The Ghost in the Tokaido Inn (5 page)

6: Looking for a Ghost

Lord Hakuseki pointed at Michiko
and her father. “They are the thieves! ” he shouted. “She tricked
her way into my room and saw the jewel.”

Judge Ooka gestured for them to
come forward. Michiko put her hands to her face and knelt alongside
her father.

“This box belongs to you?” Judge
Ooka asked.

“Yes,” her father replied. “But we
did not touch the jewel. I do not know how it got
there.”

“What is your name?” Judge Ooka
asked.

“Ogawa Iori, a paper-maker from
Kyoto.”

“And this girl?”

“My daughter Michiko.”

“She’s a sly one,” said Lord
Hakuseki. “She asked me to show her the jewel.”

Seikei stared at
him.
He was lying! He was violating the
samurai code of honor
.

“Let me see your
face,” Judge Ooka said to Michiko. His sharp eyes stared into hers.
“You will receive only a light punishment if you tell the truth.
Think carefully before you answer. Is this man really your
father?”

“Oh yes, Lord.”

“And did he tell you to ask to see
the jewel?”

“No! No! We did not know there was
any jewel here. I only showed our paper, and Lord Hakuseki wrote a
poem and asked if I wanted to see something beautiful.”

“Torture them,” Lord Hakuseki
said. “They’ll soon tell the truth.”

Judge Ooka ignored him. He took
the ruby from the paper-box and held it out. “Is this the jewel
that Lord Hakuseki showed you?”

Michiko nodded.

“Where did you go after you left
his room?”

“I returned to our
room.”

“Did you stay there the rest of
the night?”

“Yes,” said Michiko’s father. “We
went right to sleep.”

“No,” said Michiko. “I could not
sleep, and I went to the terrace to see the view.” Her father
groaned softly.

“But it was raining last night,”
said the judge.

“Yes. But it was quieter outside,
and very pleasant.”

“
How long did
you stay there?”

“Not very long.”

Seikei waited for her to say that
she had met him there, but after a moment, she added, “I soon went
back to our room and fell asleep.”

“Perhaps you stayed on the terrace
until everyone else in the inn had gone to bed?”

“No, it was still noisy when I
returned.”

Judge Ooka frowned at her. “Can
you explain how this jewel got into your room?”

“I do not know. But I did not take
it.”

The judge sighed. “Though you are
only a child, this is a very serious crime. I must warn you that I
can—”

“It wasn’t her! ” Seikei’s voice
rang out from behind Michiko. Everyone turned to look at him. Even
his father was staring. But Seikei had to tell the truth. He could
not let the girl be tortured.

“I saw the thief,” Seikei went on.
“It was a ghost, a jikininki. It had horns, and it opened the door
of our room. It was holding the jewel in its hand.”

Seikei’s father jumped up. “Lord,
you must excuse this boy, my son. He is fond of imagining things,
and he has strange dreams.” Father gave Seikei a ferocious look
that told more than words could about the scolding he would get
later.

“Come here,” the judge commanded.
Seikei went forward. His father followed, still explaining that
Seikei could not be trusted to tell the truth, for he was only a
half-witted child who read poetry.

“What did you call the thief?”
said Judge Ooka. “A jikininki? Where did you hear of
jikininkis?”

Seikei hesitated. “I was on the
terrace when this girl came out. She told me a ghost story. But I
really saw it. You must believe me. I was not dreaming.”

“You see?” said Seikei’s father.
“He is very nervous. We had a long journey yesterday, and he is not
used to travel. This girl may have enchanted him in some way. Who
knows what kinds of people you will meet on the road? Thieves,
beggars, madmen...I blame it on the innkeeper, for letting such
people stay here.”

“You were glad enough to find a
room last night,” the innkeeper shouted.

“The boy may have been one of the
thieves,” added Lord Hakuseki. “He saw the jewel too. They were all
in it together.”

Judge Ooka stood up. “I cannot
think here,” he said. “Hold all these people until I return,” he
told one of his assistants. Pointing to Seikei, he said, “You come
with me.” When Seikei’s father began to protest, the judge silenced
him with a wave of his hand.

Seikei was frightened. Perhaps the
judge was taking him to be tortured. He regretted having spoken
out, but he could not have remained silent.

“Show me where your room is,” the
judge said when they were in the corridor. Seikei led him there.
“Where were you sleeping?” said the judge.

Seikei showed him. “Lie down, just
as you were, and tell me everything you saw,” Judge Ooka said. He
listened carefully as Seikei retold the story.

“I heard the temple bell sound the
Hour of the Rat,” Seikei began. He went on to describe how the
jikininki had waved the glowing red object at him. “I shouted that
I was alive,” Seikei said.

“And then?” said the
judge.

“The jikininki closed the door,
because it knew I was alive and it could not eat me.”

“Or because you were awake and saw
it. What then?”

“I listened for a while, and
didn’t hear anything. But then I heard footsteps again.”

“Jikininkis, being spirits, make
no noise with their feet,” the judge pointed out. “Nor would a
careful thief, with so many guards around.”

Seikei struggled to remember.
“That’s right. It wasn’t footsteps. The sound I heard was another
door sliding back. It made almost no noise, but I was listening
hard.”

“Another door.” The judge nodded.
“What did you do then?”

“I got up and looked out in the
corridor.”

The judge raised his eyebrows.
“Weren’t you frightened? You had just escaped being
eaten.”

Seikei nodded. “I was very
frightened. But I . . .” Seikei thought the judge, who was a
samurai himself, might be offended.

“Go on,” said the
judge.

