The Diamond Chariot (76 page)

During the fourth cigar Masa looked into the room. It was time!

Fandorin left his servant with some simple instructions and walked out on to the porch.

Yes, the signal. Over there above the Bluff (but it looked as if it was at the very edge of the sky) a little blue star flashed on and off several times.

In the bright blue sky
Just you try to make it out –
A small bright blue star

1
In the English style (French)

2
‘You’re not going. I’m going alone’ (distorted Japanese)

3
‘To protect O-Yumi. Understand?’ (distorted Japanese)

A BRIAR PIPE

He grabbed hold of the tricycle that had been positioned in advance, lowered it off the porch and pushed it along the pathway at a run. Outside the gates he jumped into the saddle and started pressing hard on the pedals. Come on, then, just you try to follow me!

In order to throw any possible spies off the scent, instead of turning to the right, towards the Bluff, he turned left. He hurtled along at top speed, glancing in the mirror every now and then, but he didn’t glimpse a single black figure behind him on the brightly lit promenade. Perhaps his simple attempt at cunning had succeeded. Everyone knew that the simplest tricks were the most reliable.

The trick really was childish in its simplicity. Instead of the vice-consul, Masa was now sitting in the vice-consul’s window – in a peaked cap, with a cigar in his teeth. If they were lucky, the substitution would not be noticed soon.

Just to make certain of things, without reducing his speed, Erast Petrovich circled round the Settlement and rode into the Bluff from the other side, across the Okagawa river.

The rubber tyres swished through the puddles with a miraculous rustling sound and water splashed out from under the wheels, glinting joyously in the light of the street lamps. Fandorin felt like a hawk soaring above the dark streets of the night. He could see his goal, it was close, and nothing could halt or impede his impetuous attack. Watch out, you
akunin
!

Shirota was waiting at the agreed spot, on the corner of a side street.

‘I was watching through binoculars,’ the secretary reported. ‘The light went out thirty-five minutes ago, everywhere except for one window on the first floor. The servants withdrew to the house that stands at the back of the garden. Fifteen minutes ago the last window also went dark. Then I came down the hill.’

‘Did you look at the terrace? I told you that he l-likes to watch the stars.’

‘What stars are there today? It’s raining.’

Fandorin liked the secretary’s attitude. Calm, businesslike, with no sign of nerves. It could well be that Kanji Shirota’s true calling was not polishing an office desk with his elbows but a trade that required sangfroid and a love of risk.

Just as long as his courage didn’t fail him when it came to the real work.

‘Well, will you join me for dinner? The table’s all set,’ the titular counsellor said jocularly, gesturing towards the gates.

‘After you,’ Shirota replied in the same tone of voice. He really was holding up very well.

The lock and the hinges were well lubricated, they made their way inside without a single creak or squeak. And they had been exceptionally lucky with the weather: cloudy and dark, with the rain muffling any sound.

‘Do you remember the plan?’ Fandorin whispered as he walked up the steps. ‘We go into the house now. You wait downstairs. I’ll go up to …’

‘I remember everything,’ the secretary replied just as quietly. ‘Don’t waste time on that.’

The door into the house was not locked – a special point of pride for the owner that was also very handy for them. Fandorin ran up the carpeted steps to the first floor without making a sound. The bedroom was at the end of the corridor, beside the way out on to the terrace.

Wouldn’t it be fine if he woke up, Erast Petrovich suddenly thought when his left hand touched the door handle (the revolver was grasped in his right hand). Then, regardless of any unworthy desire for revenge, I would be perfectly justified in smacking the villain on the forehead with the butt of my gun.

When Fandorin stole up to the bed he even sighed deliberately, but Don Tsurumaki didn’t wake up. He was sleeping sweetly on a soft feather bed. He had a white nightcap with a vulgar pompom on his head instead of a fez. The silk blanket rose and fell peacefully on the millionaire’s broad chest. His lush lips were parted slightly.

The gold chain glinted in the opening of his nightshirt.

Now he’s sure to wake up, Erast Petrovich thought as he lined up the pliers, and he raised the hand holding the revolver. His heart was beating out a deafening drum-roll of triumph.

There was a metallic click, and the chain slid down the sleeping man’s neck. He lowed blissfully and turned over on to his side. The prickly golden rose was lying on Fandorin’s palm.

The soundest sleepers are not those who have a clear conscience, but those who never had one to begin with, the vice-consul told himself philosophically.

He walked downstairs, gestured for Shirota to go in the direction of the study-library, where he had once taken Prince Onokoji – may the Japanese God rest his sinful soul – by surprise at the scene of his crime.

He ran the beam of his little torch over the closed curtains, the tall cupboards with the solid doors, the bookshelves. There, that was the one.

‘You hold the light.’

He handed the little torch to the secretary, then spent two minutes feeling the spines of the books and the wooden uprights. Finally, when he pressed on a weighty tome of
Sacred Writings
(third from the left on the last shelf but one), something clicked. He pulled the shelves towards himself and they swung open like a door. Behind them in the wall was a small steel door.

‘On the keyhole, the keyhole,’ said Erast Petrovich, pointing impatiently.

The thorny rose wiggled and jiggled and slipped into the opening like a hand into a glove. Before turning the key, the titular counsellor carefully examined the wall, the floor and the skirting board for any electric alarm wires – and sure enough, he discovered a thick, hard string under the wallpaper. To get caught in the same trap twice would be unseemly, to say the least.

The pliers were called on again. One snip and the alarm was disconnected.

‘Open, sesame,’ Erast Petrovich whispered, in order to encourage Shirota. The beam of the torch had started wavering a bit – it looked as if the clerical worker’s nerves were beginning to find the tension too much.

‘What?’ the Japanese asked in surprise. ‘What did you say?’

Apparently he had never read the
Arabian Nights
.

There was a quiet ringing sound and the little door opened. Fandorin first squeezed his eyes shut, then swore under his breath.

Lying there in the steel box, glittering brilliantly in the electric light, were gold ingots. There were a lot of them; they looked like bricks in a wall.

Erast Petrovich’s disappointment knew no bounds. The Don had not lied. He really did keep gold in his safe. What a stupid, nouveau riche thing to do! Had this entire operation really been undertaken in vain?

Still unable to believe in such a crushing fiasco, he pulled out one ingot and glanced into the gap, but there was yellow metal glinting in the second row as well.

‘At the scene of the crime,’ a loud, mocking voice declared behind him.

The titular counsellor swung round sharply and saw a burly, stocky figure in the doorway. The next moment the chandelier on the ceiling blazed into life and the silhouette acquired colour, volume and texture.

It was the master of the house, still in that idiotic nightcap, with a dressing gown over his nightshirt, but the style of the trousers showing under the dressing gown was anything but pyjama-like.

‘Does Mr Diplomat like gold?’ Tsurumaki asked with a smile, nodding at the ingot in Fandorin’s hand.

The millionaire’s face was not sleepy at all. And another remarkable detail was that he was not wearing household slippers on his feet, but shoes, laced up in an extremely neat manner.

A trap, thought Erast Petrovich, turning cold. He was lying in bed dressed, even with his shoes on. He was waiting, he knew!

The Don clapped his hands, and men emerged from everywhere – from behind the curtains, out of doors, even out of the cupboards in the walls, and they were all dressed in identical black jackets and black cotton trousers. The servants – but Shirota had said they had all gone away!

There were at least a dozen servants. Fandorin had seen one of them before – a sinewy, bandy-legged fellow with long arms like a monkey. The vice-consul thought he worked as something like a butler or major-domo.

‘What a disgrace for the Russian Empire,’ said Tsurumaki, clicking his tongue. ‘The vice-consul stealing gold from other people’s safes.
Kamata, ju-o toreh
.’

The last phrase, spoken in Japanese, was addressed to the man with long arms.
Ju
was ‘weapon’,
toro
meant ‘take’,
Kamata
was his name.

The titular counsellor recovered from his stupor. He flung up his hand and aimed the Herstal at the forehead of the master of the house.

Kamata immediately froze on the spot, as did the other Black Jackets.

‘I have nothing to lose,’ Fandorin warned Tsurumaki. ‘Tell your men to go out. Immediately, otherwise …’

The Don wasn’t smiling any longer, he was looking at the titular counsellor curiously, as if trying to guess whether he was bluffing or might really fire.

