‘No. It looks like a cigarette lighter, Herr Sleder.’ The man pulled hard and it snapped into two halves, and for a full second there was a high-pitched shrieking sound, which then subsided slightly. He laid the two halves on the desk top, and moved them around. As they moved, the shrieking got alternatively louder and then quieter. Hauptmertz finally moved them into a position that stopped the shrieking altogether. ‘This is actually the very latest in anti-bugging equipment. No microphone, of any type, however close or powerful, can pick up one intelligible word with this device in operation. Both halves are transmitters and receivers; they are transmitting now on a new frequency – a frequency that you and I cannot hear. This frequency disintegrates electric sound waves, but does not affect ordinary human speech and hearing.’ He smiled.

‘Very clever,’ said Sleder, ‘provided, of course, it works. It could be most interesting … most interesting. And you are looking to sell this invention, are you?’

‘Oh no, Herr Sleder, I just wanted to tell you about it in case you had decided to record our conversation – to let you know that it would be a waste of time.’

Sleder eyed him strangely.

‘You see, Herr Sleder, what I am about to tell you is confidential. It would be in the interests of neither of us for this conversation to get beyond the walls of this room. That is my reason for putting this device on your desk.’ The twinkle, for a moment, went from his eyes, like the sun on a rich blue sea suddenly going behind a cloud, leaving dark grey water and sinister white horses; then it bounced back again, and he smiled once more.

‘I see,’ said Sleder, not seeing very much at all. ‘So what is your secret, my friend, that is so great I am the only person on earth who may share it with you?’

Hauptmertz stared him straight in the eye. ‘I am going to destroy your business and personally bankrupt you,’ he said.

Sleder put his hand out, flipped open the lid of his cigarette box, without offering the box to Hauptmertz, lit the cigarette with a table lighter on his desk, inhaled deeply, then blew the smoke out and leaned forward. ‘And for your next trick after that?’

‘I am not a magician, Herr Sleder, and I am not playing tricks.’

Sleder held the cigarette out in front of him, but did not draw any more smoke from it. ‘That’s a pity; I have a god-daughter, and I am sure she would have liked a white rabbit for her birthday.’

Hauptmertz didn’t smile. Sleder wondered whether to push the button that would bring the two guards charging in with their guns, or whether to hear this man out a bit further. The man made his decision for him.