Sano stared at her as if she’d gone mad. Then irritation showed on his face. “This is no time to talk nonsense.”

He thought she was testing his commitment to her, trying to wangle reassurances by suggesting that he should give her up. Reiko saw that he was impatient because he didn’t want to play games; he didn’t understand that she was serious.

“I mean it,” she said, withdrawing her hand from his. “You should.”

As Sano exclaimed in angry protest, she said, “Tell Lord Matsudaira that I’ve confessed to murdering Lord Mori. Tell him that I promise to commit seppuku to atone for my disgrace and restore my honor.”

“Never!” Sano’s eyes brimmed with shock. “How can you even think of such a thing?”

“It’s the proper thing for me to do.” During childhood Reiko had been taught that honor, duty, and family were more important than the individual. She’d absorbed society’s values despite her unconventional personality. Now the time had come to abide by them. “All I ask of you is this: Convince the shogun to let me put off my death until after my baby is born.” Her voice trembled; she fought back tears. “Make him understand that the baby is innocent and doesn’t deserve to die.”

“I won’t listen to any more of this. Stop it!” Sano seized her arms. “What in hell has gotten into you?”

She gave him her first reason, which would pain him less than her second: “If you stand by me, I’ll be convicted for Lord Mori’s murder and put to death anyway. You’ll be executed for treason. Your enemies will kill Masahiro so that he can’t grow up and avenge your death. Our whole family will be destroyed.” Breathless with her struggle against her emotions, she concluded, “It’s better that I should die, so the rest of you will be safe.”

Sano’s forehead creased in a frown of utter bewilderment. He glanced around the room, as if searching for the wits he thought had taken leave of Reiko. “Are you doing this because you’ve lost faith in me? Do you think I can’t solve the murder and save us all?”

“Can you?” Daring to hope in spite of her despair, Reiko said, “Did you find out something today?”

“Yes,” Sano said. “I’ve found Lady Nyogo the medium. She admitted that Police Commissioner Hoshina put her up to that fake seance. And I’ve traced the guns that Hirata-sari found. They came from the police arsenal. Hoshina has to be part of a conspiracy to overthrow Lord Matsudaira; he must have framed me to divert attention from himself.”

Reiko spotted the problem. “Hoshina denied it, didn’t he? You didn’t take the news to Lord Matsudaira because you thought it wasn’t likely enough to convince him and clear us. And it’s even less likely now, after you’ve lost your allies.” She read the answer on Sano’s face. Her dashed hopes made her despair all the more painful.

“It’s still evidence against Hoshina,” Sano insisted. “I’m getting closer to beating him. And you’ve been investigating, too, haven’t you?” He gestured at her disguise. “What have you learned?”

Reiko told him. But her theory that Colonel Kubota or the family of the murderer she’d sent to his execution could be responsible for framing her seemed outlandish now. She’d been stretching the limits of possibility to believe it. All she’d gained was more threats from Kubota, the last thing she needed.

“Don’t lose hope,” Sano urged, although he was clearly disappointed that her inquiries had yielded no more salvation than his. “Just be patient. I’ll clear us both, I promise.”

There seemed nothing else to forestall Reiko’s decision to sacrifice herself. “You can’t,” she said bleakly. “At least not me.”

“Why not you?” Sano said, puzzled. “I don’t understand.”

Reiko shook her head, compressed her lips. It was too terrible to explain.

Anger infused Sano’s expression. “Whatever is causing you to act like this, I’m not going to tell the shogun you confessed.” His tone was adamant. “I won’t cast you off as though you were extra weight in a lifeboat that’s sinking.”

Desperate because he wouldn’t cooperate, Reiko cried, “Unless you do as I ask, I’ll commit seppuku right now, never mind the baby.” She whipped out the dagger from under her sleeve. “I’ll save two out of four of us while I can!”

She clutched the hilt in both hands. Her whole body and spirit recoiled from her intent to kill not only herself but this child that she’d loved with intense maternal passion since the day she’d known she’d conceived it. She pointed the blade at her belly.

A shout of horror burst from Sano: “No!”

He grabbed the dagger. His hands crushed and wrenched hers, trying to pry the weapon out of them.

“Give it to me!” Reiko screamed. “Leave me alone!”

“This is madness!” Frantic, Sano grappled with her. “You’re going to stop it right now!”

He wrested the dagger away from her, leaped up, and held it out of her reach. “Why are you doing this?” he demanded.

“I already told you!” Reiko was distraught, breathless, falling apart.

“Never mind the excuses. Tell me the truth!”

His love shone through the fury in his eyes. Her resolve abruptly shattered. Reiko plunged into a storm of uncontrollable weeping. She gave in to her urge to unburden herself.

“I killed Lord Mori,” she cried. “I deserve to die.”

Shock hit Sano; he opened his mouth and sucked in his breath so hard he almost choked on it. Yet as he watched Reiko sob, he felt less surprise at her confession than a sense that the inevitable had finally come to pass. He realized that he’d been dreading this moment. All his doubts about Reiko’s story, all the warnings signaled by his detective instincts, had prophesied it. All his efforts to believe in Reiko, to excuse evidence against her, had failed. Now he knew what she’d been trying to hide from him.

She was a murderess.

Sano felt none of the satisfaction that he’d felt upon solving other crimes. Dazed by horror, he walked to the cabinet and put the dagger inside so it couldn’t hurt anyone. Then he knelt beside Reiko, who buried her face in her hands and wept.

Those slim, delicate-looking hands had stabbed and castrated Lord Mori.

Yet Sano’s heart balked at accepting what his mind had deduced and his ears had just heard. Reiko looked up at him, her face awash in tears, her eyes filled with dread as she waited for him to speak.

“No. It can’t be,” he said, as vehement in his denial as unconvinced by it.

She fell toward him, head down, hands pressed against the floor. “”I’m sorry,“ she moaned. ”I’m so sorry!“

This was the nightmare of all nightmares. “Why did you do it?” he said, marveling that he should ask her the question that he would ask any other criminal who confessed, as if tying up loose ends were the only thing on his mind.

“I don’t know,” Reiko wailed. “I can’t remember!”

This struck Sano as bizarre, unfathomable. “How could you forget something like that?”

Reiko sat up, clutching her head. The kerchief came loose; her hair tumbled down. “There’s something wrong with my mind. I’ve been having spells.”

Sano was more mystified than enlightened. Even though he felt revolted by the prospect of learning the details of Reiko’s crime and exactly what had driven her to it, he had to know the worst. “Suppose you tell me the whole story.”

She wiped her eyes, smoothed her hair, and swallowed sobs. “I’ve been doing meditation, recovering lost memories from that night at Lord Mori’s estate. I’ve had two visions of things that happened. In the first, I was in his room while he was asleep. He woke up and looked at me. He asked me who I was and what I was doing there. Then he was crawling on the floor, dripping blood from cuts all over his body. He begged me for mercy.”

Sano listened in horror that grew with every word she spoke. It sounded as if Reiko had entered the chamber of her own volition, surprised and attacked the helpless Lord Mori.