Pathway to Japanese Literature

I

Hanabusa Ritsunosuke took the copy of the deposition and went to see Takagi Shinzaemon.
The hour for departure had long since passed, and there sat Takagi alone, straightening his desk.

"I need to borrow your wisdom."

Takagi turned this way.

“This case regarding the killing of Unokichi in Fuyuki Town,” said Ritsunosuke, showing the copy, “I’d like you to let me reinvestigate it. What do you think?”

“Hasn’t that already been settled?”

“That’s right.”

“Do you have some doubts about the investigation?”

“No, it’s not that I have doubts about the investigation itself,” said Ritsunosuke. “I saw this accused woman named Okinu during a prison inspection—there was something that didn’t sit right with me—so after coming here, I read her deposition.”

Takagi silently waited for the next words.

“Then I made a copy,” said Ritsunosuke, unfolding it. “Looking at this, the girl’s confession is far too simplistic. She makes no effort to defend herself—she just keeps insisting that she’s the one who killed Unokichi.”

“That girl’s weave was too neat.”

“If you read it, you’ll understand—this is like her deliberately trying to clothe herself in guilt.”

“You’re not going to make me read this, are you?”

“This is serious,” said Ritsunosuke. “Let me reopen the investigation. Once the verdict is formally issued, it might be too late—but there should still be a way now. I’m begging you—please make this happen.”

Takagi looked at him with suspicious eyes.

“Is there some reason behind this?”

“I’ll explain that later.”

“Hmph—” Takagi pursed his lips. “The magistrate in charge was Komori, wasn’t it?”

“Magistrate Komori Heiemon.”

“He’s particular,” said Takagi. “Stubborn through and through, with fearsome pride. Should he discover his investigation’s being questioned, there’s no telling what manner of vengeance he might exact—understand?”

Ritsunosuke smiled.

"If that's acceptable to you, I'll consider it—though I can't guarantee it'll work."

Ritsunosuke nodded as if relieved.

Hanabusa Ritsunosuke was a newcomer at this South Magistrate Office (Minami [Town Magistrate Office]). He had never intended to work at the Town Magistrate Office, and his father Shōemon had shared the same view. However, upon hearing his father’s deathbed confession, he had abruptly changed his mind, overriding his mother’s objections to take up the post. His late father had served nearly twenty years in town administration and magistrate offices, spending his final five years as a yoriki administrator for the Kitamachi Bugyō. Perhaps owing to that legacy—though assigned to the South Office—Ritsunosuke had completed two years of annual duty (accounting), followed by stints in precedent research and prison inspections, each brief, until just seven days prior when he had been appointed investigative magistrate. Takagi Shinzaemon was his paternal cousin—five years his senior at twenty-nine—who had served at the South Magistrate Office since his youth, distinguishing himself as an investigative magistrate. He now occupied a senior magistrate position, enjoyed public esteem, and appeared thoroughly trusted.

"He said he couldn't guarantee it, but with him, it'll be fine," Ritsunosuke muttered to himself. "With him, he'll surely find a way."

After returning home to the samurai residential quarter, he once again meticulously examined the copy of the deposition.

The incident unfolded as follows: — Two months ago, on July 7th, Tanabata Night, a murder occurred around ten o'clock in the evening at a vacant lot along the canal bank in Fukagawa Fuyuki Town—a place locally known as "Shijimi Riverbank."
The victim was a plasterer named Unokichi, twenty-five years old.
The perpetrator was a twenty-year-old woman named Okinu.
The murder weapon was a dagger measuring nine sun and five-tenths (approximately 28.8 cm), with wounds found in five locations—the shoulder, chest, and abdomen—the chest wound having pierced the heart, which proved fatal.

The girl, accompanied by the tenement manager Genbei, turned herself in at the Hirano Town guardhouse around eleven o’clock.
And the following morning, when town officials dispatched from Hatchōbori conducted an interrogation, she readily confessed to the crime. They took her deposition and sent her to Kodenmachō.

Unokichi lived at Genbei’s tenement in Fuyuki Town and had a father named Iyokichi.
Okinu also lived in the same tenement and had a father named Katsuji and a brother named Naojirō.
Katsuji was forty-eight years old and had been bedridden with paralysis for three years, while his brother Naojirō had a mental disability.
Okinu was quite attractive, yet she had remained unmarried until the age of twenty—likely due to her family circumstances.
Her temperament seemed gentle, but she was somewhat gloomy, with a strong core and a stubborn streak.

The magistrate in charge at the Town Magistrate Office was Komori Heiemon, the investigative magistrate.
Komori was a veteran at the South Magistrate Office and had investigated with great care, but with Okinu merely repeating her deposition verbatim and the case being so straightforward overall, there appeared no path for deeper scrutiny.

Okinu stated she had been summoned by Unokichi and told something unreasonable, causing her to flare up and stab the man in a frenzy.
She maintained she hadn’t meant to kill him and had acted blindly when stabbing him, but since there was no error in her actions, she wanted them to administer punishment swiftly.

“You say you were told something unreasonable—what exactly was it?”

He pressed her with questions, but Okinu merely repeated, “It was something unreasonable.”

“Depending on the circumstances, even the authorities may show mercy. But if you killed someone over mere ‘something unreasonable,’ you cannot escape the death penalty.”

Komori pressed her like this.
But Okinu said, “Even if I explained what exactly was unreasonable, the magistrates wouldn’t understand. I’ve made up my mind—please don’t ask anything more and just carry out my punishment quickly.”
She simply kept repeating herself.

Of course, Komori had summoned the necessary witnesses and conducted examinations.
Genbei the tenement manager, fellow tenants from the same row house, and Sagamiya Gihē—the landlord and owner of properties throughout the area who ran a pawn and money exchange business (though it was the clerk Shigekichi who appeared)—but from these witnesses as well, not a single statement favorable to Okinu could be obtained.

In the end, aside from Ritsunosuke’s intuition that “this girl is not the real perpetrator,” there existed no material that could serve as counterevidence.

“To me, that’s precisely what matters most.”
Ritsunosuke muttered as he put away the copy, “This very simplicity—where there’s not a single piece of counterevidence—there’s something here. Something’s definitely hidden here. I can feel it.”

Then he closed his eyes and muttered as if in prayer.

“Father—”

II

The following day—Takagi Shinzaemon took Ritsunosuke to Kodenmachō Prison and introduced him to Ishide Tatewaki, the prison magistrate.
Takagi said nothing, and Ritsunosuke did not ask any unnecessary questions.

Ishide Tatewaki was said to be a fellow haikai poet of Takagi’s.
He was thirty-one or thirty-two years old—a compact man with a sharp-featured face and brisk demeanor.

“I see—you are Mr. Hanabusa’s son?” Tatewaki looked at Ritsunosuke with kind eyes. “I knew Mr. Hanabusa well myself—he taught me many things and showed me great kindness. Such a shame he left us so young.”

Ritsunosuke briefly explained his request.

“Very well,” said Tatewaki. “I heard the general details from Takagi last night. But if your hunch proves correct and this investigation gets overturned—though I assume you’re confident—it’ll mean disgrace for you as a new appointee.”

Ritsunosuke remained silent.

I don’t want such a thing—I’m doing this for something entirely different.

He muttered those words to himself but did not voice them aloud.

Tatewaki called a dōshin named Shimura Kihē, introduced Ritsunosuke to him, and ordered that necessary arrangements be made.
Likely having already been briefed, Kihē immediately said, “Please,” and rose to guide him.

