"I shall send it to Geoffrey," thought Asako; "it will bring him good luck. Perhaps he will write to me and thank me. Then I can write to him."

The New Year is the greatest of j.a.panese festivals. j.a.panese of the middle and lower cla.s.ses live all the year round in a thickening web of debt. But during the last days of the year these complications are supposed to be unraveled and the defaulting debtor must sell some of his family goods, and start the New Year with a clean slate. These operations swell the stock-in-trade of the _yomise_.

On New Year's Day the wife prepares the _mochi_ cakes of ground rice, which are the specialities of the season; and the husband sees to the erection of his door posts of the two _kadomatsu_ (corner pine trees), little Christmas trees planted in a coil of rope. Then, attired in his frock-coat and top hat, if he be a _haikara_ gentleman, or in his best kimono and _haori_, if he be an old-fashioned j.a.panese, he goes round in a rickshaw to pay his complimentary calls, and to exchange _o medet[=o]_ (respectfully lucky!), the New Year wish. He has presents for his important patrons, and cards for his less influential acquaintances. For, as the j.a.panese proverb says, "Gifts preserve friendship." At each house, which he visits, he sips a cup of _sake_, so that his return home is often due to the rickshaw man's a.s.sistance, rather than to his own powers of self-direction. In fact, as Asako's maid confided to her mistress, "j.a.panese wife very happy when New Year time all finish."

On the night following New Year, snow fell. It continued to fall all the next morning until Asako's little garden was as white as a bride-cake. The irregularities of her river-side lawn were smoothed out under the white carpet. The straw coverings, which a gardener's foresight had wrapped round the azalea shrubs and the dwarf conifers, were enfolded in a thick white shroud. Like tufts of foam on a wave, the snow was tossed on the plumes of the bamboo clump, which hid the neighbour's dwelling, and made a bird's nest of Asako's tiny domain.

Beyond the brown sluggish river, the roofs and pinnacles of Asakusa were more fairy-like than a theatre scene. Asako was thinking of that first snow-white day, which introduced Geoffrey and her to the Emba.s.sy and to Yae Smith.

She shivered. Darkness was falling. A j.a.panese house is a frail protection in winter time; and a charcoal fire in a wooden box is poor company. The maid came in to close the shutters for the night. Where was Tanaka? He had gone out to a New Year party with relatives. Asako felt her loneliness all of a sudden; and she was grateful for the moral comfort of cousin Sadako's sword. She drew it from its sheath and examined the blade, and the fine work on the hilt, with care and alarm, like a man fingering a serpent.

No sooner was the house silenced than the wind arose. It smote the wooden framework with an unexpected buffet almost like an earthquake.

The bamboo grove began to rattle like bones; and the snow slid and fell from the roof in dull thuds.

There was a sharp rap at the front door. Asako started and thrust the dagger into the breast of her kimono. She had been lying full length on a long deckchair. Now she put her feet to the ground. O Hana, the maid, came in and announced that Ito San had called. Asako, half-pleased and half-apprehensive, gave instructions for him to be shown in. She heard a stumbling on the steps of her house; then Ito lurched into the room. His face was very red, and his voice thick. He had been paying many New Year calls.

"Happy New Year, Asa San, Happy New Year!" he hiccoughed, grasping her hand and working it up and down like a pump-handle. "New Year in j.a.pan very lucky time. All j.a.panese people say New Year time very lucky.

This New Year very lucky for Ito. No more dirty business, no more Yoshiwara, no more pimp. I am millionaire, madame. I have made one hundred thousand pounds, five hundred thousand dollars gold. I now become _giin giin_ (Member of Parliament). I become great party organizer, great party boss, then _daijin_ (Minister of State), then _taishi_ (Amba.s.sador), then _soridaijin_ (Prime Minister). I shall be greatest man in j.a.pan. j.a.pan greatest country in the world. Ito greatest man in the world. And I marry Asa San to-morrow, next day, any day."

Ito was sprawling in the deck chair, which divided the little sitting-room into two parts and cut off Asako's retreat. She was trembling on a bamboo stool near the shuttered window. She was terribly frightened. Why did not Tanaka come?

"Speak to me, Asa San," shouted the visitor; "say to me very glad, very, very glad, will be very nice wife of Ito. Fujinami give you to me. I have all Fujinami's secrets in my safe box. Ito greatest man in j.a.pan. Fujinami very fear of me. He give me anything I want. I say, give me Asa San. Very, very love."

Asako remaining without speech, the j.a.panese frowned at her.

"Why so silence, little girl? Say, I love you, I love you like all foreign girls say. I am husband now. I never go away from this house until you kiss me. You understand?"

Asako gasped.

"Mr. Ito, it is very late. Please, come some other day. I must go to bed now."

"Very good, very good. I come to bed with you," said Ito, rolling out of his chair and putting one heavy leg to the ground. He was earing a kimono none too well adjusted, and Asako could see his hairy limb high up the thigh. Her face must have reflected her displeasure.

