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discovered the crime. He shall describe what he found.”
    Lieutenant Ibe was a lean, sinewy man in his twenties. His bare arms and legs and his earnest face bore streaks of grime and perspiration from what must have been a swift, grueling ride to Edo. “There were bodies strewn along the road and in the forest,” he said, his eyes haunted by memory of what he’d seen. “They’d died of sword wounds. Blood was everywhere. The baggage seemed untouched—I found cash boxes full of gold coins in the chests. But the palanquins were empty, and the four ladies gone.”
    A dreadful thought occurred to Sano. “How can you be sure they were abducted and not—” Killed , he thought, but he couldn’t say it. Hirata emitted a low, involuntary groan.
    “We found a letter inside the Honorable Lady Keisho-in’s palanquin,” said the guard.
    Chamberlain Yanagisawa handed Sano a sheet of ordinary white paper that had been folded, crumpled, then smoothed. Dirt and blood smeared a message crudely scrawled in black ink.
Your Excellency the Shogun,
We have Lady Keisho-in and her three friends. Let no one pursue us, or we will kill the women. You will be told what you must do to get them back alive. Expect a letter soon.
    The message bore no signature. Stunned by fresh shock, Sano passed the letter to Hirata, who read it and gaped in astonishment. Lieutenant Ibe continued, “I fetched officials from Odawara, the last checkpoint that the procession passed. They matched the bodies to the names in the records.”
    Checkpoint officials inspected the persons of everyone who passed through their stations, looking for hidden weapons or other contraband. Female inspectors were employed to search the women. Because the Tokugawa restricted the movements of women to prevent samurai clans from sending their families to the countryside in preparation for revolt, the law required female travelers to have travel passes. The officials copied the information on each pass, which listed the social position, physical appearance, and identifying birthmarks or scars of its owner.
    “The female inspectors remembered the four ladies well,” said Lieutenant Ibe. “Everyone else was accounted for. The ladies were definitely not among the dead.”
    This was inadequate comfort to Sano and Hirata, when their wives’ fate was unknown. They exchanged apprehensive glances.
    “One survivor was found,” Police Commissioner Hoshina said. He was broad-shouldered and muscular, with an angular, handsome face. Ambitious to rise in the bakufu —the military government that ruled Japan—he took every opportunity to draw his superiors’ attention to himself. Now he conveyed facts he’d apparently learned from the highway patrol guard before Sano and Hirata arrived: “The officials identified the survivor as Lady Keisho-in’s personal maid, a woman named Suiren. She was badly wounded, and unconscious. Troops are bringing her to Edo. With luck, she’ll be here tomorrow.”
    Perhaps she would identify the attackers, but what might happen to Reiko, Midori, Keisho-in, and Lady Yanagisawa in the meantime? Sano stifled his emotions and willed the detective in him to analyze the situation.
    “Has the area around the ambush site been investigated for clues to where the kidnappers took the women?” he asked.
    “The local police were on their way to the scene when I left,” said Lieutenant Ibe. “They may have found something by now.”
    “The women’s guards, and the two detectives we sent, would have fought whoever ambushed the procession,” Hirata said, jittering with his effort to control his distress. “Some of the attackers must have been killed. Were their bodies found and identified?”
    “There were signs of a battle, but we found no bodies except those of the ladies’ entourage,” Lieutenant Ibe said regretfully. “If any of the kidnappers died, their comrades removed them from the scene.”
    “They massacred the attendants and defeated a squadron of