“I’ll head back first.”
“I’ll handle things at the office,” Takagi said. “But try to show your face there at least once a day if you can.”

Ritsunosuke answered that he would do so.

The place they were led to was the interrogation chamber.
It was a two-ken square room with solid chestnut-colored cedar doors on either side, fusuma sliding panels at the rear, an engawa veranda at the front, and beneath it lay the shirasu interrogation area.
When Ritsunosuke entered, the girl was already seated in the shirasu.
To her right knelt a dōshin, and behind her stood two prison guards.

“I want to speak with her alone,” Ritsunosuke said to Shimura. “Please have everyone leave here.”

Shimura acknowledged this, and they left.

Waiting until they were alone, Ritsunosuke went out to the engawa and sat down.

“Do you remember me?” Ritsunosuke said to the girl.

Okinu slowly raised her face.

She wore a mouse-gray hemp prison garment with a thin obi; her hair was pulled back tightly into a bun, devoid of any oil.
Her frame was slender, but from years of continuous labor, her flesh was well-formed, and her waist area appeared taut.
With a full-faced, well-defined countenance, her complexion was clear, and her eyes held a calm, beautiful hue.

“Yes,” Okinu said, “I know you came for an inspection.”

“I have now become an investigative magistrate.”

Okinu looked up at him.
“And so I intend to reinvestigate your case.”

“Why?” Okinu said.

“Because I want to know the truth.”

“I’ve already told you everything.”

“I want to know the truth.”

“I’ve told you everything there is to tell.”

“No, that’s not it,” Ritsunosuke said. “Several crucial points are missing. I’m going to ask about them now—answer me truthfully.”

“Why?”
“Why, you ask?”
“I’ve already told Magistrate Komori everything, and it’s already clear that I’m the one who killed Mr. Uno. Shouldn’t that be enough?”
“Listen carefully,” he said. “Our duty isn’t just to catch the perpetrator and carry out punishment—it’s first to determine without error who the true perpetrator is.”

“Therefore, I clearly did it myself.”

“Then I’ll ask,” he said. “According to your deposition, you claim to have stabbed Unokichi in a blind rage—that you never meant to kill him but were provoked by unreasonable demands, then stabbed him without thinking. Is this false?”

“Why?”

“I’m asking you,” he said. “Wasn’t your claim of acting blindly in passion a lie? Didn’t you mean to kill him from the very beginning?”

“That could never be—I would never have intended to kill him.”

“That’s certain, isn’t it?”
He pressed for confirmation.

Okinu answered that it was certain.
“Then I’ll ask—what did you do with the dagger?”

Okinu looked up at him vacantly.

"That was on Tanabata night," he said. "So Unokichi came to call on you, right? When you went out after being summoned, what need was there to bring a dagger along?"

The girl smiled with one side of her face.
That was unmistakably a smile meant to deflect bewilderment.

“You don’t have to answer,” he said. “Next—you’ve been supporting your parent and brother through your work as a daughter. Your parent remains bedridden, and your brother is mentally disabled.”

“That’s wrong. Nao isn’t an idiot.”
Okinu stiffened. “When he was seven, he struck his head at Shijimi Riverbank. That injury only left a bruise.”
“Once it heals properly, he’ll become a proper person. Nao is absolutely not an idiot!”

"That was wrong of me. I apologize."

Okinu's eyes flew open. When told by the magistrate "I apologize," she must have been extremely startled; her eyes flew open and her mouth fell agape at once, revealing small white teeth with fine-grained texture.

"You care so deeply for your brother that you'd get angry even at hearing 'mentally disabled'," Ritsunosuke said. "But that makes it all the more reason you should consider your bedridden parent and such a brother. If you were sentenced to death, what would become of them afterward?"

Okinu did not answer.

“Don’t you care what happens to them?”

“That’s fine,” Okinu said. “Because I’ve already ended up like this.”

“Even if they become beggars?”

“They won’t become beggars.”

“Why—?”

A look of ease and relief momentarily appeared on Okinu’s tense face.
Though it lasted only an instant, Ritsunosuke was certain he hadn’t mistaken what he saw.

“Very well—you needn’t answer that either,” he said. “Next matter: I’m told Unokichi made an unreasonable demand of you. Describe its nature.”

“I already informed Magistrate Komori about that.”

“I want to hear it from you.”

“It’s exactly as written in the deposition.”

“Can’t you say it yourself?” he said. “Then Unokichi tried to make you his mistress, didn’t he?”

Okinu's face flashed with anger.

“Who—who said such a thing?”

“Then Unokichi tried to make you his mistress, didn’t he?”

Three

Okinu glared at Ritsunosuke with furious eyes.

“He—” Okinu stammered, “Mr. Uno isn’t that kind of person. Mr. Uno wouldn’t do such a thing even by mistake. Anyone in the neighborhood knows this. If you think I’m lying, go ask them—every single person knows it!”

“I see. I understand completely now.”

“No one has ever said such things to me before.”
“Even the magistrates from Hatchōbori,” Okinu continued, “even Magistrate Komori—they never said such unpleasant things.”

“I shouldn’t have said such unpleasant things. Please forgive me.”

Ritsunosuke said with a smile.

After returning Okinu to her cell and expressing his thanks to the jailer, Ritsunosuke returned to the southern magistracy.
Then he examined Unokichi’s autopsy report—which included a diagram of the wounds—and afterward went to the storehouse to inspect the murder weapon: the dagger.
It was a nine-and-a-half-sun blade in a white sheath. The scabbard—said to have been found fallen on a nearby road—had dried dirt caked to its surface.
Since the blade remained stained with dried blood, it had naturally not been sheathed.
Though not worth examining the tang, it appeared to be a shortened wakizashi—this caught his attention.
While not valuable, the fact it was an 'agemono' seemed suggestive.

The next day, he went to Shijimi Riverbank.

Crossing Eitai Bridge into Fukagawa and proceeding along the canal from Uenohashi led past Teramachi, continuing on through Hamaguricho and Fuyukicho. Hamaguricho housed the Ii family's villa, but from its outskirts stretching toward Fuyukicho, both the riverside avenue and back alleys lay in severe disrepair—presenting a desolate scene. At the corner of Teramachi and Hamaguricho stood a large merchant house with three storehouses. The shop curtain at the entrance bore the name "Sagamiya," indicating this was likely the establishment serving as the area's landlord, property owner, and pawnbroker. Behind the storehouse-style shop stood a two-story residential building, its surrounding black-painted wooden fence pierced by a stretching red pine branch.

Amidst the decayed surroundings, it stood out conspicuously, appearing heavy and oppressive.

Ritsunosuke briefly stopped his footsteps before Sagamiya.
He looked as if he wanted to stop by the shop but started walking again, going as far as Kamehisa Bridge where he asked children playing there about Shijimi Riverbank.

“It’s right there,” said a boy of about eight. “That spot where you turn along the canal edge—they call all that Shijimi Riverbank.”

Seven children ranging from four or five to seven or eight years old were surrounding a strange boy of about ten, apparently bullying him as a group. The largest among them had skin that shone red and glossy as if afflicted with a foul disease, with tangled hair and eyebrows of a pale dried-dead-leaf hue suggesting extreme malnutrition. His dreadful appearance matched that of the other children, but his slack lips dripped with drool, exposing purple gums and broken front teeth in full view.

