Boris Akunin - Murder on the Leviathan

Our common interest in gymnastics rendered our evening conversation unforced and I felt more relaxed than usual. I told the Russian about ju-jitsu.

He listened with unflagging interest.

At about half past eight (I did not notice the precise time) Kleber-san, having drunk her tea and eaten two cakes, complained of feeling dizzy. I told her that this happens to pregnant women when they eat too much. For some reason she evidently took offence at my words and I realized that my comment was out of place. How many times have I sworn not to speak out of turn. After all, I was taught by wise teachers: when you find yourself in strange company, sit, listen, smile pleasantly and from time to time nod your head - you will acquire the reputation of a well-bred individual and at the very least you will not say anything stupid. It is not the place of an ‘officer’ to be giving medical advice!

Renier-san immediately leapt to his feet and volunteered to accompany the lady to her cabin. He is in general a most considerate man, and especially with Kleber-san. He is the only one who is not yet sick of her interminable caprices. He stands up for the honour of his uniform, and I applaud him for it.

When they left, the men moved to the armchairs and began smoking. The Italian ship’s doctor and his English wife went to visit a patient and I attempted to din it into the waiter’s head that they should not put either bacon or ham in my omelette for breakfast.

After so many days they should have grown used to the idea by now.

Perhaps about two minutes later we suddenly heard a woman’s high-pitched scream.

Firstly, I did not immediately realize that it was Kleber-san screaming. Secondly, I did not understand that her blood-curdling scream of ‘Oscure! Oscure!’ meant ‘Au secours! Au secours!’ But that does not excuse my behaviour. I behaved disgracefully, quite disgracefully. I am unworthy of the title of samurai!

But everything in order.

The first to reach the door was Fandorin-san, followed by the commissioner of police, then Milford-Stokes-san and Sweetchild-san, and I was still glued to the spot. They have all decided, of course, that the Japanese army is staffed by pitiful cowards. In actual fact, I simply did not understand immediately what was happening.

When I did understand it was too late - I was the last to come running up to the scene of the incident, even behind Stamp-san.

Kleber-san’s cabin is very close to the saloon, the fifth door on the right along the corridor. Peering over the shoulders of those who had reached the spot before me I saw a quite incredible sight. The door of the cabin was wide open. Kleber-san was lying on the floor and moaning pitifully, with some immense, heavy, shiny black mass slumped across her. I did not immediately realize that it was a negro of immense stature. He was wearing white canvas trousers. The handle of a sailor’s dirk was protruding from the back of his neck. From the position of his body I knew immediately that the negro was dead.

A blow like that, struck to the base of the skull, requires great strength and precision, but it kills instantly and surely.

Kleber-san was floundering in a vain effort to wriggle out from under the heavy carcass that had pinned her down. Lieutenant Renier was bustling about beside her. His face was whiter than the collar of his shirt. The dirk scabbard hanging at his side was empty. The lieutenant was completely flustered, torn between dragging this unsavoury deadweight off the pregnant woman, and turning to us and launching into an incoherent explanation to the commissioner of what had happened.

Fandorin-san was the only one who remained calm and composed. Without any visible effort he lifted up the heavy corpse and dragged it off to one side (I remembered his exercises with the weights), helped Kleber-san into an armchair and gave her some water. Then I came to my senses and checked swiftly to make sure that she had no wounds or bruises. There did not seem to be any. Whether there is any internal damage will become clear later. Everyone was so agitated that they were not surprised when I examined her. White people are convinced that all Orientals are part-shaman and know the art of healing. Kleber-san’s pulse was 95, which is perfectly understandable.

Interrupting each other as they spoke, Renier-san and Kleber-san told us the following story.

The lieutenant:

He saw Kleber-san to her cabin, wished her a pleasant evening and took his leave. However, he had scarcely taken two steps away from her door when he heard her desperate scream.

Kleber-san:

She went into her cabin, switched on the electric light and saw a gigantic black man standing by her dressing table with her coral beads in his hands (I actually saw these beads on the floor afterwards).

The negro threw himself on her without speaking, tossed her to the floor and grabbed hold of her throat with his massive hands. She screamed.

The lieutenant:

He burst into the cabin, saw the appalling (he said ‘fantastic’) scene and for a moment was at a loss. He grabbed the negro by the shoulders, but was unable to shift the giant by even an inch. Then he kicked him in the head, but again without the slightest effect. It was only then, fearing for the life of Kleber-san and her child, that he grabbed his dirk out of its sheath and struck a single blow.

It occurred to me that the lieutenant must have spent a turbulent youth in taverns and bordellos, where skill in handling a knife determines who will sober up the following morning and who will be carried off to the cemetery.

Captain Cliff and Dr Truffo came running up. The cabin became crowded. No one could understand how the African had come to be on board the Leviathan. Fandorin-san carefully inspected a tattoo covering the dead man’s chest and said that he had come across one like it before. Apparently, during the recent Balkan conflict he was held prisoner by the Turks, and there he saw black slaves with precisely the same zigzag lines surrounding the nipples in concentric circles. They are the ritual markings of the Ndanga tribe, recently discovered by Arab slave traders in the very heart of Equatorial Africa. Ndanga men are in great demand at markets throughout the East.

It seemed to me that Fandorin-san said all of this with a rather strange expression on his face, as though he were perplexed by something. However, I could be mistaken, since the facial expressions of Europeans are freakish and do not correspond at all to ours.

Commissioner Gauche listened to the diplomat carefully. He said that there were two questions that interested him as a representative of the law: how the negro had managed to get on board and why he had attacked Mme Kleber.

Then it emerged that things had begun disappearing in a mysterious fashion from the cabins of several of the people present. I remembered the item that had disappeared from my cabin, but naturally I said nothing. It was also established that people had seen a massive black shadow (Miss Stamp) or a black face peeping in at their windows (Mrs Truffo). It is clear now that these were not hallucinations and not the fruit of morbid imaginings.

Everyone threw themselves on the captain. Apparently, the passengers had been in mortal danger all the time they had been on board and the ship’s command had not even been aware of it. Cliff-san was scarlet with shame. And it must be admitted that a terrible blow has been struck at his prestige. I tactfully turned away so that he would suffer less from his loss of face.

Then the captain asked all the witnesses to the incident to move into the Windsor saloon and addressed us with a speech of great power and dignity. Above all he apologized for what had happened.

He asked us not to tell anyone about this ‘regrettable occurrence’, since it might cause mass psychosis on board the ship. He promised that his sailors would immediately comb all the holds, the ‘tween-decks space, the wine cellar, the store rooms and even the coal holes. He gave us his guarantee that there would not be any more black burglars on board his ship.