The titular counsellor caught his breath.
‘Tell me, who cleans the c-cross? Also the owner of the office?’
Fandorin jumped down on to the floor and moved the chair closer to the crucifixion. He scrambled back up again.
‘Of course. The cleaner wouldn’t dare. He knows it is a sacred object for your religion.’
‘Uh-huh. I can see that.’
The intendant obviously regarded the symbol of the Christian faith with less respect than the portrait of Emperor Mutsuhito – a thin layer of dust had accumulated on the black wood.
Erast Petrovich tried to move the crucifixion, but he couldn’t. Shining his torch a bit closer, he saw that the cross was not hung on the wall or nailed to it, but sunk slightly into its surface. Strange! So a special housing had been made for it?
He tried to pull it out. He couldn’t. Then he pressed it.
With a barely audible click, the crucifixion sank deeper into the wallpaper, leaving its edges protruding no more than an inch.
A second later there was a melodic clang, and a section of the wall moved aside rapidly, almost springing into the space behind the bookcase. A dark rectangle opened up, slightly lower than the height of a man.
‘That’s it! The secret hiding place!’ Asagawa cried, and glanced round at the door of the reception area, in case he had shouted too loudly.
Fandorin automatically glanced at his watch: two minutes to two.
‘Ah, what would I have done without you?’ the inspector exclaimed emotionally, almost with tears in his eyes, and dived into the dark hole.
But the vice-consul’s attention was caught by the arrangement of the secret room. In cross-section it was clearly visible: a layer of oak boards under the plaster, and then cork. That was why sounding out the walls hadn’t helped. The lever released powerful steel springs, which was why the partition jumped aside so fast. Fandorin wondered whether it closed in the same impetuous fashion or whether strength had to be applied.
Having satisfied his technical curiosity, Erast Petrovich followed his accomplice inside.
The repository of secrets proved to be a narrow room, but quite long – about ten paces. Its walls were entirely covered with shelving. Standing on the shelves were perfectly ordinary office files of various thicknesses. Asagawa took them down one by one, exclaimed something in Japanese and put them back again. The vice-consul also took one of the thicker ones. There were hieroglyphs drawn on the cover. The first two were easy, Erast Petrovich recognised them: ‘Eastern Capital’, that was ‘Tokyo’, but everything after that was gobbledegook to him.
‘What does it say here?’
‘Tokyo Provincial Government,’ Asagawa said after a swift glance. ‘But that’s nothing! There are ministers and members of the State Council here, even – you won’t believe it – members of the imperial family! Nothing is sacred to this man!’
‘And what does he have there about the empress?’ Fandorin asked curiously, glancing over the inspector’s shoulder.
He couldn’t see anything interesting on the page – just some note in the same old hieroglyphic scrawl – but the inspector nudged him away impolitely with his elbow.
‘I haven’t read it and I won’t allow you to! How infamous!’
He tore up the note and a few other pieces of paper in the file with trembling fingers.
‘Listen, it’s two minutes past two,’ the titular counsellor told him, pointing to his watch. ‘This isn’t what we came here for. Where’s the file with the conspirators?’
Owing to his hieroglyphic illiteracy, Erast Petrovich had nothing to occupy himself with. While Asagawa rummaged through the shelves, the young man shone his torch in all directions. He failed to discover anything of interest. There didn’t seem to be any lever inside the secret room, it could be opened and closed only from the outside. There were gas burners protruding from the ceiling – evidently the lighting could be switched on from the office, but there was no need for that, the torch and the lamp were quite adequate.
‘I have it!’ the inspector gasped. ‘It says “Okubo” on the spine.’ He started leafing feverishly through the pages. ‘Here are my missing reports, all three of them! And this is a report from the head of the police in the city of Kagosima. He says that according to reports from his agents, the sword master Ikemura Hyoske and two of his pupils have set out for Tokyo. Description: forty-five years old, a scar on the left side of his neck and his temple, left arm twisted. His nickname is Kamiyasuri – “Glasspaper”, because he covers the hilt of his sword with glass paper – his right hand is harder than steel. It’s him, the man with the withered arm! Wait, wait, there’s more here…’ Asagawa took out three sheets of paper covered with writing in a strange brown-coloured ink. ‘It’s an oath. Written in blood. “We, the undersigned, do hereby swear on our honour not to begrudge our lives in the name of an exalted goal – to exterminate the base traitor Okubo…” There are three such documents. One of them has six signatures – that is the group that killed the minister. The second document has three signatures, and the first one is Ikemura Hyoske’s. Our Satsumans! The third document has four signatures. So there was another group that remained undiscovered. The names are here, it will not be difficult to find the plotters before they can do anything else dangerous… We have won, Fandorin-san! We have Suga in our hands! With these oaths and the stolen reports we can pin him down!’
‘He was already in our hands anyway,’ Erast Petrovich remarked coolly. ‘This delightful little archive will cost him his head without any c-conspiracies.’
Asagawa shook his head.
‘Surely you do not think that I will allow all these abominations to come pouring out? There is so much filth here, so many family secrets! There would be a wave of suicides, divorces, scandals, resignations in disgrace. No, worse than that! The new minister would take the archive for his own use, he would announce that it has been destroyed, but keep the spiciest items – just in case.’
‘Then what is to be done?’
‘We are going to destroy all this poison. Without reading it.’
‘Very n-noble,’ declared Fandorin, who could not have savoured the Japanese secrets even if he had felt any desire to do so. ‘But what are these signs? They don’t look like hieroglyphs.’
He pointed to a sheet of paper lying at the very bottom of the file. Right at the centre there was a circle with a strange squiggle inside it. Lines ran out from the circle, connecting it with other, smaller circles.
‘No, those are not hieroglyphs,’ the inspector murmured, peering at the paper. ‘At least, not Japanese hieroglyphs. I have never come across any writing like this before.’
‘It looks like a diagram of the conspiracy,’ Fandorin suggested. ‘And in code too. It would be interesting to know who is symbolised by the c-circle at the centre.’
‘It must be Suga.’
‘Unlikely. He wouldn’t have denoted himself with some kind of doodle. He would just have drawn the circle and left it at that.’
They leaned down over the mysterious diagram, with their shoulders pressed against each other. Asagawa must have breathed in a lot of dust, because he sneezed, and the sound echoed loudly under the low vaulted ceiling.
‘You’re crazy!’ Fandorin hissed. ‘Quiet!’
The Japanese waved his hand nonchalantly and answered without lowering his voice.
‘What does it matter? We no longer have to hide. As soon as we’ve destroyed the unnecessary documents, I’ll call the duty officer and explain that…’
But he didn’t finish what he was about to say.
Without the slightest warning, the secret door slammed shut with that familiar metallic clang. The wall trembled slightly and the room was suddenly as silent as the grave.