The Diamond Chariot

by Boris Akunin

  They stopped to catch their breath only when they were already out of the ‘quarter of shame’. Rikshas ran along the street, the decorous public strolled along the lines of shop windows and the cobbled road leading down to the river was brightly illuminated by gas lamps – twilight had descended on the city.

  And here the titular counsellor was beset by a triple ordeal.

  The example was set by the spinster Blagolepova. She embraced him passionately round the neck (in so doing, striking him a painful blow on the back with the bundle containing the captain’s legacy) and watered his cheek with tears of gratitude. The young man was called ‘a saviour’, ‘a hero’, ‘an angel’ and even ‘a darling’.

  And that was only the beginning.

  While Fandorin, dumbstruck by that ‘darling’, comforted the lady by cautiously stroking her heaving shoulders, Shirota waited patiently. But the moment Erast Petrovich freed himself from the maiden’s embraces, the clerk bowed to him, almost right down to the ground, and froze in that position.

  ‘Good Lord, Shirota, now what are you doing?’

  ‘I am ashamed that there are people like Semushi in Japan,’ the clerk said in a flat voice. ‘And this on the day of your arrival! What must you think of us!’

  Fandorin was about to explain to this patriot that there were very many bad people in Russia too, and he knew very well that a people should be judged by its best representatives, not its worst, but then the vice-consul was struck by another blow.

  The plump-faced bandit stopped glancing round repeatedly at the bridge, panted, dropped at Erast Petrovich’s feet and suddenly started banging his firm forehead against the road!

  ‘He is thanking you for saving his honour and his life,’ Shirota translated.

  ‘Please tell him that his gratitude is accepted and to get up quickly,’ the titular counsellor said nervously, glancing round at the people in the street.

  The bandit got up and bowed from the waist.

  ‘He says that he is a soldier of the honourable Chobei-gumi gang, which no longer exists.’

  Fandorin found the term ‘honourable gang’ so intriguing that he said:

  ‘Ask him to tell me about himself.’

  ‘Hai, kashikomarimashita,’1 said the ‘soldier’, bowing once again, and then, with his arms pressed to his sides, he began reporting in true military style, his eyes staring fixedly at the superior officer whose role Erast Petrovich was playing.

  ‘He comes from a family of hereditary machi-yakko and is very proud of it. (These are also noble Yakuza, who defend little people against the tyranny of the authorities. Well, and they also collect tribute from them, of course),’ said Shirota, mingling translation with comment. ‘His father had only two fingers on his hand. (That is a Yakuza custom: if a bandit has committed some offence and wishes to apologise to the gang, he cuts off a section of a finger.) He himself, of course, does not remember his father – he has heard about him from other people. His mother also came from a respected family, her entire body was covered in tattoos, right down to the knees. When he was three years old, his father escaped from jail, hid in a lighthouse and sent word to his wife – she worked in a teahouse. His mother tied the child to her back and hurried to join her husband at the lighthouse, but she was followed and the warders of the jail were informed. They surrounded the lighthouse. His father did not wish to return to jail. He stabbed his wife in the heart and himself in the throat. He wanted to kill his little son too, but could not do it, and simply threw him into the sea. However, karma did not allow the child to drown – he was fished out and taken to an orphanage.’

  ‘Why, what a b-brute his dear papa was!’ Erast Petrovich exclaimed, dumbfounded.

  Shirota was surprised.

  ‘Why a brute?’

  ‘Well, he killed his own wife and threw his own s-son off a cliff!’

  ‘I assure you that he would not have killed his own wife for anything, unless she had asked him to do it. They did not wish to be parted, their love was stronger than death. This is very beautiful.’

  ‘But what has this to do with the infant?’

