Murder on the Leviathan

PART THREE

Bombay to the Palk Strait

170

Gintaro Aono

The 18th day of the fourth month

In view of the southern tip of the Indian peninsula It is now three days since we left Bombay, and I have not opened my diary even once since then. This is the first time such a thing has happened to me since I made it a firm rule to write every day. But I made the break deliberately. I had to come to terms with an overwhelming torrent of thoughts and feelings.

The essential significance of what has happened to me is best conveyed by a haiku that was born spontaneously at the very moment when the inspector of police removed the iron shackles from my wrists.

I realized immediately that it was a very good poem, the best that I have ever written, but its meaning is not obvious and requires elucidation. I have meditated for three days on the changes within my being, until I think I have finally discovered the truth.

I have been visited by the great miracle of which every man dreams - I have experienced satori, or catharsis, as the ancient Greeks called it. How many times has my mentor told me that if satori comes, it comes when it will and on its own terms, it cannot be induced or impeded! A man may be righteous and wise, he may sit in the zazen pose for many hours each day and read mountains of sacred texts, but still die unenlightened. And yet the radiant majesty of satori may be revealed to some ne’er-do-well who wanders aimlessly and foolishly through life, transforming his worthless existence in an instant! I am that ne’er-do-well. I have been lucky. At the age of 27 I have been born again.

Illumination and purification did not come to me in a moment of spiritual and physical concentration, but when I was wretched, crushed and empty, when I was reduced to no more than the wrinkled skin of a burst balloon. But the dull clanking of those irons signalled my transformation. Suddenly I knew with a clarity beyond words that I am not I, but … No, that is not it. That I am not only I, but also an infinite multitude of other lives. That I am not some Gintaro Aono, third son of the senior counsellor to His Serene Highness Prince Simazu: I am a small and yet precious particle of the One. I am in all that exists, and all that exists is in me. How many times I have heard those words, but I only understood them … no, I only experienced their truth, on the 15th day of the fourth month of the nth year of Meiji, in the city of Bombay, on board an immense European steamship.

The will of the Supreme is truly capricious.

What is the meaning of this tercet that was born of my inner intuition? Man is a solitary firefly in the gloom of boundless night. His light is so weak that it illuminates only a minute segment of space; beyond that lie cold, darkness and fear. But if you turn your frightened gaze away from the dark earth below and look upwards (you need only turn your head!), you see that the sky is covered with stars, shining with a calm, bright, eternal light. You are not alone in the darkness. The stars are your friends, they will help you. They will not abandon you in your distress.

And a little while later one understands something else, something equally important: a firefly is also a star like all the others. Those in the sky above see your light and it helps them to endure the cold darkness of the universe.

My life will probably not change. I shall be the same as I was before - trivial and absurd, at the mercy of my passions. But this certain knowledge will always dwell in the depths of my soul, my salvation and comfort in times of difficulty. I am no longer a shallow puddle that any strong gust of wind can spill across the ground. I am the ocean, and the storm that drives the all-destroying tsunami across my surface can never touch my inmost depths.

When my spirit was flooded with joy at this realization, I recalled that the greatest of virtues is gratitude. The first star I glimpsed glowing in the blackness around me was Fandorin-san. Thanks to him I know that the world is not indifferent to me, Gintaro Aono, that the Great Beyond will never abandon me in misfortune.

But how can I explain to a man from a different culture that he is my onjin for all time? The European languages do not have such a word. Today I plucked up my courage and tried to speak with him about this, but I fear that the conversation came to nothing.

I waited for Fandorin-san on the boat deck, knowing that he would come there with his weights at precisely eight.

When he appeared, wearing his striped tricot (I must inform him that loose clothes, not close-fitting ones, are best suited for physical exercise), I approached him and bowed low in obeisance. ‘Why, Mr Aono, what’s wrong?’ he asked in surprise. ‘Why do you stay bent over and not straighten up?’ Since it was impossible to make conversation in such a posture, I drew myself erect, although in such a situation I knew that I ought to maintain my bow for longer. ‘I am expressing my eternal gratitude to you,’ I said, greatly agitated. ‘Oh, forget it,’ he said, with a careless wave of his hand. This gesture pleased me greatly Fandorin-san wished to belittle the significance of the boon he had bestowed on me and spare his debtor excessive feelings of gratitude. In his place any nobly raised Japanese would have done the same. But the effect was the reverse - my spirit was inspired with even greater gratitude. I told him that henceforth I was irredeemably in his debt. ‘Nothing irredeemable about it,’ he said with a shrug. ‘I simply wished to take that smug turkey down a peg or two.’ (A turkey is an ugly American bird whose pompous, strutting gait seems to express a risible sense of self-importance: figuratively speaking, a conceited and foolish person.) Once again I was struck by Fandorin-san’s sensitivity and tact, but I had to make him understand how much I owed to him. ‘I thank you for saving my worthless life,’ I said and bowed again. ‘I thank you three times over for saving my honour. And I thank you an infinite number of times for opening my third eye, with which I see what I could not see before.’

Fandorin-san glanced (it seemed to me, with some trepidation) at my forehead, as if he were expecting another eye to open up and wink at him.

I told him that he is my onjin, that henceforth my life belongs to him, and that seemed to frighten him even more. ‘O how I dream that you might find yourself in mortal danger so that I can save your life, as you have saved me!’ I exclaimed. He crossed himself and said: ‘I think I’d rather avoid that. If it is not too much trouble, please dream of something else.’

The conversation was turning out badly. In despair I cried out: ‘Know that I will do anything for you!’ And then I qualified my oath to avoid any subsequent misunderstanding: ‘If it is not injurious to the emperor, my country or the honour of my family.’

My words provoked a strange reaction from Fandorin-san. He laughed! I am certain that I shall never understand the redheads. ‘All right then,’ he said, shaking me by the hand. ‘If you insist, then by all means. I expect we shall be travelling together from Calcutta to Japan. You can repay your debt by giving me Japanese lessons.’

Alas, this man does not take me seriously. I wished to be his friend, but Fandorin-san is far more interested in Senior Navigator Fox, a limited man lacking in wisdom, than in me. My benefactor spends much time in the company of this windbag, listening attentively to his bragging of nautical adventures and amorous escapades. He even goes on watch with Fox! I must confess that I feel hurt by this. Today I heard Fox’s lurid description of his love affair with an ‘aristocratic Japanese lady’ from Nagasaki. He talked about her small breasts and her scarlet mouth and all the other charms of this ‘dainty little doll’. It must have been some cheap slut from the sailors’ quarter. A girl from a decent family would not even have exchanged words with this foreign barbarian! The most hurtful thing of all was that Fandorin-san was clearly interested in these ravings.

I was about to intervene, but just at that moment Captain Renier approached them and sent Fox off on some errand.

