With an effort, Sano kept his voice and expression untroubled. “That will be all for now,” he told the Dutchman. He nodded to the servant, who set the tray before deGraeff.

“Watch the barbarian eat,” Interpreter Iishino said, giggling.

Thoroughly tired of Iishino, Sano nonetheless couldn’t help staring as the Dutchman devoured the food. Instead of sipping soup from his bowl, he slurped it out of a wooden spoon. Instead of using chopsticks, he crammed rice, fish, and vegetables into his mouth with his hands. Between bites, he swilled huge, noisy gulps of water and sake. Such crude table manners disgusted Sano, while intuition told him that the Dutchman knew more about Director Spaen’s death than he’d admitted.

Accompanied by Chief Ohira and Interpreter Iishino, Sano descended the stairs and walked down the street toward the residence of Dr. Nicolaes Huygens: Dr. Ito’s trusted friend and Sano’s last Dutch suspect, upon whom his hopes for a quick, successful end to the investigation now rested.

8

八

The door to Dr. Huygens’s residence stood wide open and unguarded when Sano arrived there with Chief Ohira and Interpreter Iishino.

“I can assure you that this negligence is atypical, and the sentries will be disciplined for it,” Ohira said grimly, preceding Sano and Iishino through the door.

In the doctor’s study, shelves held wooden boxes labeled in foreign script; leatherbound books; a human skull; cases displaying seashells, rocks, butterflies, and other insects; and clear glass jars in which floated preserved specimens, including a two-headed newborn kitten. On the floor sat shallow pans filled with water, in which lived crabs, snails, and sea urchins. Potted plants stood on the windowsills, and a samurai youth was watering them with a spouted pot. Two guards leaned on either side of the desk beneath the window, watching the Dutchman.

Dr. Huygens sat with his back to the door, his head bent over something he was working on amid a jumble of books and writing materials.

“What are we going to see now?” a guard asked him.

The youth spoke to the doctor in Dutch, then translated the reply as he tended the plants. “A drop of pond water.”

Ohira stalked over to the guards; they looked up in dismay. “Fraternizing with a barbarian,” he fumed. “Disgraceful! Get back to your posts. Now!”

The men fled.

“I’ll take over here,” Iishino told the junior interpreter, who scurried from the room.