Remo looked dubious.
"You fellas care to share your opinions with a jugeared good of boy?"
"Let's see that engine," Remo said.
"Probably birds-nested all to hell."
They opened the engine covers, exposing the monster diesel engine. It was still new, a factory-fresh coat of primary yellow paint making it gleam.
"Man, is that a mess," Melvis said.
It was. Wires and metal components lay everywhere. In places the yellow was scorched and blackened. It looked like a bird's nest after it had been picked at by squirrels.
Melvis shook his head. "Never seen one birdsnested so bad."
Remo asked Chiun, "Think it's inside the engine block?"
Chiun shook his head. "It passed through, impaling itself on the tie. You saw it."
Remo shook his head, "Couldn't. If it struck the tie, the trailing cars would have mangled it. And someone would have noticed it among the car parts. Therefore, it's in the engine block if it's anywhere."
Chiun frowned like a death mask drying. "There is an explanation," he said.
"Sure, always is. Look in the engine block."
"First we will look under the engine," said Chiun.
They looked. There was no exit hole in the bottom of the engine. Nor in the back.
"It is a conundrum," said Chiun, absently stroking his wispy beard.
"That's a rabbity kinda word for what we got here," Melvis Cupper allowed.
"Well, I guess there's only one way to find out," said Remo.
"Yes," said Chiun, raising his arms so his wide kimono sleeves slid back to his elbows, exposing pipestem arms resembling plucked chicken wings.
Remo turned to Melvis Cupper. "Think you could find a flashlight?"
"I guess I can rustle one up. You wait here now."
Melvis Cupper was gone only five minutes, long enough to forage a flashlight from the freight yards. He was loping back when he heard the wild straining and shriek of metal.
He broke into a run. "Dad-gum it all to hell!"
Remo and Chiun were climbing out of the cab when he got there. Remo was holding a short black sword of some kind.
"What's that?" Melvis demanded.
"Katana. "
"I can see that. I got eyes. Where'd you get it?"
"From the engine block."
"How?"
"Reached into the rip in the back of the cab," said Remo as they fell to examining the blade. Melvis clambered into the cab and examined the rent. It was bigger now. Very big. It looked as though someone had used clevis hooks to open it wide.
He poked his head out again. "What kinda tool you boys use?"
"Handy ones," said Remo, not taking his eyes from the blade.
Melvis rejoined them, looking mad. "You DOT boys ain't got no right to poke your noses into my investigation."
"You'd never have discovered this without us."
"Fine, then. That there frog-sticker is NTSB accident evidence."
Remo moved it out of Melvis's reach. "Sorry. Finders keepers."
"I plan on writin' you uncooperative boys up."
"Feel free," said Remo, turning the sword around in his hands.
Melvis's eyes kept going to the blade. "That's what chopped that poor soul's head clean off, you reckon?"
"Looks that way."
"Lopped it off and buried itself into the bulkhead, is what you're sayin'?"
"That's right."
"If that be the case, why ain't it banged up or broke?"
"Good question," said Remo.
The blade was straight, true and without nicks or scratches.
"And while we're gnawin' at the subject, how'd it get in there in the first place?"
"Through the windscreen."
"No hole in the windscreen. Not one big enough to pass that sucker through. Explain that if you can."
"We cannot," said Chiun.
"Then your theory falls all to hell and gone."
"That's life," said Remo.
"Yes, that is life," echoed Chiun.
Melvis Cupper eyed them skeptically. "For DOT boys you two seem powerful casual about your work."
They started off.
"We'll see you around the old camp fire," said Remo.
"Not if I see you gents first," said Melvis Cupper, slapping on his NTSB Stetson.
Chapter 13
On the flight back east, Remo had one question for the Master of Sinanju. "What do we tell Smith?"
"The truth," said Chiun.
This wasn't exactly the answer Remo expected, so he asked another question. "All of it?"
"Of course not."
"What part are we leaving out?"
"The important part."
"Which is?"
"Family business. It is not for the emperor's ears."
"So we just tell him a loose samurai-"
"Ronin."
"-is responsible for these derailments and let him take the ball from there?"
"He is emperor. His wisdom will guide us."
Remo settled back into his seat. "I can hardly wait to hear his reaction."
HAROLD SMITH LOOKED at the short sword as it was laid on his tinted-glass-topped desk at Folcroft Sanitarium.
Behind him a picture window let in afternoon light. Long Island Sound danced placidly. There wasn't a cloud in the sky or a shadow on the water.
The sword was ebony of handle and black of blade. Smith extracted a pearl gray handkerchief from the breast pocket of his gray suit.
Lifting the sword, he dropped the handkerchief onto the upraised edge. The gray cloth settled, hanging over each side. Reaching under, Smith grasped the dangling ends and gave a firm but gentle tug.
With a faint popping, the linen handkerchief parted like old cheesecloth.
"This is a genuine katana, " Smith pronounced.
Remo grunted in surprise. "You know that from the sharpness of the blade?"
"Of course. I spent time in occupied Japan after the war."
Chiun favored Remo with a silent look Remo read as How does he know of this and you do not?
Remo shrugged in response.
"You say you found it in the locomotive?" asked Smith of Remo.
"It went through the bulkhead in back of the cab and embedded itself in the engine block. I had a hard time pulling it out."
"Impossible."
"Why do you say that?"
"For this blade to have sliced into the engine block is impossible. If possible by some freak of chance, it would have been hopelessly mangled upon impact, if not melted by engine heat."
"Look, I'm just telling you where I found it."
"We found it," corrected the Master of Sinanju.
"Right," said Remo. "There's more."
Laying the blade on the desktop, Smith looked up expectantly.
"You start," Remo told Chiun.
Smith's gray eyes tracked to the Master of Sinanju.
Chiun stood with his hands in the sleeves of his kimono, his favored position when at rest. "What I am about to relate may strain your imagination, O Emperor."
"Just tell it plainly," invited Smith.
"On the previous night, in the place correctly called Mystic, I came upon footprints that came from the sea," said Chiun.
"Yes?"
"I followed these and encountered a ronin, a masterless samurai, as I have told you."
"How do you know this was a ronin, not a samurai?"
Chiun's wispy eyebrows shot up in surprise.
"Er, I looked the word up after we spoke last," Smith admitted.
Chiun eyed Remo as if to ask, Why do you not ask such intelligent questions?
Remo pretended to be checking the shine of his shoes.
"I know him to be a ronin because his armor bore no mark of his allegiance upon his shoulder."
"No clan crest, in other words?"
"Yes. No Bode -jirushi. Thus, a ronin, not a samurai."
"Continue, Master Chiun."
"As I stalked this wave-tossed one, so-called because that is the meaning of ronin, not because he emerged from the sea, I spied the bite of a katana blade in the bole of an alien tree."
Smith's eyes eyes flicked to the katana on his desk.