by Boris Akunin
He had put the lantern down on the floor, the titular counsellor guessed.
Someone standing on all fours appeared or, rather, crept into the circle of light. Narrow shoulders, gleaming black hair, the white stripe of a starched collar. A European?
The titular counsellor pulled himself up higher, so that he could put one knee on the windowsill. Just a little more, and the crack would be wide enough to get through.
But then the damned window frame did creak after all.
The light instantly went out. Abandoning caution, Fandorin pushed the window open and jumped down on to the floor, but could not move any farther than that, since he couldn’t see a thing. He held out his hand with the Herstal in it and strained his ears, listening in case his adversary was creeping up on him.
The man might be invisible now, but he was a mystery no longer. In the brief moment before the lantern went out, the hunched-over individual had looked round, and Erast Petrovich had clearly made out a brilliantined parting, a thin face with a hooked nose, and even a white flower in a buttonhole.
His Excellency Prince Onokoji, the high society spy, in person.
The titular counsellor’s precautions were apparently unnecessary. The Japanese dandy had no intention of attacking him. In fact, to judge from the absolute silence that filled the study, the prince’s trail was already cold. But that was not important now.
Fandorin put his revolver back in its holster and went to find the stairway to the first floor.
Tsurumaki listened to what the vice-consul told him and scratched the bridge of his nose. The grimace that he made suggested that the news was perplexing rather than surprising. He cursed in Japanese and started complaining:
‘Oh, these aristocrats … he lives under my roof, occupies an entire wing, I pay him a pension of five thousand a month, and it’s still not enough. And I know, I know that he deals in secrets and rumours on the side. I use him myself sometimes, for a separate fee. But this is just too much. Our little prince must be completely mired in debt. Ah!’ The fat man sighed mournfully. ‘If his late father were not my onjin, I’d tell him to go to hell. He’s trying to get to my safe.’
Erast Petrovich was astounded by such a phlegmatic response.
‘I truly admire the Japanese attitude to a debt of gratitude, but it seems to m-me that everything has its limits.’
‘Never mind,’ said the Don, with a flourish of his briar pipe. ‘He can’t open the safe in any case. He needs the key for that, and the key is here, I always keep it with me.’
He pulled a little chain up from behind his shirt collar. There was a little gold rose with a thorny stem hanging on it.
‘A beautiful trinket, eh? You hold the bud, put it in, the thorns slip into the slots … There you have it, the “Open sesame” to my magical Aladdin’s cave.’
Tsurumaki kissed the little key and put it away again.
‘Don’t they scratch?’ asked Fandorin. ‘I mean the thorns.’
‘Of course they scratch, and quite painfully too. But it’s the kind of pain that only makes life seem sweeter,’ the millionaire said with a wink. ‘It reminds me of the glittering little stones and the gold ingots. I can bear it.’
‘You keep gold and precious stones at home? But why? There are b-bank vaults for that.’
‘I know. I have a bank of my own. With strong, armour-plated vaults. But we blood-sucking spiders prefer to keep our booty in our own web. All the best to you, Fandorin-san. Thank you for the curious information.’
The titular counsellor took his leave, feeling rather piqued: he had wanted to be a rescuer, and instead he had ended up as an informer. But he went outside, looked in the direction of the pavilion hovering over the smooth black surface of the pond, and felt such a keen, overwhelming rush of happiness that his paltry disappointment was instantly forgotten.
However, the ‘taut bowstring’ reverberated not only in bliss, and not all the arrows that it fired went darting up into the starry sky. A certain poignantly distressful note, some kind of poisoned needle, blighted Erast Petrovich’s happiness. At night he had no time for suffering, because love lives only in the here and now, but when he was far from O-Yumi, in his solitude, Fandorin thought of only one thing.
At their first lover’s tryst, as he kissed O-Yumi on her delightfully protruding little ear, he had suddenly caught a very faint whiff of tobacco smoke – English pipe tobacco. He had pulled away, about to ask the question – but he didn’t ask it. What for? So that she would lie? So that she would answer: ‘No, no, it’s all over between him and me’? Or so that she would tell the truth and make it impossible for them to carry on meeting?
