On the way home Erast Petrovich’s eye was caught by the fashion shop ‘Madame Bêtise’ or, rather, by a huge advertising poster covered with roses and cupids: ‘The novelty of the Paris season! Fine and coarse fishnet stockings in all sizes, with moiré ties!’ The vice-consul blushed as he recalled a certain ankle. He went into the shop.
The Parisian stockings proved to be wonderfully fine, and on the aforementioned lower limb they ought to look absolutely breathtaking.
Fandorin choose half a dozen pairs: black, lilac, red, white, maroon and a colour called ‘Sunrise over the Sea’.
‘Which size would you like?’ the scented salesman asked.
The titular counsellor was on the brink of confusion – he hadn’t thought about the size, but the owner of the shop, Madame Bêtise herself, came to his assistance.
‘Henri, the monsieur requires size one. The very smallest,’ she cooed, examining the customer curiously (or at least, so it seemed to him).
Yes, indeed, the very smallest, Erast Petrovich realised, picturing O-Yumi’s tiny foot. But how did this woman know? Was it some kind of Parisian ninso?
The owner turned her face away slightly, still looking at Fandorin, then suddenly lowered her eyes and turned to look at the shelves of merchandise.
She made eyes at me, the titular counsellor deduced, and, even though he was not attracted to Madame Bêtise in the slightest, he squinted at himself in the mirror. And he found that, despite his rather exhausted appearance and creased suit, he was quite positively good-looking.
‘So glad to see you, do call more often, Monsieur Diplomat,’ a voice called from behind him on his way out.
He was surprised, but only very slightly. Yokahama was a small town. No doubt a tall young man with dark hair and blue eyes and a wonderfully curled moustache, who was always (well, almost always) impeccably dressed, had simply been noticed.
Although there was a fine rain falling (still the same kind, plum rain), Erast Petrovich was in a totally blissful state of mind. People walking towards him seemed to look at him with genuine interest and even, perhaps, gaze after him when he had walked by, the smell of the sea was wonderful and the sight of the ships at the anchorage was worthy of the brush of Mr Aivazovsky. The titular counsellor even tried to sing, something that he would not usually have allowed himself to do. The tune was distinctly bravura, the words entirely frivolous.
Yokohama, little town,
See me strolling up and down;
The town is really very small,
No need to take a cab at all.
But the little town of Yokohama was even smaller than Fandorin had imagined – as he was soon to discover.
No sooner had Erast Petrovich set foot in the yard of the consulate than someone called his name.
Doronin was loitering in the same window as on the recent previous occasion, but this time he did not turn away or show any signs of tact.
‘Mr Vice-Consul!’ he shouted in a menacing voice. ‘Please be so kind as to call into my office. Immediately, without going round to your apartment!’
And he disappeared, no doubt on his way to the office area.
Fandorin had never seen the highly cultured and restrained Vsevolod Vitalievich in such a fury.
‘I didn’t ask you about anything! I didn’t oblige you to attend the office! I put my trust in you!’ the consul seethed rather than shouted, goggling over his blue lenses with his inflamed eyes. ‘I assumed that you were occupied with state business, but it appears that you… you were engaged in amorous adventures! You burst into the house of the official representative of the British Empire! You abducted his mistress! You provoked an affray! Why are you so surprised? Yokohama is a small town. News, especially the spicy kind, spreads instantaneously here!’
The driver, thought Erast Petrovich. He blabbed to his comrades from ‘Archibald Griffin’ and they spread it round the town in no time at all. And Bullcox’s own servants, too. The kitchen telegraph was the fastest medium of communication.
‘Are you at least aware that Intendant Suga has committed suicide? How could you be! And I thought that… Ah, you heroic lover!’ The consul waved his hand despairingly. ‘All sorts of rumours are circulating. Suga didn’t shoot himself, he didn’t even commit hara-kiri. He chose an ancient, monstrously savage way of leaving this life, one that samurai used if they were captured or suffering severe guilt. Everyone is convinced that the intendant could not forgive himself for Okubo’s death, and his undeserved promotion was the final blow. He did not dare to disobey his monarch’s will, but felt that he had to expiate his guilt by accepting a martyr’s death… Well, why don’t you say something, Fandorin? Explain yourself, damn you! Say something!’
‘I shall speak tomorrow. But for now, please permit me to remind you of the promise that you made me, not to interfere in anything and not to ask any questions. If I fail, I shall answer for everything at once. I have no time to explain now.’
It was well said, with restraint and dignity, but it failed to produce the desired effect.
‘That is quite obvious,’ the consul hissed, looking not into the other man’s eyes, but down and to one side. He waved his hand, this time in disgust, and walked out.
Erast Petrovich also looked down. And there, dangling from the pink paper bag decorated with a ribbon, which he had been handed in the shop, he saw a ‘Sunrise over the Sea’ fishnet stocking.
The vice-consul returned to his quarters feeling dismal. He opened the door and froze on the spot, barely able to recognise his own hallway.
Hanging on the wall was a large mirror in a lacquered and painted mother-of-pearl frame. There were white and purple irises standing in a vase on a flirtatious little chest and perfuming the air with their scent. The coat stand on which Masa used to keep his master’s hats and outer garments was gone – standing in its place was a closed cupboard with doors of woven straw. Above it a large kerosene lamp in a paper shade radiated a soft pink light.
Astounded, Fandorin glanced into the drawing room. There were even more changes there – it was quite impossible to make out all the details, he just got a general impression of something bright, colourful and festive.
In the dining room the titular counsellor saw a table laid in a way that immediately made him feel terribly hungry (something that had not happened to Erast Petrovich at all in the last few days). There were fruits, cheeses, rice balls with red and white fish, pies and cakes, sweets, champagne in an ice bucket.
The vice-consul discovered the fairy who had cast such a miraculous spell on the official government residence in the bedroom. But no, this room could no longer be referred to in such a prosaic, everyday fashion. The broad but simple bed that had been quite adequate for Erast Petrovich was now decorated with a muslin canopy, curtains had appeared at the windows and there was a bright-coloured, fluffy rug on the floor. O-Yumi herself, clad only in her nightshirt (the same one in which she had fled from Bullcox’s lair), was standing on a chair, fastening a long scroll with some kind of hieroglyphic inscription to the wall.
‘Darling, are you back?’ she said, tossing a lock of hair off her forehead. ‘I’m so tired! You have a very strange servant. He refused to help me. I had to do everything myself. It’s a good thing I learned so much at the tea house. In that place, until you win respect, you do everything yourself – wash, iron, mend… But he really is strange! He stands in the corridor all the time and he wouldn’t let me look into the cupboard. What have you got in there? I heard some very odd sounds.’