The Diving Dames Affair - Leslie Peter. Страница 19

The estancia was clearly visible beyond a stretch of woods. Behind the dense hedges, there seemed to be quite a number of people busied about various tasks, among them a number of women in the distinctive green tweed uniforms of the D.A.M.E.S. They must be sweltering in those clothes at this temperature! Illya thought.

There were several station wagons and a few private cars parked between the house and the barns. As he watched, some large American convertible carrying three men and three girls prowled around the edge of the building and cruised down towards the gate. One of the girls got out to open the gate and then the car sped away northwards towards Getuliana in a cloud of dust. Judging from their movements, all six of the occupants appeared to be somewhat drunk.

Illya's binoculars had remained trained on the gateway, though. The powerful Zeiss lenses clearly showed up the beaten earth of the entrance - and the myriad marks of heavy wheels passing over it. The mystery of where all the traffic on the road had gone was solved: obviously all of it turned in here!

But where did the heavy trucks go when they had made the turn? There were none visible there now - and although the estancia was large enough, there was certainly no accommodation for convoys as big as the one he had seen leaving the airstrip earlier. There had still been trucks loading material from the transport planes when he had left to follow the first convoy, however; even if he had lost the first one, there should be a second coming along some time soon. Then he could find out.

He would have to find a different viewpoint, nevertheless. Various belts of trees intercepted his vision where he was now. He began working his way back down to wards the car.

When he was about halfway there, he emerged from a screen of bushes to find a poorly dressed Indian standing with his back to him on a piece of level ground, staring flint-faced across the valley at the estancia.

"Nice place?" Kuryakin said, lacking a suitable opening.

The Indian swung slowly around and stared at him impassively.

"I mean, it's a bit of a surprise, finding a big place like that out here," Illya went on. "All the others are so small, you know."

"Nice place, sure, if you have money," the Indian said bitterly.

"It belongs to rich people, then? From the city?

"Surprise, too, to all the people live here. All the people have houses and farms that are take away and put under lake," said the man - who appeared to make a practice of answering always the question before the one that had just been asked.

The agent looked suitably encouraging and said nothing.

"I had a farm - small place, but I like - over there," the Indian continued, waving an arm towards the opposite side of the valley. "Now it is take away and I am given small, poor house here with stony ground and some money. But money cannot give me back thirty years work on that farm - and my father before. Now I am not even allowed to walk past and look into water!"

"But I thought the ladies down there dressed in green had helped to iron out – or – to - to make easy all the problems with those who had to move for the dam."

"Ladies!" the man burst out. "Ladies? Our women are not allowed to behave like that in private - and certainly not in public. It is disgrace… drunken and singing and shouts and unseemly acts."

"Really? You surprise me. But this is an American -"

"Why should these foreign women be permitted to mock our customs in this way? It is disgrace."

"Understood. This is not the first time I have heard such complaints. Do all the women connected with the dam behave like that?"

But the Indian suddenly bit his lower lip, an expression of guarded watchfulness closing up his face. "I say too much," he muttered. "It is not permitted. It is forbidden to speak of these matters."

"By whom?"

"The gods will be angry and spoil our crops."

"Who says so? Who says you mustn't speak?"

"The caboclo. It is instruction."

"Caboclo?"

"The old one, the mouthpiece of the spirits. Pai Hernando told me so. Through the caboclo he speaks with the spirits."

"What name did you say?" Illya almost shouted.

"Pai Hernando. The father-of-saint at the Candomble down there."

"That place is a Candomble headquarters?"

"Not whole place. There is a Candomble tenda behind."

"And the name of the - father-of-saint? – his name is Hernando and he speaks with the spirits through a guide, a caboclo?"

"Pai Hernando, yes."

Illya was whistling to himself as he ran down the remainder of the slope to the Volkswagen. He had felt all along that he was on the right scent. Now, surely, this must be the "Hernando's Hideaway" which had so puzzled them in Napoleon Solo's telegram.

---

He put his key in the Volkswagen's lock and twisted.

The key refused to turn.

Puzzled, he tried again. Again he could make no impression. He stood back and stared at the vehicle... and realized suddenly that it wasn't his own. It was the same color, the same model, the same year. But the registration number was one integer different - and inside, tossed carelessly onto the back seat, was the cockaded hat of a member of the D.A.M.E.S.

It must be the car hired by the girl, Coralie Simone - indeed, now that he had oriented himself, he could see the top of his own gleaming through the thicket a little way to the north.

And if this was Coralie Simone's car - and if the boy at the car rental company had told the truth - then this was the actual one Solo had been driving in this very area a few days ago. And Solo himself, alive or dead, must be somewhere on the other side of the wire fence beyond the place he had called Hernando's Hideaway...

Chapter 8

A Break-In - And A Surprise!

ILLYA CAME upon the girl quite unexpectedly. He had decided to leave the car where it was and approach the estancia on foot, reasoning that the people in charge were less likely to notice a strange vehicle if it was further on up the valley, beyond their gates. He had been forced to cross the road to the side where the wire fence ran, because the river bed was immediately along side the entrance road and there was no cover on the opposite side. And he had plunged deeper into the bushes between road and fence, first to avoid being seen by two tough-looking men and two overpainted girls in a red Jaguar which had roared past in the direction of the pass, and secondly when he had heard the second convoy arriving.

It was while he was watching the twelve two-tonners turn in at the gate of the estancia that he heard the girl's gasp of pain.

The sound seemed to come from only a few feet away, just on the far side of a clump of oleanders lining the ditch. Cautiously, he parted the branches with their scarlet flowers and peered through.

The fence was immediately beyond the ditch - and just behind it was the girl, her arm bent up behind her back by one of the uniformed men who obviously patrolled the whole perimeter around the dam. She was dressed in D.A.M.E.S. uniform now. Against the pallor of her cheeks, her hair shone richly in the sun.

"Come on, sweetheart," the guard was saying in English. "You know as well as I do that you're not allowed on this side of the fence. Now how'd you get over, and what are you doin', huh?"

"You're hurting my arm," the girl said. "Oh… I - I walked around from the gates. Down by the power house."

"Don't give me that," the man rasped. "The gates are five miles from here and your shoes are still polished - there's not even a scratch on 'em!"