Conclusion
At an early hour next day, Ashton-Kirk paid a visit to the secretary; what passed between them can only be guessed, but that the scarlet scapular and its accompanying document was one of them, is a certainty. Then the secret agent, accompanied by Fuller, boarded a train leaving Washington and went speeding homeward. Fuller, though sorely troubled, managed to contain himself until they had almost finished the journey. Then, as one unable to combat his curiosity any longer, he said:
"I wonder how many of those things which old Nanon suspected regarding the Corbin girl are true?"
Without turning his eyes from the flat country which whirled by the car window, Ashton-Kirk said:
"There are a great many well-meaning people whose views or statements cannot be accepted without great risk. Nanon is one of these."
"Then you do not believe what she told you upon the various occasions when you talked to her?"
Ashton-Kirk proceeded as though he had not heard the question.
"As we saw at almost the first glance, the woman is a fanatic; she hated 'pagans,' as she termed the Japanese; she feared Morse because of his views; to her mind he was possessed by a spirit of evil. This feeling grew so strong in the course of time that she began to feel that even his surroundings must necessarily be evil, that those who possessed the same blood, or for whom he cared, must be filled with demonic impulses."
"That is probably so," said Fuller. "Something of the sort occurred to me once or twice after you told me of the things she said on the day she visited you." He was silent for some little time; his mind seemed to have turned to a fresh matter for bewilderment, for he finally said: "I heard all you said to Miss Corbin at the Tillinghast and a great deal of it was plain enough. But what I can't understand is the affair of Okiu, Miss Corbin and the taxi-cab. She was seen to enter the cab with the Jap at a time when she had in her possession the thing which he desired most in the world. And, instead of taking it then, he preferred to wait and lay a rather ornate plan which was not at all sure to succeed."
"The story of the old watchman, whom we talked to at the drug store that night, gave me some hours of hard work," said Ashton-Kirk. "And I burned up quite a bit of tobacco before I finally worked the truth out of it." He turned toward his aide lazily and asked: "Suppose there had been two taxi-cabs instead of one that night?"