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Show Sf BOMBS BTO OMCL, TK&r 5VGRANVILLE CHURCH HMM W.r went on, carefully. "But you must not be alarmed. I simply do not want anything to happen to you, Mr. Curtis, that is all. Engineers with your background in this work we do not find you say? growing on bushes." Curt waited. "The man's name is Emilio Vargas. Var-gas. Tomorrow he will report to you. It is my wish that he go everywhere every-where with you when you are out on the job. Everywhere. Please, Mr. Curtis, observe this closely. Vou will find him a competent stenographer stenogra-pher and quite helpful in relieving you of minor details." Curt pondered. A bodyguard for himself! That seemed to hint at danger to the Chief Engineer. Danger Dan-ger with its roots in business rivalry? rival-ry? Danger, as he'd thought briefly last night, from a personal enemy of Montaya, striking through an important im-portant subordinate? That would be a subtle sort of vengeance. In the morning Emilio Vargas reported re-ported at Curt's office. He was a mug talk! But how to do it without with-out Lee wising up? Thought of Lee was his Nemesis She came breezing into the room, shooed him off the bed, made him dress. "We'll give Bill Henderson one hour, no more," said she firmly, laying lay-ing out a print dress. "I've planned dinner so. Unless he's changed . . ." "Wrong this time, honey," Curt said cheerfully. He tucked a clean sport shirt inside his fresh white ducks. "Tell you what, I'll bet you the evening at the clubhouse that Bill gets here in one piece and sober. I'll even dance with you without an argument." Lee snapped him up on that. "It's a bet and I'll hold you to it, Mastermind, Master-mind, see if I don't! I can get Ines to stay this evening, in case the kids wake up." She whipped up the print dress, put it back, and pushed hangers back and forth. "Let's see, something to dance in . . ." She selected a pastel organdie and Curt found himself pressed into service, to fasten the rhinestone shoulder buckles. The hour passed and Bill Henderson Hender-son hadn't arrived. Curt became gradually quieter during that time, fiddling unconsciously with his pipe. Lee knew the signs, knew he was puzzled and disturbed. She ragged him some about giving her the evening eve-ning so glibly, and made a show of getting out his coat and panama "Just to be ready." But they sat down to dinner alone. The meal was not yet over when the phone rang. Lee answered. "For you, dear," she said, one hand over the transmitter. Her nose wrinkled as at a bad odor. " 'The Dark Lily.' And you're not to go back to the office tonight, you hear me? You lost fair and square, and it's my evening. We're going to the club!" Curt frowned as he took the receiver re-ceiver from her. Montaya's words were crisp and direct. "I have just been told from Tempujo Tem-pujo that Mr. Henderson has had an accident. He is unconscious and sinking rapidly. As you are an old friend " "I'll be right along. You're going, of course? Can we use a plane?" "Sorry, we have no lights at the Tempujo field for night landing. You can get to the station in five minutes, min-utes, no? Bueno. Dr. Berry has been notified " "I'll be there!" Curt sprinted to the bedroom and returned buckling on his gun belt. THE STORY SO FAR: Jeff Curtis and his wife, Lee, are already on their way to Tierra Libre when Jeff receives a note from Zora Mitchell warning them not to come. Jeff is to be chief engineer for a newly organized fruit company. They-arrive They-arrive In Tierra Libre to find both Zora and her husband dead, and Jeff suspects sus-pects they were murdered. Conversations Conversa-tions with his employer, Senor Montaya, and with his friends Jerry Mclnnis. Bill Henderson and Slats Monahan confirm his suspicions that there is something strange going on and that Mitchell and Zora were killed because they knew too much. Now on a tour of inspection with Montaya he Is troubled by the apparently apparent-ly unfriendly attitude of Henderson and Monahan. A talk with Monahan reveals that he, too, suspects something is wrong. NOW CONTINUE WITH THE STORY CHAPTER VII The trip down river to Tempujo was a quick one, running with the current. In the car going back to San Alejo they stopped but once at the culvert and cribbing on which Henderson's crew was still at work. Curt had to talk with Henderson, get behind that reserve he'd met with yesterday, learn some facts he could get his teeth into. Getting warnings was no good unless you knew what they were aimed against. But he needed a reason