But Fandorin had still not realised just how wretched his situation really was.
Walking out on to the stone terrace, he saw a table laid with a magnificent spread of various kinds of ham, salami, fruits, cakes and sweets, as well as an array of sweet liqueurs; candles protruded from candelabra, but they had not been lit – evidently because of the bright moon. But the table was not the problem – there was a powerful telescope on an iron stand beside the balustrade, and its seeing eye was not pointed up at the heavens, but towards Bullcox’s house!
Had Don Tsurumaki seen or hadn’t he? Erast Petrovich froze on the spot when the thought hit him. But no, the real point was: What exactly had he seen – just a man running away through the garden or…
‘Well, don’t just stand there!’ said the Don, puffing on his black briar pipe as he moved towards Fandorin. ‘Would you like something to eat? I love eating alone at night. With no forks and no chopsticks – with just my bare hands.’ He held up his palms, gleaming with grease and smeared with chocolate. ‘Sheer piggishness, of course, but so help me, it’s my favourite time of the day. I regale my soul with the sight of the stars and my body with all sorts of delicacies. Take a quail, they were still soaring over the meadow this morning. And there are oysters, absolutely fresh. Would you like some?’
The fat man spoke with such mouth-watering enthusiasm that Erast immediately realised just how hungry he was, and wanted the quail and the oysters. But he had to find out a few things first.
Since his host was in no hurry to interrogate him, the vice-consul decided to seize the initiative.
‘Tell me, why do you need a gate leading into the next garden?’ he asked, feverishly trying to think of how to approach the most important question.
‘Algernon and I are friends…’ (the name came out as ‘Arudzenon’ on his Japanese lips) ‘… we pay each other neighbourly calls, with no formalities. It’s more convenient to go through the garden than round by the street.’
And it’s also more convenient for your lodger to sell his secrets, the vice-consul thought, but, naturally, he didn’t tell tales on Prince Onokoji. Fandorin recalled that, unlike the other guests, Bullcox and his consort had arrived at the Bachelors’ Ball on foot, and they had appeared from somewhere off to one side, not from the direction of the front gates. So they must have used that gate…
‘But… but how did you open it?’ Erast Petrovich asked, still avoiding the most important point.
The Don became excited.
‘O-oh, I have everything here running on electric power. I’m a great admirer of that remarkable invention! Here, look.’
He took the vice-consul by the elbow and half-led, half-dragged him to a kind of lectern standing beside the telescope. Erast Petrovich saw a bundle of wires running down to the floor and disappearing into a covered channel. On the lectern itself there were several rows of small, gleaming switches. Tsurumaki clicked one of them and the palace came to life, with yellowish-white light streaming out of all its windows. He clicked the switch again, and the house went dark.
‘And this here is our gate. Look through the telescope, the telescope.’
Fandorin pressed his eye to the end of the tube and saw the metal railings very close up, only an arm’s length away, with three canine silhouettes beyond them. A green spark glinted once again in a bulging eye. What patient brutes they were.
‘One, two!’ the Don exclaimed, and the gate swung open with a lively jerk, as if it were alive. One of the dogs bounded forward.
‘Three, four!’
The gate slammed shut again just as quickly, and the mastiff was flung back into the garden. And serve the son of a bitch right!
Pretending to adjust the focus, Erast Petrovich raised the aim of the telescope slightly. First the wall of the house appeared in the circle of vision, and then the drainpipe, and then the window – and all very close indeed.
‘That’s enough, enough!’ said the lover of electricity, tugging impatiently on his sleeve. ‘Now I’ll show you something that will really make you gasp. Nobody has seen it yet, I’m saving it for a big social event… The pond, watch the pond!’
Click! An emerald glow appeared above the black, shimmering patch of water as the tiny island was flooded with light from electric lamps, and the tiny stone pagoda standing on it was also lit up – but pink, not green.
‘European science!’ the millionaire exclaimed, with his eyes glittering. ‘The wires are laid along the bottom, in a special telegraph cable. And the bulbs have coloured glass, that’s the whole trick. How do you like that?’
‘Astounding!’ Fandorin exclaimed with genuine delight. ‘You’re a genuine inventor.’
‘Oh no, I’m not an inventor. Making discoveries is what you gaijins are good at. The Japanese are not inventors, our element is Order, but pioneers are always children of Chaos. But we are really clever at finding good uses for others’ inventions, and you can never keep up with us there. Give us time, Mr Fandorin: we’ll learn all your tricks, and then we’ll show you how clumsily you have used them.’
The Don laughed, and the titular counsellor thought: It doesn’t look to me as if your element is Order.
‘Are you interested in astronomy?’ Erast Petrovich enquired, clearing his throat and nodding at the telescope.
Tsurumaki understood the hidden meaning of the question quite clearly. His laughter rumbled even more freely and his fat cheeks crept upwards, transforming his jolly, sparkling eyes into two narrow slits.
‘Yes, astronomy too. But sometimes there are very curious things to be seen on the ground as well!’
He slapped his visitor on the shoulder in familiar fashion, choked on tobacco smoke and doubled over in laughter.
Erast Petrovich flushed bright red – he had seen it, he had seen everything! But what could Fandorin say now?
‘Bravo, Fandorin-san, bravo!’ said the joker, brushing away his tears. ‘Here’s my hand!’
The vice-consul shook the proffered hand very feebly and asked morosely:
‘What are you so pleased about?’
‘The fact that good old Algernon is a… what’s the English word, now… a cuckord!’
Erast Petrovich did not immediately realise that the word intended was ‘cuckold’. He asked with emphatic coolness, in order to bring the conversation back within the bounds of propriety:
‘But you said he was your f-friend.’
‘Of course he is! As far as a native princeling can be a white sahib’s friend.’ The Don’s sanguine features dissolved into a smile that was no longer jolly, but frankly spiteful. ‘Do you really not know, my dear Fandorin-san, that one of the greatest of pleasures is the feeling of secret superiority over someone who thinks he is superior to you? You have given me a wonderful present. Now every time I look at Bullcox’s snobbish features, I shall remember your magnificent leap from the window and the clothes flying through the air, and inside I shall be roaring with laughter. Thank you very, very much for that!’
He tried to shake hands again, but this time the dumbfounded vice-consul hid his hand behind his back.
‘Are you offended? You shouldn’t be. I have a proposal for you, a secret Japano-Russian alliance, directed against British imperialism.’ The Don winked. ‘And I am offering you an excellent base for undermining English influence. You see the little pavilion by the water? A fine, secluded spot. I shall give you a key to the gates, and you will be able to get in at any time of the day or night. And I shall present the lovely O-Yumi with a key to the gate in the garden. Make yourselves at home. Feast on love. Only one condition: don’t turn out the lamp and don’t close the curtains on this side. Consider that the rental charge for the premises… Oh, just look at his eyes flash! Oh! I’m joking, I’m joking!’