“Hardly,” Sherlock said, his tone growing even more pettish. “My treatment of you now is motivated by disappointment. As a child I believed you to be a gentleman of distinction, but I know now that I was mistaken. The manner in which you have used your wives has been particularly egregious. You avoided the company of your first wife for many years, and even after marrying your second wife you continue to divert yourself with others.”
Ito was taken aback. This was information about his private life that should not have been public. He sputtered vacantly. “How did you…”
“I didn’t realize at the time, but the woman who came to your aid that day was a prostitute. The prostitutes of Cheapside are pragmatic by nature and would never trouble themselves with a client once their trade was accomplished. The only explanation is that you took an interest in the woman, made her acquaintance and paid her, but did not avail of her wares. Her actions were thus her manner of repaying you. Your fellows had blamed you for mashing, blamed you because you had a wife. Considering your age, however, you could not have been married for long before leaving her behind on an extended stay in England, which tells me there was little affection in the marriage.”
“I’d thank you not to presume. Still, where did you learn of my second marriage?”
“Despite being a man of your position, you were forced to sneak away in order to meet me. Your movements are restricted. Your attendants keep a close eye upon you. The cause? The behavior you engage in upon sneaking away. Your fellows would not be in a frenzy to keep such gossip from the newspapers unless you have a wife. I find it doubtful, even with your present fortunes, that you could have maintained a relationship with the wife you neglected so poorly in your earlier career. Therefore, it is only logical to conclude that you have remarried.”
Ito was bewildered. He remembered the day he first met young Sherlock. The boy’s powers of deduction had been so astounding then that it was hard not to suspect he was peering directly into one’s mind.
Everything he said now was true. Ito had often been censured for his dalliances with geisha. Those who knew him best had nicknamed him “the broom,” in reference to the manner in which he swept women up and discarded them later.
“I readily admit to my own faults,” he finally relented, rattled. “And perhaps it was conceited to assume I could teach you anything of the martial arts. But there is one thing I beg you to take to heart. The Japanese are not, as you say, savages.”
Sherlock stubbornly refused to concede the point. “I remain unconvinced.”
Ito raised his voice, losing his patience again. “Then you believe we are barbaric by nature? That is what you mean to say?”
“I mean precisely what I said earlier.”
“What you said earlier? Oh, about the cunning savages, schooled in the fiendish methods of the Orient?”
This finally caused the other man to glance at Ito. There was a palpable shift in his grey eyes.
“Britain’s policy of colonization is not as just as the citizens of your country seem to believe,” Ito snapped. “It was Britain that began sale of opium in China to cover the trade deficit from the great volumes of tea you import. The Qing Dynasty were entirely correct to confiscate and dump those 23,000 crates. And yet Britain responded with force. It was Britain that exploited China’s weakness in order to force Japan to open its borders. To you the East may seem a nuisance, but to us the West are truly invaders!”
“You had better save your objections for the Honorable Mr. Gladstone,” the other man said, lowering his gaze to his pipe. “I am but a common detective.”
“You eschew any involvement. Your business in consulting with the public, however, is not exempt.”
“Your meaning?”
“I once believed the West to be a land of science, but your people seem prone to seeing the East as a repository of mystery and the occult. During my previous trip to London, we took port in Shanghai. There, there were great numbers of snake charmers from India who had set up trade. They made their money by hoodwinking Westerners, by pretending to control the snake with the playing of their flutes. But there is no snake that responds to the sound of a flute. The snake charmers simply kick the basket in secret, exciting the snake to show its head.”
Watson made an expression of surprise. “Is that how it is?” he asked Ito.
“No Easterner would be fooled by such a farce. There were similar spectacles in the Ryukyu Islands, but they quickly fell apart.”
“Ho there.” Watson smiled at Sherlock. “Did you hear that? If what this gentleman says is true, then there may be a fatal flaw in your earlier reasoning.”
Sherlock gazed out the window resentfully. “I’m very busy. It may seem to you as if I am doing nothing, but I am currently directing the entirety of my brain toward the analysis of yet unsolved cases.”
“But Sherlock…”
“Watson!” His back still turned, Sherlock waved a single hand, with a gesture akin to shooing away a dog.
The room fell silent. Watson sighed and turned toward Ito apologetically. “You will have to forgive us. Sherlock has just returned from a case, and I am afraid he is very tired.”
A twinge of regret began to steal over Ito. He had let his temper get the better of him. Such behavior was inexcusable in a politician.
“Not at all,” said Ito, bowing his head. “It is I who should apologize for intruding in this way. I beg your pardon. Mr. Holmes, I wish you good health. May your exceptional powers of deduction continue to bring comfort to those in need.”
Sherlock did not turn around. Ito could only feel disheartened by such a turn of events. Most of all he was disappointed in his own lack of forbearance. This painful interaction was not the reunion he had hoped for.
Watson accompanied Ito to the door. He told him he’d see him out.
They descended the stairs and stepped outside. Surrounded by the bustle of Baker Street, Watson turned toward Ito. “It was a pleasure to make your acquaintance, and most edifying as well. I am certain Sherlock will find cause now to make a closer study of the habits of snakes.”
A weak smile escaped Ito’s lips. He felt thoroughly dejected. “Thank you, but I’m afraid this exchange has only revealed my own immaturity. Please, give my regards to Mr. Holmes.”
He turned his back on Watson and walked away.
There was one thing that Sherlock had said, in particular, that Ito could not help but dwell upon. As a child I believed you to be a gentleman of distinction, but I know now that I was mistaken. His eyes had been sharp, accusatory, and tinged with a deep disappointment. No matter how Ito justified it, it was too much to expect Sherlock, or anyone, to dispassionately accept the burning of their own country’s legation. Add that to the misgivings he had formed regarding Ito’s character, and Ito ruefully felt his earlier treatment was perhaps only reasonable.
He waved down a carriage. “The British Library,” he told the coachman. A piercing sadness suddenly welled up in his breast. But what could he do but endure it? When all was said and done, Ito’s life had perhaps been too selfish to expect friendship in the ordinary manner of things. It was far too late now to change the past.
Sherlock Holmes stared deliberately at the fire poker—the one that had been bent out of shape by Grimesby Roylott. He resolved that Watson should find him in this exact posture when he returned to the room.
Had he turned to his books and papers immediately, it would have seemed as if Ito’s comment on the snakes had rattled him. On the other hand, were he to do nothing and simply continue smoking his pipe, Watson might assume he was brooding. Which certainly was not the case.