Oh yes! I have not mentioned a most important event that has taken place in the life of the ship! A firefly’s feeble glow blinds his own eyes, so that he cannot see his surroundings in their true proportions.

On the eve of our departure from Bombay a genuine tragedy occurred, a calamity beside which my own sufferings pale into insignificance.

At half past eight in the morning, when the steamer had already weighed anchor and was preparing to cast off, a telegram was delivered from ashore to Captain Cliff. I was standing on the deck looking at Bombay, the scene of such a crucial event in my life.

I wanted that view to remain engraved on my heart for ever. That was how I came to witness what happened.

The captain read the telegram and his face underwent a startling transformation. I have never seen anything like it! It was as if an actor of the Noh theatre had suddenly cast off the mask of the Fearsome Warrior and donned the mask of Insane Grief.

The old sea dog’s rough, weather-beaten face began to tremble. Then the captain uttered a groan that was also a sob and began pacing frantically around the deck. ‘Oh God,’ he cried out in a hoarse voice. ‘My poor girl!’ He dashed down the steps from the bridge, on his way to his cabin - as we discovered later.

The preparations for sailing were interrupted.

Breakfast began as usual, but Lieutenant Renier was late. Everyone spoke of nothing but the captain’s strange behaviour and tried to guess what could

have been in the telegram. Renier-san called into the saloon as the meal was coming to an end. The

first mate appeared distraught. He informed us that Cliff-san’s only daughter (1 have mentioned earlier that the captain doted on her) had been badly burned in a fire at her boarding school. The doctors feared for her life. The lieutenant said that Mr Cliff was beside himself. He had decided to leave the Leviathan and return to England on the first available packet boat. He kept saying that he must be with his little daughter. The lieutenant repeated over and over again: ‘What is going to happen now? What an unlucky voyage!’ We tried our best to comfort him.

I must admit that I strongly disapproved of the captain’s decision. I could understand his grief, but a man who has been entrusted with a task has no right to allow personal feelings to govern his actions.

Especially if he is a captain in charge of a ship. What would become of society if the emperor or the president or the prime minister were to set personal concerns above their duty? There would be chaos. The very meaning and purpose of authority is to fight against chaos and maintain harmony.

I went back out on deck to see Mr Cliff leave the ship that had been entrusted to him. And the Most High taught me a new lesson, the lesson of compassion.

Stooping low, the captain half-walked and half-ran across the gangway. He was carrying a travelling bag in one hand and there was a sailor following him with a single suitcase. When the captain halted on the quayside and turned to face the Leviathan, I saw that his broad face was wet with tears. The next moment he began to sway and collapsed forward onto his face.

I rushed across to him. From his fitful breathing and the convulsive twitching of his limbs, I deduced that he had suffered a severe haemorrhagic stroke.

When Dr Truffo arrived he confirmed my diagnosis.

It often happens that the strident discord between the voice of the heart and the call of duty is too much for a man’s brain to bear. I had wronged Captain Cliff.

After the sick man was taken away to hospital the Leviathan was detained at its mooring for a long time. Renier-san, ashen-faced with shock, drove to the telegraph office to conduct negotiations with the shipping company in London. It was dusk before he returned. He brought the news that Cliff-san had not recovered consciousness; Renier-san was to assume temporary command of the ship and a new captain would come aboard in Calcutta.

We sailed from Bombay after a delay often hours.

For days now I do not walk, I fly. I am delighted by the sunshine and the landscapes of the Indian coastline and the leisurely regularity of life on this great ship. Even the Windsor saloon, which I used to enter with such a heavy heart, has now become almost like home to me. My companions at table behave quite differently with me now - the antagonism and suspicion have disappeared. Everyone is very kind and considerate now, and I also feel differently about them. Even Kleber-san, whom I was prepared to throttle with my bare hands (the poor woman!) no longer seems repulsive. She is just a young woman preparing to become a mother for the first time and entirely absorbed in the naive egotism of her new condition. Having learned that I am a doctor, she plagues me with medical questions about all manner of minor complaints. Formerly her only victim was Dr Truffo, but now we share the strain. And almost unbelievably, I do not find it oppressive. On the contrary, I now possess a higher status than when I was taken for a military officer. It is astounding!

I hold a privileged position in the Windsor saloon.

Not only am I a doctor and an ‘innocent martyr’, as Mrs Truffo puts it, of police brutality. I am - more importantly - definitely not the murderer. It has been proved and officially confirmed. In this way I have been elevated to Windsor’s highest caste - together with the commissioner of police and our new captain (whom we almost never see - he is very busy and a steward takes his food up to the bridge on a tray). We three are above suspicion and no one casts stealthy, frightened glances in our direction.

I feel sorry for the Windsor group, I really do.

With my recently acquired spiritual vision I can see clearly what none of them can see, even the sagacious Fandorin-san.

There is no murderer among my companions. None of them is suited for the role of a scoundrel. When I examine these people closely, I see that they have faults and weaknesses, but there is no black-hearted villain who could have killed n innocent victims, including two children, in cold blood. I would have detected the vile odour of their breath. I do not know whose hand felled Sweetchild-sensei, but I am sure it must have been someone else. The commissioner’s assumptions are not entirely correct: the criminal is on board the steamship, but not in the Windsor saloon. Perhaps he was listening at the door when the professor began telling us about his discovery.

If Gauche-san were not so stubborn and took a more impartial view of the Windsor group, he would realize that he is wasting his time.

Let me run through all the members of our company.

Fandorin-san.

It is obvious that he is innocent.

Otherwise why would he have diverted suspicion from me when no one doubted that I was guilty?

Mr and Mrs Truffo. The doctor is rather comical, but he is a very kind man. He would not harm a grasshopper. His wife is the very embodiment of English propriety. She could not have killed anyone, because it would simply be indecent.

M.-S.-san. He is a strange man, always muttering to himself, and his manner can be sharp, but there is profound and genuine suffering in his eyes. People with eyes like that do not commit cold-blooded murders.

Kleber-san. Nothing could be clearer. Firstly, it would be inhuman for a woman preparing to bring a new life into the world to extinguish other lives so casually. Pregnancy is a mystery that teaches us to cherish human life. Secondly, at the time of the murder Kleber-san was with the police commissioner.

And finally, Stamp-san. She has no alibi, but it is impossible to imagine her creeping up behind someone she knows, covering his mouth with one slim, weak hand and raising my scalpel in the other …

The idea is utter nonsense. Quite impossible.

Open your eyes, Commissioner-san. This path is a dead end.

Suddenly I find it hard to catch my breath. Could there be a storm approaching?

No, it wasn’t his heart. It was someone pounding on the door.

‘Commissioner! (Bang-bang-bang) Commissioner! (Bang-bang bang-bang) Open up! Quick!’

Whose voice was that? It couldn’t be Fandorin!

