From then on, we advanced more cautiously. Coming alongside the crushed hull of the interplanetary liner, we made an inspection of its position. The space ship lay nearly right side up, the decks slanting a bit sharply to one side. Upon the outer deck of the _C-49_, Cragley scratched his head and looked the situation over. "Not so bad as I'd feared," was his comment. "Wouldn't be much else but junk here if it hadn't been for the jungle breaking the fall." Cragley pointed upward to the strong barrier of interlaced foliage. "I hope to discover just why it was we fell." "Wasn't there an explosion?" I inquired. "There was a great shock just before you opened the door to my stateroom. For a moment I thought we'd struck the planet." "Yes--there was an explosion," Cragley replied, a bit reluctant to voice the admission. "It occurred somewhere in the mechanism operating our radium repellors. That's why the ship started falling. Its weight was left partly free against the gravity of Venus. We had to leave so quickly there was no time for inspection." One by one, we descended into the wrecked _C-49_. In that part of the ship which lay lowest below water level, tiny streams of dirty water trickled between wrenched plates, forming pools of water which rose slowly about us. Cragley and his men inspected the radium repellors. They whispered strangely among themselves. A steely glint shone resolutely in Captain Cragley's eyes. "There's deviltry been done here," he stated fiercely. "The _C-49_ was deliberately wrecked by someone on board!" Heavy silence followed his words. One of the crew returned from the vault room. He announced to the captain that the _C-49's_ shipment of platinum was intact as they had left it. Captain Cragley turned the matter over in his mind. He was an astute man. Having smelled out a conspiracy, he was planning the best way he knew to thwart it. The platinum itself presented an obvious motive. Finally he spoke. "You passengers are to go up into the observation room and wait for us. Under no condition are you to leave the room and wander about the ship." Captain Cragley's orders were obeyed to the letter. * * * * * In the observation chamber, Brady asked my opinion of the discovery Captain Cragley had made. "What's up, anyways?" I shook my head. Brady was plainly nervous. Others of the passengers who had accompanied us shared his apprehension. Fully a half hour had passed and still Cragley and his men put in no appearance. Outside, myriads of life flew, crawled and swam about the damaged craft. Presently, Cragley and his three men emerged from the lower levels of the _C-49_. They presented an uncouth spectacle bedraggled as they were with grime and dirty water. In their arms they carried many small boxes. Though small, each box was extremely heavy, being loaded with a fortune in platinum bars. "We'll return to the cylinder," said Cragley. "There's important work to be done."