The Diamond Chariot (45 page)

‘I don’t know yet,’ the titular counsellor replied dispassionately. ‘Whatever action is n-necessary.’

‘You don’t want to tell me,’ Doronin guessed. ‘Well, that’s right. Otherwise, if your operation fails, you’ll note me down as a spy.’ He drummed his fingers on the windowpane. ‘You know what, Erast Petrovich? In order not to compromise the experiment, I shall not write to the ambassador about your conclusions. And as for the authority to act, consider that you have been granted it by your immediate superior. Act as you think necessary. But just one thing …’ The consul hesitated momentarily. ‘Perhaps you would agree to take me, not as your confidant, but as your agent? It will be hard for you, on your own, with no help. Of course, I am no ninja, but I could carry out some simple assignment.’

Fandorin looked Vsevolod Vitalievich up and down and politely refused.

‘Thank you. The embassy secretary, Shirota, will be enough for me. Although … no. I think perhaps I need to speak with him first …’

The titular counsellor hesitated – he remembered that the Japanese had been behaving strangely recently, blenching and blushing for no reason, giving Fandorin sideways glances; the secretary’s attitude to the vice-consul, initially exceedingly friendly, had clearly undergone a change.

Erast Petrovich decided to find out what the matter was without delay.

He went to the administrative office, where the spinster Blagolepova was hammering away deafeningly on the keys of the Remington. When she saw Fandorin, she blushed, adjusted her collar with a swift gesture and started hammering even more briskly.

‘I need to have a word with you,’ the titular counsellor said in a quiet voice, leaning across Shirota’s desk.

Shirota jerked in his seat and turned pale.

‘Yes, and I with you. It is high time.’

Erast Petrovich was surprised. He enquired cautiously:

‘You wished to speak to me? About what?’

‘No, you first.’ The secretary got to his feet and buttoned up his frock coat determinedly. ‘Where would you like it to be?’

To the accompaniment of the Remington’s hysterical clattering, they walked out into the garden. The rain had stopped, glassy drops were falling from the branches and birds were singing overhead.

‘Tell me, Shirota, you have linked your life with Russia. May I ask why?’

The secretary listened to the question and narrowed his eyes tensely. He answered crisply, in military style, as if he had prepared his answer in advance.

‘Mr Vice-Consul, I chose to link my life with your country, because Japan needs Russia very much. The East and the West are too different, they cannot join with each other without an intermediary. Once, in ancient times, Korea served as a bridge between Japan and great China. Now, in order to join harmoniously with great Europe, we need Russia. With the assistance of your country, which combines within itself both the East and the West, my homeland will flourish and join the ranks of the great powers of the world. Not now, of course, but in twenty or thirty years’ time. That is why I work in the Russian consulate …’

Erast Petrovich cleared his throat with an embarrassed air – he had not been expecting such a clear-cut response, and the idea that a backward oriental country could transform itself into a great power in thirty years was simply laughable. However, there was no point in offending the Japanese.

‘I see,’ Fandorin said slowly, feeling that he had not really achieved his goal.

‘You also have a very beautiful literature,’ the secretary added, and bowed, as if to indicate that he had nothing more to add.

There was a pause. The titular counsellor wondered whether he ought to ask straight out: ‘Why do you keep looking daggers at me?’ But from the viewpoint of Japanese etiquette, that would probably be appallingly impolite.

Shirota broke the silence first.

‘Is that what the vice-consul wished to speak to me about?’

There was a note of surprise in his voice.

‘Well, actually, y-yes … But what did you wish to speak to me about?’

The secretary’s face turned from white to crimson. He gulped and then cleared his throat.

‘About the captain’s daughter.’ Seeing the amazement in the other man’s eyes, he explained: ‘About Sophia Diogenovna.’

‘What has happened?’

‘Mr Vice-Consul, do you … do you ruv her?’

Because the Japanese had mispronounced the ‘l’ in the crucial word, and even more because the very supposition was so unthinkable, Erast Petrovich did not immediately understand the meaning of the question.

