by Boris Akunin
The day was spent in preparation. Asagawa went to the police department, supposedly on official business, but really with one very simple goal: he filed down the tongue of the bolt on the window of the toilet. The titular counsellor prepared his outfit for the nocturnal adventure – he bought a costume mask and a close-fitting black fencing costume, and smeared his rubber-soled gymnastic shoes with boot polish.
He tried to catch up on his sleep, but he couldn’t.
When it started to get dark, he sent Masa to the Grand Hotel for the evening paper so that he wouldn’t follow him, and hurried to catch the last train.
He and the inspector travelled in the same carriage, but they sat at opposite ends and didn’t look at each other.
Looking out of the window at the lights drifting by in the darkness, Fandorin was surprised at himself. Why had he got mixed up in this wild adventure? What had made him gamble with his own honour and the honour of his country like this? It was terrible to think what the consequences would be if he, the Russian vice-consul, were caught at night in the office of the intendant of police. What made it worth taking such a risk? The chance to expose a scheming local official who was responsible for the death of another local official? Why, damn the lot of them!
The interests of Russia require it, Fandorin tried to convince himself rather uncertainly. By bringing down Suga, I shall strike a blow at a party hostile to the interests of my Homeland.
He was not convinced. After all, he himself had always said that no interests of the Homeland (at least, its geopolitical interests) could be more important than personal honour and dignity. A most honourable activity, this was – to go rifling through other people’s secret hiding places, dressed up like a chimney sweep.
Then he tried to justify things differently, from Asagawa’s point of view. There was such a thing as Justice, and also Truth, which it was the duty of every noble man to defend. One could not allow infamous acts to be committed with impunity. By conniving at them or washing one’s hands of the matter, one became an accomplice, you insulted your own soul and God.
But for all their grandeur, these highly moral considerations somehow failed to touch the titular counsellor very deeply. It was not a matter of defending Justice. After all, in weaving his plot, Suga could have been guided by his own ideas of Truth, which differed from Fandorin’s. In any case, there was no point in Erast Petrovich deceiving himself – he had not embarked on this nocturnal escapade for the sake of words that were written with a capital letter.
He rummaged about inside himself for a bit longer and finally came up with the right reason. Fandorin did not like it, for it was simple, unromantic and even ignominious.
I could not have borne one more sleepless night waiting for a woman who is never going to come again, the titular counsellor told himself honestly. Anything at all, any kind of folly, but not that.
And when the locomotive hooted as it approached the final station of Nihombasi, the vice-consul suddenly thought: I’m poisoned. My brain and my heart have been affected by a slow-acting venom. That is the only possible explanation.
And after thinking that, he calmed down immediately, as if now everything had fallen into place.
While there were still passers-by on the streets, Erast Petrovich maintained his distance from his partner. He walked along with the air of an idle tourist, casually swinging the briefcase that contained his spy’s outfit.
But soon they reached the governmental office district, where there were no people, because office hours had finished ages ago. The titular counsellor cut down the distance until he was almost walking in tandem with the inspector. From time to time Asagawa explained something in a low voice.
‘You see the white building at the far side of the bridge? That is the Tokyo Municipal Court. It’s only a stone’s throw from the department.’
Fandorin saw a white three-storey palace in the European Mauritanian style – rather frivolous for an institution of the judiciary. Behind it he could see a high wooden fence.
‘Over there?’
‘Yes. The estate of the princes Matsudaira used to be there. We won’t go as far as the gates, there’s a sentry.’
A narrow alley ran off to the left. Asagawa looked round, waved his hand, and the accomplices ducked into the dark, crevice-like passage.
They got changed quickly. The inspector also put on something black and close fitting, tied a kerchief round his head and muffled the lower half of his face in a rag.
‘This is exactly how the shinobi dress,’ he whispered with a nervous giggle. ‘Right, forward!’
They gained entrance to the site of the department very easily: Asagawa folded his hands into a stirrup, Fandorin set his foot in it and in an instant he was on top of the fence. Then he helped the inspector to scramble up. The police obviously didn’t have enough imagination to believe that miscreants might take it into their heads to break into the holy of holies of law and order voluntarily. In any case, there was no one patrolling the yard – just a figure in a uniform and cap over on the right, striding to and fro at the main entrance.
Asagawa moved quickly and confidently. Hunching over, he ran across to a low building in a pseudo-Japanese style, then along the white wall, past a long series of blank windows. The inspector stopped beside the window at the corner.
‘I think this is the one. Help me up.’
He put his arms round Fandorin’s neck, then stepped on the vice-consul’s half-bent knee with one foot, put the other on his shoulder, and grabbed hold of the window frame. He scraped with something, clicked something, and the small windowpane opened. Asagawa pulled himself up and seemed to be sucked into the black rectangle, so that only the lower half of his body was left outside. Then that disappeared into the window as well, and a few seconds later the large windowpane opened silently.
For form’s sake, before entering the building Erast Petrovich noted the time: seventeen minutes past eleven.
The arrangement of the Japanese toilet looked strange to him: a row of low cubicles that could only conceal a seated man up to the shoulders.
Fandorin discovered Asagawa in one of the wooden cells.
‘I advise you to relieve yourself,’ the black head with the strip of white for the eyes said in a perfectly natural tone of voice. ‘It is helpful before hazardous work. To prevent any trembling of the hara.’
Erast Petrovich thanked him politely, but declined. His hara was not trembling at all, he was simply oppressed by the melancholy presentiment that this business would not end well. Nonsensical thoughts about the next day’s newspaper headlines kept drifting into his mind, as they had done on that other memorable night: ‘RUSSIAN DIPLOMAT A SPY’, ‘OFFICIAL NOTE FROM JAPANESE GOVERNMENT TO RUSSIAN EMPIRE’ and even ‘JAPAN AND RUSSIA BREAK OFF DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS’.
‘Will you be much longer?’ the vice-consul asked impatiently. ‘It’s twenty-three minutes past eleven. The nights are short now.’
From the toilet they crept down a long, dark corridor, Asagawa on his twisted-straw sandals and Fandorin on his rubber soles. The department of police was sleeping peacefully. That’s what a low level of crime does for you, thought the titular counsellor, not without a twinge of envy. Along the way they encountered only a single office with a light burning, where some kind of night work seemed to be going on, and once a duty officer carrying a candle came out from round a corner. He yawned as he walked past, without even noticing the two black figures pressed back against the wall.
‘We’re here,’ Asagawa whispered, stopping in front of a tall double door.
He put a piece of metal into the keyhole (an ordinary picklock, Erast Petrovich noted), turned it and the accomplices found themselves in a spacious room: a row of chairs along the walls, a secretary’s desk, another door in the far corner. It was clearly the reception area. Consul Doronin had told Fandorin that six years earlier there had been a great bureaucratic reform. The functionaries had all been dressed in uniforms instead of kimonos and for
ced to sit on chairs, not on the floor. The bureaucracy had almost rebelled at first, but had gradually got accustomed to it. What a shame. It must have been very picturesque before. Imagine arriving at a government office, and the heads of department and clerks and secretaries are all dressed in robes and sitting there cross-legged. Fandorin sighed, lamenting the gradual displacement of the variety of life by European order. In a hundred years’ time everything would be the same everywhere, you wouldn’t be able to tell whether you were in Russia or Siam. How boring.
The room located beyond the reception area was also not in any way remarkable. An ordinary office of some important individual. One broad, short desk, and beyond it a long narrow table. Two armchairs on one side, for official conversations with important visitors. Bookshelves with codes of laws. A photographic portrait of the emperor hanging in the most prominent position. The only unusual thing, from the Japanese point of view, was the crucifixion hanging beside the image of the earthly ruler. Ah, yes, Suga was a Christian, he had a cross hanging round his neck too.
A fine follower of Christ, thought Erast Petrovich, shaking his head, but immediately felt ashamed: As if our own lovers of God don’t betray or kill.
Asagawa closed the curtains more tightly, lit an oil lamp and walked up to the titular counsellor. He seemed excited, almost triumphant.
‘I don’t know if we’ll find the hiding place or how all this will end, so I will say now what I must say. I should have come here alone. This is our Japanese business. My business. But I am very grateful to you, Fandorin-san, for volunteering to keep me company. I have more faith in your acumen than I do in my own. Without you, I would almost certainly not find the lever, but you are cunning. Almost as cunning as Intendant Suga.’
Erast Petrovich bowed ceremoniously, but the inspector did not understand the irony. He bowed in reply, only more deeply.
‘Do not think I do not understand how much more exalted your sacrifice is than mine. If we are caught, what is that to me, I shall merely take my life and bring disgrace on the clan of Asagawa, which has served the law honestly for two and a half centuries. But you will disgrace your country and your state. You are a very brave man, Fandorin-san.’
They exchanged bows again, this time without even a hint of playfulness on the vice-consul’s side, and set about their search.
First they sounded out the two side walls, then divided the office into left and right sections. Unlike the energetic inspector, who nimbly tapped all the skirting boards and floorboards in his half, checked all the items on the desk and then set about the books, Erast Petrovich hardly touched anything at all. He strode around unhurriedly, shining his little American torch on things. An excellent little item, the very latest design. It produced a bright, dense ray of light. When it started to fade – about every one and a half minutes – you had to pump a spring with your fingers, and the torch immediately came back to life.
He stood in front of the portrait for a while. His Majesty the Mikado was shown in military uniform, with epaulettes and a sword. Fandorin thought the young face with the sparse moustache bore the imprint of degeneracy (which was hardly surprising, considering the dynasty’s twenty-five centuries of genealogical history), but Emperor Mutsuhito’s gaze was searching and intent. Patient, cautious, secretive, unsure of himself, enquiring, thought the vice-consul, practising his physiognomics. A master of ninso would undoubtedly have seen far more, but even this was enough to tell that the young royal ruler would go far.
‘I’ve finished my half,’ Asagawa declared. ‘There’s nothing.’
‘Would you like to swap? By all means.’
Fandorin walked out into the centre of the room, sat on the conference table and dangled one leg. A quarter past twelve.
An archive was something that you needed often. So the answer was most likely one of two things: either a lever within easy reach that could be operated without getting up from the desk; or, on the contrary, the lever was located right beside the entrance to the secret compartment. Asagawa had examined everything on the desk very thoroughly indeed. So it must be the second option.
There were two walls in which the secret room could be hidden. The wall between the office and reception area could be eliminated, along with the external wall.
Fandorin walked backwards and forwards, scrutinising.
The clock on the wall struck one.
‘Have you moved that?’ the titular counsellor asked, pointing at the clock.
‘Of course,’ said Asagawa, wiping the sweat off his forehead. ‘I divided the room up into squares, I’m trying not to miss anything.’
Yes, the lever couldn’t be in the clock, Fandorin thought. The cleaner might trip it if he started dusting the timepiece. Or the person responsible for winding and adjusting it …
‘I’ve run out of squares,’ the inspector announced in a dejected voice. ‘What can we do? Try again …’
One forty-two. Where could the lever be? It wasn’t behind the wallpaper or the skirting boards. Or in the bookcase. Asagawa had lifted up the pictures too …
Erast Petrovich suddenly froze.
‘Tell me, did you touch the emperor’s portrait?’
‘Of course not. That’s impossible!’ The inspector actually shuddered at such a blasphemous suggestion.
‘But someone dusts it, don’t they?’
‘That sacred responsibility can only be performed by the owner of the office, with all appropriate respect. In my station no one would dare to touch the portrait of His Majesty that hangs over my desk. People wipe the dust from the emperor’s face in the morning, almost as soon as they get to work. With a special silk duster, after first bowing.’
‘I see. Well, now I’ll show you how the s-secret room opens.’
The titular counsellor took a chair, carried it across to the wall, climbed up on it and took hold of the portrait confidently with both hands. Asagawa gasped.
‘Like this,’ Erast Petrovich purred, swaying the frame to the left. Nothing happened. ‘Well then, like this.’
He swayed the frame to the right – again nothing. Fandorin pulled the portrait towards himself. He tugged it up, he tugged it down. Finally he turned it completely upside down. The poor inspector groaned and whimpered.
‘Damn! Could I really be mistaken?’
Erast Petrovich took the emperor down and tapped on the glass. The sound was hollow.
He angrily hung the portrait back up and it swayed to and fro in shock.
The young man felt ashamed. Not for his mistake, but for the lofty condescension with which he had drawled ‘I see’. The beam of his torch slid across the wallpaper, lighting up the horizontal beam of the crucifixion from above.
The titular counsellor caught his breath.
‘Tell me, who cleans the c-cross? Also the owner of the office?’
Fandorin jumped down on to the floor and moved the chair closer to the crucifixion. He scrambled back up again.
‘Of course. The cleaner wouldn’t dare. He knows it is a sacred object for your religion.’
‘Uh-huh. I can see that.’
The intendant obviously regarded the symbol of the Christian faith with less respect than the portrait of Emperor Mutsuhito – a thin layer of dust had accumulated on the black wood.
Erast Petrovich tried to move the crucifixion, but he couldn’t. Shining his torch a bit closer, he saw that the cross was not hung on the wall or nailed to it, but sunk slightly into its surface. Strange! So a special housing had been made for it?
He tried to pull it out. He couldn’t. Then he pressed it.
With a barely audible click, the crucifixion sank deeper into the wallpaper, leaving its edges protruding no more than an inch.
A second later there was a melodic clang, and a section of the wall moved aside rapidly, almost springing into the space behind the bookcase. A dark rectangle opened up, slightly lower than the height of a man.
‘That’s it! The secret hiding place!’ Asagawa cried, and glanced ro
und at the door of the reception area, in case he had shouted too loudly.
Fandorin automatically glanced at his watch: two minutes to two.
‘Ah, what would I have done without you?’ the inspector exclaimed emotionally, almost with tears in his eyes, and dived into the dark hole.
But the vice-consul’s attention was caught by the arrangement of the secret room. In cross-section it was clearly visible: a layer of oak boards under the plaster, and then cork. That was why sounding out the walls hadn’t helped. The lever released powerful steel springs, which was why the partition jumped aside so fast. Fandorin wondered whether it closed in the same impetuous fashion or whether strength had to be applied.
Having satisfied his technical curiosity, Erast Petrovich followed his accomplice inside.
The repository of secrets proved to be a narrow room, but quite long – about ten paces. Its walls were entirely covered with shelving. Standing on the shelves were perfectly ordinary office files of various thicknesses. Asagawa took them down one by one, exclaimed something in Japanese and put them back again. The vice-consul also took one of the thicker ones. There were hieroglyphs drawn on the cover. The first two were easy, Erast Petrovich recognised them: ‘Eastern Capital’, that was ‘Tokyo’, but everything after that was gobbledegook to him.
‘What does it say here?’
‘Tokyo Provincial Government,’ Asagawa said after a swift glance. ‘But that’s nothing! There are ministers and members of the State Council here, even – you won’t believe it – members of the imperial family! Nothing is sacred to this man!’