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Show 17 ' " lb CARIBBEAN IK CONSPIRACYllp . K BRENDA CONRAn- I beauutu, dauehter ot a wealthy Ne; J" nCWS,,ilp" Pusher, goes on an . slBmet t. Puerto Rico where Pete Wilcox, a reporter o her father's pa P. is stationed as a U. s Armv in te..,Benc.mce, On the hoai shee u .7. ,UCrt R'"n' M, Valera, f hl! gLne" Rlch"11 Tssle, in spite ol the fact that he looks like a typical tourist. She doe, not know tea, f h 'aCt 1 Gn" agent .rdered to destroy Puerto Rico's water supply. Pet. meet, the boat, but doe. not teU Ann. that he, too, ha, reason to be suspicious of Taussig, althoush hi, cm-mandlnr cm-mandlnr ofllcer .0 far refuse, to act CHAPTER in Anne closed the door of Room 110 behind her and stood for a moment, listening under the open transom. The door of Room 108, a few steps down from hers, had been slightly ajar, and without knowing why or how she had felt that somebody was standing behind it, waiting. She heard it close quietly, and listened for steps along the waxed floor, but there were none. After a moment she went across the room to the window and looked down into the sunlit patio where she and Pete had been. The windows of 108 opened onto the patio too. She turned and went over to her baggage stacked in the corner on the other side of the window. Again without knowing exactly why, she opened the flat case lying on top of her steamer trunk, and looked inside. in-side. It was just as she had packed it, and yet somehow it wasn't. The flat rubber band around the batch of letters of introduction drooped. She looked like ' an unhappy un-happy six-year-old. "Yes, he likes it all right," she admitted half heartedly. "It's really real-ly me that wants him to get away. That's why I'm having Mr. Taussig Taus-sig to dinner tomorrow night So he can talk to Russell. You'll come, won't you? And be awfully nice to him? Please, Anne will you?" She looked out the window. "Russell's "Rus-sell's leaving, so I'll have to go now. Remember - eight o'clock. Russell will come for you. Oh, look there's Diego Gongaro." A tall heavy-set man of about fifty, fif-ty, with iron-gray hair, the pock-marks pock-marks on his face visible from where they stood, was sitting at one of the small tables at the corner of the terrace, absorbed in his newspaper news-paper and cup of coffee. He had a short clipped mustache and shaggy eyebrows, and an air . . . definitely an air, Anne thought. "Who is he?" she asked. "He's your friend Miguel Valera's uncle. But he's not like the Valeras. He mixes with the Americans. ' Of course he's Spanish, he's not Puerto Rican. And my dear " She lowered her voice to a whisper. whis-per. " He has a mistress. You know it's quite customary down here. It's perfectly above board, except their wives pretend they don't know it. Well, I've got to go. It's perfectly swell having you down. I'll see you tomorrow." Anne nodded. She turned back to the window. As she looked down, she saw Diego Gongaro get up and make his way casually through the arcade into the hotel. Almost immediately Richard .tell me you're like Sue Porter?" He looked at her soberly. "Look, Annie. You haven't fallen in love with that guy, have you?" Her gaze wandered out across the rolling green lawn to the ocean. She had asked herself that all the way from the Granada. The note she'd found in her mail box "You 4 have a caller, so I won't disturb you, but I'll be around at six and if you aren't engaged may I take you to dinner?" had set her heart dancing and her eyes sparkling as she stuffed it into her bag and ran out to the taxi. Maybe that was wbat it was. She hadn't been in love often enough to be very sure about it But it was something something new and, different. Miguel Valera waited for Anne to sit down. It hadn't occurred to her that they wouldn't have dinner alone, or that she could be suddenly dashed as she was when she stepped out of the elevator and saw his uncle un-cle Diego Gongaro and his cousin Graciela there in the lobby with him. "I understand you are a newspaper news-paper writer, Miss Heywood," Don Diego said. His smile was quick and warm. Anne was instantly aware of two things. The first was that he thought it amusing that such an attractive young woman should be anything of the sort. The second was that it was odd he should have known