‘Who’s there? What do you want?’ cried Gauche, pressing his hand to the left side of his chest. ‘Have you lost your mind?’

‘Open up, damn you!’

Oho! What kind of a way was that for a diplomat to talk?

Something really serious must have happened.

‘Just a moment!’

Gauche pulled off his nightcap with the tassel (his old Blanche had knitted it for him), stuck his arms into the sleeves of his dressing gown and slipped on his bedroom slippers.

When he peeped through the crack of the half-open door he saw it really was Fandorin. In a frock coat and tie, holding a walking cane with an ivory knob. His eyes were blazing.

‘What is it?’ Gauche asked suspiciously, certain his nocturnal visitor could only have brought bad news.

The diplomat began speaking in an untypical jerky manner, but without stammering.

‘Get dressed. Bring a gun. We have to arrest Captain Renier.

Urgently. He’s steering the ship onto the rocks.’

Gauche shook his head - maybe it was just another of those awful dreams he’d been having.

‘Monsieur le russe, have you been smoking hashish?’

‘I am not here alone,’ replied Fandorin.

The commissioner stuck his head out into the corridor and saw two other men standing beside the Russian. One was the half-crazy baronet. But who was the other? The senior navigator, that’s right. What was his name now? … Fox.

‘Pull yourself together!’ said the diplomat, launching a new staccato assault. ‘There’s not much time. I was reading in my cabin. There was a knock. Sir Reginald. He measured our position at one in the morning. With his sextant. The course was wrong. We should go left of the Isle of Mannar. We’re going to the right. I woke the navigator. Fox. Tell him.’

The navigator stepped forward. He looked badly shaken.

‘There are shoals there, monsieur,’ he said in broken French.

‘And rocks. Sixteen thousand tonnes, monsieur. If it runs aground it will break in half like a French loaf. A baguette, you understand? Another half-hour on this course and it will be too late to turn back!’

Wonderful news! Now old Gustave had to be a master mariner and lift the curse of the Isle of Mannar!

‘Why don’t you just tell the captain that … that he’s following the wrong course?’

The navigator glanced at the Russian.

‘Mr Fandorin says we shouldn’t.’

‘Renier must have decided to go for broke.’ The Russian began jabbering away again. ‘He’s capable of anything. He could have the navigator arrested. For disobeying orders. He could even use a gun. He’s the captain. His word is law on board the ship. Only the three of us know what is happening. We need a representative of authority. You, Commissioner. Let’s get up there!’

‘Wait, wait!’ Gauche pressed his hands to his forehead.

‘You’re making my head spin. Has Renier gone insane, then?’

‘No. But he’s determined to destroy the ship. And everyone on board.’

‘What for? What’s the point?’

No, no, this couldn’t really be happening. It was all a nightmare.

Realizing that the commissioner wasn’t going to be lured out of his lair that easily, Fandorin began speaking more slowly and clearly.

‘I have only a hunch to go on. An appalling suspicion. Renier wants to destroy the ship and everyone on it to conceal his crime and cover his tracks. Hide all the evidence at the bottom of the ocean. If you find it hard to believe that anyone could snuff out thousands of lives so callously, then think of the rue de Grenelle and remember Sweetchild. In the hunt for the Brahmapur treasure human life is cheap.’

Gauche gulped.

‘In the hunt for the treasure?’

‘Yes,’ said Fandorin, controlling himself with an effort.

‘Renier is Rajah Bagdassar’s son. I’d guessed, but I wasn’t sure.

Now there can be no doubt.’

‘What do you mean, his son? Rubbish! The rajah was Indian, and Renier is a pure-blooded Frenchman.’

‘Have you noticed that he doesn’t eat beef or pork? Do you realize why? It’s a habit from his childhood. In India the cow is regarded as a sacred animal, and Moslems do not eat pork. The rajah was an Indian, but he was a Moslem by religion.’

‘That proves nothing!’ Gauche said with a shrug. ‘Renier said he was on a diet.’

‘What about his dark complexion?’

‘A suntan from sailing the southern seas.’

‘Renier has spent the last two years sailing the London-New York and London-Stockholm routes. Renier is half-Indian, Gauche. Think! Rajah Bagdassar’s wife was French and at the time of the Sepoy Mutiny their son was being educated in Europe. Most probably in France, his mother’s homeland.

Have you ever been in Renier’s cabin?’

‘Yes, he invited me in. He invited everybody.’

‘Did you see the photograph on the table? “Seven feet under the keel. Francoise B.”?’

‘Yes, I saw it. It’s his mother.’

‘If it’s his mother, then why B instead of R? A son and his mother should have the same surname.’

‘Perhaps she married a second time.’

‘Possibly. I haven’t had time to check that. But what if Francoise B. means Francoise Bagdassar? In the European manner, since Indian rajahs don’t have surnames.’

‘Then where did the name Renier come from?’

‘I don’t know. Let’s suppose he took his mother’s maiden name when he was naturalized.’

‘Conjecture,’ Gauche retorted. ‘Not a single hard fact. Nothing but “what if?” and “let’s suppose”.’

‘I agree. But surely Renier’s behaviour at the time of Sweetchild’s murder was suspicious? Remember how the lieutenant offered to fetch Mme Kleber’s shawl? And he asked the professor not to start without him. I think the few minutes Renier was away were long enough for him to set fire to the litter bin and pick up the scalpel from his cabin.’

‘And why do you think it was he who had the scalpel?’

‘I told you the negro’s bundle disappeared from the boat after the search. And who was in charge of the search? Renier!’

Gauche shook his head sceptically. The steamer swung over hard and he struck his shoulder painfully against the doorpost, which didn’t help to improve his mood.

‘Do you remember how Sweetchild began?’ Fandorin continued.

He took a watch out of his pocket, glanced at it and began speaking faster. ‘ “Suddenly it hit me! Everything fell into place - about the shawl, and about the son! It’s a simple piece of clerical work. Dig around in the registers at the Ecole Maritime and you’ll find him!” Not only had he guessed the secret of the shawl, he had discovered something about the rajah’s son as well. For instance, that he studied at the Ecole Maritime in Marseille. A training school for sailors. Which our Renier also happens to have attended. Sweetchild mentioned a telegram he sent to an acquaintance of his in the French Ministry of the Interior. Perhaps he was trying to find out what became of the child. And he obviously did find out something, but he didn’t guess that Renier is the rajah’s son, otherwise he would have been more careful.’

‘And what did he dig up about the shawl?’ Gauche asked eagerly.

‘I think I can answer that question as well. But not now, later. We’re running out of time!’

‘So you think Renier himself set the fire and took advantage of the panic to shut the professor’s mouth?’ Gauche mused.

‘Yes, damn it! Use your brains! I know there’s not much hard evidence, but we have only twenty minutes left before Leviathan enters the strait!’

