Akitada did not agree. He thought Peony had been struck unconscious and then put into the water to drown, and if the boy was indeed her son, he might have seen her killer. But that boy was mute.
Or was he?
“The boy I found,” he said, “was terrified of the people who claimed him. I thought at first it was because he expected another beating. Perhaps so, but I think now that they are not his parents. I believe he has a more than casual connection with the cat and could be Peony’s missing son.”
“Holy Amida!” breathed the warden. “What a story that would be!” He said eagerly, “They live in a fishing village outside town. I’ll ride out now and check into it. If you’re right, sir, it may solve the case. But that would really make a person wonder about the Masudas.”
“It would indeed. I’ll get my horse from the inn and join you.”
The weather continued clear. They took the road Akitada had traveled two days before. On the way, the warden told Akitada about the Masuda family.
The old lord had doted on his handsome son and had chosen his son’s first wife for both her birth and beauty, but the young lord did not care for his bride and started to visit the courtesans of the capital. His worried father sought to keep him home to produce an heir by presenting him next with a sturdy country girl for a second wife. She proved fertile and gave him two daughters before he lost interest again. It was at this time that the young husband had installed Peony, a beautiful courtesan, in the lake villa, where he stayed with her, turning his back on his two wives. The old lord forced him to return temporarily to his family, and the first lady finally conceived and bore a son, but her husband died soon after.
And, mused Akitada, while all of Otsu took an avid interest in the births and deaths in the Masuda mansion, hardly anyone cared about the fate of a courtesan and her child. In fact, he was surprised they had been allowed to continue living in the villa.
When Akitada and the warden reached the fishing village, they found the man Mimura leaning against the wall of a dilapidated shack, watching the boy sweep up a smelly mess of fish entrails, fins, and vegetable peelings. Dressed in rags again, the child now sported a large black eye.
“Hey, Mimura?” shouted the warden. The boy raised his head and stared at them. Then he dropped his broom and ran to Akitada, who jumped from his horse and caught him in his arms. The child was filthy and stank of rotten fish, and he clung to Akitada for dear life.
Mimura walked up, glowering. “If it’s about the boy, we settled all that,” he told the warden. “I should’ve asked for more than the bits and pieces he gave the kid, and that’s the truth.” He turned with a sneer to Akitada. “You had him a whole day and night. That ought to be worth at least two pieces of silver.”
The warden reddened to the roots of his hair, and Akitada realized belatedly that he was being accused of an unnatural fondness for boys. A cold fury took hold of him. “That child is not yours,” he thundered. “And stealing children is a crime.”
Mimura lost some of his bravado, and the warden quickly added, “Yes. This boy’s not registered to you, yet you claimed him as your own. I’m afraid I’ll have to arrest you.”
Mimura’s jaw dropped. “We didn’t steal him, Warden. Honest. He’s got no family. We took him in, the wife and I.”
“Really? Out of the goodness of your heart? Then where are his papers? Where was he born and who were his people?”
“I’m just a poor working man, Warden. This woman gave him to my wife, and she paid her a bit of money to look after him.” He turned to call his slatternly spouse from the shack.
She approached nervously and confirmed his story. “I was selling fish in the market. It was getting dark when this lady came. She was carrying the boy and said, ‘This poor child has just lost his parents. I’ll pay you if you’ll raise him as your own.’ I could see the boy was sickly, but we needed the money, so I said yes.”
“Her name?” the warden growled.
“She didn’t say.”
“You called her a lady. What did she look like?” Akitada asked.
“I couldn’t tell. She had on a veil and it was dark. And she was in a hurry. She just passed over the boy and the money and left.”
“How much money?” the warden wanted to know.
“A few pieces of silver. And a poor bargain it was,” Mimura grumbled. “He’s a weakling and deaf and dumb as a stone. Look at him!”
“Did you give him the black eye?” Akitada asked.
“Me? No. He’s a clumsy boy. A cripple.”
