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Show Isf mm mm majm X&W GRANVILLE CHURCH MMi' W.N men were bringing lengths of lumber lum-ber to load onto the car. Curt could see plainly the tall piles of lumber, cross-stacked for curing, that filled the open space of the building to the very eaves. Another door was partly open, showing further piles of material pipe in this instance. However, there was no further thought of an overnight stay, for as Curt handed back the glasses the plane's motor was gunned to a deafening deaf-ening pitch. This time there was no break in its smoothness. , It was then only a matter of minutes min-utes before the two mechanics were buttoning up their shirts. Blanding and Trainor shook hands all around, decidedly in pleasanter frame of mind now. Curt caught the final look both officers flung at the Junk-, ers planes, then at each other, the suspicion of smiles on their lips as though at some secret joke. The second motor of the army plane was opened up, both were gunned for a few moments, then the plane took off, circled once above the field, and straightened out to speed off for Soledad. On the trip up the mountainside to San Alejo, Dr. Toenjes had nothing noth-ing to say. And at the station, with a short "Gootpy, Meestoor Coor-tiss," Coor-tiss," the Dutchman stumped off in one direction, Curt headed for home. Presently Curt remembered that he'd wanted to see Montaya today. THE STORY SO FAR: Jell CurUs and his wlfs, Lee, are already on their way to Tlerra Libre when he receives a note from Zora Mitchell warning them not to come. When tbey arrive In Tierra Libre they find' both Zora and her hnsband dead. It Is Mitchell's Job as chief engineer engi-neer for a fruit company that Jeff has been called u fill. Later Jeff's friend Bill Henderson Is also killed, and Jeff suspects his employer, Senor Montaya, of murdering him and the Mitchells because be-cause they had found m clue to the strange things going on at the plantation. planta-tion. Other sinister figures are the company com-pany chemist. Dr. Toenjes, and the flyers, fly-ers, Ryden and Lannestock. Jeff's suspicions sus-picions are further aroused when his visit to the airfield is Interrupted by Dr. Toenjes' Toen-jes' arrival. Now a U. S. Army plane, forced down by engine trouble, has landed land-ed on the airfield. NOW CONTINUE WITH THE STORY CHAPTER XI 4 Curt and Dr. Toenjes puned J through the circle. Again Ryden registered relief as he gave up the spotlight. "Ve don't rish to appear to unvei-coom unvei-coom yvu," Toenjes said, his voice controlled. Again Curt was amazed at the rapid change, amazed that the Dutchman's singer or whatever it was he'd seen in his face had vanished. "Zey mean to zay ve are not an coomairzhal field equipped. Ysu had ze trouble vith your blant?" "Yen, trouble." The lieutenant also had trouble to regain his own equanimity. In fact, he made little effort to do so, merely transferring his angry gaze from Ryden to Toenjes. Toen-jes. "Clogged a fuel line. Headed for Puerto Soledad but the matter of safety forced me down here." "I am glad for you to land zafe. Vat can ve do for you?" But the army man's gaze met Curt's. Curt was grinning from ear to ear as he stepped into the fray. "Name's Curtis. Chief Engineer for the Compania Agricola Tropical, who have this valley. This is Dr. Toenjes, of Amsterdam, an agricultural agricul-tural authority in charge of farms." "I'm Lieutenant Trainor. My men," nodding in direction of each in turn, "Blanding, Newman, Foster." Fos-ter." All three were engaged making a space about the plane. "Sorry if we inconvenience you, but we'll have to make some repairs." loaded his pipe, tamping down the tobacco. That last burst of anger clearly showed that the worthy Dutchman had the upper hand. Curt scowled. Then he moved on slowly. "What goes on here?" he muttered mut-tered to himself. "Who's the boss, Montaya or this Dutch prima donna?" don-na?" Next morning, when Curt again called at Montaya's office, he found "The Dark Lily" his usual suave and polished self. If Dr. Toenjes' boorish outbursts of the night before be-fore had caused annoyance, there was no indication of it now. The senor was as ever a plate of sartorial elegance. Today his white gabardines were livened by purple-red purple-red accessories, which had the curious cu-rious effect of making his lips seem the fuller. Curt's own lips curled slightly at the picture, but he managed man-aged a pleasant enough "Good morning" morn-ing" and got down to business. "You've had word about the machines ma-chines I recommended?" "Yesterday. The purchase has gone through