Nick nodded. “How about people right here in town? Scholars, perhaps. Theologians. Museum curator, local priests, even the bishop. At least we know now that we’re looking for a monastery. Don’t we? Yes, I guess we do. For a while there I was beginning to think we ought to be looking for a speciality restaurant run by three fellows named Black who used to be part of Trujiilo’s flock. But monks! It figures, ties in with everything. Now all we have to do is find that valley.”
“It must be quite a place, that valley,” Paula said thoughtfully, “to have a castle tucked away so neatly that no one seems to have heard of it. It isn’t easy to hide a castle, or even a monastery. You really think we’re on the right track?”
“We have to be,” Nick said firmly. “Now we know the place exists, right? And we know that these monks were a secretive lot, so somehow they must have found a way to conceal their castle or monastery or whatever it is. We just have to keep plugging away with the questions and the search. Anybody have anything else to contribute?”
“Yes,” said Paula. “Isabella?”
Isabella pushed a little pile of papers across the table toward Nick.
“Take a look,” she said. “We can’t make head or tail of it, but there’s some kind of pattern there. We’ve been through ninety-one homes and in six of them we found — well, you’ll see what we found. But some of the same words and symbols appear on each of them.”
Nick reached for the little pile and sorted through it. A diary, with several pages marked. A laundry list with scribblings on the back. A pocket calendar with notations against several of the dates. A sheet of lined paper covered with a list of words that seemed to have no meaning. A loose leaf from a notebook with some of the same words and numbers next to them. The flyleaf of a book, covered with a scrawl of letters and symbols.
“Meeting places,” he said slowly. “With dates and times attached, I’ll bet. But coded.”
“Right,” said Paula. “How are you at breaking codes?”
“Not bad,” Nick said cheerfully. “Not bad at all.” He spread the papers out in front of him and got to work.
Killmaster was an expert in breaking codes. Dr. Tsing-fu Shu of Chinese Intelligence was an expert in breaking people. He had not done very well with Evita Messina but now he was making up for it. He missed Tom Kee, and he missed Shang, but he had other helpers. One of them was presently engaged in emasculating a man called Garcia-Galindez, and another was stifling the screams of agony.
“You see how useless it is to lie,” Tsing-fu said placidly, tapping his cigarillo ashes on Garcia’s rug. “We know who you are. A good friend of yours told us where to find you. He was also good enough to inform us that you had one of the clues. Tch, he is not very well these days, poor fellow. It took him too long to tell us.” He smiled pleasantly. “But he did tell us in the end. And you will also tell us what we want to know. Tighten the wires. Chin You. Do not be gentle with him.”
Chin You did as he was told. Tsing-fu listened to the muffled screams and gazed around the comfortable apartment. Yes, indeed, he thought, this was a comfortable place. He might as well stay here until his mission was completed.
He was rather pleased with himself. One small item in a yellowish newspaper had led him to a man who had held a minor post in the late Trujillo’s government. That man had been persuaded to tell him of other men, now living quietly under assumed names, who in their turn had been persuaded to yield up useful little nuggets of information. Garcia-Gallindez, he was positive, was the last link in his chain of clues. Tsing-fu watched his victim writhe.
“Remove the gag, Fong,” he said easily. “I think our friend is trying to tell us something.”
Garcia-Galindez took a deep, wheezing breath and began to talk.
Tsing-fu listened. His brow furrowed into a scowl. This clue was as obscure as the rest of them.
“What does that mean?” he screamed, his sudden rage turning his pale face scarlet. “Where is the place? Where is it?”
“The Valley of the Shadow!” Nick roared triumphantly. “That’s it! It’s got to be. It won’t be one of the restaurants, or the airport, or the railroad station or the barber shop, or any of those places. The Valley of the Shadow is the only place that fits. But where is it? It isn’t on the map.”
Luz crinkled her forehead. “I’ve lived here all my life,” she said, “And I’ve never heard of it. They made up the name, perhaps?”
“They didn’t make up the other names,” said Nick. “They’re all places in around Santo Domingo. Why should they invent one name? Unless— wait a minute. Unless it’s a description, not a name.” He traced his forefinger over the map of Santo Domingo and the outlying countryside. “There are several here that don’t have names. And I know they’re sizable valleys because I’ve been through half of them.”
“Of course they don’t all have proper names,” Lucia said. “They are too small to matter. But the people who live in or near them give them names that are more like, as you say, descriptions. For instance, there is one called the Valley of the Cows, because of one little dairy farmer who uses its slopes for grazing his herd. And then there is the Valley of the Pomegranates, because—”
“I get the point,” said Nick. “But what about the Valley of the Shadow?”
“There is a place that more or less fits that name,” Paula said slowly. “It’s not so much a valley as a deep ravine, and I’ve never heard it called anything at all. In fact, I’ve never seen it. But Tonio mentioned it to me once as we passed nearby on the road to—” She stopped suddenly and caught her breath. “Tonio mentioned it to me! My husband. He said that he knew it from his hiking days, that it was a strange and gloomy place that was in shadow all day long except at noon. There was overhanging rock nearly all the way around, he said. And I remember laughing and asking him when he had ever been a hiker, because that was the first I’d heard of it. And then he changed the subject. I wondered why, and then forgot it. But I should think it would have made a perfect meeting place for a group of agile men. Which they all were.”
“Now she tells us!” Nick exclaimed. “After all these days of poking about, and you’ve had the secret all the time.”
“It was years ago,” Paula said a little stiffly. “And how could I possibly connect it with the treasure hunt— And we don’t know yet that it has anything to do with it.”
“Paula, it has to,” Isabella said intensely. “It’s all too coincidental otherwise. How many sUch valleys can there be? Think of the clues — they all match now.”
“Yes, but he didn’t say anything about there being a castle or a monastery of any sort down there,” Paula objected. “And it sounds like an impossible place for any sort of building.”
“Not impossible,” said Nick. “Just difficult. You said yourself it isn’t easy to hide a castle. And what better place for a bunch of monks who’ve taken a vow of secrecy?” He pushed back his chair. “Paula, you’re going to take me there.”
“One moment,” Alva said softly. “It is our hunt, if you remember. This time we should all go.”
“Honey, I think we’re liable to be a bit conspicuous,” Nick said reasonably. “Let me scout it first and if it looks promising we’ll all go in together. Let’s go, Paula.”
“Just a minute,” she said firmly. “Alva’s right. It is our hunt. And if you’re so sure it is the place, we will all go together.”