| OCR Text |
Show f:pf !'AI1 But the MMf, lWRichard Powell- Shootincj If 1 y-lt ,itl 4 AN INNE SANCTUM MYSTERY LiliU STARRING ARAB " ANDY BLAKE WW FEATURES lliiQB 3 THE STORY THUS FAR: Lt. Andy ' Biake and his wife, Arab, believed that a 1 German spy ring was working out of her toardlng house. Andy had searched ' Jones' house, nearby, and found some evidence, which he turned over to FBI. They bad managed to escape from Jones, tater, Arab bad told the girls that she tad given evidence of loose talk to Andy und that be was holding It at home to deliver to Intelligence. Knowing they would be followed they went that night to Andy's home, to await the coming of Jones and his agents. They read the notes while they waited. They were sure that Jones would arrive to try and get back the notes. They knew they were tngaged on dangerous work, CHAPTER X When we finished we were pretty lure of what we had. No remark made the grade unless we knew that there was a chance that the speaker could have had some kind of inside in-side knowledge on the point In question. ques-tion. We sorted the items on the green table and numbered them. I read the numbered notes over slowly: slow-ly: 1. Remark: "People think they're not getting much gas now, but just wait. So much oil will be needed that we'll have to cut the A cards way down from four gallon. And maybe the B cards too." Comments: Works for Petroleum Administrator. Me An invasion would take a lot of oil Arab Could she mean submarine losses, not an invasion? Me She said, "Oil will be needed," need-ed," not "So much oil is being lost that we'll have to cut the A cards." Doesn't sound like subs, t Remark: "We're so busy that half the time I don't know whether I'm coming or going. I thought i it was bad last spring but now !" Comments: Works for Army Map Service. Arab They must be putting out an extra lot of maps. Don't they need lots for a big campaign? Every Ev-ery tank commander geti maps for one thing. Me Check. t Remark: "I used to be a wiz in geography at school, only I didn't know the half of it. Why, some of these places in foreign countries can be spelled three or four different ways . . . the letters are different from the Roman alphabet, al-phabet, you see. And of course we have to make sure we use a standard stand-ard system, or the men using the maps later would get confused." Comments: Works for Army Map Service. Arab Same girl as in No. 2. Me Could be Russian, Japanese, Chinese, or Arabic. Maybe the Russians use a few letters of the Roman alphabet but none of the others do. Arab The Russians are taking care of their own maps. We're a long way from invading Japan. Likewise from getting an army , into China. Looks like Arabic? North Africa? Me Yes. I've seen one place spelled several different ways in the papers: Ageilah, El Ageila, Al Ageilah, etc. 4 Remark: . "Mrs. Fielding, you're French. What is this man Darlan like?" Comment: Works in State Department. Depart-ment. Me Is she usually interested in political figures? Arab No. Me Does she speak French? Did she pronounce Darlan correctly, or like a Southerner saying darling? dar-ling? I Arab Doesn't speak French but had the pronunciation right. Why? ! Me She's heard people discussing I Darlan or she wouldn't be interest-' interest-' ed. Important people. At the State Dept. Arab Who is Darlan? ; ; Me Admiral of the French Navy. Guy to be watched in any N. African Af-rican invasion. More important j than Petain or Laval in re N. Africa. Af-rica. 5 Remark: "You'd never guess how many odd things rate as strategic stra-tegic materials. Like pyrethrum. That's the basis of a lot of insect powders and sprays. The war cut I 03 most of our imports and there was a lot of trouble about it. We ' sent out a big report on it yes- terday." Comments: Works for Board of Economic Eco-nomic Warfare. Me Why add this? I Arab Pyrethrum grown in N. Af- rica. Why a big report on it now I unless we're invading a place where we can get some? 6 Remark: "We had quite a requisition req-uisition for Silver Stars and it almost al-most made me weep thinking what those boys who get them will have gone through." Comments: Works for Quartermaster Quartermas-ter Corps. Arab Lot of medals, lot of men. Right? Me Yes. Silver Stars for gallantry gallant-ry in action. Commanding General Gen-eral would take them. It means infantry,, artillery, tanks. Air Forces ue some Silver Stars but go in more for D.F.C. and Air MedaL T Remark: "I haven't heard from Jack in weeks. I'm afraid his next will have an A. P.O. on it" Comments: Works for OWI (Doesn't matter in this case). Me I don't get this one. Arab-Jack previously identified as 2nd Lt. in Armored Infantry Battalion of First Armored Division. Divi-sion. They were at some place in Calif, called Indio the last letter she got. Me Indio is Desert Training Center. Cen-ter. Every child knows First Armored Ar-mored primed for North Africa. 8 Remark: "This V-mail is really wonderful. Of course it will take time for it to catch on but we're getting ready to handle a big increase in-crease soon." Comments: Works for Adjutant General's Office. Arab Big increase sounds like a lot more troops going oven & Remark: "Me have a thrilling job? I don't know what's thrilling about typing all day on orders for goggles and mosquito bars." Comments: Works for Quartermaster Quartermas-ter Corps. Me Goggles for sand and dust. Mosquito bars for tropical or semitropical country. Put them together and they spell desert. I hear they got one in N. Africa. 10 Remark: "Almost every boy I knew at college went Navy. Funny, Fun-ny, most of them got jobs skippering skip-pering something called Higgins boats. They were so disgusted. They wanted PT boats. One of them was coming down this week end but his leave was canceled." Comments: Works for WPB (Doesn't matter in this case). Me Higgins boats are landing boats for storming hostile shore. "Let's go," I whispered. Arab A leave being canceled always al-ways makes me think an operation opera-tion is on. llRemark: "Those German tanks aren't so tough. After all, we haven't been asleep. Wait till they hit our new tank destroyers." Comments: Works in Ordnance, jyle I didn't know we had new tank destroyers. When was it announced? an-nounced? Arab Oh, Andy, I could have bitten bit-ten my tongue off after I said it! 12 Remark: "They pick such funny names for ships sometimes. Like the warship I heard about named the Jean Bart. Imagine naming a warship after a girl!" Comments: Works for Navy. Arab Over my head. Me Jean Bart not gin s name. Probably name of some French naval hero. The Jean Bart is a French battleship. Known to be at Casablanca, in Morocco. She's heard some talk about it at the Navy Dept., or did a report mentioning men-tioning it. I bet one landing is near Casablanca. 