Ritsunosuke shuddered but averted his eyes, then turned a smile toward the boy who had just given him directions.

“Thank you, boy,” he said. “How old are you?”

“Me?” the boy said. “I’m twenty!”

“How old did you say?”

“Twenty! Nineteen plus one makes twenty, see?”

The other children burst out laughing.
It was mocking laughter uncharacteristic of children.
Ritsunosuke fell silent, then the child spoke again.

“You’re a magistrate, aren’t you, mister?”

Ritsunosuke looked at the child.

"I don't know what business you've got here, but you'd better watch yourself," the child said. "Folks around these parts don't value their lives much. When officials come poking around, there's no telling what they'll do—I mean it, Mister."

"It's true, Mister," another child said. "You really should get outta here while there's still daylight."

Ritsunosuke forced a wry smile, though inwardly he felt utterly bewildered and struggled to suppress the fury welling up inside him.

I mustn't get angry at these children.

He told himself this.

The children aren't to blame—they don't even understand what they're saying.

He took out a coin purse from his robe.
The children snapped their mouths shut and fixed their gleaming eyes on his hands.
He took out all the mon coins he had and gave them to the boy from before.

“Everyone, go get some sweets,” Ritsunosuke said. “I’m only here because of my duties—don’t give me too much trouble.”

The child shot a distrustful glance and swiftly clenched the coins in a tight grip.

At that moment, a shrill woman’s voice called “Denji!” from ahead.
Under the eaves of a low, leaning house, three women who appeared to be tenement wives stood—each either holding a baby in her arms or carrying one on her back.

“Give it back, Denji!” one of the women snapped. “We ain’t beggars! You think any self-respectin’ soul takes coins from some stranger? Hand ’em over!”

“Come on over here, all of you!” another woman shouted. “Come play over here, everyone—Kurazō!”

“Ain’t you gonna give it back, Denji?”
The woman from before shrieked, “Ain’t you gonna hand it over? I’ll snap every last one of your fingers!”

“Please don’t be so angry.”

Ritsunosuke approached the women.

“I gave them as thanks for receiving directions just now,” he said calmly. “It’s just four or five mon coins—what a lovely child.” He peered at the baby in the woman’s arms. “Looks healthy and well-fed, doesn’t it? Must be around their first birthday already?”

The woman said, “Oh.”
Then she shouted “Denji!” again in a voice sharp as thorns.

“What nonsense are you spouting, you old hag?”
The child stuck out his tongue from across the way. “This here’s coins I got for showin’ the way! You think I’m givin’ ’em back?”

“You! How dare this brat talk back like that!”

“You damn old hag!”
The child said, “I’ll buy potatoes with this! Buy Kanbei’s potatoes and eat ’em all myself! Hmph!”

Urging everyone to follow, the child dashed across Kamehisa Bridge, and the other children chased after him.

“My apologies for giving them coins,” Ritsunosuke said. “It was merely a gesture of thanks.”

The women said nothing.
All three remained silent, but their hostility hung so thick in the air you could almost touch it.
It was instinctive and overt hostility.

This was a bad start.

He left the spot.

Shijimi Riverbank faced a narrow canal, while across the water stood a long wall that appeared to enclose a samurai villa. Within the wall, chinquapin and Japanese elm trees layered their branches thick with blackened leaves, rendering the buildings completely invisible.
Along the road to the right was a vacant lot—likely where the violent crime had occurred—and Ritsunosuke attempted to enter it.
Then, a voice sounded right behind him.

“Uncle! Uncle!”

He was so startled he nearly jumped.

IV

When he turned around, that strange boy was standing there.

"Oh, it's you," Ritsunosuke said. "What's wrong? Weren't you supposed to stay with the others?"

The boy shook his head and showed him the tightly clenched fist of his right hand.
His mouth still hung open with drool dangling from it, and his eyes—caked with gunk—stared out with a vacant, dull-witted haze.

This must be Okinu's brother.

Ritsunosuke realized this for the first time.

"Uncle, this, see?"
The boy said, "See, Uncle? This."

"What's this? You've got something there? What is it, boy?"

The boy extended his tightly clenched fist and slowly unfurled his fingers.
There lay a small, crushed and mangled fresh confectionery.

“You’ve got something nice there,” he said. “Let me see… Oh—deerlet mochi? Fancy treat you’re eating.”

“I got more!”
The boy said, “I got more again! See, everyone tried to take it, right? Will you get mad, Uncle?”

“There there, I’ll get angry for you, boy,” he said. “Is your name Nao?”

“I ain’t Nao!”
The boy shook his head, “I ain’t Nao! Nao’s the idiot, right? I ain’t no idiot!”

The boy kept following him around.

Hanabusa Ritsunosuke found himself more than a little troubled.
He couldn’t make sense of what was being said, and even when told to go play elsewhere, the boy wouldn’t leave his side—trailing behind wherever he went.
Afterward, he met with Genbei the tenement manager, questioned him about that night’s events, then had himself guided to Okinu and Unokichi’s dwellings.
In the seven-unit row house, Unokichi’s residence stood as the second unit from the west, while Okinu’s was the sixth.
Even then the boy remained clinging to him, though through Genbei’s account it became clear this was indeed Okinu’s brother Naojirō.

Genbei was a small-framed, stout, hairy man of fifty-one or fifty-two. Beneath thick eyebrows, his narrow eyes gleamed sharply; his manner was servile, and he perpetually bobbed his head in deference. A man like this must be harsh with tenants and such, Ritsunosuke thought, but in truth, the tenement dwellers' bearing made that abundantly clear.

"What might this concern..." Genbei said as they parted ways, "...something about that matter still troubling you, perhaps—"

“Yeah, just a minor thing,” he said casually, “there are one or two points I can’t quite accept. Nothing major though.”

“So, Master, will you be conducting the investigation yourself?”

“That is my intention,” he answered.

“That may not be advisable.”
Genbei glanced sideways at him and spoke as if holding back, “I shouldn’t say this, but the notoriety of this area is indescribable. Even constables familiar with the district could get clubbed from the shadows if they let their guard down.”

“Seems that way.”

“If I may speak out of turn, I believe it would be wiser to entrust this to those more accustomed to such matters for your safety.”

“Nonsense—it’s hardly worth such concern.”

Ritsunosuke dismissed it lightly.

He visited Fuyuki Town for three consecutive days.
He took two days off and organized what he had seen and heard during that time.
Looking at just that, there was absolutely nothing to be gained.
Over those three days, he had met and spoken with nine men and women, but they told him nothing—as if they had all agreed beforehand, they would answer with things like "Huh," "Something like that," or "I don’t know," and if he pressed them even a little more insistently, those responses too would vanish, leaving them to fall silent like wooden puppets.

What he wanted to know were the following three points.

Were Okinu and Unokichi not lovers?
Was there no one else who had shown affection toward Okinu?

That night, did anyone see someone other than those two?

But no one gave clear answers to any of his questions.

The intensity of their hostility toward officials was something he had experienced on the first day.
Even the children (doubtless influenced by their parents or those around them) showed hostility and mocked them.
Ritsunosuke sighed repeatedly as he examined the compiled records.
However, his intuition that Okinu was not the perpetrator only grew stronger.

"They know something," he told himself. "The way they hedge their words, play dumb, or suddenly clam up proves it. That's not just resentment or hostility—they're definitely hiding knowledge."

