"Where do you reckon it went, if it wasn't into the mixing shed?"
"To the Santa Brigida mole," Dick answered quietly, and noting the man's
abrupt movement, went on: "What were you talking to Ramon Oliva about at
the Hotel Magellan?"
The storekeeper did not reply, but the anger and confusion in his face
were plain, and Dick turned to the others.
"I think we'll send for Oliva," said Stuyvesant. "Keep this fellow here
until he comes."
Oliva entered tranquilly, though his black eyes got very keen when he
glanced at his sullen accomplice. He was picturesquely dressed, with a
black silk sash round his waist and a big Mexican sombrero. Taking out a
cigarette, he remarked that it was unusually hot.
"You are doing some work on the town mole," Dick said to him. "Where did
you get the cement?"
"I bought it," Oliva answered, with a surprised look.
"From whom?"
"A merchant at Anagas, down the coast. But, señores, my contract on the
mole is a matter for the port officials. I do not see the object of these
questions."
"You had better answer them," Stuyvesant remarked, and signed Dick to go
on.
Dick paused for a moment or two, remembering how he had confronted his
judges in a tent in an English valley. The scene came back with poignant
distinctness.
He could hear the river brawling among the stones, and feel his Colonel's
stern, condemning gaze fixed upon his face. For all that, his tone was
resolute as he asked: "What was the brand of the cement you bought?"
"The Tenax, señor," Oliva answered with a defiant smile.
Then Dick turned to the others with a gesture which implied that there
was no more to be said, and quietly sat down. Tenax was not the brand
that Fuller used, and its different properties would have appeared in the
tests. The sub-contractor had betrayed himself by the lie, and his
accomplice looked at him with disgust.
"You've given the thing away," he growled. "Think they don't know what
cement is? Now they have you fixed!"
There was silence for the next minute while Stuyvesant studied some
figures in his pocket-book. Then he wrote upon a leaf, which he tore out
and told Dick to give it to Oliva.
"Here's a rough statement of your account up to the end of last month,
Don Ramon," he said. "You can check it and afterwards hand the pay-clerk
a formal bill, brought up to date, but you'll notice I have charged you
with a quantity of cement that's missing from our store. Your engagement
with Mr. Fuller ends to-day."
Oliva spread out his hands with a dramatic gesture. "Señores, this is a
scandal, a grand injustice! You understand it will ruin me? It is
impossible that I submit."