by Boris Akunin
Realising that she was not simply walking back, but coming towards him, Fandorin took a few steps towards her.
‘Be wary of that man,’ O-Yumi said rapidly, swaying her chin to indicate the direction in which the lieutenant captain had driven off. ‘I don’t know who he is, but I can see he is pretending to be your friend, while he really wishes you harm. He has written a report denouncing you today, or he will write one.’
When she finished speaking, she tried to walk away, but Erast Petrovich blocked her path. Two bearded, emaciated faces observed this scene curiously through the barred windows of the police station. The constable on duty at the door also looked on with a grin.
‘You’re very fond of making a dramatic exit, but this time I demand an answer. What is this nonsense about a report? Who told you about it?’
‘His face. Or rather, a wrinkle in the corner of his left eye, in combination with the line and colour of his lips.’ O-Yumi smiled gently. ‘Don’t look at me like that. I am not joking or playing games with you. In Japan we have the ancient art of ninso, which allows us to read a person’s face like an open book. Very few people possess this skill, but there have been masters of ninso in our family for the last two hundred years.’
Before he came to Japan, of course, the titular counsellor would have laughed at hearing a tall tale like this, but now he knew that in this country there really were countless numbers of the most incredible ‘arts’, and so he didn’t laugh, but merely asked:
‘Reading a face like a book? Something like physiognomics?’
‘Yes, only much broader and more detailed. A ninso master can interpret the shape of the head, and the form of the body, and the manner of walking and the voice – in short, everything that a person tells the outside world about himself. We can distinguish a hundred and forty-four different gradations of colour on the skin, two hundred and twelve types of wrinkles, thirty-two smells and much, much more. I am far from complete mastery of the skills that my father possesses, but I can precisely determine a man’s age, thoughts, his recent past and immediate future …’
When he heard about the future, Fandorin realised that he was being toyed with after all. What a credulous fool he was!
‘Well, and what have I been doing today? No, better still, tell me what I have been thinking about,’ he said with an ironic smile.
‘In the morning you had a headache, here.’ Her light fingers touched Fandorin’s temple, and he started – either in surprise (she was right about the headache), or simply at her touch. ‘You were prey to sad thoughts. That often happens to you in the morning. You were thinking about a woman who no longer exists. And you were also thinking about another woman, who is alive. You were imagining all sorts of scenes that made you feel heated.’
Erast Petrovich blushed bright red and the sorceress smiled cunningly, but did not elaborate on the subject.
‘This is not magic,’ she said in a more serious voice. ‘Merely the fruit of centuries of research pursued by highly observant individuals, intent on their craft. The right half of the face is you, the left half is people connected with you. For instance, if I see a little inshoku-coloured pimple on the right temple, I know that this person is in love. But if I see the same pimple on the left temple, then someone is in love with them.’
‘No, you are mocking me after all!’
O-Yumi shook her head.
‘The recent past can be determined from the lower eyelids. The immediate future from the upper eyelids. May I?’
The white fingers touched his face again. They ran over his eyebrows and tickled his eyelashes. Fandorin felt himself starting to feel drowsy.
Suddenly O-Yumi recoiled, her eyes gazing at him in horror.
‘What … what’s wrong?’ he asked hoarsely – his throat had suddenly gone dry.
‘Today you will kill a man!’ she whispered in fright, then turned and ran off across the square.
He almost went dashing after her, but took a grip on himself just in time. Not only did he not run, he turned away and took a slim manila out of his cigar case. He succeeded in lighting it only with his fourth match.
The titular counsellor was trembling – no doubt in fury.
‘Jug-eared m-minx!’ he hissed through his teeth. ‘And I’m a fine one, listening wide-eyed like that!’
But what point was there in trying to deceive himself? She was an astounding woman! Or perhaps it wasn’t just her? The thought was electrifying. There is some strange connection between us. He was astonished by the idea, but he didn’t carry it through to the end, he didn’t have time, for at that moment something happened that shook all thoughts about mysterious beauties out of the young man’s head.
