by I. J. Parker
Kobe and his men had not bothered to remove their boots and were making a lot of noise. Akitada, moving silently on stockinged feet, caught up with them at the door to the back room. The short, monkey-faced innkeeper Itto and a middle-aged, tearful maid were talking anxiously, but the captain shoved them aside impatiently and disappeared into the back room, followed by his constables. Akitada slipped in behind them.
The inn’s back room had the old-fashioned elegance of old palace rooms. Its floor and beams were dark with age, and the grass mats had turned a deep golden color. When paper-covered screens were pushed open, the occupants had a charming view of an enclosed garden with an ancient stone lantern. At the moment the garden was bright with sunshine and color. Golden chrysanthemums and brilliant red maple leaves spread against the brown bamboo fence like embroidery on a woman’s festive gown.
The scene inside was a stark contrast, though it was colorful enough with the red coats of the police. But death has a sobering effect. Nakamura, black-robed and white-haired, lay beside his go board. He had died painfully. His body was twisted, the formal gown gaping to reveal thin, age-spotted legs and a glimpse of white loin cloth. He had vomited some green, blood-flecked substance over the front of his dark robe and onto the grass mat. His hands were clenched, and the normally handsome thin face was a mask of agony, a swollen tongue protruding from blue lips.
Akitada stepped forward to pull the master’s robe down over the spindly, knotted limbs. A friend, newly-found and irretrievably lost.
“Sugawara!”
Akitada looked up and bowed. “Good morning, Captain. A very sad occasion, but I am glad to see you looking well.”
“What are you doing here?” Kobe’s manner was stiff.
“I came for my lesson,” Akitada said mildly. He bent again to feel Nakamura’s hand. It was still faintly warm.
“Don’t touch anything.” Kobe stepped between him and the body. “What do you mean, you came for a lesson?”
Akitada indicated the go board. “Master Nakamura was a teacher of the game of go. I am one of his pupils. The practice is very useful for sharpening the mind. What happened?”
Kobe was clearly torn between getting rid of Akitada and finding out what his connection with the dead man was. He gave in with an ill grace. “Very well. Sit down over there, and keep quiet. When we’re done, you can answer some questions.”
Akitada obeyed meekly. He watched and listened as Kobe worked. One of the red-coated policemen set up a small portable desk and took notes while Kobe walked around the room dictating his observations. He noted location, time of day and date, the identity of the victim, and contents of the room. Then he knelt by the body, commenting on its appearance and presumed time and cause of death.
Apparently Nakamura had died from ingesting poison of some kind, and as recently as an hour ago.
Kobe paused in his dictation to pick up a cup which lay near the dead man’s hand, sniffed, and tasted the dregs. Making a face, he went out on the veranda to spit into the shrubbery. He returned to inspect the pot used to heat the water and opened a small container of powdered tea. Then he resumed his dictation. The water was pronounced harmless, but the box appeared suspicious for he ordered it carefully wrapped.
Akitada noted all of this with the intense interest a sudden death always aroused in him. Suicide could be eliminated because the master had clearly not expected to die in the middle of his lessons, and an accident was most unlikely under the circumstances. On the other hand, Akitada reflected, Nakamura was also an unlikely murder victim. Much beloved among his friends and disciples, he was a poor man, without the worldly goods or political influence to appeal to a killer’s greed. At his advanced age he would hardly inspire a crime of passion. That left only anger, revenge, or envy as motives, and for any of these, Kobe would have to probe Nakamura’s personal life. Akitada waited for Kobe’s next move.
Kobe called in the landlord and the maid.
Itto, with his worried frown and nervous manner more than ever like a small monkey, was still wringing his hands. He avoided looking at the body or the policemen. Instead he addressed Akitada. “Oh, sir,” he cried. “Who could have done such a dreadful thing to such a fine gentleman?”
Kobe snapped, “Hey! I’m in charge here. Who found the body?”
Itto jumped. “I did, sir, and I immediately sent for you.”
“Did you touch anything?”
“No. Only Master Nakamura.” Kobe glowered, and Itto added quickly, “Just to make sure he was dead.”
Kobe glanced at the kneeling figure of the maid. “Did she make the tea?”
The maid cried, “Oh, no, sir. I would not dare.”
Kobe asked Itto, “Well, who did?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know!” roared Kobe. “You must know. This is your inn.”
“This maid usually leaves the things in the morning. The master or his visitors make the tea.”
Kobe advanced on the cowering maid. “Is that correct? Come on, woman. I don’t have all day.”
The maid burst into tears again. “Every morning,” she sobbed, “I put out the cups and the master’s tea caddy. Then I fill the pot. I fill it at the well, letting the water flow a long time. Just as the master said.”
Kobe stared at her suspiciously, then asked the innkeeper, “Who were the master’s visitors this morning?”
