The Clue
Summary
Tsarist shadows slither across a Yokohama-bound freighter as the Rabourdin siblings—Boris, sepulchral and velvet-gloved, and Alexis, a serpent in white tie—smuggle a cartographic talisman that could tilt the Pacific’s balance of dreadnoughts. In a Newport mansion scented with gardenias and TNT, Alexis courts heiress Eve Bertram while her tinkerer brother Guy courts detonations; next door, Christine Lesley—a soprano of unvoiced longings—absorbs Boris’s melancholic ardor like moonlight on pewter. Enter Nogi, valet by day, Noh-ghost by night, who polishes shoes and polishes off secrets, coveting Guy’s explosive notebook the way a poet covets the perfect verb. A single 1811 ruble—blackened by Romanov blood—changes pockets: from Boris’s palm to Christine’s keepsake, then to Guy’s watch chain, where it clangs against time itself. When Alexis’s corpse sprawls across the Persian rug, the coin glints accusatorily, forcing Christine into a marital pact with Boris, the man whose gaze already carries Siberian frost. Gunpowder, guilt, and kimono silk combust in a boathouse finale: Nogi’s fatal kabuki of fire, Boris’s collapsing silhouette, Christine feeding the cursed map to the flames as seagulls scream in Japanese.
Synopsis
Russian brothers Count Boris and Alexis Rabourdin obtain a Japanese coastline defense map and plan to sell it to German agents in London. In America, Alexis schemes to marry wealthy Eve Bertram, who loves him. Boris, meanwhile, falls in love with Christine Lesley, Eve's neighbor whom Eve's brother Guy, an amateur inventor experimenting with explosives, also loves. Nogi, a Japanese spy sent to obtain the explosives, who serves as Guy's valet, plots to destroy the map. As Boris prepares to leave for London, he gives Christine an old Russian coin as a keepsake. To show Guy that she does not care for Boris, Christine attaches the coin to Guy's watch chain. That night Christine discovers Alexis' dead body. Grief stricken, Eve summons Detective Williams, who finds the coin near the body. Guy, who fought with Alexis, thinks that he killed him. After Christine agrees to marry Boris for his silence, Guy considers suicide, but during a fight, Nogi sets off an explosion killing Boris. Badly injured, Nogi confesses killing Alexis and dies as he sees Christine destroy the map.