Afterwards he had been tormented by his own cowardice. During the day he prepared an entire speech, made ready to tell her that things couldn’t go on like this, that it was stupid, cruel, unnatural and, in the final analysis, humiliating! She had to leave Bullcox once and for all. He tried a couple of times to start this conversation, but she simply repeated: ‘You don’t understand. Don’t ask me about anything. I can’t tell you the truth, and I don’t want to lie.’ And then she set her hands and lips to work, and he surrendered, and forgot everything else in the world, only to suffer the same resentment and jealousy the next day.
Consul Doronin could undoubtedly see that something out of the ordinary was happening to his assistant, but he didn’t ask any questions. Poor Vsevolod Vitalievich was certain that Fandorin was conducting the investigation at night, and he kept his word, he didn’t interfere. Sometimes the titular counsellor’s conscience bothered him because of this, but it bothered him far less than the smell of English tobacco.
On the sixth night (which was also the second one spent in the pavilion without his beloved) the vice-consul’s suffering reached its highest point. Strictly forbidding himself to think about the reason why O-Yumi had not been able to come this time, Erast Petrovich called on logic to help: if there is a difficult problem, a solution has to be found – what could possibly be easier for a devotee of analytical theory?
And what was the result? A solution was found immediately, and it was so simple, so obvious, that Fandorin was amazed at his own blindness.
He waited for the evening, arrived at the pavilion earlier than usual and, as soon as he heard O-Yumi’s footsteps approaching, he ran out to meet her.
‘What a b-blockhead I am!’ Erast Petrovich declared, taking hold of her hand. ‘You don’t have to be afraid of Bullcox. We’ll get married. You’ll be the wife of a Russian subject, and that man won’t be able to do anything to you!’
The offer of his heart and his hand was greeted in a most surprising fashion.
O-Yumi burst into laughter, as if she had heard a not very clever but terribly funny joke. She kissed the titular counsellor on the nose.
‘Don’t be silly. We can’t be husband and wife.’
‘But why n-not? Because I’m a diplomat? Then I’ll resign! Because you’re afraid of Bullcox? I’ll challenge him to a duel and kill him! Or, if … if you feel sorry for him, we’ll just go away from here!’
‘That’s not the problem,’ she said patiently, as if she were talking to a child. ‘That’s not it at all.’
‘Then what is?’
‘Look at that left eyebrow of yours. It runs in a semicircle, like that … And higher up, right here, there’s the start of a little wrinkle. You can’t see it yet, but it will show through in five years or so.’
‘What has a wrinkle got to do with anything?’ asked Erast Petrovich, melting at her touch.
‘It tells me that you will be loved by very many women, and I probably wouldn’t like that … And then this slightly lowered corner of the mouth, it testifies that you will not get married again before the age of sixty.’
‘Don’t make fun of me, I’m really serious! We’ll get married and go away. Would you like to go to America? Or New Zealand? Lockston has been there, he says it’s the most beautiful place on earth.’
‘I’m serious too,’ said O
-Yumi, taking his hand and running it over her temple. ‘Can you feel where the vein is? A soon and a quarter from the edge of the eye. That means I shall never marry. And then I have a mole, here …’
She parted the edges of her kimono to expose her breasts.
‘Yes, I know. And what does that signify, according to the science of ninso?’ Fandorin asked and, unable to resist, he leaned down and kissed the mole under her collarbone.
‘I can’t tell you that. But please, don’t talk to me again about marriage, or about Algie.’
There was no smile in her eyes any more – a stark, sad shadow flitted though them.
Erast Petrovich could not tell what hurt the most: that name ‘Algie’, the firmness of the refusal, or the absolutely ludicrous nature of the reasons cited.
‘She has turned me into a halfwitted infant …’ – the thought flashed briefly through Fandorin’s mind. He remembered how Doronin had recently said to him: ‘What’s happening to you, my dear boy? You grow fresher and younger before my very eyes. When you arrived, you looked about thirty, but now you look your real age of twenty-two, even with those grey temples. The Japanese climate and dangerous adventures clearly agree with you.’
