“No, he didn’t speak it,” Dave replied with a vigorous shake of his head. “He just said 'southern Albuquerques.’ And I’ll eat my shirt if those southernmost cays there aren’t what he was trying to get over to us.”
“I don’t think you’ll have to have that kind of a meal,” the English youth said with a grin. “I’m sure you’re right. But what about it? Those cays are quite a bit in back of us now. Think we should turn around and have a look?”
Dave glanced at the fuel gauges before he replied. He shook his head.
“No, I don’t think we’d better, Freddy,” he said. “It would mean shaving our gas supply too close for comfort. Now that we feel sure we’ve got our teeth into something, the last thing we want to do is sit down in the middle of the Caribbean. Nope! I think our best bet is to carry on to Colon and contact Second Lieutenant Marble. There’s just a chance he might give us a whole lot of dope on this. He—Now what’s the matter?”
Freddy was scowling out across the air space and absently shaking his head.
“Nothing, probably,” he said eventually. “But about this Marble—I’m afraid I have a very definite opinion about him, Dave. Call it a hunch, if you like.”
“I like,” Dave grunted. “So what’s the hunch? Tell me.”
“That Second Lieutenant Marble is going to turn out an awful big disappointment to us,” the English youth said. “I can’t suppress the feeling that we won’t learn a single thing from him. Why I feel this way, I haven’t the faintest idea. But I do, just the same.”
“Well, now that we’re letting down our hair, I might as well admit that I’m clamping down on my own hopes,” Dave said. “I figure it this way. If Marble was working hand in glove with Tracey on this business, I think Marble would have been sent north to contact Colonel Welsh, and not Tracey. If the thing was red hot, I can’t see him leaving the scene of action. But—but, darn it, maybe I’m just talking through my hat. Maybe this Tracey business and the southern Albuquerque Cays doesn’t add up to a single thing of importance.”
“Maybe it doesn’t,” Freddy grunted with a shrug. “Just the same, I think I’d be willing to bet my life that it does. Blast it, Dave! Too many attempts to wash us out were made, not to have this thing be at white heat.”