The evening before, on returning home from the police station, the young man had discovered a powerfully scented envelope with nothing written on it on the small table in his bedroom. When he opened it, he found a pink sheet of paper. Traced out on it, in a painstaking hand with flourishes and squiggles, were four lines of verse:

My poor heart can bear this no more

Oh, come quickly to help me now!

And if you do not come, you know

I shall lose my life for you.

Bemused, Fandorin had gone to consult Masa. He showed him the envelope, and his servant ran through a brief pantomime: a long plait, large round eyes, two spheres in front of his chest. ‘The spinster Blagolepova,’ Erast Petrovich guessed. And then he immediately remembered that she had promised to write out her favourite stanza of love poetry from her album, a piece composed by the conductor from the St Pafnutii. He stuck the sheet of paper into the first book that came to hand and forgot all about it.

But now it seemed there was a serious emotional drama being played out.

‘If you love Miss Blagolepova, if your in-ten-tions are hon-our-ab-le, I will stand aside … I understand, you are her com-pat-ri-ot, you are handsome and rich, and what can I offer her?’ Shirota was terribly nervous, he pronounced the more difficult words with especial care and avoided looking in Fandorin’s eyes, lowering his head right down on to his chest. ‘But if …’ His voice started to tremble. ‘But if you intend to exploit the de-fence-less-ness of a solitary young woman … Do you wish to?’

‘Do I wish to what?’ asked the titular counsellor, unable to follow the thread of the conversation – he found deductive reasoning far easier than talk on intimate matters.

‘Exploit the de-fence-less-ness of a solitary young woman.’

‘No, I do not.’

‘Not at all, at all? Only honestly!’

Erast Petrovich pondered, to make sure the reply would be quite honest. He recalled the spinster Blagolepova’s thick plait, her cow’s eyes, the verse from her album.

‘Not at all.’

‘So, your in-ten-tions are hon-our-ab-le,’ said the poor secretary, and he became even gloomier. ‘You will make Sophia Diogenovna a pro-po-sal?’

‘Why on earth should I?’ said Fandorin, starting to get angry. ‘I have no interest in her at all!’

Shirota raised a brighter face for a moment, but immediately narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

‘And you did not go to the Rakuen and risk your life there, and you do not now pay her salary out of your own pocket because you love her?’

Erast Petrovich suddenly felt sorry for him.

‘The idea never even entered my head,’ the vice-consul said in a gentle voice. ‘I assure you. I do not find anything at all about Miss Blagolepova attractive …’ He stopped short, not wishing to hurt the lovelorn secretary’s feelings. ‘No, that is … she is, of course, very p-pretty and, so to speak …’

‘She is the finest girl in the world!’ Shirota exclaimed sternly, interrupting the vice-consul. ‘She … she is a captain’s daughter! Like Masha Mironova from Pushkin’s
Captain’s Daughter
! But if you do not love Sophia Diogenovna, why have you done so much for her?’

‘Well, how could I not do it? You said it yourself: solitary, defenceless, in a foreign country …’

Shirota sighed and declared solemnly:

‘I love Miss Blagolepova.’

‘I had g-guessed as much.’

The Japanese suddenly bowed solemnly – not in the European manner, with just the chin, but from the waist. And he didn’t straighten up immediately, only after five seconds had passed.

Now he looked straight into Fandorin’s face, and there were tears glistening in his eyes. In his agitation, all his ‘l’s’ became ‘r’s’ again.

‘You are a nobur man, Mr Vice-Consur. I am your eternar debtor.’

Soon half of Japan will be my eternal debtors, Erast Petrovich thought ironically, not wishing to admit to himself that he was touched.

‘There is onry one bitter thing.’ Shirota sighed. ‘I sharr never be abur to repay your nobirity.’

‘Oh, yes you will,’ said the titular counsellor, taking him by the elbow. ‘Let’s go to my rooms. That damned p-plum rain has started falling again.’

