The Diamond Chariot (51 page)

At that point the door creaked behind the titular counsellor’s back and he heard someone clear their throat delicately. Without turning round, without even knowing who it was, simply from what he could feel inside, Fandorin guessed that it was chaos – it had come back again.

Chaos took the form of Inspector Asagawa. He was standing in the doorway of the dining room, holding his hat in his hand, and his face was firmly set in an expression of determination.

‘Hello, Inspector. Is there something …’

The Japanese suddenly toppled to the floor. He pressed the palms of his hands against the carpet and started beating his head against it.

Erast Petrovich snatched off his napkin and jumped to his feet.

‘What is all this?’

‘You were right not to trust me,’ Asagawa blurted out without raising his head. ‘I am to blame for everything. It is my fault that the minister was killed.’

Despite the contrite pose, the words were spoken clearly and precisely, without the ponderous formulae of politeness typical of the inspector’s usual conversation.

‘What’s that? Drop all this Japanese c-ceremonial, will you! Get up!’

Asagawa did not get to his feet, but he did at least straighten his back and put his hands on his knees. His eyes – Fandorin could see them very clearly now – were glowing with a steady, furious light.

‘At first I was insulted. I thought: How dare he suspect the Japanese police! The leak must have happened on their side, on the side of the foreigners, because we have order, and they do not. But today, when the catastrophe occurred, my eyes were suddenly opened. I told myself: Sergeant Lockston and the Russian vice-consul could have let something slip to the wrong person, about the witness to the murder, about the ambush at the
godaun
, about the fingerprints, but how could they have known when exactly the guards were dismissed and where the minister would go in the morning?’

‘Go on, go on!’ Fandorin pressed him.

‘You and I were looking for three samurai. But the conspirators had planned their attack thoroughly. There was another group of six assassins. And perhaps there were others, in reserve. Why not? The minister had plenty of enemies. The important thing here is this: all these fanatics, no matter how many of them there were, were controlled from one centre and their actions were coordinated. Someone provided them with extremely precise information. The moment the minister acquired guards, the killers went into hiding. And as soon as His Excellency left his residence without any protection, they struck immediately. What does this mean?’

‘That the conspirators received information from Okubo’s inner circle.’

‘Precisely! From someone who was closer to him than you or I! And as soon as I realised this, everything fell into place. Do you remember the tongue?’

‘Which tongue?’

‘The one that was bitten off! I could not get it out of my mind. I remember that I checked the
hami
and the lace was perfectly all right. Semushi could not have bitten through it, and it could not have come loose – my knots do not come untied … This morning I went to the stockroom, where they keep the clues and material evidence relating to the case of the man with the withered arm and his gang: weapons, clothes, equipment used – everything we are trying to use in order to establish their identities and get a lead on their contacts. I examined the
hami
very closely. Here it is, look’

The inspector took a wooden gag-bit with dangling tapes out of his pocket.

‘The cord has been cut!’ Fandorin exclaimed. ‘But how could that have happened?’

‘Remember the way it was,’ said Asagawa, finally getting to his feet and standing beside the vice-consul. ‘I walked over to you and we stood there, talking. You asked me to forgive you. But he stayed beside the hunchback, pretending to check how well his binds were tied. Remember?’

‘Suga!’ the titular counsellor whispered. ‘Impossible! But he was with us, he risked his life! He planned the operation and implemented it brilliantly!’

The Japanese laughed bitterly.

‘Naturally. He wanted to be on the spot, to make sure that none of the conspirators fell into our hands alive. Remember how Suga came out of the shrine and pointed at the hunchback and shouted: “
Hami!
”? That was because Semushi was taking too long, he couldn’t bring himself to do it …’

‘An assumption, n-nothing more,’ the titular counsellor said with a shake of his head.

‘And is this also an assumption?’ asked Asagawa, holding up the severed cord. ‘Only Suga could have done that. Wait, Fandorin-san, I still haven’t finished what I want to say. Even when I found this terrible, incontrovertible proof, I still couldn’t believe that the vice-intendant of police was capable of such a crime. It’s absolutely beyond belief! And I went to Tokyo, to the Department of Police.’

