Huygens spoke a word Sano couldn’t understand. Deeper and deeper he probed, twisting the pincers, churning the flesh. Foul-smelling liquid oozed from the wound. Nausea kept Sano from pressing for an explanation, and in the silence he heard the ocean lapping against Deshima’s foundations, and voices in the street. He hoped the guards would stay away. Then, with a soft click, the doctor’s pincers struck something hard.

“Ah!” Dr. Huygens exclaimed.

Failing to grasp the object with the pincers, he dropped them on the table, fetched a small saw, and cut away a bloody rib. Sano closed his eyes against the horrible grinding noise. When he opened them again, he saw Dr. Huygens reach into the wound.

“Ah!” Triumphantly the doctor pulled his slimy hand out of Spaen’s chest. In a water bucket, he rinsed the pebble-sized metal sphere he’d found, then held it up.

Sano’s heart began a slow descent as recognition struck him. “A bullet. Director Spaen was shot.”

“Shot. Yes!” Dr. Huygens nodded and pantomimed firing a gun. In his excitement, he lapsed into Dutch, but Sano could guess what he was saying.

“After Spaen died, the killer tried to remove the bullet, and failed.” Sano spoke reluctantly, delaying the inevitable conclusion. “So he cut up the area around the gunshot wound, to disguise the hole. He hacked and struck the body to make it look like Spaen had been stabbed and beaten to death. Perhaps he’s a Christian, and attached the crucifix as a gesture of atonement. Then he threw the body in the sea, hoping it would never be found.”

From outside came voices, moving nearer. The examination was over, and Sano almost wished it had never happened.

“Prepare the body for the funeral,” he told Dr. Huygens.

The results had changed the focus of his investigation and placed him in the dangerous position he’d hoped to avoid. Treason … the word echoed in his mind as the threat of death and disgrace loomed closer.

The barbarians on Deshima had no guns; all their weapons were confiscated when they entered the harbor. Therefore, the killer was Japanese: a fellow citizen, whom Sano must pursue at the risk of his own life.

9

九

Refreshed from a good night’s sleep and armed with a revised plan for investigating Jan Spaen’s murder, Sano returned to Deshima early the next morning. The previous day’s balmy weather had fled. Sculpturesque clouds swirled across the sky; a chill wind blew in from the sea.

“I want divers to search the water around Deshima for a gun and knife,” Sano told the officers in the guardhouse. “I want the names of everyone on duty and all visitors present the night Director Spaen disappeared.” These were his prime Japanese suspects.

The chief officer showed Sano the duty roster, then opened the ledger where he’d recorded Sano’s visit to Deshima yesterday. “There,” he said, pointing to a single name.