“I’ll catch them with my own hands,” he declared again. “With these very hands—I’ll definitely haul them in!”

The next day he went out; it was raining.

Ritsunosuke met Unokichi’s father.
Iyokichi was a gardener—time-consuming work that kept him out earning wages on sunny days, which had made meeting him impossible until now.
Iyokichi, too, spoke little.
A gaunt, bony old man who seemed timid, he would only boast about his dead son Unokichi’s filial devotion or endlessly lament growing old after losing his child, offering almost no satisfactory answers when pressed with crucial questions.

“I believe there’s another perpetrator,” Ritsunosuke repeated. “I want to uncover the true perpetrator. If someone else killed your own son, wouldn’t you want to find them? Wouldn’t you?”

“Hmm,” Iyokichi lowered his eyes. “That may be so, but even if you do, it won’t bring my dead Unokichi back.”

“Then answer me—are you truly content to let Okinu face execution when she isn’t the killer?”

“That Okinu,” Iyokichi said, “ain’t she the perpetrator?”

Hanabusa Ritsunosuke was rendered speechless.
Both Iyokichi’s mask-like expressionless face and his water-like impassive retort were almost despairingly repellent, keeping people at bay.

After leaving Iyokichi’s house, he went to Shijimi Riverbank.

The rain wasn’t falling particularly hard, but it was quiet there—not a soul could be seen even on the moored boats in the canal.
He entered the vacant lot, stood there, and looked around.

"Something happened here," he muttered under his breath. "Something beyond what's written in the deposition—these weeds witnessed it."

In the vacant lot, weeds grew in patches.
Perhaps the area had once been used as a gravel storage yard, with pebbles scattered across the ground and weeds growing in clumps between them.
By late autumn, they had all withered to a brown shrivel, some completely bare with only their bleached-white stems remaining.
And so, battered by the rain and bracing against the approaching winter’s cold, they seemed to hold their breath in hushed stillness.

“You all saw it,” he said while gazing at the weeds. “What happened there on Tanabata Night—if only you had mouths, you could tell me.”

The sound of rain grew slightly stronger against the umbrella he held.
Ritsunosuke eventually returned to Genbei’s shop.

That day, he met Okinu’s father and spoke with three others.
Okinu’s father Katsuji was bedridden and had difficulty speaking, so he couldn’t get any coherent information from him.
Moreover, Naojirō was right there beside them—constantly interrupting with chatter, proudly bringing out sweets to eat, rolling up his kimono to show off an old scar on his shin, or fetching toys like a four- or five-year-old child and pleading, “Let’s play together.”
Since he kept repeating this tirelessly, Ritsunosuke stood up in exasperation.

His conversations with the other three people also proved futile, just as before. One was a laborer from a clay-walled storehouse, another a street performer, and the third a talisman seller—yet whenever the conversation even slightly touched on the incident, they all deftly changed the subject, offering only evasive replies that feigned ignorance.

“Hmm, is that so? I haven’t the faintest idea.”

“What with being so busy making a living, I’ve got no time for neighborly relations in the tenements, you see.”

“I just moved here myself—don’t know a thing about any of that.”

When he asked when they had moved there, only to be told “It’s only been three years”—everything followed that same pattern.

Given that Okinu herself kept insisting she was the perpetrator, there could be no doubt this matter wouldn't be settled straightforwardly.

Hanabusa Ritsunosuke had braced himself accordingly, yet even he faltered somewhat before such fierce resistance.
What he'd managed to ascertain by then amounted to this: though perhaps not lovers, Unokichi and Okinu had shared considerable intimacy.
Moreover, though Unokichi was already twenty-five, he seldom drank except when social necessity demanded and abstained from womanizing entirely - peculiarities that saw him branded an oddity among his peers.
These meager facts comprised the entirety of his findings.

"Let's suppose they were lovers," Ritsunosuke muttered as he walked through the rain. "If someone then cut in, starting a struggle over Okinu, and that man killed Unokichi—that would be the most likely scenario. But no—if they were lovers, Okinu would want revenge against whoever killed Unokichi. There's no reason she'd confess to being the murderer herself after her lover was killed. It makes no sense at all."

He came to a halt at the edge of the riverbank.

"Father," he muttered. "This might be my mistake."

The stagnant steel-colored water of the canal formed countless tiny rings from raindrops soon to darken the sky, its surface shrouded in gloomy gray.――He stood blankly gazing at the water for some time when suddenly sensing a presence behind him. As he began to turn, a violent impact struck him from behind with a thud.

V

The moment the impact struck, the words of those ruffians flashed through Ritsunosuke’s mind like streaking lightning.

He had no time to dodge.
Swinging his right arm reflexively, he accidentally grabbed something.
It was the collar of his opponent’s kimono—clutching it tightly, he fell into the moat.
The opponent came along too. Trying to shake free from the gripped collar but caught between the collision’s momentum and Ritsunosuke’s pulling force, he tumbled head over heels into the water alongside him.

They fell and sank nearly as one, but in the water Ritsunosuke pulled his opponent closer, wrapped both legs around the man’s torso, and dragged him deeper.
The opponent struggled desperately.
The two surfaced once, but at that moment he struck the opponent’s temple and dragged him back underwater.

“Help me!”
The opponent screamed, “I can’t swim! I’ll drown!”

Then came a gurgling gasp as he swallowed water and thrashed about wildly.
Ritsunosuke forced him under again, pinned him beneath the surface, rose for air, then pushed him down once more.
The man’s thrashing made Ritsunosuke swallow a mouthful himself—
Briny, foul-tasting water.—When submerged a third time, all strength left the opponent’s body.
Ritsunosuke surfaced gasping, but hauling the limp deadweight to the surface strained every muscle.

When he surfaced, four or five people from the boats moored along both banks were looking this way and shouting something in unison. There were also people standing on the bank.

“Is there a rope?” he shouted. “This man’s drowning! Throw a rope!”

“A boat’s coming now,” called a boatman-like man from the cargo boat moored right there.

Hearing the sound of oars, he turned around to see a small boat approaching.
A young man wearing a headband and workman’s coat—apparently having set out from the opposite shore—skillfully pushed the oar as rain drenched him.
While supporting the man’s body, Ritsunosuke thought he had lost his swords when his waist felt light.
However, likely because being submerged made them feel weightless, he immediately realized both blades remained properly fastened at his hip.

“He’s just unconscious.”
When the boat reached them, Ritsunosuke said, “Lend me a hand.”

“Right, I’ll handle this,” said the young man, stooping and extending both hands. “Master, are you all right?”

“I’m fine—now.”

“Heave-ho!”
The young man pulled the man aboard the boat.
“Oh! Hey, isn’t this Rokusuke?”

Ritsunosuke also boarded the boat.

“Do you know this man?” Ritsunosuke asked.

“He’s a troublemaker from Hamaguri-cho called Rokusuke.”

“A troublemaker—”
He took out a hand towel, wrung it dry, and while wiping his rain-soaked hair with it, tilted his head slightly. “Take him to the Hirano-machi guardhouse.”

About an hour had passed—

As soon as he arrived at the guardhouse, Hanabusa Ritsunosuke dispatched one of the guards to Sagamiya to request that they arrange for a change of clothes, while watching the other two guards tend to Rokusuke.
Since Rokusuke had only fainted, he quickly regained consciousness and vomited a large amount of water.
At that moment, Mochikichi, the chief clerk from Sagamiya, arrived with a full set of necessary items.
—Sagamiya dealt in pawnbroking and money exchange, and since there were no suitable shops nearby, he had requested their assistance.
He had instructed that old items would suffice, but everything Mochikichi brought was new (though some were slightly ill-fitting).

