• • •

When Tora entered the wine house, he found the auntie surrounded by her girls. She was giving them their appointments while she kept a careful eye on the entrance.

"Well, my young friend," she asked, greeting him with her gaptoothed smile, "are you ready for some serious battling on the silk mats? How many of my precious flowers can your little soldier defeat?" A chorus of giggles came from her girls.

"No, no, Auntie!" cried Tora, ogling her. "I came only to see you!" The girls hooted with laughter, and she snapped open her fan and hid behind it like a shy maiden. "Besides," he whispered in her ear, putting an arm around her broad waist, "I have only enough to buy a cup of wine for each of us. You know I'm a poor man."

She chuckled when he squeezed her a little and shook a finger at him. "Come, a handsome fellow like you? I'd soon make your fortune for you. There's many a lonely wife who wouldn't mind having a bit of what her husband gives my pretty flowers."

Tora released her abruptly. "I am shocked at you! Does that mean you aren't interested in me?"

She laughed and pinched his arm playfully. "All right! All right! I have a few minutes." She waved a waitress over and told her to bring some of her special wine to her office. "My treat," she told Tora.

When they had settled down in the cubicle where she kept her rosters of girls, her appointment books, her accounts and money boxes, she asked, "Did you find the young chicken I sent you last night to your taste?"

"Ah!"Tora looked dreamily at the low ceiling. "A very tasty morsel, no doubt, but I am still a starving man! I met her outside, complimented her, and offered to walk her home. But she's a very proper girl!" He sighed.

Auntie burst into a loud cackle and slapped at him. "Liar! I saw her face today. If she got any sleep, I'll be a monkey's mother."

Tora made a grab for her and pinched her buttocks. She squealed, "What did you do that for?"

"Just feeling for your tail, Auntie dear."

They burst into laughter as the waitress walked in with the wine. She looked at Tora with new respect. When they were alone again, Tora sipped, smacked his lips appreciatively, and said, "The chicken told me you fired the pretty lute player because she was breeding. I've been wondering who's been playing her 'lute'?"

Auntie's smile disappeared. She narrowed her eyes. "That girl's been found murdered," she said. "What is it to you?"

Tora decided that lies were inadvisable with this shrewd woman. "It happens," he said, "that my master takes a great interest in crimes, and he's promised to help the young fellow the police have arrested. He doesn't think the boy did it. I'm in a bit of trouble at the moment and thought the master might forget the matter if I could find out something useful about the girl's friends."

"So you're trying to pin the murder on one of my customers, eh?"

"Auntie, I swear the student couldn't have done it. He's pathetic. As ugly as sin and twice as naïve as a baby. The fool met her here, and she made him think she liked him. Then she dumped him. He's been going crazy ever since."

"Him? Yes, I saw him. No money there! Dry as last week's rice cakes and less appealing, I told her, but she said she wouldn't mind being a scholar's lady some day."

"Well, she turned him down," said Tora. "I figure she found a better prospect."

The auntie looked thoughtful and pursed her lips. "That girl was always secretive. And she never carried on with the customers while she was working, I'll give her that. She could have done a good business, that one, but she wanted to be a famous entertainer."

Tora got impatient. "Come on! There had to be a man."

"Well, she took lute lessons from one of the music masters at the university. The man spends most of his nights in the Willow. Maybe the kid was his. I expect that's the way he got paid for his lessons."

There was a loud gasp from the door. "That's a horrible lie!" cried Madame Sakaki, white-faced with anger. She pushed the door wider and came in. "How can you say such things? Why must you ruin a man who has never hurt you? For all you know this person will tell the police what you said, and they'll arrest Sato. And once they have him in their jail, they'll torture him till he confesses, and then . . ." She slumped on the floor and burst into tears.

The auntie tsked, got up and went to kneel beside the weeping woman. "Now, now." She put an arm around Madame Sakaki's shoulders. "Do not fret. You've been working too hard, dear, playing every night, and then going home to take care of your parents and husband, and the little ones. This is only Tora, a good friend of mine. He won't get your precious teacher in trouble."

Oh, won't he? thought Tora, when his eye fell on the open door. Michiko was hovering outside. His face broke into a broad smile, but she put a finger to her lips. Tora rose, nodding to the auntie, and went out, closing the door behind him.

"I've missed you, sweet," said Tora to Michiko, nuzzling her neck. "See? I couldn't stay away even one night."

"Not here," she hissed. "I'm working. Come to my place later."

She ran past him into the well-lit front room, where she bowed deeply before an arriving guest in an expensive brown silk robe, and cried, "Kurata-san! Welcome! The Big Willow lost all its fine leaves when Kurata-san stopped coming, and the songbirds were about to fly away from the winter of your absence."

Tora stared, anger rising inside him. He recognized the haughty silk merchant even in these luxurious clothes and the formal hat. The man patted Michiko's cheek and then put his arm around her shoulders. Tora was about to intercede with a well-placed fist when the auntie pushed past him and made a great outcry over the new guest. A bevy of pretty women materialized, and they all walked down the hallway. Tora followed, scowling.

"But Kurata-san," purred Auntie, "what happened? We have been so worried about you. Priceless Pearl wept because she thought you were ill, and Precious Jade has refused all her customers. I hope you weren't angry with us?"

"No, no." The man's voice was high and sharp, and his small eyes undressed the women. "I was merely preoccupied with private affairs."

"Private affairs?" wailed Auntie. "What a faithless fellow! And to think that my beauties suffered sleepless nights over you!"

The merchant laughed and reached out to run a thin, yellow finger along Michiko's slender neck. "I see," he said, eyeing Michiko speculatively, "that I must try to make up for it. Fortunately I have taken a special tonic tonight and feel strong enough for all your nieces, Auntie." Without taking his eyes from Michiko, he asked, "Is my usual room available?"

At that moment, the auntie turned and caught sight of Tora's murderous expression. Leaving Kurata to Michiko and the other girls, she barred Tora's way. "Private party," she snapped.

Consumed with fury, Tora retreated to the front room. He hung around the restaurant for another hour without seeing either Michiko or the auntie again. Finally he left in disgust and walked to the market, where he ate his supper and bought a cheap lantern. Then he returned to the alley behind the umbrella maker's house.

All was dark and quiet. Tora eyed the house. No doubt Mrs. Hishiya had long since dismissed her "cousin," fed her unsuspecting husband his supper, and retired with him. Poor craftsmen and their families were fast asleep at this hour. And so were starving little maids, Tora hoped. He was not, in any case, worried about real, flesh-and-bone people. It was Omaki's restless spirit which he was afraid to meet. Then he thought of the revelers at the Willow on the other side of town and got angry enough to suppress his fears.