‘I’ll fire, have no doubt about that,’ Fandorin assured him. ‘Better death than dishonour. And if I’m going to die anyway, it will be more fun with you. You’re such an interesting specimen. Shirota, stand on my left, you’re blocking my view of Mr Tsurumaki.’

The secretary obeyed but, evidently out of agitation, he stood on the vice-consul’s right instead of the left.

‘You know perfectly well that I didn’t come here for the gold.’

The Don moved and Erast Petrovich clicked the safety catch. ‘Stand still! And get all these men out of here!’

But then something strange happened. Something quite incredible, in fact.

The titular counsellor’s faithful comrade-in-arms, the secretary Shirota, flung himself on Fandorin’s arm with a guttural cry. A shot rang out and the bullet clipped a long splinter off the oak parquet.

‘What are you doing?’ Erast Petrovich shouted, trying to shake off the insane Japanese, but Kamata bounded across to the vice-consul and twisted his arm behind his back, and others came darting after him.

A second later Fandorin, disarmed and helpless, was standing flattened against the wall: they were holding him by the arms, the legs and the neck.

But Erast Petrovich was not looking at the black-clad servants, only at the traitor, who picked the revolver up off the floor and handed it to the Don with a bow.

‘You Judas!’ the titular counsellor shouted hoarsely. ‘You coward! You scoundrel!’

Shirota asked the master of the house something in Japanese – apparently he was requesting permission to reply. Tsurumaki nodded.

Then the turncoat turned towards Fandorin: his face was a pale, frozen mask, but his voice was firm and steady.

‘I am not a coward or a scoundrel, and even less a traitor. Quite the contrary, I am faithful to my country. I used to think it was possible to serve two countries without any loss of honour. But Mr Lieutenant Captain Bukhartsev opened my eyes. Now I know how Russia regards Japan and what we can expect from the Russians.’

Fandorin couldn’t bear it – he turned his eyes away. He remembered how Bukhartsev had pontificated about the ‘Yellow Peril’ without even thinking it necessary to lower his voice, and Shirota had been standing in the corridor all the time …

‘That’s politics,’ Erast Petrovich interrupted. ‘It can change. But betraying those who trust you is wrong! You are a member of the Russian consular staff!’

‘Not any longer. As you are aware, I handed in my resignation and even wrote exactly why I no longer wish to serve Russia.’

And that was true too!

‘Is it really more honourable to serve this murderer?’ Fandorin asked, nodding at the Don to emphasise this, his final argument.

‘Mr Tsurumaki is a sincere man. He is acting for the good of my Motherland. And he is also a strong man. If the supreme authority and the law damage the interests of our native land, he changes the authority and corrects the laws. I have decided that I shall help him. I never sat on any hill, I went straight to Mr Tsurumaki and told him about your plan. You could have harmed Japan, and I have stopped you.’

The longer Shirota talked, the more confident his voice became and the more brightly his eyes flashed. The modest, unassuming secretary had wound the smart Fandorin round his little finger; he even dared to be proud of the fact. Erast Petrovich, soundly drubbed on all counts, including even the moral issue, was seized by a spiteful desire to spoil the triumph of this champion of ‘sincerity’ in at least some small way.

‘I thought you loved Sophia Diogenovna. But you have betrayed her. You will never see her again.’

The moment he said it, he repented. It really was rather unworthy.

But Shirota was not perturbed.

‘On the contrary. Today I proposed to Sophie and I was accepted. I warned her that if she married me, she would have to become Japanese. She replied: “With you I would live in the jungle.”’ The hateful face of the Russian Empire’s new enemy dissolved into a smile of happiness. ‘It is bitter for me to part from you like this. I have profound respect for you. But nothing bad will happen to you, Mr Tsurumaki has promised me that. The safe was specially filled with gold instead of documents that contain state secrets. Thanks to this, you will not be charged with spying. And Mr Tsurumaki will not sue you for attempted robbery. You will remain alive, you will not go to jail. You will simply be expelled from Japan. You cannot be left here, you are far too dynamic, and you are also embittered because of your friends who have been killed.’

He turned to the Don and bowed to indicate that the conversation in Russian was over.