First there was a sound of breaking glass, then someone bellowed despairingly:
‘Stop! Stop the bloody ape!’
Recognising Lockston’s voice, Fandorin went dashing back to the station. He ran along the corridor, burst into the sergeant’s office and saw the sergeant swearing furiously as he tried to climb out of the window, but rather awkwardly – the sharp splinters of glass were getting in his way. There was an acrid smell of burning in the room, and smoke swirling just below the ceiling.
‘What happened?’
‘That there … son of a bitch … the lousy snake!’ Lockston yelled, pointing with his finger.
Fandorin saw a man in a short kimono and a straw hat, running fast in the direction of the promenade.
‘The evidence!’ the sergeant gasped, and smashed his great fist into the window frame. The frame went flying out into the street.
The American jumped out after it.
At the word ‘evidence’, Erast Petrovich turned to look at the desk, where the swords, the collar and the mirror had been lying only ten minutes earlier. The cloth covering of the desk was smouldering and some papers on it were still blazing. The swords were still there, but the celluloid collar had curled up into a charred tube, and the molten surface of the mirror was slowly spreading out, its surface trembling slightly.
But there was no time to contemplate this scene of destruction. The titular counsellor vaulted over the windowsill and overtook the bison-like sergeant in a few rapid bounds. He shouted:
‘What caused the fire?’
‘He’ll get away!’ Lockston growled instead of answering. ‘Let’s cut through the Star.’
The fugitive had already disappeared round a corner.
‘He came in! Into my office! He bowed!’ Lockston yelled, bursting in through the back door of the Star saloon. ‘Then suddenly there was this egg! He smashed it on the table! Smoke and flames!’
‘What do you mean, an egg?’ Fandorin yelled back.
‘I don’t know! There was a pillar of flame! And he threw himself backwards out the window! Damned ape!’
That explained the part about the ape, but Fandorin still didn’t understand about the fiery egg. The pursuers dashed though the dark little saloon and out on to the sun-drenched Bund. They glimpsed the straw hat about twenty strides ahead, manoeuvring between the passers-by with incredible agility. The ‘ape’ was rapidly pulling away from the pursuit.
‘It’s him!’ Erast Petrovich gasped, peering at the low, skinny figure. ‘I’m sure it’s him!’
A constable on duty outside a money-changing shop was cradling a short rifle in the crook of his arm.
‘What are you gawping at?’ Lockston barked. ‘Catch him!’
The constable shot off so eagerly that he overtook his boss and the vice-consul, but even he couldn’t overhaul the criminal.
The running man swerved off the promenade into an empty alley and leapt across the little bridge over the canal in a single bound. A respectable clientele was sitting under the striped awning of Le Café Parisien there. A long lanky figure jumped up from one of the tables – Lancelot Twigs.
‘Gentlemen, what’s the matter?’
Lockston just waved a hand at him. The doctor dashed after the members of the investigative group, shouting:
/> ‘But what’s happened? Who are you chasing?’
The fugitive had built up a lead of a good fifty paces, and the distance was increasing. He raced along the opposite side of the canal without looking back even once.
‘He’ll get away!’ the constable groaned. ‘That’s the native town, a genuine maze!’
He snatched a revolver out of its holster, but didn’t fire – it was a bit too far for a Colt.
‘Give me that!’
The police chief tore the carbine out of the constable’s hands, set his cheek against the butt, swung the barrel into line with the nimble fugitive and fired.
The straw hat went flying in one direction and its owner in the other. He fell, rolled over several times and stayed lying there with his arms flung out.
The people in the café started clamouring and jumping up off their chairs.
‘Right then. Phew!’ said Lockston, wiping the sweat off his face with his sleeve. ‘You’re witnesses, gentlemen. If I hadn’t fired, the criminal would have got away.’
‘An excellent shot!’ Twigs exclaimed with the air of a connoisseur.
