by Boris Akunin
‘And what does he have there about the empress?’ Fandorin asked curiously, glancing over the inspector’s shoulder.
He couldn’t see anything interesting on the page – just some note in the same old hieroglyphic scrawl – but the inspector nudged him away impolitely with his elbow.
‘I haven’t read it and I won’t allow you to! How infamous!’
He tore up the note and a few other pieces of paper in the file with trembling fingers.
‘Listen, it’s two minutes past two,’ the titular counsellor told him, pointing to his watch. ‘This isn’t what we came here for. Where’s the file with the conspirators?’
Owing to his hieroglyphic illiteracy, Erast Petrovich had nothing to occupy himself with. While Asagawa rummaged through the shelves, the young man shone his torch in all directions. He failed to discover anything of interest. There didn’t seem to be any lever inside the secret room, it could be opened and closed only from the outside. There were gas burners protruding from the ceiling – evidently the lighting could be switched on from the office, but there was no need for that, the torch and the lamp were quite adequate.
‘I have it!’ the inspector gasped. ‘It says “Okubo” on the spine.’ He started leafing feverishly through the pages. ‘Here are my missing reports, all three of them! And this is a report from the head of the police in the city of Kagosima. He says that according to reports from his agents, the sword master Ikemura Hyoske and two of his pupils have set out for Tokyo. Description: forty-five years old, a scar on the left side of his neck and his temple, left arm twisted. His nickname is Kamiyasuri – “Glasspaper”, because he covers the hilt of his sword with glass paper – his right hand is harder than steel. It’s him, the man with the withered arm! Wait, wait, there’s more here …’ Asagawa took out three sheets of paper covered with writing in a strange brown-coloured ink. ‘It’s an oath. Written in blood. “We, the undersigned, do hereby swear on our honour not to begrudge our lives in the name of an exalted goal – to exterminate the base traitor Okubo …” There are three such documents. One of them has six signatures – that is the group that killed the minister. The second document has three signatures, and the first one is Ikemura Hyoske’s. Our Satsumans! The third document has four signatures. So there was another group that remained undiscovered. The names are here, it will not be difficult to find the plotters before they can do anything else dangerous … We have won, Fandorin-san! We have Suga in our hands! With these oaths and the stolen reports we can pin him down!’
‘He was already in our hands anyway,’ Erast Petrovich remarked coolly. ‘This delightful little archive will cost him his head without any c-conspiracies.’
Asagawa shook his head.
‘Surely you do not think that I will allow all these abominations to come pouring out? There is so much filth here, so many family secrets! There would be a wave of suicides, divorces, scandals, resignations in disgrace. No, worse than that! The new minister would take the archive for his own use, he would announce that it has been destroyed, but keep the spiciest items – just in case.’
‘Then what is to be done?’
‘We are going to destroy all this poison. Without reading it.’
‘Very n-noble,’ declared Fandorin, who could not have savoured the Japanese secrets even if he had felt any desire to do so. ‘But what are these signs? They don’t look like hieroglyphs.’
He pointed to a sheet of paper lying at the very bottom of the file. Right at the centre there was a circle with a strange squiggle inside it. Lines ran out from the circle, connecting it with other, smaller circles.
‘No, those are not hieroglyphs,’ the inspector murmured, peering at the paper. ‘At least, not Japanese hieroglyphs. I have never come across any writing like this before.’
‘It looks like a diagram of the conspiracy,’ Fandorin suggested. ‘And in code too. It would be interesting to know who is symbolised by the c-circle at the centre.’
‘It must be Suga.’
‘Unlikely. He wouldn’t have denoted himself with some kind of doodle. He would just have drawn the circle and left it at that.’
They leaned down over the mysterious diagram, with their shoulders pressed against each other. Asagawa must have breathed in a lot of dust, because he sneezed, and the sound echoed loudly under the low vaulted ceiling.
‘You’re crazy!’ Fandorin hissed. ‘Quiet!’
