All this took about three seconds. Fandorin still hadn’t had a chance to throw his lasso. He stood there, whirling it above his head in whistling circles, but the man with the withered arm moved so fast that he couldn’t choose the moment for the throw.
The steel blade clashed with the steel fan, and the fearsome opponents leapt back and circled round each other, ready to pounce again.
When the man with the withered arm slowed down, Erast Petrovich seized the moment and threw his lasso. It went whistling through the air – but the Satsuman leapt forward, knocked the fan aside, swung round his axis and slashed at Iwaoka’s legs.
Something appalling happened: the commissar’s feet stayed where they were, but his severed ankles slipped off them and stuck in the ground. The old campaigner swayed, but before he fell, the sword blade sliced him in half – from his right shoulder to his left hip. The body settled into a formless heap.
Celebrating his victory, the man with the withered arm froze on the spot for a mere second, but that was enough for Fandorin to make another throw. This one was faultlessly precise and the broad noose encircled the samurai’s shoulders. Erast Petrovich allowed it to slip down to his elbows and tugged it towards him, forcing the Satsuman to spin round his own axis again. In just a few moments, the prisoner had been bound securely and laid out on the ground. Snarling furiously and baring his teeth, he writhed and twisted, even trying to reach the rope with his teeth, but there was nothing he could do.
Suga and Asagawa dragged over the hunchback with his wrists tied to his ankles, so that he could neither walk nor stand – when they let go of him, he tumbled over on to his side. There was a wooden gag protruding from his mouth, with laces that were tied at the back of his head.
The vice-intendant walked over to the commissar’s mutilated body and heaved a deep sigh, but that was as far as the expression of grief went.
When the general turned towards Fandorin, he was smiling.
‘We forgot about the signal,’ he said cheerfully, holding up his whistle. ‘Never mind, we managed without any back-up. We’ve taken the main two villains alive. That’s incredibly good luck.’
He stood in front of the man with the withered arm, who had stopped thrashing about on the ground and was lying there quite still, pale-faced, with his eyes squeezed tight shut.
Suga said something harsh and kicked the prone man contemptuously, then grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and stood him on his feet.
The samurai opened his eyes. Never before had Fandorin seen such sheer animal fury in a human stare.
‘An excellent technique,’ said Suga, fingering the noose of the lasso. ‘We’ll have to add it to our repertoire. Now I understand how the Turks managed to take you prisoner.’
The titular counsellor made no comment – his didn’t want to disappoint the Japanese police chief. In actual fact he had been captured with a brigade of Serbian volunteers who had been cut off from their own lines and used up all their cartridges. According to the samurai code, apparently they should have choked themselves with their own shoulder belts…
‘What is that for?’ Erast Petrovich asked, pointing to the gag in the hunchback’s mouth.
‘So that he won’t take it into his head…’
Suga never finished what he was saying. With a hoarse growl, the man with the withered arm pushed the general aside with his knee, lunged forward into a run and smashed his forehead into the corner of the shrine at full speed.
There was a sickening crunch and the bound man collapsed face down. A red puddle started spreading rapidly beneath him.
Suga bent down over the samurai, felt the pulse in the man’s neck and waved his hand hopelessly.
‘The hami is needed to prevent the prisoner from biting off his own tongue,’ Asagawa concluded for his superior. ‘It is not enough simply to take enemies like this alive. You have to prevent them dying afterwards as well.’
Fandorin said nothing, he was stunned. He felt guilty – and not just because he had not bound an important prisoner securely enough. He was feeling even more ashamed of something else.
‘There’s something I have to tell you, Inspector,’ he said, blushing as he led Asagawa aside.
The vice-intendant was left beside the remaining prisoner: he checked to make sure the ropes were pulled tight. Once he was convinced that everything was in order, he went to inspect the shrine.
In the meantime Fandorin, stammering more than usual, confessed his perfidious deceit to the inspector. He told him about the tar, and about his suspicions concerning the Japanese police.
‘I know I have c-caused you a great deal of unpleasantness and damaged your reputation with your s-superiors. I ask you to forgive me and bear no grudge…’
Asagawa heard him out with a stony face; only the slight trembling of his lips betrayed his agitation. Erast Petrovich was prepared for a sharp, well-deserved rebuff, but the inspector surprised him.
‘You could have never admitted anything,’ he said in a quiet voice. ‘I would never have known the truth, and you would have remained an impeccable hero. But your confession required even greater courage. Your apology is accepted.’
He bowed ceremoniously. Fandorin replied with a precisely similar bow.
Suga came out of the shrine, holding three bundles in his hands.
‘This is all there is,’ he said. ‘The search specialists will take a more thorough look later. Maybe they’ll find some kind of hiding place. I’d like to know who helped these villains, who supplied them with new swords. Oh, I have plenty to talk about with Mr Semushi! I’ll question him myself,’ said the vice-intendant, with a smile so ferocious it made Erast Petrovich wonder whether the interrogation would be conducted in accordance with civilised norms. ‘Everyone is in line for decorations. A high order for you, Fandorinsan. Perhaps even… Miro!’ the general exclaimed suddenly, pointing to Semushi. ‘Hami!’
The titular counsellor saw that the wooden gag was no longer protruding from between the hunchback’s teeth, but dangling on its laces. Inspector Agasawa dashed towards the prisoner, but too late – Semushi opened his mouth wide and clenched his jaws shut with a snarl. A dense red torrent gushed out of his mouth on to his bare chest.
There was a blood-curdling roar that faded into spasmodic gurgling. Suga and Asagawa prised open the suicide’s teeth and stuffed a rag into his mouth, but it was clear that the bleeding could not be stopped. Five minutes later Semushi stopped groaning and went quiet.
Asagawa was a pitiful sight. He bowed to his superior and to Fandorin, insisting that he had no idea how the prisoner could have chewed through the lace – it had evidently not been strong enough and he, Asagawa, was to blame for not checking it properly.
The general listened to all this and waved his hand dismissively. His voice sounded reassuring. Fandorin made out the familiar word ‘akunin’.
‘I was saying that it’s not possible to take a genuine villain alive, no matter how hard you try,’ said Suga, translating his own words. ‘When a man has a strong hara, there’s nothing you can do with him. But the mission is a success in any case. The minister will be delighted, he’s sick to death of sitting under lock and key. The great man has been saved, for which Japan will be grateful to Russia and to you personally, Mr Vice-Consul.’
That evening Erast Petrovich betrayed his principles and rode home in a kuruma pulled by three rikshas. After all his emotional and physical tribulations, the titular counsellor was absolutely worn out. He couldn’t tell what had undermined his strength more -the bloody spectacle of the two suicides or the hour and a half spent weeding, but the moment he got into the kuruma, he fell asleep, muttering:
‘I’m going to sleep all night, all day and all night again…’