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at exhibit A, Andrea.’
    Andrea brought his prisoner close up to the table, well within the circle of light. He stood there sullenly before them, a thin, ferret-faced man, black eyes dulled in pain and fear, left hand cradling his crushed wrist.
    ‘How long do you reckon this fellow’s been outside, Andrea?’ Mallory asked.
    Andrea ran a massive hand through his thick, dark, curling hair, heavily streaked with grey above the temples.
    ‘I cannot be sure, Captain. I imagined I heard a noise – a kind of shuffle – about ten minutes ago, but I thought my ears were playing tricks. Then I heard the same sound a minute ago. So I am afraid –’
    ‘Ten minutes, eh?’ Mallory nodded thoughtfully, then looked at the prisoner. ‘What’s your name?’ he asked sharply. ‘What are you doing here?’
    There was no reply. There were only the sullen eyes, the sullen silence – a silence that gave way to a sudden yelp of pain as Andrea cuffed the side of his head.
    ‘The Captain is asking you a question,’ Andrea said reproachfully. He cuffed him again, harder this time. ‘Answer the Captain.’
    The stranger broke into rapid, excitable speech, gesticulating wildly with both hands. The words were quite unintelligible. Andrea sighed, shut off the torrent by the simple expedient of almost encircling the scrawny throat with his left hand.
    Mallory looked questioningly at Andrea. The giant shook his head.
    ‘Kurdistan or Armenian, Captain, I think. But I don’t understand it.’
    ‘I certainly don’t,’ Mallory admitted. ‘Do you speak English?’ he asked suddenly.
    Black, hate-filled eyes glared back at him in silence. Andrea cuffed him again.
    ‘Do you speak English?’ Mallory repeated relentlessly.
    ‘Eenglish? Eenglish?’ Shoulders and upturned palms lifted in the age-old gesture of incomprehension. ‘Ka Eenglish!’
    ‘He says he don’t speak English,’ Miller drawled.
    ‘Maybe he doesn’t and maybe he does,’ Mallory said evenly. ‘All we know is that he has been listening and that we can’t take any chances. There are far too many lives at stake.’ His voice suddenly hardened, the eyes were grim and pitiless. ‘Andrea!’
    ‘Captain?’
    ‘You have the knife. Make it clean and quick. Between the shoulder blades!’
    Stevens cried out in horror, sent his chair crashing back as he leapt to his feet.
    ‘Good God, sir, you can’t –’
    He broke off and stared in amazement at the sight of the prisoner catapulting himself bodily across the room to crash into a distant corner, one arm up-curved in rigid defence, stark, unreasoning panic lined in every feature of his face. Slowly Stevens looked away, saw the triumphant grin on Andrea’s face, the dawning comprehension in Brown’s and Miller’s. Suddenly he felt a complete fool. Characteristically, Miller was the first to speak.
    ‘Waal, waal, whaddya know! Mebbe he does speaka da Eenglish after all.’
    ‘Maybe he does,’ Mallory admitted. ‘A man doesn’t spend ten minutes with his ear glued to a keyhole if he doesn’t understand a word that’s being said … Give Matthews a call, will you, Brown?’
    The sentry appeared in the doorway a few seconds later.
    ‘Get Captain Briggs here, will you, Matthews?’ he asked. ‘At once please.’
    The soldier hesitated.
    ‘Captain Briggs has gone to bed, sir. He left strict orders that he wasn’t to be disturbed.’
    ‘My heart bleeds for Captain Briggs and his broken slumbers,’ Mallory said acidly. ‘He’s had more sleep in a day than I’ve had in the past week.’ He glanced at his watch and the heavy brows came down in a straight line over the tired, brown eyes. ‘We’ve no time to waste. Get him here at once. Understand? At once!’
    Matthews saluted and hurried away. Miller cleared his throat and clucked his tongue sadly.
    ‘These hotels are all the same. The goin’s-on – you’d never believe your eyes. Remember once I was at a convention in Cincinnati –’
    Mallory shook his