“I ain’t sayin’ nothin’.”
“Even if ya make me hug a damn boulder, I ain’t spillin’ nothin’. So go on, do your worst!”

At that moment, Hanabusa Ritsunosuke was changing clothes.
Mochikichi, the clerk assisting nearby, looked up at him suspiciously upon hearing this.

"What is the meaning of this?" asked Mochikichi. "Has that man done something?"

"No, it's nothing. I merely helped him because he was drowning."

"But just now," said Mochikichi, "he mentioned something about not spilling anything even if he’s made to hug a stone."

"He must be drunk or something," he said, fastening his obi and eyeing the slightly ill-fitting clothes. "That’s fine. Apologies for taking you away from your shop. I am Hanabusa Ritsunosuke, a yoriki of the southern magistracy. I’ll stop by your establishment tomorrow to settle the payment, so have it ready."

"Not at all. As long as we could be of service, that’s more than enough for us."

“I’ll go tomorrow,” he said. “Sorry about that.”

Mochikichi returned.
Then Ritsunosuke went to where Rokusuke still lay.

“Hey,” he said, “how’s your condition?”

Rokusuke remained silent.
He was twenty-seven or twenty-eight years old, with a dark, angular face and a conspicuously grown-out samurai topknot.
Since his beard was neatly shaved, it became clear that he had intentionally grown out his samurai topknot.

“You just boasted you wouldn’t spill anything,” he said. “Even made a bold claim about hugging a boulder—in other words, there’d be consequences if you talked, eh?”

“Do whatever you want with me.”
Rokusuke sullenly said, “I ain’t sayin’ nothin’. I ain’t openin’ my mouth no more, so go ahead and kill me or do whatever ya want.”

“You bastard,” one of the guards said. “Master saved your life, and this is how you talk?”
“You’re delusional.”

Ritsunosuke came to the entryway step holding his wet swords. “Leaving him be should calm things down. Sorry to trouble you, but could you buy some kaishi paper and about three hand towels?”

He handed some coins to one of the guards.
The guard left immediately.
He sat on the entryway step and held both hands out to the hearth fire in the dirt-floored area.

This guardhouse belonged to the Three-Town Association, so there were two town officials and three guards, but both officials were away dealing with some dispute elsewhere.
“I’ll summon them,” offered one of the guards, but Hanabusa Ritsunosuke declined, saying it wasn’t necessary. Using the kaishi paper and hand towels that had been purchased, he began maintaining his sword while conversing with the three guards for a while.

—My hunch was right!

He repeated those words in his mind.

—This man was acting on someone’s orders—commissioned by someone to kill me or at least obstruct the reinvestigation.

The fact that he isn’t saying anything must be proof of that.
He had initially misjudged the situation.
He had thought, as the delinquents had said, that it had been done out of the residents’ hostility.
But that was not the case—the man called Rokusuke had been commissioned by someone.
It was someone fearing this reinvestigation who had commissioned Rokusuke to do it.

―This time for sure—it was certain.
And he cried out inwardly.
―I'll track that bastard down.

When he finished maintaining his sword, Ritsunosuke stopped talking and began preparing to leave.

“I’ve caused quite a stir,” he said. “Call a palanquin—I’m leaving.”

Another guard immediately dashed out.

“What should we do with this bastard?”

“Let him go once he can stand.”

“Are we really letting him go?”

“Of course.” He said, “Surely you don’t need to give him any money.”

In the distance, Rokusuke turned over.
The two guards laughed ambiguously.
They did not know the facts; they simply believed that Rokusuke, who had been drowning, had been rescued, yet even so, it seemed they thought there was something about it that didn’t quite sit right.
Before long, when the palanquin arrived, Ritsunosuke wrapped something and placed it there.

“You all have some sweets or something.”

And he stood up.

Six

“When was that?”
“Five days ago.”

“And—” Takagi Shinzaemon said, “you just let him go like that?”

“Yeah,” Ritsunosuke nodded.

“This might be meddling,” Takagi said, “but your approach is flawed, Ritsu. Do you really think just going around making inquiries like this will get you anywhere?”

“It’s about the money I borrowed yesterday.”
“Well listen,” Takagi said. “Don’t you think if we rough up that Rokusuke fellow, we’d find out who put him up to it?”
“I can’t see it. No, I just can’t.”

“Why?”

“It’s hard to put into words,” Ritsunosuke said. “How should I explain—well, ordinary investigative methods won’t work here. I feel there’s no choice but to follow my intuition.”

“That’s a rather laid-back approach,” Takagi said. “Do you really think that gives you any chance?”

“There’s a chance. Rokusuke showing up is proof of that—I almost gave up once.”

“I’ll say this upfront,” Takagi said. “It seems a verdict will soon be handed down to that girl.”

Ritsunosuke’s face took on a look of startled comprehension.

“It might be within five or six days—that’s what I heard.”

“—So it’s definite.”

“Seems so. I hear they’ve already submitted the documents to the monthly duty officer—the senior councilor,” Takagi said. “Just keep working under that assumption. I’ll let you know when things reach a critical point.”

Ritsunosuke nodded.

“So,” Takagi said, “what about the money from yesterday?”

“Yeah, I wanted to ask if I could keep borrowing that for a while.”

“Fine—I’ll handle it smoothly.”

Ritsunosuke said, “I’m counting on you.”

After leaving the magistrate’s office, he boarded a palanquin at Sukiyabashi and ordered the bearers to make haste for Fukagawa.
At the gate of Shōkakuji Temple facing Hamaguri-chō’s moat, he alighted from the palanquin and entered the temple grounds, where the overseer Genbei came out to meet him.

“Are they gathered?” Ritsunosuke asked.

“Ah,” Genbei answered. “There were some who voiced dissatisfaction with the daily wages, but they’ve generally gathered.”

Ritsunosuke nodded.

The day before, he had ordered Genbei, saying, “We’ll provide daily wages,” and made the residents of Okinu and Unokichi’s tenement gather at the temple.
In total, thirty-one households—it was decided that male earners would receive two monme and women three gō of rice (the funds were borrowed from the magistrate office).
At the time, even skilled carpenters typically earned three monme per day, so there should have been no grounds for complaints.

They were gathered in the main hall.

They had been lounging carelessly, talking and laughing boisterously, but when Ritsunosuke entered and sat down beside the sumeru dais, they too fell silent and turned to face him, straightening their postures.

“I believe most of you already know why I’ve asked you to gather here today.”

Ritsunosuke began with those words.

Then he explained the details of the case and asserted that Okinu could not possibly be the perpetrator.
It was certain that the two had been in love, but since Unokichi had a father to care for and Okinu had both a bedridden father and a mentally disabled brother, marriage was impossible—yet it didn’t seem they had given up either.
The reason being—Unokichi was already twenty-five years old yet hadn’t taken a wife, didn’t drink alcohol, and worked diligently without indulging in dissipation.
If Okinu were an ordinary woman, she should have been able to find more lucrative, easier work.
Even if she didn’t resort to selling herself, with her elegance she could have earned a decent living at a high-class tea house—yet instead of doing that, she continued to get her hands dirty with daily labor.
I hear she even took on stone-carrying and laborer work—wasn’t this to fulfill her obligation to Unokichi?
“There had been a promise between them to ‘eventually become husband and wife,’ so Unokichi had been working diligently to that end, and Okinu had refrained from taking up frivolous work to make an easy living—wasn’t that the case?”

