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Show iJfc CARIBBEAN 9HI " CONSPIRACY! llllllll W BRENDA CONRAD I f The sound of the machinery inside in-side the mill drowned out the noise of the jolting cane cars. Pete noticed no-ticed that the pleasant overtone of molasses a little distance from the mill was not so pleasant close to it He passed the crane lifting bundles of cane into the hopper. Two peons standing there taking a sample stalk from each car, ticketing it to be tested test-ed for sugar content, glanced at him curiously and went on with their work. Pete ran inside. The shed was hot and dirty, and full of violent unseen motion and deafening noise. Men tending the grinding machines turned their heads to look at him, looked silently at each other and went back to their work. He went on, faster, across the cement floor toward the center of the long building. build-ing. Anne was nowhere in sight A man was coming in from the laboratory with a test tube of dark liquid in his hand. He glanced around at Pete, startled at seeing a uniformed Army officer on the floor, and waited with a questioning worried wor-ried expression on his face. Pete stopped. "Senor Diego Gon-garo Gon-garo y los Americanos. Donde?" he demanded. For a moment the man looked blank. Then his face broke into a smile. He nodded, looked up and raised his free hand.- "Up there," he said in English. Pete looked up. Anne's slim white figure was outlined above the immense im-mense oozing tanks fifty feet above THE STORY SO FAR: Anne Heywood, beautiful daughter of a wealthy New York newspaper publisher, goes to Puerto Rico on an assignment for her father's paper. Also on the island are Pete Wilcox, Wil-cox, a reporter on her father's paper, now a U. S. Army Intelligence officer; Miguel Valera, a Puerto Rican educated In the United States who Is a secret U. S. agent; Richard Taussig, an engineer engi-neer whose Identity as a German agent Is suspected but not yet proved; and Russell Porter, a young American engineer, engi-neer, and his wife, Sue. When Mr. Taussig Taus-sig learns that Anne suspects him he ar-V ar-V ranges, with the help of Miguel's uncle, Diego Gongaro, to dispose of her. They are driving to the Valera plantation. CHAPTER XIII They turned into a long shady lane of mango trees running to the mill yards and got out of the car. Except for Graciela, who stayed where she was with a light shrug of distaste lor the dirt and heat and dust. They crossed the littered yard into the run-down wooden building. It was long and narrow, with a high-pitched high-pitched roof. The deafening roar of machinery made it impossible for f Anne to hear what they were say ing to her. She followed the foreman fore-man and Diego Gongaro across the sticky dirty floor to the middle of the room, under the great vats built almost to the rooftree. Mr. Taussig came behind them. Gongaro took her arm. He pointed to the steep narrow steps leading up to a catwalk at the top of the progressive succession suc-cession of refining units. Anne The expression of relief on It was unmistakable. "I'm glad you've come," he shouted. Anne got into Pete's car and sat perfectly still, her eyes closed for a moment before she reached down and shook the dust out of first one shoe and then the other. They had walked down from the mill yard, leaving the others back there talking talk-ing to the foreman. "You mean you told them a story about having to get me back right away to see the General?" she asked when Pete got in beside her. "It was all I could think of, just off-hand. I thought some explanation explana-tion was needed ... for leaving this down here on the wrong side of the tracks, and barging in and dragging drag-ging you off. I don't think it was convincing, frankly." He was thinking of the single glance that passed between Taussig and Diego Gongaro as they came out of the refinery, and he was still trying try-ing to fit the whole thing together. It didn't make sense, actually. It couldn't possibly be what he'd thought ss he dashed up those steps. He looked at Anne sitting in a little lit-tle heap beside him. She was absolutely abso-lutely all in. She took off her hat and tried to smile. "I don't know why I was so scared," she said apologetically. "I suppose it was the roar and the heat and being up so high on that catwalk . . . not being a cat my- looked up at it dizzily. "Do you mean we have to go up there?" she shouted, trying to make him hear her above the