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Show CARIBBEAN tfpi K CONSPIRACY! illllll . BRENDA CONRAD J Ki I THE STORY SO FAR: Anne Heywood, beautiful daughter of a wealthy New York newspaper publisher, socs on an ssignment to Puerto Rico where Pete Wilcox, a reporter on her father'! paper, pa-per, Is stationed as a U. S. Army InteUlsence officer. On the boat she meets a youns Puerto Rican, Miguel Valera, and an engineer named Richard Taussig, of whom she ii Immediately suspicious 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 to destroy Puerto Rico's water upply. Anne knows something Is wrong but doesn't want Taussig to know she suspects him. As the boat docks she and Miguel Valera are at the rail together. CHAPTER O She looked down again at the people peo-ple oh the dock. A girl was standing stand-ing there gazing up along the crowded ship's rail. She was so lovely that Anne's heart sank another an-other notch In spite of herself. She was slim and not very tall, with warm peach-colored skin and dark iparkling eyes and tawny chestnut hair. Behind her was an older man, with the same arresting quality the girl had, except that hers was an almost breath-taking loveliness and "So am I," Pete said. "Now I'd like to think you came down because be-cause you missed having me under foot, but I'm still relatively sane. And you don't look as if the doctor ordered a rest. What about coming clean, Miss Heywood?" Anne crossed the patio and sat down on the balustrade. "I'm Just down for fun," she said. He looked at her a moment, "Did you meet old Don Alvaro?" he asked. She looked blank. "The father of the guy you were with on the ship?" "You mean Miguel Valera?" "I mean his father." "Yes. I met him while I was sitting on my trunk waiting for you. What were you doing?" "Checking up on the passenger list." "I keep forgetting you're in Military Mili-tary Intelligence," Anne said. "Do you catch spies, or what?" He grinned. "Public relations is all I do. There aren't any spies down here, Miss Heywood. Everything's an open book. If you want a scale map of the island and all its fortifications, all vnn rtrt iR send tpn rents in before, from the War Department in Washington, cancelling Miguel Valera' s previous order to report for active service with the 65th Infantry at Fort Buchanan. That was all there was to it And now he was here. "I wonder what the hell . . ." Pete thought as he returned the sentry's sen-try's salute and hurried inside. Lieutenant - Colonel Thomas J. Fletcher looked up from his desk with a slight frown. He liked Puerto Kico and he liked Pete, but he had been Assistant Chief of Staff, G 2, for only a couple of weeks, and his predecessor Colonel Mayhew liked neither Pete nor Puerto Rico. And he had warned Colonel Fletcher. Fletch-er. "They're all alike. They think the Army is the city desk of a yellow yel-low journal. You've got to watch them closer than you do the damn natives. They go off half-cocked. Look out for what they call their private sources of information." It was not only his predecessor's warning that disturbed Colonel Fletcher at the moment It was the letter on the desk in front of him. Fortunately it had come in time. If it had come a little later there might have been hell to nay in Washing- uis was a ruggea ana aristocratic dignity that seemed' to hold him completely apart from the crowd around him. Suddenly both faces broke into an eager smile. The old man raised his hat, the girl waved her hand. Anne glanced around. Miguel Valera was waving back to them, his face lighted light-ed with pleasure. "That's my father," he said. stamps to General Headquarters." He got up. "I've got to push along. What about lunch? Twelve o'clock, Officers Club at El Morro. Any taxi driver'll get you there." Anne nodded. Pete Wilcox waited on the gallery until he heard the door trundle shut and the elevator begin its wheezing progress upward. He tossed his cigarette cig-arette into the jar of white sand by ton, and Colonel Fletcher might have found himself back in the States teaching R. O. T. C. boys squads right. He returned Pete's salute. "Taussig is in room 108 at the Granada, sir," Pete said. He remembered re-membered the "sir" just in time. "You can call it off, Captain Wilcox." Wil-cox." Fletcher spoke evenly and quietly. quiet-ly. It was his own