The Case of the Sharaku Murders (28 page)

“Ever heard of Kozukata Antiques?” asked Ryohei, referring to Kato's shop.

“Kozukata—you mean that one just near the park?”

“That's it.”

“It specializes in woodblock prints, if I'm not mistaken,” said Minegishi, searching his memory.

In the end, Minegishi arranged to meet Ryohei in Morioka the next time Ryohei was there. Besides being eager to see Kiyochika's preface, Minegishi was already planning to go to Aomori soon to take a look at a sketchbook by Kiyochika which a dealer had found for him. He said on the way back he would stop off in Morioka and give Ryohei a call. Ryohei, of course, had no objection to the plan.

January 14

MORIOKA was in the midst of a blizzard.

Unusually, this year there had been no snow at New Year. Then, as though trying to make up for it, snow had started falling heavily on the tenth and hadn't let up. Now even the roads were covered in several inches of densely packed snow.

Ryohei had arrived home on the eleventh. Tonight he had gone into town after receiving a call from Minegishi. Downtown there were two large bookstores on opposite sides of the main street from one another. On the phone Minegishi said he would be waiting for Ryohei in the café on the second floor of one of them. Before leaving the house Ryohei telephoned Kato to invite him along. The antiques dealer remembered Minegishi well, he told him to give him a call the next time he came to Morioka. Since Kato's shop was not far from the bookstore, he would definitely be there when Ryohei arrived.

“Ah, there he is,” called Minegishi, waving to Ryohei.

Kato was sitting across from Minegishi. The two men were engrossed in an animated conversation.

“Now this is what I call a blizzard!” said Kato, smiling as he offered Ryohei the seat next to him. “Mr. Minegishi was showing me a sketchbook by Kiyochika.”

“The one from Aomori?” asked Ryohei, taking off his coat.

“Yes. It's a real find if you ask me,” said Kato.

The sketchbook wrapped in a
furoshiki
sat on the table
.

“Do you mind?” Ryohei asked Minegishi.

Minegishi nodded. Ryohei removed the square of cloth and opened the book. Pasted onto the pages were over twenty hand-painted sketches of flowers and other still lives. The colors were calm and subdued, even understated, and the tone completely different from Kiyochika's landscapes, demonstrating superb draftsmanship.

“Amazing!” exclaimed Ryohei.

As he flipped through the pages Kato looked on, marveling at each one.

“Apparently he painted these while staying at a ryokan right here in Morioka,” muttered Kato, chagrinned.

“Is that so? That
would
be frustrating,” said Ryohei.

“I wonder how that dealer up in Aomori got hold of it?” mused Kato.

“If it's any consolation, I think it found its way to Aomori a long time ago,” said Minegishi soothingly. “I knew the moment I saw it that it was a real find, but I thought the dealer was asking too much. So I was planning to just photograph it, but when I noticed it was signed, dated and everything, it was irresistible.”

Minegishi couldn't help gloating.

“Here, I photocopied this for you,” said Ryohei, handing Minegishi a copy of Sato's catalogue as he wrapped the sketchbook back in its cloth.

“Thanks,” Minegishi said gratefully. “Sorry to have dragged you out just for this.” He set to reading Kiyochika's preface.

Ryohei wondered if he would find anything of interest in it.
The greater the expectation, the greater the disappointment
,
he thought as he watched Minegishi's detached expression.

“Ah-hah!” exclaimed the photographer as his eyes came to rest on something. Suddenly he went pale and a strange look appeared on his face.

“Are you okay?” asked Ryohei in alarm.

“Uh-huh…”

Minegishi was sunk deep in thought.

“I've been duped,” he said at last. “This sketchbook… is a fake!” He thumped the book in annoyance.

“What makes you say that?” asked Ryohei. There'd been nothing to suggest it was a forgery. He was by no means an expert on Kiyochika, but the brushwork and signature looked perfectly authentic.

“Look at the date!” exclaimed Minegishi. “The date!”

He opened the sketchbook again and showed Ryohei and Kato the last illustration. Running down the left-hand side in Kiyochika's handwriting was an inscription:
I compiled this sketchbook while convalescing at the Taiseikan in Morioka from November 20th to 25th of this year
.

“The Taiseikan… Is there such a ryokan in Morioka?” asked Minegishi.

The other two men replied they had never heard of it.

“Just as I thought. Whoever forged this sketchbook used Morioka instead of Aomori so it would be harder to verify.”

Minegishi cradled his head in his hands.

“Maybe it's simply gone out of business,” suggested Ryohei. “That doesn't necessarily mean the sketchbook's a forgery.” He couldn't see what Minegishi was making such a fuss about.

“Kiyochika came to Tohoku from July 1906 to May 1907,” explained Minegishi.

Ryohei was aware of this.

“Which means we can assume that by ‘this year' he means 1906.” Ryohei nodded.

“But in the preface to Sato's catalogue Kiyochika states he was visiting his friend Sato in Kosaka from November 23rd to 28th.”

Minegishi spread the photocopies Ryohei had given him out on the table.

“Now, if he was in Morioka compiling this sketchbook until the 25th—and
convalescing
from an illness—how could he have traveled to Kosaka on the twenty-third?”

“I see…” mumbled Ryohei.

Now it was his and Kato's turn to be surprised.

“That dealer must have figured I was an easy target, always rattling on about Kiyochika,” bemoaned Minegishi, biting his lip hard. “There are lots of Kiyochika forgeries floating around up here in Tohoku—I should have done my homework more carefully. I have to say, though, whoever painted this did a damned good job. I didn't suspect a thing.”

“Absolutely.
Anyone
would think it was by Kiyochika,” said Ryohei consolingly. He picked up the sketchbook and turned it over and over in his hands. “Doesn't the binding look old to you?” he asked Kato.

