Kubo lowered his eyes. “I apologize. I have not studied nearly as much as I should. I ought to know more…”
“Nonsense,” Mutsu insisted. “You did nothing wrong. Mr. Holmes, why are you inquiring into Mr. Kubo’s scientific knowledge? Why these questions?”
“Naturally, I assumed he would know the answers,” Sherlock answered, placidly.
Kubo dropped his head dejectedly. “There is no excuse. I promise to apply myself more thoroughly in the future.”
Mutsu held up a hand. “Enough, there is no need to apologize. Mr. Holmes seems to be suffering under a misunderstanding of some sort. You can return to your work now, Kubo. I will speak with Mr. Holmes and ensure that he understands you are one of my most trusted employees.”
Kubo hesitated. He bowed again before walking away.
“I see you are a man of distinction, Minister Mutsu,” Sherlock said softly, once Kubo’s footsteps had grown distant. “Others might have bullied a younger employee but you defended him quite admirably.”
Mutsu was angry. “Mr. Holmes! I too have many acquaintances in England. The officials in government offices are not scientists. None could have answered such specialized questions without notice, even as it concerns issues relevant to their own department!”
Even Ito felt Sherlock had gone too far. “Minister Mutsu is correct. What business did you have speaking to Mr. Kubo in that way?”
Sherlock did look a little shame-faced. “I did not mean to cause any pain… Forgive me if I was rude. I will apologize to Mr. Kubo as well, if necessary. But at present there are more urgent matters which I must consider. I will wish you good day.”
And with no further explanation, Sherlock began to walk away. Ito glanced at Mutsu in chagrin. The Minister returned his gaze, blinking several times.
Ito chased after Sherlock. “If you have made a discovery, I would like to hear it.”
“It is too early for me to stand by any conclusions.” Sherlock didn’t slow his pace.
“Could I be of some assistance? Mr. Holmes, please, you need not take full responsibility on your own.”
“Indeed, there is something I would like you to look into. There will be a place where the trees or rice plants are withering. Nearby there will be a river, where a large number of fish have suddenly died. I would appreciate if you could ascertain this location.”
“Wait, a place where trees and rice—”
Mutsu’s deep voice interrupted them suddenly. “Ashio, in Tochigi,” he said.
Sherlock stopped. He turned around slowly. Ito looked at Mutsu, falling silent.
Mutsu approached them, his expression grave. “Representatives from the local governments report problems in their farming villages to the Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce. As minister, I am naturally informed of such issues.”
Ito nodded. “I am aware of this issue as well. When I was Prime Minister, the death of the fish was brought up for discussion. But why is this relevant now, Mr. Holmes?”
Sherlock narrowed his eyes. “You two already know? Then the situation is more dire than I had feared!”
32
Though it was part of his duties, Ito found the meeting of the Privy Council that day to be stupefyingly boring. It was four in the afternoon before he was finally freed. He boarded a carriage and raced home. Sherlock had already returned before him. He had surely made progress on the case.
Ito was walking swiftly along the veranda when he spotted Umeko—frozen in place, staring through an open sliding door with a bewildered expression upon her face. “Oh, this is awful!”
What could have happened? Ito hurried over and peeked into the room. He was left speechless.
The tatami room was in a state of total disarray. Every inch of the floor was covered in a sea of loose papers. Each sheet was covered densely in Japanese writing—they were pages from his copy of the translation of The Complete Work on Russian Natural Sciences. Sherlock crawled back and forth over them like a dog. He picked up one stack of papers only to toss it aside a moment later and repeat the same action elsewhere.
“Mr. Holmes…” ventured Ito.
“A moment, if you will.” Sherlock approached the low table, across which several pages had been flung. He snatched them up, one after the next, and then fanned them out in a semicircle around himself. “The Russian word for cat is koshka. Where did I put chapter 47…”
Umeko turned toward her husband, distressed. “How am I supposed to serve dinner?”
Ito groaned. “Set the table in my room.”
“Of course,” Umeko said, and walked away down the veranda.
He is like a wayward child, thought Ito. “I’d thank you not to treat this place like your lodgings at Baker Street! This space is where I spend time with my family.”
Sherlock snorted. “I believe I played at least some part in restoring domestic harmony to the Ito household. Surely that is justification enough for allowing me to borrow the space for a moment as I work on your case.”
“And you have my full cooperation. But this hardly seems efficient.”
“Watch where you step. It may appear haphazard, but every page has been carefully sorted and placed.”
“Really?” Ito stepped gingerly onto a small patch of open floor. “May I at least ask what you are doing? I know you cannot read Japanese. If you are simply practicing code breaking again I admit I will be very disappointed.”
“Worry not. I am investigating something of utmost import. Your daughters were most kind and offered to help, but I refused them. I doubt they understand Russian anyway, and looking over so many pages is a daunting task.”
“It did take the Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce a hundred men to translate.”
“Which is why I am doing it myself.”
“It? What is it that you are doing?”
Sherlock momentarily stopped and clambered onto his knees. “Exactly what it looks like. First I look at the original Russian text to identify the word that appears most, and from there attempt to determine the subject of that section. I then look at the same section in Japanese to determine if the corresponding kanji or katakana appears with similar frequency. If they match, then that word is the subject. I do not need to know what the word means. If there is a noticeable difference between the two, however, then I look up the meaning of the subject word in a Russian-to-English dictionary.”
“You are looking for mistranslations? But the frequency of the subject words won’t always match. During translation, subjects and objects can be omitted or even added. Words may be replaced with pronouns, or pronouns with proper nouns.”
“That is true. Which is why I narrow the passages down further to those which seem most consequential.”
“Consequential?”
“The phonetic subject words I leave for later. Kanji, however, are pictorial in nature. Two trees is a forest, three is a wood. Two fires on top of each other are a blaze. Characters with the sanzui element are related to water. If the original meaning is apparent to some degree from the pictography of the characters, the likelihood that it has been correctly translated is high.”
“Wouldn’t a Japanese-to-English dictionary be more helpful? Shall I bring you one?”
“Asako made the same offer. I declined. Using a dictionary would take far too much time. It is more effective to observe the shapes and strokes with my own unvarnished eyes, rather than through the preconceptions of reflected knowledge. Kanji are pictographs that have taken root across multiple cultures. Naturally they can be processed most swiftly through intuition.”
“But if the point is to verify, wouldn’t it be faster to rely on a Japanese person with knowledge of Russian?”