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the pleasure quarter. He would sacrifice truth for security, justice for the sake of comfort.
    â€œWait!” he ordered Tsunehiko.
    Snatching the report from his surprised secretary’s hand, hetore it in two. Quickly he wrote another report classifying Noriyoshi’s and Yukiko’s deaths as suspicious and requiring further investigation. This he gave to Tsunehiko. Then he strode from the room. He didn’t want to coast along in his position, reaping the certain rewards that unquestioning obedience would bring. Instead he wanted to feel the excitement of pursuing the truth—as he had when he’d been a scholar, then again during the arson investigation—and the elation of knowing that by finding it, he had done some good. Somehow he must reconcile personal desire with the Way of the Warrior and all its obligations to family and master.
    He must discover the truth about the
shinjū
.

E do Jail was a place of death and defilement to which no one ever went voluntarily. Sano had never seen it before and wouldn’t have come now, except he knew that the bodies of Noriyoshi and Yukiko had been taken to the morgue there. Now he surveyed the jail with mingled curiosity and unease.
    The Tokugawa prison sprawled along a narrow canal that formed a moat before its entrance. Guard towers perched at each corner of the high stone walls that rose straight up out of the stagnant water. Dark liquid of an unidentified and probably unspeakable nature trickled from holes at the base of the walls down to the canal. Above the walls, gabled roofs protruded. Signs of neglect gave mute testimony to the city’s repugnance toward the jail and its inhabitants: weeds and moss growing between the stones, missing roof tiles, and peeling plaster. A rickety wooden bridge spanned the canal, ending at the guardhouse and the portals of a massive, iron-banded wooden gate. All around the jail lay the miserable shacks and drab, winding streets of Kodemma-cho. Located near the river in the northeast sector of Nihonbashi, Kodemma-cho provided an ideal site for the jail—as far from the castle and the administrative district as convenience would allow.
    Sano was thankful for the shrill shouts of the ragged children playing in the streets, and for the greasy smell of food frying in backyard kitchens. They masked whatever sounds and smells emanatedfrom the jail. A tremor ran down his spine as he remembered the stories he’d heard about what went on there. Taking a deep breath, he urged his horse onto the bridge.
    A commotion began in the guardhouse as Sano arrived. When he dismounted and secured his horse to a post, the three guards nearly fell over one another trying to get out the door. He saw them exchange confused glances. Then they bowed low.
    â€œWe are at your service, master,” the guards chorused.
    Sano took in their unkempt appearance and cropped hair, the much-repaired leather armor and leggings, the single long sword that each wore. These were commoners—probably former smalltime criminals—permitted to bear arms in order that samurai would not have to serve in such a degrading capacity.
    â€œI am
Yoriki
Sano Ichirō,” he said. “I wish to interview the men who handled the bodies of the double-suicide victims this morning.”
    The guards gaped at him. They’d probably never had a
yoriki
visitor before, Sano thought, let alone received such an unusual request from one; he was sure that his colleagues never set foot here. One of the guards let out a nervous titter. The large man next to him, presumably the leader, backhanded him a sharp blow.
    â€œWhat are you waiting for?” he growled. “Take him to the warden at once!”
    The guard slid back the thick wooden beams that barred the gate. Sano entered the jail compound, prepared for the worst.
    His first impression of the compound was reassuring. In a simple courtyard of packed earth, five more guards patrolled. The odor