Boris Akunin - Murder on the Leviathan

Sweetchild-sensei: ‘But why did it have to be with the help of the shawl? The rajah could have conveyed his secret in the marginalia!’

Fandorin-san: ‘He could have, but he chose not to. Why? Allow me to refer you to my argument number one: if the shawl were not immensely valuable in some way, it is unlikely that ten people would have been murdered for it. The shawl is the key to five hundred million francs or, if you prefer, fifty million pounds, which is approximately the same. I believe that is the greatest hidden treasure there has ever been in the whole of human history. And by the way, Commissioner, I must warn you that if you are not mistaken and the murderer really is on board the Leviathan, more people could be killed. Indeed, the closer you come to your goal, the more likely it becomes. The stakes are too high and too great a price has already been paid for the key to the mystery.’

These words were followed by deadly silence.

Fandorin-san’s logic seemed irrefutable, and I believe all of us felt shivers run up and down our spines. All of us except one.

The first to recover his composure was the commissioner.

He gave a nervous laugh and said: ‘My, what a lively imagination you do have, M. Fandorin. But as far as danger is concerned, you are right. Only you, gentlemen, have no need to quake in your boots. This danger threatens no one but old man Gauche, and he knows it very well. It comes with my profession. But I’m well prepared for it!’ And he glanced round us all menacingly, as if he were challenging us to single combat.

The fat old man is ridiculous. Of everyone there the only person whom he might be able to best is the pregnant Mme Kleber. In my mind’s eye I glimpsed a tempting picture: the red-faced commissioner had flung the young witch to the floor and was strangling her with his hairy sausage-fingers, and Mme Kleber was expiring with her eyes popping out of her head and her malicious tongue dangling out of her mouth.

‘Darling, I’m scared!’ I heard the doctor’s wife whisper in a thin, squeaky voice as she turned to her husband, who patted her shoulder reassuringly.

The redheaded freak M.-S.-san (his name is too long for me to write it in full) raised an interesting question: ‘Professor, can you describe the shawl in more detail? We know the bird has a hole where its eye should be, and it’s a triangle. But is there anything else remarkable about it?’

I should note that this strange gentleman takes part in the general conversation almost as rarely as I do. But, like the author of these lines, if he does say something then it is always off the point, and so the unexpected appropriateness of his question was all the more remarkable.

Sweetchild-sensei: ‘As far as I recall, apart from the hole and the unique shape there is nothing special about the shawl. It is about the size of a small fan, but it can easily be hidden in a thimble. Such remarkably fine fabric is quite common in Brahmapur.’

‘Then the key must lie in the eye of the bird and the triangular shape,’ Fandorin-san concluded with exquisite assurance.

He was truly magnificent.

The more I ponder on his triumph and the whole story in general, the more strongly I feel the unworthy temptation to demonstrate to all of them that Gintaro Aono is also no fool. 1 also could reveal things that would amaze them. For instance, I could tell Commissioner Gauche certain curious details of yesterday’s incident involving the black-skinned savage. Even the wise Fandorin-san has admitted that the matter is not entirely clear to him as yet.

What if the ‘wild Japanese’ were suddenly to solve the riddle that is puzzling him? That could be interesting!

Yesterday’s insults unsettled me and I lost my composure for a while. Afterwards, when I had calmed down, I began comparing facts and weighing the situation up, and I have constructed an entire logical argument wliich 1 intend to put to the policeman.

Let him work out the rest for himself. This is what I shall tell the commissioner.

First I shall remind him of how Mme Kleber humiliated me. It was a highly insulting remark, made in public. And it was made at the precise moment when I was about to reveal what I had observed. Did Mme Kleber not perhaps wish to shut me up? This surely appears suspicious, monsieur Commissioner?

To continue. Why does she pretend to be weak, when she is as fit as a sumo wrestler? You will say this is an irrelevant detail. But I shall tell you, monsieur detective, that a person who is constantly pretending must be hiding something. Take me, for instance. (Ha ha. Of course, I shall not say that.) Then I shall point out to the commissioner that European women have very delicate white skin.

Why did the negro’s powerful fingers not leave even the slightest mark on it? Is that not strange?

And finally, when the commissioner decides I have nothing to offer him but the vindictive speculations of an oriental mind bent on vengeance, I shall tell him the most important thing, which will immediately make our detective sit up and take notice.

‘M. Gauche,’ I shall say to him with a polite smile, ‘I do not possess your brilliant mind and i am not attempting, hopeless ignoramus that I am, to interfere in your investigation, but I regard it as my duty to draw your attention to a certain circumstance.

You yourself say that the murderer from the rue de Grenelle is one of us. M. Fandorin has expounded a convincing account of how Lord Littleby’s servants were killed. Vaccinating them against cholera was a brilliant subterfuge. It tells us that the murderer knows how to use a syringe. But what if the person who came to the mansion on the rue de Grenelle were not a male doctor, but a woman, a nurse? She would have aroused even less apprehension than a man, would she not? Surely you agree? Then let me advise you to take a casual glance at Mme Kleber’s arms when she is sitting with her viper’s head propped on her hand and her wide sleeve slips down to the elbow. You will observe some barely visible points on the inner flexure, as I have observed them. They are needle marks, monsieur Commissioner.

Ask Dr Truffo if he is giving Mme Kleber any injections and the venerable physician will tell you what he has already told me today: no, he is not, for he is opposed in principle to the intravenous injection of medication. And then, oh wise Gauche sensei, you will add two and two, and you will have something for your grey head to puzzle over.’ That is what I shall tell the commissioner, and he will take Mme Kleber more seriously.

A European knight would say that I had behaved villainously, but that would merely demonstrate his own limitations. That is precisely why there are no knights left in Europe, but the samurai are still with us. Our lord and emperor may have set the different estates on one level and forbidden us to wear two swords in our belts, but that does not mean the calling of a samurai has been abolished, quite the opposite. The entire Japanese nation has been elevated to the estate of the samurai in order to prevent us from boasting to each other of our noble origins.

We all stand together against the rest of the world.

Oh, you noble European knight (who has never existed except in novels)! In fighting with men, use the weapons of a man, but in fighting with women, use the weapons of a woman. That is the samurai code of honour, and there is nothing villainous in it, for women know how to fight every bit as well as men. What contradicts the honour of the samurai is to employ the weapons of a man against a woman or the weapons of a woman against a man. I would never sink as low as that.

I am still uncertain whether the manoeuvre I am contemplating is worthwhile, but my state of mind is incomparably better than it was yesterday. So much so that I have even managed to compose a decent haiku without any difficulty: