‘Tsurete koi,’ [xiv] Tsurumaki ordered, without taking his hand out of his pocket.
The servant ran out, and half a minute later Masa, looking much the worse for wear, was led in by the arms.
When he saw Fandorin, he shouted something in a desperate voice.
Only one word was comprehensible: ‘O-Yumi-san’.
‘What’s he saying? What’s he saying?’ the vice-consul asked, jerking in the arms of his guards.
To judge from the master’s face, he was astounded by the news. He asked Masa something, received an answer and suddenly started thinking very intently. He took no notice of Fandorin’s repeated questions and merely scratched at his black beard furiously. Masa kept on trying to bow to Erast Petrovich (which was not easy to do with his arms twisted behind his back) and repeating: ‘Moosiwake arimasen! Moosiwake arimasen!’
‘What is that he’s muttering?’ the titular counsellor exclaimed in helpless fury. ‘What does it mean?’
‘It means: “There can be no forgiveness for me!”,’ said Tsurumaki, suddenly looking at him keenly. ‘Your servant is saying some very interesting things. He says he was sitting at the window and smoking a cigar. That he felt stuffy and he opened one windowpane. That there was a whistling sound, something stung him in the neck, and after that he remembers nothing. He woke up on the floor. There was something like a thorn sticking out of his neck. He dashed into the next room and saw that O-Yumi had disappeared. The bed was empty.’
Erast Petrovich groaned, and the master of the house asked Masa another question. When he received an answer he jerked his chin, and Fandorin’s servant was immediately released. Masa reached inside the front of his jacket and took out what looked like a wooden needle.
‘What’s that?’ asked Fandorin.
The Don examined the ‘thorn’ gloomily.
‘A fukibari. They smear this piece of rubbish with poison or some other kind of potion – to paralyse someone temporarily, for instance, or put them to sleep – and fire it out of a blowpipe. The ninja’s favourite weapon. I’m afraid, Fandorin, that your girlfriend has been abducted by the “Stealthy Ones”.’
At that very moment Erast Petrovich, who had fully prepared himself to die, suddenly felt that he wanted terribly not to. Why, one might think, should he care about anything in the world? If there are only a few seconds of life left, do unsolved puzzles, or even the abduction of the woman you love, really have any importance? But he wanted so much to live that when the Don’s hand moved in that ominous pocket, Fandorin gritted his teeth tightly – in order not to beg for a respite. They wouldn’t grant him a respite in any case, and even if they did, he couldn’t possibly ask a murderer for anything.
The vice-consul forced himself to look at the hand as it slowly pulled a black, gleaming object out of the pocket until it emerged completely.
It was a briar pipe.
After I read it -
The Latin word for ‘briar’ -
I took up a pipe
TWO HANDS TIGHTLY CLASPED
‘I like your Shirota,’ the Don said thoughtfully, striking a match and puffing out a cloud of smoke. ‘A genuine Japanese. All of a piece, intelligent, reliable. I’ve wanted an assistant like that for a long time already. All these’ – he waved his pipe round at his black army – ‘are good for fighting and other simple jobs that require no foresight. But Shirota belongs to a different breed, a far more valuable one. And what’s more, he has made an excellent study of foreigners, especially Russians. That’s very important for my plans.’
The very last thing Fandorin had been expecting was a panegyric on the virtues of the former secretary of the consulate, so he listened cautiously, not sure what Tsurumaki was driving at.
But the millionaire puffed on his pipe and carried on in the same style, as if he were thinking out loud,
‘Shirota defined you very precisely: brave, unpredictable and very lucky. That is an extremely dangerous combination, which is why this performance was required.’ He nodded at the safe with the magical radiance streaming out of it. ‘But now everything is changing. I need you. And I need you here, in Japan. There won’t be any police.’
The Don gave an order in Japanese, and suddenly no one was holding Erast Petrovich any longer. The Black Jackets released him, bowed to their master and left the room one by one.
‘Shall we have a talk?’ asked Tsurumaki, gesturing towards two armchairs by the window. ‘Tell your man not to worry. Nothing bad will happen to you.’
Fandorin waved his hand to let Masa know that everything was all right and his servant reluctantly left the room, with a suspicious glance at the master of the house.
‘You need me? Why?’ asked Fandorin, in no hurry to sit down.
‘Because you are brave, unpredictable and very lucky. But you need me even more. You want to save your woman, don’t you? Then sit down and listen.’
The vice-consul sat down at that; he didn’t need to be asked twice.
‘How do I do that?’ he asked quickly. ‘What do you know?’
The Don scratched his beard and sighed.
‘This is going to be a long story. I wasn’t intending to make any excuses to you, to deny all the nonsense that you have imagined about me. But since we shall be fighting a common cause, I shall have to. Let’s try to restore our former friendship.’
‘That won’t be easy,’ Fandorin remarked ironically, unable to resist.
‘I know. But you are an intelligent man and you will realise I am telling the truth… to begin with, let’s clear up the business with Okubo, since that’s where everything began.’ Tsurumaki looked into the other man’s eyes calmly and seriously, as if he had decided to set aside his everyday mask of a jolly bon vivant. ‘Yes, I had the minister removed, but that is our own internal Japanese affair, which shouldn’t be of any interest to you. I don’t know what your view of life is, Fandorin, but for me life is an eternal struggle between Order and Chaos. Order strives to pigeonhole everything, nail it down, render it safe and emasculate it. Chaos demolishes all this neat symmetry, turns society upside down, recognises no laws or rules. In this eternal struggle I am on the side of Chaos, because Chaos is Life, and Order is Death. I know perfectly well that, like all mortals, I am doomed: sooner or later Order will get the better of me, I shall stop floundering about and be transformed into a piece of dead matter. But for as long as I am alive, I wish to live as intensely as I can, so that the earth trembles around me and the symmetry is disrupted. Pardon the philosophy, but I want you to understand correctly how I am made and what I am striving for. Okubo was the absolute incarnation of Order. Nothing but arithmetic and precise accounting. If I had not stopped him, he would have transformed Japan into a second-rate, pseudo-European country, doomed eternally to drag along in the wake of the great powers. Arithmetic is a dead science, because it only takes material things into account. But my Homeland’s great strength is in its spirit, which cannot be quantified. It is non-material, it belongs entirely to Chaos. Dictatorship and absolute monarchy are symmetrical and dead. Parliamentarianism is anarchic and full of life. The downfall of Okubo is a small victory for Chaos, a victory for Life over Death. Do you understand what I’m trying to say?’
‘No,’ replied Fandorin, who was listening intently. ‘But do carry on. Only please, m-move from the philosophy to the facts.’
‘Very well, let it be the facts. I don’t think I need to go into the details of the operation – you already have a good grasp of that. I employed the help of the Satsuman fanatics and several highly placed officials who see the future of Japan in the same way as I do. I feel sorry for Suga. He was an outstanding man and would have gone far. But I bear no grudge against you – you have given me Shirota instead. For the Russians he was a lowly native clerk, but from this seed I shall grow a remarkable sunflower, just you wait and see. And perhaps you and he will make peace with each other yet. Three friends like you, me and him are a great force.’