The commissioner set off decisively towards the door, but the diplomat grabbed his elbow in a vice-like grip and said in a repulsively obsequious voice:
‘Dear M. Gauche, I would like to follow my arguments through to their conclusion. Please be patient for just a little while longer.’
Gauche tried to break free, but this young whippersnapper had fingers of steel. After his second attempt failed, the commissioner decided not to make himself look even more foolish.
He turned to face Fandorin.
‘Very well, five more minutes,’ he hissed, glaring into the insolent youth’s serene blue eyes.
‘Thank you. Five minutes will be more than enough to shatter your final piece of hard evidence … I knew that the runaway slave must have a lair somewhere on the ship, so I looked for it. But while you were searching the holds and the coal-holes, Captain, I started with the upper deck. The black man had only been seen by first-class passengers, so it was reasonable to assume that he was hiding somewhere close by. I found what I was looking for in the third lifeboat from the bow on the starboard side: the remains of his food and a bundle of his belongings. There were several pieces of coloured cloth, a string of beads and all sorts of shiny objects, including a small mirror, a sextant, a pince-nez and also a large scalpel.’
‘Why should I believe you?’ roared Gauche. His case was crumbling to dust before his very eyes.
‘Because I am a disinterested party who is prepared to confirm his testimony under oath. May I continue?’ The Russian smiled his sickening little smile. ‘Thank you. Our poor negro was evidently a thrifty individual who did not intend to return home empty-handed.’
‘Stop, stop!’ cried Renier, with a frown. ‘M. Fandorin, why did you not report your discovery to the captain and me? What right did you have to conceal it?’
‘I didn’t conceal it. I left the bundle where it was. But when I came back to the lifeboat a few hours later, after the search, the bundle was gone. I was sure it must have been found by your sailors. But now it seems that the professor’s murderer got there before you and claimed all the negro’s trophies, including Mr Aono’s scalpel. The c-criminal could have foreseen that he might need to take … extreme measures and carried the scalpel around with him as a precaution. It might help to put the police off the scent. Tell me, Mr Aono, was the scalpel stolen from you?’
The Japanese hesitated for a moment before nodding reluctantly.
‘And you did not mention it, because an officer of the imperial army could not possibly possess a scalpel, am I right?’
‘The sextant was mine!’ declared the redheaded baronet. ‘I thought … but that doesn’t matter. So it turns out that savage stole it. Gentlemen, if someone’s head is smashed in with my sextant, please bear in mind that it is nothing to do with me.’
Bewildered by this final and absolute disaster, Gauche squinted inquiringly at Jackson.
‘I’m very sorry, Commissioner, but it seems you will have to continue your voyage,’ the inspector said in French, twisting his thin lips into a smile of sympathy. ‘My apologies, Mr Aono. If you would just hold out your hands … Thank you.’
The handcuffs jangled plaintively as they were removed.
The silence that ensued was broken by Renate Kleber’s frightened voice:
‘I beg your pardon, gentlemen, but then who is the murderer?’
PART
THREE
Bombay to the Palk Strait
170
Gintaro Aono
The 18th day of the fourth month
In view of the southern tip of the Indian peninsula It is now three days since we left Bombay, and I have not opened my diary even once since then. This is the first time such a thing has happened to me since I made it a firm rule to write every day. But I made the break deliberately. I had to come to terms with an overwhelming torrent of thoughts and feelings.
The essential significance of what has happened to me is best conveyed by a haiku that was born spontaneously at the very moment when the inspector of police removed the iron shackles from my wrists.
Lonely is the flight
Of the nocturnal butterfly,
But stars throng the sky.
I realized immediately that it was a very good poem, the best that I have ever written, but its meaning is not obvious and requires elucidation. I have meditated for three days on the changes within my being, until I think I have finally discovered the truth.
I have been visited by the great miracle of which every man dreams - I have experienced satori, or catharsis, as the ancient Greeks called it. How many times has my mentor told me that if satori comes, it comes when it will and on its own terms, it cannot be induced or impeded! A man may be righteous and wise, he may sit in the zazen pose for many hours each day and read mountains of sacred texts, but still die unenlightened. And yet the radiant majesty of satori may be revealed to some ne’er-do-well who wanders aimlessly and foolishly through life, transforming his worthless existence in an instant! I am that ne’er-do-well. I have been lucky. At the age of 27 I have been born again.
Illumination and purification did not come to me in a moment of spiritual and physical concentration, but when I was wretched, crushed and empty, when I was reduced to no more than the wrinkled skin of a burst balloon. But the dull clanking of those irons signalled my transformation. Suddenly I knew with a clarity beyond words that I am not I, but … No, that is not it. That I am not only I, but also an infinite multitude of other lives. That I am not some Gintaro Aono, third son of the senior counsellor to His Serene Highness Prince Simazu: I am a small and yet precious particle of the One. I am in all that exists, and all that exists is in me. How many times I have heard those words, but I only understood them … no, I only experienced their truth, on the 15th day of the fourth month of the nth year of Meiji, in the city of Bombay, on board an immense European steamship.
The will of the Supreme is truly capricious.
What is the meaning of this tercet that was born of my inner intuition? Man is a solitary firefly in the gloom of boundless night. His light is so weak that it illuminates only a minute segment of space; beyond that lie cold, darkness and fear. But if you turn your frightened gaze away from the dark earth below and look upwards (you need only turn your head!), you see that the sky is covered with stars, shining with a calm, bright, eternal light. You are not alone in the darkness. The stars are your friends, they will help you. They will not abandon you in your distress.
And a little while later one understands something else, something equally important: a firefly is also a star like all the others. Those in the sky above see your light and it helps them to endure the cold darkness of the universe.
My life will probably not change. I shall be the same as I was before - trivial and absurd, at the mercy of my passions. But this certain knowledge will always dwell in the depths of my soul, my salvation and comfort in times of difficulty. I am no longer a shallow puddle that any strong gust of wind can spill across the ground. I am the ocean, and the storm that drives the all-destroying tsunami across my surface can never touch my inmost depths.
When my spirit was flooded with joy at this realization, I recalled that the greatest of virtues is gratitude. The first star I glimpsed glowing in the blackness around me was Fandorin-san. Thanks to him I know that the world is not indifferent to me, Gintaro Aono, that the Great Beyond will never abandon me in misfortune.
But how can I explain to a man from a different culture that he is my onjin for all time? The European languages do not have such a word. Today I plucked up my courage and tried to speak with him about this, but I fear that the conversation came to nothing.