"Got it," Henderson nodded as he slipped the papers into his pocket. "How soon do you want the reply? Before morning?"
Blake calculated rapidly. "You'll be through before midnight… London will be able to answer my query sometime during the night… You'd better arrange to contact them again before breakfast tomorrow. I'll get in touch with you any time after that."
"Right." Henderson rose to his feet was a swift but casual glance round the room. No one had paid any attention to the two men.
Henderson gave Blake a cursory nod and left for the Hotel entrance.
Blake allowed four minutes to pass before draining his brandy glass and making for the same exit.
Once in the street, the detective set off at a brisk pace to walk back to the spot where he had left the Oldsmobile with its drunken occupant, Worple.
On the whole, Blake considered he had done a good day's work. But he still wasn't satisfied that he knew the whole story.
Frowning thoughtfully as he strode along the pavements crowded with late-night sightseers, he wondered again about the beautiful partisan girl, Francesca.
She was an unlikely kind of recruiting agent, even for an army of the sort raised by Juan Callas. Blake guessed that Callas's army relied more on enthusiasm than military training.
It was strange that such amateurs should have bested the powers of Communism. Indeed, all the evidence showed that they would not have done so except for the aid of Miss Amelia Tucker.
Blake found himself wondering more and more about the odd, masculine Englishwoman, as he strode towards the poorer quarter of the town.
His instincts told him that the communist infiltrators had been subdued all too easily.
Was Miss Tucker, like Peter Sellingham, merely an enthusiastic amateur - or was she something more…?
Was she a professional? If so, who was she working for?
Beneath these questions lay an uneasy feeling which had dogged Blake ever since his teleprinter conversation with Craille, that afternoon.
There was one small detail of this case which didn't ring true.
Jakob Kraski, the Soviet Master Spy, had been aware - according to Craille - that his identity was compromised.
His cover-name, Jules Harben, was known. Therefore by all the laws of espionage he should have changed it.
But he hadn't?
Why not?
Again, Blake came to the question of Captain Tarratona - the sudden interference and hostility which the police chief had shown.
Who or what had made Tarratona suddenly adopt that attitude?
It was a timely question.
For that moment, above the sound of the traffic, Blake heard the growling wail of an approaching siren.
Barely a moment later, garish headlights lit up the narrow street behind him and the siren died to a stop as a long, sleek limousine of the Maliba police glided to a stop at the kerb beside him.
Car doors opened and uniformed men were suddenly swarming out onto the pavement to surround Blake.
"Come with us!"
Blake was seized and manhandled into the car.
"Good evening, Seсor Blake…" Tarratona's lazy drawl greeted him on the back seat.
Blake's jaw hardened and his blue-grey eyes glittered dangerously as he looked at the police chief's mocking smile.
"What is this for?" he demanded.
"This, seсor… is an arrest." Tarratona nodded to the driver: "Despбtchense!"
The car lurched away from the kerb. It did a sharp turn in the centre of the road and drove off, sirens wailing again as it returned in the direction of Police Headquarters.
"I hope you know what you are doing, Captain." Blake's voice was quiet, threatening.
"But certainly," said Tarratona. "I am arresting you. That is to say… you are under arrest. Is good English, no?"
"On what charge?" Blake was bleak.
"The charge, seсor?" Tarratona said lazily: "The charge is… murder!"
Blake was silent for fully half a minute before demanding grimly: "Who am I supposed to have murdered? The President?"
Tarratona chuckled. "Your English sense of humour does you credit, seсor Blake! If I were in your shoes I would not be making jokes. I would be making my prayers!" He chuckled again before adding absently: "No, seсor - not the President."
"Then who?" Blake snapped harshly.
The police chief smiled. "If you persist in this farcial pretense of not knowing your victim, then we must show you-"
The car turned in through the main entrance of the Maliba State Police Headquarters. Tarratona leaned forward and gestured to the driver to pull up beside a car which was drawn up under a glare of temporary floodlights.
Uniformed detectives were swarming around the car taking photographs and making measurements.
As the police car drew beside it, Tarratona jumped out and held open the door for Blake. "This way, seсor."
Only as Blake stepped out onto the concrete yard did he recognise the vehicle which was the centre of all the fuss.
It was his own, hired Oldsmobile, brought here from the street outside the Ostra.
Tarratona strode across to it and with a dramatic gesture towards the back seat announced: "You are under arrest, Seсor Blake, for the murder of this man!"
It was Worple.
He lay face upwards on the back seat, a fatuous grin on his insensible features, and a large, red stain covering the front of his shirt - where a black-handled stiletto was buried up to the hilt in his heart.
Across his chest, his two hands still clutched tenaciously on to the neck of a bottle.
An empty bottle.
A bottle with a label that said: OLD KENTUCKY - PUTS LIFE INTO THE PARTY.
12. A REMARKABLE WOMAN
Sexton Blake spent the night in a police cell. It wasn't the first cell he'd slept in, but that didn't make it any more pleasant. Besides, he had work to do, and every hour he lost could have ominous consequences.
At first the detectives had tried to remonstrate with his captors - challenging them to prove his guilt. But his repeated demands for an explanation were greeted first with polite evasion and finally with unconcealed indifference.
The police attitude was simple; a man had been found murdered - and a suspect had been pulled in. In due course the suspect would be tried and executed. The fiction of Maliban justice would be maintained. What more was needed?
Grimly, Blake realised that Captain Tarratona was no more convinced of Blake's guilt than the detective was himself.
But it wasn't simply a case of Blake having been the easiest suspect. In view of earlier events that day, this explanation was too much of a coincidence - and so was the convenient appearance of a dead body in his car.
Tarratona obviously had another reason.
Worple's death had only been the pretext - a useful exercise for throwing Blake into jail.
Someone wanted Blake out of the way - badly. Either Tarratona himself or someone who had a lot of influence at police headquarters!
Someone who had been prepared to frame him on a capital charge - and commit murder to provide the evidence.
Who was it?
Who was Blake up against?
One thing not in doubt was the person's ruthlessness. Because whoever it was was doing his level best to make Blake's life as difficult as possible.
It was shortly after dawn when Blake was roused by the sound of a key turning in the lock of his cell door.
The door swung open. Two armed escorts stood there.