The Motor Maids in Fair Japan Part 30

"Not exactly? Then you do know something?"

Billie did not wish to tell her father about the letter Nancy had written. She felt that her father might not take such a charitable view of it as she had, and she had a feeling she must protect poor Nancy, wounded as she had been by her strange behavior.

"Then you do know something?" repeated Mr. Campbell.

"Oh, just the littlest something, but I don't want to tell you, Papa."

Mr. Campbell settled himself into the depths of his chair and drew his arm around his daughter's waist.

"That's right, little daughter. I'd rather you'd be loyal than anything else in the world," he said, stroking her hand. "But I'm going to tell you a little bit of something. I want to ask your advice. I don't know what to do. You must help your old father decide."

"Fire away, Papa."

"Yesterday a very strange thing happened in this house while we were away--a very serious thing, I may say, and one which gives me considerable uneasiness. Last night I came into the library to work, just after dinner. I opened the safe and found that some one had been rummaging among the papers in there."

"Oh, Papa," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Billie anxiously, knowing the value of those doc.u.ments.

"They were all there, but they had been disturbed. There had been an attempt made to trace off some of the drawings. The specifications and descriptions had been tampered with, too. I never dreamed such a thing could be managed in the daytime with the house full of servants. The two watchmen would prevent even a possibility of it at night. Whoever did it must have laid his plans well, or else--"

Mr. Campbell paused and looked at his daughter very hard.

"Nancy has been greatly troubled about something lately, hasn't she, little daughter?"

"Yes, Papa, she has, but it's nothing serious," said Billie stoutly.

"Just the heat and that absurd business about Yoritomo. You know she did really make eyes at him a good deal."

"Where was she yesterday?"

"In her room, I suppose?"

"Billie, I called several of the servants in last night and questioned them about this business here," he pointed to the safe in the corner. "I called them in separately and each one made the same statement. Nancy spent most of the day in this room."

Billie started.

"I can't believe it. I won't believe it," she cried, rising to her feet in her excitement.

"They told a pretty straight story and they had no reason, as far as I can see, for telling any other kind."

"But what does Nancy know about opening a safe, Papa? It's absurd. And besides what would she want with plans for government improvements or whatever they are?"

"I'm just as much in the dark as you are, Billie. I'm only telling you what O'Haru and Onoye and Komatsu told me. She went into the library twice during the day; once for a little while in the morning, and after lunch when the servants were in the back of the house, Onoye saw her come out of the garden in a pouring rain. She marched straight to this room and locked the door behind her and here she remained until not long before we returned."

"Papa, I'll never go back on Nancy," cried Billie. "I'll never believe she did it--even--well, even if she were to tell me so herself! I know her as well as I know myself. I know all her ins and outs, you might say.

She's simply incapable of doing a dishonest thing. Besides, what earthly use could she have with those papers?"

"Do you think she could be doing it for some one else?" asked Mr.

Campbell.

"No," burst out Billie, almost angrily. "Why, Papa, I'm ashamed of you,"

Mr. Campbell drew his daughter to him and kissed her.

"You are a good friend, Billie, and I'm going to give your friend the benefit of every doubt in her favor. I'm going to a.s.sume that she is innocent and that there is some big mistake somewhere. But I want you to help me because it will be necessary to get at the bottom of the business immediately. Now, Yoritomo Ito is one great big fanatic. I discovered that the other day when he called here in his foolish garb and demanded the hand of Miss Nancy. He was very angry over being turned down and just a bit threatening in his manner. Of course he resents outside people being called in for the work I am doing. He resents my presence in his country, in fact."

"I don't like him, Papa," broke in Billie, "and--you didn't know that he has been married and divorced?"

Mr. Campbell looked surprised.

"No, indeed, I did not know it. He has colossal nerve, I must say. But divorce is pretty common over here. Most anybody can get one who wants to."

"And, Papa," went on Billie, "I believe that our little maid, Onoye, was his wife, and when her father lost his money, Yoritomo got a divorce, and she and her mother were so poor they had to go to work."

Mr. Campbell was even more shocked at this disclosure.

"And, Papa, I believe she would do most any favor for Yoritomo in order to get to see her little boy who lives with Mme. Ito. Onoye and her mother are mad about him, and--and--" went on Billie, slowly working out the complication in her mind--"they were the ones who laid the blame on Nancy, weren't they?"

"I didn't know I had a detective for a daughter," said Mr. Campbell, smiling.

"I'm just putting two and two together," said Billie. "You see it works out like a jigsaw puzzle."

"So I see," said Mr. Campbell gravely. "There is only one bright spot in the whole business," he added, with something very like a chuckle. "For once in my life I've out-tricked a trickster and I've really enjoyed doing it. Buxton informed me the very night you shot somebody here--"

"There you are," interrupted Billie. "That was Onoye, remember."

"Yes, there is no doubt about that. Well, Buxton informed me that they were after my papers and the safe would be the place they would look for them. So that very night I subst.i.tuted some old drawings and put the important ones in another place. Now a j.a.panese, when he's after something, is as crafty and shrewd as a fox. That's why I'm patting myself on my back for having outwitted one."

"Where do you keep the real papers, Papa?"

"Down where the pistol is under some stationery in the back of the desk drawer, and in the big vase in the corner."

Billie went straight to the desk and opened the drawer. She drew out the pistol as she had done that dark night, removed several layers of envelopes and paper, and came at last to a layer of drawings.

"Are these the ones?" she asked, placing them on the desk and then shoving the drawer back with her knee. Something stuck and she pulled it all the way out in her effort to discover what the trouble was. In the very back, caught between the drawer and the framework was a handkerchief. It was small and sheer and in one corner was an embroidered b.u.t.terfly.

Mr. Campbell jumped up in much excitement.

"By Jove," he exclaimed, "did you find that among my papers?"

Billie nodded her head sadly. "It's Nancy's, too," she said.

Mr. Campbell began looking over the papers.

"She may have dropped her handkerchief," he said, "but I don't think she got down to these. They are exactly as I left them. I suppose she rummaged around with her handkerchief in her lap and it fell in and was shoved back when I took out my papers later."

The papers in a leather portfolio in the vase were safe, also.

For some time the father and daughter sat together, turning over the events of the morning in their minds.