He paused and looked at Edmundson.

‘Very sad, the whole thing,’ said Edmundson. ‘Prince Ali Yusuf would have made an enlightened ruler, with democratic principles.’

‘That’s what probably did the poor chap in,’ said Colonel Pikeaway. ‘But we can’t waste time in telling sad stories of the deaths of kings. We’ve been asked to make certain—inquiries. By interested parties. Parties, that is, to whom Her Majesty’s Government is well disposed.’ He looked hard at the other. ‘Know what I mean?’

‘Well, I have heard something.’ Edmundson spoke reluctantly.

‘You’ve heard perhaps, that nothing of value was found on the bodies, or amongst the wreckage, or as far as is known, had been pinched by the locals. Though as to that, you can never tell with peasants. They can clam up as well as the Foreign Office itself. And what else have you heard?’

‘Nothing else.’

‘You haven’t heard that perhaps something of value ought to have been found? What did they send you to me for?’

‘They said you might want to ask me certain questions,’ said Edmundson primly.

‘If I ask you questions I shall expect answers,’ Colonel Pikeaway pointed out.

‘Naturally.’

‘Doesn’t seem natural to you, son. Did Bob Rawlinson say anything to you before he flew out of Ramat? He was in Ali’s confidence if anyone was. Come now, let’s have it. Did he say anything?’

‘As to what, sir?’

Colonel Pikeaway stared hard at him and scratched his ear.

‘Oh, all right,’ he grumbled. ‘Hush up this and don’t say that. Overdo it in my opinion! If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you don’t know, and there it is.’

‘I think there was something—’ Edmundson spoke cautiously and with reluctance. ‘Something important that Bob might have wanted to tell me.’

‘Ah,’ said Colonel Pikeaway, with the air of a man who has at last pulled the cork out of a bottle. ‘Interesting. Let’s have what you know.’

‘It’s very little, sir. Bob and I had a kind of simple code. We’d cottoned on to the fact that all the telephones in Ramat were being tapped. Bob was in the way of hearing things at the Palace, and I sometimes had a bit of useful information to pass on to him. So if one of us rang the other up and mentioned a girl or girls, in a certain way, using the term “out of this world” for her, it meant something was up!’

‘Important information of some kind or other?’

‘Yes. Bob rang me up using those terms the day the whole show started. I was to meet him at our usual rendezvous—outside one of the banks. But rioting broke out in that particular quarter and the police closed the road. I couldn’t make contact with Bob or he with me. He flew Ali out the same afternoon.’

‘I see,’ said Pikeaway. ‘No idea where he was telephoning from?’

‘No. It might have been anywhere.’

‘Pity.’ He paused and then threw out casually:

‘Do you know Mrs Sutcliffe?’