‘Masters of secret arts?’ Twigs exclaimed. ‘You wouldn’t be talking about shinobi, would you?’
The doctor and the vice-consul exchanged glances. Was this really possible?
‘Precisely,’ Onokoji said, as if that were perfectly normal, and yawned, putting his elegantly manicured hand over his mouth. ‘To the dear, kind ninja.’
‘S-so… So they do exist?’
Lurid images appeared before Erast Petrovich’s eyes – first the gaping jaws of the snake, then the red mask of the man with no face. The vice-consul shuddered.
The doctor shook his head mistrustfully.
‘If the ninja had survived, people would know about it.’
‘Those who need to know, do know,’ the prince said with a shrug. ‘Those who trade in these arts do not print advertisements in the newspapers. Our family has been employing the services of the Momochi clan for three hundred years.’
‘The same clan? The descendants of the great Momochi Tambi, who killed the witch disguised as a moon with his arrow?’ the doctor asked in a trembling voice.
‘Aha. The very same.’
‘So in 1581 on Mount Hijiyama the samurais didn’t kill all of them? Who escaped?’
‘On which mount?’ Onokoji was clearly not well informed about the history of his own country. ‘I’ve no idea. All I know is that the masters of the Momochi clan serve a very narrow circle of clients and charge very dearly for their services. But they know their job well. My intermediary, my late father’s senior samurai, contacted them and gave them the commission. The shinobi discovered where Suga hides his secrets. If you’re interested in the conspiracy against Okubo, you can be certain that all the information you need is kept there. Suga does not destroy documents, they are his investment in the future.’
‘I have no doubt that my missing reports are there too!’ Asagawa said rapidly, turning to Fandorin.
But the vice-consul was more concerned with the masters of secret arts.
‘But how do people contact the ninja?’ he asked.
‘At our court it was the senior samurai who dealt with that. The prince’s most trusted adviser. They always come from the same family and have served our family for almost four hundred years. That is, they used to serve…’ Onokoji sighed. ‘There are no more principalities or devoted vassals now. But our senior samurai, a most magnanimous man, carried out my request for old times’ sake. He even paid Momochi the advance out of his own funds. An old man with a heart of pure gold – to do that he had to mortgage his family estate. The shinobi did a good job and, as I already said, they found the hiding place, But they didn’t enter it, they wanted more money for that – those were the terms of the arrangement. And as bad luck would have it, I was going through a dry spell at the time, and I couldn’t make the payment. The ninja are very sensitive about that sort of thing. If the client breaks the terms, that’s the end of him. They’ll kill him, and in some nightmarish fashion too. Oh, they’re terrible people, truly terrible.’
‘But you seem to be alive, my friend,’ Lockston remarked.
The prince was astonished.
‘What do I have to do with it? The client was our vassal. And he was the one who had to answer to them. The old man fell ill all of a sudden, out of the blue, with a very strange complaint. His tongue swelled up and fell out of his mouth, then his skin turned black and his eyes melted out of their sockets. The poor fellow screamed in agony for two days and then he died. You know, the shinobi are virtuosos at preparing all sorts of unusual potions, both for healing and for killing. They say that the shinobi can…’
‘Oh, damn the shinobi!’ the sergeant interrupted, to Erast Petrovich’s considerable displeasure. ‘Where’s the hiding place? Did the samurai get a chance to tell you?’
‘Yes, the hiding place is always within Suga’s reach. Last year they built a new headquarters for the police department, in the Yaesu district. Suga, who was vice-intendant at the time, supervised the building work in person, and unknown to almost anyone, he had a secret room built adjacent to his office. The work was carried out by an American architect, who later drowned. Do you remember that sad story? All the newspapers wrote about it. In gratitude for their good work, the police department organised a steamboat cruise for the architect and the best workers, but then, didn’t the boat go and capsize… And the best workers included the three who built the secret room.’
‘What villainy!’ the inspector gasped. ‘Now I understand why Suga stayed in his old office when he was put in charge of the department. And everyone in the department admires his modesty!’
‘How does one gain access to the secret room?’ Fandorin asked.
‘I don’t know exactly. There’s a cunning lever somewhere – that’s all the shinobi told my old samurai. I don’t know any more than that, gentlemen, but you must admit that my information is highly valuable to you. I think you ought to let me go immediately.’
Asagawa and Fandorin glanced at each other.
‘We’ll see about that when we get back,’ said the inspector. ‘But you have earned your little bit of happiness.’
Hard though you may try,
You can’t pinch off a little
Piece of happiness
2.18
Two of them went off on ‘the job’ (that was what Fandorin called the operation to himself, in criminal style). The doctor, as the father of a family and a law-abiding member of society, did not express any desire to participate in such a risky undertaking. Lockston did express such a desire, but he was refused. Entirely abandoning his Japanese politeness, Asagawa declared that the American smelled of cigar smoke and beer from a mile away and Japanese did not smell like that. And his light blond hair would stand out too clearly in the darkness. At least the Russian vice-consul had hair that was a normal colour. Left alone with Erast Petrovich, the inspector was even less complimentary about the sergeant: ‘This matter requires brains, and our American bison knows no other way but to go at something bald-headed.’
The day was spent in preparation. Asagawa went to the police department, supposedly on official business, but really with one very simple goaclass="underline" he filed down the tongue of the bolt on the window of the toilet. The titular counsellor prepared his outfit for the nocturnal adventure – he bought a costume mask and a close-fitting black fencing costume, and smeared his rubber-soled gymnastic shoes with boot polish.
He tried to catch up on his sleep, but he couldn’t.
When it started to get dark, he sent Masa to the Grand Hotel for the evening paper so that he wouldn’t follow him, and hurried to catch the last train.
He and the inspector travelled in the same carriage, but they sat at opposite ends and didn’t look at each other.
Looking out of the window at the lights drifting by in the darkness, Fandorin was surprised at himself. Why had he got mixed up in this wild adventure? What had made him gamble with his own honour and the honour of his country like this? It was terrible to think what the consequences would be if he, the Russian vice-consul, were caught at night in the office of the intendant of police. What made it worth taking such a risk? The chance to expose a scheming local official who was responsible for the death of another local official? Why, damn the lot of them!
The interests of Russia require it, Fandorin tried to convince himself rather uncertainly. By bringing down Suga, I shall strike a blow at a party hostile to the interests of my Homeland.