“Quiet!” Sano rasped, straining to subdue his flailing, coughing captive. He applied more pressure to the guard’s neck. The coughs turned to gasps; then the guard went limp and unconscious. Sano eased him to the floor, shut the door, then faced Huygens. “Why did you lie to me?”

Dr. Huygens didn’t pretend to misunderstand. Behind his glasses, his eyes closed briefly as his shoulders heaved in a sigh of mingled sadness and relief. “I no want you think I kill Spaen,” he said, adjusting the bandage on his patient’s leg. “I afraid.”

Sano remembered the calm detachment with which Huygens had examined Jan Spaen’s corpse. At the funeral, when Huygens had said, “May all our sins be forgiven,” he could have been praying for Spaen’s soul—or asking absolution for his own sin of murdering Spaen. Had he helped Sano because he was a believer in justice, or to protect himself?

“You fought with Spaen before he died,” Sano said. “About what?”

Huygens hesitated, but only long enough to draw Sano into the corner so their conversation wouldn’t disturb the patient. Either he was unaware that Sano had lost authority on Deshima, or didn’t care because he needed to confess. “I want leave East India Company; go home. Spaen no let me.”

Then followed a tale of misspent youth and subsequent reform; of how Jan Spaen had gained power over and exploited Huygens. “I no mean kill Franz Tulp.” Dr. Huygens’s anguished eyes pleaded for Sano’s belief. “I drunk; I mad. We fight. I hit too hard. He fall.”

The doctor drew a long, shaky breath, as if experiencing anew the horror of that long-ago day. His red face was sweating profusely, his body odor pungent. Sano eyed the doors, waiting with controlled impatience for him to continue. “Then Jan Spaen come. He see Tulp’s body, me with bloody pipe. I scared he call the, the—”

“The police,” Sano said.

Huygens rushed on: “But Spaen say he help. We pick up body, carry away. I say, what if someone see us? Spaen say wait. Then horse cart come, fast. We throw body in front. Horses, cart, go over body. We run away. Hear cart stop, people shout: They think they kill Tulp.”

And so, it seemed, did everyone else. Later Huygens had heard that the authorities had ruled Tulp’s death an accident of the sort not uncommon to Dutch festivals: a drunken youth, crushed when he fell under a cart driven by more drunken youths. Huygens’s fellow brawlers had kept silent for fear of punishment. He might have gotten away with murder, if not for Jan Spaen. Sano pitied Huygens, admiring his efforts to atone for the crime. His distaste for Spaen deepened. To solve the mystery of that cruel man’s death, Sano had risked everything. But he couldn’t let antipathy toward the murder victim affect his judgment. Nor could he excuse a suspect he liked.