him in myself and waited outside the door. He left after only a moment. His lordship was alive then.’
Ah, that helped narrow things, though Akitada, in a perverse humor, was a little disappointed that the prince was cleared of suspicion. He said, ‘Thank you. May I ask you to make a list for me also? And then perhaps you might show me the house and the room where your master died. As you know, I never got farther than the waiting room the day I came here.’
Fuhito accepted his notes back. ‘As you wish, sir.’
‘Did you by chance attend the university here in the capital? Your calligraphy is excellent.’
This time, the major-domo blushed with pleasure. The man’s eyes became moist. ‘Thank you, sir,’ he stammered. ‘Yes, I was so fortunate. Those were happy days. Long gone, I’m afraid.’
Seeing so much nostalgic emotion, Akitada felt like apologizing, but he desisted. Fuhito jumped up, tucked the notes away, and rushed to open the door for him.
The tour of the house was enlightening about the dead man’s wealth and his hopes for the future. Clearly, he had aimed for palatial appointments, rejecting true elegance like the austere simplicity of the emperor’s own residence. Costly fabrics, objects, and paintings abounded. The room where he had died was no exception.
More to the point, Akitada suspected that it had been cleaned after the police left and the body was removed.
In addition to Kiyowara’s own desk, there was a smaller second desk meant for a secretary rather than a scribe. Akitada asked about this and was told that the secretary had not been employed yet, but that Lord Kiyowara had been casting about for a suitable man.
‘Why was the job not offered to you?’ Akitada asked. ‘Surely your background would have made you an excellent choice.’
Fuhito bit his lip. ‘Not at all, sir. I am too old. His Lordship hoped for someone younger and with connections among the court nobility.’
Was he bitter that he had been passed over? Or relieved? The position would surely have meant constant exposure to Lord Kiyowara’s whims. Akitada found Fuhito increasingly interesting. What were his true feelings about his late master? So far, he had not seen signs of grief.
Since the room had been cleaned and rearranged, he could learn nothing from it. No doubt the police had noted whatever clues there might have been. Akitada went to look at the scrolls and books on Kiyowara’s shelves. Much of it was what you would expect to find: the great poetry collections, the law books, the Records of Ancient Matters and some other chronicles, translations of the Chinese masters, and the court calendars.
Akitada turned away from the books. The desk was handsome, but bare of anything but the writing set. ‘Where are Lord Kiyowara’s papers kept?’ he asked.
‘His official documents are not in this house, and the estate documents are kept at the provincial mansion. I myself keep those documents that pertain to household expenses.’
‘Then Lord Kiyowara did not work here?’
‘His Lordship used the room for meetings.’
‘Who served as his secretary on those occasions?’
‘It was rarely necessary to keep notes. His Lordship’s son occasionally sat in on a meeting. His Lordship wrote his own letters.’
That was very curious. A man as wealthy as Kiyowara should have had both secretaries and scribes at his disposal. It sounded very much as if Kiyowara had not trusted anyone with the transactions taking place here. Akitada eyed the desk thoughtfully. ‘Who found your master’s body?’
‘I did.’
‘Ah. Could you describe the scene?’
Fuhito thought a moment. ‘He was on his side near the desk. His face was in a puddle of blood. And his head – his head had wounds, one dreadful wound just there.’ Fuhito gestured to his right temple. ‘His arms were by his sides, and one leg was straight, the other bent at the knee.’
‘And where was he?’
Fuhito indicated a place halfway between the desk and the doors to the garden. ‘His feet were towards the doors.’
Akitada frowned, then went to the closed doors that must lead to a veranda. Opening these, he stepped out. The garden stretched before him. He saw that this spot was around a corner from the place where he had first seen Ono step from the shrubbery. The sound of women’s voices came from the other side of a bank of shrubs.
‘Were these doors open when you found your master? I recall it was a sunny day, and the doors of the waiting room were open to the garden.’
‘I believe one of the doors was slightly open. His Lordship usually kept them closed when he expected visitors, but it was a warm day.’
Akitada nodded and turned back to scan the room one more time. ‘Did you see anything that could have been used as weapon?’
Fuhito shook his head. ‘The police captain asked that. I was very shocked at the time and tried to bring him back to life, so I did not pay attention. Alas, I was too late. The police said he died from the wounds to his head.’
‘That means he must have been struck with something. Do you know if the police found the weapon that had been used?’
‘No, but I don’t think so.’
The wounds and their location suggested someone lashing out in a sudden fit of fury while facing Kiyowara. An unplanned act? Akitada thought of the son again. But what had he used? There was nothing that was both heavy enough and easily grasped and swung. But perhaps the murderer had come with a blunt tool, say a heavy cane, and taken it away after the murder. In that case he would have had murder on his mind. Alternatively, the weapon had been something he’d found here, used, and then carried away.
Fuhito had withdrawn into silent propriety again. All along, he had seemed too detached. Perhaps he was simply being careful not to give something away that might involve him or another.
Akitada asked, ‘Is anything missing from the room?’
Fuhito glanced around, frowned. ‘I don’t know, sir. It looks as it should. But I don’t always come here, and on the day of the murder I did not look at everything. I think I would have noticed something large, though.’
Akitada gestured to the outside. ‘A stranger could have entered Lord Kiyowara’s room from the garden and left that way.’
The major-domo said quickly, ‘No. The garden is walled. Strangers – and most of the servants – would have had to come through the house.’
‘Walls can be climbed.’ Akitada had once climbed such a wall in pursuit of a criminal.
Fuhito shook his head stubbornly. ‘Surely not in the daytime. Someone would have noticed from the outside. Allow me to show you.’
They made a thorough inspection of the walls that separated the garden from the entrance courtyard and the stable area on one side and the streets on the others. They were high and in excellent repair. A gate to the stable enclosure was barred from the inside.
‘I admit the gardeners myself and close it again after they have finished,’ Fuhito explained. ‘They had finished that day.’
‘What about gates to the street in the back of the compound?’
‘Also locked and rarely opened. I have the keys.’
So much security seemed too good to be true. Akitada regarded the major-domo with a frown. ‘And there has never been a single instance of someone getting in without your knowledge?’
Fuhito paled slightly. ‘Never. The rules in this household are quite strict. None of the servants would disobey them. And they are therefore very watchful of anyone who does.’
Akitada was not sure of this, but changed to another subject. ‘Which family members are currently in residence?’
‘Her Ladyship and the young lord. Her Ladyship’s cousin. No one else.’
‘What about the other wives? I take it that Lord Kiyowara had secondary wives and also other children.’
‘Two other ladies. And five smaller children: two boys and three girls. All of them remain in the country.’
‘Isn’t that unusual?’
‘Not at all, sir. The children are small, and neither of the ladies have family in the capital.’
Unlike the first lady. Yes, it made sense. Still, it limited the options. A jealous wife might well have attacked her husband. Women could be quite vicious when they felt themselves slighted. But Lady Kiyowara was small. Could she have delivered such blows? It was barely possible, given the right sort of weapon. Akitada sighed and started off towards the building beyond the shrubbery.
Fuhito hurried after him. ‘That path leads to the women’s quarters, sir,’ he cried.
Akitada stopped. ‘I thought Her Ladyship had instructed you to give me access to all parts of the property?’
Fuhito glanced towards the roof of the distant pavilion and bit his lip. ‘Perhaps I had better go ahead and announce you.’
‘Very well.’ The ladies might be in a state of undress on a hot day like this and have their doors open to the garden. Akitada twitched his shoulders where his own robe was sticking to his skin and thought of Tamako, doubly miserable at this time of year.
Fuhito disappeared into the shrubbery just about where Ono had emerged the other day. The poet’s relationship with Kiyowara’s wife was surely dubious. Had Kiyowara really been so tolerant of another man’s comings and goings?
Akitada wandered along the small stream where Ono had paused to recite his verses. The water was very clear and flowed over smooth river stones that must have been gathered in the mountains, because none so large and smooth were available in the capital. It seemed to him, as he looked around him, that access to Kiyowara’s room had been easy and would have been unobserved. No one would be in the gardens around the main house unless the gardeners were at their supervised chores. The verandas would have been empty in the midday heat.
The waiting room was around a corner from Kiyowara’s room. Each shared a view of part of the winding stream and of the more distant roofs of the women’s pavilions, but from the waiting room it was impossible to see Kiyowara’s room or his veranda or that part of the garden.
The sun blazed down out of the cloudless sky, and Akitada moved into the shade of a catalpa tree. There he stood, raising his eyes to the far blue mountains in the north. They looked hazy through the shimmering heat that covered the capital on this scorching summer day. Far above him in the sky, a hawk circled slowly. He smiled at the notion that it, too, was searching for prey.
Gravel crunched, and Fuhito reappeared.
‘Her Ladyship wishes to speak with you, sir,’ he announced.
He sounded and looked disapproving. It was understandable. This was a house where mourning had been disrupted by police searching for a murderer, and now strange men were being admitted to the women’s quarters. All he had expected was a glimpse of the layout of the grounds.
Akitada followed him through a small thicket of shrubs, trees, and tall grasses, along an overgrown path that might well give a husband romantic notions of seeking out a new beauty in her hidden and derelict house. He was shortly disabused of such thoughts. Lady Kiyowara’s pavilion was large and ornate with red-lacquered railings and banisters. Several maids, their many-layered silk dresses now covered with hempen jackets, had stepped on the veranda to watch their approach. They seemed astonishingly unattractive or elderly. Perhaps this suited their mistress’s vanity.
When Fuhito clapped his hands, they scattered.