and the machines are on the way to New Orleans. They will be shipped on the next voyage south of the Pisces. The two shovels shov-els previously on order will arrive at Cabeza Saturday morning." "Fine! I can use them! And my requisition for additional men? It's pretty difficult handling two shifts with skeleton crews." "The first should be here in about one week." "I'll plan accordingly. Now, about this survey of the Upper Negro for a reservoir site. Tomorrow I'm making a quick trip above the rapids rap-ids to refresh my memory of that terrain. It's some years, you know, since I was here. I want to be ready to send out a surveying party the first of next week . . ." Getting into details of this job, Curt let himself go. He'd finish the levee and drainage system already worked out on paper and under construction, con-struction, and enjoy it. But this reservoir idea came from him. It would be his baby, especially as it tied in so closely with the overhead over-head irrigation plan he was so anxious anx-ious to get into. He lost himself in the discussion of it. As he finished outlining the scope of his proposed survey, Montaya brought him back to earth. "Be sure Emilio accompanies you Or course. Things organized, ladders brought from the nearby hangars, the two men Newman and Foster stripped to their' waists and got busy dismantling disman-tling the fuel Unef the engine. It was not a simple task but they knew their" job. Toenjes took considerable interest, inter-est, conversing in low tones with Ryden. This left Curt by himself (for a moment, and he singled out the second lieutenant. "Blanding? Curtis." They grinned and shook hands. Blanding spat and said, "American? What you doing in this blooming league of nations?" "Work here. What's the matter? No co-operation from our field force?" "Co-operation? Say, a guy'd think it was a crime to set down a crippled crip-pled plane. 'Private field, private field,' " he mimicked. "What the hell? By the way," his tone changed, became curious, "what you doing with those old crates? Those old-time old-time Junkers transports." He wore a smile that was half amusement, half disgust, as he nodded nod-ded toward the two C. A. T. planes. He spat again. "Junkers?" said Curt. "That what they are? I'm no airman, I didn't know. Only been on the job here ten days, or so, myself." They watched for some minutes the work on the engine. The fuel line was disconnected, blown out, reconnected. The engine was tested, test-ed, but still it sputtered. Lieutenant Trainor, from a kibitzing kibitz-ing position above, jumped to the ground. He wore a frown. "We were scheduled to touch Puerto Soledad this afternoon and proceed onward at once. If we can catch up with the other planes quickly, they'll wait for us. But supposing we can't make repairs tonight, any way of putting us up?" "I should think so," answered Curt. "Trouble serious, then?" "Not serious, but it goes deeper than I thought I see you have other oth-er hangars here." The lieutenant nodded toward the far end of the field. "Could we put the machine under cover for the night?" "Sorry," Curt replied. "They were built as hangars, all right, but they're used for storage purposes now. They're full up with materials and supplies. You couldn't even get J the nose of your ship inside." Curt hadn't yet gone through the buildings, but he recalled the extraordinary ex-traordinary stock of pipe and fittings, fit-tings, and other materials listed in the inventory Senor Montaya had lent him. Attention called to the end of the field, they saw movement there. Lieutenant Trainor produced a .pair of field glasses, adjusted them, stud-ted stud-ted what he saw. Then he shrugged and Curt automatically reached for the lowered binoculars. Pointing them at the bodega, Curt taw a small crew of men with Lannestock Lan-nestock in charge. They'd handworked hand-worked a fiatcar from outside the field fence into position alongside the loading platform. A big door of the hangar was raised and from the interior the on the trip tomorrow, Mr. Curtis." Curt blinked. Ah, yes, Emilio, he thought. Aloud he said smoothly, smooth-ly, "Of course. Your orders, are they not?" During some remaining routine items Curt kept wondering why no mention had been made of his trip to the airfield. Certainly Dr. Toenjes Toen-jes had brought it to the senor's attention. at-tention. Vehemently. Plenty of heat had been generated over it in this office last evening. He wondered, too, why there'd been no reference, at least casual, to the U. S. Army plane forced down. This sort of thing didn't happen often. of-ten. Yet Montaya seemed to have