It had been a hard day. Outside the rain was pouring like it would never stop. God knows how long I'd been on this case. I thought it would never end. Armed guards, snakes, and rubies. They all swam round my head like it was some sod of aquarium.

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I threw on my coat, missed, tried again, missed again, and then put it on properly. I'd never managed to learn that trick. I sighed.

She was there when I opened the door. A real picture of beauty. "You've got to help me!" she said. "I can't stop playing Ruby Robba."

I sighed. I knew the symptoms. My God, I had them too. "You want a drink?"

No reply.

"I'll get you a drink," I said. I sighed. I seemed to be doing a lot of that recently. I fixed her a gin, but when I got back into the room I found that all that was left was a faint memory of her perfume and a cassette inlay on the floor. I read it. "The object of this game is to steal the precious ruby by breaking the complex defence system guarding it."

There they were, the same old instructions. I went to the cupboard and opened it. Out fell thirty thousand Ruby Robba cassette inlays. There were thirty thousand others out there who were addicted.

Then I found a lead. I decided to follow it. It led to a plug stuck in a socket on the wall. Devious. And typical of the enemy. Blaby. That one word struck so much terror into the hearts of so many people. Blaby. For some it meant cheap games. But for most it meant addiction. I decided to follow the lead the other way... It led to the cassette recorder connected to my Dragon.

I sighed and loaded up the game. It loaded fast with no problems. The graphics were smooth and flicker free. The sound was great. I knew there was a connection between this and the Boris the Bold case that had so nearly cost me my life. I had to play. I sweated, I sighed, I sighed again for good.

I sighed. Maybe the case was unsolvable. Maybe Ruby Robba was too addictive. I looked at the screen. The blue light of the portable was all that III the apartment. I sighed, and settled down to another night's play.