The boy san, with the infuriating Japanese grin, shook his head.
"I am very sorry for you," he said. "To-day very early plenty people come, Tanaka San and two Japanese girls. Very plenty talk. Okusan cry tears. All nice kimono take away very quick."
"Then Tanaka, where is he?"
"Go away with okusan" the boy grinned again, "I am very sorry—"
Geoffrey slammed the door in the face of his tormentor. He staggered into a chair and collapsed, staring blankly. What could have happened?
Slowly his ideas returned. Tanaka! He had seen the little beast in Yaé's motor car at Chuzenji. He must have come spying after his master as he had done fifty times before. He and that half-caste devil had raced him back to Tokyo, had got in ahead of him, and had told a pack of lies to Asako. She must have believed them, since she had gone away. But where had she gone to? The boy san had said "two Japanese girls." She must have gone to the Fujinami house, and to her horribly unclean cousins.
He must find her at once. He must open her eyes to the truth. He must bring her back. He must take her away from Japan—forever.
Harrington was crossing the hall of the hotel muttering to himself, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, when he felt a hand laid on his arm. It was Titine, Asako's French maid.
"Monsieur le capitaine" she said, "madame est partie. It is not my fault, monsieur le capitaine. I say to madame, do not go, wait for monsieur. But madame is bewitched. She, who is bonne catholique, she say prayers to the temples of these yellow devils. I myself have seen her clap her hands—so!—and pray. Her saints have left her. She is bewitched."
Titine was a Breton peasant girl. She believed implicitly in the powers of darkness. She had long ago decided that the gods of the Japanese and the korrigans of her own country were intimately related. She had served Asako since before her marriage, and would have remained with her until death. She was desperately faithful. But she could not follow her mistress to the Fujinami house and risk her soul's salvation.