for stopping, stop-ping, for the senor was reluctant. Curt, told Montaya he wasn't satisfied satis-fied about the size of culvert being installed. "It wouldn't take too much strain to wash out that fill," he pointed out. "Better to be safe than sorry." "Mr. Mitchell passed on the size," the senor remarked. "And I have respect for his judgment," judg-ment," Curt answered. "Nevertheless, "Neverthe-less, on work for which I'm responsible, re-sponsible, I take no one's word until un-til I'm satisfied myself." Curt clambered down the steep embankment to examine the concrete con-crete pipe. He squatted on his heels, Henderson beside him, to make jottings jot-tings in his little notebook. He measured meas-ured the flume and hammered on it. An act for "The Dark Lily," for they were not many feet from Montaya. By lowering their heads they could speak in tones that wouldn't carry to the man above. Curt wasted no time. "You put a note in' my bag yesterday?" "Yes, Curt Look, Curt, I've got to ha ve a long talk with you. But not here and now, not In front of Montaya." "We'll manage it soon. Bill, Slats Monahan tells me Mitch was. war- iiii He grabbed up tus coat and hat, gave Lee a flying kiss and explained on the way to the door. "Henderson. Accident. Tempujo. Be back when I get here." Besides the mestizo driver in the car that clanked down the mountainside, mountain-side, there was Montaya, spotless as usual from fresh white shoes to Panama; Pan-ama; Dr. Berry, the American head of the hospital; a young burnt-blond fellow named Lister, carrying camera, cam-era, flash, tripod and finally. Curt. Montaya was saying: "It would appear he was drunk . . . you know his failing, Mr. Curtis. So long as he did his job I had no objection, but this . . ." There had been a brief rain tonight, to-night, clearing the atmosphere. Though the airfield was a full kilometer kilo-meter away, grinding around a curve Curt saw plainly the lighted swimming pool and could make out tiny figures diving. Two more human hu-man ants were at tennis on the bright court. Very little was said during the run to Tempujo, which took scarcely scarce-ly thirty minutes. On the lower badly bad-ly ballasted stretches the car rocked dangerously. Young Lister chewed gum incessantly, vigorously; Montaya Mon-taya smoked his oversize Turkish cigarettes, lighting one from another anoth-er he was on his third as they hit the many switches of the storage yards. Dr. Berry dozed. Henderson was stretched out on an examination table in the dispensary, dispen-sary, in charge of Dr. Fisher, a newly graduated interne from the States. Dr. Fisher's chief duties at Tempujo bad been dishing out quinine qui-nine or bandaging minor hurts of the laboring force, and the present case seemed to be beyond him. But so was it beyond his superior. Dr. Berry straightened up after an examination of only a few seconds, to shake his head. "Hopeless," he said bluntly. "Both legs broken, and several ribs at least five or six; a blow on the back of the head that has probably fractured the skull; the chest caved in, one lung punctured. It's a wonder won-der he wasn't killed instantly or that he's lived this long." Bill Henderson was still alive, though unconscious, and frothing pink at the mouth in his wracking efforts to breathe. He'd lost a great deal of blood. Young Fisher kept swabbing the lips clean with gauze. "He can't last more than a few minutes at most." .Still about Henderson was the smell of raw whiskey. Curt's thoughts were bitter. He'd seen so many men good men, clean of heart lose out here in the tropics because of drink. Now, Bill Henderson. Hen-derson. And only a few days ago Bill had said he'd been on the wagon wag-on for some time. To be sure, "some time" with him might not mean what it would to another, but would he have gone to drinking tonight, to-night, when expected for dinner at San Alejo? That wasn't like the old Bill. (TO BE COXT1MED) ried for days before his' murder. That right?" "Well-1, yes, Curt, he was." "What about?" "I uh, don't know. He didn't let me In on it." Henderson's voice had gone flat, lifeless. Curt considered, tried again. "Why was he In a dither about getting to the Zone?" Henderson looked startled. ' "He wasn't," the lanky man said slowly. . "He only ... I know a fellow fel-low there, name of Collins, comes from my home town, and Mitch . . . oh, hell, Curt," Henderson let go disgustedly, "this's why I want to talk to you, to tell you just enough to keep you from messing around about Mitch's murder. I know you from way back when something