KITSUKI AKANO<br/><br/>As the other<em>samurai</em>moved into the room and began to examine the barred doorway it struck me that the key would be in the posession of one of the people who had arranged this defensive cordon. For that is what it looked like to me - the guards on the door, the group of men downstairs, the archers upstairs and now the men in this room and the room behind me.<br/><br/>The person who had locked the door was possibly in the room beyond... though he might conceivably be right here.<br/><br/>I knelt and began searching the dead, checking in their clothing. I avoided contact with their flesh where possible, but in search of evidence Kitsuki Minamoto had once said to me,<em>"Evidence is everywhere. If you baulk at searching bodies you may miss the one small thing that justice brings."</em><br/><br/>I made no suggestion that we should do this, I merely did so, it might attract the attention of another and that way we could search more quickly. The key might also have been in the remains of the table or desk, or in a cupboard.