When the intendant named Bullcox, the inspector hissed something to the prisoner in Japanese. Flexing his jaw muscles, he explained his indignation to Fandorin:
‘He is an even greater scoundrel than I thought. At least the fanatics from Satsuma believed they were acting in the name of their Homeland, but this one knew they were mere pawns in a game planned by a foreigner!’
Suga bleated.
‘We can take out the hami now,’ said Erast Petrovich, who had still not recovered from his shock – he simply could not understand why this explanation had not occurred to him earlier.
Freed of the gag, the general spat and blurted out hoarsely to Asagawa:
‘And aren’t you a pawn in the hands of a foreigner?’ But then he came to his senses, remembering that he was completely in the inspector’s power, and changed his tone of voice. ‘I have kept my word. Now it is your turn. Give me a dagger.’
‘I don’t have a dagger,’ Asagawa said with a crooked grimace. ‘And if I did, I wouldn’t give it to you. I wouldn’t let you stain the noble steel with your filthy blood! Remember how you forced the hunchback to chew his tongue off? Now it is your turn. You’ve got sharp teeth, go on – if you have the courage. I shall enjoy watching.’
The intendant’s eyes narrowed in hatred and glittered with fire.
The vice-consul tried cautiously to bite the tip of his tongue and shuddered. Asagawa was cruel, and no mistake. He was testing Suga’s strength of character. If the intendant wavered, he would lose face. Then it would be possible to shake all sorts of things out of him.
None of them spoke. Then there was a strange stifled sound – it was Suga gulping.
No one was watching the door that led into the secret room, so when it slammed shut with a clang, they all started. Could twenty minutes really have gone by since the intendant had pressed the lever?
‘You don’t want to eat your own tongue,’ the inspector remarked smugly. ‘Then here is a new proposal. Look here…’ – he took a revolver out of the general’s pocket (Fandorin had not been mistaken, it was a cavalryman’s Hagstrцm) and left one bullet in the cylinder. ‘Tell us who the other circles represent, and you won’t have to gnaw your tongue off.’
The glance that Suga cast at that revolver was beyond description. No Romeo had ever devoured his Juliet with such lust in his eyes, no shipwreck victim had ever gazed so longingly at a speck on the horizon. The titular counsellor was absolutely certain that the general would not be able to resist the temptation. He was certain – and he was mistaken.
On the previous occasion Erast Petrovich had been lucky – he had observed this grisly spectacle from a distance, but this time it all happened just two paces from him.
Suga gave an absolutely feral, inhuman roar, opened his mouth wide, thrust his fleshy, red tongue out as far as it would go and clamped his jaws together. There was a sickening crunch and Fandorin turned away, but even so he had feasted his eyes on the sight long enough for it to remain with him for the rest of his days.
The intendant took longer to die than Semushi. Fandorin realised now that the shock of the pain had been too much for the hunchback. But Suga had a strong heart, and he choked on his own blood. At first he swallowed it convulsively, then it streamed out over his chin and his chest. That probably lasted for a few minutes. And all this time the iron man didn’t groan even once.
After the wheezing ended and the suicide slumped limply in his bonds, Asagawa cut him free. The body slid down on to the floor and a red puddle started spreading out across the parquet.
The epitaph pronounced by the inspector was restrained and respectful.
‘A strong man. A genuine akunin. But the main akunin in this story is not Japanese, he is a foreigner. What a disgrace!’
Fandorin was feeling sick. He wanted to get away from this cursed place as quickly as possible, but they spent quite a lot more time there after that.
First they eliminated all signs of their own presence: they collected up the pieces of rope, straightened the portrait of the Mikado, found the bullet fired from Fandorin’s Herstal and dug it out.
From the European point of view it looked absolutely absurd: for some reason the head of the imperial police had come to his office in the middle of the night, sat down in a chair, bitten off his own tongue and died. Erast Petrovich could only hope that in Japanese terms it might appear less outlandish.
Then, on Asagawa’s insistence, they spent the best part of an hour tearing all the numerous dossiers into tiny scraps of paper. Only then did they finally leave, in the same way as they had entered, that is, via the window of the toilet.
The only part of the archive that they did not destroy was the ‘Okubo’ file. It contained the page with the coded diagram, the stolen reports and the three sheets of paper with the oath written in blood. In combination with the testimony of the witness, Prince Onokoji, who not only knew about Suga’s secret activities, but had connections with Bullcox, this was quite enough. Soon everyone would know why the intendant of police had done away with himself.
But before that the case had to be brought to a conclusion by finding evidence against the Englishman. If that could be managed, Britannia would suffer categorical disgrace, and Russian interests would be completely triumphant. This was a very grave matter – the resident English agent had organised the political assassination of a great man! It would probably lead to the severance of diplomatic relations.
If Bullcox wormed his way out of it and got away scot-free (there was really nothing to snag him with as yet), they would have to be satisfied with having exposed Suga. But that was already quite a lot.
Should he report to Doronin or wait a while? It was probably too soon. First he had to try to catch Bullcox by the tail, and that would probably require him to use methods that were not exactly diplomatic. And then, there was another circumstance, one that was quite insignificant from the viewpoint of high politics, but extremely important to Fandorin. It was precisely this delicate problem, of an entirely personal nature, that he was thinking through as he gazed out of the window at the paddy fields glinting in the sun.
Asagawa suddenly opened his eyes and said thoughtfully, as if he had never been asleep, but had also been immersed in analytical thinking:
‘You know, that scoundrel Onokoji deliberately sent us into a trap.’
‘Why do you think that?’
‘There was no file on Onokoji in the archive.’
Fandorin frowned.
‘You mean to say that the shinobi carried out their assignment in full? They got into the archive and stole the file of compromising material?’
‘If we were able to find the lever, the ninja must certainly have found it. They are far more experienced in such matters, and more cautious. If there were two of them, we must assume that they did not enter the secret room together, as we did, but one stayed on guard outside.
‘Then why did they not steal the entire archive? It could have been a powerful instrument of influence for them! Those secrets are worth huge amounts of money!’
The inspector looked at Fandorin in amazement.
‘Come now! The Stealthy Ones kill, steal and spy, but they do not engage in blackmail and extortion! That would contradict their traditions and code of honour.’
Yes, Erast Petrovich had forgotten that in Japan everybody, even the villains, always had some kind of code. There was something reassuring about that, somehow.
‘So Onokoji did get his f-file? Well, of course. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have spoken about Suga’s archive so calmly. He got what he wanted, but he didn’t wish to pay the Momochi clan for their work. He knew that the senior samurai would be held answerable, not him. The prince used the samurai and condemned him to death.’
‘There’s no point now in talking about the samurai,’ said Asagawa, waving his fist through the air. ‘Don’t you see? Onokoji knew we would fall into a trap, and he didn’t warn us. He was counting on Suga killing us! I swear I’ll shake the black soul out of that slimy scoundrel!’