So, prepared to embrace Nancy tenderly and let bygones be bygones, Billie could scarcely wait to leap down from the ’riksha and ring the widow’s bell.  The house had a shut-up appearance, but all Japanese houses look thus in rainy weather.  Somehow, Billie’s inflated enthusiasm received a prick when the bell echoed through the rooms with a hollow, empty sound.  She waited impatiently but no one came to answer it.  Usually Mme. Fontaine’s well-trained maid was bowing and smiling almost before the vibrations of the bell had ceased.  Billie rang again and again, and still there was no answer.  She walked around the side of the house and peered through the slats of the Venetian blinds but all was dark within.

What could it mean?  Where was Nancy?  Where was Mme. Fontaine?

“Oh, dear; oh, dear,” ejaculated Billie, wiping away the tears that would trickle down her cheeks.

But of course they had gone shopping, and the maid was at market, perhaps.  That was the only explanation.

There was a bench on the piazza and Billie sat down to wait.  Komatsu stood patiently under his oiled paper umbrella which he always placed in the bottom of the ’riksha in bad weather.

Exactly one hour they waited and at last Billie, disconsolate and disappointed, returned to the ’riksha and ordered Komatsu to take her to some of the shops.  Everywhere she watched for the familiar gleam of Nancy’s blue mackintosh, but there was no sign of it anywhere.  Finally they returned to Mme. Fontaine’s house, to find it still closed.

“Komatsu, where are they?” asked Billie desperately.

“Not know, but honorable young lady not look inside?”

“I can’t get inside.  The doors are locked.  Besides, I don’t like to break in on a private house like a burglar.”

But to the Japanese the end justifies the means, and being on a search for Nancy, Komatsu was willing to go to any strategic lengths to find her.

“All same look and see,” he said and together they followed the gallery around the entire house.

“Komatsu make to go up,” he said after a fruitless search for an entrance.  He pointed to one of the slender pillars which upheld the roof of the lower gallery forming the floor of the upper one.  The next moment he had shinned up the pole and Billie could hear him walking softly on the wooden floor above.  Presently he returned and placed in Billie’s lap the fragments of a letter which had been pieced together and pasted on a sheet of paper.

“Top muchly more easy than bottom,” he said smiling.  “Empty house but all same muchly inside.”

Billie glanced hastily at the scraps of paper and saw her own name in one corner.

“Why, it’s to me,” she exclaimed, and sitting on the bench, she began to decipher the pieced letter.

“Dear Billie: