Sherlock Holmes

by Keisuke Matsuoka

  Ito leaned forward to address the two attendants. It was a slim hope but still worth a try. “I suppose you two are our only option. Have either of you met with Tsarevich Nicholas since his return from Japan?”

  Chekhov and Anna glanced at each other tentatively. They turned their eyes back toward Ito, and then shook their heads in tandem.

  “Humph,” Sherlock snorted. He was appalled at his own foolishness. By the terms of their formal agreement, he was now forbidden from openly approaching Shevich.

  “To tell the truth,” Chekhov interjected, shyly—he strongly resembled a previous client from the case of The Red-Headed League— “Miss Luzhkova and I were ordered to Japan only quite suddenly, last week. We were told to be off as soon as we boarded the cruiser. His Royal Highness, Grand Duke George, is vacationing in Paris, which left us both free. We were told that English speakers were required.”

  Ito looked at Sherlock inquiringly. “For what reason, I wonder.”

  “Whether there is war or a demand for land, there will be a prodigious amount of paperwork,” Sherlock said frankly. “International standards demand concurrent English and French translations. Every sentence, every word must be translated without fault, necessitating as many people familiar with all the languages as possible.”

  Anna nodded. “We were told something similar before we came. The legal counsel at the legation would be doing a translation, and we were only to check whether or not it was correct.”

  Shevich had given these two only as sacrificial pawns. “The younger brother, Grand Duke George?” Sherlock asked, discouraged. “Was he concerned over his brother’s injury?”

  “Naturally,” Anna replied. “His Royal Highness Grand Duke George recovered from his cold shortly after returning home and resumed his duties directly. When news of the incident arrived he was extremely shocked and went to speak with the Emperor and Empress on the matter.”

  “He was relieved to learn that Tsarevich Nicholas’ injury was not severe,” Chekhov tacked on. “And he was glad it had not ruined our relations with Japan.”

  Sherlock looked at the civil servants. “But of late, tensions seem to have increased once more.”

  Chekhov’s and Anna’s faces both grew clouded.

  “To be frank, I do not know what to make of it,” Chekhov confessed, eyes wide. “Tsarevich Nicholas had been so fond of the Japanese, yet now…”

  “He refers to them as monkeys?”

  “Yes,” he whispered. “What could have caused such a change?”

  Ito furrowed his brow and pounced. “I thought you hadn’t met with Tsarevich Nicholas since the incident?”

  Chekhov blanched. He’d clearly fumbled. He looked to Anna for help. She let her head fall forlornly.

  Sherlock leaned forward with a hint of hope in his chest. “Please, the truth. You have met with His Highness, haven’t you?”

  “We were given strict warnings to speak of nothing outside the tour…” Anna began.

  “Miss Luzhkova, you evidently wish to tell us the truth. I will ask more directly. Tsarevich Nicholas was on the ship during your recent passage, was he not? On the Laskar?”

  Chekhov and Anna looked shocked. Chekhov withdrew a handkerchief and began dabbing the sweat from his brow. “You know so much…Chairman Ito, Mr. Holmes, will you promise to keep this between us?”

  “Most certainly.”

  He lowered his voice. “It’s true, His Imperial Highness the Tsarevich is aboard the Laskar. The two of us…Miss Luzhkova and I…we were told nothing of the matter. We were most astonished when we saw His Highness.”

  “And did you speak with Tsarevich Nicholas?”

  “No. You see, we are not particularly in His Highness’ favor. He is usually surrounded by his own followers, and especially during this trip he was in constant conversation with several military officers.”

  “Did you overhear any of what they said?”

  “I did. I passed the room they were in several times. Only…” Chekhov broke off mid-sentence, and it was clear, with his apologetic side-glance at Ito, why he hesitated.

  Ito was unfazed. “Do not hesitate on my account. Whatever you heard, please feel at liberty to repeat it.”

  “As you wish.” The man sounded dubious. “Well, on the day we left Vladivostok, I was headed to the materials compartment to return a book. The door had been left ajar and I saw His Highness Tsarevich Nicholas inside. He was with the Laskar’s captain, Matinsky, as well as Commander Narozhilenko. The Tsarevich was shouting. He said that the ‘yellow monkeys are dangerous,’ and if we do not deal with them now it will soon be too late.”

  “I overheard His Highness as well, while in my bed in my sleeping quarters,” Anna added fearfully. “He used the word ‘monkeys’ several times, and spoke of Japan’s people as barbaric and deceitful.”

  Chekhov sighed. “I hardly believed it. The last time I had met the Tsarevich was during the tour, before His Highness Grand Duke George fell ill. His Highness had been most courteous and kind. While we were in Egypt and India, he even mentioned several times how much he was looking forward to visiting Japan and his hope we would leave for there soon. Then there were the letters from his trip, with the photographs he had taken with the geisha. According to his writing, he found no country as enchanting as he did Japan.”

  Ito groaned. “After the Otsu incident, an outpouring of concern and contrition came from our country’s citizens. We heard that His Highness was grateful for the messages. Was that a lie?”

  Anna shook her head. “We were not with His Highness during his trip to Japan so it is hard to say for sure, but I heard from those close to him that he greatly regretted being unable to visit Tokyo. I believe the Tsarevich’s message of thanks, printed in Japan’s newspapers, was genuine.”

  “The officers who were aboard the imperial flagship with His Highness at the time of the incident are baffled by his abrupt change, as well,” Chekhov mused. He looked fearful. “I can’t understand it. Why would His Highness return to Japan in secret, and why is he now waiting, hidden, at sea? It is puzzling.”

  Ito turned towards Sherlock. But Sherlock only looked back in silence.

  Despite the two civil servants’ confusion, the purpose of Tsarevich Nicholas’ visit was quite clear. Shevich had already told them—he had come to demand the death penalty for Sanzo Tsuda. Why, however, did he desire revenge now, after all this time? Why draw a sword that had already been sheathed?

  16

  After the interview, Ito was required at an emergency meeting of the Privy Council. It was not a meeting to deliberate over the details of Japan’s constitution—but now that they knew Nicholas was nearby, the council had their work more than cut out for them.

  By now it was past 4:00 P.M. By Ito’s request, an English translation of the Sanzo Tsuda investigation records arrived for Sherlock. Sherlock thanked the chairman and headed out alone, by carriage. He could read the report while he travelled.

  The Russian attendants were not the only people to have travelled with the crown prince during his tour of Asia. Reporters sent from various newspaper offices had also followed the trip. Ito had earlier telegraphed the Japanese branch office of the French paper Le Figaro on Sherlock’s behalf. Luckily they had reporters who spoke English, and Sherlock made his way there now.

  In the carriage, Sherlock spotted a brand-new factory through the window. He recalled having seen facilities of similar construction in London.

  As luck would have it, the coachman was Australian. They had no difficulty communicating in English. “An ice-making plant, I believe?” Sherlock shouted over the wheels.

  “That’s right,” the coachman shouted back, without turning around. “The Aoyama Ice Plant, built just last year. Japan is having its own industrial revolution.”

  “They use highly condensed ammonia gas to create the ice.”

&nb
sp; “Yes indeed. The technology’s been here since around when they ousted the Bakufu. Before that they used to have to cut ice from Mount Fuji and transport it to Tokyo.”

  Sherlock had mistakenly assumed that was still their method. Japan’s industries were developing at a much faster pace than he had imagined. What had taken 100 years of development or more in England was being accomplished in Japan in but 20 or so years.

  Everywhere he looked the people seemed productive and hard-working. He stared out the carriage window at the crude row houses that lined the street. The laborers seemed diligent despite their apparently low quality of life. They didn’t loiter or cause public disturbances.

  In Russia, he mused, two percent of the population were aristocracy and all of the remainder were serfs. But though Japan’s total population was far less than that of Russia’s, the Japanese citizenry were not to be underestimated. The Russian people worked only because they had to for tomorrow’s bread. The Japanese, meanwhile, seemed to labor constantly at full potential, with nothing but a few rice balls as reward. Unlikely as it might seem, in the near future the power difference between the two countries might not be as great as the difference in their nations’ land mass. Even the great British Empire, peerless the world over, was but an island nation at heart.

  Sherlock shook these abstractions from his mind. He needed to skim through the Sanzo Tsuda report before his carriage arrived at the Le Figaro offices. He removed a packet of documents from the large envelope and began.

  Sanzo Tsuda was born February 15, 1855, and was now 36 years of age. The photo included in the packet was blurry and difficult to make out; it had been poorly printed. Nevertheless, he was able to discern a young man with a Western-style haircut, standing with his arms crossed, dressed in an outfit with a stiff collar that resembled a military uniform. According to the inscription the photo had been taken 14 years earlier, during the Satsuma Rebellion. Tsuda’s expression seemed stubborn.

  He was the second son of a doctor in the Musashi Province. Shortly after his brith, his family moved to Ueno in the Iga Province of Mie Prefecture. At age 15, he moved to Tokyo and joined the garrison, launching his career as a soldier in the government forces. At 17 he was transferred to the regular Nagoya garrison. At 18 he was dispatched to suppress the Echizen Buddhist riots. In July of that year he was transferred to the Kanazawa outpost.

  1877, the 10th year of the Meiji Era, marked the beginning of the Satsuma Rebellion. Sherlock read that when Tsuda turned 22, he made the rank of corporal for the first battalion of the seventh infantry regiment. A month later the seventh regiment was incorporated into the detached first brigade, and they were swiftly dispatched to Hinagu to strike Saigo’s4 army from the rear. It was there that Tsuda was shot in the left hand. He was taken to the Yatsushiro dressing station in Kumamoto for treatment. He was later moved to a hospital in Nagasaki and discharged at the end of May. He returned to the main Kagoshima forces and fought numerous battles in Kagoshima and Miyazaki, before eventually being promoted to sergeant. On October 22 he returned to Kanazawa.

  After the Satsuma Rebellion came to an end Tsuda fell ill several times—Sherlock deduced exhaustion had perhaps taken its toll. He was frequently in and out of hospitals. On October 9 he was awarded the 7th Order of Merit in recognition of his past deeds.

  According to the investigators, Tsuda remained exceedingly proud of his Order of Merit. For someone from dissolute samurai stock, such as Tsuda, that award was likely one of his most sustaining possessions.

  He left the army before turning 27, and became a policeman. He was assigned to be a patrolman at Owase Police Station in Mie Prefecture. Three years later, however, he attacked a fellow officer during a social gathering and was dismissed from his post. Perhaps owing to the Order of Merit, however, he was re-employed as a policeman before the year was out, this time hired by the Shiga Prefecture force.

  All that was nearly ten years ago. During investigative questioning, Tsuda had repeatedly insisted that Takamori Saigo was alive and resided in Russia.

  Popular knowledge had it that Takamori Saigo had died during the Satsuma Rebellion. There were rumors, however, that he had in fact survived and had secretly travelled to Russia. To Sherlock—who was in Japan under similar circumstances, having faked his death in England—the rumors did not seem quite so fanciful as they might otherwise have appeared.

  But for the most part, Saigo’s so-called escape to Russia was regarded as mere fantasy. Yet Tsuda persisted in his belief. And at the time there had been another rumor—the one that Tsarevich Nicholas was visiting Japan in preparation for Russia’s declaration of war. Possibly this had stoked Tsuda’s worries that Takamori Saigo would reappear.

  If the rebel Takamori Saigo were to suddenly return to Japan, the end of the Satsuma Rebellion might no longer seem so decisive. Investigators wrote that Tsuda seemed to be paranoid that his Order of Merit would be revoked.

  So these were the morbid delusions of a man whose only point of pride in his life was a single military award. To Sherlock reading the report, it was evident that Tsuda was suffering from mental illness.

