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Show Im CARIBBEAN 3fpl i 1 fe CONSPIRACY! 1 ililiiill lllll ill k BRENJDA CONRAD I hSh 1 THE STORY SO FAR: Anne Heywood, beauUful daughter of a wealthy New York newspaper publisher, goes on an assignment to Puerto Rico where Pete Wilcox, a reporter on her father's paper, pa-per, is stationed as a U. S. Army intelligence intelli-gence officer. On the boat she meets a young Puerto Rlcan, Miguel Valera, and an engineer named Richard Tans-tig, Tans-tig, of whom she is Immediately suspicious suspi-cious In spite of the fact that he looks like a typical tourist. She does not know that he is, In fact, a German agent ordered or-dered to destroy Puerto Rico's water supply. Pete meets the boat, but does not tell Anne that he has reason to suspect sus-pect Taussig. Later Anne discovers that ber bags have been searched. CHAPTER IV Anne put her key in the lock and opened the door. There was a funny fun-ny taste in her mouth, as if she'd bit into a sweet orange and found it was a sour one. "I'm glad Pete's in San Juan after aft-er all," she thought, with a sudden twinge of conscience. "I wonder what he's doing?" Pete Wilcox, if she'd known it, was at that moment two floors below be-low her in the Granada bar. He'd watched her all through dinner, seen her gay and charming and ra- j diant as a sunbeam, talking to three 'men. The other girl Pete didn't even see. He watched Anne and Miguel leave the dining room. "They're going to dance," he j thought. He looked at himself in the mirror over the bar. The faint green cast of his face couldn't all be mildew, he thought with a twisted twist-ed grin. "Take it easy. Captain Wilcox," he said to himself. Anne put her hand out to put out the light, and changed her mind. The room glowed with a faint silver phosphorescence from, the rising moon. It was the moon she and Miguel had watched growing rounder round-er and whiter the last three nights, she thought with a little ache inside der. She shook that off impatietly, crossed the room and looked down into the patio. Don Diego Gongaro had just finished lighting Richard Taussig's cigar and was lighting his own. Then Anne's heart beat a little lit-tle more quickly. She glanced back at the door, her cheeks flushed a little. The idea that popped into her mind, she knew, was one that should never have occurred to a well-brought-up young woman. She dismissed dis-missed it sharply. Her hand shook a little as she opened the door. There was a light over the transom in Room 108. It was not the ceiling light; it was not bright enough. It must be the one on the table or beside the bed. She started trying to remember whether it had been there before. She hadn't looked, she had been so intent on the conflict in her mind as she went into her own room. It might be the maid, she thought, listening. Or Mr. Taussig might have left his light on. She crossed the passage after a moment and tapped lightly on the door. There was no answer and no sound from inside. . Her heart was pounding in her throat She had either to do it or not to do it, she told herself but she had to be quick about it in any case. She put her key in the lock and turned the knob. Mr. Taussig had not locked his door. She opened it slowly, glancing back behind her down the hall, and slipped inside. She had taken two quick steps along the passage between the wall and the closet when the dimmed light went off, leaving her in sudden absolute ab-solute darkness. Somebody inside the room moved with swift catlike silence. She stood rooted to the floor in terror, her voice frozen in her throat. A man's hand strong as steel closed over her mouth, stifling the cry that sprang to her lips. She was whirled around and moved back to the door so quickly acid easily that she didn't have time to struggle. The door opened, she was in the hall again; the door closed. She ran, breathless with terror, across the passage into her own room and stood gripping the doorknob, door-knob, her heart beating violently. Very slowly then she raised her hand to her face and touched it with trembling fingers. In the dim light above the open transom she had caught one flashing glimpse of the man in the room. It was Miguel Mig-uel Valera. A chill stabbing awareness that she was for the first time in her life up against stark reality that thrust friendship aside, as Miguel had done with her, made her hand relax slowly slow-ly from her doorknob. She reached out to switch on the light, changed her mind and stood there listening warily. He was corning out. She