Akitada lifted the boy on his horse. “Come along, Warden,” he said over his shoulder. “You can deal with them later. We need to find this child’s family.”
On the way back, the small, warm, smelly body in his arm, Akitada was filled with new purpose. He outlined his suspicions to the warden, but he spoke cautiously, for he was now certain that the child could hear very well.
“So you see,” he said, “we must speak to Lord Masuda himself, for the women are covering up the affair.”
The warden, who had been admirably cooperative so far, demurred. “Nobody sees the old lord. They say he’s lost his mind.”
“Nevertheless, we must try.”
The Masuda mansion opened its gates for a second time. If the ancient servant was surprised to see Akitada with a ragged child in his arms and accompanied by the warden, he was too wellmannered to ask. But he shook his head stubbornly when Akitada demanded to see the old lord.
“Look,” Akitada finally said, “I think that this boy is Lord Masuda’s grandson, the child of the courtesan Peony. Would he not wish to know him before he dies?”
“But,” stammered the old man, “that boy is dead. Lady Masuda said so herself.”
“She was mistaken.”
The old man came closer and peered up at the child. “Amida!” he whispered. “Those eyebrows. Can it be?”
He took them then. They found the old lord in his study. He sat sunken into himself, one gnarled hand pulling at the thin white beard that had grown long with neglect, his hooded eyes looking at nothing.
“My lord,” said the servant timidly. “You have visitors.” There was no reaction from Lord Masuda. “Lord Sugawara is here with the warden.” Still no sign that the master had heard. “They have a small boy with them, my lord. They say …”
Akitada stopped him with a gesture. Leading the child to the old man, he said, “Go to your grandfather, boy.”
For a moment he clung to his hand, but his eyes were wide with curiosity. Then he made a bow and a small noise in the back of his throat.
Lord Masuda’s hand paused its stroking, but he gave no other sign that he had noticed.
The boy crept forward until he was close enough to touch the gnarled fingers with his own small ones. The old hand trembled at his touch, and Lord Masuda looked at the child.
“Yori?” he asked, his voice thin as a thread. “Is it you?”
The boy nodded, and Akitada’s heart stopped. He turned to the servant. “Did he call the boy ‘Yori’?”
The servant was wiping his eyes. “The master’s confused. He thinks he’s his dead son, whose name was Tadayori. The child looks like him, you see. We used to call him Yori for short.”
It was a common abbreviation—his own Yori had been Yorinaga—but Akitada was shaken. That he should have crossed paths with this child during the O-bon festival when his grief had caused him to mistake the small pale figure for his son’s ghost and he had called him “Yori” now seemed like a miracle. Fatefully, the child had come to him, and together they had encountered the extraordinary cat that had led him to Peony’s villa and the Masudas.
The old lord was still looking searchingly at the child. Finally he turned his head and regarded them. “Who are these men?” he asked the servant. “And why is the boy dressed in these stinking rags?”
Akitada stepped forward and introduced himself and the warden. Lord Masuda looked merely baffled.
“My lord, we
re you aware of your son’s liaison with the courtesan Peony?”
A faint flicker in the filmy eyes. “Peony?”
“They had a child, a boy, born five years ago. Your son continued his visits to the lady and acknowledged the boy as his.” There was just a broken sword for proof, but a nobleman buys such a sword only for his own son.
The old lord looked from him to the boy and then back again. “He resembles my son.” The gnarled hand stretched out and traced the child’s straight eyebrows. “You hurt yourself,” he murmured, touching the bruised eye. “What is your name, boy?”
The child struggled to speak, when there was an interruption.
Lady Masuda swept in, followed closely by Kohime. “What is going on here?” she demanded, her eyes on her father-in-law. “He is not well …”
Akitada’s eyes flew to the child. He had hoped for a confrontation between the boy and Lady Masuda, and now he prayed for another miracle. He saw him turn toward the women and his face transform into a mask of terror and fury. Then he catapulted himself forward, his voice bursting into gurgling speech. “I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you,” he screeched. But he rushed past Lady Masuda and threw himself on Kohime, fists flying.