Sweat beaded Itto’s brow. “I don’t know, sir. We were busy with the preparations for Major Counselor Ishikawa’s birthday party tonight.”
Kobe glared. “Stop lying to me. Do you expect me to believe that nobody paid any attention to the comings and goings in an inn?”
“Nobody. We were much too busy,” Itto wailed, casting a beseeching glance at Akitada. “If I hadn’t passed by the open door of this room on my way to the convenience, I wouldn’t have found the body.”
Kobe’s face turned dark with anger, and Akitada cleared his throat.
“What?” snapped Kobe, glowering at him.
“The lessons had become well established,” Akitada explained, “and Nakamura disliked interruptions.”
“Then give me the names of all his students.”
Akitada shook his head regretfully. “I have no idea who they are.”
Kobe glanced around the room. “Did Nakamura keep records?”
“Perhaps, but not here.” Akitada was becoming irritated with Kobe’s manner. “No doubt,” he said coldly, “you will discover more in the coming days after searching his home and talking to all his friends.”
Kobe frowned at him. “You must know something. Surely Nakamura discussed his other students? Casual comments like, ‘That dunce Ishikawa will never learn the simplest moves’?”
Akitada was shocked. “Never. And certainly not in those terms. It would have been most improper to make such a comment about another gentleman.”
Kobe, who had worked his way up from the ranks of the military and preferred commoners to the court nobility, snarled, “Well, one of you proper gentlemen killed the old man. Frankly, I don’t give a rat’s turd for what you so-called good people consider proper. You think nothing of poisoning each other, but heaven forbid you should criticize someone’s game.”
Far from feeling insulted, Akitada nodded. “You’re quite right. It is a curious phenomenon, if you put it that way. On the other hand, I doubt all of the master’s pupils belonged to the good people.”
“Since you seem to have no useful information,” Kobe snapped, “you can leave.”
“I would like to stay.”
“No. You have no business here.” Kobe’s eyes flashed, and his color rose again.
“As you wish.” Akitada sighed and stood. “May I just take a look at the game board?” Without waiting for permission, he went over to the go board with its arrangement of black and white stones. “A race,” he said, astonished. “And such a brief one! Ten black stones and nine white ones.” Peering into the bowl of game piece
s next to the master’s seat, he asked Kobe, “Did you notice that the master was playing black?”
“What are you dithering about now?” Kobe said.
“I gather you don’t play the game?”
“No. I have better things to do.”
“You would be surprised how pertinent the game strategy is to your type of work. The object of both endeavors is capture an opponent, and overcoming an opponent requires careful thought and a knowledge of his personality. For example, consider the peculiar fact that the master was playing black on this occasion.”
“I have no time for nonsense. This is a criminal investigation, not a game. Are you leaving?”
“Captain, normally the weaker of two players plays the black, because it gives him the advantage of the first move. The master always plays the white against his students.”
Kobe looked puzzled, then his eyes widened. “You mean his last visitor was not one of his students?”
“Exactly. He would play black only against someone equal or better. As far as I know there are only two other people who claim to equal his skill. One is Lord Miyoshi, undersecretary of the crown prince’s private office, the other Reverend Raishin, the abbot of the Hojo temple.”
Kobe’s face fell. “You cannot seriously expect me to accuse either of them on such flimsy evidence.”
Akitada raised his brows. “I thought you had little regard for the good people. No, I was not actually suggesting that. We do not know when the poison was introduced into the tea.”
Kobe threw up his hands in disgust. “So all that clever deduction was a waste of time. If that is all you have to contribute, Sugawara, we can dispense with your advice. Please leave and let us get on with our work. And, for once, stay out of my case.”
“Of course.” Akitada drifted toward the door. “It was an easy win for black,” he muttered, shaking his head. “Too easy!”
Kobe shook his head, turned, glared at the game board, and gave it a kick. The stones scattered across the mat.
• • •
Akitada grieved for the master, but he stayed out of the case, reminding himself to wait for his chance as Nakamura had often told him during their lessons. Soon there would be developments which would lead him to the killer.
He attended the master’s funeral, and found Kobe also there. It was on a gray day threatening rain. Most of Nakamura’s students and friends had come, their grief tempered by curiosity. They watched the glowering, red-coated Kobe uneasily. Both of Nakamura’s closest contenders for the master’s title were there as well. The abbot, Raishin, recited a short prayer, and the heavy-set Lord Miyoshi from the crown prince’s staff knelt in the front row, his broad, flat features a mask of sorrow.
After the ceremony, Kobe took Akitada aside. Characteristically, he did not refer to their unpleasant parting but plunged directly into his subject. “We got absolutely nothing from searching Nakamura’s place and next to nothing from talking to his friends,” he said, as if they were merely continuing an earlier chat. “If you listen to them, he was a saint. Only the maid at the inn didn’t like him. It seems Nakamura complained about the service. Remember when I asked her about the tea water? She was as skittish as a young horse. But it may be nothing. So, you see, it really comes down to Nakamura’s last visitor. I thought about what you said and have a good mind to question Miyoshi.”
To his credit and in spite of his earlier qualms, Kobe was unmoved by questions of rank when he suspected someone of murder. In fact, this was one of his qualities that Akitada respected. “I see,” he said now, glancing at the rotund undersecretary struggling to climb into his carriage while servants hovered near. “Do you have some new evidence?”
Kobe looked a little uneasy. “Nothing I’d like to share with a judge. Miyoshi seems to be one of those fools who get so obsessed with a game that nothing else matters. People say he hated old man Nakamura because he was the acknowledged master and Miyoshi couldn’t beat him. He was always begging Nakamura for a game, but Nakamura’s been turning him down. Until now, it seems.”
Akitada started to say something, but closed his mouth again. Patience!
“Oh, and the abbot was the same way, but he is out. He was on a pilgrimage. No doubt praying for better luck.” Kobe chewed his lip in indecision. “It’s got to be Miyoshi. Right. I’m taking him to headquarters. You can come along, Sugawara. I may need you to explain your reasoning.”
Before Akitada could protest such high-handed arrangements, Kobe had stalked off toward Miyoshi’s carriage, shouting, “Wait!”
His lordship was, of course, outraged to be taken so unceremoniously to police headquarters in front of everybody. He blustered at Kobe about his rank and position at court, waving his arms about and threatening official complaints.
This produced the opposite reaction from the one intended. Kobe made him an exaggerated bow and announced, “I regret to inform the honored Undersecretary that he has been identified as the last person to see Nakamura alive.” Changing his tone, he growled, “Under the circumstances I don’t care who you are. As far as I’m concerned you’re the prime suspect in a murder.”
Akitada almost applauded.
Miyoshi’s eyes opened wide and went to Akitada in sudden comprehension. “I see,” he said. Sitting down, he arranged his fat jowls into an expression of patient suffering. “It is true,” he said, “that I may have been the last person to see Nakamura alive, but I certainly did not kill him.”
“Aha.” His bluff having paid off so handsomely, Kobe’s eyes sparkled, and his mustache seemed to bristle with satisfaction. “Why did you not come forward and report your visit?” he snapped.
Miyoshi was cooperation itself. “My dear Captain, allow me to explain what happened,” he said. “First, I swear I did not poison Nakamura. What motive would I possibly have to kill our beloved master. I am a devotee myself.”
“I don’t care how devout you are. I think you were jealous of him. Perhaps you lost one game too many and killed him in a fit of anger,” said Kobe.
“Nonsense. I was very upset when he became ill. Then he went into convulsions, and I wanted to go find a doctor, but he died before I could do so. It was very quick. I remembered the tea and looked at his cup. It contained grains of a white powder in the sediment. I am afraid I panicked. A man in my position in the crown prince’s household cannot afford to become involved in murder, so I left.”
Kobe glared. “Why should I believe you?”
Lord Miyoshi drew himself up. “You need not believe anything I say, but you cannot hold me, for you have no proof that I put poison in his cup.”
“You withheld evidence,” Kobe pointed out, “and that’s enough for an arrest.”
“Not for a man in my position. I have explained and I shall cooperate fully in the future.”
“Why did you visit Nakamura?”
“Just a friendly call. I was in the neighborhood. He suggested a quick game, and I agreed.”
“He suggested it?” Akitada asked, surprised. “What sort of game?”
Kobe snapped, “Never mind that!” Turning back to his lordship, he asked, “Tell me about the tea. Did you have some?”
“No. He made it and offered me some, but I refused. So he drank it himself.”
“Lucky you,” Kobe, sneered, but with less conviction.
“That was entirely uncalled for, Captain,” Miyoshi protested.
“Did you see his previous caller?”
There was an almost imperceptible pause, then Miyoshi said, “He was alone when I entered the room.”
Akitada asked from his corner, “But perhaps you recognized someone in the corridor or leaving by the gate?”
Miyoshi fidgeted. “A lot of people go to the inn. It means nothing.”
Kobe caught the Miyoshi’s sudden guardedness and leaned forward. “You saw someone. Out with it! Who was it?”
Miyoshi sighed. “Just one of the students from the university. I cannot remember his name.”
“Describe him.”
Miyoshi supplied a surprisingly detailed description of a thin young man with narrow, pointed features, small mustache, and furtive manner. Somewhat mollified, Kobe let him go.
“Well, it looks like you were wrong after all,” the captain pointed out, quite unfairly, when they were alone. “Miyoshi just didn’t want to get involved. Still, I got another lead now. And a good description. Reminds me of a ferret. Of course, most of those bookish youngsters look like that. Do you know who it is?”