it. She had carefully concealed it from Miguel. Pete Wilcox was the only other person on the Island who knew it. Unless . . . She thought about the letters in her suitcases. There was one to the corresDondent of top of her dressing gown was twisted twist-ed as if it had been slipped back hurriedly. She had put it carefully flat so that it wouldn't mar the edges of one of the envelopes that was broader than the rest. She looked back at the door, then reached to the table and took her compact out of her handbag. She opened it and struck the powdered feather puff sharply on the polished pol-ished brass face of her suitcase lock. "Anne the girl detective," she thought as she blew the powder off the way a police inspector had showed her once in New York. On the brass oblong were three clearly defined thumb prints. The most distinct dis-tinct was probably her own, the others oth-ers were larger. She began to unpack her things, humming softly to herself. As she was almost through she heard the sharp quick click of high heels out in the hall, and a light double knock on her door. She crossed the room and opened it. "Anne! My dear! How simply wonderful!" The girl standing there, in a blue-checked blue-checked gingham dress, a blue bow in her fuzzy taffy-colored hair, her baby blue eyes sparkling with joy, held out her hands. "You don't remember me! Why, Anne! It's Sue Porter Sue Latti-mer!" Latti-mer!" The sixth form of Miss Oakley's fashionable school for young ladies flashed back into Anne's mind. "Suel Of all people! What are you doing here of all places!" Anne cried. "Of course I remember you. You haven't changed a day. Only Where's your uniform? You still look sixteen." Sue laughed. "Well, I'm not I'm twenty-three, and Mrs. Russell Porter, and the ' mother of two hulking infants, aged inusaig gut uy iuu. jvcu mux e A M 'Hi" X She lowered her voice to a whisper. whis-per. "He has a mistress." casually he strolled over to the table ta-ble Diego Gongaro had left and picked up the folded newspaper. He came back to his chair and sat down again. Anne watched him unfold the paper, moving back instinctively in-stinctively a little behind the long chintz curtains. She could see very clearly the piece of letter paper inside in-side it. Mr. Taussig glanced around him, glanced up at her window, looked down at the paper in front of him a moment, and slipped it unobtrusively unobtrusive-ly into his pocket He put the newspaper down on the table, got up and strolled into the hotel. The Officers Club at El Morro was inside the gate, overlooking the golf course, the graveyard and the Atlantic At-lantic Ocean. It was part of the old the press syndicate her father's papers pa-pers used in Puerto Rico. And that meant that Diego Gongaro must have talked to Richard Taussig during dur-ing the afternoon and that they'd talked about her. It was all very curious. "I've worked on my father's paper, pa-per, if that's what you mean," she said. "I wasn't much good." "I am pleased to hear that, Se-norita. Se-norita. We believe a woman has a higher place in society. She should let her husband take care of her." "But if she hasn't a husband?" Anne said. "That surely wouldn't be difficult for you, Miss Heywood." Graciela put her untasted cocktail cock-tail on the table. Her cheeks were flushed. At no time would Anne ever have believed that the appearance of Mr. Richard Taussig could effect anything any-thing but distaste. Just then she was distinctly relieved. She actually actu-ally found herself smiling and saying say-ing "Good evening" with the utmost ut-most cordiality to the man she objected ob-jected to more than any other man she knew. "Good evening, Miss Heywood," Mr. Taussig said. He turned to Miguel. "You must be delighted to be back home again. It's so per-1 feet here." Anne found herself blinking a little. lit-tle. Mr. Taussig, dressed in immaculate im-maculate white linen, was as courteous courte-ous as Don Diego himself. , "This is my uncle, Mr. Gongaro Mr. Taussig," Miguel said. They shook hands. "This is a great pleasure, Mr. Gongaro," Mr. Taussig said. There was nothing to indicate that they had ever seen or heard of each other before. It was the same when they all went into dinner together. Only once did she have the quick sense of fear that she'd had the afternoon in the ship's library. That