Speaking quickly, almost babbling in order not to give himself time to come to his senses, he blurted out:
‘If that is how things are, we shan’t meet any more. Not until you leave him.’
He said it – and bit his lip, so that he couldn’t take back what he had said straight away.
She looked into his eyes without speaking. Realising that he wouldn’t hear anything else, she dropped her head. She pulled the lowered kimono back up on to her shoulders and slowly walked out of the pavilion.
Fandorin did not stop her, he did not call out, he did not even watch her go.
He was brought round by a pain in the palms of his hands. He raised his hands to his eyes and stared in bewilderment at the drops of blood, not realising straight away that the marks were made by his fingernails.
‘So that’s all,’ the titular counsellor told himself. ‘Better this than become a complete nobody. Farewell, my golden dreams.’
He jinxed himself: there really were no more dreams, because there was no sleep. On arriving home, Erast Petrovich undressed and got into bed, but he couldn’t fall asleep. He lay on his side, looking at the wall. He could hardly even see it at first – just a vague greyness in the gloom; and then, as dawn approached, the wall started turning white and faint blotches appeared on it; and then they condensed into rosebuds; and then, after everything else, the sun glanced in at the window, kindling the gilded lines of the painted roses into life.
He had to get up.
Erast Petrovich decided to live as if everything in the world was arranged serenely and meaningfully – it was the only way he could counter the chaos swirling in his soul. He performed his daily weights exercises and respiratory gymnastics, then learned from Masa how to kick a spool of thread off the pillar of the bed, bruising his foot quite painfully in the process.
The physical exercise and the pain were both helpful, they made it easier to focus his will. Fandorin felt that he was on the right path.
He changed into a stripy tricot and set off on his usual morning run – to the park, then twenty circuits along the alley around the cricket field.
His neighbours on the Bund, mostly Anglo-Saxons and Americans, were already accustomed to the Russian vice-consul’s whims, and on seeing the striped figure swinging its elbows rhythmically, they merely raised their hats in greeting. Erast Petrovich nodded and ran on, focusing on counting his out-breaths. Today he found it harder to run than usual, his breathing simply refused to settle into an even rhythm. Clenching his teeth stubbornly, the titular counsellor speeded up.
… Eight, nine, three hundred and twenty; one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, three hundred and thirty; one, two, three, four …
Despite the early hour, there was already activity on the cricket pitch: the Athletics Club team was preparing for the Japan Cup competition – the sportsmen were taking turns to throw the ball at the stumps and then dash as quickly as they could to the other end of the wicket.
Fandorin did not get round the pitch. Halfway through his first circuit someone called his name.
There in the thick bushes was Inspector Asagawa, looking pale and drawn, with his eyes blazing feverishly – looking, in fact, very much like Erast Petrovich.
The vice-consul glanced around to see whether anyone was watching.
Apparently not. The players were engrossed in their training, and there was no one else in the park. The titular counsellor ducked into the acacia thickets.
‘Well?’ the inspector asked, pouncing on Fandorin without so much as a ‘hello’ or ‘how are you’. ‘I’ve been waiting for a week already. I can’t bear it any longer. Do you know that yesterday Suga was appointed the intendant of police? The old intendant was dismissed for failing to protect the minister … I am burning up inside. I cannot eat, I cannot sleep. Have you thought of anything?’
Erast Petrovich felt ashamed. He could not eat or sleep either, but for a completely different reason. He had not remembered Asagawa even once during the last few days.
‘No, n-not yet …’
The inspector’s shoulders slumped dejectedly, as if he had been deprived of his last hope.
‘Yes, of course …’ he said morosely. ‘In your European terms there is nothing to be done here. No clues, no evidence, no witnesses.’ He turned even paler and shook his head decisively. ‘Well, so be it. If we cannot do it in the European away, I shall act in the Japanese way.’
‘What is “the Japanese way”?’