  ‘Here in Japan we take a different view of this matter, I beg your pardon,’ the clerk replied severely. ‘The Japanese are conscientious people. Parents are responsible for their child, especially if he is very young. The world is so cruel! How is it possible to cast a defenceless creature to the whim of fate? It is simply inhuman! A family should hold together and not be separated. The most touching thing about this story is that the father could not bring himself to stab his little son with a knife …’

  While this dialogue was taking place between the vice-consul and his assistant, the titch engaged Sophia Diogenovna in conversation and asked some question that made the spinster sob and burst into bitter tears.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Fandorin exclaimed without hearing Shirota out. ‘Has this bandit offended you? What did he say to you?’

  ‘No-o,’ Blagolepova sniffed. ‘He asked … he asked how my esteemed father was ge-ge-getting on.’

  Once again moisture gushed from the young lady’s eyes – apparently her tear glands produced it in genuinely unlimited amounts.

  ‘Did he really know your father?’ Erast Petrovich asked in surprise.

  Sophia Diogenovna blew her nose into the wet handkerchief and was unable to reply, so Shirota readdressed the question to the Yakuza.

  ‘No, he did not have the honour of being acquainted with the yellow-haired lady’s father, but last night he saw her come to the “Rakuen” for her parent. He was a very sociable man. Opium makes some people fall asleep but others, on the contrary, become merry and talkative. The old captain was never quiet for a moment, he was always talking, talking.’

  ‘What did he talk about?’ Fandorin asked absentmindedly, taking out his watch.

  A quarter to eight. If he had to go to this notorious Bachelors’ Ball with the consul, it would be a good idea to take a bath and tidy himself up first.

  ‘About how he took three passengers to Tokyo, to the Susaki mooring. How he waited for them there and then brought them back. They spoke the Satsuma dialect. They thought the gaijin would not understand, but the captain had been sailing Japanese waters for a long time and had learned to understand all the dialects. The Satsuma men had long bundles with them, and there were swords in the bundles, he made out one of the hilts. Very odd, covered with kamiyasuri …’ – at this point Shirota hesitated, unsure of how to translate this difficult word. ‘Kamiyasuri is a kind of paper, covered all over in particles of glass. It is used to make the surface of wood smooth …’

  ‘Glasspaper?’

  ‘Yes, yes indeed! Glasspaper,’ said Shirota, repeating the word so that he would not forget it again.

  ‘But how can a sword hilt be covered with glasspaper? It would lacerate your palm.’

  ‘Of course, it is not possible,’ the Japanese agreed, ‘but I am merely translating.’

  He told the Yakuza to continue.

  ‘Those men said very bad things about Minister Okubo, they called him Inu-Okubo, that is “the Dog Okubo”. One of them, a man with a withered arm who was their leader, said: “Never mind, he will not get away from us tomorrow”. And when the captain brought them back to Yokohama, they told him to be at the same place tomorrow an hour before dawn and paid him a good advance. The captain told everyone who was nearby about this. And he said he would sit there for a little longer and then go to the police and they would give him a big reward for saving the minister from the plotters.’

  As he translated the bandit’s story Shirota frowned more and more darkly.

  ‘This is very alarming information,’ he explained. ‘Former samurai from the principality of Satsuma hate their fellow Satsuman. They regard him as a traitor.’

  They started asking the titch about this, but he laughed and waved his hand disdainfully.

  ‘He says this is all nonsense. The captain was totally sizzled with opium, he was tripping over his own tongue. He mu
st have imagined it. Where would Satsuma samurai get the money to pay for a steam launch? They are all ragged tramps. If they wanted to kill the minister, they would walk to Tokyo. And then, who has ever heard of covering the hilt of a sword with glasspaper? The old gaijin simply wanted people to listen to him, so he spun a tall story.’

  Erast Petrovich and Shirota exchanged glances.

  ‘Right, get him to tell us all the d-details. What else did the captain say? Did anything happen to him?’

  The Yakuza was surprised that his story had aroused such great interest, but he was diligent in his reply.

  ‘He didn’t say anything else. Only about the reward. He kept going to sleep, then waking up and talking about the same thing. He probably really did carry some passengers, but as for the swords, they were an opium dream, everybody said so. And nothing unusual happened to the captain. He sat there until dawn, then suddenly got up and left.’