“Yes,” replied the art dealer, “but bindings aren't really important. I wonder if someone added the inscription later.”

“But that goes without saying. After all it's a fake,” said Minegishi despondently.

“No, I mean, perhaps the sketches
are
by Kiyochika and the inscription was simply added later.”

“Oh, I see what you're saying,” said Minegishi. “Well, it's certainly possible. These sketches sure
do
look like Kiyochika's handiwork. And his handwriting is very distinctive too. Whoever faked this inscription has imitated it perfectly,” said Minegishi.

“There's no doubt about the sketches, so all the more reason to suspect the inscription's a fake—I see it all
the time,” said Kato emphatically.

Minegishi nodded. “I suppose you're right. It's not as though Kiyochika could have gotten the dates wrong in his preface,” he said, starting to relax a bit.

Ryohei was suddenly struck by a disturbing thought.

No, it couldn't be
…

But once planted, the seed of doubt began to grow in Ryohei's mind.

Returning home after saying goodbye to Minegishi and Kato, Ryohei removed his copy of Sato's catalogue from its envelope. He photocopied the entire book from cover to cover, including the front and back. Now, once again, he began inspecting it from the beginning, scouring every inch. But nothing in particular caught his eye.

It's just your imagination
.

Ryohei had a hunch the sketchbook of Kiyochika's which Minegishi had purchased in Aomori was in fact the genuine article. Since Kiyochika couldn't have been in both Kosaka and Morioka at the same time, this cast doubt on the authenticity of Sato's catalogue.

But scour as he might, Ryohei could find nothing amiss. On the other hand, there was no reason to suspect the cataloguewas a forgery. A forged sketchbook by a famous artist could fetch a tidy sum—but a painting catalogue was a different matter entirely. No matter how rare, an old book couldn't compete with an actual painting in price. Moreover, Ryohei had acquired the catalogue in question for next to nothing. What motive, then, could someone have had for forging it? If, at the book exhibition, Ryohei's eye had not fallen on it, the catalogue might still be passing from one rare book dealer to another. Ryohei laid his suspicions to rest.

But just as he was about to put the photocopies back in the envelope, a postcard fell out. It had been tucked inside the original catalogue. It was now, in a manner of speaking, the only souvenir of it he had left.

Looking at it now Ryohei felt a surge of emotion.

On the front was a photograph of a mountain hot springs resort, probably taken shortly before the war. In the foreground was a long suspension bridge spanning a ravine. On it stood two women, dressed up as geisha, smiling into the camera. Beyond them in the distance clouds of steam rose from a town clustered around the hot springs. The whole scene conveyed a sense of peace and calm.

Ryohei stared absentmindedly at the photograph for some time. In the bottom right-hand corner was written “Naruko Onsen.”

The postcard was addressed to someone in Yokohama. It had probably been sent by a guest at the resort to a friend back home.

Naruko—that's near Sendai. Speaking of which, I wonder how Saeko's doing
.

Ryohei suddenly felt a strong urge to see her.

January 17

“I'M OFF to London later this month,” Kato said excitedly as Ryohei sat down.

It had been some time since he last stepped into Kozukata Antiques. When he arrived, Kato was talking to an elderly gentleman whom Ryohei had seen there several times before. His name was Senda and he taught history at a local junior college in Morioka. He was interested in rare books and often visited Kato's shop. Ryohei sat down next to Senda and joined the conversation.

“Vacation?” asked Ryohei.

“Not exactly—I'm going with some friends.” Kato rattled off the names of two or three other art dealers who all had shops in Morioka.

“A business trip then?”

“Sotheby's is our main objective,” said Kato, his eyes twinkling.

Every year some of the world's most valuable art passed through the doors of Sotheby's, the world's largest auction house. Museums and gallery owners from around the world flocked to its periodic public auctions. The prices fetched at Sotheby's established benchmarks for the global art market in any given year. Though anyone could attend, the objects on offer were not ones people could afford. It was a Mecca for art dealers, and Japanese travel agencies even organized tours. Kato explained he had signed up for one such tour.

“Not that I can afford to buy anything,” he laughed. “I'll just be window shopping—there's a lot of Asian art coming up for auction this time. February is always slow around here anyway. For ages my friends have been trying to convince me to go, but this year I finally decided to take the plunge. It's something I've always wanted to do before I die.”

“Like a child in a candy store!” laughed Senda.

“There
was
once a ryokan called the Taiseikan in Morioka,” remembered Senda. “It was behind the Hachiman Shrine, very famous in its day. I think there's an office building there now.”

Ryohei and Kato listened attentively. Ryohei had begun the conversation by bringing up the subject of Minegishi and the sketchbook he had bought the other day.

“Anyway,” concluded Senda, “it went bust before the war.”

“Then it's not surprising we hadn't heard of it,” said Kato nodding.

“Once it was a first-class establishment,” Senda went on. “But in the 1930s it went downhill and became the sort of place where geisha entertained their clients.”

“Well, times change,” said Kato triumphantly.

“So Minegishi's sketchbook…” prompted Ryohei.

“It means the forger did his homework. Anyone could have found out about the Taiseikan simply by asking someone who's old enough to have been around before the war. No forger worth his salt would make such a rookie mistake.”

Ryohei looked puzzled.

“In other words, all we've succeeded in establishing is that the Taiseikan actually existed,” explained Kato. He was convinced the inscription in the sketchbook was a forgery.

But if the forger did his homework, why not choose the name of an old reputable inn that's still around? Why a geisha house? That would just be likely to arouse suspicion. It's not as though the guestbook would have survived from the turn of the century. Another inn would have been better
.