And the second one is like a whole knot of snakes.
But wait a moment, good sir! Both of these squiggles are also in the alphabet. The first is the syllable ‘to’, the second is the syllable ‘nu’, or simply ‘n’.
Hmm. Twigs scratched the bridge of his nose, bemused. What on earth is tonu? What has tonu got to do with anything? It doesn’t add up.
Evidently the writing in the diagram was not simply in the secret alphabet of the ninja, it had been additionally enciphered – each letter signified another one. Well now, that was even more interesting.
The doctor drummed his fingers on the table in keen anticipation of a long and fascinating job.
Forward, sir!
Of all the pleasures granted to man, the very greatest is to exercise his brains.
All right, all right.
We know that Suga uses the letter ‘to’ to represent ‘bu’, and the letter ‘nu’ to represent ‘ru’. These letters also occur in other circles: the former three times and the latter once.
So, let us proceed.
He picked up a magnifying glass and inspected the circle more closely. What are these tiny little lines above the three snakes? Dirt? No, they’re written in ink. They look like a nigori, the sign for voicing, which changes the syllable ‘ka’ to ‘ga’, ‘ta’ to ‘da’, ‘sa’ to ‘za’. That fits: ‘bu’ is a voiced syllable, there ought to be a nigori.
Twigs thoughtfully copied out the circle and the two symbols inside it.
Without any encipherment, it would read as a voiced ‘to’ (in other words ‘do’), plus ‘nu’ or ‘n’.
Hang on now, hang on…
The doctor rubbed his bald patch in agitation and half-rose out of his chair. But then, just at the crucial moment, the night bell attached to the wall above his desk started growling quietly. It was Lancelot Twigs’ own personal invention – he had had electric wires run from the doorbell to his study and bedroom, so that any late-night patients wouldn’t wake the girls.
Feeling highly annoyed, he set off towards the door, but stopped in the corridor before he got there. He mustn’t! Mr Asagawa had warned him very strictly: no night visitors, no opening the door for anyone.
‘Doctor! Is that you?’ a voice said outside. ‘Dr Twigs? I saw the plate on your door. Help me, for God’s sake!’
It was an agitated, almost tearful male voice with a Japanese accent.
‘I’m Jonathan Yamada, senior sales clerk at Simon, Evers and Company. In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, open up!’
‘Why, what’s happened?’ asked Twigs, without the slightest intention of opening up.
‘My wife’s gone into labour!’
‘But I’m not an obstetrician. You need Dr Buckle, he lives on…’
‘I know, I was taking my wife to Dr Buckle! But the carriage overturned! Just round the corner here! Doctor, I beg you! She’s hurt her head, there’s blood! She’ll die, Doctor!’
Twigs heard low, muffled sobbing.
If it had been anything else, Lancelot Twigs would probably not have opened the door, for he was a man of his word. But he remembered his poor Jenny and his own helplessness and hopeless despair.
‘Just a moment… just a moment.’
And he opened the door slightly, without taking it off the chain.
He saw a plump Japanese man in a bowler hat and frock coat, with his trembling face streaming with tears. The man immediately went down on his knees and held his hands up to the doctor.
‘I beg you! Come quickly!’
There was no one else in the street.
‘You know, I’m not well,’ Twigs muttered in embarrassment. ‘Dr Albertini, an excellent surgeon, lives on Hommura-dori Street. It’s only ten minutes away from here…’
‘While I run there, my wife will bleed to death! Save her!’
‘Ah, what is to be done with you!’
Of course, a man should keep his word, but there was also the Hippocratic oath…
He sighed and took the door off the chain.
The senior sales clerk Jonathan Yamada sobbed.
‘Thank you! Thank you! Allow me to kiss your hand.’
‘Nonsense! Come in. I’ll just change my shoes and get my instruments. Wait in the hallway, I’ll only be a moment.’
The doctor set off quickly towards his study – to get his bag and conceal the secret diagram. Or would it be best to take it with him? No, that probably wasn’t a good idea.
Either the sales clerk didn’t hear that he was supposed to wait in the hallway, or he was too agitated to think clearly, but he tagged along after the doctor, babbling all the time about kissing his hand.
‘At least allow me to shake your noble hand!’
‘Oh, be my guest,’ said Twigs, holding out his open right hand and taking hold of the door with his left. ‘I have to leave you for just a second…’
In his emotional fervour Jonathan Yamada squeezed the doctor’s hand with all his might.
‘Ow!’ Twigs exclaimed. ‘That hurts!’
He raised his hand to his eyes. A small drop of blood oozed out of the base of his middle finger.
The sales clerk started fussing again.
‘For God’s sake, forgive me! I have a ring, an old one, a family heirloom. Sometimes it turns round, it’s a bit too big. Did I scratch you? Did I scratch you? Oh, oh! I’m so sorry! Let me bandage it, I have a handkerchief, it’s clean!’
‘Don’t bother, it’s nothing,’ Twigs said with a frown, licking the wound with his tongue. ‘I’ll only be a moment. Wait.’
He closed the door behind him, walked across to the desk and staggered – everything had suddenly gone dark. He grabbed the top of the desk with both hands.
The sales clerk had apparently not stayed in the corridor after all, he had come into the study too, and now he was coolly rummaging through the doctor’s papers.
Twigs, however, was no longer concerned about Jonathan Yamada’s strange behaviour, he was feeling very unwell indeed.
He looked at the photograph of Jenny in a silver frame, standing on the small chest of drawers, and couldn’t tear his eyes away.
Lancelot’s retouched wife gazed back at him with a trusting, affectionate smile.
Everything changes,
Except for the same old face
In an old photo
DONG, DONG
Erast Petrovich did not sleep for very long, he kept glancing at his watch, and at half-past three he quietly got up. O-Yumi was asleep and he looked at her for half a minute, with an exceptionally powerful feeling that he would have found hard to express in words: never before had the world seemed so fragile and at the same time so durable; it could shatter into glassy fragments at the slightest breath of wind, or it could withstand the onslaught of the most violent hurricane.
The titular counsellor put his boots on in the corridor. Masa was sitting on the floor in front of the cupboard, with his head lowered on to his chest. Fandorin touched him on the shoulder and he jumped to his feet.
‘Go and sleep,’ Fandorin said in a whisper. ‘Neru. I’ll keep watch for a while.’
‘Hai,’ Masa said with a yawn, and set off towards his own room.
Erast Petrovich waited until he heard the sound of peaceful snuffling and smacking lips (he did not have to wait for more than a minute), and paid a visit to the prince.
Onokoji seemed to have made himself rather comfortable in his refuge. The shelves holding Masa’s supplies and small household items had been concealed by a blanket, there was a lamp, now extinguished, standing on the floor, and the remains of supper were lying on an empty crate. The prince himself was sleeping serenely, with his thin lips set in a subtle smile – His Excellency was apparently reposing in the delightful embrace of sweet dreams. After O-Yumi, to watch anyone else sleeping, especially an individual as distasteful as this one, seemed blasphemous to Erast Petrovich. Moreover, the source of the wondrous nocturnal visions was not in any doubt – there was an empty syringe glinting beside the pillow.