  ‘Suddenly? Exactly how d-did it happen?’ enquired Fandorin, who did not like this story about the mysterious samurai at all – especially in the light of Blagolepov’s sudden demise.

  ‘He simply got up and left.’

  ‘For no reason at all?’

  The Yakuza started thinking hard.

  ‘The captain was sitting there, dozing. With his back to the room. I think someone walked past behind him and woke him. Yes, yes! Some old man, totally doped. He staggered and swung his arm and caught the captain on the neck. The captain woke up and swore at the old man. Then he said: “Boss, I’m not feeling too well, I’ll be going”. And he left.’

  When he finished translating, Shirota added on his own behalf:

  ‘No, Mr Titular Counsellor, there’s nothing suspicious in that. The captain must have felt a pain in his heart. He got as far as his home and then died there.’

  Erast Petrovich did not respond to this piece of deduction, but a slight narrowing of his eyes suggested that he was not entirely satisfied with it.

  ‘His hand caught his neck?’ he murmured thoughtfully.

  ‘What?’ asked Shirota, who had not heard.

  ‘What is this bandit going to do now? His gang has been massacred, after all,’ Fandorin asked, but without any great interest: he simply did not wish to let the clerk know what he was thinking for the time being.

  The bandit replied briefly and vigorously.

  ‘He says he is going to thank you.’

  The determined tone in which these words were spoken put the titular counsellor on his guard.

  ‘What does he mean by that?’

  Shirota explained with obvious approval:

  ‘Now you are his onjin for the rest of his life. Unfortunately, there is no such word in the Russian language.’ He thought for moment. ‘Benefactor to the grave. Can one say that?’

  ‘To the g-grave?’ Fandorin said with a shudder.

  ‘Yes, to the very grave. And he is your debtor to the grave. For not only did you save him from death, you also spared him indelible disgrace. For that, it is our custom to pay with supreme gratitude, even with our very life itself.’

  ‘What would I want with his life? Tell him “don’t mention it”, or whatever it is you say, and let him go on his way.’

  ‘When people say those words with such sincerity, they do not go on their own way,’ Shirota said reproachfully. ‘He says that from now on, you are his master. Wherever you go, he goes.’

  The titch gave a low bow and stuck his little finger up in the air, which seemed rather impolite to Erast Petrovich.

  ‘Well, what does he say? Why does he not leave?’ asked the young Russian.

  ‘He will not leave. His oyabun has been killed, and so he has decided to devote his life to serving you. In proof of his sincerity, he offers to cut off his little finger.’

  ‘Oh, let him go to the d-devil!’ Fandorin exclaimed indignantly. ‘Tell him to hop it.’

  The clerk did not dare argue with the annoyed vice-consul and started translating, but then stopped short.

  ‘In Japanese it is not possible to say simply “hop”, you have to explain where to.’

  If not for the presence of a lady, Fandorin would gladly have provided the precise address, since his patience was running out – his first day in Japan had proved exhausting in the extreme.

  ‘Hop down the hill, like a grasshopper,’ said Fandorin, gesturing towards the waterfront with one hand.

  A look of puzzlement flashed across the titch’s face, but immediately disappeared.

  ‘Kashikomarimashita,’ he said, and nodded.

  He gathered himself, raised one foot off the ground and hopped off down the slope.

  Erast Petrovich frowned. The blockhead could slip and break his leg on those cobbles. But damn him anyway, the vice-consul had more important business.

  ‘Tell me, Shirota, can you recommend a reliable doctor, capable of performing an autopsy?’

  ‘Reliable? Yes, I know a very reliable doctor. His name is Mr Lancelot Twigs. He is a sincere man.’

  A rather strange recommendation for a medical man, thought the vice-consul.

  From down below came a regular thudding, gradually growing more rapid – it was Fandorin’s debtor to the grave hopping down the cobbled street like a grasshopper.

  Bruises will they bring,

  the roadway’s rough cobblestones.

  Honour’s path is hard.

