‘There’s no trauma. Not even a bruise. Only a little red spot just below the base of the skull, as if from a slight burn. But it’s quite out of the question for a trifle like that to have any serious consequences. Perhaps there was no blow?’
‘I don’t know,’ said the young man, already regretting that he had started this rigmarole of the autopsy. Who knew what might stop the heart of an inveterate opium addict?
The dead man’s clothing was hanging on a chair. Erast Petrovich looked thoughtfully at the badly worn back of the tunic, the patched shirt with the buttoned collar – the very cheapest kind, celluloid. And suddenly he leaned down.
‘There was no blow as such, but there was a touch!’ he exclaimed. ‘Look, right here, the imprint left by a f-finger. Although it could have been Blagolepov’s own hand,’ the vice-consul added disappointedly. ‘He was fastening his collar, and he took a grip…’
‘Well, that’s not hard to clear up.’ The doctor took out a large magnifying glass and squatted down beside the chair. ‘Aha. The thumb of the right hand.’
‘You can tell that from a glance?’ asked Fandorin, astounded.
‘Yes, I’ve taken a bit of an interest. You see, my friend Henry Folds, who works in a hospital in Tokyo, made a curious discovery. While studying the prints left by fingers on old Japanese ceramics, he discovered that the pattern on the pads of the fingers is never repeated…’ Twigs walked over to the bed, took the dead man’s right hand and examined the thumb through the magnifying glass. ‘No, this is a quite different thumb. No doubt at all about it… And so Mr Folds proposed a curious hypothesis, according to which…’
‘I have read about fingerprints,’ Erast Petrovich interrupted impatiently, ‘but the European authorities do not see any practical application for the idea. Why don’t you check if it matches the spot with the mark that you spoke about?’
The doctor unceremoniously raised the dead head with its top sawn off and doubled right over.
‘Yes, it probably does. But what of that? There was a touch, but there was no blow. Where the burn came from is not clear, but I assure you that no one has ever died from a cause like this.’
Fandorin sighed and gave in. ‘Very well, stitch him up. I ought not to have bothered you.’
While the doctor worked away with his needle, the titular counsellor went out into the next room. Sophia Diogenovna leaned eagerly towards him with an expression on her face as if she were expecting the miraculous news that her father was not dead at all, and the English doctor had just established the fact scientifically.
Fandorin blushed and said:
‘We n-needed to establish the cause of death medically. It is routine.’
The young lady nodded, and the hope faded from her face.
‘And what was the cause?’ enquired Shirota.
Embarrassed, Erast Petrovich coughed into his hand and repeated the medical abracadabra that had stuck in his mind.
‘Prolapse of the biscuspid valve.’
The clerk nodded respectfully, but Sophia Diogenovna started crying quietly and inconsolably, as if this news had finally laid her low.
‘And what am I to do now, Mr Vice-Consul?’ she asked, her voice breaking. ‘I feel afraid here. What if Semushi suddenly shows up, for the money? Is there any way I can spend the night at your office? I could manage somehow on the chairs, no?’
‘Very well, let’s go. We’ll think of something.’
‘I’ll just collect my things.’
The young lady ran out of the room.
Silence fell. The only sound was the doctor whistling as he worked. Then something clattered on the floor and Twigs swore: ‘Damned crown!’, from which Fandorin speculated that the Anglo-Saxon had dropped the top of the braincase.
Erast Petrovich suddenly felt unwell and, in order not to hear anything else nasty, he started a conversation – he asked why Shirota had called the doctor ‘a sincere man’.
The clerk was pleased at the question – he too seemed to find the silence oppressive, and he started telling the story with relish.
‘It is a very beautiful story, they even wanted to write a kabuki theatre play about it. It happened five years ago, when Twigs-sensei was still in mourning for his esteemed wife and his esteemed daughters were little girls. While playing the card game of bridge at the United Club, the sensei quarrelled with a certain bad man, a doerist. The doerist had arrived in Yokohama recently and started beating everyone at cards, and if anyone took offence, he challenged them to fight. He had already shot one man dead and seriously wounded another two. Nothing happened to the doerist for this, because it was a duel.’
‘Aha, a duellist!’ Fandorin exclaimed, after puzzling over the occasional alternating l’s and r’s in Shirota’s speech, which was absolutely correct in every other way.
‘Yes, yes, a doerist,’ Shirota repeated. ‘And so this bad man challenged the sensei to fight with guns. The doctor was in a dreadful situation. He did not know how to shoot at all, and the doerist would certainly have killed him, and his daughters would have been left orphans. But if the sensei refused to fight a duel, everyone would have turned their backs on him, and his daughters would have been ashamed of their father. But he did not want his daughters to feel ashamed. And then Mr Twigs said that he accepted the challenge, but he needed a delay of five days in order to prepare himself for death as befits a gentleman and a Christian. And he also demanded that the seconds must name the very longest distance that was permitted by the doering code – a full thirty paces. The doerist agreed contemptuously, but demanded in return that there must be no limit to the number of shots and the duel must continue until there was “a result”. He said he would not allow a duel of honour to be turned into a comedy. For five days the sensei saw no one. But at the appointed hour on the appointed day he came to the site of the duel. People who were there say he was a little pale, but very intense. The opponents were set thirty paces away from each other. The doctor removed his frock coat, and put cotton wool in his ears. And when the second waved the handkerchief, he raised his pistol, took careful aim and shot the doerist right in the centre of the forehead!’
‘That’s incredible!’ Erast Petrovich exclaimed. ‘What a stroke of luck! The Almighty certainly took mercy on Twigs!’
‘That was what everyone in the Settlement thought. But what had happened soon came to light. The manager of the shooting club revealed that Mr Twigs had spent all five days in the firing range. Instead of praying and writing a will, he learned how to fire a duelling pistol, at the precise distance of thirty paces. The sensei became a little deaf, but he learned to hit the centre of the target and never miss. And why not, he had fired thousands of rounds! Anyone in his place would have achieved the same result.’
‘Oh, well done!’
‘Some said what you say, but others were outraged and abused the doctor, saying it was not “fair play”. One young pup, a lieutenant in the French marines, got drunk and started mocking the doctor in public for cowardice. The sensei heaved a sigh and said: “You are very young and do not yet understand what responsibility is. But if you consider me a coward, I am willing to fight a duel with you on the same terms” – and as he spoke, he looked straight at the centre of the young pup’s forehead, so intently that the Frenchman sobered up completely and apologised. That is the kind of man that Dr Twigs is,’ Shirota concluded admiringly. ‘A sincere man!’
‘Like Pushkin and Field Marshal Saigo?’ Erast Petrovich asked, and couldn’t help smiling.
The clerk nodded solemnly.
It must be admitted that when the doctor emerged from the bedroom, even Fandorin saw him with different eyes. He noticed certain features of Twigs’ appearance that were not apparent at a casual glance: the firm line of the chin, the resolute, massive forehead. A very interesting specimen.