“I believe it happened as I’ve described,” Ritsunosuke said, looking at them. “Since you’re all from the same tenement, you should know more than I do. If any of you can say my assumptions are wrong—that those two weren’t in such a relationship—then speak up now.”

No one said a word.
As Ritsunosuke moved from one end, looking at each face in turn, they all either lowered their eyes or turned their faces away.

“Very well, let us proceed under the assumption that my conjectures are correct,” he said. “Until recently, I served as a prison inspector. When I first saw Okinu without knowing the details of the case, I thought she was not the sort of girl who belonged in such a place. This may be hard to believe, but those of us in such positions develop a peculiar intuition.”

Then he had read the deposition, and because its contents simply did not sit right with him, he had taken advantage of his appointment as investigating magistrate to resolve to reopen the investigation.
And he earnestly explained that Okinu herself would not speak the truth, and that despite visiting the tenements in Fuyuki-machi, there was no one who would lend their assistance.

“Please,” Ritsunosuke said, “I beg you—lend me your strength. There must have been someone besides Unokichi harassing Okinu. For her to confess being the perpetrator, there must be a reason compelling enough to make her do so. Just one word—I swear on the magistrate office’s honor you won’t be implicated. Please—if anything comes to mind, just say one word.”

They still remained silent.
Rather than stubbornly maintaining their silence, it seemed they hadn't been listening to a word he had said at all.

"No good then—" he said. "There should be compassion among the poor. One from your tenement was killed. Another faces punishment for a crime she didn't commit. Will you stay silent? Will you sit here sucking your thumbs and watch?"

If one were to speak knee-to-knee with a crowd, there would likely be at least one person among them driven by righteous indignation to break their silence. Before a multitude, people often show courage they didn’t normally possess. Ritsunosuke had banked on this tactic, yet the outcome proved just as futile.

―What a spineless bunch of cowards.

He felt nauseous from anger.
However, he desperately suppressed it and said—

“If you can’t speak here, then tell me when I come to visit you. Please.”

And he ordered the manager Genbei to distribute the daily wages.

Seven

Ritsunosuke left the temple.

With strength drained and a lethargic heaviness in his heart, as Ritsunosuke began walking toward Fuyuki-machi, a young man suddenly emerged from an alley running along the temple's earthen wall—stopped short upon seeing him—then immediately whirled around and fled back the way he had come.

It lasted only an instant, but Ritsunosuke saw the young man’s face.
Eyes wide with surprise, a grown-out samurai topknot, and a bluish-black gaunt face.

“Rokusuke,” Ritsunosuke muttered.

And when he reached the corner of the earthen wall and peered into the alley, the young man was nowhere to be seen—only four or five children playing there.

And the children turned to look in unison, but one of them called out, “Back again?”

“Hey—”

Ritsunosuke said.
That was Densuke—the same brat from before.

“Hey,” Ritsunosuke said, “Mr. Twenty-Something, what’s the matter?”

“That’s exactly what I’m sayin’,” the child said. “Even after gettin’ into such a mess the other day, you still ain’t learned your lesson, Mister?”

Ritsunosuke stared into the child’s eyes, then said.

“Were you watching?”

“Wasn’t me,” the child said. “Even now I saw Roku-san runnin’ away.”

“You know Rokusuke, don’t you?”

“What, you gonna ask me somethin’ if I know?” the child said. “Heh.” He shrugged his shoulders with cocky defiance. “Keep this up, and next time a corpse might really float up in Ōkawa. Ain’t sayin’ nothin’ bad—but you’d better quit snoopin’ around here.”

“Unmanageable brats,” a voice said from behind.
When Ritsunosuke turned around, a wizened old man stood there and gave him a polite nod.

"I’m Yago, the boat watchman," the old man said. "If it please you, might I offer a brief rest in my hut?"

Ritsunosuke studied the old man’s face.
This was likely one of those who had gathered at the temple.
He nodded. “I’ll accept that rest.”

The hut was at the corner of Kamekyū Bridge.
It was a crude hut with a dirt-floored entryway containing a bench in a three-mat space and a single three-tatami-mat room, from which the old man said he kept watch over the boats tied up at the bank.

"The boats that come into this narrow canal don't carry anything decent," the old man said. "But even so, if you let your guard down for a moment, you'll have something stolen from you. After all, the people around here—well, not that I'm one to talk about such things either."

The old man spoke of his own life in an unhurried tone as he boiled water in the hearth of the dirt-floored entryway.—His true name was Yagorō, and he had been a boatman since his youth.
He had married twice, but both marriages ended in failure, and he had remained single ever since.
In middle age, he had even owned three water-selling boats—lost them all to drink and gambling—and after his legs grew too weak to work, he became a boat watchman through the goodwill of the canal district bosses, or so his story went.

Ritsunosuke listened in silence.
Yago prepared tea with the boiled water and, offering it to Ritsunosuke with “It might not suit your taste,” took a bowl himself and sat on the tatami-covered step.

“I heard what you said earlier at the temple,” Yago said. “And so I must tell you—I understand your feelings, sir, but I think it would be best if you gave up now.”

“—Why?”

“No matter how much you insist, sir, they will never help you. Even if they do know something, there won’t be anyone who’ll speak up.”

“In other words—” Ritsunosuke said, “everyone is afraid of someone.”

“No, it’s because they know full well that whatever we say will be futile.”

“Why? What’s futile?”

“People like us—those who struggle just to eat each day—nothing we say holds weight in this world,” Yago said. “Even you, sir—if someone living in a grand house with storehouses, blessed with wealth and dressed in silks, were to speak versus some starving day laborer scraping by—which would you believe? No—I already know your answer.”

Yago looked toward the doorway and shook his head. “Go play over there,” he said.
When Ritsunosuke looked, the mentally disabled Naojirō stood at the entrance.
He smiled at Ritsunosuke and, making “Ah, ah” sounds, showed the sweets clutched in his hand.

“I understand what you mean, sir,” Yago said, “but hear me out. When I was fifteen, I was asked by someone to keep watch at a gambling den.”

Yago hadn’t realized it was a gambling den lookout post.
He’d been promised pocket money to stand watch as instructed, but when the raid came and everyone fled, he alone got caught.
Then the constables interrogated him.

“Name your boss.”

“Who gathered at the gambling den?”

This happened right when gambling prohibitions had been strictly decreed.
“I told them I didn’t know anything when they asked me,” he said, “but they wouldn’t believe a word. When they threatened torture, I panicked and gave them the man’s name—said they should question him themselves.”
“Then that constable”—Yago’s voice tightened—“who clearly had ties to the man, yelled ‘Stop lying, bastard!’ and hit me.”

“That constable said,” Yago smiled, “if you’ve got something to say, you’d better say it to a wall or wooden panel where nobody’s around—that way you’ll at least avoid getting hurt. Remember that.’ How true.” Yago continued smiling as he spoke. “I came to realize it deeply—if you want to say something, you should just face a wall or panel. That way, you’ll at least avoid pain. It’s not just me—poor folks always scrambling for their next meal, we’ve all had similar experiences to some degree. We’ve been burned, burned so thoroughly we’ve learned our lesson… Heh. Trying to hear anything from that lot—I think it’s pointless, sir.”