  1 I obey (Japanese)

  A PERFECTLY HEALTHY CORPSE

  ‘I don’t understand a thing,’ said Dr Lancelot Twigs, peeling off the gloves covered in brownish-red spots and pulling the sheet up over the lacerated body. ‘The heart, liver and lungs are in perfect order. There’s no sign of any haemorrhaging in the brain – there was no need for me to saw open the brainpan. God grant every man such excellent health after the age of fifty.’

  Fandorin glanced round at the door behind which Sophia Diogenovna had remained in Shirota’s care. The doctor had a loud voice, and the anatomical details he had mentioned might induce another outburst of hysterical sobbing. But then, how would this simple young woman know English?

  The autopsy had taken place in the bedroom. They had simply removed the skinny mattress from the wooden bed, spread out oiled paper on the planks, and the doctor had set about his joyless task. Erast Petrovich had played the role of his assistant, holding a lantern and turning it this way and that, following the doctor’s instructions. At the same time, he himself tried to look away, so that he would not – God forbid! – collapse in a faint at the appalling sight. That is, when the doctor said: ‘Just take a look at that magnificent stomach!’ or ‘What a bladder! I wish I had one like that! Just look at it, will you!’, Fandorin turned round, he even nodded and grunted in agreement, but sensibly kept his eyes tightly shut. The smell alone was quite sufficient for the titular counsellor. It seemed as if this torture would never end.

  The doctor was elderly and staid, but at the same time exceptionally talkative. His faded blue eyes had a genial glow to them. He had carried out his job conscientiously, from time to time running one hand over a bald spot surrounded by a faint halo of gingerish hair. But when it emerged that the cause of Captain Blagolepov’s death simply refused to be clarified, Twigs became excited, and the sweat started flowing freely across his bald cranium.

  After one hour, two minutes and forty-five seconds (the exhausted Erast Petrovich had been timing things with his watch) Twigs finally capitulated.

  ‘I am obliged to state that this is a perfectly healthy corpse. This was a heroically robust organism, especially when one considers the protracted use by the deceased of the dried lacteal juice of the seed cases of Papaver somniferum. Nothing, apart perhaps from traces of tobacco resins ingrained in the throat and a slight darkening of the lungs – here, see?’ (Without even looking, Erast Petrovich said: ‘Oh, yes’.) ‘He has the heart of an ox. And it suddenly goes and stops, for no reason at all. I’ve never seen anything like it. You should have seen my poor Jenny’s heart.’ Twigs sighed. ‘The muscles w
ere like threadbare rags. When I opened up the thoracic cavity, I simple wept for pity. The poor soul had a really bad heart, the second birth wore it out completely.’

  Erast Petrovich already knew that Jenny was the doctor’s deceased wife and that he had decided to perform her autopsy in person, because both of his daughters also had weak hearts, like their mother, and he needed to take a look to see what the problem was – ailments of that kind were often inherited. It turned out to be a moderately severe prolapse of the bicuspid valve and, possessing that important piece of information, the doctor had been able to arrange the proper treatment for his adored little ones. Fandorin listened to this amazing story, not knowing whether he should feel admiration or horror.

  ‘Did you check the cervical vertebrae carefully?’ Erast Petrovich asked, not for the first time. ‘As I said, he might have been struck on the neck, from behind.’

  ‘There’s no trauma. Not even a bruise. Only a little red spot just below the base of the skull, as if from a slight burn. But it’s quite out of the question for a trifle like that to have any serious consequences. Perhaps there was no blow?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said the young man, already regretting that he had started this rigmarole of the autopsy. Who knew what might stop the heart of an inveterate opium addict?

  The dead man’s clothing was hanging on a chair. Erast Petrovich looked thoughtfully at the badly worn back of the tunic, the patched shirt with the buttoned collar – the very cheapest kind, celluloid. And suddenly he leaned down.

  ‘There was no blow as such, but there was a touch!’ he exclaimed. ‘Look, right here, the imprint left by a f-finger. Although it could have been Blagolepov’s own hand,’ the vice-consul added disappointedly. ‘He was fastening his collar, and he took a grip …’