So here was her real reason for wanting confidentiality. Sano felt a burst of anger toward the faithless husband, and pity for the wife who still desired his respect even if she couldn’t have his love.

“I understand,” he said gently. He waited for her to compose herself, then prompted, “So you left the guest quarters. What then?”

“There were priests patrolling the grounds. I stayed in the shadows close to the buildings so they wouldn’t see me.” She pantomimed her furtive escape, hands groping, her expression fearful but determined. “I went into the main precinct… the moon was out, and there were a few lanterns burning, but it was still very dark, and I was afraid. And then…”

Madam Shimizu twisted her hands in her lap. “When I ran around the main hall on my way to the front gate, I tripped and fell on something… It was a dead priest!” A strangled sob burst from her, and her plump body shivered. “I screamed and jumped up. His head was gone… there was blood on his robes… and a sword sticking out of his chest… ”

Sano looked at her in surprise. He’d seen no sword in the priest’s body, and no one at the temple had mentioned finding one. If Madam Shimizu was telling the truth, then what had become of it?

“I knew the Bundori Killer had killed the priest,” she went on, wiping away more tears. “I was afraid he was somewhere in the temple grounds, and that he would kill me, too. I should have called for help, or run back to my room to hide. But all I could think of was how much I wanted to go home… I needed a weapon to protect myself with, so I-I pulled the sword out of the priest’s body.”

With both hands, she grasped an imaginary sword hilt and yanked, averting her face and grimacing at the remembered friction between steel and flesh. “I stuck the sword under my sash. Then I went to the temple bell. I picked up the mallet and hit it as hard as I could. Then I ran to the gate.”

So the abbot had correctly guessed that the mystery woman had rung the bell. The Bundori Killer, to overcome the priest’s unexpected resistance, must have used both his swords in the fight- and then forgotten one when he left with the head. A small fire of hope lit inside Sano. Perhaps this was the clue he needed. He started to ask where the sword was now, but Madam Shimizu hadn’t finished.

“And that was when I saw the killer,” she said dully, drained of emotion now.

“You saw the Bundori Killer?” In his excitement, Sano almost forgot about the sword. Here at last was his murder witness.

Madam Shimizu nodded, sniffling. “He was outside the gate when I got there… unwrapping a bundle. I could see that it was a head… The lanterns were burning beside the gate, and I was but ten paces from him. The bell was still ringing, and I could tell he was in a hurry to be gone. I screamed, but he didn’t hear me, he couldn’t have, the noise was so loud. Then he looked around and saw me.”

“Madam Shimizu,” Sano said, keeping his voice quiet, though his heart was pounding and his mouth had gone dry, “this is very important. What did the killer look like? Describe him as best you can. Take your time.”

“I didn’t get a good look. I think he was tall, but I’m not sure… it was dark… he wore a hooded cloak, and his face was in shadow… And when he looked at me, I turned and ran.” She grabbed Sano’s arm; her nails bit into his flesh. “But he must have seen my face, sōsakan-sama. He thinks I can identify him. He’s looking for me now. That’s why you must protect me!”

Crushed by disappointment, Sano chastised himself for expecting too much. “What did you do then?” he asked.

“I should have gone back inside the temple… I could hear people running and shouting… I would have been safe with the priests. But I wasn’t thinking clearly… so instead I ran into the forest. Oh. Forgive me.”

She withdrew her hand and, with a pathetic attempt at dignity, sat up straight. “The killer chased me. I ran, and he almost caught me… but he fell over a rock, and I got away. I hid in a hollow tree. Then I saw lights coming through the forest and heard men calling. The killer ran away. I stayed hidden until dawn, and everyone was gone. Then I ran all the way home to Nihonbashi.”

Sano shook his head in gloomy awe as he listened. His witness had been there all the while he’d been questioning the temple’s residents and searching the forest. She’d inadvertently prevented the killer from retrieving the only clue he’d left at any of the crime scenes, then stolen it.

Bracing himself against further disappointment, Sano said, “What did you do with the sword?”

Madam Shimizu lifted her useless-looking hands, then let them plop into her lap. “I carried it with me on the way home, just in case I met the killer. Then I didn’t know what to do with it. First I wanted to throw it away. Then I thought I should have my husband give it to you… but I didn’t want him to know what had happened. So I brought it here with me.”

“And you have it still? May I see it?” Too excited to remain seated, Sano stood.

“Yes. I’ll get it for you.” Madam Shimizu rose, but instead of entering the house, she walked to the big cherry tree and reached inside a hole in its gnarled trunk. “This was once our special hiding place,” she said wistfully. “My husband would leave gifts and poems for me to find… ” Blinking her tears away, she extracted a long, thin bundle wrapped in oiled silk, which she offered to Sano. “I didn’t want this in the house… it’s a wicked thing. So I put it here, where no one would ever look.”

Sano stood perfectly still, the bundle balanced on his palms. Here at last was the physical evidence he’d sought. Prolonging both anticipation and dread, he didn’t open it at once. To which suspect would the sword lead him? Then, unable to delay any longer, he undid the wrappings.

Dried blood encrusted the thin, curved blade of the short sword: Madam Shimizu hadn’t bothered to clean it. Upon first examination, Sano felt a twinge of disappointment. The hilt was modern and ordinary, bound in black silk braid in an overlapping crisscrossed pattern with gold inlays in the diamond-shaped gaps. There were no identifying crests or other marks on either hilt or blade. Then Sano noticed the flat guard that separated them.

Made of black cast iron, this was shaped like the upper part of a human skull. The blade passed through the vertical nose opening; two smaller holes on either side formed empty eye sockets. The jawline sported five gold teeth. The artist’s symbolic rendition of death was skillfully executed, grotesquely beautiful-and familiar. Sano’s heart leapt as he remembered faded characters on a crumbling scroll:

Wielding his two swords, which had guards wrought in the image of death’s-heads, the great General Fujiwara cut down Endō’s soldiers, leaving carnage in his wake…

Grasping the sword’s hilt in one hand and the cloth-wrapped blade in the other, Sano forced them apart. There, on the exposed tang of the blade, he saw incised the tiny characters that confirmed this as General Fujiwara’s sword. One of the matched pair he’d used against the Araki and Endō clans, handed down through the generations to his worthiest descendant-the Bundori Killer.

The sword’s various possibilities flicked through Sano’s mind. He might find witnesses who could establish the ownership of the unique, distinctive weapon. This evidence, combined with Madam Shimizu’s signed statement, would be enough to convict Matsui or Chūgo in the magistrate’s court. Such an investigation, however, might take longer than the two days left to Sano. And what if the killer was Chamberlain Yanagisawa, to whom the sword would most probably have passed, from General Fujiwara’s eldest son?

Yanagisawa would never go to trial if neither shogun nor bakufu accepted his guilt. Sano would be executed as a traitor for acting against Yanagisawa, who would survive to kill and corrupt unchecked. Sano would bring everlasting disgrace instead of honor upon his family name, and lose his chance to slay the evil spirit.