heard the door across the passage close quietly, the key turn softly in the lock, and his footsteps retreating quickly along the hall. Still without with-out turning on the light she went quietly through the narrow passage between the closet and the wall into her room. She stopped at the foot of her. bed, shrouded in white mosquito netting, and glanced back at the door. "I wonder ..." she thought. I just wonder." What if Miguel Valera had realized real-ized there was something odd about Richard Taussig too? That could explain it He could have left Gra-clela Gra-clela for a minute just to come up and see, while his uncle and Taussig Taus-sig were talking. She slipped to the window and looked down into the patio. Don Diego Gongaro and Taussig were still sitting there, their cigars still quite long. That came as a little shock to her. What had seemed an eternity could have been only two or three minutes at the most. Then she started. Miguel Valera was coming through the arcade, alone. Graciela must have been sent home, or something. He strolled across the patio, drew up a chair and sat down with the other two. Anne stood watching them, her heart rising. Whatever it was, if Miguel was on her side . . . and then she caught her breath sharply. He had said something to Taussig, , who turned quickly and looked up at her window. Don Diego turned slowly in his chair and looked up. Miguel was telling them. And she hadn't thought of that. She hadn't really thought about that at all, but in some way she had just taken it for granted he wouldn't tell. , "I wonder where Pete is," she thought miserably. It was the same old pattern. It always came back when she was in trouble. If only she knew where to find Pete! She looked down into the patio again, mr. xaussig was getting up. Anne's eyes moved across the grass. A man was sitting alone at the table in the corner, where Don Diego had sat reading his paper that morning. She looked away, and then looked back sharply. It was Pete. Pete went through the lobby and started across the gallery under Cm rn The door opened, she was in the hall again. the portico. The juke box blared from the bar behind him, and with the orchestra out on the terrace a wailing tenor was singing "Perfidia" ... "I found you, the love of my life, in somebody else's arms . . ." He tossed the cigarette he'd Just lighted into a palm tub and turned back again. His orders were to lay off, and in the Army orders were orders. In the newspaper business an editor might not run a story, but he never tried to keep you from getting get-ting it if you could. And just now Pete's training and instinct the old nose-for-news sort of thing told him not to leave, to go back and the hell with G 2. He went through the lobby out into the patio. The ocean pounding on the reef and breaking again on the rocks just across the balustrade softened the strident scream of music mu-sic from the bar. The place was empty except for Taussig and Diego Di-ego Gongaro sitting by the fountain ' smoking their cigars. They stopped talking for an instant when he came out, and started again, obviously on another subject. They couldn't have been talking about the beauty of Puerto Rico all that time, he thought. He sat down at a table in the corner and ordered a Scotch and soda. The window of Anne's room was dark. There was a light in the hall window, and one in Taussig's Taus-sig's near the angle of the wall He saw it go out abruptly. Probably the maid, he thought. He saw Taussig look up, and move slightly. Then the light went on again. ' Taussig moved again, glancing glanc-ing up at Anne's window. Or Pete thought he did. He wasn't sure. It was still dark. "You must make a visit to my brother-in-law's Central," Diego Gongaro was saying affably. "I shall ask him to arrange It They are cutting and grinding the sugar cane now, and I'm sure it would interest in-terest you. And to his coffee plantation plan-tation in the mountains. That would interest you very much too. The trees are beginning to blossom now, and they are very beautiful. Perhaps Per-haps Miss Heywood would be interested inter-ested too. She is a very intelligent young lady. Perhaps she is too intelligent. in-telligent. It can be a dangerous quality in a woman. I mean, of course, that no man wants a woman wom-an who " He broke off abruptly. Pete Wilcox, Wil-cox, trying to look casual and relaxed re-laxed in a wrought-iron chair that was not designed for either, was listening intently. There was something some-thing in Diego Gongaro's tone that implied a meaning