CHAPTER XXI.
CONUNDRUMS AND ANSWERS.
"I tell you Nancy is on her way, now, Papa," said Billie emphatically. "She would never have had time to get here as soon as yesterday. The storm would have delayed her. She couldn't have reached here."
Mr. Campbell shook his head anxiously as he paced up and down the piazza waiting for the 'riksha the messenger was to send back from Tokyo.
Billie's faith in her friend was wonderful. He admired it, but he was obliged to say he felt rather skeptical himself, all things considered.
"There comes the 'riksha," announced Mary at last.
Mr. Campbell went into the house for his hat and cane and Billie followed him. She looked so pale and miserable that he stooped to kiss her and then led her into the library.
"Come in here a moment, little daughter," he said, "and we'll talk things over a bit."
"How are you going to find her, Papa?" Billie asked, wiping away the tears that would well in her eyes every few minutes and trickle down her cheeks.
"I'll do everything within human power. The police are excellent and so are the detectives."
"Why do you think she ran away?" sobbed Billie, breaking down entirely.
"I don't know, my child. I can't make out what the reason was and we'd never get anywhere by guessing."
"Papa, do you think she could have gone to that widow? I never told you, but she did once before when we had a quarrel. She was awfully sorry after the first night and came back."
Mr. Campbell gave a low whistle. He had forgotten the Widow of Shanghai's very existence until that moment.
"I hope she's there. That will make it much simpler. But you mustn't take on so, little daughter. Nancy is like lots of headstrong girls. She resents criticism. Probably she had a falling out with Cousin Helen and ran away—"
"I did run away," said a voice at the door, "but that wasn't the reason."
"Nancy!" cried Billie and the two girls rushed into each other's arms and embraced like sisters long separated. In the doorway stood Mary and Mr. Buxton. Mary's face was beaming with joy and Mr. Buxton wore his old expression of humorous tolerance.
"Where did you find her, Buxton?" asked Mr. Campbell gravely.
"I didn't find her. She found me this morning at an unconscionably early hour, too, and a fine time we've had of it, I can tell you. We've chased a widow back to Shanghai and we've placed a fanatic under bond for good behavior."
Nancy laughed her old natural laugh with a ripple of gaiety in it. Her eyes were sparkling and the color flooded her cheeks. She was prettier than ever, it seemed, and all because she was so happy! Her jaunty little traveling hat was over one eye and her dress was crushed and wrinkled, but her charming face was radiant.
"The morning we left for the mountains," she began, "two letters came for me by mail but I didn't read them until I got on the train. One of them was from that awful woman and it frightened me terribly. It seemed cordial enough on the surface but my eyes have been opened to her. I don't know just what she is, but she is dangerous I am certain,—like a cat ready to spring. She said she had taken such a fancy to me that she must see me again and she thought it would be advisable for me to come to her home at once. The other letter was from that horrid Yoritomo and he simply threatened in so many words to blow up the house and everybody in it unless I listened to him. I didn't think much about the letters until we were settled in the hotel. Then I began to get more and more uneasy and I thought the best thing for me to do was to come back to Tokyo and see Mr. Campbell. I knew, of course, that Miss Helen would never let me go alone, so I just ran away."
"And very glad we are to see you, Miss Nancy," broke in Mr. Campbell in the tone of one who felt enormously relieved.
"We were all night on the train," continued Nancy. "The storm had washed the track away in places and we had to wait many times while it was repaired. As soon as I arrived, I took a 'riksha to Mr. Buxton's lodgings and then we went to see Mme. Fontaine and Yoritomo—"
"Oh, that widow woman," interrupted Mr. Buxton. "She's a sly one, I can tell you. As we entered the front door, she departed at the back. We left several policemen waiting for her to return but I wouldn't be surprised if she were well on her way to Shanghai by now."
"I don't understand," said Billie.