‘I shall write a letter to His Majesty the Emperor, expounding all my suspicions concerning Intendant Suga. And I shall kill myself to prove my sincerity.’
‘Kill yourself? Not Suga?’ exclaimed Fandorin, dumbfounded.
‘To kill Suga would not be to punish a criminal, but to commit a new crime. We have an ancient, noble tradition. If you wish to attract the attention of the authorities and the public to some villainy – commit seppuku. A deceitful man will not cut his stomach open.’ Asagawa’s eyes were inflamed and melancholy. ‘But if only you knew, Fandorin-san, how terrible it is to commit seppuku without a second, without someone who will put an end to your suffering with a merciful sword-stroke! Unfortunately, I have no one to turn to with this request, my colleagues will never agree. I am entirely alone …’ Suddenly he started and seized the vice-consul’s arm. ‘Perhaps you? Only one stroke! I have a long neck, it will not be hard to hit it!’
Fandorin recoiled and exclaimed:
‘G-good Lord Almighty! I have never even held a sword!’
‘Only one stroke! I will teach you. If you practise for an hour with a bamboo pole, you will manage it perfectly. I implore you. Do me this invaluable service!’
Seeing the expression on the other man’s face, the inspector broke off and took himself in hand with an effort.
‘All right,’ he said in a dull voice. ‘I am sorry for asking you. It was weakness. I am very ashamed.’
But Erast Petrovich was feeling even more ashamed. There were so many things in the world that were more important than wounded vanity, jealousy or an unhappy love! For instance, the aspiration to truth and justice. Moral integrity. Self-sacrifice in the name of justice.
‘Listen,’ the titular counsellor began agitatedly, squeezing the inspector’s slack arm. ‘You are an intelligent, modern, educated individual. What sort of barbarity is this – slicing your own stomach open! It’s a throwback to the Middle Ages! But the end of the nineteenth century is already in sight! I swear to you that we will think of something!’
But Asagawa would not listen to him.
‘I cannot live like this. As a European, you cannot understand this. Let there be no second! I shall not feel the pain. On the contrary, I shall free the pain that is burning me up inside. This villain has betrayed a great man who tru
sted him! He has kicked me aside with his boot, like a lump of mud! And now he is revelling in his victory. I cannot stand by and see villainy triumph. The criminal Suga is the head of the police! He is admiring himself in the mirror in his new uniform, he is moving into his new estate at Takarazaka! He is certain that the entire world is at his feet! This is intolerable!’
Erast Petrovich wrinkled up his forehead. Takarazaka? He had heard that name before somewhere.
‘What estate is th-that?’
‘A truly fine estate close to the capital. Suga won it at cards a few days ago. Oh, he is so lucky, his karma is strong!’
And then Fandorin remembered the conversation he had overheard in Bullcox’s study. ‘Well now, Onokoji, that is very Japanese,’ the Englishman had said. ‘To reprimand someone, and then reward him with promotion a week later.’ And the prince had replied: ‘This, my dear Algernon, is not a reward, he is merely occupying a position that has fallen vacant. But he will receive a reward, for doing the job so neatly. He will be given the suburban estate of Takarazaka. Ah, what plum trees there are there! What ponds!’
‘What’s wrong with you?’ the inspector asked, gazing at Fandorin in surprise.
The vice-consul replied slowly:
‘I think I know what to do. You and I have no evidence, but perhaps we will have a witness. Or at least an informer. There is someone who knows the true background to the murder.’
And Fandorin told Asagawa about the wily dandy who traded in others’ secrets. Asagawa listened avidly, like a condemned man listening to the announcement of his own reprieve.
‘Onokoji said that Suga had “done the job neatly”? Then the prince really does know a lot!’
‘More than you and I know, in any case. But the most interesting question is who rewarded the new intendant with such a generous gift. Is it possible to find out who the estate belonged to before?’
‘One of the deposed Shogun’s relatives. But Takarazaka was put up for bidding a long time ago. Anyone at all could have bought it and lost it straight away at cards. We shall find out, it is not difficult.’
