‘Will you be much longer?’ the vice-consul asked impatiently. ‘It’s twenty-three minutes past eleven. The nights are short now.’
From the toilet they crept down a long, dark corridor, Asagawa on his twisted-straw sandals and Fandorin on his rubber soles. The department of police was sleeping peacefully. That’s what a low level of crime does for you, thought the titular counsellor, not without a twinge of envy. Along the way they encountered only a single office with a light burning, where some kind of night work seemed to be going on, and once a duty officer carrying a candle came out from round a corner. He yawned as he walked past, without even noticing the two black figures pressed back against the wall.
‘We’re here,’ Asagawa whispered, stopping in front of a tall double door.
He put a piece of metal into the keyhole (an ordinary picklock, Erast Petrovich noted), turned it and the accomplices found themselves in a spacious room: a row of chairs along the walls, a secretary’s desk, another door in the far corner. It was clearly the reception area. Consul Doronin had told Fandorin that six years earlier there had been a great bureaucratic reform. The functionaries had all been dressed in uniforms instead of kimonos and forced to sit on chairs, not on the floor. The bureaucracy had almost rebelled at first, but had gradually got accustomed to it. What a shame. It must have been very picturesque before. Imagine arriving at a government office, and the heads of department and clerks and secretaries are all dressed in robes and sitting there cross-legged. Fandorin sighed, lamenting the gradual displacement of the variety of life by European order. In a hundred years’ time everything would be the same everywhere, you wouldn’t be able to tell whether you were in Russia or Siam. How boring.
The room located beyond the reception area was also not in any way remarkable. An ordinary office of some important individual. One broad, short desk, and beyond it a long narrow table. Two armchairs on one side, for official conversations with important visitors. Bookshelves with codes of laws. A photographic portrait of the emperor hanging in the most prominent position. The only unusual thing, from the Japanese point of view, was the crucifixion hanging beside the image of the earthly ruler. Ah, yes, Suga was a Christian, he had a cross hanging round his neck too.
A fine follower of Christ, thought Erast Petrovich, shaking his head, but immediately felt ashamed: As if our own lovers of God don’t betray or kill.
Asagawa closed the curtains more tightly, lit an oil lamp and walked up to the titular counsellor. He seemed excited, almost triumphant.
‘I don’t know if we’ll find the hiding place or how all this will end, so I will say now what I must say. I should have come here alone. This is our Japanese business. My business. But I am very grateful to you, Fandorin-san, for volunteering to keep me company. I have more faith in your acumen than I do in my own. Without you, I would almost certainly not find the lever, but you are cunning. Almost as cunning as Intendant Suga.’
Erast Petrovich bowed ceremoniously, but the inspector did not understand the irony. He bowed in reply, only more deeply.
‘Do not think I do not understand how much more exalted your sacrifice is than mine. If we are caught, what is that to me, I shall merely take my life and bring disgrace on the clan of Asagawa, which has served the law honestly for two and a half centuries. But you will disgrace your country and your state. You are a very brave man, Fandorin-san.’
They exchanged bows again, this time without even a hint of playfulness on the vice-consul’s side, and set about their search.
First they sounded out the two side walls, then divided the office into left and right sections. Unlike the energetic inspector, who nimbly tapped all the skirting boards and floorboards in his half, checked all the items on the desk and then set about the books, Erast Petrovich hardly touched anything at all. He strode around unhurriedly, shining his little American torch on things. An excellent little item, the very latest design. It produced a bright, dense ray of light. When it started to fade – about every one and a half minutes – you had to pump a spring with your fingers, and the torch immediately came back to life.
He stood in front of the portrait for a while. His Majesty the Mikado was shown in military uniform, with epaulettes and a sword. Fandorin thought the young face with the sparse moustache bore the imprint of degeneracy (which was hardly surprising, considering the dynasty’s twenty-five centuries of genealogical history), but Emperor Mutsuhito’s gaze was searching and intent. Patient, cautious, secretive, unsure of himself, enquiring, thought the vice-consul, practising his physiognomics. A master of ninso would undoubtedly have seen far more, but even this was enough to tell that the young royal ruler would go far.
‘I’ve finished my half,’ Asagawa declared. ‘There’s nothing.’
‘Would you like to swap? By all means.’
Fandorin walked out into the centre of the room, sat on the conference table and dangled one leg. A quarter past twelve.
An archive was something that you needed often. So the answer was most likely one of two things: either a lever within easy reach that could be operated without getting up from the desk; or, on the contrary, the lever was located right beside the entrance to the secret compartment. Asagawa had examined everything on the desk very thoroughly indeed. So it must be the second option.
There were two walls in which the secret room could be hidden. The wall between the office and reception area could be eliminated, along with the external wall.
Fandorin walked backwards and forwards, scrutinising.
The clock on the wall struck one.
‘Have you moved that?’ the titular counsellor asked, pointing at the clock.
‘Of course,’ said Asagawa, wiping the sweat off his forehead. ‘I divided the room up into squares, I’m trying not to miss anything.’
Yes, the lever couldn’t be in the clock, Fandorin thought. The cleaner might trip it if he started dusting the timepiece. Or the person responsible for winding and adjusting it…
‘I’ve run out of squares,’ the inspector announced in a dejected voice. ‘What can we do? Try again…’
One forty-two. Where could the lever be? It wasn’t behind the wallpaper or the skirting boards. Or in the bookcase. Asagawa had lifted up the pictures too…
Erast Petrovich suddenly froze.
‘Tell me, did you touch the emperor’s portrait?’
‘Of course not. That’s impossible!’ The inspector actually shuddered at such a blasphemous suggestion.
‘But someone dusts it, don’t they?’
‘That sacred responsibility can only be performed by the owner of the office, with all appropriate respect. In my station no one would dare to touch the portrait of His Majesty that hangs over my desk. People wipe the dust from the emperor’s face in the morning, almost as soon as they get to work. With a special silk duster, after first bowing.’
‘I see. Well, now I’ll show you how the s-secret room opens.’
The titular counsellor took a chair, carried it across to the wall, climbed up on it and took hold of the portrait confidently with both hands. Asagawa gasped.
‘Like this,’ Erast Petrovich purred, swaying the frame to the left. Nothing happened. ‘Well then, like this.’
He swayed the frame to the right – again nothing. Fandorin pulled the portrait towards himself. He tugged it up, he tugged it down. Finally he turned it completely upside down. The poor inspector groaned and whimpered.
‘Damn! Could I really be mistaken?’
Erast Petrovich took the emperor down and tapped on the glass. The sound was hollow.
He angrily hung the portrait back up and it swayed to and fro in shock.
The young man felt ashamed. Not for his mistake, but for the lofty condescension with which he had drawled ‘I see’. The beam of his torch slid across the wallpaper, lighting up the horizontal beam of the crucifixion from above.