They walked across the bridge without hurrying: the victorious sergeant with his smoking carbine at the front, followed by Fandorin and the doctor, and then the constable, with the idle public at a respectful distance.
‘If you’ve k-killed him outright, we’ll have no leads,’ Erast Petrovich said anxiously. ‘And we don’t have the fingerprints any more.’
The American shrugged.
‘What do we need them for, if we have the one who made them? I was aiming for his back. Maybe he’s alive?’
This suggestion was immediately confirmed, and in a most unexpected manner.
The man on the ground jumped to his feet as if nothing had happened and darted off along the canal at the same fast pace as before.
The public gasped. Lockston started blinking.
‘Damn me! Ain’t he a lively one!’
He raised the carbine again, but it wasn’t a new-fangled Winchester, only a single-shot Italian Vetterli. The sergeant threw the useless weapon to the constable with a curse and pulled out a Colt.
‘Here, let me!’ the doctor said eagerly. ‘You won’t hit him!’ He almost grabbed the revolver out of Lockston’s hands, then stood in the picturesque pose of a man fighting a duel and closed one eye. A shot rang out.
The fugitive fell again, this time face down.
Some people in the crowd applauded. Lockston stood there scratching his chin while his subordinate reloaded the carbine. Fandorin was the only one who ran forward.
‘Don’t be in such a hurry!’ Twigs called to stop him, and explained coolly: ‘He’s not going anywhere now. I broke his spine at the waist. Cruel, of course, but if he’s a student of those shinobi, the only way to take him alive is to paralyse him. Take your Colt, Walter. And thank the gods that at this time of the day I always take tea at the Parisien. Otherwise there’s no way …’
‘Look!’ Fandorin exclaimed.
The fallen man got up on all fours, then stood up, shook himself like a wet dog and dashed on, leaping along with huge steps.
This time no one gasped or yelled – everyone gaped in silent bewilderment.
Lockston opened fire with his revolver, but kept missing, and the doctor grabbed at his arm, trying to get him to hand over the weapon again – they had both forgotten about the second revolver on the sergeant’s belt.
Erast Petrovich quickly estimated the distance (about seventy paces, and the grey hovels of the native town were no more than a hundred away) and turned to the constable.
‘Have you loaded it? Give it to me.’
He took aim according to all the rules of marksmanship. He held his breath and aligned the sight. He made only a slight adjustment for movement – the shot was almost straight in line with the running man. One bullet, he mustn’t miss.
The enchanted fugitive’s legs were twinkling rapidly. No higher than the knees, or you might kill him, the titular counsellor told the bullet, and pressed the trigger.
Got him! The figure in the kimono fell for the third time. Only this time the pursuers didn’t stand still, they dashed forward as fast as they could.
They could see the wounded man moving, trying to get up. Then he did get up and hopped on one leg, but lost his balance and collapsed. He crept towards the water, leaving a trail of blood.
The most incredible thing of all was that he still didn’t look round even once.
When they were only about twenty paces away from the wounded man, he stopped crawling – clearly he had realised that he wouldn’t get away. He made a rapid movement – and a narrow blade glinted in the sun.
‘Quick! He’s going to cut his throat!’ the doctor shouted.
But that wasn’t what the shinobi did. He ran the blade rapidly round his face, as if he wanted to set it in an oval frame. Then he grabbed at his chin with his left hand, tugged with a dull growl – and a limp rag went flying through the air, landing at Erast Petrovich’s feet. Fandorin almost stumbled when he realised what it was – the skin of a face, trimmed and torn off; red on one side, with the other side looking like mandarin peel.
And then the man finally turned round.
In his short life, Erast Petrovich had seen many terrible things; some visions from his past still woke him at night in a cold sweat. But nothing on earth could have been more nightmarish than that crimson mask with its white circles of eyes and the grinning teeth.
‘Kongojyo!’ the lipless mouth said quietly but distinctly, opening wider and wider.
The hand with the bloody knife crept slowly up to the throat.
Only then did Fandorin think to squeeze his eyes shut. And he stood like that until the fit of nausea and dizziness passed off.
‘So that’s what “cutting off your face” means!’ he heard Dr Twigs say in an excited voice. ‘He really did cut it off, it’s not a figure of speech at all!’
Lockston reacted the most calmly of all. He leaned down over the body, which –God be praised – was lying on its stomach. Two holes in the kimono, one slightly higher, one slightly lower, exposed a glint of metal. The sergeant ripped the material apart with his finger and whistled.
‘So that’s what his magic is made of!’
Under his kimono, the dead man was wearing thin tempered-steel armour.
While Lockston explained to the doctor what had happened at the station, Fandorin stood to one side and tried in vain to still the frantic beating of his heart.
His heart was not racing because of the running, or the shooting, or even the ghastly sight of that severed face. The vice-consul had simply recalled the words that a husky woman’s voice had spoken a few minutes earlier: ‘Today you will kill a man’.
‘So Mr Fandorin was right after all,’ the doctor said with a shrug. ‘It really was an absolutely genuine ninja. I don’t know where and how he learned the secrets of their trade, but there’s no doubt about it. The steel plate that saved him from the first two bullets is called a ninja-muneate. The fire egg is a torinoko, an empty shell into which the shinobi introduce a combustible mixture through a small hole. And did you see the way he grinned before he died? I’ve come across a strange term in books about the ninja – the Final Smile – but the books didn’t explain what it was. Well now, not a very appetising sight!’
How fiercely I yearn
To smile with a carefree heart
At least at the last
EARLY PLUM RAIN
Doronin stood at the window, watching the rivulets run down the glass. ‘Baiu, plum rain,’ he said absentmindedly. ‘Somewhat early, it usually starts at the end of May.’
The vice-consul did not pursue the conversation about natural phenomena and silence set in again.
Vsevolod Vitalievich was trying to make sense of his assistant’s report. The assistant was waiting, not interrupting the thought process.
‘I tell you what,’ the consul said eventually, turning round. ‘Before I
sit down to write a report for His Excellency, let’s run thought the sequence of facts once more. I state the facts and you tell me if each point is correct or not. All right?’
‘All right.’
‘Excellent. Let’s get started. Once upon a time there was a certain party who possessed almost magical abilities. Let us call him No-Face.’ (Erast Fandorin shuddered as he recalled the ‘final smile’ of the man who had killed himself earlier in the day.) ‘Employing his inscrutable art, No-Face killed Captain Blagolepov – and so adroitly that it would have remained a dark secret, if not for a certain excessively pernickety vice-consul. A fact?’
‘An assumption.’
‘Which I would nonetheless include among the facts, in view of subsequent events. Namely: the attempt to kill your Masa, the witness to the killing. An attempt committed in a manner no less, if not even more, exotic than the murder. As you policemen say, the criminal’s signatures match. A fact?’
‘Arguably.’
‘The criminal did not succeed in eliminating Masa – that damned vice-consul interfered once again. So now, instead of one witness, there were two.’
‘Why didn’t he kill me? I was completely helpless. Even if the snake didn’t bite me, he could probably have finished me off in a thousand other ways.’
Doronin pressed his hand against his chest modestly.
‘My friend, you are forgetting that just at that moment your humble servant appeared on the scene. The murder of the consul of a great power would be a serious international scandal. There has been nothing of the kind since Griboedov’s time. On that occasion, as a sign of his contrition, the Shah of Persia presented the Tsar of Russia with the finest diamond in his crown, which weighed nine hundred carats. What do you think,’ Vsevolod Vitalievich asked brightly, ‘how many carats would they value me at? Of course, I’m not an ambassador, only a consul, but I have more diplomatic experience that Griboedov did. And precious stones are cheaper nowadays … All right, joking aside, the fact is that No-Face did not dare to kill me or did not want to. As you have already had occasion to realise, in Japan even the bandits are patriots of their homeland.’
