I pushed my tangled hair back from my face. ‘I look very terrible. I don’t even have a comb. I need clothes, makeup, a toothbrush – ’

‘There is much to do,’ Schmidt said, around a mouthful of pâté. ‘We must organize ourselves.’

‘What’s happened since last night?’

‘I will wait to tell you until Sir John joins us. Perhaps I should go and – ’

‘No!’ I shoved Schmidt back into his chair. ‘He’ll be out in a minute.’

Knowing Schmidt, he was. He was more kempt than I, though he was wearing the same grubby clothes. After submitting with only a faint grimace to Schmidt’s embrace, he joined us at the table.

‘Eat, eat,’ Schmidt crooned. ‘And I will tell you the news.’

The Queen of the Nile had docked at midnight After the briefest of inspections the authorities had ordered the hold sealed, arrested the entire crew, including my shipmates Sweet and Bright, and carried a protesting Larry away.

‘Not to prison, though,’ Schmidt said. ‘It is a great embarrassmeut to all concerned. Not only is he an American citizen, but he is a powerful man with many friends. I do not know what will be done with him.’

‘Nothing,’ John said cynically. ‘At worst he’ll end up in an expensive nursing home till he recovers from his fit of temporary insanity. The fact that it went on for ten years will be tactfully ignored. What about the others?’

‘That is what we must discuss.’ Schmidt’s round face was unusually serious. ‘For you, my friend, are one of the others and even the dangers you have incurred in order to redeem your initial – er – error will not save you if the truth comes out. Feisal too must be cleared of blame. We are three intelligent people; I feel certain we can invent a scenario that will achieve those ends.’

If the situation hadn’t been so serious I would have enjoyed listening to those two concoct a plot. The greatest collaborators of fiction couldn’t have done better; Schmidt’s inventive imagination had been developed by years of reading sensational fiction, and John had always been the world’s champion liar.

Getting Feisal off the hook was the easiest part. He hadn’t been involved with the restoration of the tomb and he could reasonably claim he had suspected nothing until after Jean-Louis’s death. His activities thereafter warranted a medal, not a prison sentence. If all four of us told the same story and stuck to it, it would be hard to prove we were lying.

‘What about Larry?’ I asked.

‘It will be his word against ours,’ Schmidt began.