A BRIAR PIPE
He grabbed hold of the tricycle that had been positioned in advance, lowered it off the porch and pushed it along the pathway at a run. Outside the gates he jumped into the saddle and started pressing hard on the pedals. Come on, then, just you try to follow me!
In order to throw any possible spies off the scent, instead of turning to the right, towards the Bluff, he turned left. He hurtled along at top speed, glancing in the mirror every now and then, but he didn’t glimpse a single black figure behind him on the brightly lit promenade. Perhaps his simple attempt at cunning had succeeded. Everyone knew that the simplest tricks were the most reliable.
The trick really was childish in its simplicity. Instead of the vice-consul, Masa was now sitting in the vice-consul’s window – in a peaked cap, with a cigar in his teeth. If they were lucky, the substitution would not be noticed soon.
Just to make certain of things, without reducing his speed, Erast Petrovich circled round the Settlement and rode into the Bluff from the other side, across the Okagawa river.
The rubber tyres swished through the puddles with a miraculous rustling sound and water splashed out from under the wheels, glinting joyously in the light of the street lamps. Fandorin felt like a hawk soaring above the dark streets of the night. He could see his goal, it was close, and nothing could halt or impede his impetuous attack. Watch out, you akunin!
Shirota was waiting at the agreed spot, on the corner of a side street.
‘I was watching through binoculars,’ the secretary reported. ‘The light went out thirty-five minutes ago, everywhere except for one window on the first floor. The servants withdrew to the house that stands at the back of the garden. Fifteen minutes ago the last window also went dark. Then I came down the hill.’
‘Did you look at the terrace? I told you that he l-likes to watch the stars.’
‘What stars are there today? It’s raining.’
Fandorin liked the secretary’s attitude. Calm, businesslike, with no sign of nerves. It could well be that Kanji Shirota’s true calling was not polishing an office desk with his elbows but a trade that required sangfroid and a love of risk.
Just as long as his courage didn’t fail him when it came to the real work.
‘Well, will you join me for dinner? The table’s all set,’ the titular counsellor said jocularly, gesturing towards the gates.
‘After you,’ Shirota replied in the same tone of voice. He really was holding up very well.
The lock and the hinges were well lubricated, they made their way inside without a single creak or squeak. And they had been exceptionally lucky with the weather: cloudy and dark, with the rain muffling any sound.
‘Do you remember the plan?’ Fandorin whispered as he walked up the steps. ‘We go into the house now. You wait downstairs. I’ll go up to…’
‘I remember everything,’ the secretary replied just as quietly. ‘Don’t waste time on that.’
The door into the house was not locked – a special point of pride for the owner that was also very handy for them. Fandorin ran up the carpeted steps to the first floor without making a sound. The bedroom was at the end of the corridor, beside the way out on to the terrace.
Wouldn’t it be fine if he woke up, Erast Petrovich suddenly thought when his left hand touched the door handle (the revolver was grasped in his right hand). Then, regardless of any unworthy desire for revenge, I would be perfectly justified in smacking the villain on the forehead with the butt of my gun.
When Fandorin stole up to the bed he even sighed deliberately, but Don Tsurumaki didn’t wake up. He was sleeping sweetly on a soft feather bed. He had a white nightcap with a vulgar pompom on his head instead of a fez. The silk blanket rose and fell peacefully on the millionaire’s broad chest. His lush lips were parted slightly.
The gold chain glinted in the opening of his nightshirt.
Now he’s sure to wake up, Erast Petrovich thought as he lined up the pliers, and he raised the hand holding the revolver. His heart was beating out a deafening drum-roll of triumph.
There was a metallic click, and the chain slid down the sleeping man’s neck. He lowed blissfully and turned over on to his side. The prickly golden rose was lying on Fandorin’s palm.
The soundest sleepers are not those who have a clear conscience, but those who never had one to begin with, the vice-consul told himself philosophically.
He walked downstairs, gestured for Shirota to go in the direction of the study-library, where he had once taken Prince Onokoji – may the Japanese God rest his sinful soul – by surprise at the scene of his crime.
He ran the beam of his little torch over the closed curtains, the tall cupboards with the solid doors, the bookshelves. There, that was the one.
‘You hold the light.’
He handed the little torch to the secretary, then spent two minutes feeling the spines of the books and the wooden uprights. Finally, when he pressed on a weighty tome of Sacred Writings (third from the left on the last shelf but one), something clicked. He pulled the shelves towards himself and they swung open like a door. Behind them in the wall was a small steel door.
‘On the keyhole, the keyhole,’ said Erast Petrovich, pointing impatiently.
The thorny rose wiggled and jiggled and slipped into the opening like a hand into a glove. Before turning the key, the titular counsellor carefully examined the wall, the floor and the skirting board for any electric alarm wires – and sure enough, he discovered a thick, hard string under the wallpaper. To get caught in the same trap twice would be unseemly, to say the least.
The pliers were called on again. One snip and the alarm was disconnected.
‘Open, sesame,’ Erast Petrovich whispered, in order to encourage Shirota. The beam of the torch had started wavering a bit – it looked as if the clerical worker’s nerves were beginning to find the tension too much.
‘What?’ the Japanese asked in surprise. ‘What did you say?’
Apparently he had never read the Arabian Nights.
There was a quiet ringing sound and the little door opened. Fandorin first squeezed his eyes shut, then swore under his breath.
Lying there in the steel box, glittering brilliantly in the electric light, were gold ingots. There were a lot of them; they looked like bricks in a wall.
Erast Petrovich’s disappointment knew no bounds. The Don had not lied. He really did keep gold in his safe. What a stupid, nouveau riche thing to do! Had this entire operation really been undertaken in vain?
Still unable to believe in such a crushing fiasco, he pulled out one ingot and glanced into the gap, but there was yellow metal glinting in the second row as well.
‘At the scene of the crime,’ a loud, mocking voice declared behind him.
The titular counsellor swung round sharply and saw a burly, stocky figure in the doorway. The next moment the chandelier on the ceiling blazed into life and the silhouette acquired colour, volume and texture.
It was the master of the house, still in that idiotic nightcap, with a dressing gown over his nightshirt, but the style of the trousers showing under the dressing gown was anything but pyjama-like.
‘Does Mr Diplomat like gold?’ Tsurumaki asked with a smile, nodding at the ingot in Fandorin’s hand.
The millionaire’s face was not sleepy at all. And another remarkable detail was that he was not wearing household slippers on his feet, but shoes, laced up in an extremely neat manner.
A trap, thought Erast Petrovich, turning cold. He was lying in bed dressed, even with his shoes on. He was waiting, he knew!
The Don clapped his hands, and men emerged from everywhere – from behind the curtains, out of doors, even out of the cupboards in the walls, and they were all dressed in identical black jackets and black cotton trousers. The servants – but Shirota had said they had all gone away!