13 Remark: "I thought we'd have a grand week end but Eddie could only get a six-hour pass and then go right back to camp, so my trip wasn't worth while. And he was so miserable. Everybody in his outfit had more inoculations." Comments: Works for Treasury (Doesn't matter in this case.) Me What outfit, buddy? Arab The Thirty-fourth Infantry Division. Me Kiss the boys good-by. They're in a staging area getting processed before sailing. 14 Remark: "Sometimes they put iodine in the water a little more each time to get the boys used to getting along on very little water. Brrr, it must taste awful." Comments: Works for Army Ground Forces. Arab Three guesses where it's hardest to get enough water to drink. Me The desert, the desert, the desert. !5 Remark: "It's not just a matter of shipping locomotives. American Ameri-can locomotives won't run on some of these narrow-gauge tracks." Comments: Works for Transportation Transporta-tion Corps. Me Notable area for narrow- gauge tracks: North Africa. Aral) Russia? Me Russia has extra-wide gauge. 16 Remark: "He wrote me his hands were all over blisters from spending a week climbing down some kind of rope things on the side of a ship." Comments: Works for OCD (Doesn't matter in this case.) Me The field censor should have knocked that out. He's on invasion inva-sion drill, climbing down cargo nets into landing craft. Did she ever mention his outfit? Arab First Infantry Division. They're overseas already, she thinks in Scotland. She started up the stairs, and I snapped, "Wait." My watch showed five minutes after ten. We had been in the house about two and a half hours. "Take it easy," I said. "Maybe somebody's upstairs drinking drink-ing up the Scotch. -. If we startled them they might get hiccups." "I've been listening, Andy. And there hasn't been a sound." "Swell. Because I wasn't listening. listen-ing. I figured all along that there wouldn't be any raid." I explained the way I had reasoned things out while we were driving here. "But then why do you think they will come now? It could still be a trap." "Let's go," I whispered. Arab must have felt me go rigid. Her lips moved against my ear. '"What is it?" she asked. ' I didn't answer. I could feel my finger joints starting to ache from gripping the phone. I would have traded the world's greatest music for the soft lovely purr of electricity in that receiver. But there was nothing. noth-ing. Nothing at alL Just an ugly dead silence. Arab breathed, "Is ... is the wire cut?" "Yes." Her lips touched mine in the darkness. dark-ness. "It's been fun, Andy," she said, and I heard the snick of a safety catch on the Smith & Wesson going out of business. I replaced the phone carefully. And, as my fingers relaxed, I heard a faint squeaking. Arab touched my arm. "Don't look now," she whispered, "but here comes company. That't a window going up." The thin shriek of the window came from a point somewhere in the living room. It was too dark to see anything, but we inched across the room toward the sound, located the right window, and pasted ourselves against the wall, one on each side. The wall of wood against wood went on and on, like a banshee, until I wanted to reach out and help raise the sash and get it over with. The noise ended at last, and for a while there was no sound except the sullen fluttering of the shade. A drop of sweat rolled down my face, clung with maddening persistence to the end of my nose, and finally fell. I heard a faint tick as it hit the floor. Arab, four feet away from me, had vanished. I couldn't even hear her breathing. I went into a rabbit freeze, and It turned out that the rabbits have something there. It was the best thing I could have done. While I waited, paralyzed, I began to real- i ize that the eyes were looking at me without seeing. They weren't adjusted ad-justed to the blackness of the room. The eyes weren't really glaring, either. They were wide and frightened. fright-ened. It was Renee Fielding. For a moment I couldn't think beyond that fact. I didn't draw the obvious conclusion con-clusion that she wouldn't have been sent alone. I was too busy complimenting com-plimenting myself. The situation had called for a guy who could do nothing, noth-ing, and I had been better fitted for the role than all the steel-muscled hair-trigger heroes who ever lived. Renee turned her head and tried to study the room. I wasn't worried. wor-ried. If she couldn't spot me she couldn't see anything. The only illumination il-lumination was the gray ramp of light angling down from the window. As long as she stayed in it, the rest of the room would register blank. Apparently she decided that there were no lurking dangers. She climbed in slowly. She got inside, stood up. Arab and I couldn't have worked it better with a rehearsaL I plastered my righj hand over Renee's mouth and grabbed her wrist with my left. Arab locked her other wrist, whispered whis-pered a few threats in her ear. Renee didn't struggle. We walkea her quietly away from the window. Anybody watching from outside would have had to be very close to have noted anything suspicious. "Cellar?" Arab whispered. "It'll do." We edged down the cellar steps. Our feet scraped concrete, and Arab said, "If you'll take over, I'll lock the cellar door and turn on a light." "Make it a dim light," I said. "Tie a handkerchief or something over it before you turn it on. But first help me get her wrists In front of her sc I can hold them with one hand." I heard the faint sounds of Arab locking the cellar door and returning return-ing and stumbling around findini the small light bulb near the furnace. fur-nace. She turned it, and a pale orchid or-chid light filtered out through hei party handkerchief. "There," she said. She looked al me and said with a trace of irritation, irri-tation, "I hope you're not bored Andy." (TO BE CONTINUED) |
