Sellingham's voice tailed off in exasperation: "I want him brought back to England before he ruins me! I may not be able to do anything about the rebels - but I'm certainly not going to stand idle while my own flesh and blood helps them steal my fortune. I'm going to stop that young fool giving them money!"
Blake said quietly: "Can't you simply cut off your son's allowance?"
"I did that year's ago!" said Sellingham. "But he still has half a million that he inherited from his mother."
"I see…" Blake was thoughtful. The position was becoming clear at last. Sellingham wanted him to go to Maliba and virtually kidnap his wayward son. The job really wasn't to Blake's taste.
With another frown he said: "What makes you think your son's life is in danger? Merely that he's playing with political dynamite?"
"No," Sellingham grunted sourly. "It's gone beyond that. He's disappeared. No-one's seem him or heard of him for days. My people out there have been keeping a close eye on him but he's vanished into the blue!"
The millionaire pulled sharply on his cigarette. "I can't make too much noise about it - otherwise the rebels will be on to me like a ton of bricks - 'CAPITALIST INTERFERES IN MALIBAN DOMESTIC AFFAIRS!' - they'd have it on every front page in Latin America."
"So what you really want me to do is go to Maliba and make some discreet inquiries to find your son?"
"And bring him back!" Sellingham added firmly. "By force if needs be."
Blake smiled thinly. "I'm an investigator, Sir Gordon - but I'm not a strong-arm man. Your son is presumably over twenty-one. I can hardly kidnap him…"
"Look-" Sellingham interrupted, "-all I want you to do is save his life! Even if he isn't already dead, he's caught between two fires. Either Nonales will rumble what he's up to and have him quietly rubbed out as a spy - or the rebels will bump him off as soon as he's served their purpose. They'll hardly want to be associated with the son of a capitalist when the time comes for handing out medals!"
"I see what you mean," Blake said noncommittally. He was thinking hard.
"Will you take the case, then?"
"I shall have to give it some thought. Can I phone you back later and let you know?"
Sellingham rose to his feet. "I'm confident you'll make the right decision, Blake. You've been spoken very highly of, and I know you're the man for this job. Good day!"
He shook hands firmly, turned and marched from the office.
Blake sat back in his chair, smoking.
Young Peter Sellingham's life was certainly in danger if he was meddling in subversive activities, there was no denying that.
A trip to Maliba was a temptation, too, for it promised to be interesting.
A revolution was brewing, and in addition there was the stranger item - the mystery of the bathysphere.
He was thinking hard as he turned once more to study the file on Maliba…
4. THE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN
It was a few minutes before noon when Sexton Blake closed the file of press cuttings and lit another cigarette.
Leaning back behind his desk he drew the smoke deep down into his lungs and considered what he'd read.
The news reports on Maliba's recent history were far from helpful. Drawn from sources all over the English-speaking world, they were either confusing or downright contradictory.
Amongst all the terms of abuse in the English language, thought Blake, none had been more over-worked in the last ten years than the words: Fascist and Communist. They were more than terms of abuse - they were war-cries.
According to left-wing papers the government of Doctor Nonales was a bastion of fascism while the rebels were merely staunch democrats. According to right-wing papers Nonales was a benevolent paternalist while the rebels were rabid Reds.
The truth probably lay somewhere between the two - in which case the affair was a purely domestic one did not warrant interference by outsiders.
On the other hand, if the claims of Doctor Nonales and Sir Gordon Sellingham were true - if the rebels were really being backed by Communist infiltrators - then interference was not only justified but necessary. And this was an issue on which Blake didn't take chances.
He had to be certain. He needed to know the truth. And there was only one man who could tell him what he wanted to know.
Blake rose from his chair, picked up his hat and coat and went out into the outer office.
Paula Dane and Marion Lang looked up with curiousity.
"I'm going out," Blake said simply. "Expect me when you see me."
Paula Dane nodded but did not say anything. Blake's words were a formula she knew from experience - they meant he was going to see a man whose name was better left unspoken.
A man who was wizened and old and infinitely wise; a man who ostensibly headed a small Export/Import firm in Belgrave Square - but whose imports and exports were of a highly specialised kind.
A man whose real title was known to very few - DIRECTOR OF THE INTER-SERVICE CO-ORDINATION OF STRATEGIC INTELLIGENCE AND NATIONAL SECURITY.
His power and knowledge made him a man to be reckoned with. And his name was Eustace Craille.
Blake found Craille reading a copy of Pravda. The old man sat behind his desk in front of a map of the world, his attention rivetted on the column he was reading by the light of a powerful desk lamp.
One hand rested on the desk, gripping a stubby cigarette holder from which a thin, pencil-line of aromatic smoke climbed steadily towards a ceiling obscured by fug.
It was a frequent habit of Craille's to keep his curtains drawn. It was good for security. But it was also bad for health, and the smoke of the old man's Egyptian cigarettes produced a spasm of coughing from Blake as he was shown in by a full-lipped, softly contoured brunette who spoke with a husky voice:
"Mr. Blake, sir."
Surprisingly, the girl was the same one the detective had seen on his last visit.
"Are you forming an attachment, or getting in a rut?" Blake inquired as the girl disappeared with a rustle of her bright skirt and the door closed behind her. It was rare for Craille to keep any of his beautiful women for very long.
"She's due to go at the end of the week," the old man rasped in his dry voice. A gleam crept into his hooded, hawk-like eyes. "Still trying to guess where I get 'em from?"
Blake smiled. "I know you don't get them from a secretarial agency," he said dryly. "What puzzles me is what the neighbours think."
"They think exactly what I want them to think," said Craille. "The price I pay for security is the loss of my respectiblity. The locals think I'm a white-slaver. It's a nuisance, but it helps explain the secrecy."
Blake grinned.
Craille threw the copy of Pravda into his huge waste-paper basket and said, "All right - what's the problem?"
"I've just had a visit from Sir Gordon Sellingham, the millionaire…"
"Does he want you to go to Maliba and find his son?"
Blake paused in surprise. "Yes, how did you know?"
"Have you accepted the job?" Craille ignored the detective's question.
"Not yet. I want to know more about the political situation. It seems young Sellingham has got himself mixed up in it."
Craille nodded. "I know. What do you want from me?"
"I want to know what the political set-up is all about. The newspapers all seem to be in the dark. There's no real information; no hard facts."
Craille nodded. There was a frown on his brittle-skinned face. "I've been thinking of sending someone over there to look into it…" He rotated the cigarette holder between skeletal fingers and drew a lungful of the harsh, perfumed smoke.