‘All right,’ said Sam, ‘just don’t shoot to kill. You’re meant to be a first-class pistol-shot, aren’t you? Aim at his legs.’

‘First-class pistol-shots,’ I said, ‘know that to hit a human leg in motion with a pistol is a matter of the merest chance. Moreover, the human frame is extraordinarily perverse about dying. You can plant a bullet in the head and the subject walks away – witness that South African premier a few years ago. You can empty a magazine of ammunition into his left breast and he spends a few weeks in hospital, inconvenienced only by saw-edged bed-pans. Yet, pop a small-calibre bullet into the fleshy part of his leg and it nicks the femoral artery and he bleeds to death before the ambulance arrives. You get away with manslaughter and count yourself lucky.’

There was a long and sulky silence. Finally Sam said:

‘Argh, go piss up your kilt, Mortdecai.’

‘Certainly,’ I replied stiffly, ‘but I shall require a certain amount of privacy for that. Must you go? Can’t you stay?’

‘Oh, now, look here chaps,’ said George, ‘come on. Let’s not get excited about trifles. It’s quite simple and Charlie’s talking perfectly good sense. There’s no reason why he should risk a prison sentence just to oblige his friends.’

His tone made it clear that he would do just that, but that he was a true-born Englishman, unlike certain Mortdecais he could name.

‘It’s quite simple,’ he repeated, ‘we all go armed but Charlie carries an empty gun. And a stout stick, or something of that sort. All agreed?’

Sam made the kind of noise you make when you don’t mean ‘no’ but you’re too miffed to say ‘yes’.

I said, ‘Well, now, I’m afraid there’s just one more thing.’

‘Oh, sweet Christ crucified!’ roared Sam. ‘What now?’

I didn’t take offence this time. He had, after all, been through a bad time. But I had to make the point.

‘I’m afraid Jock mustn’t carry his pistol at all. His Lüger is highly illegal and moreover he has form.’

‘?’ said George.

‘Done some porridge,’ I explained.

‘?’