Anna shook her head. “We were not with His Highness during his trip to Japan so it is hard to say for sure, but I heard from those close to him that he greatly regretted being unable to visit Tokyo. I believe the Tsarevich’s message of thanks, printed in Japan’s newspapers, was genuine.”
“The officers who were aboard the imperial flagship with His Highness at the time of the incident are baffled by his abrupt change, as well,” Chekhov mused. He looked fearful. “I can’t understand it. Why would His Highness return to Japan in secret, and why is he now waiting, hidden, at sea? It is puzzling.”
Ito turned towards Sherlock. But Sherlock only looked back in silence.
Despite the two civil servants’ confusion, the purpose of Tsarevich Nicholas’ visit was quite clear. Shevich had already told them—he had come to demand the death penalty for Sanzo Tsuda. Why, however, did he desire revenge now, after all this time? Why draw a sword that had already been sheathed?
16
After the interview, Ito was required at an emergency meeting of the Privy Council. It was not a meeting to deliberate over the details of Japan’s constitution—but now that they knew Nicholas was nearby, the council had their work more than cut out for them.
By now it was past 4:00 P.M. By Ito’s request, an English translation of the Sanzo Tsuda investigation records arrived for Sherlock. Sherlock thanked the chairman and headed out alone, by carriage. He could read the report while he travelled.
The Russian attendants were not the only people to have travelled with the crown prince during his tour of Asia. Reporters sent from various newspaper offices had also followed the trip. Ito had earlier telegraphed the Japanese branch office of the French paper Le Figaro on Sherlock’s behalf. Luckily they had reporters who spoke English, and Sherlock made his way there now.
In the carriage, Sherlock spotted a brand-new factory through the window. He recalled having seen facilities of similar construction in London.
As luck would have it, the coachman was Australian. They had no difficulty communicating in English. “An ice-making plant, I believe?” Sherlock shouted over the wheels.
“That’s right,” the coachman shouted back, without turning around. “The Aoyama Ice Plant, built just last year. Japan is having its own industrial revolution.”
“They use highly condensed ammonia gas to create the ice.”
“Yes indeed. The technology’s been here since around when they ousted the Bakufu. Before that they used to have to cut ice from Mount Fuji and transport it to Tokyo.”
Sherlock had mistakenly assumed that was still their method. Japan’s industries were developing at a much faster pace than he had imagined. What had taken 100 years of development or more in England was being accomplished in Japan in but 20 or so years.
Everywhere he looked the people seemed productive and hard-working. He stared out the carriage window at the crude row houses that lined the street. The laborers seemed diligent despite their apparently low quality of life. They didn’t loiter or cause public disturbances.
In Russia, he mused, two percent of the population were aristocracy and all of the remainder were serfs. But though Japan’s total population was far less than that of Russia’s, the Japanese citizenry were not to be underestimated. The Russian people worked only because they had to for tomorrow’s bread. The Japanese, meanwhile, seemed to labor constantly at full potential, with nothing but a few rice balls as reward. Unlikely as it might seem, in the near future the power difference between the two countries might not be as great as the difference in their nations’ land mass. Even the great British Empire, peerless the world over, was but an island nation at heart.
Sherlock shook these abstractions from his mind. He needed to skim through the Sanzo Tsuda report before his carriage arrived at the Le Figaro offices. He removed a packet of documents from the large envelope and began.
Sanzo Tsuda was born February 15, 1855, and was now 36 years of age. The photo included in the packet was blurry and difficult to make out; it had been poorly printed. Nevertheless, he was able to discern a young man with a Western-style haircut, standing with his arms crossed, dressed in an outfit with a stiff collar that resembled a military uniform. According to the inscription the photo had been taken 14 years earlier, during the Satsuma Rebellion. Tsuda’s expression seemed stubborn.
He was the second son of a doctor in the Musashi Province. Shortly after his brith, his family moved to Ueno in the Iga Province of Mie Prefecture. At age 15, he moved to Tokyo and joined the garrison, launching his career as a soldier in the government forces. At 17 he was transferred to the regular Nagoya garrison. At 18 he was dispatched to suppress the Echizen Buddhist riots. In July of that year he was transferred to the Kanazawa outpost.
1877, the 10th year of the Meiji Era, marked the beginning of the Satsuma Rebellion. Sherlock read that when Tsuda turned 22, he made the rank of corporal for the first battalion of the seventh infantry regiment. A month later the seventh regiment was incorporated into the detached first brigade, and they were swiftly dispatched to Hinagu to strike Saigo’s[4] army from the rear. It was there that Tsuda was shot in the left hand. He was taken to the Yatsushiro dressing station in Kumamoto for treatment. He was later moved to a hospital in Nagasaki and discharged at the end of May. He returned to the main Kagoshima forces and fought numerous battles in Kagoshima and Miyazaki, before eventually being promoted to sergeant. On October 22 he returned to Kanazawa.
After the Satsuma Rebellion came to an end Tsuda fell ill several times—Sherlock deduced exhaustion had perhaps taken its toll. He was frequently in and out of hospitals. On October 9 he was awarded the 7th Order of Merit in recognition of his past deeds.
According to the investigators, Tsuda remained exceedingly proud of his Order of Merit. For someone from dissolute samurai stock, such as Tsuda, that award was likely one of his most sustaining possessions.
He left the army before turning 27, and became a policeman. He was assigned to be a patrolman at Owase Police Station in Mie Prefecture. Three years later, however, he attacked a fellow officer during a social gathering and was dismissed from his post. Perhaps owing to the Order of Merit, however, he was re-employed as a policeman before the year was out, this time hired by the Shiga Prefecture force.
All that was nearly ten years ago. During investigative questioning, Tsuda had repeatedly insisted that Takamori Saigo was alive and resided in Russia.
Popular knowledge had it that Takamori Saigo had died during the Satsuma Rebellion. There were rumors, however, that he had in fact survived and had secretly travelled to Russia. To Sherlock—who was in Japan under similar circumstances, having faked his death in England—the rumors did not seem quite so fanciful as they might otherwise have appeared.
But for the most part, Saigo’s so-called escape to Russia was regarded as mere fantasy. Yet Tsuda persisted in his belief. And at the time there had been another rumor—the one that Tsarevich Nicholas was visiting Japan in preparation for Russia’s declaration of war. Possibly this had stoked Tsuda’s worries that Takamori Saigo would reappear.
If the rebel Takamori Saigo were to suddenly return to Japan, the end of the Satsuma Rebellion might no longer seem so decisive. Investigators wrote that Tsuda seemed to be paranoid that his Order of Merit would be revoked.
So these were the morbid delusions of a man whose only point of pride in his life was a single military award. To Sherlock reading the report, it was evident that Tsuda was suffering from mental illness.
4
Takamori Saigo was an influential samurai and one of the Three Great Nobles of the Meiji Restoration.