Inside hung dark cloaks, trousers, and surcoats, and white shirts. A rack above held two broad-brimmed black hats. Below stood a pair of shiny black leather shoes. A chest beside the cabinet held black stockings and peculiar white pants, shirts, caps, and robes that Sano guessed were barbarian underwear and nightclothes and, oddly, three short lengths of rope, kinked and frayed as if once knotted.

“Why are these ropes here?” Sano asked his companions. “Is anything missing?”

From the doorway, Ohira made an irritated sound. Interpreter Iishino shrugged and said, “Barbarians have strange customs.” He pawed through Director Spaen’s apparel. “All here except for one suit of clothes, which he must have been wearing when he left.”

So Jan Spaen had either planned a short absence, or had preferred to travel light. “What’s in there?” Sano asked, indicating a door in the room’s interior wall.

Iishino opened it and the windows in the adjoining chamber. “Director Spaen’s office.”

To Sano, accustomed to the bare austerity of Japanese rooms, the office seemed very full and cluttered. Papers littered a high desk; goose feathers with ink-stained tips served as writing implements. Ledgers stood piled around an open iron chest. Sano lifted the stiff leather cover of one volume and saw columns of scrawl. He examined the long-necked stringed musical instrument that leaned against the wall, and the high wooden seat whose back looked like a section of a ladder. He studied the strange objects on the windowsill, the materials mounted on the wall above the desk—and realized that, knowing little of Dutch culture, he could scarcely hope to glean information about Jan Spaen’s character and motives from his possessions.

“Tell me what these things are,” Sano said to Iishino. Chief Ohira had walked to the window, where he gazed down at the garden.

“This is Director Spaen’s lute,” Iishino said, tapping the musical instrument. “He played very well, and sang and danced, too. When he went to Edo to pay homage to the shōgun, His Excellency was very impressed with his talent, very impressed.”

Hurrying to the windowsill, Iishino held up a stack of cards with a colored picture of a female barbarian on one side and strange symbols on the other; two long, curved, pointed teeth; and a leathery conical object.

“Dutch playing cards—Director Spaen liked to gamble—tiger fangs, from India, and a rhinoceros horn from Africa. He was a great hunter.” The interpreter’s eyes misted with regretful admiration. He pointed at the wall above the desk. “Maps of the world, the whole world, with all the trade routes marked. These pins show the places Director Spaen had been.” Iishino touched each one. “Japan, China, Taiwan, Korea, India, Indonesia, Africa, and all over Europe.”