But the commissioner still wasn’t convinced.

‘The arrest of a ship’s captain on the high seas is mutiny. Why did you believe what this gentleman told you?’ He jerked his chin in the direction of the crazy baronet. ‘He’s always talking all sorts of nonsense.’

The redheaded Englishman laughed disdainfully and looked at Gauche as if he were some kind of woodlouse or flea. He didn’t dignify his comment with a reply.

‘Because I have suspected Renier for a long time,’ the Russian said rapidly. ‘And because I thought what happened to Captain Cliff was strange. Why did the lieutenant need to negotiate for so long with the shipping company over the telegraph? It means they did not know that Cliffs daughter had been involved in a fire. Then who sent the telegram to Bombay? The governors of the boarding school? How would they know the Leviathan’s route in such detail? Perhaps it was Renier himself who sent the message? My guidebook says that Bombay has at least a dozen telegraph offices. Sending a telegram from one office to another would be very simple.’

‘And why in damnation’s name would he want to send such a telegram?’

‘To gain control of the ship. He knew that if Cliff received news like that he would not be able to continue the voyage. The real question is, why did Renier take such a risk? Not out of idle vanity - so that he could command the ship for a week and then let everything go hang. There is only one possible explanation: he did it so he could send the Leviathan to the bottom, with all the passengers and crew on board. The investigation was getting too close for comfort and he could feel the noose tightening around his neck. He must know the police will carry on hounding all the suspects. But if there’s a shipwreck with all hands lost, the case is closed. And then there’s nothing to stop him picking up the casket at his leisure.’

‘But he’ll be killed along with the rest of us!’

‘No, he won’t. We’ve just checked the captain’s launch and it is ready to put to sea. It’s a small craft, but sturdy. It can easily weather a storm. It has a supply of water and a basket of provisions and something else that is rather touching - a travelling bag all packed and ready to go. Renier must be planning to abandon ship as soon as the Leviathan has entered the narrow channel and can no longer turn back. The ship will be unable to swing around, and even if the engines are stopped the current will still carry it onto the rocks. A few people might be saved, since we are not far from the shore, but everyone who disappears will be listed as missing at sea.’

‘Don’t be such a stupid ass, monsieur policeman!’ the navigator butted in. ‘We’ve wasted far too much time already. Mr Fandorin woke me up and said the ship was on the wrong course. I wanted to sleep and I told Mr Fandorin to go to hell.

He offered me a bet, a hundred pounds to one that the captain was off course. I thought, the Russian’s gone crazy, everyone knows how eccentric the Russians are, this will be easy money. I went up to the bridge. Everything was in order. The captain was on watch, the pilot was at the helm. But for the sake of a hundred pounds I checked the course anyway, and then I started sweating, I can tell you! But I didn’t say a word to the captain.

Mr Fandorin had warned me not to say anything. And that,’ the navigator looked at his watch, ‘was twenty-five minutes ago.’

Then he added something in English that was obviously uncomplimentary about the French in general and French policemen in particular. The only word Gauche could understand was ‘frog’.

The sleuth hesitated for one final moment and then made up his mind. Immediately he was transformed, and began getting dressed with swift, precise movements. Papa Gauche might be slow to break into a gallop, but once he started moving he needed no more urging.

As he pulled on his jacket and trousers he told the navigator: ‘Fox, bring two sailors up onto the top deck, with carbines.

The captain’s mate should come too. No, better not, there’s no time to explain everything all over again.’

He put his trusty Lefaucheux in his pocket and offered the diplomat a four-cylinder Marietta.

‘Do you know how to use this?’

“I have my own, a Herstal-Agent,’ replied Fandorin, showing him a handsome, compact revolver unlike any Gauche had ever seen before. ‘And this as well.’

With a single rapid movement he drew a slim, pliable sword blade out of his cane.

‘Then let’s go.’

Gauche decided not to give the baronet a gun - who could tell what the lunatic might do with it?

The three of them strode rapidly down the long corridor. The door of one of the cabins opened slightly and Renate Kleber glanced out, with a shawl over her brown dress.

‘Gentlemen, why are you stamping about like a herd of elephants?’ she exclaimed angrily. ‘I can’t get any sleep as it is with this awful storm.’

‘Close the door and don’t go anywhere,’ Gauche told her sternly, shoving her back into the cabin without even slowing his stride. This was no time to stand on ceremony.

The commissioner thought he saw the door of cabin No. 24, which belonged to Mile Stamp, tremble and open a crack, but he had no time now to worry about minor details.

On deck the wind drove the rain into their faces. They had to shout to make themselves heard.

There were the steps leading to the wheelhouse and the bridge. Fox was already waiting at the bottom with two sailors from the watch.

‘I told you to bring carbines!’ shouted Gauche.

‘They’re in the armoury!’ the navigator yelled in his ear. ‘And the captain has the key!’

‘Never mind, let’s go up,’ Fandorin communicated with a gesture. There were raindrops glistening on his face.

Gauche looked around and shuddered: in the flickering lightning the rain glittered like steel threads in the night sky, and the waves frothed and foamed white in the darkness. It was an awesome sight.

Their heels clattered as they climbed the iron steps, their eyes half-closed against the lashing rain. Gauche went first. At this moment he was the most important person on the whole Leviathan, this immense 200-metre monster sliding on unsuspectingly towards disaster. The detective’s foot slipped on the top step and he only just grabbed hold of the banister in time.

He straightened up and caught his breath.

They were up. There was nothing above them now except the funnels spitting out occasional sparks and the masts, almost invisible in the darkness.

There was the metal door with its steel rivets. Gauche raised his finger in warning: quiet! The precaution was not really necessary - the sea was so loud that no one in the wheelhouse could have heard a thing.

‘This is the door to the captain’s bridge and the wheelhouse,’ shouted Fox. ‘No one enters without the captain’s permission.’

Gauche took his revolver out of his pocket and cocked it.

Fandorin did the same.

‘You keep quiet!’ the detective warned the over-enterprising diplomat. I’ll do the talking. Oh, I should never have listened to you.’ He gave the door a determined shove.

But of course the damned door didn’t budge.

‘He’s locked himself in,’ said Fandorin. ‘You say something, Fox.’

The navigator knocked loudly and shouted in English: ‘Captain, it’s me, Jeremy Fox! Please open up! We have an emergency!’

They heard Renier’s muffled voice from behind the door: ‘What’s happened, Jeremy?’

The door remained closed.

The navigator glanced at Fandorin in consternation. Fandorin pointed at the commissioner, then put a finger to his own temple and mimed pressing the trigger. Gauche didn’t understand what the pantomime meant, but Fox nodded and roared at the top of his voice:

‘The French cop’s shot himself’

The door immediately swung open and Gauche presented his wet but living face to Renier. He trained the barrel of his Lefaucheux on the captain.

