"Come!"
Blake rose from the filthy, naked mattress that served as a bed amd stepped out of the cell, eyeing the pair bleakly.
"Do I go to the wall without even the pretense of a trial?" he demanded acidly.
The police guards made no reply except to urge him forward along the corridor. "March! Quickly! Hurry!"
He was hustled out of the cell block and up a narrow flight of stairs.
Suddenly, he realised his whereabouts - he was in the police headquarters main adminstrative-block directly outside the office of Captain Tarratona himself.
Even as he grasped this, the guard in front opened Tarratona's office door and Blake was marched in.
The freshly-shaven face of the police chief looked up from the desk as he entered.
"Ah, seсor Blake…" A sleepy smile of welcome lit up Tarratona's face. "Please come up and take a seat." He rose and brought a chair forward for the detective, dismissing the two guards with a nod.
"I hope your stay here last night was not too uncomfortable, seсor…" He wore a look of genuine concern.
"Let's cut the comedy," snapped Blake. "What's all this?"
A pained expression spread across the police chief's features. "Seсor, believe me, I apologise for the way you have been treated - I apologise sincerely! But-" he shrugged massively, "you could have saved yourself all this unnecessary discomfort, if only you had been frank with me in the first place!"
Blake frowned. "Oh?"
"Si, seсor-" Tarratona nodded vigourously. "Why did you not explain that you were looking for the young Englishman, Peter Sellingham? Last night you were seen fraternising with rebels and subversive riff-raff at a notorious den of vice in the filthiest part of the city! We had no reason to account for it, so clearly your behaviour aroused deep suspicion… we were obliged to conclude that you were a subversive infiltrator - a political agitator - a communist; the kind of person who would not hesitate to murder an innocent European…"
"You mean you've now changed your mind?" Blake demanded bleakly.
"But of course, seсor! Now the situation has been fully explained!"
"Only yesterday," Blake interrupted harshly, "I took the trouble to come here to you with a special letter of introduction from Sir Gordon Sellingham-"
"Si, si!" exclaimed Tarratona. "But you did not tell us you had been sent here to locate his son! Now I can understand what you were doing in that iniquitous part of the city. Your friend has explained everything!"
"My friend?" Blake frowned suspiciously.
"Se, seсor! The lady who has just arrived to vouch for you and is now waiting for you in her car outside - Miss Amelia Tucker, Sir Gordon Sellingham's personal representative in Maliba!"
It was, Blake realised, only to have been expected. As he walked down the stairs, a free man, after leaving Tarratona's office under an effusive shower of apologies, he recalled that Francesca Cardenez had told him she would shortly be seeing Miss Amelia Tucker.
And once Francesca had convinced the English woman of Blake's bona fides, it was only a matter of time before the surprisingly resourceful Miss Tucker could have been expected to take action.
He found the woman waiting in an open car, outside the police headquarters gates.
She greeted him with a smile and opened the door for him.
"Good morning, Mr. Blake! Please get in. I owe you an apology."
Blake got into the car. Amelia Tucker started up the engine and they drove off without a moment's pause.
The woman drove skilfully. Within half a minute she had negotiated the traffic in the centre of town, and they were heading out of Carabanos towards the refinery.
Once on the main road, she threw him an anxious glance and asked: "They didn't treat you badly in there, did they?"
Blake smiled. "I've known worse places."
"I bet you have!" said Amelia Tucker. Then she confessed: "The truth is, I've just realised who you are. You're the Mr. Blake, aren't you? I knew you were a private detective, of course, but knowing Sir Gordon I wasn't sure I could trust you, until the police framed you for that murder last night…"
She gave him another smile: "You see, it's been a rather tricky situation. Sir Gordon is very much in favour of the present corrupt regime, and the kind of detective he'd be expected to send here would be an out-and-out Fascist, by all normal expectations. Obviously I couldn't allow you to locate his missing son if there was any chance you'd try and meddle in the politics here. Things are too delicately balanced. It wasn't until I spoke to Francesca last night that I realised you have your own independant views about the revolution and what we're trying to do here."
She paused for a moment, her eyes on the road: "But then," she continued, "Francesca told me all about you, and it became clear that you really sympathise with us. It was only when we tried to find you, late last night, that we heard you'd been picked up and thrown into the city cooler. Francesca wanted me to come and get you out right away, but I didn't dare…"
She paused for a moment as an army truck roared by, then explained:
"My influence with the police can only last as long as they trust me. If I'd come along right away to get you out they'd have wanted to know how I knew about your arrest, and it might have been awkward because the information came from a rebel informer."
"I'm grateful you got me out when you did," Blake told her warmly.
"It's nice of you to say so," Miss Tucker smiled. "But if I'd used my brains I'd have realised the truth about you much earlier. I'm sorry I was wrong about you."
"Please don't be," said Blake. "The truth is I've been thinking equally nasty things about you."
"You must have had me figured for a communist…" Miss Tucker smiled faintly. "We live in a nasty suspicious world, don't we?"
"It's better than living in a nasty Nonales jail," Blake said grimly. "And I still think you did very well to get me out in less than twenty-four hours."
"No choice," Miss Tucker said tersely. "Once I knew the truth about you I simply had to get you out before the balloon went up. Police Headquarteds is the worst place to be when the shooting starts. I know - I've see these revolutions before."
"You mean it's imminent?" Blake demanded.
Miss Tucker threw him a mysterious smile. "Did you notice that army truck we just passed?"
Blake nodded. "It was full of troops."
"Nonales has got the wind-up!" the woman grinned. "He's begun pulling his troops into the capital. His time's running out and he knows it!"
"When is H-hour?" Blake asked.
"That," said Miss Tucker, "is a closely guarded secret. But I can promise you it won't be for much longer. The signal will be the assassination of the old swine Nonales himself. When that happens you'll know it's over bar the shouting. Juan Callas will be on the air in minutes telling the population to stay calm - the Liberation Army will march into the city - and if everything goes according to plan the government troops will offer only token resistance. We may have to fight for the police station and the palace, but no-one else wants to shed blood for Doctor Nonales."
"Where are we going?" Blake asked.
Again Amelia Tucker threw him a confident smile. "You came to Maliba to find Peter Sellingham, didn't you? Well, I'm going to take you to see him - at the rebel camp in the hills!"
A moment later the car reduced speed as the Sellingham sugar refinery loomed up ahead.
"I'm going to call in here first," Miss Tucker explained. "It will give you a chance to clean up, too, if you like. There's a bathroom adjoining my office and I think you'll find an electric razor there."
She drove the car into the Refinery compound and pulled up outside the main block. "I'm going across to the cable centre. If you go up to my office I'll join you in a few minutes. Help yourself to anything you need. If you want a cup of coffee ask one of the girls."