was when Mr. Taussig started to put his green guide book on the floor beside his chair. She held out her hand, not because she wanted to see it but because it was something they could talk about that perhaps Graciela could talk about too. She hadn't said a word since he came. Anne tried to analyze what had happened just then. What he said was, "Now, now, Miss Heywood, this is my book." It was bland and playful, but there had been something else in it. four and two and a ball. That all flashed back too. Spoiled, wilful, curly-headed Sue who got letters from boys when the rest of Miss Oakley's young ladies were gangly and lank-haired and hopeless hope-less everywhere except on the hockey hock-ey field. . "But what are you doing down here'" Anne demanded. Sue sat on the bed and crossed her feet under her. ' "Oh darling, Russell's firm sent him down," she said with a groan "It was more money, and I thought ft would be a wonderful chance for him to get ahead. I thought it wo" d be romantic. You know-the Tropics? I hadn't heard abou cock-roaches cock-roaches and termites. simply hate it We're trying to get transferred. ' 'she brightened expectantly. -Did you meet a Mr. Tauss.g on the boat?" Anne nodded. "Why?" because I want you to help us With himt toTuss H.V5 Tworl ' rie'adinfsanitary eng, and that's what Russell is." .wngber bare brown legs J L Ted nd went over to the w.'fsRusseU down there "StbSA her blue eyes ap-line ap-line as a child's. "You see. pealing as everylhing i can, Anne, I have i y leC&ln didn't finish M. I- T. He shoulder Taussig, in a fountain Mr. brown.and. white oxIor,;' nlative arch, looking W ta Co SvX than he had much more iv d ship sisSrto'engman be- .idebim. Uke it here?" Doesn t Kusbeu ,he asked. d rpouth The corners of Sue Spanish barracks. When the waiter had gone Anne said, "Look, Pete do you know anything about a man named Richard Rich-ard Taussig? He was on the ship." "Sure," Pete said cheerfully. He kept from looking at her. "I know all about him. He's an internationally interna-tionally known sanitary engineer. He's dining with the General on Friday, and the Governor Saturday. Satur-day. He has the blessing of Washington. Wash-ington. Why?" "I just wondered. Do you suppose sup-pose he can do anything about the water supply at the Granada?" "I wish he'd start here, if he can. But you don't have to worry about Mr. Taussig. He can't help his face. He's Okay." He poured the rest of his beer into his glass. "Any other information? Public Relations is sort of my job." "Then do you happen to know Russell Porter?" Anne asked. "My dear, I know everything." Pete said blandly. "Russell Porter is the local representative of Consolidated. Con-solidated. He's in charge of a big job they've got." He looked at his watch. The officers of-ficers had thinned out, leaving the women sitting around. 'Til see you tonight. What about dinner?" Anne shook her head. "I'm dining din-ing with somebody else." "Not Miguel Valera?" She tmiled. "Why not? Don't Mr. Taussig put the book down on the other side of his chair. "01 course when the bases here are finished, fin-ished, I imagine your unemployment problem will be bad," he said. "I understand the five-hundred-acre law will work an additional hardship hard-ship on your economy. Does it affect af-fect your father, Mr. Valera?" "My father is not a corporation, fortunately," Miguel Valera said. It was the longest meal Anne ever sat through. If her own voice had been a victrola record and her srnile on a motion-picture screen across the room they couldn't have been more detached from her. It seemed hours before the coconut sherbet served in polished half coconut shells came and went and they had coffee. cof-fee. At least, she thought as they finally got up to go, she was sure of a number of things she hadn't been sure of before. One was that Miguel had asked her to dinner just because he was Latin and polite to visiting firemen. Another was that Graciela wa not bright enough to realize thai, or to realize that her open resentment of Anne was stupid. stu-pid. Or maybe It wasn't. Maybe Latins liked their women to be Jealous. Jeal-ous. But chiefly she knew that she was either stark raving mad or that Richard Taussig was something profoundly pro-foundly different from what thej all thought he was. (TO BE CONTINUED) |