Ritsunosuke had his head bowed.

“Tasty, ah,” Naojirō said at the entrance. “Uncle, hey—this here’s tasty.”

Ritsunosuke put down the tea bowl and stood up.

Eight

“Thank you, old man,” Ritsunosuke said. “You may be right about that—I can’t argue with you there. But—”
He hesitated for a moment. “I’ll try anyway. Even if the world really is like that—wouldn’t that make it all the more worth trying?”

Yago smiled and nodded.
Ritsunosuke turned red.

“From your perspective, it might seem naive,” he said, “but I’ll do what I can—thank you for the tea.”

He left the hut and went straight to Shijimi Riverbank.
Naojirō followed along with him.
Naojirō kept trying to talk as usual, but he remained silent and entered the vacant lot where the crime had occurred.

"Denji and them try t' take this confection," Naojirō said with his clumsy tongue.
"They always try takin' it. Since Wakaran na don't buy none for Denji an' them, they always try grabbin' mine," he said.

“It’s terrible,” Ritsunosuke muttered. “—It’s truly terrible, old man.”

He looked around at the withering weeds.
Then suddenly, something snapped in his head.
He turned toward Naojirō and looked at the confection he was holding.
It was (the same as before) a deer-spotted confection.

-- In the house, there were even things like toys.

On the day he visited in the rain, Naojirō was still eating sweets.
He brought out toys and pleaded to play together.

――The toys were new.

They still appeared new, Ritsunosuke thought.
Both seemed mismatched—the deer-spotted confections and the toys.
With Okinu, their breadwinner, having been absent for over seventy days, the tenement residents were likely supporting the two of them jointly—yes, that must be it.

"If that's the case," he muttered, "the deer-spotted confections and toys become even more suspicious—wait—"

Ritsunosuke looked at Naojirō.

“Who did you get that confection from?”
“Uh—” Naojirō said.

“It seems you just tried to say something now—that someone doesn’t buy any for Denji and the others—who is it that doesn’t buy any for Denji and them?”

An expression of pain and terror appeared on Naojirō’s face.
It expressed pain and terror with a pitiful directness.

He’s been silenced.

Ritsunosuke thought.
He must have been strictly silenced—it’s no use asking now.
He started walking with that thought—Naojirō had definitely uttered the name; he’d carelessly missed hearing it, but the boy must have said something.

“Try to remember,” he tsked. “—Hmm, can’t recall?”

Ritsunosuke stopped by the manager’s house.

Genbei was at home.
Genbei said he had finished distributing the daily wages and returned the remaining money.
Ritsunosuke received it and asked who was looking after Katsuji and Naojirō.
Genbei answered, “The tenement residents are looking after them.”
When asked if it was only the tenement residents, he answered that the landlord Sagamiya was also assisting.
“It’s said that Master Gihei took pity on them and told them to at least provide rice and miso.”

“I see,” Ritsunosuke said. “If Sagamiya’s supporting them, that’s reassuring.”

“Well… perhaps,” Genbei replied with an ambiguous half-smile before abruptly adopting a tone that seemed to dismiss something unspoken. “But you see how particular our master can be.”

Ritsunosuke recalled Naojirō’s words.
Genbei said, “The master here is strict.”
That “master” seemed to have jogged his memory.

—I can’t figure it out.

“It’s the Young Master,” Ritsunosuke thought.

“Let me see,” he said. “Sagamiya should have had two sons.”

“Regarding Sagamiya? No.”

“Not two,” he said again. “Then that means he’s an only son?”

“Mr. Kiyotarō?”

“Yeah,” Ritsunosuke said. “I was certain there were two.”

Genbei fell silent.
Ritsunosuke looked at Genbei.
Genbei remained silent.
Ritsunosuke’s chest pounded.
He said, “I’ve caused you some trouble,” and left the manager’s house.
His mind began to turn. He had felt something click into place earlier, but now his thoughts gradually coalesced, a clear center rising to the surface, and it seemed they began to spin rapidly around that axis.

He stopped by the guard post in Hirano-machi.
And then, he summoned one of the guards outside.

“I have a request for you,” Ritsunosuke whispered. “Tomorrow we’ll take Sagamiya Kiyotarō into custody—keep watch so he doesn’t flee.”

“The young master?” the guard gasped.

“That’s right,” he said. “Don’t breathe a word—got it? Make sure he doesn’t catch wind of this.”

The middle-aged guard said, “Huh.”

Ritsunosuke boarded a street palanquin at Uenohashi and had it hurried straight to the southern magistrate's office. When he arrived at the magistrate's office, he summoned a constable named Kajino Wahee and ordered him to keep watch over Sagamiya Kiyotarō. Wahee's duty fell under "temporary patrol" assignments, and once he was briefed on the circumstances, he immediately consented.

“That means the guards will collude, right?”

“That’s precisely why we’re staking him out,” Ritsunosuke said. “The guards are hired by the town, and Sagamiya’s a major landowner and landlord here—if Kiyotarō makes a move now, we’ll have him right where we want him.”

“Should we restrain him if he tries to flee?”

“If he attempts to flee,” Ritsunosuke said, “then restrain him. But I’ll leave it to your judgment.”

“Understood.”

“If anything happens, notify me at my residence—even in the middle of the night,” he pressed. “Even if nothing changes, keep watch until I arrive.”

“Understood,” said Wahee.

Kajino Wahee departed accompanied by two subordinates.
Ritsunosuke also left the magistrate office together with him but parted ways at the moatside, hailed a street palanquin, and went to Kodenmachō Prison. Ishide Tatewaki was attending to duties at the castle, but Shimura Kihachi was there, and when he explained the matter, Shimura promptly made the arrangements.

What he had requested was to speak with Okinu and have their dialogue recorded in the adjacent room.

"I've stationed two clerks for that duty," Shimura reported the completed preparations. "Both are competent, so you needn't worry when speaking."

Ritsunosuke said "I entrust it to you," and rose.

When he went to the interrogation chamber, Okinu was already sitting there.
No one else was present, and the narrow interrogation area with white sand, cast in the dim light of approaching twilight, appeared utterly still and chillingly stark.
Okinu wore the same calm, quiet expression as before.

“I have something to tell you,” Ritsunosuke began.

Nine

Okinu silently raised her eyes.

“You said before that you were done with your father and brother,” he said. “That you didn’t need to worry about them anymore—wasn’t that what you meant?”

Okinu looked puzzled.

“Why?” she said.

“I was worried about how your bedridden father and disabled brother would survive once you, their breadwinner, were gone,” he said. “You showed no concern, so I thought there must be some reason—that perhaps there was some special arrangement ensuring they could live comfortably even without you. Wasn’t that the case?”

A look of wariness appeared in Okinu’s eyes.

“Wasn’t that the case?” Ritsunosuke said.

“Why?” Okinu said.

“Do you want to know?” he said. “If not, we can drop the matter. Since you’re so eager to receive punishment yourself, perhaps you don’t care if your parents and brother become beggars or starve to death.”

Okinu’s face appeared distorted.
But she said nothing. Ritsunosuke also remained silent, waiting for a while, then quietly stood up.

“Please wait,” Okinu said.

Ritsunosuke started to walk away without regard.

“Please wait!” Okinu shouted.

Ritsunosuke turned around.

