For a while they sat there without speaking, each of them alone with his own thoughts. Erast Petrovich, for instance, thought about something rather strange. It suddenly occurred to him that perhaps none of this really existed at all. The events of the last ten days had been too incredible, and he himself had behaved too absurdly – it was all delirious nonsense. Either a lingering dream or the monstrous visions of the afterlife. After all, no one really knew what happened to a person’s soul when it separated from the body. What if there were phantom-like processes that occurred, similar to dreaming? None of it had really happened: not the chase after the faceless assassin, or the pavilion at night beside the pond. In reality, Erast Petrovich’s life had been cut short at the moment when the grey and brown mamusi fixed its beady stare on his face while he was lying helpless. Or even earlier – when he walked into his bedroom and saw the old Japanese man smiling…
Nonsense, the titular counsellor told himself with a shudder.
Asagawa shuddered too – his thoughts had clearly also taken a wrong turning.
‘There’s no point in just sitting here,’ said the inspector, getting up. ‘We still have our duty to perform.’
‘But what can we do?’
‘Tear out Suga’s sting. Destroy the archive.’
Asagawa took several files down off the shelves, carried them into his corner and started tearing the sheets of paper into tiny little scraps.
‘It would be better to burn them, of course, but there isn’t enough oxygen,’ he murmured absentmindedly.
The titular counsellor carried on sitting for a little while, then got up to help. He took a file and handed it to Asagawa, who continued his work of methodical destruction. The paper ripped with a sharp sound and the heap of rubbish in the corner gradually grew higher.
It was getting stuffy. Fine drops of sweat sprang out on the vice-consul’s forehead.
‘I don’t like dying of suffocation,’ he said. ‘Better a bullet through the temple.’
‘Yes?’ Asagawa said thoughtfully. ‘I think I’d rather suffocate. Shooting yourself is not the Japanese way. It’s noisy, and it gives you no chance to feel yourself dying…’
‘That is obviously a fundamental difference between the European and Japanese cultures…’ the titular counsellor began profoundly, but this highly interesting discussion was not fated to continue.
Somewhere above them there was a quiet whistle and bluish tongues of trembling flame sprang out of the gas brackets. The secret room was suddenly brightly lit.
Erast Petrovich looked round, raised his head and saw a tiny opening that had appeared in the wall just below the ceiling. A slanting eye was peering out of it at the titular counsellor.
He heard a muffled laugh, and a familiar voice said in English:
‘Now there’s a surprise. I was expecting anyone at all, but not Mr Russian Diplomat. I knew you were an enterprising and adventurous man, Fandorin-san, but this is really…’
Suga! But how had he found out?
The vice-consul did not speak, merely greedily gulping in the air that was seeping into the cramped space through the narrow opening.
‘Who told you about my secret place?’ the intendant of police asked, and went on without waiting for an answer. ‘The only people apart from me who knew of its existence were the architect Schmidt, two stonemasons and one carpenter. But they all drowned… Well, I am positively intrigued!’
The most important thing, Erast Petrovich told himself, is not to glance sideways into the corner where Asagawa is hiding. Suga can’t see him, he’s sure that I’m here alone.
And he also thought what a pity it was that he hadn’t taken a few lessons from Doronin in the art of battojiutsu – drawing a weapon a high speed. He could have grabbed his Herstal with a lightning-fast gesture and put a bullet in the bridge of this villain’s nose. With the little window open they wouldn’t suffocate before the morning, and when the morning came, people would arrive and free the prisoners from the trap.
‘And you? How did you know I was here?’ Fandorin asked to distract the intendant’s attention, while he put his hands behind his back and stretched slightly, as if his shoulders were cramped. His fingers found the flat holster.
Out of the corner of his eye he caught a movement in the corner – apparently the inspector was also taking out his weapon. But what was the point? He couldn’t hit the little window from there, and Suga would hide at the slightest suspicious rustle.
‘The official apartment of the head of police is close by here. The signal went off,’ Suga explained willingly, even proudly. This may be Asia, but we try to keep up with the latest inventions of progress. I’ve satisfied your curiosity, now you satisfy mine.’
‘Gladly,’ the titular counsellor said with a smile and fired.
He fired from the hip, without wasting any time on aiming, but the intendant’s reactions were impeccable – he disappeared from the window and the incredibly lucky shot (it didn’t hit the wall, but passed straight through the opening) went to waste.
Erast Petrovich was deafened by the roar. He slapped the left side of his head, then the right. The ringing became quieter and he heard Suga’s voice:
‘… something of the kind and I was on my guard. If you behave impolitely and don’t answer my questions, I’ll close the hatch now and come back in two days to collect the body.’
Asagawa got up without making a sound and pressed his back against the bookshelves. He was holding his revolver at the ready, but Suga wouldn’t present himself as a target again now, that was quite clear.
‘Yes, come back, do,’ said Erast Petrovich, pressing one finger to his lips. ‘Collect my mortal remains. And don’t forget the glue. It will take you a few years to stick all the thousands of scraps of p-paper from your precious files back together. I’ve only managed to destroy the contents of seven files so far, but there must be at last two hundred in here.’
Silence. Apparently the intendant was thinking that over.
The inspector gestured to say: Lift me up, so that I can reach the little window. Fandorin shrugged, he didn’t really believe in this plan but, when all was said and done, why not try?
He grabbed hold of the shelves and tugged. Files went crashing to the floor and the vice-consul took advantage of the racket to grab Asagawa round the waist, jerk him up to arm’s length above his head and press his stomach against the wall, to make it easier to hold him. The Japanese proved not to be so very heavy, about a hundred and fifty pounds, and every morning Fandorin pressed two one-hundred-pound iron weights forty times.
‘What are you doing in there?’ Suga shouted.
‘I knocked the shelves over. Almost by accident!’ Erast Petrovich called, and then told the inspector in a low voice: ‘Careful! Don’t let him spot you!’
A few seconds later Asagawa slapped his comrade on the shoulder to ask to be put down.
‘It won’t work,’ he whispered as his feet touched the floor. ‘The window’s too small. I can either look or poke the gun out. It’s not possible to do both at once.’
‘Fandorin! These are my terms,’ the intendant announced. He must have been standing right under the window, so he couldn’t have seen Asagawa anyway. ‘You don’t touch any more of the files. You give me the name of the person who told you about the archive. After that I’ll let you go. Naturally after searching you to make sure you haven’t picked up anything as a souvenir. Then you take the first ship out of Japan. Unless, of course, you prefer to move to the foreign cemetery in Yokohama.’
‘He’s lying,’ the inspector whispered. ‘He won’t let you go alive.’
‘Fair terms!’ Fandorin shouted. ‘I’ll tell you the name. But that’s all.’
‘All right! Who told you about the archive?’
‘A ninja from the Momochi clan.’
The sudden silence suggested that Suga was badly shaken. Which meant he believed it.