Her hand went out, trembling; her face was so bloodless that Warwick sprang up, alarmed.

"You are sure?" she asked, quaveringly.

Again the secret agent nodded.

"I am quite sure," he said

CHAPTER XXVII

CONCLUSION

At an early hour next day, Ashton-Kirk paid a visit to the secretary; what pa.s.sed between them can only be guessed, but that the scarlet scapular and its accompanying doc.u.ment 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 j.a.panese; 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 j.a.p 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?"

"Two?" Fuller did not seem to grasp the suggestion.

"Okiu got into one; it turned, and vanished around the corner. Then a second appeared, coming from the direction in which the first had gone.

As taxis are unusual in Eastbury at night the watchman never dreamed but that it was the same one returning."

"But," protested Fuller, "he saw the j.a.p open the taxi door."

"He said so, yes. But after I had considered the matter I went to him and asked a few questions. It was as I thought. He had taken the cab for granted in the first place, and he took the j.a.p for granted in the second."

"But Okiu bought two tickets for Washington."

"One was for his confederate, Humadi, who joined him at the station."

"The second cab, then----" Fuller paused, expectantly.

"I hunted it up. It had been engaged by young Warwick. He and Miss Corbin had agreed over the telephone to meet at a certain hour upon the corner where the policeman noticed the girl waiting. Warwick went to secure the cab to take them to the station, and was delayed in some way.

As he did not appear, she evidently became nervous, fancied that she had made a mistake and that he had really named the corner above as the place of meeting. She had started for this, when his cab turned the corner, halted and took her up."

"Yes, yes," said Fuller. "I see now that that could very readily have happened. But," with a lift of his brows, "if the j.a.panese were not in on the finding of the scapular, why did they take it into _their_ heads to bolt so suddenly for Washington?"

"The attempt upon me had failed," returned Ashton-Kirk. "They feared to remain without instructions, and so hurried to Washington to lay the facts before their superiors. Burgess noted them upon the train, and was a witness to the amazement they showed at sight of Karkowsky and his friends.

"However, none of the latter saw the j.a.panese. Okiu, as I think I have said before, is a clever man. He saw that something was ripe, or considered to be so by the Poles, and so he clung to them secretly after they had reached the capital. And within an hour he had learned that Miss Corbin was at the Tillinghast! The observation of all this was a deft piece of observation upon the part of Culberson's fellows. They are much more deserving than I ever gave them credit for."

There was quiet a long period in which nothing more pa.s.sed between the two men. Indeed the train was slowing up to stop when Fuller asked:

"You have given up all thought of the girl or Warwick having had any hand in the death of Dr. Morse?"

"I never had any such thought," said Ashton-Kirk. "To be sure,"

smilingly, "they puzzled me more than a little from time to time. The girl's fear of the police, from the very first, was a thing that interested me. But that may be safely attributed to a natural uncertainty. There was bad blood between her lover and her uncle; perhaps the former in a fit of rage had killed the latter. She feared this possibility, and in consequence dreaded the police."

"And the shoes with the caked soil upon the soles?"

"As I remarked at the time you discovered them, our own shoes were in like condition."

"Okiu is a resourceful, secretive man," said Fuller. "And, being so, why did he tell Miss Corbin of the paper? Her knowledge of its existence could not benefit him in any way, and her possible discovery of it could only have hurt him."

Ashton-Kirk laughed.

"By telling her what he did, he gained a valued aide. He had planted an unwearying searcher in the house which he could in no other way enter.

If the girl found the paper, so he figured, she would at once acquaint him with the fact. And I have no doubt but that this is the very thing that would have happened had not Warwick arrived with his newly created suspicions of the j.a.panese."

They took a taxi at the station and were speeding toward the house of Ashton-Kirk, when Fuller spoke again.

"Several times," said he, "I have heard you say that you know who killed Dr. Morse. I suppose that to-day will see the arrest of the murderer."

Ashton-Kirk nodded.

"Yes," said he, "I suppose so."

The driver of the cab was paid and dismissed and the two entered the house.

"Any one here, Stumph?" asked Ashton-Kirk.

"Mr. O'Neill and Mr. Purvis," replied the man.

These two were seated in a room off the secret agent's study, engaged in conversation.

"How is this?" demanded Ashton-Kirk, rather sharply. "I thought that either one or the other of you was to remain at the Fordham Road place until I called you off."

"Well, seeing that the regular police are there," said O'Neill, "we thought we could ease up a bit."

"The regular police!" exclaimed the secret agent.