Free The Samurai and the Long-Nosed Devils by Lensey Namioka

partial to the Portuguese.”
    After a moment Nobunaga nodded approval and smiled. “That’s a clever move on Zenta’s part. I’m looking forward to having him in my service.”
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    The elegant figure who stepped out of the sedan chair in front of the house of the Portuguese looked incongruous. Zenta thought at first that he was a nobleman of the imperial court who had blundered into the courtyard by mistake.
    The man identified himself. “I am Mitani Kagemasa, and I have been dispatched by the shogun to investigate Lord Fujikawa’s murder.”
    â€œYou are from the shogun?” cried one of Lord Fujikawa’s men. “Now we shall see some justice! Did Lady Yuki send for you?”
    Kagemasa fussily arranged his wide sleeves before replying. “No, the message was not from Lady Yuki. We received news of Lord Fujikawa’s murder from the Portuguese.”
    While the Fujikawa samurai murmured their surprise, Pedro turned to Father Luis and explained the newcomer’s identity. The priest nodded. He walked forward to Kagemasa, bowed gravely and spoke in his calm, deep voice.
    Pedro translated. “Father Luis says that we are greatly relieved by your arrival. Since the shogun must want the real murderer of Lord Fujikawa to be found, we know that we can expect you to listen impartially to logic and accept only true evidence.”
    In spite of their bizarre appearance, the two Portuguese bore themselves with dignity. Zenta felt a touch of pride in being their bodyguard.
    Kagemasa mounted to the front veranda of the house and seated himself on a cushion brought out by a maid. His manner became more brisk and less like that of a luxury-loving court dandy. “Gentlemen, you will surrender your weapons to my men,” he commanded. “Now let us hear the evidence.”
    Except for the two Portuguese, who were not expected to understand proper behavior, the rest of the men went down on their knees in the courtyard and waited with lowered heads for their turn to speak. At a gesture from Kagemasa, one of Lord Fujikawa’s samurai began.
    â€œThis morning, one of the maid servants noticed that our master’s door on the garden side was open. She considered this strange because it had been raining hard last night. She looked into the room, and to her horror, she saw our master lying dead in a pool of blood. We rushed into the room when we heard her screams and found our master with a ghastly wound in the middle of his chest. It was a huge, ragged hole that could not have been made by a normal weapon. We knew then that he had been killed by the foreigners’ devilish weapon.”
    â€œI have seen a demonstration of this weapon,” said Kagemasa. “A gun, I believe it is called. It makes a very loud sound when fired. Why did no one hear the shooting?”
    Zenta looked at Kagemasa with interest. For all his foppish airs and affected speech, the shogun’s deputy was no fool.
    â€œWe wondered about this also,” replied the samurai. “We presume that the shooting took place during the thunderstorm last night, and we must have mistaken the sound of the shot for a clap of thunder.”
    Zenta had come to the same conclusion. He realized that the shot must have coincided with the clap that had sounded a little strange at the time.
    Kagemasa digested the information in silence for a few minutes. He finally turned to Pedro and said, “You may speak.”
    The Portuguese had himself well under control. When he spoke, his intonation of Japanese was a little worse than usual, but he remembered to avoid using feminine forms of speech. “I had three guns in my possession, but one of them was stolen yesterday. I believe that the murderer stole my gun and used it to kill Lord Fujikawa in order to have the suspicion fall on me.”
    â€œI have only your statement that the gun was stolen,” said Kagemasa. “Since the murder took place last