His heart suddenly ached.
So, she dined with one and set out for a tryst with another? Or, even better, she returned from her dramatic rendezvous and calmly sat down to a meal with her ginger-haired patron? Women truly were mysterious creatures. After two more windows, the next room began – the study.
The windows here were slightly open and Fandorin could hear a man’s voice speaking, so he acted with caution and first listened to ascertain where the speaker was.
‘… will be reprimanded, but his superior will bear the greater part of the guilt – he will be obliged to resign in disgrace…’ said the voice in the study.
The words were spoken in English, but with a distinct Japanese accent, so it was not Bullcox.
However, the senior adviser was also there.
‘And our friend will occupy the vacancy?’ he asked.
Two men, Fandorin decided. The Japanese is sitting in the far right corner, and Bullcox is in the centre, with his back to the window.
The titular counsellor lifted himself up slowly, inch by inch, and examined the interior of the room.
Shelves of books, a desk, a fireplace with no fire.
The important thing was that O-Yumi was not here. Two men. He could see his rival’s fiery locks sticking up from behind the back of one armchair. The other armchair was occupied by a dandy with a gleaming parting in his hair and a pearl glowing in his silk tie. The minuscule man crossed one leg elegantly over the other and swayed his lacquered shoe.
‘Not this very moment,’ he said with a restrained smile. ‘In a week’s time.’
Ah, I know you, my good sir, thought Erast Petrovich, narrowing his eyes. I saw you at the ball. Prince… What was it that Doronin called you?
‘Well now, Onokoji, that is very Japanese,’ the Right Honourable said with a chuckle. ‘To reprimand someone, and reward him a week later with promotion.’
Yes, yes, Fandorin remembered, he’s Prince Onokoji, the former daimyo – ruler of an appanage principality – now a high society lion and arbiter of fashion.
‘This, my dear Algernon, is not a reward, he is merely occupying a position that has fallen vacant. But he will receive a reward, for doing the job so neatly. He will be given the suburban estate of Takarazaka. Ah, what plum trees there are there! What ponds!’
‘Yes, it’s a glorious spot. A hundred thousand, probably.’
‘At least two hundred, I assure you!’
Erast Petrovich did not look in the window – he was not interested. He tried to think where O-Yumi might be.
On the ground floor there were another two windows that were dark, but Bullcox was hardly likely to have accommodated his mistress next to his study. So where were her chambers, then? At the front of the house? Or on the first floor?
‘All right, then,’ he heard the Briton say. ‘But what about Prince Arisugawa’s letter? Have you been able to get hold of a copy?’
‘My man is greedy, but we simply can’t manage without him.’
‘Listen, I believe I gave you five hundred pounds!’
‘But I need a thousand.’
The vice-consul frowned. Vsevolod Vitalievich had said that the prince lived on Don Tsurumaki’s charity, but apparently he felt quite free to earn some subsidiary income. And Bullcox was a fine one, too – paying for court rumours and stolen letters. But then, that was his job as a spy.
No, the Englishman would probably not accommodate his native mistress on the front façade of the house – after all, he was an official dignitary. So her window was probably on the back wall…
The wrangling in the study continued.
‘Onokoji, I’m not a milch cow.’
‘And in addition, for the same sum, you could have a little list from Her Majesty’s diary,’ the prince said ingratiatingly. ‘One of the ladies-in-waiting is my cousin, and she owes me many favours.’
Bullcox snorted.
‘Worthless. Some womanish nonsense or other.’
‘Very far indeed from nonsense. Her Majesty is in the habit of noting down her conversations with His Majesty…’
There’s no point in my listening to all these abominations, Fandorin told himself. I’m not a spy, thank God. But if some servant or other sees me, I’ll cut an even finer figure than these two: ‘RUSSIAN VICE-CONSUL CAUGHT EAVESDROPPING’.
He stole along the wall to a drainpipe and tugged on it cautiously, to see whether it was firm. The titular counsellor already had some experience in climbing drainpipes from his previous, non-diplomatic life.
His foot was already poised on the lower rim of brick, but his reason still attempted to resist. You are behaving like a madman, like a thoroughly contemptible, irresponsible individual, his reason told him. Come to your senses! Get a grip on yourself!
‘It’s true,’ Erast Petrovich replied abjectly, ‘I have gone completely gaga.’ But his contrition did not make him abandon his insane plan, it did not even slow down his movements.
The diplomat scrambled up nimbly to the first floor, propped one foot on a ledge and reached out for the nearest window. He clutched at the frame with his fingers and crept closer, taking tiny little steps. His frock coat was probably covered in dust, but that did not concern Fandorin just at the moment.
He had a far worse problem – the dark window refused to open. It was latched shut, and it was impossible for him to reach the small upper section.
Break it? He couldn’t, it would bring the entire household running…
The diamond on the titular counsellor’s finger – a farewell gift from the lady responsible for his missing the steamship from Calcutta – glinted cunningly.
If Erast Petrovich had only been in a normal, balanced state of mind, he would undoubtedly have felt ashamed of the very idea – how could he use a present from one woman to help him reach another! But his fevered brain whispered to him that diamond cuts glass. And the young man promised his conscience that he would take the ring off and never put it back on again for as long as he lived.
Fandorin did not know exactly how diamond was used for cutting. He took a firm grip on the ring and scored a decisive line. There was disgusting scraping sound, and a scratch appeared on the glass.
The titular counsellor pursed his lips stubbornly and prepared to apply greater strength.
He pressed as hard as he could – and the window frame suddenly yielded.
For just a moment Erast Petrovich imagined that this was the result of his efforts, but O-Yumi was standing in the dark rectangle that had opened up in front of him. She looked at the vice-consul with laughing eyes that reflected two tiny little moons.
‘You have overcome all the obstacles and deserve a little help,’ she whispered. ‘Only, for God’s sake, don’t fall off. That would be stupid now.’ And in an absolutely unromantic but extremely practical manner, she grabbed hold of his collar.
‘I came to tell you that I have also been thinking about you for the last two days,’ said Fandorin.
The idiotic English language has no intimate form of the second person pronoun, it’s always just ‘you’, whatever the relationship might be, but he decided that from this moment on they were on intimate terms.
‘Is that all you came for?’ she asked with a smile, holding him by the shoulders.
‘Yes.’
‘Good. I believe you. You can go back now.’
Erast Petrovich did not feel like going back.
He thought for a moment and said:
‘Let me in.’
O-Yumi glanced behind her.
‘For one minute. No longer.’
Fandorin didn’t try to argue.
He clambered over the windowsill (how many times had he already done that tonight?) and reached his arms out for her, but O-Yumi backed away.
‘Oh no. Or a minute won’t be long enough.’
The vice-consul hid his hands behind his back, but he declared:
‘I want to take you with me!’
She shook her head and her smile faded away.
‘Why? Do you love him?’ he asked in a trembling voice.