"What?" the j.a.panese shouted; "you don't like me. Too very proud! No dirty j.a.p, no yellow man, what? So you think, Madame Lord Princess Barrington. In the East, it may be, ugly foreign women despise j.a.ps.

But New York, London, Paris--very different, ha! ha! New York girl say, h.e.l.lo, j.a.p! come here! London girl say, j.a.p man very nice, very sweet manner, very soft eyes. When I was in London I have five or six girls, English girls, white girls, very beauty girls, all together, all very love! London time was great fine time!"

Asako felt helpless. Her hand was on the hilt of her dagger, but she still hoped that Ito might come to his senses and go away.

"There!" he cried, "I know foreign custom. I know everything.

Mistletoe! Mistletoe! A kiss for the mistletoe, Asa San!"

He staggered out of his chair and came towards her, like a great black bird. She dodged him, and tried to escape round the deck chair. But he caught hold of her kimono. She drew her sword.

"Help! Help!" she cried. "Tanaka!"

Something wrenched at her wrist, and the blade fell. At the same moment the inner _shoji_ flew open like the shutter of a camera.

Tanaka rushed into the room.

Asako did not turn to look again until she was outside the room with her maid and her cook trembling beside her. Then she saw Tanaka and Ito locked in a wrestler's embrace, puffing and grunting at each other, while their feet were fumbling for the sword which lay between them. Suddenly both figures relaxed. Two foreheads came together with a wooden concussion. Hands were groping where the feet had been. One set of fingers, hovering over the sword, grasped the hilt. It was Tanaka; but his foot slipped. He tottered and fell backward. Ito was on the top of him. Asako closed her eyes. She heard a hoa.r.s.e roar like a lion. When she dared to look again, she saw Tanaka kneeling over Ito's body. With a wrench he pulled Sadako's dagger out of the prostrate ma.s.s. It was followed by a jet of blood, and then by a steady trickle from body, mouth and nostrils, which spread over the matting. Slowly and deliberately, Tanaka wiped first the knife and then his hands on the clothes of his victim. Then he felt his mouth and throat.

"_Sa! Shimatta_! (There, finished!)" he said. He turned towards the garden side, threw open the _shoji_ and the _amado_. He ran across the snow-covered lawn; and from beyond the unearthly silence which followed his departure, come the distant sound of a splash in the river.

At last, Asako said helplessly: "Is he dead?"

The cook, a man, was glad of the opportunity to escape.

"I go and call doctor," he said.

"No, stay with me," said Asako; "I am afraid. O Hana can go for the doctor."

Asako and the cook waited by the open _shoji_, staring blankly at the body of Ito. Presently the cook said that he must go and get something. He did not return. Asako called to him to come. There was no answer. She went to look for him in his little three-mat room near the kitchen. It was empty. He had packed his few chattels in his wicker basket and had decamped.

Asako resumed her watch at the sitting-room door, an unwilling Rizpah.

It was as though she feared that, if she left her post, somebody might come in and steal Ito. But she could have hardly approached the corpse even under compulsion. Sometimes it seemed to move, to try to rise; but it was stuck fast to the matting by the resinous flow of purple blood. Sometimes it seemed to speak:

"Mistletoe! Mistletoe! Kiss me, Asa San!"

Gusts of cold wind came in from the open windows, touching the dead man curiously, turning over his kimono sleeves. Outside, the bamboo grove was rattling like bones; and the caked snow fell from the roof in heavy thuds.

O Hana returned with a doctor and a policeman. The doctor loosened Ito's kimono, and at once shook his head.

The policeman wore a blue uniform and cape; and a sword dragged at his side. He had produced a notebook and a pencil from a breast pocket.

"What is your name?" he asked Asako; "what is your age? your father's and mother's name? What is your address? Are you married? Where is your husband? How long have you known this man? Were you on familiar terms? Did you kill him? How did you kill him? Why did you kill him?"

The questions buzzed round Asako's head like a swarm of hornets. It had never occurred to the unfortunate girl that any suspicion could fall upon her. Three more policemen had arrived.

"Every one in this house is arrested," announced the first policeman.

"Put out your hands," he ordered Asako. Rusty handcuffs were slipped over her delicate wrists. One of the policemen had produced a coil of rope, which he proceeded to tie round her waist and then round the waist of O Hana.

"But what have I done?" asked Asako plaintively.

The policeman took no notice. She could hear two of them upstairs in her bedroom, talking and laughing, knocking open her boxes and throwing things about.

Asako and her maid were led out of the house like two performing animals. It was bitterly cold, and Asako had no cloak. The road was already full of loafers. They stared angrily at Asako. Some laughed.

Some pulled at her kimono as she pa.s.sed. She heard one say:

"It is a _geisha_; she has murdered her sweetheart."

At the police station, Asako had to undergo the same confusing interrogatory before the chief inspector.

"What is your name? What is your age? Where do you live? What are your father's and mother's names?"

"Lies are no good," said the inspector, a burly unshaven man; "confess that you have killed this man."