‘What f-for?’

‘The head of the secretariat is an old friend of my father’s, also an old
yoriki
… I went to him and said I had forgotten to keep a copy of one of the reports that I had sent to the vice-intendant.’

Fandorin pricked up his ears.

‘What reports?’

‘After every conversation and meeting that we had, I had to report to Suga immediately, by special courier. Those were my instructions, and I followed them meticulously. I sent eight reports in all. But when the head of the secretariat gave me the file containing my reports, I found only five of them in it. Three were missing: the one about your servant having seen the presumed killer; the one about the ambush at the
godaun
; and the one about the municipal police holding the fingerprints of the mysterious
shinobi
…’

The inspector seemed to have said everything he wanted to say. For a while the room was silent while Fandorin thought very hard and Asagawa waited to see what the result of this thinking would be.

The result was a question that the titular counsellor asked, gazing straight into Asagawa’s eyes.

‘Why did you come to me and not the intendant of police?’

Asagawa was evidently expecting this and had prepared his answer in advance.

‘The intendant of police is a vacuous individual, they only keep him in that position because of his high-sounding title. And in addition …’ – the Japanese lowered his eyes, it was obviously hard for him to say something like this to a foreigner – ‘… how can I know who else was in the conspiracy? Even in the police secretariat there are some who say that the Satsumans are guilty of crimes against the state, of course, but even so they are heroes. Some even whisper that Okubo got what he deserved. That is the first reason why I decided to turn to you …’

‘And what is the second?’

‘Yesterday you asked me to forgive you, although you did not have to. You are a sincere man.’

For a moment the titular counsellor could not understand what sincerity had to do with this, but then he decided it must be a failure of translation. No doubt the English phrase ‘sincere man’, as used by Asagawa, or its Russian equivalent, ‘
iskrennii chelovek
’, as used by the secretary Shirota to express his respect for Pushkin, Martial Saigo and Dr Twigs, did not adequately convey the essential quality that the Japanese valued so highly. Perhaps it should be ‘unaffected’ or ‘genuine’? He would have to ask Vsevolod Vitalievich about this …

‘But I still do not understand why you have come to me with this,’ said Erast Petrovich. ‘What can you change now? Mr Okubo is dead. His opponents have the upper hand, and now they will determine the policies of your state.’

Asagawa was terribly surprised.

‘How can you ask: “What can you change?” I know nothing about politics, that is not my business, I am a policeman. A policeman is a man who is needed to prevent evil-doing from going unpunished. Desertion of duty, conspiracy and murder are serious crimes. Suga must pay for them. If I cannot punish him, then I am not a policeman. That, as you like to say, is one. And now, two: Suga has insulted me very seriously – he has made me look like a stupid kitten, trying to pounce on a ribbon tied to a string. A sincere man does not allow anyone to treat him like that. And so, if Suga’s crime goes unpunished, I am, firstly, not a policeman and, secondly, not a sincere man. Then who am I, if I may be allowed to ask?’

No, a ‘sincere man’ is what we call a ‘man of honour’, the titular counsellor guessed.

‘Do you want to kill him, then?’

Asagawa nodded.

‘Yes, very much. But I will not kill him. Because I am a policeman. Policemen do not kill criminals, they expose them and hand them over to the system of justice.’

‘Well said indeed. But how can it be done?’

‘I do not know. And that is the third reason why I have come to you. We Japanese are predictable, we always act according to the rules. This is both our strength and our weakness. I am a hereditary
yoriki
, which makes me doubly Japanese. From when I was very little, my father used to say to me: “Act in accordance with the law, and everything else is not your concern”. And that is how I have lived until now, I do not know how to live otherwise. You are made differently – that much is clear from the story of the hunchback’s escape. Your brain is not shackled by rules.’