Renier screamed and leapt backwards as if he had been struck.

Now that was real hard evidence for you: a man with a clear conscience wouldn’t shy away from a policeman like that.

Gauche grabbed hold of the sailor’s tarpaulin collar.

‘I’m glad you were so distressed by the news of my death, my dear Rajah,’ the commissioner purred, then he barked out the words known and feared by every criminal in Paris. ‘Get your hands in the air! You’re under arrest.’

The most notorious cut-throats in the city had been known to faint at the sound of those words.

The helmsman froze at his wheel, with his face half-turned towards them.

‘Keep hold of the wheel, you idiot!’ Gauche shouted at him.

‘Hey you!’, he prodded one of the sailors from the watch with his finger, ‘bring the captain’s mate here immediately so he can take command. In the meantime you give the orders, Fox. And look lively about it! Give the command “halt all engines” or “full astern” or whatever, don’t just stand there like a dummy.’

‘Let me take a look,’ said the navigator, leaning over a map.

Maybe it’s not too late just to swing hard to port.’

Renier’s guilt was obvious. The fellow didn’t even pretend to be outraged, he just stood there hanging his head, with his hands raised in the air and his fingers trembling.

‘Right then, let’s go for a little talk, shall we?’ Gauche said to him. ‘Ah, what a lovely little talk we’ll have.’

Renate Kleber

Renate arrived for breakfast later than everyone else, so she was the last to hear about the events of the previous night. Everyone threw themselves on her, desperate to tell her the incredible, nightmarish news.

Apparently, Captain Renier was no longer captain.

Apparently, Renier was not even Renier.

Apparently, he was the son of that rajah.

Apparently, he was the one who had killed everybody.

Apparently, the ship had almost sunk in the night.

‘We were all sound asleep in our cabins,’ whispered Clarissa Stamp, her eyes wide with terror, ‘and meanwhile that man was sailing the ship straight onto the rocks. Can you imagine what would have happened? The sickening scraping sound, the impact, the crunching as the metal plating is ripped away. The shock throws you out of bed onto the floor and for a moment you can’t understand what’s happening. Then the shouting, the running feet. The floor tilting over further and further. And the terrible realization that the ship isn’t moving, it has stopped.

Everyone runs out on deck, undressed …’

‘Not me!’ the doctor’s wife declared resolutely.

‘… The sailors try to lower the lifeboats,’ Clarissa continued in the same hushed, mystical voice, ignoring Mrs Truffo’s comment, ‘but the crowds of passengers milling around on the deck get in their way. Every new wave throws the ship further over onto its side. Now we are struggling to stay on our feet, we have to hold on to something. The night is pitch-black, the sea is roaring, the thunder rumbles in the sky … One lifeboat is finally lowered, but so many people crazed by fear have packed into it that it overturns. The little children …’

‘P-please, no more,’ Fandorin interrupted the word-artist gently but firmly.

‘You should write novels about the sea, madam,’ the doctor remarked with a frown.

But Renate had frozen motionless with one hand over her heart. She had already been pale from lack of sleep and now she had turned quite green at all the news.

‘Oh!’ she said, and then repeated it: ‘Oh!’

Then she turned on Clarissa with a stern face.

‘Why are you saying these awful things? Surely you know I mustn’t listen to such things in my condition?’

Watchdog was not at the table. It was not like him to miss breakfast.

‘But where is M. Gauche?’ Renate asked.

‘Still interrogating his prisoner,’ the Japanese told her. In the last few days he had stopped being so surly and given up glaring at Renate like a wild beast.

‘Has M. Renier really confessed to all these appalling crimes?’

she gasped. ‘He is slandering himself. He must be confused in his mind. You know, I noticed some time ago that he was not quite himself. Did he himself say that he is the rajah’s son? Well, I suppose it’s better than Napoleon’s son. It’s obvious the poor man has simply gone mad.’

‘Yes, that too, madam, that too,’ Commissioner Gauche’s weary voice said behind her.

Renate had not heard him come in. But that was only natural the storm was over, but the sea was still running high, the steamship was rolling on the choppy waves and every moment there was something squeaking, clanging or cracking. Big Ben’s pendulum was no longer swinging since the clock had been hit by a bullet, but the clock itself was swaying to and fro - sooner or later the oak monstrosity was bound to keel over, Renate thought in passing, before concentrating her attention on Watchdog.

‘What’s going on, tell me!’ she demanded.

The policeman walked unhurriedly across to his chair and sat down. He gestured to the steward to pour him some coffee.

‘Oof, I am absolutely exhausted,’ the commissioner complained.

‘What about the passengers? Do they know?’

‘The whole ship is buzzing with the news, but so far not many people know the details,’ the doctor replied. ‘Mr Fox told me everything, and I considered it my duty to inform everyone here.’

Watchdog looked at Fandorin and the Ginger Lunatic and shook his head in surprise.

‘I see that you gentlemen, however, are not inclined to gossip.’

Renate did not understand the meaning of his remark, but it was irrelevant to the matter in hand.

‘What about Renier?’ she asked. ‘Has he really confessed to all these atrocities?’

Watchdog took a sip from his cup, relishing it. There was something different about him today. He no longer looked like an old dog that yaps but doesn’t bite. This dog looked as though it would snap at you. And if you weren’t careful it would even take a bite out of you. Renate decided to rechristen the commissioner Bulldog.

‘A nice drop of coffee,’ Bulldog said appreciatively. ‘Yes, he confessed, of course he did. What else could he do? It took a bit of coaxing, but old Gauche has plenty of experience. Your friend Renier is sitting writing out his confession as we speak. He’s got into the flow, there’s just no stopping him. I left him there to get on with it.’

‘Why is he “mine”?’ Renate asked in alarm. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.

He’s just a polite man who gave a pregnant woman a helping hand. And I don’t believe that he is such a monster.’

‘When he’s finished his confession, I’ll let you read it,’ Bulldog promised. ‘For old times’ sake. All those hours we’ve spent sitting at the same table. And now it’s all over, the investigation’s finished. I trust you won’t be acting for my client this time, M. Fandorin? There’s no way this one can avoid the guillotine.’

‘The insane asylum more likely,’ said Renate.

The Russian was also on the point of saying something, but he held back. Renate looked at him curiously. He looked as fresh and fragrant as if he had spent the whole night dreaming sweetly in his own bed. And as always, he was dressed impeccably: a white jacket and a silk waistcoat with a pattern of small stars. He was a very strange character; Renate had never met anyone like him before.

The door burst open so violently that it almost came off its hinges and a sailor with wildly staring eyes appeared on the threshold. When he spotted Gauche he ran over and whispered something to him, waving his arms about despairingly.

Renate listened, but she could only make out the English words ‘bastard’ and ‘by my mother’s grave’.

