“I’m worried about Tadatoshi.”
Jealousy stabbed Etsuko. She wanted his concern all for herself. “How can you think of him, when—”
“He’s my pupil,” Egen hastened to explain. “I’m responsible for him.”
“Oh,” Etsuko said, trying to be generous and understanding. “Why are you worried?”
“He doesn’t have any playmates or seem to want any. He’d rather brood by himself. And sometimes, I swear, he’s like a ghost. He disappears, and I can’t find him anyplace. Then he reappears as if out of thin air. Where does he go? What’s he doing? He’s not normal.”
Etsuko agreed, but she said, “I don’t think there’s much you can do.”
“I suppose you’re right,” he said, clearly not convinced. Etsuko smiled up at him and grazed her fingers against his wrist. The worry in his eyes gave way to desire. He closed his hand around hers. “Will I see you tonight?” he asked urgently.
Etsuko nodded, breathless with anticipation.
“In our usual place?”
Footsteps coming down the passage startled them. Egen let go of Etsuko’s hand. They sprang apart just as Doi appeared.
“Oh, there you are,” Doi said to Etsuko. “The girls sent me to look for you.”
Etsuko blushed; her heart pounded wildly. He’d almost caught them!
“Your mistress is going to the theater. You’re all to accompany her, and so are some of us men.” Doi beamed, glad for a party, for a chance to sit beside her during the play. Etsuko pitied him because he didn’t know that her feelings toward him had changed. Doi turned to Egen. “You can come, too.”
Shame filled Etsuko. He was a kind, generous man. He’d befriended Egen, who was an outsider in this house, a gentle scholar and poet among rowdy samurai. And she and Egen were betraying him.
“Thank you,” Egen said, and Etsuko could see that he felt as guilty as she did. “But I have lessons to prepare.”
“Oh. Well, maybe next time.” Doi said to Etsuko, “Come on, let’s go.”
But he hesitated, looking curiously at her, then at Egen. Etsuko winced inwardly. Did he suspect?
“Did your mother tell you anything?” Hirata asked.
“Not enough, but it was a lot more than I’d bargained for,” Sano said.
He and Hirata sat in his office, eating a belated breakfast of rice gruel, fish, and pickled vegetables. Sano reluctantly described what his mother had said, ashamed to expose his ignorance about his family even to his closest friend.
Hirata, always considerate, didn’t react except to nod. When Sano finished, he said, “She’s given us some leads.”
Thank the gods for that much, Sano thought. “The broken engagement gives Colonel Doi a possible motive for incriminating her. He’s the prime suspect as far as I’m concerned. I’ll call in my informants and find out what they can tell me about his doings around the time when Tadatoshi disappeared. But there’s another potential witness—and maybe a suspect.”
“The tutor?”
Sano nodded, spooned up the last of his gruel, and washed it down with tea. “Not only was Egen a member of Tadatoshi’s household, he must have been close to the boy. Maybe he saw something or knows something about his disappearance.”
“Maybe he was responsible for it,” Hirata said.
“That could be,” Sano said. “Tadatoshi would have trusted Egen. It would have been easy for him to kidnap the boy.”
“Easier than for a lady-in-waiting,” Hirata said.
Sano thought of his mother vehemently denying that the tutor was the killer, then claiming she’d barely known him. Questions interlaced with suspicions in Sano’s mind. He must have another talk with her, whether she liked it or not. In the meantime, the tutor offered them a chance at salvation even if he wasn’t guilty.
“Maybe Egen could refute Doi’s story,” Sano said.
“He should, if only to protect himself,” Hirata said. “Doi accused him in addition to your mother.”
“Supposing he does, it would be his word and my mother’s against Doi’s,” Sano said, although he wondered if that would carry enough weight. Doi was a high-ranking soldier, backed by Lord Matsudaira. Sano’s mother was a mere woman, vulnerable to attack by Sano’s enemies. The tutor was a nobody. “But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. First we have to find Egen. I want you to start looking.”
“If he’s still alive,” Hirata said, “I’ll find him.”
He and Sano rose. Sano noted the quizzical expression in Hirata’s eyes. Not once had Hirata asked whether Sano’s mother might be guilty; he was too loyal. But he obviously wondered. So did Sano.