The fiancé of the ‘captain’s daughter’ was a pitiful sight: lips trembling, pince-nez dangling on its lace, fingers intertwined imploringly.
But Erast Petrovich was not moved by this selfless love. The vice-consul rubbed his chest (those cursed lungs!) and simply said:
‘It’s not a note. It’s a poem.’
‘A poem?’ Shirota exclaimed in amazement. ‘Oh, come now! I know what Russian poems are like. There’s no rhyme here: “more” and “know” is not a rhyme. You can have no rhymes in blank verse, but that has rhythm. For instance, Pushkin: “I visited once more that corner of the earth where I spent two forgotten years in exile”. But this has no rhythm.’
‘But even so, it is a poem.’
‘Ah, perhaps it is a poem in prose,’ Shirota exclaimed with a flash of insight. ‘Like Turgenev! “I fancied then that I was somewhere in the Russian backwoods, in a simple village house”.’
‘Perhaps,’ said Erast Petrovich, who did not wish to argue. ‘But in any case, Sophia Diogenovna is not in any danger, I have n-no idea where you have hidden her.’
‘So you… You simply wanted to lure me out!’ Shirota flushed bright red. ‘Well then, you have succeeded. But I won’t tell you anything! Not even if your shinobi torture me.’ At those words he turned pale again. ‘I’d rather bite my tongue off.’
Erast Petrovich winced slightly.
‘No one is intending to torture you. You will get up in a moment and leave. I have met you here to ask you one single question. And you do not even have to answer it.’
Totally confused now, Shirota muttered:
‘You will let me go? Even if I don’t answer?’
‘Yes.’
‘I don’t somehow… Oh, very well, very well, ask.’
Looking him in the eye, Fandorin said slowly:
‘I remember you used to call me a friend. And you said that you were in my debt for ever. Then you betrayed me, although I trusted you. Tell me, sincere man and admirer of Pushkin, does serving the Fatherland really justify absolutely any kind of villainy?’
Shirota frowned tensely, expecting a continuation. But none came.
‘That’s all. The question has been asked. You can choose not to answer it. And g-goodbye.’
The admirer of Pushkin turned red again. Seeing Fandorin getting up, he exclaimed:
‘Wait, Erast Petrovich!’
‘Let’s go,’ said Fandorin, beckoning wearily to Tamba and his nephew.
‘I did not betray you!’ Shirota said hastily. ‘I set the Don a condition – that you must remain alive.’
‘After which his men attempted to kill me several times… The woman who was dearer to me than anything else in the world was killed. Killed because of you. Goodbye, sincere man.’
‘Where are you going?’ Shirota shouted after him.
‘To your patron. I have a score to settle with him.’
‘But he will kill you!’
‘How so?’ asked the titular counsellor, turning round. ‘He promised you to let me live, did he not?’
Shirota dashed up to him and grabbed hold of his shoulder.
‘Erast Petrovich, what am I to do? If I help you, I shall betray my Fatherland! If I help my Fatherland I shall destroy you, and then I am a low scoundrel, and the only thing left for me to do will be kill to myself!’ His eyes blazed with fire. ‘Yes, yes, that is a solution. If Don Tsurumaki kills you, I shall kill myself!’
A faint semblance of feeling stirred in Fandorin’s frozen soul – it was spite. Fanning this feeble spark in the hope that it would grow into a salutary flame, the titular counsellor hissed:
‘Why, at the slightest little moral difficulty, do you Japanese immediately do away with yourselves? As if that will turn a villainous deed into a noble act! It won’t! And the good of the Fatherland has nothing to do with it! I wish no harm to your precious Fatherland, I wish harm to the akunin by the name of Don Tsurumaki! Are you eternally in his debt too?’
‘No, but I believe this man is capable of leading Japan on to the path of progress and civilisation. I help him because I am a patriot!’
‘What would you do with the man who killed Sophia Diogenovna? Ah, now see how your eyes blaze! Help me take revenge for my love and then serve your Fatherland, who’s stopping you? Get yourselves a constitution, build up the army and the navy, put the foreign powers in their place. Are p-progress and civilisation impossible without the bandit Tsurumaki? Then they’re not worth a bent kopeck. And another thing. You say you are a patriot. But how can a man really be a patriot if he knows that he is a scoundrel?’
‘I need to think,’ Shirota whispered. He hung his head and made for the door.
Dan waited for him to leave the room and then started after him without a sound, but Tamba stopped his nephew.
‘What a pity that I don’t know Russian,’ said the jonin. ‘I don’t know what you said to him, but I have never seen the zone of self-satisfaction below the left cheekbone change its form and colour so irrevocably in five minutes.’
‘Don’t be too quick to celebrate,’ said Erast Petrovich, anguished to feel that the flame of wrath had not taken hold – the little spark had shrivelled away to nothing, and once again it was difficult to breathe. ‘He has to think.’
‘Shirota has already decided everything, he simply hasn’t realised it yet. Now it will all be very simple.’
Naturally, the master of ninso was not mistaken.
Indeed, the operation looked so simple that Tamba wanted to take only Dan with him, but Erast Petrovich insisted on taking part. He knew he would be a burden to the Stealthy Ones, but he was afraid that if he did not exterminate Tsurumaki with his own hands, the tight ring constricting his chest would never open again.
In a secluded spot on the high seashore, they changed into black and covered their faces with masks.
‘A genuine shinobi,’ said Tamba, shaking his head as he examined the titular counsellor. ‘Only very lanky…’
Masa was ordered to stay and guard the clothes, and when Fandorin’s servant tried to rebel, Tamba took him gently by the neck and pressed – and the rebel closed his eyes, lay down on the ground and started snuffling sweetly.
They didn’t head straight for the gates – there were always sentries on duty there. They went through the garden of the Right Honourable Algernon Bullcox. The ferocious mastiffs were pacified by Dan; he blew into a little pipe three times, and the terrifying monsters sank into a peaceful sleep, just like Masa.
As they walked past the familiar house with the dark windows, Erast Petrovich kept looking up at the first floor and waiting for something to stir in his soul. Nothing stirred.
They stopped at the small gate that led out of the garden into the neighbouring estate. Dan took out some kind of slide-whistle and trilled like a cicada.
The gate swung open without a sound, not even the spring jangled – Shirota had taken care of that by lubricating the gate earlier.
‘That way,’ said Fandorin, pointing towards the pond and the dark silhouette of the pavilion.
Everything was set to end where it had begun. In a detailed note, Shirota had informed them that Tsurumaki did not spend the night in the house. One of his men went to bed in his room and the master of the house went off to sleep in the pavilion. No one else in the house knew about this, apart from Shirota and two bodyguards.
That was why Tamba regarded the operation as not very complicated.
As they approached the pavilion where he had spent so many happy hours, Erast listened to his heart again – would it start pounding or not? No, it didn’t.
The jonin put his hand on Fandorin’s shoulder and gestured for him to lie down on the ground. Only the shinobi went on from there. They didn’t crawl, they didn’t freeze on the spot – they simply walked, but in such an amazing way that Fandorin could hardly see them.