din and roar of crushing wheels and rollers. He nodded. i" The dark flower opened inside her again. It was like the dream. "I can't go," she thought desperately. des-perately. "I can't." She turned to look at Mr. Taussig. He was smiling at her. He knew she was afraid. She could see it in the cold blue eyes, unsmiling through the concentric circles of his thick lenses. She started toward the stairs. Pete could not have said he smelled a rat when all he could , smell was the pleasant odor of fresh bread across the inner court from the Army bakery under the General's Gen-eral's office. It was a combination of a lot of things too intangible to put his finger on. Then he'd thought the heck with it and gone back to his work. He got up, went to the water cooler and came back again half a dozen times, unable to settle down to anything. He got up again, got the file on Miguel Valera and the file on Diego Gongaro and went through them both. He took the Brooklyn saloonkeeper's saloon-keeper's letter out of his desk and y. read it for the fiftieth time. "You let somebody like that man over there come down here and show him trip works." he remembered self." She took a deep breath and got her lipstick out of her bag. "I really don't know what I'd have done if you hadn't come. I think I'd have fallen. I kept knowing I was going to. It was horrible, really." Pete reached down and squeezed her hand tightly for a moment, not saying anything. "In fact, Pete, I don't know what I'd ever do without you anyway," she said. She smiled wanly. "Every "Ev-ery time I get myself In a mess " Her voice trailed off. "Why don't you marry me, Annie," An-nie," he said when she didn't go on. "Or have I said that too many times? Just for a bodyguard. I'd live out in the dog house, and you could just send me a bone once in a while." Anne shook her head. "I can't, Pete. I don't know why, exactly. Sometimes I wish I could, but . . . Oh, I don't know what's the matter with me. I'm such a mess. When I'm with you I don't want to be with anybody else. When I'm in a jam it's always you . . ." She stopped again. "Why don't you tell me all about it, old girl? What's up?" He wanted to ask her about Taussig, Taus-sig, but not just then. "We were good friends before I fell in love with you," he went on. "I'd like to stay that way. Why don't you just get it all off your Anne saying. If she could say that after her pointed question about Taussig the day she came, it must mean she was on to something. If she was, and Gus was right, Taussig Taus-sig probably knew it. Finally it was too much. He reached for the phone. "Get me Senor Alvaro Valera," he said. He hesitated, and added, "Or Senor Miguel Valera if his father i isn't there." He waited impatiently. "I'm sorry. Captain Wilcox," the operator said at last. "Both Don Alvaro and Senor Miguel Valera have gone to Ponce for the day. Senor Diego Gongaro has taken some Americans out to the plantation. He has just left." Pete put the phone down. It was all perfectly open and above board, on the face of it. Only one thing bothered him. It was cockeyed too, but it stuck in his mind. Why hadn't Miguel taken her out to the Central himself? He got up abruptly and went into Colonel Fletcher's office. He looked at his speedometer now. Four kilometers and he'd be there. He hadn't any clearer idea now what was compelling him to risk his car and his neck to get out there than he had before he started. All he knew was that some sixth sense he had that had seldom let him down as a reporter was ki operation again, and that get out there he must. He groaned suddenly. A small engine whistled and steamed across the road in front of him. Behind it, jangling and clanking, came a long train of cars loaded with cane. He j jammed on the brake and came to a stop. The train came to a stop too. Heaven only knew how long it would stand there before it moved a foot or two and stopped again while they unloaded up ahead. What was time in an industry that still used oxen? He let his brake out and backed into the path at the edge of the road, got out and hurried along the side of the track. It was the shortest short-est way to the mill anyway. If the train crew thought he was crazy it would probably merely confirm an Idea they already had about North American mainlanders. He quickened quick-ened his pace. He could see a shiny black limousine in the millyard, a girl sitting in it, her head bent for ward a little. It wasn't Anne. The golden