no intention of speaking about it Instead, he mentioned, "My daily hospital report says you were treated treat-ed for a minor cut." "Only a puncture-weed scratch. It'll be all right." "However, you will have a care, no? I do not wish you to be incapacitated. in-capacitated. Have it dressed again today and be sure Dr. Berry says there will be no danger of infection before you leave tomorrow." But if Montaya had no intention of mentioning the airfield visit, Curt had, and this gave him an opening. "That reminds me. While at the hospital yesterday I stumbled onto the path to the airfield. So I decided de-cided to make them that visit you suggested. You do the men at the field very well in the matter of accommodations." ac-commodations." "You mean the swimming pool, the tennis court? It pays." Hmm, thought Curt no outburst over my not sending 'em an engraved en-graved notice? Give him another chance. "I uh, know you don't like interdepartmental inter-departmental comments, but I have one you shouldn't object to. That part of the field used daily is kept pretty well under fire control. But one can see from a distance that the grass at the far end of the field is high and dry. It should be kept cut" Montaya was looking steadily at Curt He didn't speak. "None of my business, perhaps," Curt shrugged, "but it's in the interest in-terest of safety. Even if the buildings build-ings at that end aren't of great value, you have materials stored there. Precautions should be taken." "You are quite right Mr. Curtis, quite right. I shall make a note of it." And make a note of it he did at least he did some careful scratching on his calendar pad. What! Can't I get any kind of rise out of him? The imp of perverseness in Curt prodded him, and he ventured ven-tured again. "That army plane from the Canal Zone that was forced down here yesterday. yes-terday. I rather expected you to come to the field as a sort of welcoming wel-coming gesture." Montaya's voice chilled, there was a touch of contempt in his reply. "This, my dear Mr. Curtis, is a business venture, not a social enterprise. enter-prise. I have a telephone. I knew you and Dr. Toenjes were there to perform ah, the amenities. Was there need of more?" Curt let it go at that. (TO BE COXT1MED Curt hesitated, hand on the knob of the door. There wasn't time now to bathe and change, for he'd spent longer on the airfield than he'd intended. He turned on his heel, lengthenened his stride, and made off for the executive execu-tive office. The thought of Montaya brought a bad taste to his mouth. Curt had no illusions about the man. Directly guilty of the actual murders here or not, they couldn't have been covered cov-ered up maybe not planned without with-out Montaya's connivance. Briefly Curt wondered why the landing of the army plane hadn't brought Montaya to the field. It had been down a good thirty minutes, min-utes, time enough and to spare for Montaya to have put in an appearance. appear-ance. The commissary was1 closing for the day. A few last clerks were leaving the offices above. Curt crossed the patio and climbed the wide, tiled staircase. Down the cool office corridor he pounded, his heels little deadened by the strip of green linoleum laid along the center. Montaya's ruby-nailed ruby-nailed secretary was gone.' But Montaya was in. As Curt entered the outer office, he heard voices from behind the senor's door, voices harsh and angry, one expostulating, expostu-lating, the other laying down the law. And the louder voice was not Montaya's. Mon-taya's. It was Dr. Toenjes, who must have made a bee-line from the station to Montaya's office when leaving Curt only a few minutes ago. They were not speaking French, which Montaya professed to use with the Dutchman for convenience, but were talking, to judge from the sounds of it, in the Dutchman's own language! Curt heard his name flung by Dr. Toenjes, and he took it that the argument was about his visit to the airfield rather than the forced landing land-ing of the army plane. "Cripes," he muttered. "Montaya himself suggested the visit And why the build-up the day I arrived over using French with Toenjes if he can talk Dutch that fluently?" Curt hesitated, hand on knob of the door through which he'd just come. The argument waxed stronger, strong-er, a hand thumped a desk to punctuate punc-tuate Toenjes' tirade. If I only knew Dutch! Curt thought, or even German. At least enough to get the gist of it. Tomorrow, he decided, would be a better time for his talk with Montaya, Mon-taya, so he went out, closing the door quietly, and stood for a moment mo-ment reflecting. His hands busily |