The Japanese waved his hand nonchalantly and answered without lowering his voice.
‘What does it matter? We no longer have to hide. As soon as we’ve destroyed the unnecessary documents, I’ll call the duty officer and explain that …’
But he didn’t finish what he was about to say.
Without the slightest warning, the secret door slammed shut with that familiar metallic clang. The wall trembled slightly and the room was suddenly as silent as the grave.
Erast Petrovich’s first reaction was purely nervous – he glanced at his watch. It showed eighteen minutes past two.
If it is eighteen
Or nineteen minutes past two –
What’s the difference?
THE SCALES FALL FROM HIS EYES
For a few minutes the burglars who had fallen into a trap behaved in a perfectly normal and predictable way – they hammered on the impervious partition with their fists, tried to find a joint in the wall with their fingers and searched for some kind of knob or lever. Then Erast Petrovich left all the fussing about to his partner and sat down on the floor with his legs crossed.
‘It’s p-pointless,’ he said in a steady voice. ‘There isn’t any lever in here.’
‘But the door closed somehow! No one came into the office, we would have heard them – I closed the catch!’
Erast Petrovich explained.
‘A timing mechanism. Set to twenty minutes. I’ve read about doors like this. They use them in large bank safes and armoured repositories – where the loot can’t be carried out very quickly. Only the owner knows how much time he has before the spring is activated, but anyone who breaks in gets caught. Calm down, Asagawa. We’re not going to get out of here.’
The inspector sat down as well, right in the corner.
‘Never mind,’ he said cheerfully. ‘We’ll sit here until the morning, then let them arrest us. We have something to show the authorities.’
‘No one will arrest us. In the morning Suga will come to work and from the disorder in the office, he’ll realise that he’s had uninvited visitors. From the chair under the crucifixion, he’ll realise that there are mice in the trap. And he’ll leave us here to die of thirst. I must admit, I’ve always been afraid of dying that way …’
The words were spoken, however, without any particular feeling. The poisoning of heart and brain had evidently already affected the instinct of self-preservation. So be it, then, thirst it is, Erast Petrovich thought languidly. What difference does it make, in the end?
Fatalism is an infectious thing. Asagawa looked at the waning flame in his lamp and said thoughtfully:
‘Don’t worry. We won’t have time to die of thirst. We’ll suffocate before Suga arrives. There’s only enough air here for four hours.’
For a while they sat there without speaking, each of them alone with his own thoughts. Erast Petrovich, for instance, thought about something rather strange. It suddenly occurred to him that perhaps none of this really existed at all. The events of the last ten days had been too incredible, and he himself had behaved too absurdly – it was all delirious nonsense. Either a lingering dream or the monstrous visions of the afterlife. After all, no one really knew what happened to a person’s soul when it separated from the body. What if there were phantom-like processes that occurred, similar to dreaming? None of it had really happened: not the chase after the faceless assassin, or the pavilion at night beside the pond. In reality, Erast Petrovich’s life had been cut short at the moment when the grey and brown mamusi fixed its beady stare on his face while he was lying helpless. Or eve
n earlier – when he walked into his bedroom and saw the old Japanese man smiling …
Nonsense, the titular counsellor told himself with a shudder.
Asagawa shuddered too – his thoughts had clearly also taken a wrong turning.
‘There’s no point in just sitting here,’ said the inspector, getting up. ‘We still have our duty to perform.’
‘But what can we do?’
‘Tear out Suga’s sting. Destroy the archive.’
Asagawa took several files down off the shelves, carried them into his corner and started tearing the sheets of paper into tiny little scraps.
‘It would be better to burn them, of course, but there isn’t enough oxygen,’ he murmured absentmindedly.
The titular counsellor carried on sitting for a little while, then got up to help. He took a file and handed it to Asagawa, who continued his work of methodical destruction. The paper ripped with a sharp sound and the heap of rubbish in the corner gradually grew higher.
It was getting stuffy. Fine drops of sweat sprang out on the vice-consul’s forehead.