Lady Kiyowara’s room was most luxurious. She was seated, surrounded by several folding screens painted with flowers nodding against a background of gold. As before, she wore little paint on her face – just a dusting of white, a thin outline of her eyes in kohl, the high eyebrows barely brushed on, and the merest touch of red on her lips. She seemed younger for that and was still a desirable woman. Raising her fan, she smiled at Akitada.
‘Please be seated, Lord Sugawara.’ Her voice was pleasant but cool. ‘You, too, Fuhito, for propriety’s sake.’
They bowed and sat.
Akitada took in the presence of two other women, sitting together at a distance. One was the same woman who had been with Lady Kiyowara on his last visit. The other was a handsome young female in a very odd-looking costume of white hemp covered with a red stole, and thick ropes of beads and shells hung about her neck. Her hair was thick but disheveled, and she stared at him boldly, almost hungrily. He looked away, wondering why the major-domo was required when there were other women present.
An odd thought seized him. If Ono was not the lady’s lover – he had only claimed brotherly affection – then a middle-aged woman like Lady Kiyowara might well have chosen a man like Fuhito to be her lover and confidant. True, the man was in his sixties and his hair was sprinkled with white, but he was, for all that, tall and handsome enough. Besides, he was well-educated and conveniently available.
Lady Kiyowara gestured with her free hand. ‘You have met my companion,’ she said. ‘The other lady is Aoi, a spiritualist and miko . She is consulting the gods to find out the truth about my husband’s murder.’ She paused to let Akitada absorb this, then said, ‘And you, sir? Have you made any progress with your methods?’
It was a humbling moment. Akitada was clearly valued no higher than the local witch. He decided to ignore it. ‘I assume from your major-domo’s explanations and an inspection of the grounds that the attacker must have come from the inside,’ he said.
Lady Kiyowara frowned. Her eyes moved to Fuhito, who shifted uncomfortably on his cushion. ‘From the inside?’ she said sharply. ‘Can you be certain? My husband received visitors from the outside that day, yourself included.’
Akitada understood the implied hint that he had better come up with a stranger or he would become a suspect again. He said stiffly, ‘My assumption is based on the information I was given.’
She turned on Fuhito. ‘You know as well as I that no one in this household would lay a hand on my husband. Why then do you suggest this to Lord Sugawara?’
Fuhito paled. ‘I know it, My Lady, but I also know how careful all of us have been to protect our lord from unwelcome visitors.’
This surprised Akitada. It seemed to make a point of ready access for welcome visitors. Could the major-domo mean Ono? But he focused on something else. ‘What unwelcome visitors?’ he asked. ‘If Lord Kiyowara feared anyone, surely this is the time to mention names.’
Fuhito compressed his lips and looked down at his clenched hands. Lady Kiyowara fidgeted with her fan.
‘Well?’ Akitada urged.
Lady Kiyowara shot Fuhito a furious look and said sharply, ‘My husband was an outsider at court and widely resented by his colleagues. I assumed that you would answer this question yourself. I turned to you for help because you have access to government circles that are closed to the Kiyowara family.’
A very neat turning aside of his request. While she was far off about his real position in the government, Akitada had to accept her point. He was to find the murderer among her husband’s enemies. Still, he was not at all sure that the solution did not lie within the Kiyowara household. For that matter, what better place to hide a murder weapon than in the women’s quarters? The police would hardly dare search them. He said stubbornly, ‘It does not answer the question how an outsider could have entered the compound unseen, My Lady.’
She snapped her fan angrily. ‘Then you must look harder. You and Fuhito. I wish you luck.’ She did not look at him this time, but sketched a slight bow.
Thus dismissed, Akitada and Fuhito withdrew.
As they walked back to the main house, Akitada asked, ‘How secure is the compound at night?’
Fuhito seemed dejected. His shoulders slumped and his head was bowed. ‘The gates are closed, and there are watchmen,’ he said listlessly.
‘I take it, if a thief were caught trying to enter, you would be called. Has there ever been a disturbance at night in your memory?’
‘There have been some minor alarms. Once a group of drunken officers of the guard drove a carriage up to the outer wall and tried to climb in. They were noisy, and the servants stopped them quite easily. Another time, the guard in the front courtyard heard noises and rustling in the garden. They investigated, but found only some wild cats fighting. I was not called on either occasion. I am not here at night.’
Akitada stopped. ‘You don’t live here?’
‘No, I have my own house in the western quarter. I go home at sunset and return at sunrise.’
Akitada left after this exchange, wondering more than ever about Fuhito. It was very unusual for a house servant, even a major-domo, to reside anywhere other than with the family. The fact that Fuhito owned property and preferred living there suggested again that he did not belong to the servant class. Surely some tragic circumstance had forced him to accept his present humble position. Akitada decided to check into the major-domo’s background first thing the next morning.
Unfortunately, several events were about to intervene and drive all thought of Fuhito from his mind.