thing that passed for a head on her never drooped forward that way. It was the girl who'd been at th do -k with Don Alvaro. chest. Is it Valera? You know I'd rather you'd be perfectly honest about it Even if It hurts a little." "He's not in love with me. If that's what you mean," Anne said slowly. He glanced at her sideways. She apparently believed it. "I don't know what happened to me. It's just so different" "Maybe that's it Annie," Pete said. "I don't mean that. Or maybe I do and don't know it. Anyway, I'll get over it, I guess, when I get back home." "You'll let me know, won't you? Just so you ddn't do anything crazy, like marrying the guy. That'! all I'm really afraid of." "Why?" "The old ego in the first place." He grinned sardonically. "It wouldn't work in the second." "Why not?" ' He slowed down and looked at her. "No stuff, Anne," he said. "You wouldn't marry " "I think I would ... if he asked me. Which he hasn't and isn't likely like-ly to. I don't see why not" "I do," Pete said curtly. "A hell of a lot of reasons why not. It works all right the other way around. The gals get a break when they get an American husband. But not vice versa. The whole setup is different. Their customs " "I know," Anne said calmly. "Language, customs, tradition, tastes. I've heard that before. From both Miguel and his father. And I think it's a lot of rot, personally." "Then you're stupider than you look, beautiful," Pete said. "I suppose sup-pose you're going to tell me Love Conquers All, next. You've been to too many movies, sweetie." "Well, maybe it does. Maybe you're just Wo cynical and sophisticated sophisti-cated " "Stop being a starry-eyed fool," Pete said shortly. "I know love conquers con-quers a hell of a lot, or you'd be out of this car with your neck wrung. I'm serious about this, Anne. You're not going to ruin your ! whole life just because you've got an overdose of sympathetic glamour." "I've told you the point has never come up, angel," Anne retorted ' warmly. "Miguel hasn't even re- ' motely suggested that the idea's ' ever occurred to him. But if we're having shall we say an academic? discussion, I don't see why it shouldn't work out very well." (TO BE CONTINLFO She was clinging to the hand rail him. It looked a hundred just then, and the walk she was on the breadth of a tightrope. A single iron hand rail was all that protected her from the long drop to the cement floor on his side, and God only knew what on the other. Diego Gongaro was in front of her, Mr. Richard Taussig a yard behind her. She was clinging to the hand rail, leaning forward a little, lit-tle, looking down into some roaring, grinding hell on the other side. Mr. Taussig glanced behind him along the catwalk, and moved a little closer clos-er to her. There was something in his dual movement that split into Pete's consciousness like an electric elec-tric shock. He made a leap forward. for-ward. The stairway was steep as a ladder and sticky with the silt and syrup flung up from the vats, and he cleared it faster than he had ever done anything in his life. Then he could feel the narrow iron walk vibrate vi-brate under his feet. Mr. Taussig turned sharply. Something Some-thing happened to his face. For a second there was something unspeakably un-speakably terrible in it. It was gone instantly. The white smiling mask that took its place was inscrutably enigmatic. He stepped back a little. lit-tle. Anne hadn't turned. She was staring down into the grinders, watching the cane come up and go down, caught between the great rollers. roll-ers. There was a look on her face that Pete had never seen there before, be-fore, and that he wouldn't have known if he hadn't known every mood and movement of it far better than he knew his own. She was scared, petrified with fear. Her hand clinging to the guard rail was white, the knuckles small shiny beads of ivory. Pete Wilcox wriggled past Mr. Taussig on the two-foot walk and gripped her arm. He felt her body give and sway a little and saw her eyes close. "You poor little devil," he thought with a sharp acrid tightening at the back of his tongue. Diego Gongaro, absorbed in something some-thing the foreman was trying to shout at him, turned around. He gave an abrupt start "Hope you don't mind if I come along," Pete shouted. "Delighted!" Diego Gongaro shouted shout-ed back. There was something more than delight in his face. Pete saw him take out his handkerchief and I mop the perspiration off his face. |