underlying the superficial conversational one. He was watching the center arch, and Pete, glancing around, saw Miguel Valera come out into the patio and pull up a chair beside them. "I was just saying how intelligent intelli-gent your friend Miss Heywood is, Miguel," his uncle remarked easily. Miguel shrugged. "I don't know about that. She's very charming, certainly." There was no reason to get hot under the collar. Pete told himself. Maybe Anne was deliberately concealing con-cealing her intelligence. Sometimes she did it without deliberation. Furthermore, Fur-thermore, there was nothing offensive offen-sive in preferring a girl's charm to her intelligence. Latins weren't the only ones who did that. "What have you done with the young ladies, by the way?" Taussig inquired. "My cousin Is with some of my other cousins. Miss Heywood has had a tiring day. She s gone upstairs." up-stairs." "I hope you'll remember your suggestion sug-gestion about the sugar plantation. I'm sure Miss Heywood would enjoy en-joy it too." "I'm sure we can arrange it, Mr. Taussig. I'll speak to my father. Are you engaged tomorrow?" "I'm afraid I am," Taussig said. "The Army is taking me on a tour of the island, stopping at Borinquen Field for lunch." Mr Taussig bowed to both of them. "Good night," he said. Miguel Valera turned to his uncle and spoke again rapidly. Pete caught Graciela's name and "casa," and decided that Miguel was telling his uncle to take the girl home. At any rate Gongaro left. Miguel and Pete were alone in the patio, and the light in Anne's window was still on. Pete, watching with a kind of forlorn hope for one brief glimpse of even her shadow on the screen, trying try-ing to make up his mind not to go and call her up just to hear her voice and know she was there, started start-ed to get up. As he did Valera rose and came across the grass. "Good evening, Captain," he said. "If you aren't in a hurry I wonder if you'd join me in a nightcap?" For a moment the two of them stood facing each other, the Latin tall and slender with gray eyes and black hair, the Saxon tall, lean and rangy with hazel eyes and 'sun-bleached, 'sun-bleached, tow-colored- hair, epch taking the other's measure. "Thanks," Pete said. "Glad to." They sat down. Miguel called the waiter. "You're at Headquarters, I understand," under-stand," he said when he had ordered. or-dered. "That's right," Pete said. "And you?" "I was ordered to Buchanan. But my orders were cancelled. I was ready, and thought I might as well come home. It was too cold in New York for me anyway. I'd been up for several months on business for my father." "You're a lawyer, aren't you?" Pete asked. It sounded as if being a lawyer in a time like this was a little like being a snake in the grass, which was not what he had meant. Miguel laughed. "A sort of lawyer. You have to know law to manage a sugar Central, Cen-tral, these days of government regulation. regu-lation. I don't practice." "Politics?" "Politics is in Latin blood," Miguel Mig-uel answered. "Red corpuscles, white corpuscles and politics. It means everything down here." "What about your father? Has he been in political office?" "No. My father isn't a United States citizen. After the American occupation we were given the choice of accepting citizenship or remaining remain-ing Spanish. My father chose to retain his own citizenship. A good many people did. What do you call them diehards, isn't it?" "Are they the ones who don't like the United States?" Pete asked. Valera hesitated. "Would they like to see Spain back?" Miguel Valera shrugged. "I suppose sup-pose there's the dream of seeing the scarlet and gold of Spain flying from El Morro. It's natural enough for the people who are predominantly Spanish. If the United States were conquered, you would just wait the chance to kick your conquerors out. "And what about the Nationalists?" National-ists?" Pete asked. Miguel shook his head. "The cacique, ca-cique, or leader of the party in power, pow-er, has said Nationalism is not an Issue at the present, I don't think there's any important organized Nationalist Na-tionalist opinion here now. The Falangists Fa-langists and the Nationalists are the two extremes in between you have the moderates. But I didn't mean to give you a lecture on insular politics. poli-tics. I " "One thing before you get off it," Pete said. "Where do you stand in all this?" "Me?" Miguel Valera laughed. "You'd be surprised," he said. "But as I started to say, this isn't what I wanted to talk to you about It was Miss Heywood." (TO BS CONTINUED) |