Raise no umbrella
When the sky is scattering
Its springtime plum rain

SIRIUS

The night smelled of tar and green slime – that was from the dirty River Yosidagawa splashing near by, squeezed in between the
godauns
and the cargo wharves. Erast Petrovich’s valet was sitting at the agreed spot, under the wooden bridge, pondering the vicissitudes of fate and waiting. When Semushi appeared, the master would howl like a dog – Masa had taught him how. In fact they had spent a whole hour on a
renshu
duet, until the neighbours came to the consulate and said they would complain about the Russians to the police if they didn’t stop torturing that poor dog. They had been forced to abandon the
renshu
rehearsal, but the master could already do it quite well.

There were lots of dogs in Yokohama, and they often howled at night, so neither Semushi nor the police agents would be suspicious. The main concern was something else – not to confuse the sound with a genuine dog. But Masa hoped he wouldn’t get confused. It would be shameful for a vassal not to be able to tell his master’s noble voice from the howl of some mongrel.

Masa had to sit under the bridge very quietly, without moving at all, but he could do that. In his former life, when he was still an apprentice in the honourable Chobei-gumi gang, he had sat and waited on watch duty or in an ambush many, many times. It wasn’t boring at all, because an intelligent man could always find something to think about.

It was absolutely out of the question to make any noise or move about, because there was a police agent, disguised as a beggar, hanging about on the wooden bridge right over his head. When someone out late walked by, the agent started intoning sutras through his nose, and very naturally too – a couple of times a copper coin even jangled against the planking. Masa wondered whether the agent handed in the alms to his boss afterwards or not. And if he did, whether the coppers went into the imperial treasury.

There were detectives stationed all the way along the road leading from the Rakuen to Semushi’s home: one agent at every crossroads. Some were hiding in gateways, some in the ditch. The senior agent, the most experienced, prowled along after Semushi. He was shrouded in a grey cloak, he had soundless felt sandals on his feet, and he could hide so quickly that no matter how many times you looked round, you would never spot anyone behind you.

Hanging back about fifty paces behind the senior agent were another three – just in case something unforeseen happened. Then the senior agent would give them a quick flash from the lamp under his cloak, and they would run up to him.

That was how strictly they were following Semushi, there was no way he could get away from the police agents. But the master and Masa had thought and thought and come up with a plan. As soon as the Vice-Consul of the Russian Empire started howling in the distance, Masa had to …

But just at that moment Masa heard a wail that he recognised immediately. Erast Petrovich howled quite authentically, but even so, not like one of Yokohama’s stray mutts – there was something thoroughbred about that melancholy sound, as if it were being made by a bloodhound or, at the very least, a basset.

It was time to move from thought to action.

Masa strolled silently under the planks until he was behind the ‘beggar’s’ back. He took three small steps on tiptoe, and when the agent turned round at the rustling sound, he leapt forward and smacked him gently below the ear with the edge of his hand. The ‘beggar’ gave a quiet sob and tumbled over on to his side. A whole heap of coppers spilled out of his cup.

Masa took the coins for himself – so that everything would look right and, in general, they would come in handy. His Imperial Highness could manage without them somehow.

He squatted down beside the unconscious man in the shadow of the parapet and started watching.

There was a fine drizzle falling, but the corner from which Semushi ought to appear was lit up by two street lamps. The hunchback would walk across the little bridge over the canal, then cut across a plot of wasteland to the bridge over the Yosidagawa. So he would have the junction of the river and the canal on his right, one bridge ahead of him, another behind him, and nothing on his left but the dark wasteland – and that was the whole point of the plan.

There was the squat, lumpish figure. The hunchback moved with a heavy, plodding walk, waddling slightly from side to side.

It probably wasn’t easy lugging a hump around all the time, thought Masa. And how easy could it be to live with a deformity like that? When he was little, the other boys must have teased him. When he grew a bit, the girls all turned their noses up. That was why Semushi had turned out so villainous and spiteful. Or maybe it wasn’t because of that at all. On the street where Masa grew up, there had been a hunchback, a street sweeper. Even more hunched and crooked than this one, he could barely hobble along. But he was kind, everyone liked him. And they used to say: He’s so good because the Buddha gave him a hump. It wasn’t the hump that mattered, but what kind of
kokoro
a man had. If the
kokoro
was right, a hump would only make you better, but if it was rotten, you would hate the whole wide world.

Meanwhile, the owner of a vicious
kokoro
had crossed the little bridge.