Mitzi sat and steamed like a leaky pressure cooker, Ken was slumped almost horizontal, chin on chest but staring out from under his dark eyebrows at Pietro's gun. It had a thick short barrel, a long ramp foresight and the generally oversized look of a magnum calibre.

Ken muttered. '.357 Combat Smith.'

I nodded; he was probably right. The end of the butt sticking out of Pietro's fist had the typical Smith amp; Wesson shape, otherwise it could just as well have been a Colt to me. A pretty daft gun, mind you. In a two-and-something-inch barrel a bullet just doesn't have the time to work up the m.p Ji. that a magnum cartridge can give, and you can hire somebody to whack your hand with a crowbar much cheaper than.357 ammunition costs.

For all that, Pietro looked as if you could mount a siege gun on him and he'd absorb the recoil.

Aziz finished his phoning, stood up and smiled tentatively at us. 'Now I really must join my other guests. I hope it will not be long before I have good news and you can go, but meanwhile…' he shrugged delicately and gave Pietro more orders. 'I have told him that you may help yourself to more drinks -but only one person to stand up at a time. You understand the problem, I am sure.'

He smiled once more, went out – and locked the door behind him. The click of the big key made me wince – and then I realised what it must do to Ken.

His face was pale, the muscles at his mouth and jawline bunched in white knots and his hands squeezing the sharp chair-arms.

I had to say something. 'Nice comfortable place we've got here,' I gabbled. 'All we want to drink, for free, feminine company, plenty to read, we'll be out of here in half an hour and I've spent longer waiting to be served in some bars.'

He took a deep breath and relaxed a fraction.

Mitzi said: 'But how can he do these things? We should go to the police straight away.'

I shook my head. 'This is the Middle East, love, and he's an important man. We're small-scale; we've got no family behind us.'

"They cannot have gangsters likehim' and she flicked her hand at Pietro.

'A bodyguard. Everybody who's anybody has them. Aziz must have three or four; they're as much status symbols as chandeliers. This is a gun-toting area. Your father knew that.'

'But they searched me – and locked us up! '

Ken stiffened again. I said quickly: "They'd say they searched us for guns, of course. It may not be an offence anyway. As for shutting us up – so prove it. Like another drink yet?'

She shook her head and relapsed into broodiness. When we were all quiet, Pietro walked across and sat down behind the big desk and laid the pistol in front of himself, within easy grab.

I said: 'Is your name Aziz or do you just work here?'

It took him a moment to realise I was speaking to him. Then he just grunted. I'd been pretty certain he didn't speak English, but wanted to be sure as I could.

I stood up carefully; Pietro put his hand on the gun – not nervously, just as a gesture. I waved my empty glass and looked thirsty and he nodded at the cupboard, and I went over and found myself a Scotch and a vacuum flask of chilled water.

That put me about ten feet from the desk, and the size of the desk itself made it another five feet to Pietro so I wasn't going to try throwing a drink in his face.

I just said conversationally to Ken: 'Nice big desk that. You could play table tennis across it.'

He looked up and there was a tiny light in his eyes. I went back and sat down and sipped. And studied the situation.

The desk was planted diagonally across a corner and well out from it. Ken was sitting a bit in front but almost in line with its length; nearly in line at the other end was the drinks cupboard and floor-to-ceiling shelves of expensive-looking books.

I left it for ten minutes and the room grew quiet and cool, almost cold, around us. Ken had his eyes shut and looked as if he was dozing.

Then I stood up, and Pietro put his hand back on the gun. I said: 'Can I get a book to read? Book -livre -libro-' I pointed at the shelves. 'What's the Arabic for "book"?'

'Koran?' Mitzi suggested uselessly.

'For God's sake.' I walked over and patted a row of books. 'May I?'

Pietrofrowned slightly, as if he was thinking, then nodded heavily. I smiled graciously and began reading titles. It seemed to be solid history of the Middle East, and I do mean solid. A lot was in English, the rest in French or German, but I was picking for size rather than language. I took one or two down, pretended to glance at them, then chose a nice leather-bound volume a bit smaller than the average encyclopaedia format. I think it was about Schliemann at Mycenae; anyway, it was in German. I opened it up and turned around.

As I moved, Pietro put his hand on the Smith, then took it away again. I didn't look at him. 'Hey, listen to this,' I said to Mitzi, and peered at the title page. 'I am not going to say Go or anything like that, but go when I shut the book. How d'you like that?'

'What?'She genuinely thought I'd got my brain caught in the wringer.

I grinned at her, slammed the book shut and skimmed it across the desk top. Ken was moving as it left my hand; he hit the floor on his knees and caught the revolver in mid-air. I heard the hammer come back with a firm snap.

Then Ken was back in the middle of the room to give himself space and Pietro was lifting slowly to his feet with a disbelieving expression. He took a step and looked at Ken and then another step.

Ken just spread his feet slightly and waited, the gun cocked but pointing loosely at the floor. Pietro took another step around the desk and his mouth worked a bit and he was walking through mud into the barbed wire and machine guns. Ken didn't make any move and he had no expression. A machine gun doesn't need one.

Pietrotook a pace and there was suddenly a glitter of sweat across his forehead. The room was as quiet as an icicle but Pietro could hear thunder. His mouth came open and he tried to move his foot and did – by millimetres, like a man learning to walk again after a stroke, while the sweat bulged out on his forehead and dribbled down his face. And then he locked solid. For a moment his face showed he was trying to move forward, then some part of him snapped and he just stood there.

Ken lifted his left arm slowly and pointed to a chair and Pietro turned and took two exhausted steps and collapsed into it. Then, like a contracting muscle, his big square body turned slowly on its side and drew up into the foetal position.

He was no friend of mine, but I think that's the part I'd rather have missed. Ken said:'Touché,' and let the Smith's hammer silently down.

The door was impossible. It was built of seasoned timber at least a couple of inches thick and stiffened with ornate ironwork like an old castle. It was probably just Aziz's passion for the past – he could hardly have planned his study as a dungeon – but it came to the same thing for us.

Ken was behind the desk finding the cords to the strip of high curtain and pulling it back. Sure enough, there was a shallow window there but no way of opening it.

'We could stack up a few things and bust out through that,' he said.

'What's the rush? Don't you want to wait and talk to the nice Mr Aziz again, like he promised?'

He grinned and started jerking at the desk drawers. 'Okay, I'll stay if you think he'd be offended.'

Mitzi was just standing there, a little dazed by what had happened. 'But how,' she demanded, 'did you know that Mr Case would-'

'All those years on the halls,' Ken said. 'You never heard of Caviti and Case, Astounding Telepathic Acrobats?… The un-trusting bastard's locked most of these drawers.'

'Don't bust 'em,' I warned. 'And don't leave prints. We don't want to give him any legal squawk at all.'