fault, of course. He should have taken Mayhew's advice ad-vice instead of the offchance that Wilcox really had something. "You may read this." He handed Pete the letter. "Taussig "Taus-sig is not only a substantial citizenhe citi-zenhe has a very powerful political politi-cal sponsor." The letter was to Major-General Dutton, the Commanding Officer of the Puerto Rican Department. The letterhead and the signature belonged be-longed to a United States Senator whose relations with the Press had not always been free of virulent name-calling. "My dear General," it read. "It is a very great pleasure for me to take this opportunity to commend my old friend Mr. Richard Taussig to your kind attention. Mr. Taussig is a sanitary engineer of international interna-tional repute. I shall regard any courtesy you can show him as a personal favor. I believe he is especially espe-cially interested in the more domestic do-mestic arrangements of the military establishment, and I hope you will see your way clear to allowing him as much freedom for investigation investiga-tion as is consistent with the best interests of all concerned. I am looking forward to his unbiased report re-port on the use we are making of the vast funds pouring into our Caribbean bases. With warm personal per-sonal regards, I am, very sincerely yours . . ." Across the bottom the General's aide had scribbled: "Is dinnei !- TT (mil- TTnU Anne had noticed before the pride and warmth that came into his voice when he'd spoken his father's name. She could understand it now and yet for some reason it made him suddenly remote from her, as if the man on the dock had moved in between be-tween them there at the rail. " And that's my cousin Graciela. She and her father live with us. Her mother was killed in Spain in the civil war." "She's lovely, isn't she?" Anne caid. Anne caught a final glimpse of Graciela's face as they followed the crowd below. "He doesn't know she's in love with him," she thought. "Or he doesn't care." The reflection she caught of herself her-self in the mirror on the landing of the stairs had a new and sudden radiance, and the touch of his guiding guid-ing hand on the bare skin of her arm had a kind of magic she hadn't noticed no-ticed before. "I'm sorry the trip is over, really," real-ly," she said. "I'm glad you're going to be in San Juan. I hope you'U let me show you around." Anne came to a dead stop. At the bottom of the stairs, coming out of the purser's office with two of the ship's officers behind him, was Captain Cap-tain Peter Wilcox of the United States Army. He was in tan tropical . gabardine, with a tan sun helmet under his arm and an inlaid mahogany mahog-any swagger stick in his hand. For an instant he looked so different she ill si wasn't sure if it was really he; ne was older and harder and more authoritative. au-thoritative. ' , Then he grinned as he used to do. "Hello, Annie. I wondered if there was another Anne Heywood in this part of the world." "Oh Pete it's swell to see youl She 'ran down the last steps. It was sweU to see him. She would have kissed him. For an instant she quite forgot Miguel Valera. But to held out his bands, so that was toat She turned back. "-Have you two met? This is Mr. Valera . . . Captain Wilcox." The two men shook hands. Something Some-thing curious seemed to happen to the atmosphere all of a sudden. It was like a cloud crossing the sun. "If you'U get your stuff ogether Ann"" Pete said, "I'll be along and me to. that is. . had "I keep forgetting you're In the Military Intelligence," Anne said. the pillar and came back into the lobby. It was empty except for a man sitting on a wicker sofa between be-tween the center arches, reading a Spanish newspaper. Pete went over to the desk. The clerk pushed the pile of registration cards across to him. Anne's was on top, under it Mr. Richard Taussig's. Pete glanced through the rest of them quickly and handed them back to the clerk. He pushed Taussig's across the desk. "Phone messages and callers," he said. The clerk nodded. . "And Miss Heywood would like a room on the second floor as soon as it's possible." The clerk nodded again. The man on the wicker sofa folded his newspaper news-paper and strolled out into the gal- enuugu: Aitvc aAioi,6 . long is he staying?" Pete handed the letter back. "That's all, Captain. And by the way." Colonel Fletcher smiled faintly. faint-ly. "Are you sure this wasn't camouflage? cam-ouflage? When you want to meet a young lady it's best to just say so, you know. That's all." Pete sat for a moment at his desk. "If I were Lindbergh, I could resign," he thought sardonically. He unlocked a drawer and took a grimy sheet of cheap hotel writing paper out of it. "Dear Mr. Wilcox," it began. "I take my pen in hand to say if you can take this as strictly private and personal between you and I, go ahead. If you got to turn it in to them brass hats you're mixed up with, stick a match to it I don't want the Joint wrecked any more I want to wake up in the morgue via the East River as they say. You and me are on the level. A t0"eyou Miss Heywood? IV. a good trig you made a ' if. the last room in the house. A genUeman was just asking for you. fine of the passengers. She took up the pen,' wrote "Miss She too Her eyej were on the top card in the stack T. , terk was holding. On it was a curiously cramped s.gna-Tref'Mr. s.gna-Tref'Mr. Richard Taussig, New VouTre'in Room 110, Miss Hey-wood," Hey-wood," the clerk said. It s a cor Ter room on the ocean side. Her ees were still fastened on the card in his hand. The room e f n it was 108. She wrote, rywood" Huntington. Long Is- Heywu , t down "One oh eight," Pete said as he passed him. He would have liked to add "One ten," but Military Intelligence, Intelli-gence, once in motion, was like the mills of the gods, and he didn't want Anne Heywood ground exceedingly small. Heaven only knew what she'd get into before she got out He switched on the ignition. Something Some-thing else was worrying him too, an old story he'd picked up a long time ago when he was covering Spanish speakeasies. Why Don Alvaro's name stuck in his memory he didn't know, except that names and disjointed dis-jointed facts had a way of sticking there and were part of his luck as a newspaperman. He shrugged his shoulders. The whole thing was fantastic, fan-tastic, probably all a speakeasy pipe dream. The idea that Don Alvaro, or -lt (nrfav lrnpvu thp Cnn- so-and-so namea laussig is neaueu your way. Something's screwy, I don't know what. Two guys spilled it at the bar Tuesday night, and it's straight dope. How's the black-eyed beauties down your way? Signed, F. A. Schneider." The signature was elaborate and flowing, practiced for state occasions, occa-sions, like the signing of liquor receipts. re-ceipts. Under it was written "Gus." Pete Wilcox sat looking down at his hot tip, from the keeper of one of the most disreputable waterfront dives in Hoboken. It wasn't the first one he'd got. Not one of them had been a phony. The F. B. I. had profited a number of times and no questions asked. He shrugged. "The Army,", he thought, "is different But I thought Fletcher was different too. I guess .. VnB hat. ,n,,n(T " land, JNew He took her arm. ""No'thing," she said quickly. Then , hed "I don't know what's b0t 'intfme all of., sudden. I'm kVgra ner6SaSrm a Uttle tight-erXuPa--- laUfinrf Tau sig could esude any Richard .Tauss,g 108 that could Wnd of Pitch in om ng o seep through and do hers in room 110 eem about, t0SgTad I- "'he "id softly. any man - questadores' secret of San Juan s water supply, and could choke off El Morro and her sister fortress San Cristobal, was absolutely cockeyed. It he took a story of the sort to G 2 they'd have him in the nearest insane asylum in nothing flat. The water supply was certainly one of the chief strategic problems of the Island, but it was a problem in engineering, en-gineering, and he wasn't going to believe that the old Conquistadores had left a secref the Army engineers engi-neers couldn't figure out He stopped abruptly as something el-e flashed into his mind. It was an order he'd seen a couple of weeks tney giuw uiaa, tt. He put the letter back in the drawer. draw-er. After all, it was just Gus' word against a guy who evidently had friends in high places. But if Gus had gone to the length of writing a letter . . "I guess I've stuck my neck out enough," he thought sardonically. What was the Army formula? Keep your mouth shut your bowels open and never volunteer. There was something in it. "I'd better call off the pack before they put me in the guardhouse," he thought He picked up the phone and rang the Granada Hotel. (TO BE CONTINUED) |