dirty pops up. "Anyway, what's done is done and it's no skin off your nose. You keep out of it and I'll give you some dam' good reasons why, soon's we can have a talk. You leave -it to me. I know what to do and how to do it, and there's nobody waiting for me with a candle in the window." win-dow." "It's no skin oft my nose," Curt growled, "unless whatever did for Mitch is a danger to me by taking oyer his job." "It won't be if you watch yourself" your-self" Montaya's feet, above, crunched on crushed rock as he tested a foothold foot-hold for the easiest descent. Curt rocked back on his heels, made another note in his little book, then rose and climbed the embankment embank-ment Montaya was patently annoyed an-noyed but got into the car without a word. Curt, his foot on the running board, called down to Henderson. "By the way. Bill, try to get up to San Alejo this week-end. Come to dinner Saturday night and meet the kids." Montaya regained his suavity In a few minutes and began to talk of the work in general and plans for the morrow. "You have yet to go over the rest of the tract before getting down to work. I should like you to cover it tomorrow and the next day. Unfortunately, Unfor-tunately, I shall not be free." "It's a lot of territory," Curt said thoughtfully. "Would you use a plane? Is there a place to land on the flats?" "No." was the snap answer to this. "It will be fatiguing but you can do it by mule. The main drainage drain-age canal will take you one full day, and there you can use an outboard out-board motorboat You can catch the rest on the second day. "That will bring you to Friday, no? Friday and Saturday you can study what you have seen, then we can get together say Sunday? There is so much to be done, no time to lose." "Sunday will do very well." T am giving you a ah, a sort of ecretary - bodyguard," Montaya Cart found Emilio a good guide. slick looking hombre, with sharp features, olive-tinted skin, snapping eyes. He had pointed teeth, and perfumed pomade glued his black hair flat to his skull. A revolver, a fancy chased affair in a holster that had seen service, hung at his side. From his mouth drooped one of the native, sickly-sweet, brown-jacketed cigarettes. Curt found Emilio a good guide and untiring in the saddle. Furthermore, Fur-thermore, the young man was as good at taking dictation in English Eng-lish as Montaya had said. So be was an asset. He was also company com-pany of a sort. In the two days allotted to it, Curt completed his inspection of the engineering en-gineering work throughout the tract. On the drainage job he met two more old-timers he'd known when with Associated. They were cut off from contact and hadn't heard of Zora Mitchell's death until Curt spoke of it However, Emilio was close at hand and there was no discussion dis-cussion to be had with either Steve Harvey or Herb Lawson aside from shop talk. Friday morning he settled down in his office to a study of maps and progress reports, hydrographic charts, and various data of his own, hoarded from his tour of work north of the Negro a few years ago. Much of it applied here. By noon on Saturday he was ready to start dictating memoranda to Emilio. This took three hours, during dur-ing every minute of which the native na-tive smoked his brown cigarettes. Loosely packed, they burned fast, ash flew about at the slightest breath of air. He ran through two packages pack-ages of them in this time, and Curt marveled that the man was able to work with his right eye constantly screwed against the smoke which curled up. First impressions, suggestions, questions of the work at last on paper pa-per and out of the way, Curt phoned Montaya for an appointment early on Sunday, then went home. It was his first breathing space since arriving six days ago. He played with the children for two hours. Curt took quickly to Zora Mitchell's small daughter. The shyness of her first few days had worn off in '.he lively company of Buddy and Chuck, and her loneliness loneli-ness for her mother was gradually fading. Lee had seen to that. When it came time for the children's chil-dren's supper, Lee broke up the play in brisk fashion. She sent Curt to the shower, took charge of the children, and by the time Curt had had his bath and a cocktail, and was stretched out on the bed for a few minutes of relaxation before dressing, the youngsters were out of the way for the night Dinner time approached. This was the night Bill Henderson would be in for dinner. And that talk! Curt was thinking, as he blew smoke rings ceilingward. He'd make the |