The hunchback asked him something. Instead of replying, the titch tried to kick him in the crotch, but the blow was feeble and poorly directed – the prisoner had obviously not yet recovered his wits fully. The owner hissed viciously and started kicking the short, sturdy youth – in the stomach, on the knees, on the ankles.
The titch didn’t make a sound.
Wiping the sweat off his forehead, the hunchback asked another question.
‘He wants to know if there is anyone else left in the Chobei-gumi,’ a voice whispered in Erast Petrovich’s ear.
It was Shirota. He had led Sophia Diogenovna outside and come back – he took his responsibilities very seriously.
‘Left where?’
‘In the gang. But the Yakuza won’t tell him, of course. They’ll kill him now. Let us leave this place. The police will be here soon, they must have been informed already.’
Three men in white bandanas grunted as they dragged the dead man-mountain across the floor. The mighty arms flopped about helplessly. The tips of both little fingers were missing.
The servant girl busily sprinkled white powder on the straw mats and immediately wiped them with a rag, and the red blotches disappeared as if by magic. Meanwhile the owner put a thin cord round the prisoner’s neck and pulled the noose tight. He tugged and tugged, and when the Yakuza’s face was suffused with blood, he asked the same question again.
The titch lashed out despairingly at his tormentor with his foot once again, but once again to no avail.
Then the hunchback evidently decided that there was no point in wasting any more time. His flat face spread into a grim smile and his right hand started slowly winding the cord on to his left wrist. The captive started wheezing, his lips started clutching vainly at the air, his eyes bulged out of their sockets.
‘Right then, translate!’ Fandorin ordered the clerk. ‘I am a representative of the consular authority of the city of Yokohama, which is under the jurisdiction of the great powers. I demand that you put an end to this summary execution immediately.’
Shirota translated, but what came out was much longer than what Fandorin had said, and at the end he performed a weird trick: he took out of his pocket two little flags, Russian and Japanese (the same ones that Erast Petrovich had recently seen on his desk), and performed a strange manipulation with them – he raised the red, white and blue tricolour high in the air and leaned the red and white flag over sideways.
‘What was that you showed them?’ the puzzled vice-consul asked.
‘I translated what you said and added on my own behalf that if he kills the bandit, he will have to kill you as well, and then our emperor will have to apologise to the Russian emperor, and that will bring terrible shame on Japan.’
Erast Petrovich was astounded that such an argument could have any effect on the owner of a bandit den. Japanese cut-throats were clearly different from Russian ones after all.
‘But the flags? Do you always carry them with you?’
Shirota nodded solemnly.
‘I always have to remember that I serve Russia, but at the same time remain a Japanese subject. And then, they are so beautiful!’
He bowed respectfully, first to the Russian flag, then to the Japanese one.
After a moment’s thought, Erast Petrovich did the same, only he began with the flag of the Land of the Rising Sun.
Meanwhile there was strange, bustling activity taking place in the room. They took the noose off the captive Yakuza’s neck, but for some reason laid him out on the floor, and four guards sat on his arms and legs. From the evil grin on the hunchback’s face, it was clear that he had thought up some new infamy.
Two male servants came running into the room – one was holding a bizarre-looking piece of metal, and the other a small chalice of black ink.
The half-pint started squirming with every part of his body, he shuddered and howled in misery. Erast Petrovich was astounded – after all, this man had just demonstrated absolute fearlessness in the face of imminent death!
‘What’s happening? What are they about to do to him? Tell them I won’t allow them to torture him!’
‘They are not going to torture him,’ the clerk said sombrely. ‘The owner of the establishment intends to tattoo the hieroglyph ura on his forehead. It means “traitor”. It is the mark used by Yakuza to brand renegades who have committed the worst of all crimes – betraying their own. For this they deserve death. A man cannot possibly live with this brand, and he cannot commit suicide either, because his body will be buried in the slaughterhouse quarter. What appalling villainy! No, Japan is not what she used to be. The honest bandits of former times would never have done anything so vile.’
‘Then we must stop this!’ Fandorin exclaimed.
‘Semushi will not back down, or he will lose face in front of his men. And we cannot force him. This is an internal Japanese matter, it lies beyond consular jurisdiction.’
The owner seated himself on the prostrate man’s chest, set his head in a wooden vice and dipped the piece of metal into the inkwell – and it became clear that the face of the elaborate contrivance was covered with little needles.
‘Villainy always falls within jurisdiction,’ Erast Petrovich said with a shrug, stepping forward and seizing the owner by the shoulder.
He nodded at the heap of silver, pointed at the prisoner and said in English:
‘All this against him. Stake?’
The hunchback visibly wavered. Shirota also took a step forward, stood shoulder to shoulder with Fandorin and lifted up the Russian flag, making it clear that the entire might of a great empire stood behind the vice-consul’s suggestion.
‘OK. Stake,’ the owner agreed in a hoarse voice, getting up.
He snapped his fingers, and the bamboo cup and dice were handed to him with a bow.
Would that you always
inspired only true respect,
my own country’s flag!
A COBBLED STREET RUNNING DOWN A HILL
They did not linger in the vicinity of the ‘Rakuen’. Without a word being spoken, they immediately turned the corner and strode off at a smart pace. Certainly, Shirota tried to assure Fandorin that the hunchback would not dare to pursue them, because taking back someone’s winnings was not the Bakuto custom, but he himself did not appear entirely convinced of the inviolability of bandit traditions and kept looking round. The clerk was lugging the sack of silver. Erast Petrovich was leading the young lady along by the elbow and the Yakuza who had been beaten at dice was plodding along behind, still seeming not quite to have recovered from all his ordeals and so many twists of fate.
They stopped to catch their breath only when they were already out of the ‘quarter of shame’. Rikshas ran along the street, the decorous public strolled along the lines of shop windows and the cobbled road leading down to the river was brightly illuminated by gas lamps – twilight had descended on the city.
And here the titular counsellor was beset by a triple ordeal.
The example was set by the spinster Blagolepova. She embraced him passionately round the neck (in so doing, striking him a painful blow on the back with the bundle containing the captain’s legacy) and watered his cheek with tears of gratitude. The young man was called ‘a saviour’, ‘a hero’, ‘an angel’ and even ‘a darling’.
And that was only the beginning.
While Fandorin, dumbstruck by that ‘darling’, comforted the lady by cautiously stroking her heaving shoulders, Shirota waited patiently. But the moment Erast Petrovich freed himself from the maiden’s embraces, the clerk bowed to him, almost right down to the ground, and froze in that position.
‘Good Lord, Shirota, now what are you doing?’
‘I am ashamed that there are people like Semushi in Japan,’ the clerk said in a flat voice. ‘And this on the day of your arrival! What must you think of us!’