She half-rose off her seat and performed a graceful curtsy.
‘Don’t mention it,’ said Fandorin. As he inclined his head, he saw that damned dangling sleeve and pulled it right off quickly. He wanted very much to hear the sound of her voice again and asked: ‘Did you go out for a drive this early in the day? It is not five o’clock yet.’
‘I drive to the headland every morning to watch the sun rising over the sea. It is the finest sight in all the world,’ O-Yumi replied, pushing a lock of hair behind her little protruding ear, which was bright pink from the light shining through it.
Erast Petrovich looked at her in amazement – it was as if she had read his recent thoughts.
‘And do you always rise so early?’
‘No, I go to bed so late,’ the amazing woman said, laughing. Unlike her voice, her laughter was not husky at all, but clear and vibrant.
And now Fandorin wanted her to laugh some more. But he didn’t know how to make it happen. Perhaps say something humorous about the horse?
The titular counsellor absentmindedly patted the mare on the rump. It gave him a sideways glance from an inflamed eye and whinnied pitifully.
‘I’m terribly upset about my hat.’ O-Yumi sighed as she carried on tidying up her hair. ‘It was so beautiful! It blew off, and now I’ll never find it. That’s the price of patriotism for you. My friend warned me that a Japanese horse would never walk well in harness, but I decided to prove he was wrong.’
She meant Bullcox, Erast Petrovich guessed.
‘She won’t bolt now. She just needs to be led by the reins for a while… If you will p-permit me…’
He took the mare by the bridle and led her slowly along the promenade. Fandorin wanted very badly to glance back, but he kept himself in hand. After all, he was no young boy, to go gaping at beautiful women.
The silence dragged on. Erast Petrovich, we know, was being firm with himself, but why did she not say anything? Did women who have just been rescued from mortal danger really remain silent, especially in the presence of their rescuer?
A minute went by, then a second, and a third. The silence ceased to be a pause in the conversation and began acquiring some special meaning of its own. It is a well-known fact, at least in belles-lettres, that when a woman and a man who barely know each other do not speak for a long time, it brings them closer than any conversation.
Eventually the titular counsellor gave way and pulled the bridle very slightly towards himself, and when the mare shook its head in his direction, he half-turned, squinting at the Japanese woman out of the corner of his eye.
Apparently the thought of staring at his back had never even entered her head! She had turned away and opened a little mirror, and was busy with her face – she had even brushed her hair and pinned it up already, and powdered her little nose. So much for a significant silence!
Furious at his own stupidity, Fandorin handed the reins to O-Yumi and said firmly:
‘There, my lady. The horse is completely calm now. You can drive on, only take it gently and don’t let go of the reins.’
He raised the hat that had somehow miraculously remained on his head and was about to bow, but hesitated, wondering whether it was polite to leave without introducing himself. On the other hand, would that not be too much – to pay this dissolute woman the same courtesy as a society lady?
Courtesy won the day
‘P-pardon me, I forgot to introduce myself. I…’
She stopped him with a wave of her hand.
‘Don’t bother. The name will tell me very little. And I shall see what is important without any name.’
She gave him a long, intent stare and her tender lips started moving soundlessly.
‘And what do you see?’ Fandorin asked, unable to repress a smile.
‘Not very much as yet. You are loved by luck and by things, but not by destiny. You have lived twenty-two years in the world, but in fact you are older than that. And that is not surprising. You have often been within an inch of death and you have lost half of your heart, and that ages people rapidly… Well, then. Once again, thank you, sir. And goodbye.’
When he heard her mention half of his heart, Erast Petrovich shuddered. But the lady shook the reins with a piercing yell of ‘Yoshi, ikoo!’ and set the mare off at a spanking trot, despite his warning.
The horse called Naomi ran obediently, twitching its white pointed ears in a regular rhythm. Its hoofs beat out a jolly, silvery tattoo on the road.
And at journey’s end
You remember a white horse
Dashing through the mist
THE FINAL SMILE
That day he saw her again. Nothing surprising in that – Yokohama was a small town.
Erast Petrovich was making his way back to the consulate along Main Street in the evening, after a meeting with the sergeant and the inspector, and he saw the flame-haired Bullcox and his concubine drive by in a brougham. The Englishman was dressed in something crimson (Fandorin hardly even glanced at him); his companion was wearing a black, figure-hugging dress and a hat with an ostrich feather and a gauzy veil that did not conceal her face, but seemed merely to envelop her features in a light haze.
The titular counsellor bowed slightly, trying to make the movement express nothing but quite ordinary courtesy. O-Yumi did not respond to the bow, but she gave him a long, strange look, and Erast Fandorin tried to penetrate its meaning for a long time afterwards. Seeking something, slightly uneasy? Yes, that was probably it: she seemed to be trying to make out something concealed in his face, simultaneously hoping and fearing to find it.
With some effort, he forced himself to put this nonsense out of his mind and redirect his thoughts to important matters.
They next time they met was the next day, in the afternoon. Lieutenant Captain Bukhartsev had come from Tokyo to find out how the investigation was progressing. Unlike in the first meeting, the maritime agent behaved like a perfect angel. His attitude to the titular counsellor had changed completely – his manner was polite, he spoke little and listened attentively.
They learned nothing new from him, only that Minister Okubo was being guarded night and day, he hardly ever left his residence, and was in a terrible rage as a result. He might not hold out for the promised week.
Erast Petrovich briefly outlined the state of affairs to his compatriot. The Satsumans had disappeared without trace. The watch being kept on the hunchback had been intensified, since it had now been established for certain that he was in league with the conspirators, but so far the secret surveillance had not yielded anything useful. The owner of the Rakuen spent all his time at his gambling den; in the early morning he went home to sleep, then came back to the den. And there were no leads.
Fandorin also showed Bukhartsev the items of evidence they had collected – they were displayed on the sergeant’s desk especially for the occasion: the three swords, the celluloid collar and the mirror.
The lieutenant captain examined the last two items though a magnifying glass, then examined the fleshy pad of his own thumb for a long time through the same magnifying glass, shrugged and said: ‘Twaddle.’
As the vice-consul was showing the maritime agent to his carriage, he held forth on the importance of the job Fandorin had been given.
‘… We can either increase the effectiveness of our influence to unprecedented heights – that is, if you manage to catch the killers – or undermine our reputation and provoke the displeasure of the all-powerful minister, who will not forgive us for putting him in a cage,’ Mstislav Nikolaevich pontificated confidentially in a hushed voice.
The titular counsellor listened with a slight frown – first, because he knew all this already in any case, and, secondly, because he was irritated by the familiar way in which the embassy popinjay had set one hand on his shoulder.