‘Now what’s happened?’

‘Doctor, please come out into the corridor.’ Bulldog pushed away the plate with his omelette in a gesture of annoyance.

i’d like you to translate what this lad is muttering about for me.’

The three of them went out.

‘What!’ the commissioner’s voice roared in the corridor. ‘Where were you looking, you numskull?’

There was the sound of hasty footsteps retreating into the distance, then silence.

‘I’m not going to set foot outside this room until M. Gauche comes back,’ Renate declared firmly.

The others all seemed to feel much the same.

The silence that descended in the Windsor saloon was tense and uncomfortable.

The commissioner and Truffo came back half an hour later.

Both of them looked grim.

‘What we ought to have expected has happened,’ the diminutive doctor announced, without waiting for questions. ‘This tragic story has been concluded. And the final word was written by the criminal himself

‘Is he dead?’ exclaimed Renate, jumping abruptly to her feet.

‘He has killed himself?’ asked Fandorin. ‘But how? Surely you took precautions?’

‘In a case like this, of course I took precautions,’ Gauche said in a dispirited voice. ‘The only furniture in the cell where I interrogated him is a table, two chairs and a bed. All the legs are bolted to the floor. But if a man has really made up his mind that he wants to die, there’s nothing you can do to stop him.

Renier smashed his forehead in against the corner of the wall.

There’s a place in the cell where it juts out … And he was so cunning about it that the sentry didn’t hear a thing. They opened the door to take in his breakfast, and he was lying there in a pool of blood. I ordered him not to be touched. Let him stay there for a while.’

‘May I take a look?’ asked Fandorin.

‘Go ahead. Gawp at him as long as you like, I’m going to finish my breakfast.’ And Bulldog calmly pulled across his cold omelette.

Four of them went to look at the suicide: Fandorin, Renate, the Japanese and, strangely enough, the doctor’s wife. Who’d have thought the prim old nanny goat would be so inquisitive?

Renate’s

teeth chattered as she glanced into the cell over Fandorin’s shoulder. She saw the familiar body with its broad shoulders stretched out diagonally on the floor of the cell, its dark head towards the projecting corner of the wall. Renier was lying face down, with his right arm twisted into an unnatural position.

Renate did not go into the cell, she could see well enough without that. The others went in and squatted down beside the corpse.

The Japanese raised the dead man’s head and touched the bloodied forehead with his finger. Oh yes, he was a doctor, wasn’t he?

‘O Lord, have mercy on this sinful creature,’ Mrs Truffo intoned piously in English.

‘Amen,’ said Renate, and turned her eyes away from this distressing sight.

They walked back to the saloon without speaking.

They got back just in time to see Bulldog finish eating, wipe his greasy lips with a napkin and pull over his black file.

‘I promised to show you the testimony of our former dining companion,’ he said impassively, setting out three pieces of paper on the table: two full sheets and a half-sheet, all covered with writing. ‘It’s turned out to be his farewell letter as well as his confession. But that doesn’t really make any difference.

Would you like to hear it?’

There was no need to repeat the invitation - they all gathered round the commissioner and waited with bated breath. Bulldog picked up the first sheet, held it away from his eyes and began reading.

To Commissioner Gustave Gauche,

Representative of the French police

19 April 1878, 6.ij a.m.

On board the Leviathan

I, Charles Renier, do hereby make the following confession of my own free will and without duress, solely and exclusively out of a desire to unburden my conscience and clarify the motives that have led me to commit heinous criminal acts.

Fate has always treated me cruelly …

‘Well that’s a song I’ve heard a thousand times over,’ remarked the commissioner. ‘No murderer, robber or corrupter of juveniles has ever told the court that fate had showered its gifts on him but he squandered them all, the son of a bitch. All right then, let us continue.’

Fate has always treated me cruelly, and if it pampered me at the dawn of my life, it was only in order to torment me all the more painfully later on. I was the only son and heir of a fabulously rich rajah, a very good man who was steeped in the wisdom of the East and the West. Until the age of nine I did not know the meaning of anger, fear, resentment or frustrated desire. My mother, who felt homesick for her own country, spent all her time with me, telling me about la belle France and gay Paris, where she grew up. My father fell head over heels in love the first time he saw her at the Bagatelle Club, where she was the lead dancer. Francoise Renier (that was my mother’s surname, which I took for my own when I became a French citizen) could not resist the temptation of everything that marriage to an oriental sovereign seemed to promise, and she became his wife. But the marriage did not bring her happiness, although she genuinely respected my father and has remained faithful to him to this day.

When India was engulfed by a wave of bloody rebellion, my father sensed danger and sent his wife and son to France.

The rajah had known for a long time that the English coveted his cherished casket of jewels and would not hesitate to resort to some underhand trick in order to obtain the treasure of Brahmapur.

At first my mother and I were rich - we lived in our own mansion in Paris, surrounded by servants. I studied at a privileged lycee, together with the children of crowned monarchs and millionaires. But then everything changed and I came to know the very depths of poverty and humiliation.

I shall never forget the black day when my mother wept as she told me that I no longer had a father, or a title, or a homeland. A year later the only inheritance my father had left me was finally delivered via the British embassy in Paris.

It was a small Koran. By that time my mother had already had me christened and I attended mass, but I swore to myself that I would learn Arabic so that I could read the notes made in the margins of the Holy Book by my father’s hand. Many years later I fulfilled my intention, but I shall write about that below.

‘Patience, patience,’ said Gauche with a cunning smile. ‘We’ll get to that later. This part is just the lyrical preamble.’

We moved out of the mansion as soon as we received the terrible news. At first to an expensive hotel. Then to a cheaper hotel, then to furnished apartments. The number of servants grew less and less until finally the two of us were left alone. My mother had never been a practical person, either during the wild days of her youth or later. The jewels she had brought with her to Europe were enough for us to live on for two or three years, and then we fell into genuine poverty. I attended an ordinary school, where I was beaten and called ‘darky’. That life taught me to be secretive and vengeful. I kept a secret diary, in which I noted the names of everyone who offended me, in order to take my revenge on every one of them. And sooner or later the opportunity always came. I met one of the enemies of my unhappy adolescence many years later. He did not recognize me; by that time I had changed my name and I no longer resembled the skinny, persecuted ‘hindoo’ - the name they used to taunt me with in school. One evening I lay in wait for my old acquaintance as he was on his way home from a tavern. I introduced myself by my former name and then cut short his cry of amazement with a blow of my penknife to his right eye, a trick I learned in the drinking dens of Alexandria. I confess to this murder because it can hardly make my position any more desperate.

‘Well, he’s quite right there,’ Bulldog agreed. ‘One corpse more or less doesn’t make much difference now.’

