The Diamond Chariot (53 page)

The young man arrived at house number 129 soaked in sweat. However, he was not feeling tired at all – he cared nothing for any trials or tribulations now.

The right honourable patron of the most precious woman in all the world resided in a two-storey mansion of red brick, constructed in accordance with the canons of the glorious Georgian style. Despite the late hour, the house was not sleeping – the windows were bright both downstairs and upstairs.

As he studied the local terrain, Erast Petrovich was surprised to realise that he had been here before. Nearby he could see tall railings with fancy lacework gates and, beyond them, a familiar white palazzo with columns – Don Tsurumaki’s estate, where Erast Petrovich had seen O-Yumi for the first time.

Bullcox’s domain was both smaller and less grandiose than his neighbour’s – and that was very opportune: to scale the ten-foot-high railings of the nouveau-riche Japanese magnate’s estate would have required a ladder, while hopping over the Englishman’s wooden fence was no problem at all.

Without pausing long for thought, Erast Petrovich hopped over. But he had barely even taken a few steps before he saw three swift shadows hurtling towards him across the lawn – they were huge, silent mastiffs, with eyes that glinted an ominous phosphorus-green in the moonlight.

He was obliged to beat a rapid retreat to the fence, and he only just made it in time.

Perched on the narrow top with his feet pulled up, gazing at those gaping jaws, the titular counsellor instantly conceived the appropriate headline for this scene: HAPLESS LOVER CHASED BY MASTIFFS.

What a disgrace, what puerile tomfoolery, the vice-consul told himself, but he didn’t come to his senses, he merely bit his lip – he was so furious at his own helplessness.

O-Yumi was so very close, behind one of those windows, but what could he do about these damned dogs?

The titular counsellor was fond of dogs, he respected them, but right now he could have shot these accursed English brutes with his trusty Herstal, without the slightest compunction. Ah, why had progress not yet invented silent gunpowder?

The mastiffs didn’t budge from the spot. They gazed upwards, scraping their clawed feet on the wooden boards. They didn’t actually bark – these aristocratic canines had been well trained – but they growled.

Erast Petrovich suddenly heard rollicking plebeian barking from the end of the street. Looking round, he saw his recent acquaintances – the homeless dogs from the Yatobashi Bridge. Surely they couldn’t have followed my scent, he thought to himself, but then he saw that the mongrels were chasing after a running man.

The man was waving his arm about – there was a pitiful yelp. He swung his arm in the other direction – another yelp, and the pack dropped back.

Masa, it was Fandorin’s faithful vassal, Masa! He had a wooden club in his hand, with another, identical, one attached to it by a chain. Fandorin already knew that this unprepossessing but effective weapon was called a
nunchaku
, and Masa could handle it very well.

The valet ran up and bowed to his master sitting on the fence.

‘How did you find me?’ Erast Petrovich asked, and tried to say the same thing in Japanese:
Do-o … vatasi … sagasu?

His Japanese lessons had not been a waste of time – Masa understood! He took a sheet of paper, folded into four, out of his pocket, and opened it out.

Ah yes, the plan of the Settlement, with a pencil line leading from the consulate to house number 129.

‘This is not work.
Sigoto iie
. Go, go,’ said the titular counsellor, waving his hand at Masa. ‘There’s no danger, do you understand?
Kiken – iie. Wakaru?
’

‘
Wakarimas
,’ the servant said with a bow. ‘
Mochiron wakarimas. O-Yumisan
.’

Erast Petrovich was so surprised that he swayed and almost went crashing down off the fence – on the wrong side. Somehow he recovered his balance. Oh, servants, servants! It was an old truism that they knew more far more about their masters than the masters suspected. But how? Where from?

‘How d-do you know?
Do-o wakaru?
’

The Japanese folded his short-fingered hands together and pressed them to his cheek – as if he were sleeping. He murmured:

‘O-Yumi, O-Yumi … Darring …’

Darring?

Had he really been repeating her name in his sleep?

The titular counsellor lowered his head, sorely oppressed by a feeling of humiliation. But Masa jumped up and glanced over the fence. Having ascertained the reason for the vice-consul’s strange position, he started turning his head left and right.

‘
Hai
,’ he said. ‘
Shosho o-machi kudasai
.’

He ran over to the pack of dogs that was barking feebly at the fence of the next house. He picked up one canine, turned it over, sniffed it and tossed it away. He did the same with another. But he kept hold of the third one, tucked it under his arm and walked back to his master. The mongrels bore this high-handed treatment in silence – they clearly respected strength: only the captive whined pitifully.

‘What do you want the dog for?’

Masa somehow managed to climb up on to the fence – about ten paces away from Fandorin – without releasing his live booty.

He swung his legs over, jumped down and dashed for the gate as fast as his legs would carry him. The mastiffs darted after the little titch, ready to tear him to pieces. But the nimble-footed valet opened the latch and flung the mongrel on the ground. It bolted out into the street with a squeal, and then a genuine miracle took place – instead of mauling the stranger, the guard dogs bolted after the mongrel.

It shot away from them, working its little legs furiously. The mastiffs ran after it in a pack, with their heads in line.

Ah, it’s a bitch in heat, Fandorin realised. Well done, Masa, brilliant!

The pack also set off at a rush after the terrifying suitors, but maintained a respectful distance. Five seconds later there wasn’t a single quadruped left in the street.

Masa walked out through the gate and bowed ceremoniously, gesturing to invite Erast Petrovich through on to the lawn. The vice-consul tossed his cloak into his servant’s arms, handed him the hat and went in – not over the fence, but in the conventional manner – through the gate.

In the distance he could hear the loud barking and lingering lovesick howls of the local canine community.

All things forgotten,
Careering along pell-mell,
Answering love’s call

THE GARDEN GATE

Erast Petrovich ran across the broad lawn, brightly illuminated by the moonlight. He walked round the house – if he was going to climb in through a window, it would be best to do it at the back, so that he would not be seen by some chance passer-by.

Behind the house he found a garden wrapped in dense shade – just what he needed.

Going up on tiptoe, the adventurer glanced into the first window after the corner. He saw a spacious room – a dining room or drawing room. A white tablecloth, candles burning out, the remains of a supper served for two.

His heart suddenly ached.

So, she dined with one and set out for a tryst with another? Or, even better, she returned from her dramatic rendezvous and calmly sat down to a meal with her ginger-haired patron? Women truly were mysterious creatures. After two more windows, the next room began – the study.

The windows here were slightly open and Fandorin could hear a man’s voice speaking, so he acted with caution and first listened to ascertain where the speaker was.

‘… will be reprimanded, but his superior will bear the greater part of the guilt – he will be obliged to resign in disgrace …’ said the voice in the study.

The words were spoken in English, but with a distinct Japanese accent, so it was not Bullcox.

However, the senior adviser was also there.

‘And our friend will occupy the vacancy?’ he asked.

Two men, Fandorin decided. The Japanese is sitting in the far right corner, and Bullcox is in the centre, with his back to the window.

The titular counsellor lifted himself up slowly, inch by inch, and examined the interior of the room.

Shelves of books, a desk, a fireplace with no fire.

The important thing was that O-Yumi was not here. Two men. He could see his rival’s fiery locks sticking up from behind the back of one armchair. The other armchair was occupied by a dandy with a gleaming parting in his hair and a pearl glowing in his silk tie. The minuscule man crossed one leg elegantly over the other and swayed his lacquered shoe.

‘Not this very moment,’ he said with a restrained smile. ‘In a week’s time.’

Ah, I know you, my good sir, thought Erast Petrovich, narrowing his eyes. I saw you at the ball. Prince … What was it that Doronin called you?

‘Well now, Onokoji, that is very Japanese,’ the Right Honourable said with a chuckle. ‘To reprimand someone, and reward him a week later with promotion.’

Yes, yes, Fandorin remembered, he’s Prince Onokoji, the former
daimyo
– ruler of an appanage principality – now a high society lion and arbiter of fashion.

‘This, my dear Algernon, is not a reward, he is merely occupying a position that has fallen vacant. But he will receive a reward, for doing the job so neatly. He will be given the suburban estate of Takarazaka. Ah, what plum trees there are there! What ponds!’