"The time we quarreled, Billie, and I behaved like such a silly little goose," Nancy explained, "you remember I went to see her. I don't know what made me do it, except that I wanted to air my troubles. I've been so unhappy since, that I feel years older now. I was only a child then, but I'm quite an old person now. She talked to me a long time that night and got me all stirred up and believing that I had been badly treated. It was not what she really said but what she hinted. She seemed to know a good deal about Mr. Campbell's work. She implied that what he was doing for the Japanese government was disloyal to America. I was so fascinated with the way she put things and the way she looked at me, too, that I didn't seem to have any power over myself any more. It was like being hypnotized, I suppose. It came into my head to write you a terrible letter, Billie,—" Nancy's eyes filled with tears and her voice choked—"I can hardly think of it now without crying. She knew I was writing it but she didn't ask what was in it, only occasionally, while I wrote, she would look over at me and say 'Poor darling! Poor pretty darling!' After I got to bed, I came to my senses and began to realize what I had done. I was terribly frightened and unhappy and in the middle of the night I crept into the drawing-room, tore up the letter and threw the pieces into a vase. Next morning, you remember, I came home. But the letter was so heavy on my conscience, I couldn't be happy. I had a feeling it had never been destroyed and would somehow get to you, Billie. I wrote to the widow and asked her to send me back the pieces if she could find them, so that I could burn them myself. In her reply, she simply said the vase was empty and I gradually began to understand that she had got the letter and intended to keep it. There was a threatening sound to the note, and she ended by asking to borrow my blue raincoat. I had to let her have it, but I knew she didn't want it for any good reason and I was more and more miserable. I began to pray that it wouldn't rain. People don't wear raincoats in good weather. I tried to argue with myself about her reasons for wanting my raincoat and even now I don't know what they were unless it was to involve me in something. But we've frightened her away, anyhow, and she can have the raincoat if she'll only stay."
"She certainly did want to get you into a peck of trouble, Miss Nancy," said Mr. Campbell bringing the famous raincoat from the passage where it hung on the hat rack. "Here's your coat. She left it behind as a souvenir yesterday when she broke into the house to steal my drawings. I fooled her, though," he added, smiling sweetly. "If she thinks she can ever make anything out of those papers, she'll soon find she has been losing time."
"It's the third time she's been here masquerading as you, Nancy." broke in Billie. "She must have managed the disguise perfectly because the servants were fooled each time."
"She did," said Mary. "I asked Onoye exactly what she looked like. She evidently had on a brown curly wig and a hat like Nancy's with a blue veil around her head."
At this juncture in the conversation, Onoye announced a visitor who proved to be a detective. He was a quiet, self-contained young Japanese who spoke excellent English. He had been sent out in a motor car by the Chief of Police to find out all he could from the Americans regarding Mme. Fontaine.
The Widow of Shanghai, he informed them, was the child of a Russian father and a Japanese mother. She was considered to be one of the most accomplished and brilliant spies in the Orient and could assume almost any disguise and speak most languages. It was a pity a woman of such wonderful talents should stoop to work like that, and the strange part of it was that she was sometimes treacherous to Russia and in favor of Japan: so that it was difficult to tell for which side she worked. Just now her sympathies were with Russia, since she was trying to get plans for harbor defenses in Japan. The Chief of Police wished to thank Miss Brown in behalf of the City of Tokyo for driving the so-called Mme. Fontaine out of town. She had entered it so quietly that until that very morning it was not known that Mme. Fontaine and the famous Russian spy were one and the same person.
"Of course it was she who was in here the night of your birthday party.
Papa," said Billie. "I must have shot two people instead of one."
This was actually the case, as Onoye explained to her later. Onoye had hidden herself behind the curtain that night to watch the couples strolling about in the moonlight. Mme. Fontaine came very swiftly into the room and blew out the lights. She carried a little electric dark lantern. Onoye was too frightened to make her presence known, and had crept along the edge of the room hoping to reach the door. Then Billie had come in and somehow they had all drifted together in the dark and the pistol had gone off. The bullet must have pierced Mme. Fontaine's arm and lodged in Onoye's wrist. How she managed to hide the wound with a scarf until she got her long wrap from one of the bedrooms was a marvel to them all.
"Anyhow the mystery is all cleared away now," cried Nancy joyfully. "I suppose you must have thought strange things about me, Mr. Campbell?"
"We had every reason to think them, Miss Nancy, but this loyal young person here wouldn't let us. It looked like some pretty convincing evidence for a while, but she wouldn't budge from the stand she had taken."
Once again the two friends embraced. They were radiantly happy. It was just as if Nancy had died and come to life again.
"I think I've learned a good lesson," she admitted at last. "It all happened because I wanted to be silly and romantic and meet people in the garden and write notes."
"People?" asked Mary.
Nancy laughed and dimpled in her old charming way and everybody laughed, even the reserved young detective. Old Nedda, who had followed them into the room, carne tottering over to where Nancy sat beside Billie. The aged animal whined and wagged her tail, as if she, too, wished to take part in the general thanksgiving.
"Dearest old great-grandmama," cried Nancy, kneeling beside the aged pug and hiding her face in the tawny coat, "are you really glad to see me, too?"