Kohime shrieked, gave the child a violent push, and ran from the room.
Akitada bent to help the boy up. He had guessed wrong, but his heart was filled with joy. “So you found your voice at last, little one,” he said, hugging him. “All will be well now.”
“She hurt her. She hurt my mother,” sobbed the child.
“Shh,” Akitada said. “Your grandfather and the warden will take care of her.”
Lady Masuda was very pale, but her eyes devoured the child. “Oh, I am so glad he is alive,” she cried. “How did you find him? I’ve been searching everywhere, terrified by what I had done.”
The old lord looked at her. “Are you responsible then?” he asked, almost conversationally. “He resembles your son, don’t you think? Both inherited their father’s eyebrows.”
She smiled through tears. “Yes, Father. But he’s so thin now, poor child. And I gave that woman all the money we had.”
The warden cleared his throat. “Er, what happened just then, sir?” he whispered to Akitada.
“I think Lady Masuda knows,” Akitada said. “It would be best if she explained, but perhaps the child …” He turned to the boy. “What is your name?”
“You know. Yori. Like my father,” he replied, as if the question were foolish.
Lord Masuda’s face softened. “Yes. That was my son’s name when he was small. But you were about to suggest something, Lord Sugawara?”
“Perhaps Yori might be given into the care of your servant for a bath and clean clothes while we discuss this matter.”
“Oh, please let me take him,” pleaded Lady Masuda.
“No,” said Lord Masuda. “You will stay here and make a clean breast of this.” She hung her head and nodded. Her father-in-law looked at the old servant. “Send for my other daughter and bring the child back to me later.” When they had left, he sat up a little straighter. “Now, Daughter. Why was I not informed about my grandson and his mother?”
She knelt before him. “Forgive me, Father. I wished to spare you. You were so ill after my husband died.”
“You were not well yourself after you lost your child,” he said, his voice a little gentler.
“No. I had known all along where my husband had been spending his time. Women always know. I was jealous, especially when I heard she had given him a son while I was childless. But then my husband returned to me, and after my own son was born, I no longer minded so much that my husband went back to her.”
Lord Masuda nodded. “My son told me that he wished to live with this woman and her child. As he had given me an heir, I permitted it.”
Lady Masuda hung her head a little lower. “But then he died. And when my son also passed from this world …” Her voice broke, and she whispered, “Losing a child is the most terrible loss of all.” For a moment she trembled with grief, then she squared her shoulders and continued. “I became obsessed with my husband’s mistress and her boy. I wanted to see them. Kohime was very understanding. She came with me. It was … an awkward meeting. She was very beautiful. I could see they were poor and I was glad. We watched the boy play with his kitten in the garden, and suddenly I thought if we could buy the child from her, I could raise him. He was my husband’s son, and …” She hesitated and looked up fearfully at Lord Masuda.
He grunted. “I should have taken care of them. If you had brought him to me, no doubt I would have agreed to an adoption.”
“I went home and gathered up all the gold I could find, and Kohime added what she had saved, and we went back to her. But when we told her what we wanted, she became upset and cried she would rather die than sell her son. She snatched up the boy and ran out into the garden. We were afraid she would do something desperate. Kohime ran after her and tried to take the child. They fought …”
Lord Masuda stopped her. “Here is Kohime now. Let her speak for herself.”
Kohime had been weeping. Her round face was splotched and her hair disheveled. She threw herself on the floor before her father-in-law. “I didn’t mean to kill her,” she wailed. “I thought she was going into the lake with the child, so I grabbed for her. When we fell down, the boy ran away. She bit and kicked me. I don’t know how it happened, but suddenly I was bleeding and afraid. My hand found a loose stone on the path and I hit her with it. I didn’t mean to kill her.” She burst into violent tears.
Lord Masuda sighed deeply.