When I was 13 years old we moved from Paris to Marseille because it was cheaper to live there and my mother had relatives in the city. At 16, after an escapade which I do not wish to recall, I ran away from home and enlisted as a cabin boy on a schooner. For two years I sailed the Mediterranean.

It was a hard life, but it was useful experience. I became strong, supple and ruthless, and later this helped me to become the best cadet at the Ecole Maritime in Marseille. I graduated from the college with distinction and ever since then I have sailed on the finest ships of the French merchant fleet. When applications were invited for the post of first lieutenant on the super-steamship Leviathan at the end of last year, my service record and excellent references guaranteed me success. But by that time I had already acquired a Goal.

As he picked up the second sheet of paper, Gauche warned his listeners:

‘This is the point where it starts to get interesting.’

I had been taught Arabic as a child, but my tutors were too indulgent with the heir apparent and I did not learn much.

Later, when my mother and I were in France, the lessons stopped altogether and I rapidly forgot the little that I knew.

For many years the Koran with my father’s notes in it seemed to me like an enchanted book written in a magical script that no mere mortal could ever decipher. How glad I was later that I never asked anyone who knew Arabic to read the jottings in the margins! I had decided that I must fathom this mystery for myself, no matter what it cost me. I took up Arabic again while I was sailing to Maghrib and the Levant, and gradually the Koran began speaking to me in my father’s voice. But many years went by before the handwritten notes - ornate aphorisms by Eastern sages, extracts from poems and worldly advice from a loving father to his son - began hinting to me that they made up a kind of code. If the notes were read in a certain order, they acquired the sense of precise and detailed instructions, but that could only be understood by someone who had committed the notes to memory and engraved them on his heart. I struggled longest of all with a line from a poem that I did not know:

One year ago, as I was reading the memoirs of a certain English general who boasted of his ‘feats of courage’ during the Great Mutiny (the reason for my interest in the subject should be clear), I read about the gift the rajah of Brahmapur had sent to his son before he died. The Koran had been wrapped in a shawl. The scales seemed to fall away from my eyes. Several months later Lord Littleby exhibited his collection in the Louvre. I was the most assiduous of all the visitors to that exhibition. When I finally saw my father’s shawl the meaning of the following lines was revealed to me:

And:

What else could I dream of during all those years of exile if not the clay casket that held all the wealth in the world? How many times in my dreams I saw that coarse earthen lid swing open to reveal once again, as in my distant childhood, the unearthly glow that filled the entire universe.

The treasure was mine by right - I was the legitimate heir.

The English had robbed me, but they had gained nothing by their treachery. That repulsive vulture Littleby, who prided himself on his plundered ‘rarities’, was really no better than a vulgar dealer in stolen goods. I felt not the slightest doubt that I was in the right and the only thing I feared was that I might fail in the task I had set myself.

But I made several terrible, unforgivable blunders. The first was the death of the servants, and especially of the poor children. Of course, I did not wish to kill these people, who were entirely innocent. As you have guessed, I pretended to be a doctor and injected them with tincture of morphine. I only wished to put them to sleep, but due to my inexperience and fear that the soporific would not work, I miscalculated the dose.

A shock awaited me upstairs. When I broke the glass of the display case and pressed my father’s shawl to my face with fingers trembling in reverential awe, one of the doors into the room suddenly opened and the master of the house came limping in. According to my information his Lordship was supposed to be away from home, but suddenly there he was in front of me with a pistol in his hand. I had no choice. I grabbed a statuette of Shiva and struck the English lord on the head with all my might. Instead of falling backwards, he slumped forwards, grabbing me in his arms and splashing blood onto my clothes. Under my white doctor’s coat I was wearing my dress uniform - the dark-blue sailor’s trousers with red piping are very similar to the trousers worn by the municipal medical service. I was very proud of my cunning, but in the end it was to prove my undoing. In his death throes my victim tore the Leviathan emblem off the breast of my jacket under the open white coat. I noticed that it was gone when I returned to the steamship. I managed to obtain a replacement, but I had left a fatal clue behind.

I do not remember how I left the house. I know I did not dare to go out through the door and I recall climbing the garden fence. When I recovered my wits I was standing beside the Seine. In one bloody hand, I was holding the statuette, and in the other the pistol - I have no idea why I took it. Shuddering in revulsion, I threw both of them into the water. The shawl lay in the pocket of my uniform jacket, where it warmed my heart.

The following day I learned from the newspapers that I had murdered nine other people as well as Lord Littleby. I will not describe here how I suffered because of that.

‘I should think not,’ the commissioner said with a nod. ‘This stuff is a bit too sentimental already. Anybody would think he was addressing the jury: I ask you, gentlemen, how could I have acted in any other way? In my place you would have done the same. Phooee.’ He carried on reading.

The shawl drove me insane. The magical bird with a hole instead of an eye acquired a strange power over me. It was as if I were not in control of my actions, as if I were obeying a quiet voice that would henceforth guide me in all I did.

‘There he goes building towards a plea of insanity,’ Bulldog laughed. ‘That’s an old trick, we’ve heard that one before.’

The shawl disappeared from my writing desk when we were sailing through the Suez Canal. I felt as if it had abandoned me to the whim of fate. It never even occurred to me that the shawl had been stolen. By that time I was already so deeply in thrall to its mystical influence that I thought of the shawl as a living being with a soul of its own. I was absolutely disconsolate.

The only thing that prevented me from taking my own life was the hope that the shawl would take pity on me and come back. The effort required to conceal my despair from you and my colleagues was almost more than I could manage.

And then, on the eve of our arrival in Aden, a miracle happened! When I heard Mme Kleber’s frightened cry and ran into her cabin, I saw a negro, who had appeared out of nowhere, wearing my lost shawl round his neck. Now I realize that the negro must have taken the bright-coloured piece of cloth from my cabin a few days earlier, but at the time I experienced a genuine holy terror, as if the Angel of Darkness in person had appeared from the netherworld to return my treasure to me.

In the tussle that followed I killed the black man, and while Mme Kleber was still in a faint I surreptitiously removed the shawl from the body. Since then I have always worn it on my chest, never parting with it for a moment.

I murdered Professor Sweetchild in cold blood, with a calculated deliberation that exhilarated me. I attribute my supernatural foresight and rapid reaction entirely to the magical influence of the shawl. I realized from Sweetchild’s first enigmatic words that he had solved the mystery of the shawl and picked up the trail of the rajah’s son - my trail. I had to stop the professor from talking and I did. The silk shawl was pleased with me - I could tell from the way its warmth soothed my poor tormented heart.

But by eliminating Sweetchild I had done no more than postpone the inevitable. You had me hemmed in on all sides, Commissioner. Before we reached Calcutta you, and especially your astute assistant Fandorin …

Gauche chuckled grimly and squinted at the Russian.

‘My congratulations, monsieur, on earning a compliment from a murderer. I suppose I must be grateful that he has at least made you my assistant, and not the other way round.’

Bulldog would obviously have been only too happy to cross out that line so that his superiors in Paris would not see it. But a song isn’t a song without the words. Renate glanced at the Russian. He tugged on the pointed end of his moustache and gestured to the policeman to continue.

… assistant Fandorin, would undoubtedly have eliminated all the suspects one by one until I was the only one left. A telegram to the naturalization department of the Ministry of the Interior would have been enough to discover the name now used by the son of Rajah Bagdassar. And the student records of the Ecole Maritime would have shown that I joined the college under one name and graduated under another.

I realized that the road through the blank eye of the bird of paradise did not lead to earthly bliss, but to the eternal abyss. I decided that I would not depart this world as an abject failure, but as a great rajah. My noble ancestors had never died alone.

They were followed onto the funeral pyre by their servants, wives and concubines. I had not lived as a ruler, but I would die as a true sovereign should - as I had decided. And I would take with me on my final journey not slaves and handmaidens, but the flower of European society. My funeral carriage would be a gigantic ship, a miracle of European technical progress. I was enthralled by the scale and grandeur of this plan. It is a prospect even more vertiginous than limitless wealth.

‘He’s lying here,’ Gauche interjected sharply. ‘He was going to drown us, but he had the boat all ready for himself The commissioner picked up the final sheet, or rather half sheet.

I confess that the trick I played on Captain Cliff was vile. I can only offer the partial excuse that I did not anticipate such a tragic outcome. I regard Cliff with genuine admiration.

Although I wished to seize control of the Leviathan, I also wished to save the grand old man’s life. I knew that concern for his daughter would make him suffer, but I thought he would soon discover that she was all right. Alas, malicious fate dogs my steps relentlessly. How could I have foreseen that the captain would suffer a stroke? That cursed shawl is to blame for everything!

I burned the bright-coloured triangle of silk on the day the Leviathan sailed from Bombay. I have burned my bridges.

‘He burned it!’ gasped Clarissa Stamp. ‘Then the shawl has been destroyed?’

Renate stared hard at Bulldog, who shrugged indifferently and said:

‘And thank God it’s gone. To hell with the treasure, that’s what I say, ladies and gentlemen. We’ll all be far better off without it.’

The new Seneca had pronounced judgement. Renate rubbed her chin and thought hard.

Do you find that hard to believe? Well then, to prove my sincerity I shall tell you the secret of the shawl. There is no point in hiding it now.

The commissioner broke off and cast a cunning glance at the Russian.

‘As I recall, monsieur, last night you boasted of having guessed that secret. Why don’t you share your guess with us, and we shall see if you are as astute as our dead man thought.’

Fandorin was not taken aback in the least.

‘It is not very ccomplicated,’ he said casually.

He’s bluffing, thought Renate, but he does it very well. Can he really have guessed?

‘Very well, what do we know about the shawl? It is triangular, with one straight edge and two that are rather sinuous. That is one. The picture on the shawl shows a mythical bird with a hole in place of its eye. That is two. I am sure you remember the description of the Brahmapur palace, in particular its upper level: a mountain range on the horizon, reflected in a mirror image on the wall. That is th-three.’

‘We remember, but what of it?’ asked the Lunatic.

‘Oh, come now, Sir Reginald,’ the Russian exclaimed in mock surprise. ‘You and I both saw Sweetchild’s little sketch. It contained all the clues required to guess the truth: the triangular shawl, the zigzag line, the word “palace”.’

He took a handkerchief out of his pocket and folded it along a diagonal to make a triangle.

‘The shawl is the key that indicates where the treasure is hidden. The shape of the shawl corresponds to the outline of one of the mountains depicted in the frescos. All that is required is to position the upper corner of the shawl on the peak of that mountain, thus.’ He put the triangle on the table and ran his finger round its edge. ‘And then the eye of the bird Kalavinka will indicate the spot where one must search. Not on the painted mountain, of course, but on the real one. There must be a cave or something of the kind there. Have I got it right, Commissioner, or am I mistaken?’

Everyone turned towards Gauche, who thrust out his chubby lips and knitted his bushy eyebrows so that he looked exactly like a gruff old bulldog.

‘I don’t know how you pull these things off,’ he grumbled. ‘I read the letter back there in the cell and I haven’t let it out of my hands for a second … All right then, listen to this.’

In my father’s palace there are four halls which were used for official ceremonies: winter ceremonies were held in the North Hall, summer ceremonies in the South Hall, spring ceremonies in the East Hall and autumn ceremonies in the West Hall. You may remember the deceased Professor Sweetchild speaking about this. The murals in these halls do indeed portray the mountainous landscape that can be seen through the tall windows stretching from the floor to the ceiling. Even after all these years, if I close my eyes I can still see that landscape before me. I have travelled so far and seen so many things, but nowhere in the world is there any sight more beautiful! My father buried the casket under a large brown rock on one of the mountains. To discover which mountain peak it is, you must set the shawl against each of the mountains depicted on the walls in turn. The treasure is on the mountain with the outline that perfectly matches the form of the cloth. The place where the rock should be sought is indicated by the empty eye of the bird of paradise. Of course, even if someone knew in which general area to look, it would take him many hours, or even days, to find the stone - the search would have to cover many square metres of ground. But there can be no possibility of confusion. There are many brown boulders on the mountains, but there is only one in that particular area of the mountain side. ‘A mote lies in the single eye Alone brown rock among the grey,’ says the note in the Koran. How many times I have pictured myself pitching my tent on that mountain side and searching for that ‘mote’. But it is not to be.

The emeralds, sapphires, rubies and diamonds are fated to lie there until an earthquake sends the boulder tumbling down the mountain. It may not happen for a hundred thousand years, but the precious stones can wait - they are eternal.

But my time is ended. That cursed shawl has drained all my strength and addled my wits. I am crushed, I have lost my reason.

‘Well, he’s quite right about that,’ the commissioner concluded, laying the half-sheet of paper on the table. ‘That’s all, the letter breaks off at that point.’

‘I must say that Renier-san has acted correctly,’ said the Japanese. ‘He lived an unworthy life, but he died a worthy death. Much can be forgiven him for that, and in his next birth he will be given a new chance to make amends for his sins.’

‘I don’t know about his next birth,’ said Bulldog, carefully gathering the sheets of paper together and putting them into his black file,’ but this time around my investigation is concluded, thank God. I shall take a little rest in Calcutta and then go back to Paris. The case is closed.’

But then the Russian diplomat presented Renate with a surprise.

‘The case is certainly not closed,’ he said loudly. ‘You are being too hasty again, Commissioner.’ He turned to face Renate and trained the twin barrels of his cold blue eyes on her. ‘Surely Mme Kleber has something to say to us?’