“Did something happen to Father and Nao?”

“Do you want to know?”

“Did you meet Father and Nao?”

“I met them,” he said. “They were still in the tenement, after all.”

“Still? — What do you mean?”

“Don’t you understand?”

Okinu remained silent.
Ritsunosuke was still standing.

“A bedridden father and a brother who can’t even manage his own affairs,” he said. “With their breadwinner gone—don’t you understand what will become of them?”

Okinu gulped her saliva.
Ritsunosuke remained standing and looked down at Okinu.

"Even if the tenement residents had compassion to spare," he continued, "they're people scrambling to survive day by day. People who couldn't feed their own children if rain fell for four or five days straight. They might manage rice and miso rations for ten days or half a month—but—" His voice sharpened. "Do you truly believe they could keep that up for fifty days? Seventy? You know better than anyone how impossible that would be."

“Then,” Okinu said, “are Father and Nao going somewhere else?”

“Even if they go elsewhere—”

“Isn’t that true?”

“You—”
Ritsunosuke sat down abruptly. “Do you imagine they’ll retire to some tranquil village and live in idle comfort?”

Okinu’s face tightened. The eyes she raised to him shed their calmness, clouding with unease.

“They’ll certainly leave the tenement,” he continued. “The residents might cobble together a handcart. Naojirō could manage pulling that much.”

“That’s a lie!” Okinu shouted. “How could that be possible?!”

“Why—”

Okinu remained silent.

"Why are you lying?" he said. "Do you think those two can do anything else? That Nao can properly provide while caring for a bedridden patient?—Don't be absurd. At best, Nao might pull a handcart and beg 'spare a coin.' When it rains, they'll crawl under temple or shrine eaves."

Suddenly, Okinu let out a cry.

"That’s a lie! That’s a lie! It can’t be true! Master is lying!"

"That can’t be," he said.

"That’s impossible," Okinu said, "No matter what happens—no matter how wrong things go—Father and Nao becoming beggars?!"

Tears spilled from Okinu’s eyes. "How could such… such a horrible thing happen? Such cruelty!"

“What if it does happen?” Ritsunosuke said. “Even blood relatives would cut ties with a murderer’s family—that’s how society works. How long do you think complete strangers could keep tending to such people?”

“He promised—that person promised!”

“Sagamiya Kiyotarō?”

“That person properly made the promise.”
Okinu began to cry.
Through her tears, she said, “He promised me—swearing on the Sagamiya name—that Father and Nao would live comfortably their whole lives. That if they found the land disagreeable, he’d send them to some spa town and care for them so they’d never want for anything.”

“So you became Sagamiya Kiyotarō’s scapegoat?”

“I was already worn out—worn out to the very core.”
Okinu said between sobs, her voice like a child who had cried themselves empty, then continued slowly: “If Father and Nao could live comfortably—I’d be fine with whatever happened to me. Mr. Uno was already dead, and living held no point anymore. No reason to keep going. My body couldn’t go on. I just wanted to rest—stretch out my limbs, rest properly just once—then I thought it’d be fine to die after that.”

Ritsunosuke said nothing.

“Ever since Mother passed when I was eight, I worked without rest,” Okinu said. “After Father took ill, there were times I worked three days without eating to support them—until I broke down completely. We’d made a promise—that once Father got better, Mr. Uno and I would be together—but then Mr. Uno died too. And when he said he’d take responsibility for Father and Nao… that’s why I agreed.”

“Shall I call Kiyotarō for you?” he said.

“I believed the promise would be kept,” Okinu said. “I felt secure about those two, and ever since coming to this jail, for the first time since being born, I could stretch out my limbs and rest properly—truly rest properly for the first time since birth—so I thought it’d be fine if my execution came anytime.”

“I’ll call Kiyotarō,” he said.

“I’ll go tell him,” Okinu said. “Since I kept my promise, he should please keep his too—I’ll say that. Yes, I’ll definitely say that.”

10

Ritsunosuke was drinking sake with Takagi Shinzaemon.

On the second floor of a waterfront inn along the Sanjūkkenbori Canal, rain fell outside.
Through the open window stretched rows of storehouses along the opposite bank and above them an oppressive rainy sky choked with clouds.

“Did Kiyotarō try to escape?”

“That night he tried boarding a higakibune,” Ritsunosuke said. “Kajino apparently had no choice but to bind him.”

“What a fool,” Takagi said. “Though if Okinu had spilled everything, he couldn’t have kept sitting there playing innocent.”

“Of course his parent let him escape.”

“As for who killed him—”

“I saw the two of them meeting secretly.”

“Hmph,” Takagi said. “The rich man’s only son, huh? … Typical of his sort. Large landowner, pawnbroker-moneylender, landlord—their storehouses groan with gold. They think there’s nothing money can’t settle.”

“I’m beaten.”

“So they caught the tenement residents too,” said Takagi. “Poverty’s a wretched thing.”

“I was beaten,” Ritsunosuke said. “The tenement wives’ blatant hostility, the children’s mischief, even Yago’s tales of his youth—all were formidable. But when Okinu said… ‘I’m exhausted,’ that’s when I was truly beaten.”

“Your cup’s empty.”

“When she said, ‘I was exhausted—worn out to the very core,’ I—” Ritsunosuke hung his head, then continued in a low voice: “Okinu shouldered the guilt for that reason—so her father and brother could live comfortably. Uno was dead; living held no purpose anymore. But more than any of that… she was utterly exhausted by life itself, driven by a desire to escape the weariness—ah, I understood that all too well. That alone defeated me.”

“I already know you’re beaten. Take your cup.”

“So you’ve figured out I’m beaten?”

“Take your cup,” Takagi said. “Now that I know you’re beaten, let’s hear the other thing—why did you get so fired up about reinvestigating this case? You did say you’d explain the reason later.”

“Could you pour me another?”

“Have another.”
Takagi poured the sake.

“It’s like this,”

“Go on, down another one.”

“It’s like this,” Ritsunosuke said. “—When my father was dying, he spoke what amounted to a last testament. There had been an innocent person executed due to his judicial error—a wrongful conviction only discovered three whole years later. From that day on, guilt tormented his conscience without respite. He said that humans judging other humans was fundamentally flawed—yet society needs a judicial system to maintain order, and as long as humans preside over it, wrongful verdicts can never be eradicated. He insisted his error had been nearly unavoidable—his colleagues and superiors all acknowledged that—yet his conscience found no peace. Night and day, he suffered over his irreparable sin while praying for the posthumous peace of those who died innocent. That’s why—he told me—he didn’t want me taking up this profession.”

“And yet you willingly took up the post.”

“Willingly?” Ritsunosuke looked out the window. “If I could—I wanted to atone for Father’s sins. Even just one act of atonement, so my dead father might rest peacefully. That’s what I thought.”

“I didn’t know that,” said Takagi. “If that’s the case, wouldn’t today’s sake be a twofold toast of celebration?”

“Hard to say.”

“Is there something lacking?”

“Okinu said jail was preferable,” Ritsunosuke said. “—If she returns to the tenement, she’ll have to labor again—shouldering a bedridden parent and a brother with mental disability—”

“But eventually matters settle where they must settle—this isn’t Okinu’s burden alone.”

“True enough—” he said.

Ritsunosuke was looking out the window.
Through the rainy Sanjūkkenbori Canal, a single straw-mat-covered barge could be seen slowly making its way in.