Lady Masuda moved beside Kohime and stroked her hair. “It was an accident, Father. The boy came back,” she said, her voice toneless. “He had a wooden sword and he cut Kohime with it. I saw it all from the veranda of the villa. When Kohime came running back to me, she was covered with blood. I took her into the house to stop the bleeding. She said she had killed the woman.” She brushed away tears.
A heavy silence fell. Then Akitada asked gently, “Did you go back to make sure Peony was dead, Lady Masuda?”
She nodded. “We were terrified, but after a while we both crept out. She was still lying there, quite still. The boy was holding her hand and crying. Kohime said, ‘We must hide the body.’ But there was the boy. Of course, we could not take him back with us after what had happened. We thought perhaps we could make it look as if she had fallen into the water by accident. We decided that I would take away the boy, and Kohime would hide the body because she is the stronger. I tried to talk to the child, but it was as if his spirit had fled. His eyes were open, but that was all. He let me take him, and I carried him away from the house. I did not know what to do, but when I saw a woman in the market packing up to return to her village, I gave her the money and the child.”
The warden muttered, “All that gold, and the Mimuras beat and starved him.”
“And you, Kohime?” asked Lord Masuda.
Kohime, the plain peasant girl in the fine silks of a noblewoman, said with childlike simplicity, “I put Peony in the lake. It wasn’t far, and people thought she’d drowned herself.”
“Dear heaven!” muttered the warden. He looked sick.
“You have both behaved very badly,” said Lord Masuda to his daughters-in-law. “What will happen to you is up to the authorities now.”
After a glance at the warden, who shook his head helplessly, Akitada said, “Peony’s death was a tragic accident. No good can come from a public disclosure now. It is her son’s future we must consider.”
The warden was still staring at Kohime. “It was getting dark,” he muttered. “You can see how two hysterical women could make such a mistake.”
“You are very generous.” Lord Masuda bowed. “In that case, I shall decide their punishment. My grandson will be raised as my heir by my son’s first lady. It will be her opportunity to atone to him. Kohime and her daughters will leave this house and reside in the lake villa, where she will pray daily for the soul
of the poor woman she killed.” He looked sternly at his daughters-in-law. “Will you agree to this?”
They bowed. Lady Masuda said, “Yes. Thank you, Father. We are both deeply grateful.”
Akitada looked after the women as they left, Lady Masuda with her arm around Kohime, and thought of how she had said, “Losing a child is the most terrible loss of all.”
When they were gone, the old lord clapped his hands. “Where is my grandson?”
The boy came, clean and resplendently dressed, and sat beside his grandfather. “Well, Yori,” the old man asked, “shall you like it here, do you think?”
The boy looked around and nodded. “Yes, Grandfather, but I would like Patch to live here, too.”
THEY PUT DOWN their offering of fish. The cat was watching them from the broken veranda. It waited until they had withdrawn a good distance before strolling up and sniffing the food. With another disdainful glance in their direction, it settled down to its meal, and Akitada threw the net. But the animal shied away at the last moment and, only partially caught, streaked into the house, dragging the net behind. A gruesome series of yowls followed.
“Patch got hurt,” cried the boy. “Please go help her.”
Akitada had to climb into the villa. He used the same post from which he had looked for the ghost, but this time he swung himself across the veranda and into the empty room. Walking gingerly across the broken boards, he found the cat in the next room, rolling about completely entangled in the netting. Carefully scooping up the growling and spitting bundle in his arms, he returned the same way. He had one leg over the window frame when he heard the mournful sound of the ghost again. Passing the furious cat down to the boy, he looked back over his shoulder.
One of the long strips of oil paper covering a window had come loose and was sliding across the opening as a breeze from the lake caught it. When its edge brushed the floor, it made the queer sound he had heard.
So much for ghosts!
Outside, Patch, a very real cat, began to purr in Yori’s arms.
Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine Presents Fifty Years of Crime and Suspense Page 56
