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watching the race to notice.” Marume paced around the body, kicking at a few stones that lay scattered on the dirt. “One of these could be a murder weapon.”
    Sano listened to sporadic gunfire that emanated from the distant martial arts training ground. He rotated, looking beyond and above the track. Soldiers peered down at him from windows in covered corridors and watchtowers atop the walls that enclosed the compound and rose up from the slope higher on the hill. “Someone up there could have shot a gun at Ejima.”
    “Who would have noticed one more shot?” Marume agreed.
    “I don’t see a bullet wound on him, but he could have been hit on his helmet and stunned.” Crouching, Sano examined Ejima’s helmet. Its metal surface was covered with scratches and dents.
    “I’ll have the area searched for a bullet,” Marume said.
    “In any case, the witnesses aren’t limited to the people inside the compound when Ejima died,” Sano said. “We’ll have to round up all the soldiers who were on duty anyplace with a view of the racetrack. But first I want to question the other witnesses who were closest to Ejima.”
    He and Marume walked over to the racetrack master.
    “Are you finished inspecting the body?” Oyama asked. “May I have it removed?” He sounded anxious to rid his domain of the physical and spiritual pollution conferred by death.
    “Not yet,” Sano said, because he needed a more thorough examination of the corpse than could be done here, and he didn’t want it whisked off for the funeral and cremation. “I’ll take care of its removal. Right now I want to talk to the riders who were in the race with Ejima. Where are they?”
    “In the stables,” Oyama said.
    Inside the long wooden barns with thatched roofs, horses stood in stalls while grooms washed and wiped them, combed their manes, and bandaged wounded legs. Manure and hay scented the air. The five riders squatted in a corner, conversing in low voices. They’d stripped oft their armor, which hung on racks that also held their riding gear. When Sano approached them, they hastily knelt and bowed.
    “Rise,” Sano said. “I want to ask you some questions about Chief Ejima’s death.” He observed that the riders were all robust samurai in their late twenties or early thirties. They were still grimy from the race, and reeked of sweat. As they rose, he said, “First, identify yourselves.”
    Among them were a captain and a lieutenant from the army, a palace administrator, and two distant cousins of the shogun. When Sano asked them to describe what they’d seen during the race, the army captain spoke for them: “Ejima crumpled in his saddle. He fell off his horse. Our horses ran him over. By the time we’d stopped and dismounted, he was dead.”
    This matched the story told by the spectators. “Did you see anything hit him before he crumpled?” Sano said. “Such as a rock or a bullet?”
    The riders shook their heads.
    “Did you touch Ejima?”
    They hesitated, eying one another with uneasy expressions. Sano said, “Come on. I know that horse racing is a rough sport.” He moved to the rack and fingered a riding crop, which consisted of a short, stout leather whip with an iron handle. “I also know that the horses aren’t the only ones to take the brunt of these. Now speak up.”
    “All right. I hit him,” the captain said reluctantly.
    “So did I,” said the lieutenant. “But we were just trying to slow him down.”
    “We didn’t hit him that hard. He got me a lot worse than I got him.” The captain gingerly touched his face, which was swollen around his jaw.
    “We play rough, but we never intentionally hurt a fellow rider,” said the lieutenant. “That’s the code of honor at the racetrack.” The other men nodded, united against Sano’s implied accusation. “Besides, he was a friend. We had no reason to kill him.”
    “Although I bet that a lot of other people did,” the captain said.
    Sano thanked the men for