  Many of those who had followed the samurai path were left adrift after giving up their swords following the Meiji Restoration. Many were forced to either dedicate themselves to the government army as soldiers, or to set out on unfamiliar lives as laborers. Tsuda believed that by becoming a policeman he had managed to preserve his dignity as a warrior. He took pride in that fact, and supported his spirits with the memory of his military honor.

  Several witnesses attested that Tsuda had shouted joui when he attacked Nicholas. Tsuda claimed he did not remember the events of the day all that clearly. His testimony was vague, and his motives were unclear. Indeed, investigators had only conjectured that Tsuda feared Takamori Saigo was still alive. The man himself had never stated this outright.

  According to the report, Tsuda had told the investigators that he “had to get one in.” One referred to at least one strike of his sword; Tsuda’s statement could therefore be interpreted as, while he had intended to injure Nicholas, he did not mean to kill him.

  But then again, Tsuda’s attack had been brutal, aimed at Nicholas’ head. It was unlikely he had only meant to injure the crown prince.

  Sherlock sighed and returned the documents to the envelope.

  He had received no new answers from the information. Whatever had driven Tsuda to violence was not to be found in the report he had just read. He knew of several incidents in England of officers who had fallen into despair after leaving the army, and who had committed crimes of one sort or another. Perhaps this case was similar to those?

  Still, something nagged at Sherlock.

  After the incident, Tsuda’s Order of Merit—the award that had brought him such comfort and solace in his otherwise empty life—was rescinded. Which was only natural. Had Tsuda truly failed to foresee that this would be the most basic repercussion of his actions?

  * * *

  —

  The Japanese Le Figaro offices were not much different in appearance from those of a newspaper in any other country. The room was crammed with desks, and employees jostled against each other elbow-to-elbow. A curtain of tobacco smoke hung over the news floor, and the offices appeared as though they were in a hazy fog.

  A challenging environment, Sherlock thought. He was sitting on a sofa for guests in the corner of the room. He began smoking the pipe he had brought with him, seeing no need to hold back here.

  A man in his thirties approached, carrying an envelope, and sat across from Sherlock. This was the correspondent Loic Borloo. “The Privy Council informed me you would be coming. I was surprised to hear they plan to rebuild Meiji Palace. You are an architect, that is correct? Mr….?”

  “Lionel Harding,” Sherlock said smoothly. “One of the oyatoi gaijin, the foreign engineers. The palace was originally meant to be a stone building, des
igned by Josiah Conder. But due to budgetary concerns, we ended up going with a wooden building instead.”

  “I had heard that the Imperial Household’s Bureau of Construction was opposed to this plan, at first.”

  “They were, but Chairman Ito was able to persuade them.”

  “So this is why they have decided to rebuild the palace? But tell me, why are you interested in Tsarevich Nicholas?”

  “I thought we should consider the possibility that foreign leaders might take up residence in the palace…”

  “In the palace?”

  “If Russia occupies Japan,” Sherlock said, briefly. “As a reporter, I’m sure you are aware that Europe’s castles and palaces have tended to change hands after war. It is the way history tends to go.”

  Borloo looked around them and spoke again in a lowered voice. “So, you think there will be war?”

  “It seems possible, certainly. Russia is occupying the harbor. There are nine Russian ships in port.”

  “We have been wondering about the ships, as well,” Borloo said excitedly. “We’ve asked for interviews several times but are continually rebuffed. I even tried sneaking into the occupied Daiba district, too, but the sailors at the entrance had none of it. They wouldn’t let me pass unless I gave them the names and positions of their ships. They sent me on my way quite brusquely.”

  “My sympathies.”

  Borloo grimaced. “To be honest, I cannot fathom what the Russians are up to. They seem to be all over the place. You know when Tsarevich Nicholas was travelling through the East? Well, when his brother, the Duke George, fell sick and had to go back to Russia early, they sent all the most capable attendants back with him.”

  This meant that Chekhov and Anna were, despite Sherlock’s impression, two of the most competent retainers of the retinue. “Is it possible that this may be why the Otsu attack was later forgiven?” Sherlock asked.