She laughed bitterly and reached up to touch a pitted, discolored cheek. “Not worse. None of the other women lost their looks like I have.”

“You had more to lose. Most people die from smallpox.”

“I usually wish I had.”

Tora never knew how to respond when she said things like that. “The girl I saw looked really horrible. Some man carved her a new face. Took off the nose and part of her upper lip. Then he cut a couple of extra mouths on her face.”

Mitsuko’s eyes widened. “So she’s still alive. We thought she drowned herself. She worked here in the quarter for a while. Seemed a better-class girl, but couldn’t find good customers.” Mitsuko earned a very meager income arranging appointments between men and certain women of the quarter. Some of her own former clients had taken pity on her and sent a little business her way. “She was very pretty and promising, I heard, and I was going to talk to her when she disappeared.”

“What happened?”

“Some of the common people blame it on demons, but it must have been a client. Lately there have been rumors of someone … strange.” She sighed, looking down at her hands.

“You mean one of her customers did that to her?”

“Sometimes men can only enjoy the rain and clouds if they hurt the woman.”

Tora was appalled. “That’s disgusting! Why would a girl let a man do such things to her?”

“I don’t suppose she expected it.”

“The bastard’s got to be stopped before he does it again. Did she tell anyone who he was?”

“I don’t think so. You’ll have to ask her yourself. I wish someone could find out. The girls are worried.”

“Hmm.” Tora stared at her. He had often regretted that his master seemed to do most of the investigating himself—as if he did not trust Tora to have enough sense for the trickier bits. The recent reprimand still rankled. What if he could solve a case all by himself? Perhaps this slasher was his chance to prove himself. “Suppose I caught the bastard?” he asked Mitsuko.

She looked at him with a smile. “You might. Nobody else seems to bother. The police have better things to do than protect poor women.”

“Well, then, wish me luck!” He hurriedly finished his wine and rose.

“But you just got here.”

“And I’ll be back, sweetheart.” Mitsuko shook her head and looked at him quizzically. He was not sure whether she was hurt or amused by his short visit, but he put his arm around her and gave her a squeeze before heading out the door.

In his new role as hunter of criminals, Tora was no longer hampered by the fact that Gold might not want him to pursue her too openly. A madman who preyed on the women of the pleasure quarter was loose. What if she had run into that animal on the way to meet him? Tora asked the way to the Golden Phoenix.

It was near the river and Miss Plumblossom’s training hall, a backstreet business offering cheap accommodations to poor travelers and those who needed a place to sleep for a few weeks. When Tora ducked under the torn and faded curtain separating the inn’s interior from the narrow street outside, he found himself face-to-face with two small boys. They sat on the wooden platform, their feet dangling, engaged in a game of dice.

The smaller of the two snapped, “Yes? What do you want?” in an irascible tone and a gravelly voice which seemed to have broken prematurely.

Tora peered at him, adjusting his eyes to the dimness after the outdoors. The little one could not be more than five or six. He had tiny hands and feet. But that voice! “Your mother needs to teach you manners, boy,” he growled. “Where is she? Who’s in charge here?” He looked at the older boy, who merely grinned foolishly. Probably an idiot, Tora thought. What were these children doing, gambling for money? The pile of coppers in front of the little one was impressive.

The small boy hopped up. He used his arms to do this, much like a little monkey. When he was standing, his head seemed too large for his compact short body. Tora thought him the ugliest child he had ever seen. Ratlike eyes peered over a bulbous nose, and large protruding ears looked like handles stuck onto a melon; besides, he was glowering up at Tora with a thoroughly malevolent expression. “Look who’s talking about manners!” he croaked. “What mangy cat dragged you in by that moth-eaten mustache?”

The insult to Tora’s trim and dapper facial ornament was too much. He took a large step forward. “Let me save your parents the trouble and blister your sorry behind, you little lout!” He seized the boy by the scruff of his jacket, intending to put him over his knee, but a closer look stopped him. The “child” had gray hair and the wrinkled face of an elderly man. Shocked, Tora let him drop back on the platform.

“Ouch!” The little old man fell on his behind, then bounced up and retaliated with a well-placed kick to Tora’s groin.

Tora doubled over. “Why, you little bastard,” he said when he came up for breath.

The dwarf hopped around like an excited bird and laughed with an unpleasant cackle. “I have other tricks, if you want to try me, big bastard,” he crowed.

Tora saw the humor in the situation and chuckled. “Sorry, uncle,” he said. “It was dark after the street outside. I meant no harm.”

The ugly little man narrowed his eyes, then nodded. “All right,” he said grudgingly. “I’m the manager. What do you want?”

“One of Uemon’s girls. The one called Gold. I was told she stayed here.”

The dwarf and the grinning boy looked at each other. When the small man turned to Tora, his expression was grim. “Gone!” he said.

“Gone? All of them? So suddenly? Where?”

“How should I know? The handsome one paid and they all walked out. I don’t ask people for their travel plans.”

Tora looked from one to the other. There was a certain wariness in their eyes, as if they were waiting to see how he would take this information. He sighed and pulled out his meager string of coppers, weighing it in his hand. “How much?” he asked the dwarf.

The beady eyes guessed at the number of coins in Tora’s hand. “Twenty,” the dwarf ventured.

It was all Tora had for his midday meal. He counted out twenty coppers and stacked them on the platform. “I need to know when they left, where they went, and if the girl was with them,” he said without removing his hand from the stack.

The dwarf’s eyes lit up. “Sometime yesterday, don’t know, and yes.”

Tora did not take his hand off the money. “What about your young friend there? Does he know anything?”

The boy was still grinning. Shaking his head violently, he made a snorting sound which might have been suppressed laughter or an idiot’s speech defect. After a moment, Tora released the money. The dwarf scooped it up so quickly that his fingers touched Tora’s hand as it withdrew.

Well, at least the girl was fine. Tora nodded to the gamblers and stepped back out into the street. It was well past noon, and his stomach grumbled. He looked unhappily about him. His master would want him to find the actors. Maybe they left for an engagement in the country, but with the end of the year approaching they had to be rehearsing. Probably they had just changed accommodations. Tora did not relish the thought of trudging up and down streets to check every inn or rooming house. He decided to stop by Miss Plumblossom’s. Surely she would know what their plans were. Besides, he needed to talk to that maid if he was going to find the slasher.

As he walked, he thought of a third reason. His hungry imagination conjured up the memory of Miss Plumblossom eating. A woman with such an appetite might offer a leftover morsel to a starving man.

Miss Plumblossom was indeed just finishing her meal. Seated on her thronelike chair, she eyed the tray held by the scarred maid regretfully and dabbed her lips. “Take the rest away, my dear. That was quite delicious, but Mr. Oishi is waiting for his wrestling lesson and too much food makes me sluggish.”