That should probably not be taken as a compliment, especially coming from a Japanese, Erast Petrovich thought. But the inspector was certainly right about one thing: you should never allow anyone to make you look a fool, and that was exactly how the wily Suga had behaved with the leader of the consular investigation. A kitten, with a ribbon dangling in front of it on a string?

‘Well, we’ll see about that,’ Fandorin murmured in Russian.

‘I already know you well enough,’ Asagawa went on. ‘You will start thinking about the vice-intendant and you will definitely think of something. When you do – let me know. Only do not come to my station yourself. It is quite possible that one of my men …’ He heaved a sigh, without finishing the phrase. ‘Let us communicate with notes. If we need to meet, then in some quiet place, with no witnesses. For instance, in a hotel or a park. Is it a deal?’

The American phrase ‘Is it a deal’, combined with an outstretched hand, was not Asagawa’s style at all. He must have picked that up from Lockston, the titular counsellor surmised as he sealed the agreement with a handshake.

The inspector gave a low bow, swung round and disappeared through the door without saying another word.

It turned out that the Japanese had studied his Russian associate rather well. Erast Petrovich did indeed immediately start thinking about the vice-intendant of police, who had deliberately and cunningly brought about the death of a great man whom it was his professional duty to protect against his numerous enemies.

Fandorin did not think about how to expose the faithless traitor yet. First of all he had to understand what this individual who went by the name of Suga Kinsukeh was like. The best way to do this was to reconstruct the sequence of his actions, for surely it was actions that defined a personality most vividly and accurately of all.

And so, in order.

Suga had taken part in a conspiracy against the minister, and perhaps even led that conspiracy. The threads from the groups hunting the dictator all led back to him. On the evening of 8 May at Don Tsurumaki’s ball, the vice-intendant learns that the group led by the man with the withered arm has been discovered. He cannot conceal the alarming news from his superior – the deceit would certainly have been discovered. Instead, Suga acts paradoxically: he takes the initiative and tries to get Okubo to accept extremely tight security measures, and the general supervision of the investigation is quite naturally assigned to Suga, and not any other police official. Suga takes advantage of this to order the Yokohama precinct chief Asagawa to report in detail on all the investigative group’s plans – this also appears entirely natural. The vice-intendant tries with consistent obstinacy to protect his associates in the conspiracy from arrest, even taking risks for them. On 9 May he informs No-Face, the master of secret skills, about the evidence that the investigative group is holding. On 10 May he warns the man with the withered arm about the ambush. The situation is completely under control. He only has to hold on for a few more days, until the impatient Okubo rebels and sends his guards and the consular investigation and even the solicitous Suga to hell. Then the conspirators will be able to strike, following their carefully prepared plan, baiting the minister from all sides, like a bear.

Then, however, something unforeseen comes along – in the person of Titular Counsellor Fandorin. On 13 May the man with the withered arm and his group, together with their messenger, the hunchback, are caught in a trap. How does Suga act? Once again, in the face of danger, he seeks to ride the very crest of the wave, by taking personal command of the operation to seize this band of killers, so that not one of the dangerous witnesses will be taken prisoner. Suga’s greatest tour de force is the way in which he reverses the course of the game when it has already been half lost, by using the death of one group of assassins to lure the dictator within reach of the swords of another! A brilliant chess move, worthy of a grandmaster.

And what follows from all this?

That this is a brave and resolute man, with a quick, keen mind. And as far as his goals are concerned, he has probably acted out of conviction, confident that he was in the right.

What else could be added to this from Fandorin’s personal contact with the man? Exceptional administrative talent. And charm.

A positively ideal individual, Fandorin thought with a chuckle. If not for two small points: calculated cruelty and disloyalty. No matter how strongly you might believe that your ideas were right, to stab someone in the back after he had put his trust in you was simply vile.

Having composed a psychological portrait of the
akunin
, Erast Petrovich moved on to the next phase of his deliberations: how to expose such an enterprising and artful gentleman, who also effectively controlled the entire Japanese police force …