‘Yes, it’s a glorious spot. A hundred thousand, probably.’

‘At least two hundred, I assure you!’

Erast Petrovich did not look in the window – he was not interested. He tried to think where O-Yumi might be.

On the ground floor there were another two windows that were dark, but Bullcox was hardly likely to have accommodated his mistress next to his study. So where were her chambers, then? At the front of the house? Or on the first floor?

‘All right, then,’ he heard the Briton say. ‘But what about Prince Arisugawa’s letter? Have you been able to get hold of a copy?’

‘My man is greedy, but we simply can’t manage without him.’

‘Listen, I believe I gave you five hundred pounds!’

‘But I need a thousand.’

The vice-consul frowned. Vsevolod Vitalievich had said that the prince lived on Don Tsurumaki’s charity, but apparently he felt quite free to earn some subsidiary income. And Bullcox was a fine one, too – paying for court rumours and stolen letters. But then, that was his job as a spy.

No, the Englishman would probably not accommodate his native mistress on the front façade of the house – after all, he was an official dignitary. So her window was probably on the back wall …

The wrangling in the study continued.

‘Onokoji, I’m not a milch cow.’

‘And in addition, for the same sum, you could have a little list from Her Majesty’s diary,’ the prince said ingratiatingly. ‘One of the ladies-in-waiting is my cousin, and she owes me many favours.’

Bullcox snorted.

‘Worthless. Some womanish nonsense or other.’

‘Very far indeed from nonsense. Her Majesty is in the habit of noting down her conversations with His Majesty …’

There’s no point in my listening to all these abominations, Fandorin told himself. I’m not a spy, thank God. But if some servant or other sees me, I’ll cut an even finer figure than these two: ‘RUSSIAN VICE-CONSUL CAUGHT EAVESDROPPING’.

He stole along the wall to a drainpipe and tugged on it cautiously, to see whether it was firm. The titular counsellor already had some experience in climbing drainpipes from his previous, non-diplomatic life.

His foot was already poised on the lower rim of brick, but his reason still attempted to resist. You are behaving like a madman, like a thoroughly contemptible, irresponsible individual, his reason told him. Come to your senses! Get a grip on yourself!

‘It’s true,’ Erast Petrovich replied abjectly, ‘I have gone completely gaga.’ But his contrition did not make him abandon his insane plan, it did not even slow down his movements.

The diplomat scrambled up nimbly to the first floor, propped one foot on a ledge and reached out for the nearest window. He clutched at the frame with his fingers and crept closer, taking tiny little steps. His frock coat was probably covered in dust, but that did not concern Fandorin just at the moment.

He had a far worse problem – the dark window refused to open. It was latched shut, and it was impossible for him to reach the small upper section.

Break it? He couldn’t, it would bring the entire household running …

The diamond on the titular counsellor’s finger – a farewell gift from the lady responsible for his missing the steamship from Calcutta – glinted cunningly.

If Erast Petrovich had only been in a normal, balanced state of mind, he would undoubtedly have felt ashamed of the very idea – how could he use a present from one woman to help him reach another! But his fevered brain whispered to him that diamond cuts glass. And the young man promised his conscience that he would take the ring off and never put it back on again for as long as he lived.

Fandorin did not know exactly how diamond was used for cutting. He took a firm grip on the ring and scored a decisive line. There was disgusting scraping sound, and a scratch appeared on the glass.

The titular counsellor pursed his lips stubbornly and prepared to apply greater strength.

He pressed as hard as he could – and the window frame suddenly yielded.

For just a moment Erast Petrovich imagined that this was the result of his efforts, but O-Yumi was standing in the dark rectangle that had opened up in front of him. She looked at the vice-consul with laughing eyes that reflected two tiny little moons.

‘You have overcome all the obstacles and deserve a little help,’ she whispered. ‘Only, for God’s sake, don’t fall off. That would be stupid now.’ And in an absolutely unromantic but extremely practical manner, she grabbed hold of his collar.

‘I came to tell you that I have also been thinking about you for the last two days,’ said Fandorin.

The idiotic English language has no intimate form of the second person pronoun, it’s always just ‘you’, whatever the relationship might be, but he decided that from this moment on they were on intimate terms.