‘I don’t like dying of suffocation,’ he said. ‘Better a bullet through the temple.’
‘Yes?’ Asagawa said thoughtfully. ‘I think I’d rather suffocate. Shooting yourself is not the Japanese way. It’s noisy, and it gives you no chance to feel yourself dying …’
‘That is obviously a fundamental difference between the European and Japanese cultures …’ the titular counsellor began profoundly, but this highly interesting discussion was not fated to continue.
Somewhere above them there was a quiet whistle and bluish tongues of trembling flame sprang out of the gas brackets. The secret room was suddenly brightly lit.
Erast Petrovich looked round, raised his head and saw a tiny opening that had appeared in the wall just below the ceiling. A slanting eye was peering out of it at the titular counsellor.
He heard a muffled laugh, and a familiar voice said in English:
‘Now there’s a surprise. I was expecting anyone at all, but not Mr Russian Diplomat. I knew you were an enterprising and adventurous man, Fandorin-san, but this is really …’
Suga! But how had he found out?
The vice-consul did not speak, merely greedily gulping in the air that was seeping into the cramped space through the narrow opening.
‘Who told you about my secret place?’ the intendant of police asked, and went on without waiting for an answer. ‘The only people apart from me who knew of its existence were the architect Schmidt, two stonemasons and one carpenter. But they all drowned … Well, I am positively intrigued!’
The most important thing, Erast Petrovich told himself, is not to glance sideways into the corner where Asagawa is hiding. Suga can’t see him, he’s sure that I’m here alone.
And he also thought what a pity it was that he hadn’t taken a few lessons from Doronin in the art of battojiutsu – drawing a weapon a high speed. He could have grabbed his Herstal with a lightning-fast gesture and put a bullet in the bridge of this villain’s nose. With the little window open they wouldn’t suffocate before the morning, and when the morning came, people would arrive and free the prisoners from the trap.
‘And you? How did you know I was here?’ Fandorin asked to distract the intendant’s attention, while he put his hands behind his back and stretched slightly, as if his shoulders were cramped. His fingers found the flat holster.
Out of the corner of his eye he caught a movement in the corner – apparently the inspector was also taking out his weapon. But what was the point? He couldn’t hit the little window from there, and Suga would hide at the slightest suspicious rustle.
‘The official apartment of the head of police is close by here. The signal went off,’ Suga explained willingly, even proudly. This may be Asia, but we try to keep up with the latest inventions of progress. I’ve satisfied your curiosity, now you satisfy mine.’
‘Gladly,’ the titular counsellor said with a smile and fired.
He fired from the hip, without wasting any time on aiming, but the intendant’s reactions were impeccable – he disappeared from the window and the incredibly lucky shot (it didn’t hit the wall, but passed straight through the opening) went to waste.
Erast Petrovich was deafened by the roar. He slapped the left side of his head, then the right. The ringing became quieter and he heard Suga’s voice:
‘… something of the kind and I was on my guard. If you behave impolitely and don’t answer my questions, I’ll close the hatch now and come back in two days to collect the body.’
Asagawa got up without making a sound and pressed his back against the bookshelves. He was holding his revolver at the ready, but Suga wouldn’t present himself as a target again now, that was quite clear.
‘Yes, come back, do,’ said Erast Petrovich, pressing one finger to his lips. ‘Collect my mortal remains. And don’t forget the glue. It will take you a few years to stick all the thousands of scraps of p-paper from your precious files back together. I’ve only managed to destroy the contents of seven files so far, but there must be at last two hundred in here.’
Silence. Apparently the intendant was thinking that over.
The inspector gestured to say: Lift me up, so that I can reach the little window. Fandorin shrugged, he didn’t really believe in this plan but, when all was said and done, why not try?
He grabbed hold of the shelves and tugged. Files went crashing to the floor and the vice-consul took advantage of the racket to grab Asagawa round the waist, jerk him up to arm’s length above his head and press his stomach against the wall, to make it easier to hold him. The Japanese proved not to be so very heavy, about a hundred and fifty pounds, and every morning Fandorin pressed two one-hundred-pound iron weights forty times.
‘What are you doing in there?’ Suga shouted.
‘I knocked the shelves over. Almost by accident!’ Erast Petrovich called, and then told the inspector in a low voice: ‘Careful! Don’t let him spot you!’
A few seconds later Asagawa slapped his comrade on the shoulder to ask to be put down.
‘It won’t work,’ he whispered as his feet touched the floor. ‘The window’s too small. I can either look or poke the gun out. It’s not possible to do both at once.’
‘Fandorin! These are my terms,’ the intendant announced. He must have been standing right under the window, so he couldn’t have seen Asagawa anyway. ‘You don’t touch any more of the files. You give me the name of the person who told you about the archive. After that I’ll let you go. Naturally after searching you to make sure you haven’t picked up anything as a souvenir. Then you take the first ship out of Japan. Unless, of course, you prefer to move to the foreign cemetery in Yokohama.’
‘He’s lying,’ the inspector whispered. ‘He won’t let you go alive.’
‘Fair terms!’ Fandorin shouted. ‘I’ll tell you the name. But that’s all.’
‘All right! Who told you about the archive?’
‘A ninja from the Momochi clan.’
The sudden silence suggested that Suga was badly shaken. Which meant he believed it.
‘How did you find them?’ the intendant asked after a thirty-second silence.
‘I won’t tell you that. Our agreement was only for the name. Let me out!’
Without looking, he grabbed the first file that came to hand, took out several sheets of paper and started tearing them, holding his hands up close to the opening.
‘All right! We have an agreement. Throw your weapon out here!’
Asagawa nodded and flattened himself against the wall –at the spot where the door would open.
Going up on tiptoe, Fandorin tossed his Herstal into the air vent.
The aperture went dark and the eye appeared again. It examined Fandorin carefully.
He stood there tensely, poised to spring into the blind zone if a gun barrel appeared instead of an eye.
‘Take your clothes off,’ Suga told him. ‘Everything. Completely naked.’
‘What for?’
‘I want to make sure you haven’t got another weapon hidden anywhere.’
Seeing Asagawa cautiously cocking the hammer of his revolver with two fingers, Fandorin replied hastily:
‘Only don’t even think of trying to shoot. I’ll jump out of the way before you’re even ready. And then that’s the end of the agreement.
‘On my word of honour,’ the intendant promised.
He was lying, of course, but Fandorin’s words had not been meant for him – they were for the inspector, who understood and gestured reassuringly: I won’t.
The titular counsellor got undressed slowly, holding up every item of his ensemble for the intendant to see and them dropping it to the floor. Eventually he was left standing there in his birthday suit.
‘Well built,’ Suga said approvingly. ‘Only your belly’s too hollow. A man’s hara should be more substantial than that. Now turn your back to me and raise your hands.’
‘So that you can shoot me in the back of my head? Oh, no.’
‘All right. Put your clothes under your arm. Take your shoes in the other hand. When I open the door, walk out slowly.
The cunning door sprang to one side, leaving the way out open.
‘We want him alive,’ Erast Petrovich mimed with his lips as he walked past Asagawa.
The office was illuminated by a bright light that flickered slightly. Suga was standing on the same chair that the vice-consul had set against the wall so recently. The intendant was holding a large, black revolver (it looked like a Swedish Hagström) and Fandorin’s Herstal was lying on the desk.
‘NAKED VICE-CONSUL SHOT IN POLICE CHIEF’S OFFICE’ – the headline flashed through the junior diplomat’s mind.
Nonsense, he won’t shoot. This isn’t an insulated space, with walls that muffle sound. The duty officers will hear and come running. Why would he want that? But, of course, he’s not going to let me out of here alive.
Without stopping, and giving the intendant only a fleeting glance, Fandorin headed straight for the exit.