“I reminded myself that a samurai
is willing to face death without fear.”

The judge put his hand over his
mouth, but Seikei could see that his eyes were twinkling. Seikei
felt his own face redden. Like his father, the judge thought he was
foolish.

“Where did you learn that?” asked
the judge.

“I read it in a book,” Seikei
said.

“A book by Daidoji Yuzan?” the
judge asked.

“Yes.” Seikei was surprised. “How
did you know?”

“I read that book when I was a
boy. Sometimes I still read it. We need not discuss that now. Stand
here at the door, and tell me what you saw in the
corridor.”

Seikei went on with his story.
“And when I stamped my foot, the jikininki sank into the floor and
disappeared.”

“Show me where.”

Seikei led him to the end of the
corridor.

“Stamp your foot like you did last
night,” the judge said.

“I stamped in front of our door,
not here,” Seikei replied.

“I know. Stamp here
now.”

Seikei obeyed. “Now over here,”
said the judge. “Again, back there. Try this spot.”

Judge Ooka heard something and
squatted down on the floor. He began to run his hands along the
smooth boards. He grunted, and stuck his finger into a
knothole.

The board lifted up. Seikei
stared. Underneath was a dark black hole that led down into the
earth.

“Very good,” said the judge. “Take
off your kimono so that you will not get it dirty.”

Seikei felt his body tingle. “You
want me to go down there?”

“As you see, I am too fat to fit
inside.”

“But what if the thief is still
there?”

This time, Judge Ooka did not hide
his smile. “How could he do harm to you, if you do not fear
death?”

7: In the Tunnel

Wearing only his cotton loincloth,
Seikei wriggled into the hole, feet first. He slipped downward, and
found that it was the entrance to a tunnel. He looked up and saw
Judge Ooka’s face. “It goes farther,” Seikei said.

“Follow it to the end,” the judge
said, “and then be sure to come back and tell me where it comes
out.”

Seikei gritted his teeth. The
judge did not seem to think there was any real danger. But Seikei
was terrified. He moved forward only a step at a time, stretching
his arms out to feel the walls of the tunnel. He had to stoop to
keep his head from bumping overhead. He was in total darkness, and
would be totally unprepared if something suddenly grabbed him with
its claws or ripped into his body with sharp teeth.

In all the
stories of samurai Seikei had read, he had never heard of one
burrowing under the earth. Some fought monsters under the sea or on
lonely mountaintops. Others battled warriors in single combat and
rode their horses against the armies of enemy daimyos. None of them
crept through the damp ground like a worm. That was probably why
the judge made
him
do it.

Seikei heard a sound, and realized
that it was his own teeth chattering. It was cold here, and he
began to think of graveyards and the spirits of the dead. Perhaps
he really was pursuing a jikininki that rested by day in some
hidden spot and rose at night to seek its victims.

And what would it do if Seikei
disturbed its slumber?

He must not think of that. Death,
he told himself again, has no meaning to a samurai. But it was more
difficult to believe that now than it was during the night in the
inn. There, at least, he could have cried out if the jikininki had
attacked him. Many samurai guards had been sleeping nearby. Down
here, if Seikei screamed, his voice would be swallowed up in the
earth and never heard.

He stopped. He
was breathing hard, although he had not moved fast.
Go forward
, he told
himself.
Do not give in to
fear.

Little by little, he worked his
way through the tunnel. He lost all track of time. Then he bumped
up against a wall of earth. Once more, panic threatened to overcome
him, and he fought it off. The tunnel must go somewhere.

Seikei felt around himself, and
realized that there was room to stand upright. Over his head was
another hole. He found handholds dug into the walls, and climbed to
the top.

He felt a stone resting over the
entrance. He pried his fingers around the edge and moved it to the
side. He stuck his head out, breathing the fresh air. The sky had
never looked so beautiful to him before.

As Seikei climbed out, he was
astonished to see Judge Ooka walking toward him. With him was a man
whose orange robe and shaved head identified him as a Buddhist
monk.

“How did you know where the tunnel
led?” Seikei asked.

“I was not sure of the exact
location,” the judge replied. “But your description of the thief
gave me an idea. We are inside the temple grounds, where travelers
who cannot afford lodging are permitted to rest. This monk has told
me that last night, a group of actors put on a play
here.”

“Oh, yes. Michiko and I could hear
them from the terrace of the inn. We wished we could see the play,
and that was why she told me the story of the
jikininki.”

Judge Ooka put his hand on
Seikei’s shoulder. “I think you and I will attend more plays before
we have solved the mystery of the ghost in the inn.” He looked at
Seikei’s mud-smeared body. “You need a bath, but first let us
return to finish this part of the business.”

As they walked back, Seikei said,
“The tunnel was very long. No one could have dug it in a single
night.”

The judge nodded. “You are
observant. I think we will find that the theft of the jewel was not
as simple as it first appeared.”

They returned to the room where
the others waited. Seikei’s father seemed startled to see his son
half-dressed and covered with mud. So did the innkeeper, who moved
toward the doorway.

“Hold that man!” Judge Ooka called
out to the guards. Two of them took hold of the innkeeper and
forced him to his knees.

The judge settled himself on the
platform. He picked up the jewel that had been found in the
paper-seller’s box, and showed it to Lord Hakuseki. “Are you
certain that this is the object that was stolen from your
room?”

“Of course. It is a gift for the
shogun from my family.”

Startling everyone, Judge Ooka
smashed the jewel onto the wooden platform. It shattered into a
thousand pieces. “False,” he said. “A clever imitation made of
glass, one that could be part of the costumes of a kabuki theater
troupe.”